Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories

Santa Claus Beat by Rex Stout

“Christmas Eve,” Art Hippie was thinking to himself, “would be a good time for the murder.”

The thought was both timely and characteristic. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon of December 24, and though the murder would have got an eager welcome from Art Hippie any day at all, his disdainful attitude toward the prolonged hurly-burly of Christmas sentiment and shopping made that the best possible date for it. He did not actually turn up his nose at Christmas, for that would have been un-American; but as a New York cop not yet out of his twenties who had recently been made a precinct dick and had hung his uniform in the back of the closet of his furnished room, it had to be made clear, especially to himself, that he was good and tough. A cynical slant on Christmas was therefore imperative.

His hope of running across a murder had begun back in the days when his assignment had been tagging illegally parked cars, and was merely practical and professional. His biggest ambition was promotion to Homicide, and the shortest cut would have been discovery of a corpse, followed by swift, brilliant, solo detection and capture of the culprit. It had not gone so far as becoming an obsession; as he strode down the sidewalk this December afternoon he was not sniffing for the scent of blood at each dingy entrance he passed; but when he reached the number he had been given and turned to enter, his hand darted inside his jacket to touch his gun.

None of the three people he found in the cluttered and smelly little room one flight up seemed to need shooting. Art identified himself and wrote down their names. The man at the battered old desk, who was twice Art’s age and badly needed a shave, was Emil Duross, proprietor of the business conducted in that room — Duross Specialties, a mail-order concern dealing in gimcrack jewelry. The younger man, small, dark and neat, seated on a chair squeezed in between the desk and shelves stacked with cardboard boxes, was II. E. Koenig, adjuster, according to a card he had proffered, for the Apex Insurance Company. The girl, who had pale watery eyes and a stringy neck, stood backed up to a pile of cartons the height of her shoulder. She had on a dark brown felt hat and a lighter brown woolen coat that had lost a button. Her name was Helen Lauro, and it could have been not rheum in her eyes but the remains of tears.

Because Art Hippie was thorough it took him twenty minutes to get the story to his own satisfaction. Then he returned his notebook to his pocket, looked at Duross, at Koenig, and last at the girl. He wanted to tell her to wipe her eyes, but what if she didn’t have a handkerchief?

He spoke to Duross, “Stop me if I’m wrong,” he said. “You bought the ring a week ago to give to your wife for Christmas and paid sixty-two dollars for it. You put it there in a desk drawer after showing it to Miss Lauro. Why did you show it to Miss Lauro?”

Duross turned his palms up. “Just a natural thing. She works for me, she’s a woman, and it’s a beautiful ring.”

“Okay. Today you work with her — filling orders, addressing packages, and putting postage on. You send her to the post office with a bag of the packages. Why didn’t she take all of them?”

“She did.”

“Then what are those?” Art pointed to a pile of little boxes, addressed and stamped, on the end of a table.

“Orders that came in the afternoon mail. I did them while she was gone to the post office.”

Art nodded. “And also while she she was gone you looked in the drawer to get the ring to take home for Christmas, and it wasn’t there. You know it was there this morning because Miss Lauro asked if she could look at it again, and you showed it to her and let her put it on her finger, and then you put it back in the drawer. But this afternoon it was gone, and you couldn’t have taken it yourself because you haven’t left this room. Miss Lauro went out and got sandwiches for your lunch. So you decided she took the ring, and you phoned the insurance company, and Mr. Koenig came and advised you to call the police, and—”

“Only his stock is insured,” Koenig put in. “The ring was not a stock item and is not covered.”

“Just a legality,” Duross declared scornfully. “Insurance companies can’t hide behind legalities. It hurts their reputation.”

Koenig smiled politely but noncommittally.

Art turned to the girl. “Why don’t you sit down?” he asked her. “There’s a chair we men are not using.”

“I will never sit down in this room again,” she declared in a thin tight voice.

“Okay.” Art scowled at her. She was certainly not comely. “If you did take the ring you might—”

“I didn’t!”

“Very well. But if you did you might as well tell me where it is because you won’t ever dare to wear it or sell it.”

“Of course I wouldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. That’s why I didn’t take it.”

“Oh? You thought of taking it?”

“Of course I did. It was a beautiful ring.” She stopped to swallow. “Maybe my life isn’t much, but what it is, I’d give it for a ring like that, and a girl like me, I could live a hundred years and never have one. Of course I thought of taking it — but I knew I couldn’t ever wear it.”

“You see?” Duross appealed to the law. “She’s foxy, that girl. She’s slick.”

Art downed an impulse to cut it short, get out, return to the station house, and write a report. Nobody here deserved anything, not even justice — especially not justice. Writing a brief report was all it rated, and all, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it would have got. But instead of breaking it off, Art sat and thought it over through a long silence, with the three pairs of eyes on him. Finally he spoke to Duross:

“Get me the orders that came in the afternoon mail.”

Duross was startled. “Why?”

“I want to check them with that pile of boxes you addressed and stamped.”

Duross shook his head. “I don’t need a cop to check my orders and shipments. Is this a gag?”

“No. Get me the orders.”

“I will not!”

“Then I’ll have to open all the boxes.” Art arose and headed for the table. Duross bounced up and got in front of him and they were chest to chest.

“You don’t touch those boxes,” Duross told him. “You got no search warrant. You don’t touch anything!”

“That’s just another legality.” Art backed off a foot to avoid contact. “And since I guessed right, what’s a little legality? I’m going to open the boxes here and now, but I’ll count ten first to give you a chance to pick it out and hand it to me and save both of us a lot of bother. One, two, three—”

“I’ll phone the station house!”

“Go ahead. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine...”

Art stopped at nine because Duross had moved to the table and was fingering the boxes. As he drew away with one in his hand Art demanded, “Gimme.” Duross hesitated but passed the box over, and after a glance at the address Art ripped the tape off, opened the flap of the box, took out a wad of tissue paper, and then a ring box. From that he removed a ring, yellow gold, with a large greenish stone. Helen Lauro made a noise in her throat. Koenig let out a grunt, evidently meant for applause. Duross made a grab, not for the ring but for the box on which he had put an address, and missed.

“It stuck out as plain as your nose,” Art told him, “but of course my going for the boxes was just a good guess. Did you pay sixty-two bucks for this?”

Duross’s lips parted, but no words came. Apparently he had none. He nodded, not vigorously.

Art turned to the girl. “Look, Miss Lauro. You say you’re through here. You ought to have something to remember it by. You could make some trouble for Mr. Duross for the dirty trick he tried to play on you, and if you lay off I expect he’d like to show his appreciation by giving you this ring. Wouldn’t you, Mr. Duross?”

Duross managed to get it out. “Sure I would.”

“Shall I give it to her for you?”

“Sure.” Duross’s jaw worked. “Go ahead.”

Art held out the ring and the girl took it, but not looking at it because she was gazing incredulously at him. It was a gaze so intense as to disconcert him, and he covered up by turning to Duross and proffering the box with an address on it.

“Here,” he said, “you can have this. Next time you cook up a plan for getting credit with your wife for buying her a ring, and collecting from the insurance company for its cost, and sending the ring to a girl friend — ail in one neat little operation — don’t do it. And don’t forget you gave Miss Lauro that ring before witnesses.”

Duross gulped and nodded.

Koenig spoke. “Your name is not Hippie, officer, it’s Santa Claus. You have given her the ring she would have given her life for, you have given him an out on a charge of attempted fraud, and you have given me a crossoff on a claim. That’s the ticket! That’s the old yuletide spirit! Merry Christmas!”

“Nuts,” Art said contemptuously, and turned and marched from the room, down the stairs, and out to the sidewalk. As he headed in the direction of the station house he decided that he would tone it down a little in his report. Getting a name for being tough was okay, but not too damn tough. That insurance guy sure was dumb, calling him Santa Claus — him, Art Hippie, feeling as he did about Christmas.

Which reminded him, Christmas Eve would be a swell time for the murder.