The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

Sister Bessie Cyril Hare

Born Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, the author was bound by family tradition to become a lawyer, which he did, beginning his practice in 1924. He worked in Hare Court and had a residence in Cyril Mansions, providing him with the names he used for his nom de plume. After writing some comic sketches for Punch, he produced Tenant for Death, his first detective novel, in 1937, and wrote two others before creating his most popular series character, barrister Francis Pettigrew, in Tragedy at Law (1942). He was not prolific, partly due to the fact that he never learned to use a typewriter and so wrote in longhand, but mainly due to what he described as his “constitutional and incurable indolence.” “Sister Bessie” was first published in the December 23, 1948, issue of The Weekly Standard.

Hilda Trent turned the Christmas card over with her carefully manicured fingers as she read the idiotic lines aloud.

“Did you ever hear anything so completely palsied?” she asked her husband. “I wonder who on earth they can get to write the stuff. Timothy, do you know anybody called Leech?”

“Leech?”

“Yes — that’s what it says: ‘From your old Leech.’ Must be a friend of yours. The only Leach I ever knew spelt her name with an a and this one has two e’s.” She looked at the envelope. “Yes, it was addressed to you. Who is the old Leech?” She flicked the card across the breakfast-table.

Timothy stared hard at the rhyme and the scrawled message beneath it.

“I haven’t the least idea,” he said slowly.

As he spoke he was taking in, with a sense of cold misery, the fact that the printed message on the card had been neatly altered by hand. The word “Five” was in ink. The original, poet no doubt, had been content with “A hundred loving greetings.”

“Put it on the mantelpiece with the others,” said his wife. “There’s a nice paunchy robin on the outside.”

“Damn it, no!” In a sudden access of rage he tore the card in two and flung the pieces into the fire.

It was silly of him, he reflected as he travelled up to the City half an hour later, to break out in that way in front of Hilda; but she would put it down to the nervous strain about which she was always pestering him to take medical advice. Not for all the gold in the Bank of England could he have stood the sight of that damnable jingle on his dining-room mantelpiece. The insolence of it! The cool, calculated devilry! All the way to London the train wheels beat out the maddening rhythm:

At Christmas-time we gladly greet...

And he had thought that the last payment had seen the end of it. He had returned from James’s funeral triumphant in the certain belief that he had attended the burial of the bloodsucker who called himself “Leech.” But he was wrong, it seemed.

Five hundred loving greetings, dear...

Five hundred! Last year it had been three, and that had been bad enough. It had meant selling out some holdings at an awkward moment. And now five hundred, with the market in its present state! How in the name of all that was horrible was he going to raise the money?

He would raise it, of course. He would have to. The sickening, familiar routine would be gone through again. The cash in Treasury notes would be packed in an unobstrusive parcel and left in the cloakroom at Waterloo. Next day he would park his car as usual in the railway yard at his local station. Beneath the windscreen wiper — “the old familiar place” — would be tucked the cloakroom ticket. When he came down again from work in the evening the ticket would be gone. And that would be that — till next time. It was the way that Leech preferred it and he had no option but to comply.

The one certain thing that Trent knew about the identity of his blackmailer was that he — or could it be she? — was a member of his family. His family! Thank heaven, they were no true kindred of his. So far as he knew he had no blood relation alive. But “his” family they had been, ever since, when he was a tiny, ailing boy, his father had married the gentle, ineffective Mary Grigson, with her long trail of soft, useless children. And when the influenza epidemic of 1919 carried off John Trent he had been left to be brought up as one of that clinging, grasping clan. He had got on in the world, made money, married money, but he had never got away from the “Grigsons.” Save for his stepmother, to whom he grudgingly acknowledged that he owed his start in life, how he loathed them all! But “his” family they remained, expecting to be treated with brotherly affection, demanding his presence at family reunions, especially at Christmas-time.

At Christmas-time we hope to meet...

He put down his paper unread and stared forlornly out of the carriage window. It was at Christmas-time, four years before, that the whole thing started — at his stepmother’s Christmas Eve party, just such a boring family function as the one he would have to attend in a few days’ time. There had been some silly games to amuse the children — Blind Man’s Buff and Musical Chairs — and in the course of them his wallet must have slipped fom his pocket. He discovered the loss next morning, went round to the house and retrieved it. But when it came into his hands again there was one item missing from its contents. Just one. A letter, quite short and explicit, signed in a name that had about then become fairly notorious in connection with an unsavoury enquiry into certain large-scale dealings in government securities. How he could have been fool enough to keep it a moment longer than was necessary!.. but it was no good going back on that.

And then the messages from Leech had begun. Leech had the letter. Leech considered it his duty to send it to the principal of Trent’s firm, who was also Trent’s father-in-law. But, meanwhile, Leech was a trifle short of money, and for a small consideration... So it had begun, and so, year in and year out, it had gone on.

He had been so sure that it was James! That seedy, unsuccessful stock-jobber, with his gambling debts and his inordinate thirst for whisky, had seemed the very stuff of which blackmailers are made. But he had got rid of James last February, and here was Leech again, hungrier than ever. Trent shifted uneasily in his seat. “Got rid of him” was hardly the right way to put it. One must be fair to oneself. He had merely assisted James to get rid of his worthless self. He had done no more than ask James to dinner at his club, fill him up with whisky, and leave him to drive home on a foggy night with the roads treacherous with frost. There had been an unfortunate incident on the Kingston bypass, and that was the end of James — and, incidentally, of two perfect strangers who had happened to be on the road at the same time. Forget it! The point was that the dinner — and the whisky — had been a dead loss. He would not make the same mistake again. This Christmas Eve he intended to make sure who his persecutor was. Once he knew, there would be no half measures.

Revelation came at him midway through Mrs. John Trent’s party — at the very moment, in fact, when the presents were being distributed from the Christmas tree, when the room was bathed in the soft radiance of coloured candles and noisy with the “Oohs!” and “Aahs!” of excited children and with the rustle of hastily unfolded paper parcels. It was so simple, and so unexpected, that he could have laughed aloud. Appropriately enough, it was his own contribution to the party that was responsible. For some time past it had been his unwritten duty, as the prosperous member of the family, to present his stepmother with some delicacy to help out the straitened resources of her house in providing a feast worthy of the occasion. This year, his gift had taken the form of half a dozen bottles of champagne — part of a consignment which he suspected of being corked. That champagne, acting on a head unused to anything stronger than lemonade, was enough to loosen Bessie’s tongue for one fatal instant.

Bessie! Of all people, faded, spinsterish Bessie! Bessie, with her woolwork and her charities — Bessie with her large, stupid, appealing eyes and her air of frustration, that put you in mind of a bud frosted just before it could come into flower! And yet, when you came to think of it, it was natural enough. Probably, of all the Grigson tribe, he disliked her the most. He felt for her all the loathing one must naturally feel for a person one has treated badly; and he had been simple enough to believe that she did not resent it.

She was just his own age, and from the moment that he had been introduced into the family had constituted herself his protector against the unkindness of his elder stepbrother. She had been, in her revoltingly sentimental phrase, his “own special sister.” As they grew up, the roles were reversed, and she became his protégée, the admiring spectator of early struggles. Then it had become pretty clear that she and everybody else expected him to marry her. He had considered the idea quite seriously for some time. She was pretty enough in those days, and, as the phrase went, worshipped the ground he trod on. But he had had the good sense to see in time that he must look elsewhere if he wanted to make his way in the world. His engagement to Hilda had been a blow to Bessie. Her old-maidish look and her absorption in good works dated from then. But she had been sweetly forgiving — to all appearances. Now, as he stood there under the mistletoe, with a ridiculous paper cap on his head, he marvelled how he could have been so easily deceived. As though, after all, anyone could have written that Christmas card but a woman!

Bessie was smiling at him still — smiling with the confidential air of the mildly tipsy, her upturned shiny nose glowing pink in the candle-light. She had assumed a slightly puzzled expression, as though trying to recollect what she had said. Timothy smiled back and raised his glass to her. He was stone-cold sober, and he could remind her of her words when the occasion arose.

“My present for you, Timothy, is in the post. You’ll get it tomorrow, I expect. I thought you’d like a change from those horrid Christmas cards!”

And the words had been accompanied with an unmistakable wink.

“Uncle Timothy!” One of James’s bouncing girls jumped up at him and gave him a smacking kiss. He put her down with a grin and tickled her ribs as he did so. He suddenly felt light-hearted and on good terms with all the world — one woman excepted. He moved away from the mistletoe and strolled round the room, exchanging pleasantries with all the family. He could look them in the face now without a qualm. He clicked glasses with Roger, the prematurely aged, overworked GP. No need to worry now whether his money was going in that direction! He slapped Peter on the back and endured patiently five minutes’ confidential chat on the difficulties of the motor-car business in these days. To Marjorie, James’s window, looking wan and ever so brave in her made-over black frock, he spoke just the right words of blended sympathy and cheer. He even found in his pockets some half-crowns for his great, hulking step-nephews. Then he was standing by his stepmother near the fireplace, whence she presided quietly over the noisy, cheerful scene, beaming gentle good nature from her faded blue eyes.

“A delightful evening,” he said, and meant it.

“Thanks to you, Timothy, in great part,” she replied. “You have always been so good to us.”

Wonderful what a little doubtful champagne would do! He would have given a lot to see her face if he were to say: “I suppose you are not aware that your youngest daughter, who is just now pulling a cracker with that ugly little boy of Peter’s, is blackmailing me and that I shortly intend to stop her mouth for good?”

He turned away. What a gang they all were! What a shabby, out-at-elbows gang! Not a decently cut suit or a well-turned-out woman among the lot of them! And he had imagined that his money had been going to support some of them! Why, they all simply reeked of honest poverty! He could see it now. Bessie explained everything. It was typical of her twisted mind to wring cash from him by threats and give it all away in charities.

“You have always been so good to us.” Come to think of it, his stepmother was worth the whole of the rest put together. She must be hard put to it, keeping up Father’s old house, with precious little coming in from her children. Perhaps one day, when his money was really his own again, he might see his way to do something for her... But there was a lot to do before he could indulge in extravagant fancies like that.

Hilda was coming across the room towards him. Her elegance made an agreeable contrast to the get-up of the Grigson women. She looked tired and rather bored, which was not unusual for her at parties at this house.

“Timothy,” she murmured, “can’t we get out of here? My head feels like a ton of bricks, and if I’m going to be fit for anything tomorrow morning—”

Timothy cut her short.

“You go home straight away, darling,” he said. “I can see that it’s high time you were in bed. Take the car. I can walk — it’s a fine evening. Don’t wait up for me.”

“You’re not coming? I thought you said—”

“No. I shall have to stay and see the party through. There’s a little matter of family business I’d better dispose of while I have the chance.”

Hilda looked at him in slightly amused surprise.

“Well, if you feel that way,” she said. “You seem to be very devoted to your family all of a sudden. You’d better keep an eye on Bessie while you are about it. She’s had about as much as she can carry.”

Hilda was right. Bessie was decidedly merry. And Timothy continued to keep an eye on her. Thanks to his attentions, by the end of the evening, when Christmas Day had been seen in and the guests were fumbling for their wraps, she had reached a stage when she could barely stand. “Another glass,” thought Timothy from the depths of his experience, “and she’ll pass right out.”

“I’ll give you a lift home, Bessie,” said Roger, looking at her with a professional eye. “We can just squeeze you in.”

“Oh, nonsense, Roger!” Bessie giggled. “I can manage perfectly well. As if I couldn’t walk as far as the end of the drive!”

“I’ll look after her,” said Timothy heartily. “I’m walking myself, and we can guide each other’s wandering footsteps home. Where’s your coat, Bessie? Are you sure you’ve got all your precious presents?”

He prolonged his leave-taking until all the rest had gone, then helped Bessie into her worn fur coat and stepped out of the house, supporting her with an affectionate right arm. It was all going to be too deliciously simple.

Bessie lived in the lodge of the old house. She preferred to be independent, and the arrangement suited everyone, especially since James after one of his reverses on the turf had brought his family to live with his mother to save expense. It suited Timothy admirably now. Tenderly he escorted her to the end of the drive, tenderly he assisted her to insert her latchkey in the door, tenderly he supported her into the little sitting-room that gave out of the hall.

There Bessie considerately saved him an enormous amount of trouble and a possibly unpleasant scene. As he put her down upon the sofa she finally succumbed to the champagne. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened and she lay like a log where he had placed her.

Timothy was genuinely relieved. He was prepared to go to any lengths to rid himself from the menace of blackmail, but if he could lay his hands on the damning letter without physical violence he would be well satisfied. It would be open to him to take it out of Bessie in other ways later on. He looked quickly round the room. He knew its contents by heart. It had hardly changed at all since the day when Bessie first furnished her own room when she left school. The same old battered desk stood in the corner, where from the earliest days she had kept her treasures. He flung it open, and a flood of bills, receipts, charitable appeals and yet more charitable appeals came cascading out. One after another, he went through the drawers with ever increasing urgency, but still failed to find what he sought. Finally he came upon a small inner drawer which resisted his attempts to open it. He tugged at it in vain, and then seized the poker from the fireplace and burst the flimsy lock by main force. Then he dragged the drawer from its place and settled himself to examine its contents.

It was crammed as full as it could hold with papers. At the very top was the programme of a May Week Ball for his last year at Cambridge. Then there were snapshots, press-cuttings — an account of his own wedding among them — and, for the rest, piles of letters, all in his handwriting. The wretched woman seemed to have hoarded every scrap he had ever written to her. As he turned them over, some of the phrases he had used in them floated into this mind, and he began to apprehend for the first time what the depth of her resentment must have been when he threw her over.

But where the devil did she keep the only letter that mattered?

As he straightened himself from the desk he heard close behind him a hideous, choking sound. He spun round quickly. Bessie was standing behind him, her face a mask of horror. Her mouth was wide open in dismay. She drew a long shuddering breath. In another moment she was going to scream at the top of her voice...

Timothy’s pent-up fury could be contained no longer. With all his force he drove his fist full into that gaping, foolish face. Bessie went down as though she had been shot and her head struck the leg of a table with the crack of a dry stick broken in two. She did not move again.

Although it was quiet enough in the room after that, he never heard his stepmother come in. Perhaps it was the sound of his own pulses drumming in his ears that had deafened him. He did not even know how long she had been there. Certainly it was long enough for her to take in everything that was to be seen there, for her voice, when she spoke, was perfectly under control.

“You have killed Bessie,” she said. It was a calm statement of fact rather than an accusation.

He nodded, speechless.

“But you have not found the letter.”

He shook his head.

“Didn’t you understand what she told you this evening? The letter is in the post. It was her Christmas present to you. Poor, simple, loving Bessie!”

He stared at her, aghast.

“It was only just now that I found that it was missing from my jewel-case,” she went on, still in the same flat, quiet voice. “I don’t know how she found out about it, but love — even a crazy love like hers — gives people a strange insight sometimes.”

He licked his dry lips.

“Then you were Leech?” he faltered.

“Of course. Who else? How otherwise do you think I could have kept the house open and my children out of debt on my income? No, Timothy, don’t come any nearer. You are not going to commit two murders tonight. I don’t think you have the nerve in any case, but to be on the safe side I have brought the little pistol your father gave me when he came out of the army in 1918. Sit down.”

He found himself crouching on the sofa, looking helplessly up into her pitiless old face. The body that had been Bessie lay in between them.

“Bessie’s heart was very weak,” she said reflectively. “Roger had been worried about it for some time. If I have a word with him, I daresay he will see his way to issue a death certificate. It will, of course, be a little expensive. Shall we say a thousand pounds this year instead of five hundred? You would prefer that, Timothy, I dare say, to — the alternative?”

Once more Timothy nodded in silence.

“Very well. I shall speak to Roger in the morning — after you have returned me Bessie’s Christmas present. I shall require that for future use. You can go now, Timothy.”

That’s the Ticket Mary Higgins Clark

After her husband suddenly died, Mary Higgins Clark, a relatively young mother of five, arose at five o’clock every morning, placed her typewriter on the kitchen table, and began writing a book before getting her kids off to school. Her first suspense novel, Where Are the Children? (1975), was an original combination of the Gothic novel and its modern counterpart, the novel of romantic suspense, in which the emphasis was not on romance but on suspense that became almost unbearable as the heroine was inundated with one dire situation after another. Clark followed that formula in subsequent books to become the world’s bestselling writer of suspense fiction. “That’s the Ticket” was first published in Mistletoe Mysteries, edited by Charlotte MacLeod (New York, Mysterious Press, 1989).

If Wilma Bean had not been in Philadelphia visiting her sister, Dorothy, it never would have happened. Ernie, knowing that Wilma had watched the drawing on television, would have rushed home at midnight from his job as a security guard at the Do-Shop-Here Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, and they’d have celebrated together. Two million dollars! That was their share of the special Christmas lottery.

Instead, because Wilma was in Philadelphia paying a pre-Christmas visit to her sister, Dorothy, Ernie stopped at the Friendly Shamrock Watering Hole for a pop or two and then topped off the evening at the Harmony Bar six blocks from his home in Elmwood Park. There, nodding happily to Lou, the owner-bartender, Ernie ordered his third Seven and Seven of the evening, wrapped his plump sixty-year-old legs around the bar stool, and dreamily reflected on how he and Wilma would spend their newfound wealth.

It was then that his faded blue eyes fell upon Loretta Thistlebottom, who was perched on the corner stool against the wall, a stein of beer in one hand, a Marlboro in the other. Ernie thought Loretta was a very attractive woman. Tonight her brilliant blond hair curled on her shoulders in a pageboy, her pinkish lipstick complemented her large purple-accented green eyes, and her generous bosom rose and fell with sensuous regularity.

Ernie observed Loretta with almost impersonal admiration. It was well known that Loretta Thistlebottom’s husband, Jimbo Potters, a beefy truck driver, was extremely proud of the fact that Loretta had been a dancer in her early days and was also extremely jealous of her. It was hinted he wasn’t above knocking Loretta around if she got too friendly with other men.

However, since Lou the bartender was Jimbo’s cousin, Jimbo didn’t mind if Loretta sat around the bar the nights Jimbo was on a long-distance haul. After all, it was a neighborhood hangout. Plenty of wives came in with their husbands and as Loretta frequently commented, “Jimbo can’t expect me to watch the tube by myself or go to Tupperware parties whenever he’s carting garlic buds or bananas along Route 1. As a person born in the trunk to a prominent show business family, I need people around.”

Her show business career was the subject of much of Loretta’s conversation and tended to grow in importance as the years passed. That was also why even though she was legally Mrs. Jimbo Potters, Loretta still referred to herself as Thistlebottom, her stage name.

Now in the murky light shed by the Tiffany-type globe over the well-scarred bar, Ernie silently admired Loretta, reflecting that even though she had to be in her mid-fifties, she had kept her figure very, very well. However, he wasn’t really concerned about her. The winning lottery ticket, which he had pinned to his undershirt, was warming the area around his heart. It was like having a glowing fire there. Two million dollars. That was one hundred thousand dollars a year less taxes for twenty years. They’d be collecting well into the twenty-first century. By then they might even be able to take a cook’s tour to the moon.

Ernie tried to visualize the expression on Wilma’s face when she heard the good news. Wilma’s sister, Dorothy, didn’t have a television and seldom listened to the radio, so down in Philadelphia Wilma wouldn’t know that now she was wealthy. The minute he’d heard the good news on his portable radio, Ernie had been tempted to rush to the phone and call Wilma but immediately decided that that wouldn’t be fun. Now Ernie smiled happily, his round face creasing into a merry pancake as he visualized Wilma’s homecoming tomorrow. He’d pick her up at the train station at Newark. She’d ask him how close they’d come to winning. “Did we have two of the numbers? Three of the numbers?” He’d tell her they didn’t even have one of the winning combination. Then when they got home, she’d find her stocking hung on the mantel, the way they used to do when they were first married. In those days Wilma had worn stockings and garters. Now she wore queen-sized pantyhose, so she’d have to dig down to the toe for the ticket. He’d say, “Just keep looking; wait till you see the surprise.” He could just picture the way she’d scream and throw her arms around him.

Wilma had been a darn cute young girl when they were married forty years ago. She still had a pretty face and her hair, a soft white-blond, was naturally wavy. She wasn’t a showgirl type like Loretta but she suited him just right. Sometimes she got a little cranky about the fact that he liked to bend the elbow with the boys now and then but for the most part, Wilma was A-okay. And boy, what a Christmas they’d have this year. Maybe he’d take her to Fred the Furrier and get her a mouton lamb or something.

Contemplating the pleasure it would be to manifest his generosity, Ernie ordered his fourth Seven and Seven. His attention was diverted by the fact that Loretta Thistlebottom was engaged in a strange ritual. Every minute or two, she laid the cigarette in her right hand in the ashtray, the stein of beer in her left hand on the bar, and vigorously scratched the palm, fingers, and back of her right hand with the long pointed fingernails of her left hand. Ernie observed that her right hand was inflamed, angry red and covered with small, mean-looking blisters.

It was getting late and people were starting to leave. The couple who had been sitting next to Ernie and at a right angle to Loretta departed. Loretta, noticing that Ernie was watching her, shrugged. “Poison ivy,” she explained. “Would you believe poison ivy in December? That dumb sister of Jimbo decided she had a green thumb and made her poor jerk of a husband rig up a greenhouse off their kitchen. So what does she grow? Weeds and poison ivy. That takes real talent.” Loretta shrugged and repossessed the stein of beer and her cigarette. “So how ye been, Ernie? Anything new in your life?”

Ernie was cautious. “Not much.”

Loretta sighed. “Me neither. Same old stuff. Jimbo and me are saving to get out of here next year when he retires. Everyone tells me Fort Lauderdale is a real swinging place. Jimbo’s getting piles from all these years driving the rig. I keep telling him how much money I could make as a waitress to help out but he don’t want anyone flirting with me.” Loretta scratched her hand against the bar and shook her head. “Can you imagine after twenty-five years, Jimbo still thinks every guy in the world wants me? I kind of love it but it can be a pain in the neck, too.” Loretta sighed, a world-weary sigh. “Jimbo’s the most passionate guy I ever knew and that’s saying something. But as my mother used to say, a good roll in the sack is even better when there’s a full wallet between the spring and mattress.”

“Your mother said that?” Ernie was bemused at the practical wisdom. He began to sip his fourth Seagrams and Seven-Up.

Loretta nodded. “She was a million laughs but she told it straight. The heck with it. Maybe someday I’ll win the lottery.”

The temptation was too great. Ernie slipped over the two empty bar stools as fast as his out-of-shape body would permit. “Too bad you don’t have my luck,” he whispered.

As Lou the bartender yelled, “Last call, folks,” Ernie patted his massive chest in the spot directly over his heart.

“Like they say, Loretta, ‘X marks the spot.’ There were sixteen winnin’ tickets in the special Christmas drawing. One of them is right here pinned to my underwear.” Ernie realized that his tongue was beginning to feel pretty heavy. His voice sank into a furtive whisper. “Two million dollars. How about that?” He put his finger to his lips and winked.

Loretta dropped her cigarette and let it burn unnoticed on the long-suffering surface of the bar. “You’re kidding!”

“I’m not kidding.” Now it was a real effort to talk. “Wilma ’n me always bet the same number 1-9-4-7-5-2. 1947 ’cause that was the year I got out of high school. ’Fifty-two, the year Wee Willie was born.” His triumphant smile left no doubt to his sincerity. “Crazy thing is Wilma don’t even know yet. She’s visiting her sister, Dorothy, and won’t get home till tomorrow.”

Fumbling for his wallet, Ernie signaled for his check. Lou came over and watched as Ernie stood uncertainly on the suddenly tilting floor. “Ernie, wait around,” Lou ordered. “You’re bombed. I’ll drive you home when I close up. You gotta leave your car here.”

Insulted, Ernie started for the door. Lou was insinuating he was tanked. What a nerve. Ernie opened the door of the women’s restroom and was in a stall before he realized his mistake.

Sliding off the bar stool, Loretta said hurriedly, “Lou, I’ll drop him off. He only lives two blocks from me.”

Lou’s skinny forehead furrowed. “Jimbo might not like it.”

“So don’t tell him.” They watched as Ernie lurched unsteadily out from the women’s restroom. “For Pete sake, do you think he’ll make a pass at me?” she asked scornfully.

Lou made a decision. “You’re doing me a favor, Loretta. But don’t tell Jimbo.”

Loretta let out her fulsome ha-ha bellow. “Do you think I want to risk my new caps? They won’t be paid for for another year.”

From somewhere behind him Ernie vaguely heard the din of voices and laughter. Suddenly he was feeling pretty rotten. The speckled pattern of the tile floor began to dance, causing a sickening whirl of dots to revolve before his eyes. He felt someone grasp his arm. “I’m gonna drop you off, Ernie.” Through the roaring in his ears, Ernie recognized Loretta’s voice.

“Damn nice of you, Loretta,” he mumbled. “Guess I chelebrated too much.” Vaguely he realized that Lou was saying something about having a Christmas drink on the house when he came back for his car.

In Loretta’s aging Bonneville Pontiac he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He was unaware that they had reached his driveway until he felt Loretta shaking him awake. “Gimme your key, Ernie. I’ll help you in.”

His arm around her shoulders, she steadied him along the walk. Ernie heard the scraping of the key in the lock, felt his feet moving through the living room down the brief length of the hallway.

“Which one?”

“Which one?” Ernie couldn’t get his tongue to move.

“Which bedroom?” Loretta’s voice sounded irritated. “Come on, Ernie, you’re no feather to drag around. Oh, forget it. It has to be the other one. This one’s full of those statues of birds your daughter makes. Cripes, you couldn’t give them away as a door prize in a looney bin. No one’s that nutty.”

Ernie felt a flash of instinctive resentment at Loretta’s putdown of his daughter, Wilma Jr., Wee Willie as he called her. Wee Willie had real talent. Someday she’d be a famous sculptor. She’d lived in New Mexico ever since she dropped out of school in ’68 and supported herself working evenings as a waitress at McDonald’s. Days she made pottery and sculpted birds.

Ernie felt himself being turned around and pushed down. His knees buckled and he heard the familiar squeak of the boxspring. Sighing in gratitude, in one simultaneous movement, he stretched out and passed out.

Wilma Bean and her sister, Dorothy, had had a pleasant day. In small doses Wilma enjoyed being with Dorothy, who was sixty-three to Wilma’s fifty-eight. The trouble was that Dorothy was very opinionated and highly critical of both Ernie and Wee Willie, and Wilma could take just so much of that. But she was sorry for Dorothy. Dorothy’s husband had walked out on her ten years before and now was living high on the hog with his second wife, a karate instructor. Dorothy and her daughter-in-law did not get along very well. Dorothy still worked part-time as a claims adjuster in an insurance office and as she frequently told Wilma, “the phony claims don’t get past me.”

Very few people believed they were sisters. Dorothy was, as Ernie put it, like one side of eleven, just straight up and down with thin gray hair which she wore in a tight knot at the back of her head. Ernie always said she should have been cast as Carrie Nation; she’d have looked good with a hatchet in her hand. Wilma knew that Dorothy was still jealous that Wilma had been the pretty one and that even though she’d gotten heavy, her face hadn’t wrinkled or even changed very much. But still, Wilma theorized, blood is thicker than water and a weekend in Philadelphia every four months or so and particularly around holiday time was always enjoyable.

The afternoon of the lottery drawing day, Dorothy picked Wilma up from the train station. They had a late lunch at Burger King, then drove around the neighborhood where Grace Kelly had been raised. They had both been her avid fans. After mutually agreeing that Prince Albert ought to marry, that Princess Caroline had certainly calmed down and was doing a fine job, and that Princess Stephanie should be slapped into a convent until she straightened out, they went to a movie, then back to Dorothy’s apartment. She had cooked a chicken, and over dinner, late into the evening, they gossiped.

Dorothy complained to Wilma that her daughter-in-law had no idea how to raise a child and was too stubborn to accept even the most helpful suggestions.

“Well, at least you have grandchildren,” Wilma sighed. “No wedding bells in sight for Wee Willie. She has her heart set on her sculpting career.”

“What sculpting career?” Dorothy snapped.

“If we could just afford a good teacher,” Wilma sighed, trying to ignore the dig.

“Ernie shouldn’t encourage Willie,” Dorothy said bluntly. “Tell him not to make such a fuss over that junk she sends home. Your place looks like a crazy man’s version of a birdhouse. How is Ernie? I hope you’re keeping him out of bars. Mark my words. He has the makings of an alcoholic. All those broken veins in his nose.”

Wilma thought of the outsized Christmas boxes that had arrived from Wee Willie a few days ago. Marked Do not open till Christmas, they’d been accompanied by a note. “Ma, wait till you see these. I’m into peacocks and parrots.” Wilma also thought of the staff Christmas party at the Do-Shop-Here Mall the other night when Ernie had gotten schnockered and pinched the bottom of one of the waitresses.

Knowing that Dorothy was right about Ernie’s ability to lap up booze did not ease Wilma’s resentment at having the truth pointed out to her. “Well, Ernie may get silly when he has a drop or two too much but you’re wrong about Wee Willie. She has real talent and when my ship comes in I’ll help her to prove it.”

Dorothy helped herself to another cup of tea. “I suppose you’re still wasting money on lottery tickets.”

“Sure am,” Wilma said cheerfully, fighting to retain her good nature. “Tonight’s the special Christmas drawing. If I were home I’d be in front of the set praying.”

“That combination of numbers you always pick is ridiculous! 1-9-4-7-5-2. I can understand a person using the year her child was born but the year Ernie graduated from high school? That’s ridiculous.”

Wilma had never told Dorothy that it had taken Ernie six years to get through high school and his family had had a block party to celebrate. “Best party I was ever at,” he frequently told her, memory brightening his face. “Even the mayor came.”

Anyhow, Wilma liked that combination of numbers. She was absolutely certain that someday they would win a lot of money for her and Ernie. After she said good night to Dorothy, and puffing with the effort made up the sofabed where she slept on her visits, she reflected that as Dorothy grew older she got crankier. She also talked your ear off and it was no wonder her daughter-in-law referred to her as “that miserable pain in the neck.”

The next day Wilma got off the train in Newark at noon. Ernie was picking her up. As she walked to their meeting spot at the main entrance to the terminal she was alarmed to see Ben Gump, their next-door neighbor, there instead.

She rushed to Ben, her ample body tensed with fear. “Is anything wrong? Where’s Ernie?”

Ben’s wispy face broke into a reassuring smile. “No, everything’s just fine, Wilma. Ernie woke up with a touch of flu or something. Asked me to come for you. Heck, I’ve got nothing to do ’cept watch the grass grow.” Ben laughed heartily at the witticism that had become his trademark since his retirement.

“Flu,” Wilma scoffed. “I’ll bet.”

Ernie was a reasonably quiet man and Wilma had looked forward to a restful drive home. At breakfast, Dorothy, knowing she was losing her captive audience, had talked nonstop, a waterfall of acid comments that had made Wilma’s head throb.

To distance herself from Ben’s snail-paced driving and long-winded stories, Wilma concentrated on the pleasurable excitement of looking in the paper the minute she arrived home and checking the lottery results. 1-9-4-7-5-2, 1-9-4-7-5-2, she chanted to herself. It was silly.

The drawing was over but even so she had a good feeling. Certainly Ernie would have phoned her if they’d won but even coming close, like getting three or four of the six numbers, made her know that their luck was changing.

She spotted the fact the car wasn’t in the driveway and guessed the reason. It was probably parked at the Harmony Bar. She managed to get rid of Ben Gump at the door, thanking him profusely for picking her up but ignoring his broad hints that he sure could use a cup of coffee. Then Wilma went straight to the bedroom. As she’d expected, Ernie was in bed. The covers were pulled to the tip of his nose. One look told her he had a massive hangover. “When the cat’s away the mouse will play.” She sighed. “I hope your head feels like a balloon-sized rock.”

In her annoyance, she knocked over the four-foot-high pelican that Wee Willie had sent for Thanksgiving and that was perched on a table just outside the bedroom door. As it clattered to the floor, it took with it the pottery vase, an early work of Wee Willie’s, and the arrangement of plastic baby’s breath and poinsettias Wilma had labored over in preparation for Christmas.

Sweeping up the broken vase, rearranging the flowers and restoring the pelican, now missing a section of one wing, to the tabletop stretched Wilma’s patience to the breaking point.

But the thought of the magic moment of looking up to see how close they’d come to winning the lottery and maybe finding that this time they’d come really close restored her to her usual good temper. She made a cup of coffee and fixed cinnamon toast before she settled at the kitchen table and opened the paper.

Sixteen Lucky Winners Share Thirty-Two Million Dollar Prize, the headline read.

Sixteen lucky winners. Oh to be one of them. Wilma slid her hand over the winning combination. She’d read the numbers one digit at a time. It was more fun that way.

1-9-4-7-5

Wilma sucked in her breath. Her head was pounding. Was it possible? In an agony of suspense she removed her palm from the final number.

2

Her shriek and the sound of the kitchen chair toppling over caused Ernie to sit bolt upright in bed. Judgement Day was at hand.

Wilma rushed into the room, her face transfixed. “Ernie, why didn’t you tell me? Give me the ticket!”

Ernie’s head sunk down on his neck. His voice was a broken whisper. “I lost it.”

Loretta had known it was inevitable. Even so, the sight of Wilma Bean marching up the snow-dusted cement walk followed by a reluctant, downcast Ernie did cause a moment of sheer panic. “Forget it,” Loretta told herself. “They don’t have a leg to stand on.” She’d covered her tracks completely, she promised herself as Wilma and Ernie came up the steps to the porch between the two evergreens that Loretta had decked out with dozens of Christmas lights. She had her story straight. She had walked Ernie to the door of his home. Anyone knowing how jealous Big Jimbo was would understand that Loretta would not step beyond the threshold of another man’s home when his wife wasn’t present.

When Wilma asked about the ticket, Loretta would ask, “What ticket?” Ernie never mentioned a ticket to her. He was in no condition to talk about anything sensible. Ask Lou. Ernie was pie-eyed after a coupla drinks. He’d probably stopped somewhere else first.

Did Loretta buy a lottery ticket for the special Christmas drawing? Sure she bought some. Wanna see them? Every week when she thought of it, she’d pick up a few. Never in the same place. Maybe at the liquor store, the stationery store. You know just for luck. Always numbers she thought of off the top of her head.

Loretta scratched her right hand viciously. Damn poison ivy. She had the 1-9-4-7-5-2 winning ticket safely hidden in the sugar bowl of her best china. You had a year to claim your winnings. Just before the year was up, she’d “accidentally” come across it. Let Wilma and Ernie try to howl that it was theirs.

The bell rang. Loretta patted her bright gold hair, which she’d teased into the tossed salad look, straightened the shoulder pads of her brilliantly sequined sweater, and hurried to the closet-sized foyer. As she opened the door she willed her face to become a wreath of smiles not even minding that she was trying not to smile too much. Her face was starting to wrinkle, a genetic family problem. She constantly worried about the fact that by age sixty her mother’s face had looked as though it could hold nine days of rain. “Wilma, Ernie, what a delightful surprise,” she gushed. “Come in. Come in.”

Loretta decided to ignore the fact that neither Wilma nor Ernie answered her, that neither bothered to brush the snow from their overshoes on the foyer mat that specifically invited guests to do that very thing, that they had no friendly holiday smiles to match her greeting.

Wilma declined the invitation to sit down, to have a cup of tea or a Bloody Mary. She made her case clear. Ernie had been holding a two-million-dollar lottery ticket. He’d told Loretta about it at the Harmony Bar. Loretta had driven him home from the Harmony, gotten him into his room. Ernie had passed out and the ticket was gone.

In 1945, before she became a full-time hoofer, Loretta had studied acting at the Sonny Tufts School for Thespians. Drawing on the long-ago experience, she earnestly and sincerely performed her well-practiced scenario for Wilma and Ernie. Ernie never breathed a word to her about a winning ticket. She only drove him home as a favor to him and to Lou. Lou couldn’t leave and anyhow Lou’s such a runt, he couldn’t fight Ernie for the car keys. “At least you agreed to let me drive,” Loretta said to Ernie indignantly. “I took my life in my hands just letting you snore your way home in my car.” She turned to Wilma and woman-to-woman reminded her: “You know how jealous Jimbo is of me, silly man. You’d think I was sixteen. But no way do I go into your house unless you’re there, Wilma. Ernie, you got smashed real fast at the Harmony. Just ask Lou. Did you stop anywhere else first and maybe talk to someone about the ticket?”

Loretta congratulated herself as she watched the doubt and confusion on both their faces. A few minutes later they left. “I hope you find it. I’ll say a prayer,” she promised piously. She would not shake hands with them, explaining to Wilma about her dumb sister-in-law’s greenhouse harvest of poison ivy. “Come have a Christmas drink with Jimbo and me,” she urged. “He’ll be home about four o’clock Christmas Eve.”

At home, sitting glumly over a cup of tea, Wilma said, “She’s lying. I know she’s lying but who could prove it? Fifteen winners have shown up already. One missing and with a year to claim.” Frustrated tears rolled unnoticed down Wilma’s cheeks. “She’ll let the whole world know she buys a ticket here, a ticket there. She’ll do that for the next fifty-one weeks and then bingo she’ll find the ticket she forgot she had.”

Ernie watched his wife in abject silence. A weeping Wilma was an infrequent sight. Now as her face blotched and her nose began to run, he handed her his red bandana handkerchief. His sudden gesture caused a ceramic hummingbird to fall off the sideboard behind him. The beak of the hummingbird crumbled against the imitation marble tile in the breakfast nook of the kitchen and brought a fresh wail of grief from Wilma.

“My big hope was that Wee Willie could give up working nights at McDonald’s and study and do her birds full-time,” Wilma sobbed. “And now that dream is busted.”

Just to be absolutely sure, they went to the Friendly Shamrock near the Do-Shop-Here Mall in Paramus. The evening bartender confirmed that Ernie had been there the night before just around midnight, had two maybe three drinks but never said boo to nobody. “Just sat there grinning like the cat who ate the canary.”

After a dinner which neither of them touched Wilma carefully examined Ernie’s undershirt, which still had the safety pin in place. “She didn’t even bother to unpin it,” Wilma said bitterly. “Just reached in and tore it off.”

“Can we sue her?” Ernie suggested tentatively. The enormity of his stupidity kept building by the minute. Getting drunk. Talking his head off to Loretta.

Too tired to even answer, Wilma opened the suitcase she had not yet unpacked and reached for her flannel nightgown. “Sure we can sue her,” she said sarcastically, “for having a fast brain when she’s dealing with a wet brain. Now turn off the light, go to sleep, and quit that damn scratching. You’re driving me crazy.”

Ernie was tearing at his chest in the area around his heart. “Something itches,” he complained.

A bell sounded in Wilma’s head as she closed her eyes. She was so worn out she fell asleep almost immediately, but her dreams were filled with lottery tickets floating through the air like snowflakes. From time to time she was pulled awake by Ernie’s restless movements. Usually Ernie slept like a hibernating bear.

Christmas Eve dawned gray and cheerless. Wilma dragged herself around the house, going through the motions of putting presents under the tree. The two boxes from Wee Willie. If they hadn’t lost the winning ticket they could have phoned Wee Willie to come home for Christmas. Maybe she wouldn’t have come. Wee Willie didn’t like the middle-class trap of the suburban environment. In that case Ernie could have thrown up his job and they could have visited her in New Mexico soon. And Wilma could have bought the forty-inch television that had so awed her in Trader Horn’s last week. Just think of seeing J. R. forty inches big.

Oh well. Spilt milk. No, spilt booze. Ernie had told her about his plans to put the lottery ticket in her pantyhose on the mantel of the fake fireplace if he hadn’t lost it. Wilma tried not to dwell on the thrill of finding the ticket there.

She was not pleasant to Ernie, who was still hung over and had phoned in sick for the second day. She told him exactly where he could stuff his headache.

In mid-afternoon, Ernie went into the bedroom and closed the door. After a while, Wilma became alarmed and followed him. Ernie was sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt off, plaintively scratching his chest. “I’m all right,” he said, his face still covered with the hangdog expression that was beginning to seem permanent. “It’s just I’m so damn itchy.”

Only slightly relieved that Ernie had not found some way to commit suicide, Wilma asked irritably, “What are you so itchy about? It isn’t time for your allergies to start. I hear enough about them all summer.”

She looked closely at the inflamed skin. “For God’s sake, that’s poison ivy. Where did you manage to pick that up?”

Poison ivy.

They stared at each other.

Wilma grabbed Ernie’s undershirt from the top of the dresser. She’d left it there, the safety pin still in it, the sliver of ticket a silent, hostile witness to his stupidity. “Put it on,” she ordered.

“But...”

“Put it on!”

It was instantly evident that the poison ivy was centered in the exact spot where the ticket had been hidden.

“That lying hoofer.” Wilma thrust out her jaw and straightened her shoulders. “She said that Big Jimbo was gonna be home around four, didn’t she?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Nothing like a reception committee.”

At three-thirty they pulled in front of Loretta’s house and parked. As they’d expected, Jimbo’s sixteen-wheel rig was not yet there. “We’ll sit here for a few minutes and make that crook nervous,” Wilma decreed.

They watched as the vertical blinds in the front window of Loretta’s house began to bob erratically. At three minutes of four, Ernie pointed a nervous hand. “There. At the light. That’s Jimbo’s truck.”

“Let’s go,” Wilma told him.

Loretta opened the door, her face again wreathed in a smile. With grim satisfaction Wilma noticed that the smile was very, very nervous.

“Ernie. Wilma. How nice. You did come for a Christmas drink.”

“I’ll have my Christmas drink later,” Wilma told her. “And it’ll be to celebrate getting our ticket back. How’s your poison ivy, Loretta?”

“Oh, starting to clear up. Wilma, I don’t like the tone of your voice.”

“That’s a crying shame.” Wilma walked past the sectional, which was upholstered in a red-and-black checkered pattern, went to the window, and pulled back the vertical blind. “Well, what do you know? Here’s Big Jimbo. Guess you two lovebirds can’t wait to get your hands on each other. Guess he’ll be real mad when I tell him I’m suing you for heartburn because you’ve been fooling around with my husband.”

“I’ve what?” Loretta’s carefully applied purple-kisses lipstick deepened as her complexion faded to grayish white.

“You heard me. And I got proof. Ernie, take off your shirt. Show this husband-stealer your rash.”

“Rash,” Loretta moaned.

“Poison ivy just like yours. Started on his chest when you stuck your hand under his underwear to get the ticket. Go ahead. Deny it. Tell Jimbo you don’t know nothing about a ticket, that you and Ernie were just having a go at a little hanky-panky.”

“You’re lying. Get out of here. Ernie, don’t unbutton that shirt.” Frantically Loretta grabbed Ernie’s hands.

“My what a big man Jimbo is,” Wilma said admiringly as he got out of the truck. She waved to him. “A real big man.” She turned. “Take off your pants too, Ernie.” Wilma dropped the vertical blind and hurried over to Loretta. “He’s got the rash down there,” she whispered.

“Oh, my God. I’ll get it. I’ll get it. Keep your pants on!” Loretta rushed to the junior-sized dining room and flung open the china closet that contained the remnants of her mother’s china. With shaking fingers she reached for the sugar bowl. It dropped from her hands and smashed as she grabbed the lottery ticket. Jimbo’s key was turning in the door as she jammed the ticket in Wilma’s hand. “Now get out. And don’t say nothing.”

Wilma sat down on the red-and-black checkered couch. “It would look real funny to rush out. Ernie and I will join you and Big Jimbo in a Christmas drink.”

The houses on their block were decorated with Santa Clauses on the roofs, angels on the lawn, and ropes of lights framing the outside of the windows. With a peaceful smile as they arrived home, Wilma remarked how real pretty the neighborhood was. Inside the house, she handed the lottery ticket to Ernie. “Put this in my stocking just the way you meant to.”

Meekly he went into the bedroom and selected her favorite pantyhose, the white ones with rhinestones. She fished in his drawer and came out with one of his dress-up argyle socks, somewhat lumpy because Wilma wasn’t much of a knitter but still his best. As they tacked the stockings to the mantel over the artificial fireplace, Ernie said, “Wilma, I don’t have poison ivy,” his voice sunk into a faint whisper, “down there.”

“I’m sure you don’t but it did the trick. Now just put the ticket in my stocking and I’ll put your present in yours.”

“You bought me a present? After all the trouble I caused? Oh, Wilma.”

“I didn’t buy it. I dug it out of the medicine cabinet and put a bow on it.” Smiling happily, Wilma dropped a bottle of calamine lotion into Ernie’s argyle sock.

Death on the Air Ngaio Marsh

Although she is one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers of pure detective stories, Ngaio Marsh’s first love was the theater, especially the plays of her native New Zealand. Her first name (pronounced Nigh-o) is the Maori name for a local flower. All of her thirty-two novels feature Scotland Yard’s Inspector Roderick Alleyn. Marsh was given the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America for lifetime achievement. Curiously, her autobiography, Black Beech and Honeydew (1965), barely mentions mystery fiction, though she devoted much of nearly a half century to writing it. “Death on the Air” was first published as “Murder at Christmas” in the December 1934 issue of The Grand Magazine.

On the 25th of December at 7:30 A.M. Mr. Septimus Tonks was found dead beside his wireless set.

It was Emily Parks, an under-housemaid, who discovered him. She butted open the door and entered, carrying mop, duster, and carpet-sweeper. At that precise moment she was greatly startled by a voice that spoke out of the darkness.

“Good morning, everybody,” said the voice in superbly inflected syllables, “and a Merry Christmas!”

Emily yelped, but not loudly, as she immediately realised what had happened. Mr. Tonks had omitted to turn off his wireless before going to bed. She drew back the curtains, revealing a kind of pale murk which was a London Christmas dawn, switched on the light, and saw Septimus.

He was seated in front of the radio. It was a small but expensive set, specially built for him. Septimus sat in an armchair, his back to Emily, his body tilted towards the radio.

His hands, the fingers curiously bunched, were on the ledge of the cabinet under the tuning and volume knobs. His chest rested against the shelf below and his head leaned on the front panel.

He looked rather as though he was listening intently to the interior secrets of the wireless. His head was bent so that Emily could see his bald top with its trail of oiled hairs. He did not move.

“Beg pardon, sir,” gasped Emily. She was again greatly startled. Mr. Tonks’s enthusiasm for radio had never before induced him to tune in at seven-thirty in the morning.

“Special Christmas service,” the cultured voice was saying. Mr. Tonks sat very still. Emily, in common with the other servants, was terrified of her master. She did not know whether to go or to stay. She gazed wildly at Septimus and realised that he wore a dinner-jacket. The room was now filled with the clamour of pealing bells.

Emily opened her mouth as wide as it would go and screamed and screamed and screamed...

Chase, the butler, was the first to arrive. He was a pale, flabby man but authoritative. He said: “What’s the meaning of this outrage?” and then saw Septimus. He went to the armchair, bent down, and looked into his master’s face.

He did not lose his head, but said in a loud voice: “My Gawd!” And then to Emily: “Shut your face.” By this vulgarism he betrayed his agitation. He seized Emily by the shoulders and thrust her towards the door, where they were met by Mr. Hislop, the secretary, in his dressing-gown. Mr. Hislop said: “Good heavens, Chase, what is the meaning—” and then his voice too was drowned in the clamour of bells and renewed screams.

Chase put his fat white hand over Emily’s mouth.

“In the study if you please, sir. An accident. Go to your room, will you, and stop that noise or I’ll give you something to make you.” This to Emily, who bolted down the hall, where she was received by the rest of the staff who had congregated there.

Chase returned to the study with Mr. Hislop and locked the door. They both looked down at the body of Septimus Tonks. The secretary was the first to speak.

“But — but — he’s dead,” said little Mr. Hislop.

“I suppose there can’t be any doubt,” whispered Chase.

“Look at the face. Any doubt! My God!”

Mr. Hislop put out a delicate hand towards the bent head and then drew it back. Chase, less fastidious, touched one of the hard wrists, gripped, and then lifted it. The body at once tipped backwards as if it was made of wood. One of the hands knocked against the butler’s face. He sprang back with an oath.

There lay Septimus, his knees and his hands in the air, his terrible face turned up to the light. Chase pointed to the right hand. Two fingers and the thumb were slightly blackened.

Ding, dong, dang, ding.

“For God’s sake stop those bells,” cried Mr. Hislop. Chase turned off the wall switch. Into the sudden silence came the sound of the doorhandle being rattled and Guy Tonks’s voice on the other side.

“Hislop! Mr. Hislop! Chase! What’s the matter?”

“Just a moment, Mr. Guy.” Chase looked at the secretary. “You go, sir.”

So it was left to Mr. Hislop to break the news to the family. They listened to his stammering revelation in stupefied silence. It was not until Guy, the eldest of the three children, stood in the study that any practical suggestion was made.

“What has killed him?” asked Guy.

“It’s extraordinary,” burbled Hislop. “Extraordinary. He looks as if he’d been—”

“Galvanised,” said Guy.

“We ought to send for a doctor,” suggested Hislop timidly.

“Of course. Will you, Mr. Hislop? Dr. Meadows.”

Hislop went to the telephone and Guy returned to his family. Dr. Meadows lived on the other side of the square and arrived in five minutes. He examined the body without moving it. He questioned Chase and Hislop. Chase was very voluble about the burns on the hand. He uttered the word “electrocution” over and over again.

“I had a cousin, sir, that was struck by lightning. As soon as I saw the hand—”

“Yes, yes,” said Dr. Meadows. “So you said. I can see the burns for myself.”

“Electrocution,” repeated Chase. “There’ll have to be an inquest.”

Dr. Meadows snapped at him, summoned Emily, and then saw the rest of the family — Guy, Arthur, Phillipa, and their mother. They were clustered round a cold grate in the drawing-room. Phillipa was on her knees, trying to light the fire.

“What was it?” asked Arthur as soon as the doctor came in.

“Looks like electric shock. Guy, I’ll have a word with you if you please. Phillipa, look after your mother, there’s a good child. Coffee with a dash of brandy. Where are those damn maids? Come on, Guy.”

Alone with Guy, he said they’d have to send for the police.

“The police!” Guy’s dark face turned very pale. “Why? What’s it got to do with them?”

“Nothing, as like as not, but they’ll have to be notified. I can’t give a certificate as things are. If it’s electrocution, how did it happen?”

“But the police!” said Guy. “That’s simply ghastly. Dr. Meadows, for God’s sake couldn’t you—?”

“No,” said Dr. Meadows, “I couldn’t. Sorry, Guy, but there it is.”

“But can’t we wait a moment? Look at him again. You haven’t examined him properly.”

“I don’t want to move him, that’s why. Pull yourself together, boy. Look here. I’ve got a pal in the CID — Alleyn. He’s a gentleman and all that. He’ll curse me like a fury, but he’ll come if he’s in London, and he’ll make things easier for you. Go back to your mother. I’ll ring Alleyn up.”

That was how it came about that Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn spent his Christmas Day in harness. As a matter of fact he was on duty, and as he pointed out to Dr. Meadows, would have had to turn out and visit his miserable Tonkses in any case. When he did arrive it was with his usual air of remote courtesy. He was accompanied by a tall, thick-set officer — Inspector Fox — and by the divisional police-surgeon. Dr. Meadows took them into the study. Alleyn, in his turn, looked at the horror that had been Septimus.

“Was he like this when he was found?”

“No. I understand he was leaning forward with his hands on the ledge of the cabinet. He must have slumped forward and been propped up by the chair arms and the cabinet.”

“Who moved him?”

“Chase, the butler. He said he only meant to raise the arm. Rigor is well established.”

Alleyn put his hand behind the rigid neck and pushed. The body fell forward into its original position.

“There you are, Curtis,” said Alleyn to the divisional surgeon. He turned to Fox. “Get the camera man, will you, Fox?”

The photographer took four shots and departed. Alleyn marked the position of the hands and feet with chalk, made a careful plan of the room and turned to the doctors.

“Is it electrocution, do you think?”

“Looks like it,” said Curtis. “Have to be a PM, of course.”

“Of course. Still, look at the hands. Burns. Thumb and two fingers bunched together and exactly the distance between the two knobs apart. He’d been tuning his hurdy-gurdy.”

“By gum,” said Inspector Fox, speaking for the first time.

“D’you mean he got a lethal shock from his radio?” asked Dr. Meadows.

“I don’t know. I merely conclude he had his hands on the knobs when he died.”

“It was still going when the housemaid found him. Chase turned it off and got no shock.”

“Yours, partner,” said Alleyn, turning to Fox. Fox stooped down to the wall switch.

“Careful,” said Alleyn.

“I’ve got rubber soles,” said Fox, and switched it on. The radio hummed, gathered volume, and found itself.

“No-o-el, No-o-el,” it roared. Fox cut it off and pulled out the wall plug.

“I’d like to have a look inside this set,” he said.

“So you shall, old boy, so you shall,” rejoined Alleyn. “Before you begin, I think we’d better move the body. Will you see to that, Meadows? Fox, get Bailey, will you? He’s out in the car.”

Curtis, Hislop, and Meadows carried Septimus Tonks into a spare downstairs room. It was a difficult and horrible business with that contorted body. Dr. Meadows came back alone, mopping his brow, to find Detective-Sergeant Bailey, a fingerprint expert, at work on the wireless cabinet.

“What’s all this?” asked Dr. Meadows. “Do you want to find out if he’d been fooling round with the innards?”

“He,” said Alleyn, “or — somebody else.”

“Umph!” Dr. Meadows looked at the Inspector. “You agree with me, it seems. Do you suspect—?”

“Suspect? I’m the least suspicious man alive. I’m merely being tidy. Well, Bailey?”

“I’ve got a good one off the chair arm. That’ll be the deceased’s, won’t it, sir?”

“No doubt. We’ll check up later. What about the wireless?”

Fox, wearing a glove, pulled off the knob of the volume control.

“Seems to be OK,” said Bailey. “It’s a sweet bit of work. Not too bad at all, sir.” He turned his torch into the back of the radio, undid a couple of screws underneath the set, lifted out the works.

“What’s the little hole for?” asked Alleyn.

“What’s that, sir?” said Fox.

“There’s a hole bored through the panel above the knob. About an eighth of an inch in diameter. The rim of the knob hides it. One might easily miss it. Move your torch, Bailey. Yes. There, do you see?”

Fox bent down and uttered a bass growl. A fine needle of light came through the front of the radio.

“That’s peculiar, sir,” said Bailey from the other side. “I don’t get the idea at all.”

Alleyn pulled out the tuning knob.

“There’s another one there,” he murmured. “Yes. Nice clean little holes. Newly bored. Unusual, I take it?”

“Unusual’s the word, sir,” said Fox.

“Run away, Meadows,” said Alleyn.

“Why the devil?” asked Dr. Meadows indignantly. “What are you driving at? Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“You ought to be with the sorrowing relatives. Where’s your corpseside manner?”

“I’ve settled them. What are you up to?”

“Who’s being suspicious now?” asked Alleyn mildly. “You may stay for a moment. Tell me about the Tonkses. Who are they? What are they? What sort of a man was Septimus?”

“If you must know, he was a damned unpleasant sort of a man.”

“Tell me about him.”

Dr. Meadows sat down and lit a cigarette.

“He was a self-made bloke,” he said, “as hard as nails and — well, coarse rather than vulgar.”

“Like Dr. Johnson perhaps?”

“Not in the least. Don’t interrupt. I’ve known him for twenty-five years. His wife was a neighbour of ours in Dorset. Isabel Foreston. I brought the children into this vale of tears and, by jove, in many ways it’s been one for them. It’s an extraordinary household. For the last ten years Isabel’s condition has been the sort that sends these psycho-jokers dizzy with rapture. I’m only an out-of-date GP, and I’d just say she is in an advanced stage of hysterical neurosis. Frightened into fits of her husband.”

“I can’t understand these holes,” grumbled Fox to Bailey.

“Go on, Meadows,” said Alleyn.

“I tackled Sep about her eighteen months ago. Told him the trouble was in her mind. He eyed me with a sort of grin on his face and said: ‘I’m surprised to learn that my wife has enough mentality to—’ But look here, Alleyn, I can’t talk about my patients like this. What the devil am I thinking about.”

“You know perfectly well it’ll go no further unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless it has to. Do go on.”

But Dr. Meadows hurriedly withdrew behind his professional rectitude. All he would say was that Mr. Tonks had suffered from high blood pressure and a weak heart, that Guy was in his father’s city office, that Arthur had wanted to study art and had been told to read for law, and that Phillipa wanted to go on to the stage and had been told to do nothing of the sort.

“Bullied his children,” commented Alleyn.

“Find out for yourself. I’m off.” Dr. Meadows got as far as the door and came back.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ll tell you one thing. There was a row here last night. I’d asked Hislop, who’s a sensible little beggar, to let me know if anything happened to upset Mrs. Sep. Upset her badly, you know. To be indiscreet again, I said he’d better let me know if Sep cut up rough, because Isabel and the young had had about as much of that as they could stand. He was drinking pretty heavily. Hislop rang me up at ten-twenty last night to say there’d been a hell of a row; Sep bullying Phips — Phillipa, you know; always call her Phips — in her room. He said Isabel — Mrs. Sep — had gone to bed. I’d had a big day and I didn’t want to turn out. I told him to ring again in half an hour if things hadn’t quieted down. I told him to keep out of Sep’s way and stay in his own room, which is next to Phips’s, and see if she was all right when Sep cleared out. Hislop was involved. I won’t tell you how. The servants were all out. I said that if I didn’t hear from him in half an hour I’d ring again and if there was no answer I’d know they were all in bed and quiet. I did ring, got no answer, and went to bed myself. That’s all. I’m off. Curtis knows where to find me. You’ll want me for the inquest, I suppose. Goodbye.”

When he had gone Alleyn embarked on a systematic prowl round the room. Fox and Bailey were still deeply engrossed with the wireless.

“I don’t see how the gentleman could have got a bump-off from the instrument,” grumbled Fox. “These control knobs are quite in order. Everything’s as it should be. Look here, sir.”

He turned on the wall switch and tuned in. There was a prolonged humming.

“... concludes the programme of Christmas carols,” said the radio.

“A very nice tone,” said Fox approvingly.

“Here’s something, sir,” announced Bailey suddenly.

“Found the sawdust, have you?” said Alleyn.

“Got it in one,” said the startled Bailey.

Alleyn peered into the instrument, using the torch. He scooped up two tiny traces of sawdust from under the holes.

“Vantage number one,” said Alleyn. He bent down to the wall plug. “Hullo! A two-way adapter. Serves the radio and the radiator. Thought they were illegal. This is a rum business. Let’s have another look at those knobs.”

He had his look. They were the usual wireless fitments, Bakelite knobs fitting snugly to the steel shafts that projected from the front panel.

“As you say,” he murmured, “quite in order. Wait a bit.” He produced a pocket lens and squinted at one of the shafts. “Ye-es. Do they ever wrap blotting-paper round these objects, Fox?”

“Blotting-paper!” ejaculated Fox. “They do not.”

Alleyn scraped at both the shafts with his penknife, holding an envelope underneath. He rose, groaning, and crossed to the desk. “A corner torn off the bottom bit of blotch,” he said presently. “No prints on the wireless, I think you said, Bailey?”

“That’s right,” agreed Bailey morosely.

“There’ll be none, or too many, on the blotter, but try, Bailey, try,” said Alleyn. He wandered about the room, his eyes on the floor; got as far as the window and stopped.

“Fox!” he said. “A clue. A very palpable clue.”

“What is it?” asked Fox.

“The odd wisp of blotting-paper, no less.” Alleyn’s gaze travelled up the side of the window curtain. “Can I believe my eyes?”

He got a chair, stood on the seat, and with his gloved hand pulled the buttons from the ends of the curtain-rod.

“Look at this.” He turned to the radio, detached the control knobs, and laid them beside the ones he had removed from the curtain-rod.

Ten minutes later Inspector Fox knocked on the drawing-room door and was admitted by Guy Tonks. Phillipa had got the fire going and the family was gathered round it. They looked as though they had not moved or spoken to one another for a long time.

It was Phillipa who spoke first to Fox. “Do you want one of us?”

“If you please, miss,” said Fox. “Inspector Alleyn would like to see Mr. Guy Tonks for a moment, if convenient.”

“I’ll come,” said Guy, and led the way to the study. At the door he paused. “Is he — my father — still—?”

“No, no, sir,” said Fox comfortably. “It’s all ship-shape in there again.”

With a lift of his chin Guy opened the door and went in, followed by Fox. Alleyn was alone, seated at the desk. He rose to his feet.

“You want to speak to me?” asked Guy.

“Yes, if I may. This has all been a great shock to you, of course. Won’t you sit down?”

Guy sat in the chair farthest away from the radio.

“What killed my father? Was it a stroke?”

“The doctors are not quite certain. There will have to be a post-mortem.”

“Good God! And an inquest?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Horrible!” said Guy violently. “What do you think was the matter? Why the devil do these quacks have to be so mysterious? What killed him?”

“They think an electric shock.”

“How did it happen?”

“We don’t know. It looks as if he got it from the wireless.”

“Surely that’s impossible. I thought they were fool-proof.”

“I believe they are, if left to themselves.”

For a second undoubtedly Guy was startled. Then a look of relief came into his eyes. He seemed to relax all over.

“Of course,” he said, “he was always monkeying about with it. What had he done?”

“Nothing.”

“But you said — if it killed him he must have done something to it.”

“If anyone interfered with the set it was put right afterwards.”

Guy’s lips parted but he did not speak. He had gone very white.

“So you see,” said Alleyn, “your father could not have done anything.”

“Then it was not the radio that killed him.”

“That we hope will be determined by the post-mortem.”

“I don’t know anything about wireless,” said Guy suddenly. “I don’t understand. This doesn’t seem to make sense. Nobody ever touched the thing except my father. He was most particular about it. Nobody went near the wireless.”

“I see. He was an enthusiast?”

“Yes, it was his only enthusiasm except — except his business.”

“One of my men is a bit of an expert,” Alleyn said. “He says this is a remarkably good set. You are not an expert, you say. Is there anyone in the house who is?”

“My young brother was interested at one time. He’s given it up. My father wouldn’t allow another radio in the house.”

“Perhaps he may be able to suggest something.”

“But if the thing’s all right now—”

“We’ve got to explore every possibility.”

“You speak as if — as — if—”

“I speak as I am bound to speak before there has been an inquest,” said Alleyn. “Had anyone a grudge against your father, Mr. Tonks?”

Up went Guy’s chin again. He looked Alleyn squarely in the eyes.

“Almost everyone who knew him,” said Guy.

“Is that an exaggeration?”

“No. You think he was murdered, don’t you?”

Alleyn suddenly pointed to the desk beside him.

“Have you ever seen those before?” he asked abruptly. Guy stared at two black knobs that lay side by side on an ashtray.

“Those?” he said. “No. What are they?”

“I believe they are the agents of your father’s death.”

The study door opened and Arthur Tonks came in.

“Guy,” he said, “what’s happening? We can’t stay cooped up together all day. I can’t stand it. For God’s sake what happened to him?”

“They think those things killed him,” said Guy.

“Those?” For a split second Arthur’s glance slewed to the curtain-rods. Then, with a characteristic flicker of his eyelids, he looked away again.

“What do you mean?” he asked Alleyn.

“Will you try one of those knobs on the shaft of the volume control?”

“But,” said Arthur, “they’re metal.”

“It’s disconnected,” said Alleyn.

Arthur picked one of the knobs from the tray, turned to the radio, and fitted the knob over one of the exposed shafts.

“It’s too loose,” he said quickly, “it would fall off.”

“Not if it was packed — with blotting-paper, for instance.”

“Where did you find these things?” demanded Arthur.

“I think you recognised them, didn’t you? I saw you glance at the curtain-rod.”

“Of course I recognised them. I did a portrait of Phillipa against those curtains when — he — was away last year. I’ve painted the damn things.”

“Look here,” interrupted Guy, “exactly what are you driving at, Mr. Alleyn? If you mean to suggest that my brother—”

“I!” cried Arthur. “What’s it got to do with me? Why should you suppose—”

“I found traces of blotting-paper on the shafts and inside the metal knobs,” said Alleyn. “It suggested a substitution of the metal knobs for the Bakelite ones. It is remarkable, don’t you think, that they should so closely resemble one another? If you examine them, of course, you find they are not identical. Still, the difference is scarcely perceptible.”

Arthur did not answer this. He was still looking at the wireless.

“I’ve always wanted to have a look at this set,” he said surprisingly.

“You are free to do so now,” said Alleyn politely. “We have finished with it for the time being.”

“Look here,” said Arthur suddenly, “suppose metal knobs were substituted for Bakelite ones, it couldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t get a shock at all. Both the controls are grounded.”

“Have you noticed those very small holes drilled through the panel?” asked Alleyn. “Should they be there, do you think?”

Arthur peered at the little steel shafts. “By God, he’s right, Guy,” he said. “That’s how it was done.”

“Inspector Fox,” said Alleyn, “tells me those holes could be used for conducting wires and that a lead could be taken from the — the transformer, is it? — to one of the knobs.”

“And the other connected to earth,” said Fox. “It’s a job for an expert. He could get three hundred volts or so that way.”

“That’s not good enough,” said Arthur quickly; “there wouldn’t be enough current to do any damage — only a few hundredths of an amp.”

“I’m not an expert,” said Alleyn, “but I’m sure you’re right. Why were the holes drilled then? Do you imagine someone wanted to play a practical joke on your father?”

“A practical joke? On him?” Arthur gave an unpleasant screech of laughter. “Do you hear that, Guy?”

“Shut up,” said Guy. “After all, he is dead.”

“It seems almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be a bloody fool, Arthur. Pull yourself together. Can’t you see what this means? They think he’s been murdered.”

“Murdered! They’re wrong. None of us had the nerve for that, Mr. Inspector. Look at me. My hands are so shaky they told me I’d never be able to paint. That dates from when I was a kid and he shut me up in the cellars for a night. Look at me. Look at Guy. He’s not so vulnerable, but he caved in like the rest of us. We were conditioned to surrender. Do you know—”

“Wait a moment,” said Alleyn quietly. “Your brother is quite right, you know. You’d better think before you speak. This may be a case of homicide.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Guy quickly. “That’s extraordinarily decent of you. Arthur’s a bit above himself. It’s a shock.”

“The relief, you mean,” said Arthur. “Don’t be such an ass. I didn’t kill him and they’ll find it out soon enough. Nobody killed him. There must be some explanation.”

“I suggest that you listen to me,” said Alleyn. “I’m going to put several questions to both of you. You need not answer them, but it will be more sensible to do so. I understand no one but your father touched this radio. Did any of you ever come into this room while it was in use?”

“Not unless he wanted to vary the programme with a little bullying,” said Arthur.

Alleyn turned to Guy, who was glaring at his brother.

“I want to know exactly what happened in this house last night. As far as the doctors can tell us, your father died not less than three and not more than eight hours before he was found. We must try to fix the time as accurately as possible.”

“I saw him at about a quarter to nine,” began Guy slowly. “I was going out to a supper-party at the Savoy and had come downstairs. He was crossing the hall from the drawing-room to his room.”

“Did you see him after a quarter to nine, Mr. Arthur?”

“No. I heard him, though. He was working in here with Hislop. Hislop had asked to go away for Christmas. Quite enough. My father discovered some urgent correspondence. Really, Guy, you know, he was pathological. I’m sure Dr. Meadows thinks so.”

“When did you hear him?” asked Alleyn.

“Some time after Guy had gone. I was working on a drawing in my room upstairs. It’s above his. I heard him bawling at little Hislop. It must have been before ten o’clock, because I went out to a studio party at ten. I heard him bawling as I crossed the hall.”

“And when,” said Alleyn, “did you both return?”

“I came home at about twenty past twelve,” said Guy immediately. “I can fix the time because we had gone on to Chez Carlo, and they had a midnight stunt there. We left immediately afterwards. I came home in a taxi. The radio was on full blast.”

“You heard no voices?”

“None. Just the wireless.”

“And you, Mr. Arthur?”

“Lord knows when I got in. After one. The house was in darkness. Not a sound.”

“You had your own key?”

“Yes,” said Guy. “Each of us has one. They’re always left on a hook in the lobby. When I came in I noticed Arthur’s was gone.”

“What about the others? How did you know it was his?”

“Mother hasn’t got one and Phips lost hers weeks ago. Anyway, I knew they were staying in and that it must be Arthur who was out.”

“Thank you,” said Arthur ironically.

“You didn’t look in the study when you came in?” Alleyn asked him.

“Good Lord, no,” said Arthur as if the suggestion was fantastic. “I say,” he said suddenly, “I suppose he was sitting here — dead. That’s a queer thought.” He laughed nervously. “Just sitting here, behind the door in the dark.”

“How do you know it was in the dark?”

“What d’you mean? Of course it was. There was no light under the door.”

“I see. Now do you two mind joining your mother again? Perhaps your sister will be kind enough to come in here for a moment. Fox, ask her, will you?”

Fox returned to the drawing-room with Guy and Arthur and remained there, blandly unconscious of any embarrassment his presence might cause the Tonkses. Bailey was already there, ostensibly examining the electric points.

Phillipa went to the study at once. Her first remark was characteristic. “Can I be of any help?” asked Phillipa.

“It’s extremely nice of you to put it like that,” said Alleyn. “I don’t want to worry you for long. I’m sure this discovery has been a shock to you.”

“Probably,” said Phillipa. Alleyn glanced quickly at her. “I mean,” she explained, “that I suppose I must be shocked but I can’t feel anything much. I just want to get it all over as soon as possible. And then think. Please tell me what has happened.”

Alleyn told her they believed her father had been electrocuted and that the circumstances were unusual and puzzling. He said nothing to suggest that the police suspected murder.

“I don’t think I’ll be much help,” said Phillipa, “but go ahead.”

“I want to try to discover who was the last person to see your father or speak to him.”

“I should think very likely I was,” said Phillipa composedly. “I had a row with him before I went to bed.”

“What about?”

“I don’t see that it matters.”

Alleyn considered this. When he spoke again it was with deliberation.

“Look here,” he said, “I think there is very little doubt that your father was killed by an electric shock from his wireless set. As far as I know the circumstances are unique. Radios are normally incapable of giving a lethal shock to anyone. We have examined the cabinet and are inclined to think that its internal arrangements were disturbed last night. Very radically disturbed. Your father may have experimented with it. If anything happened to interrupt or upset him, it is possible that in the excitement of the moment he made some dangerous readjustment.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?” asked Phillipa calmly.

“Since you ask me,” said Alleyn, “no.”

“I see,” said Phillipa; “you think he was murdered, but you’re not sure.” She had gone very white, but she spoke crisply. “Naturally you want to find out about my row.”

“About everything that happened last evening,” amended Alleyn.

“What happened was this,” said Phillipa; “I came into the hall some time after ten. I’d heard Arthur go out and had looked at the clock at five past. I ran into my father’s secretary, Richard Hislop. He turned aside, but not before I saw... not quickly enough. I blurted out: ‘You’re crying.’ We looked at each other. I asked him why he stood it. None of the other secretaries could. He said he had to. He’s a widower with two children. There have been doctor’s bills and things. I needn’t tell you about his... about his damnable servitude to my father nor about the refinements of cruelty he’d had to put up with. I think my father was mad, really mad, I mean. Richard gabbled it all out to me higgledy-piggledy in a sort of horrified whisper. He’s been here two years, but I’d never realised until that moment that we... that...” A faint flush came into her cheeks. “He’s such a funny little man. Not at all the sort I’ve always thought... not good-looking or exciting or anything.”

She stopped, looking bewildered.

“Yes?” said Alleyn.

“Well, you see — I suddenly realised I was in love with him. He realised it too. He said: ‘Of course, it’s quite hopeless, you know. Us, I mean. Laughable, almost.’ Then I put my arms round his neck and kissed him. It was very odd, but it seemed quite natural. The point is my father came out of his room into the hall and saw us.”

“That was bad luck,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, it was. My father really seemed delighted. He almost licked his lips. Richard’s efficiency had irritated my father for a long time. It was difficult to find excuses for being beastly to him. Now, of course... He ordered Richard to the study and me to my room. He followed me upstairs. Richard tried to come too, but I asked him not to. My father... I needn’t tell you what he said. He put the worst possible construction on what he’d seen. He was absolutely foul, screaming at me like a madman. He was insane. Perhaps it was dt’s. He drank terribly, you know. I dare say it’s silly of me to tell you all this.”

“No,” said Alleyn.

“I can’t feel anything at all. Not even relief. The boys are frankly relieved. I can’t feel afraid either.” She stared meditatively at Alleyn. “Innocent people needn’t feel afraid, need they?”

“It’s an axiom of police investigation,” said Alleyn and wondered if indeed she was innocent.

“It just can’t be murder,” said Phillipa. “We were all too much afraid to kill him. I believe he’d win even if you murdered him. He’d hit back somehow.” She put her hands to her eyes.

“I’m all muddled.”

“I think you are more upset than you realise. I’ll be as quick as I can. Your father made this scene in your room. You say he screamed. Did anyone hear him?”

“Yes. Mummy did. She came in.”

“What happened?”

“I said: ‘Go away, darling, it’s all right.’ I didn’t want her to be involved. He nearly killed her with the things he did. Sometimes he’d... we never knew what happened between them. It was all secret, like a door shutting quietly as you walk along a passage.”

“Did she go away?”

“Not at once. He told her he’d found out that Richard and I were lovers. He said... it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to tell you. She was terrified. He was stabbing at her in some way I couldn’t understand. Then, quite suddenly, he told her to go to her own room. She went at once and he followed her. He locked me in. That’s the last I saw of him, but I heard him go downstairs later.”

“Were you locked in all night?”

“No. Richard Hislop’s room is next to mine. He came up and spoke through the wall to me. He wanted to unlock the door, but I said better not in case — he — came back. Then, much later, Guy came home. As he passed my door I tapped on it. The key was in the lock and he turned it.”

“Did you tell him what had happened?”

“Just that there’d been a row. He only stayed a moment.”

“Can you hear the radio from your room?”

She seemed surprised.

“The wireless? Why, yes. Faintly.”

“Did you hear it after your father returned to the study?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Think. While you lay awake all that long time until your brother came home?”

“I’ll try. When he came out and found Richard and me, it was not going. They had been working, you see. No, I can’t remember hearing it at all unless — wait a moment. Yes. After he had gone back to the study from mother’s room I remember there was a loud crash of static. Very loud. Then I think it was quiet for some time. I fancy I heard it again later. Oh, I’ve remembered something else. After the static my bedside radiator went out. I suppose there was something wrong with the electric supply. That would account for both, wouldn’t it? The heater went on again about ten minutes later.”

“And did the radio begin again then, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’m very vague about that. It started again sometime before I went to sleep.”

“Thank you very much indeed. I won’t bother you any longer now.”

“All right,” said Phillipa calmly, and went away.

Alleyn sent for Chase and questioned him about the rest of the staff and about the discovery of the body. Emily was summoned and dealt with. When she departed, awestruck but complacent, Alleyn turned to the butler.

“Chase,” he said, “had your master any peculiar habits?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In regard to the wireless?”

“I beg pardon, sir. I thought you meant generally speaking.”

“Well, then, generally speaking.”

“If I may say so, sir, he was a mass of them.”

“How long have you been with him?”

“Two months, sir, and due to leave at the end of this week.”

“Oh. Why are you leaving?”

Chase produced the classic remark of his kind.

“There are some things,” he said, “that flesh and blood will not stand, sir. One of them’s being spoke to like Mr. Tonks spoke to his staff.”

“Ah. His peculiar habits, in fact?”

“It’s my opinion, sir, he was mad. Stark, staring.”

“With regard to the radio. Did he tinker with it?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever noticed, sir. I believe he knew quite a lot about wireless.”

“When he tuned the thing, had he any particular method? Any characteristic attitude or gesture?”

“I don’t think so, sir. I never noticed, and yet I’ve often come into the room when he was at it. I can seem to see him now, sir.”

“Yes, yes,” said Alleyn swiftly. “That’s what we want. A clear mental picture. How was it now? Like this?”

In a moment he was across the room and seated in Septimus’s chair. He swung round to the cabinet and raised his right hand to the tuning control.

“Like this?”

“No, sir,” said Chase promptly, “that’s not him at all. Both hands it should be.”

“Ah.” Up went Alleyn’s left hand to the volume control. “More like this?”

“Yes, sir,” said Chase slowly. “But there’s something else and I can’t recollect what it was. Something he was always doing. It’s in the back of my head. You know, sir. Just on the edge of my memory, as you might say.”

“I know.”

“It’s a kind — something — to do with irritation,” said Chase slowly.

“Irritation? His?”

“No. It’s no good, sir. I can’t get it.”

“Perhaps later. Now look here, Chase, what happened to all of you last night? All the servants, I mean.”

“We were all out, sir. It being Christmas Eve. The mistress sent for me yesterday morning. She said we could take the evening off as soon as I had taken in Mr. Tonks’s grog-tray at nine o’clock. So we went,” ended Chase simply.

“When?”

“The rest of the staff got away about nine. I left at ten past, sir, and returned about eleven-twenty. The others were back then, and all in bed. I went straight to bed myself, sir.”

“You came in by a back door, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve been talking it over. None of us noticed anything unusual.”

“Can you hear the wireless in your part of the house?”

“No, sir.”

“Well,” said Alleyn, looking up from his notes, “that’ll do, thank you.”

Before Chase reached the door Fox came in.

“Beg pardon, sir,” said Fox, “I just want to take a look at the Radio Times on the desk.”

He bent over the paper, wetted a gigantic thumb, and turned a page.

“That’s it, sir,” shouted Chase suddenly. “That’s what I tried to think of. That’s what he was always doing.”

“But what?”

“Licking his fingers, sir. It was a habit,” said Chase. “That’s what he always did when he sat down to the radio. I heard Mr. Hislop tell the doctor it nearly drove him demented, the way the master couldn’t touch a thing without first licking his fingers.”

“Quite so,” said Alleyn. “In about ten minutes, ask Mr. Hislop if he will be good enough to come in for a moment. That will be all, thank you, Chase.”

“Well, sir,” remarked Fox when Chase had gone, “if that’s the case and what I think’s right, it’d certainly make matters worse.”

“Good heavens, Fox, what an elaborate remark. What does it mean?”

“If metal knobs were substituted for Bakelite ones and fine wires brought through those holes to make contact, then he’d get a bigger bump if he tuned in with damp fingers.”

“Yes. And he always used both hands. Fox!”

“Sir.”

“Approach the Tonkses again. You haven’t left them alone, of course?”

“Bailey’s in there making out he’s interested in the light switches. He’s found the main switchboard under the stairs. There’s signs of a blown fuse having been fixed recently. In a cupboard underneath there are odd lengths of flex and so on. Same brand as this on the wireless and the heater.”

“Ah, yes. Could the cord from the adapter to the radiator be brought into play?”

“By gum,” said Fox, “you’re right! That’s how it was done, Chief. The heavier flex was cut away from the radiator and shoved through. There was a fire, so he wouldn’t want the radiator and wouldn’t notice.”

“It might have been done that way, certainly, but there’s little to prove it. Return to the bereaved Tonkses, my Fox, and ask prettily if any of them remember Septimus’s peculiarities when tuning his wireless.”

Fox met little Mr. Hislop at the door and left him alone with Alleyn. Phillipa had been right, reflected the Inspector, when she said Richard Hislop was not a noticeable man. He was nondescript. Grey eyes, drab hair; rather pale, rather short, rather insignificant; and yet last night there had flashed up between those two the realisation of love. Romantic but rum, thought Alleyn.

“Do sit down,” he said. “I want you, if you will, to tell me what happened between you and Mr. Tonks last evening.”

“What happened?”

“Yes. You all dined at eight, I understand. Then you and Mr. Tonks came in here?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“He dictated several letters.”

“Anything unusual take place?”

“Oh, no.”

“Why did you quarrel?”

“Quarrel!” The quiet voice jumped a tone. “We did not quarrel, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Perhaps that was the wrong word. What upset you?”

“Phillipa has told you?”

“Yes. She was wise to do so. What was the matter, Mr. Hislop?”

“Apart from the... what she told you... Mr. Tonks was a difficult man to please. I often irritated him. I did so last night.”

“In what way?”

“In almost every way. He shouted at me. I was startled and nervous, clumsy with papers, and making mistakes. I wasn’t well. I blundered and then... I... I broke down. I have always irritated him. My very mannerisms—”

“Had he no irritating mannerisms, himself?”

“He! My God!”

“What were they?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

“Anything to do with the wireless, for instance?”

There was a short silence.

“No,” said Hislop.

“Was the radio on in here last night, after dinner?”

“For a little while. Not after... after the incident in the hall. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t remember.”

“What did you do after Miss Phillipa and her father had gone upstairs?”

“I followed and listened outside the door for a moment.” He had gone very white and had backed away from the desk.

“And then?”

“I heard someone coming. I remembered Dr. Meadows had told me to ring him up if there was one of the scenes. I returned here and rang him up. He told me to go to my room and listen. If things got any worse I was to telephone again. Otherwise I was to stay in my room. It is next to hers.”

“And you did this?” He nodded. “Could you hear what Mr. Tonks said to her?”

“A... a good deal of it.”

“What did you hear?”

“He insulted her. Mrs. Tonks was there. I was just thinking of ringing Dr. Meadows up again when she and Mr. Tonks came out and went along the passage. I stayed in my room.”

“You did not try to speak to Miss Phillipa?”

“We spoke through the wall. She asked me not to ring Dr. Meadows, but to stay in my room. In a little while, perhaps it was as much as twenty minutes — I really don’t know — I heard him come back and go downstairs. I again spoke to Phillipa. She implored me not to do anything and said that she herself would speak to Dr. Meadows in the morning. So I waited a little longer and then went to bed.”

“And to sleep?”

“My God, no!”

“Did you hear the wireless again?”

“Yes. At least I heard static.”

“Are you an expert on wireless?”

“No. I know the ordinary things. Nothing much.”

“How did you come to take this job, Mr. Hislop?”

“I answered an advertisement.”

“You are sure you don’t remember any particular mannerism of Mr. Tonks’s in connection with the radio?”

“No.”

“And you can tell me no more about your interview in the study that led to the scene in the hall?”

“No.”

“Will you please ask Mrs. Tonks if she will be kind enough to speak to me for a moment?”

“Certainly,” said Hislop, and went away.

Septimus’s wife came in looking like death.

Alleyn got her to sit down and asked her about her movements on the preceding evening. She said she was feeling unwell and dined in her room. She went to bed immediately afterwards. She heard Septimus yelling at Phillipa and went to Phillipa’s room. Septimus accused Mr. Hislop and her daughter of “terrible things.” She got as far as this and then broke down quietly. Alleyn was very gentle with her. After a little while he learned that Septimus had gone to her room with her and had continued to speak of “terrible things.”

“What sort of things?” asked Alleyn.

“He was not responsible,” said Isabel. “He did not know what he was saying. I think he had been drinking.”

She thought he had remained with her for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Possibly longer. He left her abruptly and she heard him go along the passage, past Phillipa’s door, and presumably downstairs. She had stayed awake for a long time. The wireless could not be heard from her room. Alleyn showed her the curtain knobs, but she seemed quite unable to take in their significance. He let her go, summoned Fox, and went over the whole case.

“What’s your idea on the show?” he asked when he had finished.

“Well, sir,” said Fox, in his stolid way, “on the face of it the young gentlemen have got alibis. We’ll have to check them up, of course, and I don’t see we can go much further until we have done so.”

“For the moment,” said Alleyn, “let us suppose Masters Guy and Arthur to be safely established behind cast-iron alibis. What then?”

“Then we’ve got the young lady, the old lady, the secretary, and the servants.”

“Let us parade them. But first let us go over the wireless game. You’ll have to watch me here. I gather that the only way in which the radio could be fixed to give Mr. Tonks his quietus is like this: Control knobs removed. Holes bored in front panel with fine drill. Metal knobs substituted and packed with blotting-paper to insulate them from metal shafts and make them stay put.

Heavier flex from adapter to radiator cut and the ends of the wires pushed through the drilled holes to make contact with the new knobs. Thus we have a positive and negative pole. Mr. Tonks bridges the gap, gets a mighty wallop as the current passes through him to the earth. The switchboard fuse is blown almost immediately. All this is rigged by murderer while Sep was upstairs bullying wife and daughter. Sep revisited study some time after ten-twenty. Whole thing was made ready between ten, when Arthur went out, and the time Sep returned — say, about ten-forty-five. The murderer reappeared, connected radiator with flex, removed wires, changed back knobs, and left the thing tuned in. Now I take it that the burst of static described by Phillipa and Hislop would be caused by the short-circuit that killed our Septimus?”

“That’s right. It also affected all the heaters in the house. Vide Miss Tonks’s radiator.”

“Yes. He put all that right again. It would be a simple enough matter for anyone who knew how. He’d just have to fix the fuse on the main switchboard. How long do you say it would take to — what’s the horrible word? — to recondition the whole show?”

“M’m,” said Fox deeply. “At a guess, sir, fifteen minutes. He’d have to be nippy.”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn. “He or she.”

“I don’t see a female making a success of it,” grunted Fox. “Look here, Chief, you know what I’m thinking. Why did Mr. Hislop lie about deceased’s habit of licking his thumbs? You say Hislop told you he remembered nothing and Chase says he overheard him saying the trick nearly drove him dippy.”

“Exactly,” said Alleyn. He was silent for so long that Fox felt moved to utter a discreet cough.

“Eh?” said Alleyn. “Yes, Fox, yes. It’ll have to be done.” He consulted the telephone directory and dialled a number.

“May I speak to Dr. Meadows? Oh, it’s you, is it? Do you remember Mr. Hislop telling you that Septimus Tonks’s trick of wetting his fingers nearly drove Hislop demented. Are you there? You don’t? Sure? All right. All right. Hislop rang up at ten-twenty, you said? And you telephoned him? At eleven. Sure of the times? I see. I’d be glad if you’d come round. Can you? Well, do if you can.”

He hung up the receiver.

“Get Chase again, will you, Fox?”

Chase, recalled, was most insistent that Mr. Hislop had spoken about it to Dr. Meadows.

“It was when Mr. Hislop had flu, sir. I went up with the doctor. Mr. Hislop had a high temperature and was talking very excited. He kept on and on, saying the master had guessed his ways had driven him crazy and that the master kept on purposely to aggravate. He said if it went on much longer he’d... he didn’t know what he was talking about, sir, really.”

“What did he say he’d do?”

“Well, sir, he said he’d — he’d do something desperate to the master. But it was only his rambling, sir. I daresay he wouldn’t remember anything about it.”

“No,” said Alleyn, “I daresay he wouldn’t.”

When Chase had gone he said to Fox: “Go and find out about those boys and their alibis. See if they can put you on to a quick means of checking up. Get Master Guy to corroborate Miss Phillipa’s statement that she was locked in her room.”

Fox had been gone for some time and Alleyn was still busy with his notes when the study door burst open and in came Dr. Meadows.

“Look here, my giddy sleuth-hound,” he shouted, “what’s all this about Hislop? Who says he disliked Sep’s abominable habits?”

“Chase does. And don’t bawl at me like that. I’m worried.”

“So am I, blast you. What are you driving at? You can’t imagine that... that poor little broken-down hack is capable of electrocuting anybody, let alone Sep?”

“I have no imagination,” said Alleyn wearily.

“I wish to God I hadn’t called you in. If the wireless killed Sep, it was because he’d monkeyed with it.”

“And put it right after it had killed him?”

Dr. Meadows stared at Alleyn in silence.

“Now,” said Alleyn, “you’ve got to give me a straight answer, Meadows. Did Hislop, while he was semi-delirious, say that this habit of Tonks’s made him feel like murdering him?”

“I’d forgotten Chase was there,” said Dr. Meadows.

“Yes, you’d forgotten that.”

“But even if he did talk wildly, Alleyn, what of it? Damn it, you can’t arrest a man on the strength of a remark made in delirium.”

“I don’t propose to do so. Another motive has come to light.”

“You mean — Phips — last night?”

“Did he tell you about that?”

“She whispered something to me this morning. I’m very fond of Phips. My God, are you sure of your grounds?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I’m sorry. I think you’d better go, Meadows.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“I have to do my job.”

There was a long silence.

“Yes,” said Dr. Meadows at last. “You have to do your job. Goodbye, Alleyn.”

Fox returned to say that Guy and Arthur had never left their parties. He had got hold of two of their friends. Guy and Mrs. Tonks confirmed the story of the locked door.

“It’s a process of elimination,” said Fox. “It must be the secretary. He fixed the radio while deceased was upstairs. He must have dodged back to whisper through the door to Miss Tonks. I suppose he waited somewhere down here until he heard deceased blow himself to blazes and then put everything straight again, leaving the radio turned on.”

Alleyn was silent.

“What do we do now, sir?” asked Fox.

“I want to see the hook inside the front door where they hang their keys.”

Fox, looking dazed, followed his superior to the little entrance hall.

“Yes, there they are,” said Alleyn. He pointed to a hook with two latch-keys hanging from it. “You could scarcely miss them. Come on, Fox.”

Back in the study they found Hislop with Bailey in attendance.

Hislop looked from one Yard man to another.

“I want to know if it’s murder.”

“We think so,” said Alleyn.

“I want you to realise that Phillipa — Miss Tonks — was locked in her room all last night.”

“Until her brother came home and unlocked the door,” said Alleyn.

“That was too late. He was dead by then.”

“How do you know when he died?”

“It must have been when there was that crash of static.”

“Mr. Hislop,” said Alleyn, “why would you not tell me how much that trick of licking his fingers exasperated you?”

“But — how do you know? I never told anyone.”

“You told Dr. Meadows when you were will.”

“I don’t remember.” He stopped short. His lips trembled. Then, suddenly he began to speak.

“Very well. It’s true. For two years he’s tortured me. You see, he knew something about me. Two years ago when my wife was dying, I took money from the cash-box in that desk. I paid it back and thought he hadn’t noticed. He knew all the time. From then on he had me where he wanted me. He used to sit there like a spider. I’d hand him a paper. He’d wet his thumbs with a clicking noise and a sort of complacent grimace. Click, click. Then he’d thumb the papers. He knew it drove me crazy. He’d look at me and then... click, click. And then he’d say something about the cash. He’d never quite accused me, just hinted. And I was impotent. You think I’m insane. I’m not. I could have murdered him. Often and often I’ve thought how I’d do it. Now you think I’ve done it. I haven’t. There’s the joke of it. I hadn’t the pluck. And last night when Phillipa showed me she cared, it was like Heaven — unbelievable. For the first time since I’ve been here I didn’t feel like killing him. And last night someone else did!”

He stood there trembling and vehement. Fox and Bailey, who had watched him with bewildered concern, turned to Alleyn. He was about to speak when Chase came in. “A note for you, sir,” he said to Alleyn. “It came by hand.”

Alleyn opened it and glanced at the first few words. He looked up.

“You may go, Mr. Hislop. Now I’ve got what I expected — what I fished for.”

When Hislop had gone they read the letter.

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov’s business card gave his name and the designation “Natural Resource,” which may have been an understatement. Of his more than three hundred books, those for which he was most famous were his novels and stories of science fiction, notably I, Robot (1950) and the Foundation trilogy, but he also wrote factual books that made it possible for ordinary readers to learn about and better understand such diverse subjects as black holes, the Bible, John Milton, the French Revolution, and the limerick form, at which he was a master. He loved the short story form for mystery fiction and wrote scores of puzzles for the Black Widowers to solve. “The Thirteenth Day of Christmas” was first published in the July 1977 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and first collected in The Twelve Crimes of Christmas, edited by Carol-Lynn Rossell Waugh, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Isaac Asimov (New York, Avon, 1981).

This was one year when we were glad Christmas Day was over.

It had been a grim Christmas Eve, and I was just as glad I don’t stay awake listening for sleigh bells any more. After all, I’m about ready to get out of junior high. — But then, I kind of stayed awake listening for bombs.

We stayed up till midnight of Christmas Day, though, up till the last minute of it, Mom and I. Then Dad called and said, “Okay, it’s over. Nothing’s happened. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Mom and I danced around for a while as though Santa Claus had just come, and then, after about an hour, Dad came home and I went to bed and slept fine.

You see, it’s special in our house. Dad’s a detective on the force, and these days, with terrorists and bombings, it can get pretty hairy. So when, on December twentieth, warnings reached headquarters that there would be a Christmas Day bombing at the Soviet offices in the United Nations, it had to be taken seriously.

The entire force was put on the alert and the F.B.I. came in too. The Soviets had their own security, I guess, but none of it satisfied Dad.

The day before Christmas he said, “If someone is crazy enough to want to plant a bomb and if he’s not too worried about getting caught afterwards, he’s likely to be able to do it no matter what precautions we take.”

Mom said, “I suppose there’s no way of knowing who it is.”

Dad shook his head. “Letters from newspapers pasted on paper. No fingerprints; only smudges. Common stuff we can’t trace, and he said it would be the only warning, so we won’t get anything else to work on. What can we do?”

Mom said, “Well, it must be someone who doesn’t like the Russians, I guess.”

Dad said, “That doesn’t narrow it much. Of course, the Soviets say it’s a Zionist threat, and we’ve got to keep an eye on the Jewish Defense League.”

I said, “Gee, Dad, that doesn’t make much sense. The Jewish people wouldn’t pick Christmas Day to do it, would they? It doesn’t mean anything to them, and it doesn’t mean anything to the Soviet Union, either. They’re officially atheist.”

Dad said, “You can’t reason that out to the Russians. Now, why don’t you turn in, because tomorrow may be a bad day all round, Christmas or not.”

Then he left, and he was out all Christmas Day, and it was pretty rotten. We didn’t even open any presents, just sat listening to the radio, which was tuned to an all-day news station.

Then at midnight, when Dad called and said nothing had happened, we breathed again, but I still forgot to open my presents.

That didn’t come till the morning of the twenty-sixth. We made that day Christmas. Dad had a day off, and Mom baked the turkey a day late. It wasn’t till after dinner that we talked about it again.

Mom said, “I suppose the person, whoever it was, couldn’t find any way of planting the bomb once the Department drew the security strings tight.”

Dad smiled, as though he appreciated Mom’s loyalty. He said, “I don’t think you can make security that tight, but what’s the difference? There was no bomb. Maybe it was a bluff. After all, it did disrupt the city a bit and it gave the Soviet people at the United Nations some sleepless nights, I bet. That might have been almost as good for the bomber as letting the bomb go off.”

I said, “If he couldn’t do it on Christmas Day, maybe he’ll do it another time. Maybe he just said Christmas to get everyone keyed up, and then, after they relax, he’ll—”

Dad gave me one of his little pushes on the side of my head. “You’re a cheerful one, Larry. No, I don’t think so. Real bombers value the sense of power. When they say something is going to happen at a certain time, it’s got to be that time or it’s no fun for them.”

I was still suspicious, but the days passed and there was no bombing, and the Department gradually got back to normal. The F.B.I. left, and even the Soviet people seemed to forget about it, according to Dad.

On January second the Christmas — New Year’s vacation was over and I went back to school, and we started rehearsing our Christmas pageant. We didn’t call it that, of course, because we’re not supposed to have religious celebrations at school, what with the separation of church and state. We just made an elaborate show out of the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which doesn’t have any religion to it — just presents.

There were twelve of us kids, each one singing a particular line every time it came up and then coming in all together on the “partridge in a pear tree.” I was number five, singing “Five gold rings” because I was still a boy soprano and I could hit that high note pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.

Some kids didn’t know why Christmas had twelve days, but I explained that on the twelfth day after Christmas, which was January sixth, the Three Wise Men arrived with gifts for the Christ child. Naturally, it was on January sixth that we put on the show in the auditorium, with as many parents there as wanted to come.

Dad got a few hours off and was sitting in the audience with Mom. I could see him getting set to hear his son’s clear high note for the last time because next year my voice changes or I know the reason why.

Did you ever get an idea in the middle of a stage show and have to continue, no matter what?

We were only on the second day, with its “two turtledoves,” when I thought, “Oh, my, it’s the thirteenth day of Christmas.” The whole world was shaking around me and I couldn’t do a thing but stay on the stage and sing about five gold rings.

I didn’t think they’d ever get to those “twelve drummers drumming.” It was like having itching powder on instead of underwear — I couldn’t stand still. Then, when the last note was out, while they were still applauding, I broke away, went jumping down the steps from the platform and up the aisle, calling, “Dad!”

He looked startled, but I grabbed him, and I think I was babbling so fast that he could hardly understand.

I said, “Dad, Christmas isn’t the same day everywhere. It could be one of the Soviet’s own people. They’re officially atheist, but maybe one of them is religious and he wants to place the bomb for that reason. Only he would be a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. They don’t go by our calendar.”

“What?” said Dad, looking as though he didn’t understand a word I was saying.

“It’s so, Dad. I read about it. The Russian Orthodox Church is still on the Julian Calendar, which the West gave up for the Gregorian Calendar centuries ago. The Julian Calendar is thirteen days behind ours. The Russian Orthodox Christmas is on their December twenty-fifth, which is our January seventh. It’s tomorrow.”

He didn’t believe me, just like that. He looked it up in the almanac, then he called up someone in the Department who was Russian Orthodox.

He was able to get the Department moving again. They talked to the Soviets, and once the Soviets stopped talking about Zionists and looked at themselves, they got the man. I don’t know what they did with him, but there was no bombing on the thirteenth day of Christmas, either.

The Department wanted to give me a new bicycle for Christmas, but I turned it down. I told them I was just doing my duty.

The Christmas Kitten Ed Gorman

The Santa Claus Club Julian Symons

Much like his close friend H. R. F. Keating, Julian Symons was an outstanding scholar of mystery fiction as well as one of its foremost practitioners. In addition to biographies of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and a critical study of Dashiell Hammett, he wrote an excellent history of the genre, Bloody Murder (1972, titled Mortal Consequences in the United States), in which he also defined the genre as he thought it ought to be, insisting that it move away from pure puzzle-solving to a greater reliance on psychological elements of crime. He has been honored with lifetime achievement awards from the Mystery Writers of America, the (British) Crime Writers’ Association, and the Swedish Academy of Detection. “The Santa Claus Club” was first published in the December 1960 issue of Suspense; it was first collected in Francis Quarles Investigates (London, Panther, 1965).

It is not often, in real life, that letters are written recording implacable hatred nursed over the years, or that private detectives are invited by peers to select dining clubs, or that murders occur at such dining clubs, or that they are solved on the spot by a process of deduction. The case of the Santa Claus Club provided an example of all these rarities.

The case began one day, a week before Christmas, when Francis Ouarles went to see Lord Acrise. He was a rich man, Lord Acrise, and an important one, the chairman of this big building concern and director of that and the other insurance company, and consultant to the Government on half a dozen matters. He had been a harsh, intolerant man in his prime, and was still hard enough in his early seventies, Quarles guessed, as he looked at the beaky nose, jutting chin, and stony blue eyes.

They sat in the study of Acrise’s house just off the Brompton Road.

“Just tell me what you think of these,” Lord Acrise said.

These were three letters, badly typed on a machine with a worn ribbon. They were all signed with the name James Gliddon. The first two contained vague references to some wrong done to Gliddon by Acrise in the past. They were written in language that was wild but unmistakably threatening. You have been a whited sepulchre for too long, but now your time has come... You don’t know what I’m going to do, now I’ve come back, but you won’t be able to help wondering and worrying... The mills of God grind slowly, but they’re going to grind you into little bits for what you’ve done to me.

The third letter was more specific. So the thief is going to play Santa Claus. That will be your last evening alive. I shall be there, Joe Acrise, and I shall watch with pleasure as you squirm in agony.

Ouarles looked at the envelopes. They were plain and cheap. The address was typed, and the word Personal was on top of each envelope.

“Who is James Gliddon?” he asked.

The stony eyes glared at him. “I’m told you’re to be trusted. Gliddon was a school friend of mine. We grew up together in the slums of Nottingham. We started a building company together. It did well for a time, then went bust. There was a lot of money missing. Gliddon kept the books. He got five years for fraud.”

“Have you heard from him since then? I see all these letters are recent.”

“He’s written half a dozen letters, I suppose, over the years. The last one came — oh, seven years ago, I should think. From the Argentine.” Acrise stopped, then added abruptly, “Snewin tried to find him for me, but he’d disappeared.”

“Snewin?”

“My secretary. Been with me twelve years.”

He pressed a bell. An obsequious, fattish man, whose appearance somehow put Quarles in mind of an enormous mouse, scurried in.

“Snewin — did we keep any of those old letters from Gliddon?”

“No sir. You told me to destroy them.”

“The last ones came from the Argentine, right?”

“From Buenos Aires, to be exact, sir.”

Acrise nodded, and Snewin scurried out.

Quarles said, “Who else knows this story about Gliddon?”

“Just my wife.”

“And what does this mean about you playing Santa Claus?”

“I’m this year’s chairman of the Santa Claus Club. We hold our raffle and dinner next Monday.”

Then Quarles remembered. The Santa Claus Club had been formed by ten rich men. Each year they met, every one of them dressed up as Santa Claus, and held a raffle. The members took it in turn to provide the prize that was raffled — it might be a case of Napoleon brandy, a modest cottage with some exclusive salmon fishing rights attached to it, or a Constable painting. Each Santa Claus bought one ticket for the raffle, at a cost of one thousand guineas. The total of ten thousand guineas was given to a Christmas charity. After the raffle the assembled Santa Clauses, each accompanied by one guest, ate a traditional English Christmas dinner.

The whole thing was a combination of various English characteristics: enjoyment of dressing up, a wish to help charities, and the desire also that the help given should not go unrecorded.

“I want you to find Gliddon,” Lord Acrise said. “Don’t mistake me, Mr. Quarles. I don’t want to take action against him, I want to help him. I wasn’t to blame, don’t think I admit that, but it was hard that Jimmy Gliddon should go to jail. I’m a hard man, have been all my life, but I don’t think my worst enemies would call me mean. Those who’ve helped me know that when I die they’ll find they’re not forgotten. Jimmy Gliddon must be an old man now. I’d like to set him up for the rest of his life.”

“To find him by next Monday is a tall order,”

Quarles said. “But I’ll try.”

He was at the door when Acrise said, “By the way, I’d like you to be my guest at the Club dinner on Monday night...”

There were two ways of trying to find Gliddon: by investigation of his career after leaving prison, and through the typewritten letters. Quarles took the job of tracing the past, leaving the letters to his secretary, Molly Player.

From Scotland Yard he found out that Gliddon had spent nearly four years in prison, from 1913 to late 1916. He had joined a Nottinghamshire regiment when he came out, and the records of this regiment showed that he had been demobilised in August, 1919, with the rank of Sergeant. In 1923 he had been given a sentence of three years for an attempt to smuggle diamonds. Thereafter all trace of him in Britain vanished.

Quarles made some expensive telephone calls to Buenos Aires, where the letters had come from seven years earlier. He learned that Gliddon had lived in that city from a time just after the Second World War until 1955. He ran an import-export business, and was thought to have been living in other South American Republics during the war. His business was said to have been a cloak for smuggling, both of drugs and of suspected Nazis, whom he got out of Europe into the Argentine. In 1955 a newspaper had accused Gliddon of arranging the entry into the Argentine of a Nazi war criminal named Hermann Breit. Gliddon disappeared. A couple of weeks later a battered body was washed up just outside the city.

“It was identified as Señor Gliddon,” the liquid voice said over the telephone. “But you know, Señor Quarles, in such matters the police are sometimes unhappy to close their files.”

“There was still some doubt?”

“Yes. Not very much, perhaps. But in these cases there is often a measure of doubt.”

Molly Player found out nothing useful about the paper and envelopes. They were of the sort that could be bought in a thousand stores and shops in London and elsewhere. She had no more luck with the typewriter.

Lord Acrise made no comment on Quarles’s recital of failure. “See you on Monday evening, seven-thirty, black tie,” he said, and barked with laughter. “Your host will be Santa Claus.”

“I’d like to be there earlier.”

“Good idea. Any time you like. You know where it is? Robert the Devil Restaurant...”

The Robert the Devil Restaurant is situated inconspicuously in Mayfair. It is not a restaurant in the ordinary sense of the word, for there is no public dining-room, but simply several private rooms accommodating any number of guests from two to thirty. Perhaps the food is not quite the best in London, but it is certainly the most expensive.

It was here that Quarles arrived at half-past six, a big, suave man, rather too conspicuously elegant perhaps in a midnight-blue dinner jacket. He talked to Albert, the maître d’hotel, whom he had known for some years, took an unobtrusive look at the waiters, went into and admired the sparkling kitchens.

Albert observed his activities with tolerant amusement.

“You are here on some sort of business, Mr. Quarles?”

“I am a guest, Albert. I am also a kind of bodyguard. Tell me, how many of your waiters have joined you in the past twelve months?”

“Perhaps half a dozen. They come, they go.”

“Is there anybody at all on your staff — waiters, kitchen staff, anybody — who has joined you in the past year, and who is over sixty years old?”

“No. There is not such a one.”

The first of the guests came just after a quarter-past seven. This was the brain surgeon Sir James Erdington, with a guest whom Quarles recognized as the Arctic explorer, Norman Endell. After that they came at intervals of a minute or two: a junior minister in the Government; one of the three most important men in the motor industry; a general elevated to the peerage to celebrate his retirement; a theatrical producer named Roddy Davis, who had successfully combined commerce and culture.

As they arrived, the hosts went into a special robing room to put on their Santa Claus clothes, while the guests drank sherry.

At seven-twenty-five Snewin scurried in, gasped, “Excuse me, place names, got to put them out,” and went into the dining-room. Through the open door Quarles glimpsed a large oval table, gleaming with silver, bright with roses.

After Snewin came Lord Acrise, jutting-nosed and fearsome-eyed. “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” he barked, and asked conspiratorially, “Well?”

“No sign.”

“False alarm. Lot of nonsense. Got to dress up now.”

He went into the robing room with his box — each of the hosts had a similar box, labelled “Santa Claus” — and came out again bewigged, bearded, and robed. “Better get the business over, and then we can enjoy ourselves. You can tell ’em to come in,” he said to Albert.

This referred to the photographers, who had been clustered outside, and now came into the room specially provided for holding the raffle. In the centre of the room was a table, and on the table stood this year’s prize, two exquisite T’ang horses. On the other side of the table were ten chairs arranged in a semi-circle, and on these sat the Santa Clauses. Their guests stood inconspicuously at the side.

The raffle was conducted with the utmost seriousness. Each Santa Claus had a numbered slip. These slips were put into a tombola, and Acrise put in his hand and drew out one of them. Flash bulbs exploded.

“The number drawn is eight,” Acrise announced, and Roddy Davis waved the counterfoil in his hand.

“Isn’t that wonderful? It’s my ticket.” He went over to the horses, picked up one. “I’m bound to say that they couldn’t have gone to anybody who’d have appreciated them more.”

Quarles, standing near the general, whose face was as red as his robe, heard him mutter something uncomplimentary. Charity, he reflected, was not universal, even in a gathering of Santa Clauses. Then there were more flashes, the photographers disappeared, and Quarles’s views about the nature of charity were reinforced when, as they were about to go into the dining-room, Sir James Erdington said, “Forgotten something, haven’t you, Acrise?”

With what seemed dangerous quietness Acrise answered, “Have I? I don’t think so.”

“It’s customary for the Club and guests to sing ‘Noel’ before we go in to dinner.”

“You didn’t come to last year’s dinner. It was agreed then that we should give it up. Carols after dinner, much better.”

“I must say I thought that was just for last year, because we were late,” Roddy Davis fluted.

“Suggest we put it to the vote,” Erdington said sharply.

Half a dozen of the Santas now stood looking at each other with subdued hostility. Then suddenly the Arctic explorer, Endell, began to sing “Noel, Noel” in a rich bass. There was the faintest flicker of hesitation, and then the guests and their hosts joined in. The situation was saved.

At dinner Quarles found himself with Acrise on one side of him and Roddy Davis on the other. Endell sat at Acrise’s other side, and beyond him was Erdington. Turtle soup was followed by grilled sole, and then three great turkeys were brought in. The helpings of turkey were enormous. With the soup they drank a light, dry sherry, with the sole Chassagne Montrachet, with the turkey an Aloxe Corton.

“And who are you?” Roddy Davis peered at Quarles’s card and said, “Of course, I know your name.”

“I am a criminologist.” This sounded better, Quarles thought, than “private detective.”

“I remember your monograph on criminal calligraphy. Quite fascinating.”

So Davis did know who he was. It would be easy, Quarles thought, to underrate the intelligence of this man.

“These beards really do get in the way rather,” Davis said. “But there, one must suffer for tradition. Have you known Acrise long?”

“Not very. I’m greatly privileged to be here.”

Quarles had been watching, as closely as he could, the pouring of the wine, the serving of the food. He had seen nothing suspicious. Now, to get away from Davis’s questions, he turned to his host.

“Damned awkward business before dinner,” Acrise said. “Might have been, at least. Can’t let well alone, Erdington.”

He picked up his turkey leg, attacked it with Elizabethan gusto, wiped his mouth and fingers with his napkin. “Like this wine?”

“It’s excellent.”

“Chose it myself. They’ve got some good Burgundies here.” Acrise’s speech was slightly slurred, and it seemed to Quarles that he was rapidly getting drunk.

“Do you have any speeches?”

“No speeches. Just sing carols. But I’ve got a little surprise for ’em.”

“What sort of surprise?”

“Very much in the spirit of Christmas, and a good joke too. But if I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”

There was a general cry of pleasure as Albert himself brought in the great plum pudding, topped with holly and blazing with brandy.

“That’s the most wonderful pudding I’ve ever seen in my life,” Endell said. “Are we really going to eat it?”

“Of course,” Acrise said irritably. He stood up, swaying a little, and picked up the knife beside the pudding.

“I don’t like to be critical, but our Chairman is really not cutting the pudding very well,” Roddy Davis whispered to Quarles. And indeed, it was more of a stab than a cut that Acrise made at the pudding. Albert took over, and cut it quickly and efficiently. Bowls of brandy butter were circulated.

Quarles leaned towards Acrise. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

The slurring was very noticeable now. Acrise ate no pudding, but he drank some more wine, and dabbed at his lips. When the pudding was finished, he got slowly to his feet again and toasted the Queen. Cigars were lighted. Acrise was not smoking. He whispered something to the waiter, who nodded and left the room. Acrise got up again, leaning heavily on the table.

“A little surprise,” he said. “In the spirit of Christmas.”

Quarles had thought that he was beyond being surprised by the activities of the Santa Claus Club, but he was astonished at the sight of the three figures who entered the room.

They were led by Snewin, somehow more mouselike than ever, wearing a long, white smock and a red nightcap with a tassel. He was followed by an older man dressed in a kind of grey sackcloth, with a face so white that it might have been covered in plaster of Paris. This man carried chains, which he shook. At the rear came a young-middle-aged lady who seemed to be completely hung with tinsel.

“I am Scrooge,” said Snewin.

“I am Marley,” wailed grey sackcloth, clanking his chains vigorously.

“And I,” said the young-middle-aged lady, with abominable sprightliness, “am the ghost of Christmas past.”

There was a ripple of laughter.

“We have come,” said Snewin in a thin, mouse voice, “to perform for you our own interpretation of A Christmas Carol... Oh, sir, what’s the matter?”

Lord Acrise stood up in his robes, tore off his wig, pulled at his beard, tried to say something. Then he clutched at the side of his chair and fell sideways, so that he leaned heavily against Endell and slipped slowly to the floor.

There ensued a minute of confused, important activity. Endell made some sort of exclamation and rose from his chair, slightly obstructing Quarles. Erdington was first beside the body, holding the wrist in his hand, listening for the heart. Then they were all crowding round. Snewin, at Quarles’s left shoulder, was babbling something, and at his right were Roddy Davis and Endell.

“Stand back,” Erdington snapped. He stayed on his knees for another few moments, looking curiously at Acrise’s puffed, distorted face, bluish around the mouth. Then he stood up.

“He’s dead.”

There was a murmur of surprise and horror, and now they all drew back, as men do instinctively from the presence of death.

“Heart attack?” somebody said.

Quarles moved to his side. “I’m a private detective, Sir James. Lord Acrise feared an attempt on his life, and asked me to come along here.”

“You seem to have done well so far,” Erdington said drily.

“May I look at the body?”

“If you wish.”

As Quarles bent down, he caught the smell of bitter almonds. “There’s a smell like prussic acid, but the way he died precludes cyanide, I think. He seemed to become very drunk during dinner, and his speech was slurred. Does that suggest anything to you?”

“I’m a brain surgeon, not a physician.” Erdington stared at the floor. “Nitro benzene?”

“That’s what I thought. We shall have to notify the police.”

Quarles went to the door and spoke to a disturbed Albert. Then he returned to the room and clapped his hands.

“Gentlemen. My name is Francis Quarles, and I am a private detective. Lord Acrise asked me to come here tonight because he had received a threat that this would be his last evening alive. The threat said, ‘I shall be there, and I shall watch with pleasure as you squirm in agony.’ Lord Acrise has been poisoned. It seems certain that the man who made the threat is in this room.”

“Gliddon,” a voice said. Snewin had divested himself of the white smock and red nightcap, and now appeared as his customary respectable self.

“Yes. This letter, and others he had received, were signed with the name of James Gliddon, a man who bore a grudge against Lord Acrise which went back nearly half a century. Gliddon became a professional smuggler and crook. He would now be in his late sixties.”

“But dammit, man, this Gliddon’s not here.” That was the General, who took off his wig and beard. “Lot of tomfoolery.”

In a shamefaced way the other members of the Santa Claus Club removed their facial trappings. Marley took off his chains and the lady discarded her cloak of tinsel.

Quarles said, “Isn’t he here? But Lord Acrise is dead.”

Snewin coughed. “Excuse me, sir, but would it be possible for my colleagues from our local dramatic society to retire?”

“Everybody must stay in this room until the police arrive,” Quarles said grimly. “The problem, as you will all realize, is how the poison was administered. All of us ate the same food, drank the same wine. I sat next to Lord Acrise, and I watched as closely as possible to make sure of this. After dinner some of you smoked cigars or cigarettes, but not Lord Acrise.”

“Just a moment.” It was Roddy Davis who spoke. “This sounds fantastic, but wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said that when you’d eliminated all other possibilities, even a fantastic one must be right? Supposing poison in powder form was put on to Acrise’s food? Through the pepper pots, say...”

Erdington was shaking his head, but Quarles unscrewed both salt and pepper pots and tasted their contents. “Salt and pepper,” he said briefly. “Hello, what’s this.”

“It’s Acrise’s napkin,” Endell said. “What’s remarkable about that?”

“It’s a napkin, but not the one Acrise used. He wiped his mouth half a dozen times on his napkin, and wiped his greasy fingers on it too, when he’d gnawed a turkey bone. He must certainly have left grease marks on it. But look at this napkin.”

He held it up, and they saw that it was spotless. Quarles said softly, “The murderer’s mistake.”

Quarles turned to Erdington. “Sir James and I agree that the poison used was probably nitro benzene. This is deadly as a liquid, but it is also poisonous as a vapour — isn’t that so?”

Erdington nodded. “You’ll remember the case of the unfortunate young man who used shoe polish containing nitro benzene on damp shoes, put them on and wore them, and was killed by the fumes.”

“Yes. Somebody made sure that Lord Acrise had a napkin that had been soaked in nitro benzene but was dry enough to use. The same person substituted the proper napkin, the one belonging to the restaurant, after Acrise was dead.”

“That means the napkin must still be here,” Davis said.

“It does.”

“Then I vote that we submit to a search!”

“That won’t be necessary,” Quarles said. “Only one person here fulfils all the qualifications of the murderer.”

“James Gliddon?”

“No. Gliddon is almost certainly dead, as I found out when I made enquiries about him. But the murderer is somebody who knew about Acrise’s relationship with Gliddon, and tried to be clever by writing those letters to lead us along a wrong track.” He paused. “Then the murderer is somebody who had the opportunity of coming in here before dinner, and who knew exactly where Acrise would be sitting.”

There was a dead silence in the room.

Quarles said, “He removed any possible suspicion from himself, as he thought, by being absent from the dinner table, but he arranged to come in afterwards to exchange the napkins. He probably put the poisoned napkin into the clothes he discarded. As for motive, longstanding hatred might be enough, but he is also somebody who knew that he would benefit handsomely when Acrise died... stop him, will you?”

But the General, with a tackle reminiscent of the days when he had been the best wing three-quarter in the country, had already brought to the floor Lord Acrise’s secretary, Snewin.