The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

Dead on Christmas Street John D. MacDonald

John D. Macdonald’s most famous character, Travis McGee, lived on a houseboat named “The Busted Flush,” which he won in a poker game. One of the great characters of mystery fiction, McGee is a combined private detective and thief who makes his living by recovering stolen property and, while operating outside the law, victimizes only criminals. Mac-Donald’s outstanding suspense novel, The Executioners, was filmed twice as Cape Fear (in 1962, with Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, and Polly Bergen, and in 1991, with Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, and Juliette Lewis). “Dead on Christmas Street” was first published in the December 20, 1952, issue of Collier’s.

The police in the first prowl car on the scene got out a tarpaulin. A traffic policeman threw it over the body and herded the crowd back. They moved uneasily in the gray slush. Some of them looked up from time to time.

In the newspaper picture the window would be marked with a bold X. A dotted line would descend from the X to the spot where the covered body now lay. Some of the spectators, laden with tinsel- and evergreen-decorated packages, turned away, suppressing a nameless guilt.

But the curious stayed on. Across the street, in the window of a department store, a vast mechanical Santa rocked back and forth, slapping a mechanical hand against a padded thigh, roaring forever, “Whaw haw ho ho ho. Whaw haw ho ho ho.” The slapping hand had worn the red plush from the padded thigh.

The ambulance arrived, with a brisk intern to make out the DOA. Sawdust was shoveled onto the sidewalk, then pushed off into the sewer drain. Wet snow fell into the city. And there was nothing else to see. The corner Santa, a leathery man with a pinched, blue nose, began to ring his hand bell again.

Daniel Fowler, one of the young Assistant District Attorneys, was at his desk when the call came through from Lieutenant Shinn of the Detective Squad. “Dan? This is Gil. You heard about the Garrity girl yet?”

For a moment the name meant nothing, and then suddenly he remembered: Loreen Garrity was the witness in the Sheridan City Loan Company case. She had made positive identification of two of the three kids who had tried to pull that holdup, and the case was on the calendar for February. Provided the kids didn’t confess before it came up, Dan was going to prosecute. He had the Garrity girl’s statement, and her promise to appear.

“What about her, Gil?” he asked.

“She took a high dive out of her office window — about an hour ago. Seventeen stories, and right into the Christmas rush. How come she didn’t land on somebody, we’ll never know. Connie Wyant is handling it. He remembered she figured in the loan-company deal, and he told me. Look, Dan. She was a big girl, and she tried hard not to go out that window. She was shoved. That’s how come Connie has it. Nice Christmas present for him.”

“Nice Christmas present for the lads who pushed over the loan company, too,” Dan said grimly. “Without her, there’s no case. Tell Connie that. It ought to give him the right line.”

Dan Fowler set aside the brief he was working on and walked down the hall. The District Attorney’s secretary was at her desk. “Boss busy, Jane?”

She was a small girl with wide, gray eyes, a mass of dark hair, a soft mouth. She raised one eyebrow and looked at him speculatively. “I could be bribed, you know.”

He looked around with exaggerated caution, went around her desk on tiptoe, bent and kissed her upraised lips. He smiled down at her. “People are beginning to talk,” he whispered, not getting it as light as he meant it to be.

She tilted her head to one side, frowned, and said, “What is it, Dan?”

He sat on the corner of her desk and took her hands in his, and he told her about the big, dark-haired, swaggering woman who had gone out the window. He knew Jane would want to know. He had regretted bringing Jane in on the case, but he had had the unhappy hunch that Garrity might sell out, if the offer was high enough. And so he had enlisted Jane, depending on her intuition. He had taken the two of them to lunch, and had invented an excuse to duck out and leave them alone.

Afterward, Jane had said, “I guess I don’t really like her, Dan. She was suspicious of me, of course, and she’s a terribly vital sort of person. But I would say that she’ll be willing to testify. And I don’t think she’ll sell out.”

Now as he told her about the girl, he saw the sudden tears of sympathy in her gray eyes. “Oh, Dan! How dreadful! You’d better tell the boss right away. That Vince Servius must have hired somebody to do it.”

“Easy, lady,” he said softly.

He touched her dark hair with his fingertips, smiled at her, and crossed to the door of the inner office, opened it, and went in.

Jim Heglon, the District Attorney, was a narrow-faced man with glasses that had heavy frames. He had a professional look, a dry wit, and a driving energy.

“Every time I see you, Dan, I have to conceal my annoyance,” Heglon said. “You’re going to cart away the best secretary I ever had.”

“Maybe I’ll keep her working for awhile. Keep her out of trouble.”

“Excellent! And speaking of trouble—”

“Does it show, Jim?” Dan sat on the arm of a heavy leather chair which faced Heglon’s desk. “I do have some. Remember the Sheridan City Loan case?”

“Vaguely. Give me an outline.”

“October. Five o’clock one afternoon, just as the loan office was closing. Three punks tried to knock it over. Two of them, Castrella and Kelly, are eighteen. The leader, Johnny Servius, is nineteen. Johnny is Vince Servius’s kid brother.

“They went into the loan company wearing masks and waving guns. The manager had more guts than sense. He was loading the safe. He saw them and slammed the door and spun the knob. They beat on him, but he convinced them it was a time lock, which it wasn’t. They took fifteen dollars out of his pants, and four dollars off the girl behind the counter and took off.

“Right across the hall is the office of an accountant named Thomas Kistner. He’d already left. His secretary, Loreen Garrity, was closing up the office. She had the door open a crack. She saw the three kids come out of the loan company, taking their masks off. Fortunately, they didn’t see her.

“She went into headquarters and looked at the gallery, and picked out Servius and Castrella. They were picked up. Kelly was with them, so they took him in, too. In the lineup, the Garrity girl made a positive identification of Servius and Castrella again. The manager thought he could recognize Kelly’s voice.

“Bail was set high, because we expected Vince Servius would get them out. Much to everybody’s surprise, he’s left them in there. The only thing he did was line up George Terrafierro to defend them, which makes it tough from our point of view, but not too tough — if we could put the Garrity girl on the stand. She was the type to make a good witness. Very positive sort of girl.”

“Was? Past tense?”

“This afternoon she was pushed out the window of the office where she works. Seventeen stories above the sidewalk. Gil Shinn tells me that Connie Wyant has it definitely tagged as homicide.”

“If Connie says it is, then it is. What would conviction have meant to the three lads?”

“Servius had one previous conviction — car theft; Castrella had one conviction for assault with a deadly weapon. Kelly is clean, Jim.”

Heglon frowned. “Odd, isn’t it? In this state, armed robbery has a mandatory sentence of seven to fifteen years for a first offense in that category. With the weight Vince can swing, his kid brother would do about five years. Murder seems a little extreme as a way of avoiding a five-year sentence.”

“Perhaps, Jim, the answer is in the relationship between Vince and the kid. There’s quite a difference in ages. Vince must be nearly forty. He was in the big time early enough to give Johnny all the breaks. The kid has been thrown out of three good schools I know of. According to Vince, Johnny can do no wrong. Maybe that’s why he left those three in jail awaiting trial — to keep them in the clear on this killing.”

“It could be, Dan,” Heglon said. “Go ahead with your investigation. And let me know.”

Dan Fowler found out at the desk that Lieutenant Connie Wyant and Sergeant Levandowski were in the Interrogation Room. Dan sat down and waited.

After a few moments Connie waddled through the doorway and came over to him. He had bulging blue eyes and a dull expression.

Dan stood up, towering over the squat lieutenant. “Well, what’s the picture, Connie?”

“No case against the kids, Gil says. Me, I wish it was just somebody thought it would be nice to jump out a window. But she grabbed the casing so hard, she broke her fingernails down to the quick.

“Marks you can see, in oak as hard as iron. Banged her head on the sill and left black hair on the rough edge of the casing. Lab matched it up. And one shoe up there, under the radiator. The radiator sits right in front of the window. Come listen to Kistner.”

Dan followed him back to the Interrogation Room. Thomas Kistner sat at one side of the long table. A cigar lay dead on the glass ashtray near his elbow. As they opened the door, he glanced up quickly. He was a big, bloated man with an unhealthy grayish complexion and an important manner.

He said, “I was just telling the sergeant the tribulations of an accountant.”

“We all got troubles,” Connie said. “This is Mr. Fowler from the D. A.’s office, Kistner.”

Mr. Kistner got up laboriously. “Happy to meet you, sir,” he said. “Sorry that it has to be such an unpleasant occasion, however.”

Connie sat down heavily. “Kistner, I want you to go through your story again. If it makes it easier, tell it to Mr. Fowler instead of me. He hasn’t heard it before.”

“I’ll do anything in my power to help, Lieutenant,” Kistner said firmly. He turned toward Dan. “I am out of my office a great deal. I do accounting on a contract basis for thirty-three small retail establishments. I visit them frequently.

“When Loreen came in this morning, she seemed nervous. I asked her what the trouble was, and she said that she felt quite sure somebody had been following her for the past week.

“She described him to me. Slim, middle height, pearl-gray felt hat, tan raglan topcoat, swarthy complexion. I told her that because she was the witness in a trial coming up, she should maybe report it to the police and ask for protection. She said she didn’t like the idea of yelling for help. She was a very — ah — independent sort of girl.”

“I got that impression,” Dan said.

“I went out then and didn’t think anything more about what she’d said. I spent most of the morning at Finch Pharmacy, on the north side. I had a sandwich there and then drove back to the office, later than usual. Nearly two.

“I came up to the seventeenth floor. Going down the corridor, I pass the Men’s Room before I get to my office. I unlocked the door with my key and went in. I was in there maybe three minutes. I came out and a man brushed by me in the corridor. He had his collar up, and was pulling down on his hatbrim and walking fast. At the moment, you understand, it meant nothing to me.

“I went into the office. The window was wide open, and the snow was blowing in. No Loreen. I couldn’t figure it. I thought she’d gone to the Ladies’ Room and had left the window open for some crazy reason. I started to shut it, and then I heard all the screaming down in the street.

“I leaned out. I saw her, right under me, sprawled on the sidewalk. I recognized the cocoa-colored suit. A new suit, I think. I stood in a state of shock, I guess, and then suddenly I remembered about the man following her, and I remembered the man in the hall — he had a gray hat and a tan topcoat, and I had the impression he was swarthy-faced.

“The first thing I did was call the police, naturally. While they were on the way, I called my wife. It just about broke her up. We were both fond of Loreen.”

The big man smiled sadly. “And it seems to me I’ve been telling the story over and over again ever since. Oh, I don’t mind, you understand. But it’s a dreadful thing. The way I see it, when a person witnesses a crime, they ought to be given police protection until the trial is all over.”

“We don’t have that many cops,” Connie said glumly. “How big was the man you saw in the corridor?”

“Medium size. A little on the thin side.”

“How old?”

“I don’t know. Twenty-five, forty-five. I couldn’t see his face, and you understand I wasn’t looking closely.”

Connie turned toward Dan. “Nothing from the elevator boys about this guy. He probably took the stairs. The lobby is too busy for anybody to notice him coming through by way of the fire door. Did the Garrity girl ever lock herself in the office, Kistner?”

“I never knew of her doing that, Lieutenant.”

Connie said, “Okay, so the guy could breeze in and clip her one. Then, from the way the rug was pulled up, he lugged her across to the window. She came to as he was trying to work her out the window, and she put up a battle. People in the office three stories underneath say she was screaming as she went by.”

“How about the offices across the way?” Dan asked.

“It’s a wide street, Dan, and they couldn’t see through the snow. It started snowing hard about fifteen minutes before she was pushed out the window. I think the killer waited for that snow. It gave him a curtain to hide behind.”

“Any chance that she marked the killer, Connie?” Dan asked.

“Doubt it. From the marks of her fingernails, he lifted her up and slid her feet out first, so her back was to him. She grabbed the sill on each side. Her head hit the window sash. All he had to do was hold her shoulders, and bang her in the small of the back with his knee. Once her fanny slid off the sill, she couldn’t hold on with her hands any longer. And from the looks of the doorknobs, he wore gloves.”

Dan turned to Kistner. “What was her home situation? I tried to question her. She was pretty evasive.”

Kistner shrugged. “Big family. She didn’t get along with them. Seven girls, I think, and she was next to oldest. She moved out when she got her first job. She lived alone in a one-room apartment on Leeds Avenue, near the bridge.”

“You know of any boy friend?” Connie asked.

“Nobody special. She used to go out a lot, but nobody special.”

Connie rapped his knuckles on the edge of the table. “You ever make a pass at her, Kistner?”

The room was silent. Kistner stared at his dead cigar. “I don’t want to lie to you, but I don’t want any trouble at home, either. I got a boy in the Army, and I got a girl in her last year of high school. But you work in a small office alone with a girl like Loreen, and it can get you.

“About six months ago I had to go to the state Capitol on a tax thing. I asked her to come along. She did. It was a damn fool thing to do. And it — didn’t work out so good. We agreed to forget it ever happened.

“We were awkward around the office for a couple of weeks, and then I guess we sort of forgot. She was a good worker, and I was paying her well, so it was to both our advantages to be practical and not get emotional. I didn’t have to tell you men this, but, like I said, I don’t see any point in lying to the police. Hell, you might have found out some way, and that might make it look like I killed her or something.”

“Thanks for leveling,” Connie said expressionlessly. “We’ll call you if we need you.”

Kistner ceremoniously shook hands all around and left with obvious relief.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Connie said, “I’ll buy it. A long time ago I learned you can’t jail a guy for being a jerk. Funny how many honest people I meet I don’t like at all, and how many thieves make good guys to knock over a beer with. How’s your girl?”

Dan looked at his watch. “Dressing for dinner, and I should be, too,” he said. “How are the steaks out at the Cat and Fiddle?”

Connie half closed his eyes. After a time he sighed. “Okay. That might be a good way to go at the guy. Phone me and give me the reaction if he does talk. If not, don’t bother.”

Jane was in a holiday mood until Dan told her where they were headed. She said tartly, “I admit freely that I am a working girl. But do I get overtime for this?”

Dan said slowly, carefully, “Darling, you better understand, if you don’t already, that there’s one part of me I can’t change. I can’t shut the office door and forget the cases piled up in there. I have a nasty habit of carrying them around with me. So we go someplace else and I try like blazes to be gay, or we go to the Cat and Fiddle and get something off my mind.”

She moved closer to him. “Dull old work horse,” she said.

“Guilty.”

“All right, now I’ll confess,” Jane said. “I was going to suggest we go out there later. I just got sore when you beat me to the draw.”

He laughed, and at the next stop light he kissed her hurriedly.

The Cat and Fiddle was eight miles beyond the city line. At last Dan saw the green-and-blue neon sign, and he turned into the asphalt parking area. There were about forty other cars there.

They went from the check room into the low-ceilinged bar and lounge. The only sign of Christmas was a small silver tree on the bar; a tiny blue spot was focused on it.

They sat at the bar and ordered drinks. Several other couples were at the tables, talking in low voices. A pianist played softly in the dining room.

Dan took out a business card and wrote on it: Only if you happen to have an opinion.

He called the nearest bartender over. “Would you please see that Vince gets this?”

The man glanced at the name. “I’ll see if Mr. Servius is in.” He said something to the other bartender and left through a paneled door at the rear of the bar. He was back in less than a minute, smiling politely.

“Please go up the stairs. Mr. Servius is in his office — the second door on the right.”

“I’ll wait here, Dan,” Jane said.

“If you are Miss Raymer, Mr. Servius would like to have you join him, too,” the bartender said.

Jane looked at Dan. He nodded and she slid off the stool.

As they went up the stairs, Jane said, “I seem to be known here.”

“Notorious female. I suspect he wants a witness.”

Vincent Servius was standing at a small corner bar mixing himself a drink when they entered. He turned and smiled. “Fowler, Miss Raymer. Nice of you to stop by. Can I mix you something?”

Dan refused politely, and they sat down.

Vince was a compact man with cropped, prematurely white hair, a sunlamp tan, and beautifully cut clothes. He had not been directly concerned with violence in many years. In that time he had eliminated most of the traces of the hoodlum.

The over-all impression he gave was that of the up-and-coming clubman. Golf lessons, voice lessons, plastic surgery, and a good tailor — these had all helped; but nothing had been able to destroy a certain aura of alertness, ruthlessness. He was a man you would never joke with. He had made his own laws, and he carried the awareness of his own ultimate authority around with him, as unmistakable as a loaded gun.

Vince went over to the fieldstone fireplace, drink in hand, and turned, resting his elbow on the mantel.

“Very clever, Fowler. ‘Only if you happen to have an opinion.’ I have an opinion. The kid is no good. That’s my opinion. He’s a cheap punk. I didn’t admit that to myself until he tried to put the hook on that loan company. He was working for me at the time. I was trying to break him in here — buying foods.

“But now I’m through, Fowler. You can tell Jim Heglon that for me. Terrafierro will back it up. Ask him what I told him. I said, ‘Defend the kid. Get him off if you can and no hard feelings if you can’t. If you get him off, I’m having him run out of town, out of the state. I don’t want him around.’ I told George that.

“Now there’s this Garrity thing. It looks like I went out on a limb for the kid. Going out on limbs was yesterday, Fowler. Not today and not tomorrow. I was a sucker long enough.”

He took out a crisp handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “I go right up in the air,” he said. “I talk too loud.”

“You can see how Heglon is thinking,” Dan said quietly. “And the police, too.”

“That’s the hell of it. I swear I had nothing to do with it.” He half smiled. “It would have helped if I’d had a tape recorder up here last month when the Garrity girl came to see what she could sell me.”

Dan leaned forward. “She came here?”

“With bells on. Nothing coy about that kid. Pay off, Mr. Servius, and I’ll change my identification of your brother.”

“What part of last month?”

“Let me think. The tenth it was. Monday the tenth.”

Jane said softly, “That’s why I got the impression she wouldn’t sell out, Dan. I had lunch with her later that same week. She had tried to and couldn’t.”

Vince took a sip of his drink. “She started with big money and worked her way down. I let her go ahead. Finally, after I’d had my laughs, I told her even one dollar was too much. I told her I wanted the kid sent up.

“She blew her top. For a couple of minutes I thought I might have to clip her to shut her up. But after a couple of drinks she quieted down. That gave me a chance to find out something that had been bothering me. It seemed too pat, kind of.”

“What do you mean, Servius?” Dan asked.

“The setup was too neat, the way the door happened to be open a crack, and the way she happened to be working late, and the way she happened to see the kids come out.

“I couldn’t get her to admit anything at first, because she was making a little play for me, but when I convinced her I wasn’t having any, she let me in on what really happened. She was hanging around waiting for the manager of that loan outfit to quit work.

“They had a system. She’d wait in the accountant’s office with the light out, watching his door. Then, when the manager left, she’d wait about five minutes and leave herself. That would give him time to get his car out of the parking lot. He’d pick her up at the corner. She said he was the super-cautious, married type. They just dated once in a while. I wasn’t having any of that. Too rough for me, Fowler.”

There was a long silence. Dan asked, “How about friends of your brother, Servius, or friends of Kelly and Castrella?”

Vince walked over and sat down, facing them. “One — Johnny didn’t have a friend who’d bring a bucket of water if he was on fire. And two — I sent the word out.”

“What does that mean?”

“I like things quiet in this end of the state. I didn’t want anyone helping those three punks. Everybody got the word. So who would do anything? Now both of you please tell Heglon exactly what I said. Tell him to check with Terrafierro. Tell him to have the cops check their pigeons. Ask the kid himself. I paid him a little visit. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got another appointment.”

They had finished their steaks before Dan was able to get any line on Connie Wyant. On the third telephone call, he was given a message. Lieutenant Wyant was waiting for Mr. Fowler at 311 Leeds Street, Apartment 6A, and would Mr. Fowler please bring Miss Raymer with him.

They drove back to the city. A department car was parked in front of the building. Sergeant Levandowski was half asleep behind the wheel. “Go right in. Ground floor in the back. 6A.”

Connie greeted them gravely and listened without question to Dan’s report of the conversation with Vince Servius. After Dan had finished, Connie nodded casually, as though it was of little importance, and said, “Miss Raymer, I’m not so good at this, so I thought maybe you could help. There’s the Garrity girl’s closet. Go through it and give me an estimate on the cost.”

Jane went to the open closet. She began to examine the clothes. “Hey!” she exclaimed.

“What do you think?” Connie asked.

“If this suit cost a nickel under two hundred, I’ll eat it. And look at this coat. Four hundred, anyway.” She bent over and picked up a shoe. “For ages I’ve dreamed of owning a pair of these. Thirty-seven fifty, at least.”

“Care to make an estimate on the total?” Connie asked her.

“Gosh, thousands. I don’t know. There are nine dresses in there that must have cost at least a hundred apiece. Do you have to have it accurate?”

“That’s close enough, thanks.” He took a small blue bankbook out of his pocket and flipped it to Dan. Dan caught it and looked inside. Loreen Garrity had more than eleven hundred dollars on hand. There had been large deposits and large withdrawals — nothing small.

Connie said, “I’ve been to see her family.

They’re good people. They didn’t want to talk mean about the dead, so it took a little time. But I found out our Loreen was one for the angles — a chiseler — no conscience and less morals. A rough, tough cookie to get tied up with.

“From there, I went to see the Kistners. Every time the old lady would try to answer a question, Kistner’d jump in with all four feet. I finally had to have Levandowski take him downtown just to get him out of the way. Then the old lady talked.

“She had a lot to say about how lousy business is. How they’re scrimping and scraping along, and how the girl couldn’t have a new formal for the Christmas dance tomorrow night at the high school gym.

“Then I called up an accountant friend after I left her. I asked him how Kistner had been doing. He cussed out Kistner and said he’d been doing fine; in fact, he had stolen some nice retail accounts out from under the other boys in the same racket. So I came over here and it looked like this was where the profit was going. So I waited for you so I could make sure.”

“What can you do about it?” Dan demanded, anger in his voice, anger at the big puffy man who hadn’t wanted to lie to the police.

“I’ve been thinking. It’s eleven o’clock. He’s been sitting down there sweating. I’ve got to get my Christmas shopping done tomorrow, and the only way I’ll ever get around to it is to break him fast.”

Jane had been listening, wide-eyed. “They always forget some little thing, don’t they?” she asked. “Or there is something they don’t know about. Like a clock that is five minutes slow, or something. I mean, in the stories...” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

“Give her a badge, Connie,” Dan said with amusement.

Connie rubbed his chin. “I might do that, Dan. I just might do that. Miss Raymer, you got a strong stomach? If so, maybe you get to watch your idea in operation.”

It was nearly midnight, and Connie had left Dan and Jane alone in a small office at headquarters for nearly a half hour. He opened the door and stuck his head in. “Come on, people. Just don’t say a word.”

They went to the Interrogation Room. Kistner jumped up the moment they came in. Levandowski sat at the long table, looking bored.

Kistner said heatedly, “As you know, Lieutenant, I was perfectly willing to cooperate. But you are being high-handed. I demand to know why I was brought down here. I want to know why I can’t phone a lawyer. You are exceeding your authority, and I—”

“Siddown!” Connie roared with all the power of his lungs.

Kistner’s mouth worked silently. He sat down, shocked by the unexpected roar. A tired young man slouched in, sat at the table, flipped open a notebook, and placed three sharp pencils within easy reach.

Connie motioned Dan and Jane over toward chairs in a shadowed corner of the room. They sat side by side, and Jane held Dan’s wrist, her nails sharp against his skin.

“Kistner, tell us again about how you came back to the office,” Connie said.

Kistner replied in a tone of excruciating patience, as though talking to children, “I parked my car in my parking space in the lot behind the building. I used the back way into the lobby. I went up—”

“You went to the cigar counter.”

“So I did! I had forgotten that. I went to the cigar counter. I bought three cigars and chatted with Barney. Then I took an elevator up.”

“And talked to the elevator boy.”

“I usually do. Is there a law?”

“No law, Kistner. Go on.”

“And then I opened the Men’s Room door with my key, and I was in there perhaps three minutes. And then when I came out, the man I described brushed by me. I went to the office and found the window open. I was shutting it and I heard—”

“All this was at two o’clock, give or take a couple of minutes?”

“That’s right, Lieutenant.” Talking had restored Kistner’s self-assurance.

Connie nodded to Levandowski. The sergeant got up lazily, walked to the door, and opened it. A burly, diffident young man came in. He wore khaki pants and a leather jacket.

“Sit down,” Connie said casually. “What’s your name?”

“Paul Hilbert, officer.”

The tired young man was taking notes.

“What’s your occupation?”

“I’m a plumber, officer. Central Plumbing, Incorporated.”

“Did you get a call today from the Associated Bank Building?”

“Well, I didn’t get the call, but I was sent out on the job. I talked to the super, and he sent me up to the seventeenth floor. Sink drain clogged in the Men’s Room.”

“What time did you get there?”

“That’s on my report, officer. Quarter after one.”

“How long did it take you to finish the job?”

“About three o’clock.”

“Did you leave the Men’s Room at any time during that period?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I suppose people tried to come in there?”

“Three or four. But I had all the water connections turned off, so I told them to go down to sixteen. The super had the door unlocked down there.”

“Did you get a look at everybody who came in?”

“Sure, officer.”

“You said three or four. Is one of them at this table?”

The shy young man looked around. He shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Thanks, Hilbert. Wait outside. We’ll want you to sign the statement when it’s typed up.”

Hilbert’s footsteps sounded loud as he walked to the door. Everyone was watching Kistner. His face was still, and he seemed to be looking into a remote and alien future, as cold as the back of the moon.

Kistner said in a husky, barely audible voice, “A bad break. A stupid thing. Ten seconds it would have taken me to look in there. I had to establish the time. I talked to Barney. And to the elevator boy. They’d know when she fell. But I had to be some place else. Not in the office.

“You don’t know how it was. She kept wanting more money. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me, except when there was money. And I didn’t have any more, finally.

“I guess I was crazy. I started to milk the accounts. That wasn’t hard; the clients trust me. Take a little here and a little there. She found out. She wanted more and more. And that gave her a new angle. Give me more, or I’ll tell.

“I thought it over. I kept thinking about her being a witness. All I had to do was make it look like she was killed to keep her from testifying. I don’t care what you do to me. Now it’s over, and I feel glad.”

He gave Connie a long, wondering look. “Is that crazy? To feel glad it’s over? Do other people feel that way?”

Connie asked Dan and Jane to wait in the small office. He came in ten minutes later; he looked tired. The plumber came in with him.

Connie said, “Me, I hate this business. I’m after him, and I bust him, and then I start bleeding for him. What the hell? Anyway, you get your badge, Miss Raymer.”

“But wouldn’t you have found out about the plumber anyway?” Jane asked.

Connie grinned ruefully at her. He jerked a thumb toward the plumber. “Meet Patrolman Hilbert. Doesn’t know a pipe wrench from a faucet. We just took the chance that Kistner was too eager to toss the girl out the window — so eager he didn’t make a quick check of the Men’s Room. If he had, he could have laughed us under the table. As it is, I can get my Christmas shopping done tomorrow. Or is it today?”

Dan and Jane left headquarters. They walked down the street, arm in arm. There was holly, and a big tree in front of the courthouse, and a car went by with a lot of people in it singing about We Three Kings of Orient Are. Kistner was a stain, fading slowly.

They walked until it was entirely Christmas Eve, and they were entirely alone in the snow that began to fall again, making tiny, perfect stars of lace that lingered in her dark hair.

Crime’s Christmas Carol Norvell Page

Already a prolific writer for such pulp magazines as Black Mask, Dime Mystery, and others, Norvell Page began to write novels for the hero pulp The Spider, under the house name Grant Stockbridge, in 1933. Created to compete with The Shadow, the first two issues of the magazine were written by R. T. M. Scott, then turned over to the twenty-nine-year-old Page, who gave the ruthless and fearless vigilante a mask and a disguise (as a fang-toothed hunchback named Richard Wentworth). A series of horrific villains were hunted down and killed by Wentworth, who then branded his prey on the forehead with a seal of a spider. At his most prolific, Page wrote more than one hundred thousand words a month, half for the Spider novels and the rest for a wide range of fiction. “Crime’s Christmas Carol” was first published in the May 1939 issue of Detective Tales.

Anna helped Tom put on his coat and, as always, the thread-bare lightness of it twisted something inside of her. The wind rattling the windows had such a hungry, thin sound. It surged in around the loose frames in spite of all the newspaper stuffing; it made the little red bows she had pinned up in place of Christmas wreaths whirl and dance.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Mr. Mann,” Anna said.

Tom twisted his young thin face around and winked. “And what wouldn’t you do, Mrs. Mann, seeing as how it’s Christmas Eve?”

“Well,” Anna made it cheerful, “I wouldn’t rob a bank. I don’t think I would.”

“Sure?”

“Certain sure, Mr. Mann. Why, we’re practically rolling in money. I’ve got ninety-seven cents!”

“Let me see all this wealth, woman.” Tom stared down at the handful of silver and coppers, poked doubtfully at a slick-faced nickel. “I might be able to use that in a subway turnstile — if I went through a subway turnstile.”

Anna said firmly, “Mr. Osterschmidt is going to take that lead nickel back. He gave it to me.”

Tom stared at her and made his eyes open wide. “Don’t tell me that we’re going to have meat for Christmas, Mrs. Mann!”

Anna tried to keep her smile. Tom’s lips were stretched tight; maybe they were smiling. He began to swear in a thin, faltering voice. He turned sharply away and slammed out of the room. Anna ran after him into the drafty hall.

“Tom,” she cried. “Tom, you didn’t kiss me good-bye!”

That would always stop him. But this time... he didn’t stop. His feet kept thumping down the three flights of rickety stairs, getting fainter and fainter. The front door banged. It made empty echoes clatter through the cold ancient house.

“Oh, Tom,” Anna whispered. “Tom, don’t do anything... anything foolish. Please, God, he mustn’t!” She took a deep breath then, and smiled a little to herself. Of course, Tom wouldn’t. He was just trying for a job, any job now that the shop where he’d been working part-time was closed down. It would open again, maybe, in February... Anna’s hand knotted about her ninety-seven cents...

Anna scoured their little room and closet kitchenette until the shabby furniture shone, and three hours were gone. She spent an hour stuffing more paper around those rattling windows. And there wasn’t another thing to do — except think. Anna stared about her with frightened eyes. Hours before she could expect Tom home again; hours...

At last she dragged on her thin coat and ran down the steps. The bitter wind of the street was welcome. Tom was out in this somewhere, wasn’t he? Why should anybody be warm and comfortable when Tom was cold? People had such silly smiles on their faces, arms full of packages, yelling at one another, “Merry Christmas!”

The cold pavements, the slush of the streets came through the thinness of Anna’s soles. She had forgotten to line them with newspaper. Thinking of that, her eyes brightened. She could lose some time doing that; maybe as much as a half hour! She turned toward home, loitering. After that... but she would not think of their troubles; or think of anything else.

Anna knew now that she and Tom had been foolish in their careless bravery, marrying in the face of times like these, in defiance of what her father had said.

“You can come home whenever you’re ready, Anna,” she could hear the sharp practical accents of his voice so clearly. “But I’m not prepared to support an indigent son-in-law. You’re a couple of inexperienced fools.”

Tom had been so earnest, so... young. “You see, sir, we love each other, and I’m not afraid of work. It may be tough — but not so tough a man can’t provide for his wife, sir!”

Anna could even remember how his voice had softened when he said “wife.” It was so new to her ears, so sweet... Maybe Tom was already home! Maybe he had the promise of some work after Christmas! Anna began to run along the wind-gutted streets, a tiny thing whose dark eyes seemed too big for the thinness of her face...

Tom wasn’t home, and after she had lined her shoes, it didn’t seem worthwhile going out again. Anna sat by the window with her hands limp in her lap and watched the grey day gather into dusk, watched the silly people hurrying along with their silly smiles...

“Please, Tom,” she whispered. “Not anything foolish...”

It was after dark when Anna realized she was shivering with cold — and she couldn’t see the street any more except where lights made swaying, cold white puddles on the walk. She had to do her shopping. She had already calculated every penny of her purchases. Hamburger was twenty-three cents a pound, so that in buying only a half-pound, you had to pay that extra half cent. Clever, weren’t they, getting that extra half cent! She’d fool them this time. She... she would buy a whole pound of hamburger for Christmas dinner! Anna’s cheeks flushed a little. She held her money tightly in her hand and went down the steps rapidly — before she should change her mind.

The wind made her cheeks ache, gnawed at her knees. It was colder, and the slush was frozen again into rough hummocks of ice. If she fell and hurt herself, would her father relent, she wondered? A broken leg... Tom would notify her father to make sure she received proper care. He had been urging her to go home...

“Why should you put up with a failure like me?” he pleaded sometimes when the money just wouldn’t stretch; when he couldn’t find a job. “Why should you suffer...”

Anna wondered if a broken leg hurt much. She ran recklessly across the icy street and a car skittered to a halt just in time.

“Look out, kid,” the driver shouted. “It won’t be a Merry Christmas in the hospital.”

Anna ran on. She was glad now she hadn’t been hit. Tom would only blame himself, and... and she might be hurt even worse. She might be killed! Tom would be left alone... There were tears stinging her eyes. She whispered, “Oh, thank you, God. I... I didn’t really mean it!”

She turned the corner with her head down and somebody bumped into her and muttered, “ ’Scuse me, lady.” It was a delivery boy with a box of groceries on his shoulder, and there at the curb was the delivery truck from Osterschmidt’s, heaped up with piles of food. Big boxes safely tucked away behind a locked iron grill. They might at least have solid doors, so people couldn’t see...

Anna moved closer. Just inside the grating was the biggest box of all, the biggest turkey... The wind snatched at Anna’s coat, blundered against the truck and, with a rasping creak, the iron grating swung open. Why, it wasn’t locked at all! The boy must have forgotten... The biggest turkey of all, and the gate open so invitingly...

There was a weary drag to the way Tom Mann moved in his polished, shabby shoes. His shoulders ached from consciously bracing them all day long as he went futilely from shop to shop hunting even a promise of work. The Christmas rush was over and the proprietors only shrugged, “Maybe by February...” How in hell did they expect a man and his wife to live until then? How... for all his efforts. Tom’s shoulders sagged. It was not other peoples’ responsibility. It was his... and he had failed.

Tom slipped, stepping down from a curb, and caught himself frantically. Now, that would be a swell Christmas present for Anne, wouldn’t it, breaking a leg! Or maybe it would be the best present of all! She’d have to go home to her father then. Tom stood on the curb and stared out across the icy street and his young, thin face was suddenly old-looking... Reluctantly, he turned toward home. The sole of his right shoe had come loose a little, and his feet made small scuffing sounds that kept time to his thoughts. Failure, failure, failure...

Ahead of him, Tom saw a mail-man, bowed under a heavily loaded bag, turn up the steps of a house. Tom’s eyes clung in fascination to the grey-uniformed man. Lucky people, getting Christmas presents; maybe even money! Yes, it was money, a registered letter. They were signing for it at the door.

“Merry Christmas,” the lucky woman said, and closed the door.

Tom smothered a laugh that was bitter in his throat. If he had any guts, he’d make this a Merry Christmas for Anna! There was money within reach, a dozen registered letters in the postman’s hand as he stumped down the steps — and it was dark here between the street lights... Tom shook his head. Anna wouldn’t want it that way.

“Merry Christmas,” he called to the descending postman.

The man grinned. “Nuts to you. I still got five hours’ work.”

Tom thought, “But you’ve got work.” He didn’t say it, and the postman stepped down to the pavement... and slipped. His arms flew wide in an effort to catch his balance. Letters scattered from his hands — and Tom caught him just as he was falling. The wrench almost yanked Tom off his feet. He hadn’t realized he was so weak.

He said, panting, “You almost got out of that five hours’ work.”

The postman swore and began to pick up letters. “Thanks, buddy,” he said. “Now I got an extra hour re-sorting this damned stuff...”

Tom began to pick up letters and hand them to the postman. It was an accident that he noticed the extra postage and “Registered” stamp on a letter half-hidden in the shadow beside the steps. It was almost an accident that he covered it with his foot...

Tom stood there until he saw the postman turn into a lunch-room to re-sort the mail. The carrier would miss this registered letter in a few moments, probably, and the law would be after Tom at once. He was a fool to think he could get away with this. By tomorrow morning they’d trace him. Christmas morning. Better to take the letter to the postman and explain he had found it later in the dark. Tom picked it up, and the envelope was thick between his cold fingers. It made a faint, crackling sound... Tom’s hands trembled.

What the hell difference did it make if the police came for him in the morning? He and Anna would have had a happy evening together: a big dinner, presents. And tomorrow? Why, let the police come! With him in jail, Anna would have to go home where she could be taken care of. Her father would see that Anna divorced him. God, he couldn’t lose Anna. He... But he had already lost her, because he was a failure. Grimly, he ripped open the envelope before he lost courage, felt a thick sheaf of money. He ducked around the corner. He had to get rid of the envelope. It was evidence, wasn’t it? Tom laughed shakily, stuffed the money in his pocket and, as he walked rapidly on, dropped the letter to the sidewalk.

“Hey!” A man’s voice boomed out behind him. “Hey, there! Wait a minute!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw a man in a policeman’s blue uniform hurrying toward him. Good God! Were they after him so soon? Tom pretended he hadn’t heard and ducked around the corner. Anna had to have this one night... Tom broke into a run, ducked into an alley before the policeman turned the corner. Tom was panting, his whole body shaking with the effort. He hurried on.

First, he went to Osterschmidt’s for the biggest turkey he had. Then some presents for Anna. There was a feverish light in Tom’s eyes as he thumbed through the money. Fifty-sixty-seventy... He didn’t dare count any farther. He hadn’t held so much money at one time since... since... oh, God, did it matter? One happy evening with Anna!

There was a perky, thick coat that he had seen Anna eye longingly, when she thought he didn’t see, and in the same shop window a hood of soft, red wool and mittens. Warm... He’d make Anna take a walk tonight just for the fun of seeing her warm for once. She wouldn’t go back home looking like a beggar. Or would they take the things from her when they came in the morning? The thought stopped Tom in front of a florist window. Red roses... great, long-stemmed, red roses. There was something they couldn’t take from her! Crazy laughter was on his lips as he staggered into the shop.

Afterward, he almost ran along the street. Only three blocks to home; no, only two... How Anna’s eyes would light up when she saw him coming! The groceries were already there, probably, and the big turkey. She would know fortune had smiled on them. Or maybe, the groceries would be delayed in the rush. That would be better still! Anna would clap her hands and laugh again; laugh without that queer, tight look of worry in her eyes.

One more block. He turned the corner — and stopped. There in front of the lodging house, looking up at the door, was a policeman! Tom’s shoulders sagged. Couldn’t they have even their one night together? He was willing to pay... Tom stumbled back around the corner, walking slowly, heavily...

Back on wind-swept Fenton Street, the policeman rang the doorbell long and insistently, but presently went away and when he had gone, a girl popped around the other corner of the block. She was staggering under a weight of groceries. Her face was white and her eyes were huge, but she ran... she ran with a dogged little trot while her arms strained around that great box of food. Her lips were tight, and sobs kept pushing at them.

“Oh, please,” she whispered. “Please, let me make it! Don’t let them find me yet!”

She had her key in her hand and somehow she got the door open; made the long climb up the stairs and into their one little room. She stood against the door to listen, shivering. Presently she drew in a quavering breath of relief. Not yet. How she flew about the room! She had set the table hours ago and now she ran, stowing away the food on the kitchen shelves where Tom could see. She had her story all set. Mr. Osterschmidt had been so nice. When she had told him about the lead nickel and he had understood how much it meant to her, he had insisted on her taking a great load of groceries and a turkey.

That was what she would say when Tom came... when Tom came. Anna realized suddenly how late it was. Why didn’t Tom come? Anna was abruptly standing very still. Dear God, let nothing happen to Tom! Not because of what she had done! That wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t... oh, if any one must pay, let it be herself! That was fair, wasn’t it? Please, God, that was fair...

Fear drew her white hands twisting together. Perhaps that policeman hadn’t been after her. Perhaps Tom had done something foolish, and they were after him. Or — or maybe he had been hurt. That was the way they notified you when you didn’t have a telephone. They sent around a policeman...

Anna rushed to the window and peered down into the dark windy canyon of Fenton Street. Nobody down there now. Anna’s hands ached with twisting. There mustn’t be anything like that. Please, let Tom come home. Please... She’d take all the food back. She could wrap it back up just like it came from the store.

Anna ran to the door and listened, painfully. Yes, there were footsteps on the stairs, a heavy portentous tread. It sounded a little like Tom when he was very tired, but so heavy, heavy.

The police? Anna leaned over the stairwell and peered down. No, not a policeman. She saw somebody’s grey sleeve and a lot of bundles, moving upward. Probably Mr. Sacco on the second floor. No, the man was coming on past. Then it would be Mr. France or Mr. Getty on the third floor... But the man was walking toward the flight that led to the fourth floor. Oh...

“Tom,” Anna cried. “Oh, Tom!”

She stood staring down at him in the dim-lit hall, at his face smiling over a great armload of bundles. Tom...

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Mann,” he called.

Anna tried to smile. She was grateful, very grateful, God, but... all those packages! He hadn’t... he couldn’t have done anything foolish. Anna was running down the steps.

“Oh, Tom, you foolish boy,” she panted. “What have you done?”

Tom grinned at her, “Is that any way to greet Santa Claus?”

“Tom,” she cried. “You’re teasing. Here, let me—” She took some of the bundles and ran ahead of him. Her feet made little dancing steps on the rickety stairs and Tom followed, making himself laugh. What the hell? He had this moment anyhow... In the room, he gravely told her about a kind man whose wallet he had found and returned. It must have been loaded with money!

“He had white hair exactly like Santa Claus,” Tom told her, “and a big fur collar on his coat, and his belly shook just exactly like a bowl full of jelly... ‘By Gadfrey,’ he said, ‘an honest man, and on Christmas Eve, too! Here, buy yourself a Christmas present!’ And he handed me... a hundred-dollar bill!”

“He never did,” Anna cried. “Oh the good, wonderful man. And, darling, Mr. Osterschmidt was playing Santa Claus today, too. Look — look at all these wonderful things he gave us. A big turkey...”

Tom threw himself into the rickety old chair by the window. “You’ve got a surprise coming to you, young lady,” he cried. “We’re going to have two turkeys for Christmas. I went by Osterschmidt’s and ordered the biggest bird in the shop. It should be here any minute now, I guess.”

Anna said slowly, “Oh... oh, two turkeys. How wonderful!” She turned toward the tiny little kitchen. So she had stolen when there was no need at all! And now, when they came after her... Oh, what would Tom do? Frantically, she caught up the big box of roses Tom had brought her. “Roses! Oh, Tom, you dear foolish boy... I’ve got to kiss you for that!”

Tom pushed out a laugh, but it wasn’t coming off. Damn it, their one night... and it wasn’t coming off. Anna knew he was lying, and she was trying gallantly. To hell with it. This was their night. He picked up the box with the red hood and the mittens and... he couldn’t help it... he stole a glance down at the street. The policeman was walking toward the house again!

Tom’s hands shook as he drew the red hood snugly down over Anna’s black curls, kissed her smiling lips... and Anna sobbed, and put her arms around his neck and clung.

“Oh, Tom,” she cried. “I can’t keep it up! I can’t lie to you. I... I stole the groceries! The wagon gate was unlocked and the wind blew it open, like it was asking me in. And there was this big turkey, the biggest one Mr. Osterschmidt ever had. And...”

The bell made its sharp, whirring clatter, and Anna whipped out of Tom’s arms and faced the door. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, they’re coming for me!”

Tom said, “Nonsense.” His voice sounded strained. “The biggest bird Osterschmidt had... Darling, did you look to see whose groceries they were? Did you?”

“Oh,” Anna gasped. “Oh, you mean—” She was on her knees in an instant, searching among all that mess of paper off the packages, brushing it aside, hunting furiously with that red hood so snug about her head. Then she whirled toward Tom with a slip trembling in her hand. She swallowed hard, twice, before she got out words.

“Oh, Tommy, you’re right. I... I stole our own groceries! Oh, now everything is all right. Oh, I’ve never been so happy. I’ll never do a foolish thing like that again. It isn’t worth it, is it, Tommy?”

Tom said dryly, “No, Mrs. Mann, it isn’t worth it.” But he was gazing into the glisten of her dark eyes and drinking in the smile on her lips... and he thought that what he had done was worth it... The doorbell whirred again.

Tom said hurriedly, “That’s probably the delivery boy checking up to see if the stuff reached you all right. And I want some cigarettes, haven’t had any in a long time. I’ll just run down and see the boy and get the cigarettes. I’ll be back in a little while.” He was straining his ears, listening. Somebody must have opened the front door because there were voices in the hall; a man’s deep voice, and afterward feet climbing the stairs steadily. Tom moved sharply toward the door. He couldn’t let Anna know yet. Let her be happy, waiting for him to come back — for a little while...

Anna stopped him at the door... Anna with tears trembling on her lashes, and a small smile on her lips. She said, so low he could hardly hear her, “It’s the police, isn’t it, Tommy?”

Tom tried to think of a lie, and he couldn’t.

He stood and looked at Anna and, presently, he put his arms about her and hugged her tight, tight... Tight enough to last forever. It would have to. The footsteps were on the second floor now.

“I knew who it was,” Anna said rapidly. “I saw the policeman waiting outside the door just before I came in with the groceries. And now I know that he wasn’t coming after me. Why... why, Tom, even good kind men don’t hand out hundred-dollar rewards.”

Tom said slowly, because he couldn’t make the words clear any other way, “It’s all right, kid. And you’re right. I... I stole a registered letter a postman dropped. You go to your father and just forget... forget about me. It’s best this way. I haven’t been exactly... exactly the husband I had planned to be, Mrs. Mann.”

Anna said violently, “You darned old fool, you’re just exactly the only husband in the world that’s worth a damn! You — I won’t let you go. I’ll tell them that I—”

And a man’s fist knocked at the door. Tom’s smile got a little twisted. He braced his shoulders. Well, this was something he could face like a man. He opened the door and the policeman was standing there.

“Mrs. Thomas Mann?” he said.

Tom sucked in a breath. So someone had seen Anna steal the groceries!

“You mean me, Thomas Mann,” he said fiercely.

The cop shook his head and took off his cap, pulled out a letter. “Nope, this letter is addressed to Mrs. Thomas Mann. I saw a guy drop it and called, but he didn’t hear me. See, it’s registered. I figured it might be important. Mrs. Thomas Mann...”

Tom stared down at the letter. It was the same, the one he had stolen. There couldn’t be any doubt of it at all. He remembered the way the stamps were on it and there was even the mark of his foot on the envelope.

“Thank you, officer,” he said slowly. “That’s just about the most important letter in the world, I guess.”

“Oh,” Anna whispered. “From father. It’s from father.”

The cop looked a little puzzled. “Sure... Well, Merry Christmas to you both.”

“Oh, such a Merry Christmas,” Anna whispered, and threw both arms around the policeman’s neck...

The door was closed again and Anna was in Tom’s arms. “It couldn’t happen,” he said slowly, “but it has. I stole your father’s letter to you, and it was the gift money I spent. Darling, we’ll stop being such stiff-necked fools. You’ll go home until I can take care of you properly.”

There was real, ringing happiness in Anna’s laughter. “Oh, it won’t be necessary,” she said.

“Father says that if we’re such young idiots that we’ll starve together rather than separate, we’d better come on home! He’s got a job lined up for you, and — Tom, you won’t refuse?”

Tom said, quietly, “Mrs. Mann, I only look like a damned fool! If you’ll get on your bonnet and shawl, Mrs. Mann, we’ll go out and do a little telephoning... and take your dad up on that before he forgets it! Just incidentally, of course, we might tell him Merry Christmas...”

The smiles on people’s faces weren’t silly at all. Even the streetlights seemed to have smiling haloes around them. But perhaps that was because there was something in Anna’s eyes that made them blur a little now and then...

Serenade to a Killer Joseph Commings

Joseph Commings was one of the masters of the locked room mystery — that demanding form in which crimes appear to be impossible — and the present story is no exception. Commings’s writing career began when he made up stories to entertain his fellow soldiers during World War II. With some rewriting after the war, he found a ready market for them in the pulps. Although the pulps were dying in the late 1940s, new digest-sized magazines came to life and Commings sold stories to Mystery Digest, The Saint Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Although he wrote several full-length mystery novels, none ever was published, in spite of the encouragement of his friend John Dickson Carr. “Serenade to a Killer” was first published in the July 1957 issue of Mystery Digest.

Murder and Christmas are usually poles apart. But this Yuletide Senator Brooks U. Banner had the crazy killing at Falconridge dumped into his over-sized elastic stocking.

At the Cobleskill Orphanage, he stood among the re-painted toys like a clean-shaven Kris Kringle. He was telling the kids how he’d begun his career as a parentless tyke — just as they — with a loaf of Bohemian rye under one arm and six bits in his patched jeans. He followed that revelation with a fruity true crime story about a lonely hearts blonde who killed six mail-order husbands and how he’d helped the police to catch her. The two old maids who ran the orphanage paused to listen and were scandalized, but the kids loved him. He was six feet three inches tall and weighed 280 pounds, and he looked so quaint in his greasy black string tie, dusty frock-coat, baggy grey britches, and the huge storm rubbers with the red ridged soles.

Presenting the toys, he made little comic speeches and ruffled up the kids’ hair. While this was going on a young man came in and stood in the bare, draughty dining-hall with its shrivelled brown holly wreaths. He was sallow-skinned and slight, with a faint moustache and large lustrous eyes.

He waited impatiently until Banner was done, then he approached.

“Senator, my name is Verl Griffon. I’m a reporter for my father who owns the local paper, The Griffon.”

Banner beamed. “And you wanna interview me!” He stabbed a fresh corona cigar in his mouth. “Yass, yass! Wal, my lad, if you’d come in a li’l earlier, you’d’ve heard me telling the young-timers that—”

“No, this isn’t merely an interview, Senator.” Verl’s luminous eyes zigzagged nervously. “Where can I see you privately?”

Frowning, Banner led the way into a gloomy office that had a cold radiator and a two-dimensional red-cardboard Christmas bell on the window. They looked dubiously at the rickety ladder-backed chairs and remained standing.

Verl chewed his knuckles. “Senator, I’ve read a lot about the way you handle things. Things like murders. And I was at the trial of Jack Horner in New York.”

Banner grunted from his top pants-button. “Izzat so? Then you saw how I made that poisoner holler uncle.”

“Indeed I did. Now I need your help. You’ve heard of Caspar Woolfolk, the famous pianist, haven’t you?”

Banner grinned. “Lad, when it comes to music, I lissen to a jook-box every Saturday night.”

Verl plunged on regardless. “Early this morning Woolfolk was murdered!”

“No!”

“And a woman I know very well says she killed him — but the facts are all against it!” His eyes, peering into the middle distance, were stunned with bewilderment.

Banner shifted ponderously. “Tell it to me from A to Izzard. Pin the donkey on the tail.”

Verl talked rapidly, gravely. “Woolfolk owned Falconridge, a manor outside town. On the grounds is a little octagonal house he called the Music Box. He kept his piano and music library there. This morning I found him in there dead. He was killed and no one knows how the murderer could have done it... You see, I went to the manor after breakfast to wish everybody a happy holiday. Ora met me at the door. She had the jitters.”

“Who’s Ora?”

“Ora Spires. That’s the woman I referred to. She’s governess to little Beryl, Woolfolk’s ten-year-old daughter. Woolfolk was a widower. Ora, as I said, greeted me with a look of panic. All she could tell me was that something terrible must have happened to Woolfolk inside the Music Box. She hadn’t dared go look for herself... It snowed during the night. There’s over an inch of it on the ground. The snow on the lawns hadn’t been disturbed, save where Woolfolk had walked out in it toward the Music Box. I could see by the single line of clear-cut footprints that Woolfolk hadn’t come back. I walked alongside his tracks. The door opened to my touch. This morning was so gloomy that I switched on the light. Woolfolk was at the grand piano, sitting on the bench, the upper part of his body lying across the music. He was stone cold dead — shot through the centre of the forehead.”

Cold as the room was, Banner could see a sheen of sweat on Verl’s puckered forehead.

“Remembering that I’d seen only Woolfolk’s tracks,” continued Verl, “the first thought that struck me was: If he’s been murdered, the murderer is still here! I searched the place. There was no one else there. Even the weapon that’d killed Woolfolk was missing — proving beyond a doubt that it wasn’t suicide. How can a thing like that be.

It stopped snowing around midnight. Woolfolk walked out there after that time. Then somebody killed him. And whoever it was got away without leaving a trace anywhere in the snow!”

“How far from the main house is the Music Box?”

“A good hundred yards.”

“A sharpshooter might’ve plugged Woolfolk through an open window while standing a hundred yards or more away.”

“No,” said Verl. “The doors and windows were closed. Woolfolk was shot at close range. The murderer stood on the other side of the piano.”

Ruminating, Banner finally said: “Wal, sir. You can take your pick of three possible answers.”

“Three!” said Verl with a bounce of surprise.

Banner held up a thick blunt thumb. “One. The murderer went out there before it’d stopped snowing. The snow that fell after he walked through it covered up his tracks. When Woolfolk came later, he killed Woolfolk and managed to conceal himself so cleverly in the Music Box that you failed to see him.”

Verl looked annoyed — and disappointed. “That’s out of the question. No one was there, I tell you.”

Banner, undismayed, stuck up his forefinger. “Two. Both the murderer and Woolfolk went out there before it’d stopped snowing. Both their tracks were covered up by the falling snow. After killing Woolfolk, the murderer put on Woolfolk’s shoes and walked backwards toward the main house.”

Verl shook his head sourly. “Woolfolk was wearing his own shoes when I found him. The police, who came later, went over all that. There’s absolutely no trickery about the footprints. They were made by a man walking forward. Made by Woolfolk. That’s certain!”

Banner lifted his middle finger. He stared at it thoughtfully and with hesitation. “Three. Again, the murderer got out there before Woolfolk did—”

He paused so long that Verl said: “And how did he get back?”

“He knows a way of crossing a hundred yards of snow without leaving a mark on it!”

Verl’s mouth dropped open. He snapped it shut again. “Ora Spires,” he said, jittery, “has part of an answer. She thinks she killed Woolfolk. She keeps saying that.” He paused. “But she doesn’t know how she got out there and back.”

Quizzically Banner raised his black furry eyebrows. “Right now,” he said, reaching for the doorknob, “I’m so fulla curiosity that Ora has more lure for me than a sarong gal.”

Verl took a step toward the held-open door and then he said: “Something else, Senator. She walks in her sleep.”

The great Spanish shawl that covered the whole top of the grand piano in the Music Box was clotted with blood. Woolfolk’s body had been removed. Banner walked behind the piano bench. On the piano-rack was the sheet music for Bellini’s La Somnambula.

“Was this electric lamp tipped over when you found him?” asked Banner.

Verl nodded.

Ten paces beyond the piano stood a grandfather’s clock. The wall shelves were stuffed with music albums.

Verl said: “Doesn’t that music on the piano strike you as being particularly significant, Senator? La Somnambula. The Sleep Walker!”

“Uh-huh.” Banner bobbed his grizzled mop of hair.

Verl rattled on as if he couldn’t restrain himself. “Woolfolk was a funny one. Peculiar. His talk wasn’t all music. He was full of weird theories about the power of suggestion, mind over matter, that sort of thing. He sometimes mentioned a lot of grotesque characters and objects, like: Abbé Faria, Carl Saxtus’s zinc button, Baron du Potet’s magic mirror, and Father Hell’s magnet. He thought all that esoteric knowledge would help him to rule women. But I don’t think it helped very much. Women,” he added regretfully, “know intuitively how to get the best of men.”

Banner didn’t answer. He lumbered to both windows. He opened each. Thirty feet to the east of the small house stood a pole with insulated cross-arms. Nowhere was the snow on the ground disturbed. There was no snow on either of the window-sills. The over-hanging eaves had sheltered them. He looked up at the eaves.

Verl said in a tired voice: “The snow on the roof hasn’t been disturbed either.”

Banner closed the windows and they both trudged across the white lawn to the manor house.

Ora Spires was a thirty-one-year-old spinster. She wore horn-rimmed eyeglasses and her hair was drawn back from a worried brow and knotted into a tight black bun. Her slack dress left you guessing about her figure. Her mouth had a pinched-in look as if she were trying to cork up all her feelings with her lips. Yet with some attention to her features she wouldn’t have been half bad-looking. Banner wondered if she deliberately made herself unattractive or if she didn’t know any better.

“The police have gone,” she said in a cracked whisper to Verl. “They’ve taken him to Hostetler’s.” She looked at Verl as if he had just come in to have her try on the glass slipper.

Verl said to Banner: “Ora means Woolfolk’s body. Hostetler is the town undertaker... Ora, you haven’t told the police what you told—”

“Oh no,” she said.

Banner got impatient. “I’m Senator Banner. Verl thinks I can help you.”

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “I voted for you once.”

“Mighty fine. Tickled to meetcha.” He pumped her limp hand. “Come sit down. We’ll iron this out.”

When they sat down in the parlor she said fretfully: “This morning I thought I’d dreamed I’d killed Mr. Woolfolk, but the whole nightmare has turned out to be real.”

Banner was deep in the waffle-back armchair. “Tell me everything.”

Her eyes were cloudy behind the glasses. She would tell him everything. Banner was the kind of man you told your troubles to. “I’ve lived in Cobleskill all my life. My parents are dead and my sister Caroline helped bring me up. She’s four years older than I am. About three years ago I came to work for Mr. Woolfolk taking care of his little daughter. Have you told him much about Beryl, Verl?”

Verl shuffled his feet on the bird-of-paradise pattern rug. “Only just mentioned her.”

Ora smiled sadly. “Beryl’s ten now, she’s very hard to manage.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” groaned Verl.

“But I stuck it out, Senator. Mr. Woolfolk was always going away on concert tours, leaving me alone with Beryl.” She was thatching her long, white, sensitive fingers nervously. “I keep a diary. It’s locked up secretly in my bureau drawer and I wear the key around my neck. One night, about two weeks ago, I took it out of the drawer to make my day’s entry. I was stunned to see that the last words I had written were: I hate Mr. Woolfolk!” She stiffened. “I never remember writing those words!”

“Clever forgery?” suggested Banner.

She shook her head. “How could it be? It was positively my handwriting. Besides, how could the forger have gotten to where I hide my diary? The lock on the bureau drawer wasn’t forced... All that night I lay sleepless thinking about it. I realized there were a lot of things I didn’t like about Mr. Woolfolk, things that could make me hate him. Things that had never entered my conscious mind before.”

“What were they?” said Banner when she paused to draw a shuddery breath.

“Why, little habits I detested. The way he dressed — one shoe always used to squeak when he walked. The way he put extra spoonfuls of sugar on his morning cereal. The way he coughed irritatingly after he’d smoked a cigarette too many. The — the thin whistle of the breath in his nose whenever he breathed too near me. And the way he would drop little hints to me about what a devil he was with the ladies, trying to get it across to me that— Yes, all that night an inner voice kept saying to me: I hate Mr. Woolfolk!

“During this last week he got on my nerves more than I can say. Yesterday was Christmas Eve. After supper he left for town to visit my sister Caroline. She’s been deathly sick lately. I tried to amuse Beryl, but she was extra unruly and I finally had to pack her off to bed as punishment. Mr. Woolfolk returned about ten o’clock. There was snow on his coat. He said, ‘It’s snowing out.’ And I thought that was perfectly hateful. I knew it was snowing. I could see it on him. It was a perfectly exasperating remark and I hated his false teeth when he grinned at me. He hung his coat up and came over to me. He reached out and felt my hand. It was the first time he’d ever touched me like that. Inwardly I squirmed. I tried to draw my hand back without offending him. He said suggestively, ‘I’m going out to the Music Box afterwards. Come out where you hear me playing.’

“I answered with as much sarcasm as I dared. ‘Christmas carols?’ He was still grinning. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not exactly Christmas carols.’ I didn’t answer him. I walked away from him.” She paused to straighten her eyeglasses primly on her narrow nose. “Oh, I knew what he meant. But he didn’t press me about it. I worked on the Christmas tree and spread presents around it until I noticed the clock striking in the hall. It was twelve midnight. I felt he was down here in the parlor and went up the stairs. On the first landing I stopped for a moment and looked out the window. The snow had stopped falling. The moon was out. Everything was beautiful and white. I hurried up the rest of the stairs to my bedroom. I locked the door. I felt too tired to open my diary last night, but something kept drawing me to it. At last I decided: A few words. When I opened it and saw what was in it, it fell out of my hands. The last words written in it were: Tonight I’m going to kill Mr. Woolfolk.”

She swallowed painfully. “I thought I must have gone insane. Why should I have written such a terrible thing? It couldn’t have been me. Yet it was in my own handwriting. I flung the book back into the drawer and crawled into bed, trembling, sick at my thoughts. It was as if some evil thing had come into the house and taken possession of me during the past two weeks. I knew I walked in my sleep. Beryl told me that she’d seen me. Once I found some silverware in my room where I’d hidden it while I was asleep. I was afraid I’d do something horrible when I had no conscious control of myself. I didn’t want to go to sleep, ever. I lay awake, fighting it, for as long a time as I could. I kept listening. The house was still. But I couldn’t keep awake. I couldn’t. I did fall asleep — and I dreamed...”

Her face was the color of ashes. “Somewhere in a dim corner of my mind I remembered Mr. Woolfolk saying, ‘Come where you hear me playing.’ My actions were all of a dreamlike floating quality. In the distance I could hear Mr. Woolfolk playing a part of La Somnambula score. I don’t know how I got there, but I was eventually facing him across the Spanish shawl on the piano. The music had stopped. He was rising to his feet, grinning. I hated him more than I ever did. There was a gun in my hand. I don’t know how it got there. He kept repeating, ‘Shoot me! Go ahead! Shoot me! If you hate me so much, why don’t you shoot?’ I heard the shots stabbing into my brain. Then it all faded out again.

“When I woke up it was morning and I was in bed. I thought: Thank God, it’s all been a horrible dream. I dressed, woke Beryl up, and went down to make breakfast. Mr. Woolfolk wasn’t anywhere in the house and when I looked outside for him I saw those footprints that led to the Music Box. That’s where he was. He wouldn’t have stayed out here all night, unless — I knew what had happened, but I was too terrified to go and look. And then Verl came...”

Banner frowned. “When did Woolfolk die?”

Verl answered: “The police say about four o’clock in the morning — four hours after it’d stopped snowing.”

“And the weapon used?”

“The old horse pistol that was kept in the stable.”

“Have they found it?”

“They searched the house from top to bottom first, before they did find it. The murderer had laid a stick across the chimney stack and the gun was hanging halfway down on the inside tied to a string.”

Banner heard a thin voice pipe up behind his chair. “You should see the dog now. I painted him blue.”

Banner swiveled his big head. The child was staring at him with blank green eyes as if they were painted on a wooden face. Two rat-tails of carroty hair hung down over her scrawny shoulders. The pale-skinned arms had freckles sprinkled on them and her bloodless lips were chapped.

Ora had reached the limit of her endurance. She lifted her voice shrilly. “Beryl! I told you to stay in bed!”

“I won’t. I tore up the bed. You’ll have to make it over.” She stared steadily at Banner. “I don’t like you. You’re fat and filthy and you can’t play the piano.”

Banner said sweetly to Ora: “Does Snookums know about Daddy?”

“Yes, we told her,” said Ora.

“She doesn’t seem very grieved,” said Verl.

“Let her stay up if she wants to.” Banner plowed his hand into one of the roomy kangaroo pockets of his coat and took out a paper-wrapped candy bar. He held it up. “Butterscotch,” he said. “It melts in your mouth. I would’ve given it to you, tadpole, if you’d wiggled off to bed. But since you’d rather stay up—” He gave a titanic shrug.

She watched sullenly while he returned the butterscotch to his pocket. Then she sat on a footstool and appeared to be reconsidering the situation.

Verl’s mind was tinkering with something. He said: “Ora, has the radio aerial been fixed yet?”

“No,” said Ora listlessly.

“What happened to it?” said Banner.

Beryl squirmed on the footstool. “I broke it yesterday,” she confessed.

“You broke it!” said Banner.

Beryl shrugged her thin shoulders. “Sure. I was up on the roof, breaking off shingles, when I thought I’d climb the aerial. Is it any business of yours?”

Banner scowled. “Yep. I investigate that under the head of monkey business.”

Ora was sitting looking wide-eyed at Verl. “How did you know the aerial was broken? I never told—”

“Yes, you did. You told me about it when you saw me yesterday in town.”

“I never saw you yesterday!” she said strongly.

“Why, Ora, you most certainly did. You dropped into The Griffon editorial office and asked me if I wanted to go with you to the all-Tschaikovsky afternoon concert at the school hall. And we went. And you liked the Nutcracker Suite.”

“Verl! Stop ragging me! I was right here all afternoon. I stayed in and cleaned the house.”

“See here, Ora. You spent at least two full hours with me.”

“That’s a lie!”

Verl checked an angry retort. “Ora,” he said tightly, “I can prove it. Several other people saw you too, my father among them. Why should we all lie about it?”

She was near frantic tears. “But, Verl, I never left the house. I remember what I did all afternoon. I never went out!”

“Someone was masquerading as you, I suppose?” Verl shook his head. “No, it was you. We’ve grown up together. Nobody could pull off a deception like that.”

Beryl perked up accusingly. “You walk in your sleep.”

“People don’t act that wide-awake in their sleep,” argued Verl. “I tell you, Ora, you were awake and you were with me.”

“I won’t listen to any more.” Ora stood up. “Beryl, for the last time, are you going to lie down?”

Beryl looked questioningly at Banner’s pocket. “I might go if—”

Banner chuckled. “Hunky-dory.” He put the butterscotch in her hand. “Off to blanket class.”

Beryl, pacified, left with Ora.

Banner said sternly: “What snicklefritz needs is to get the tar whaled outta her.”

Verl flung out his arms and snapped: “Why should she deny being with me? I know I’m not lying.”

“Mebbe she ain’t either,” said Banner cryptically. “Does anybody like Beryl?”

“Her father did. God knows why. She’s a heller. She spies on people and tells nothing but lies. Breaking the aerial was just another one of those things. She takes showers with all her clothes on. She rings the dinner bell before time. She lets all the horses out of the stable. She floods the garden. She puts heavy books in her pillow-slip when she wants a pillow fight. She says Ora is loony.”

Verl broke off suddenly.

Banner glanced sideways at a slight sound and saw a strange woman standing in the doorway. It was Caroline Spires. Caroline was totally different from her dowdy sister. The figure was thickening (fat with sin, as Banner liked to put it), but it was dressed in the latest of fashions. She had strawy blonde hair, fresh from a cold perm-wave and a little too much pancake makeup on. Banner had a feeling that in spite of her placid exterior she could be a vixen when aroused.

“Hello, Caroline,” said Verl, with some surprise. “I want you to meet Senator Banner.”

Caroline teetered in on very high heels and used the properly sorrowful smile for the occasion as she shook his hand. “How do you do?” she enunciated.

“Meetcha,” said Banner.

“Seeing you standing there, Caroline,” went on Verl, “gave me a turn. Ora said that last night you weren’t able to lift a finger. You’ve made a very rapid recovery.”

A crease of annoyance came and went between her penciled brows. “Oh, no matter how I felt, I couldn’t stay away at a time like this.” She took a package wrapped in holiday tissue from her handbag. “I know that Caspar would have wanted me to bring this.” She let her lower lip tremble. “Who knows? In another few weeks I might have been Mrs. Woolfolk.”

Banner thought: Nice acting, baby.

He said: “You felt that Beryl needed you for a mother.”

“I should say not,” said Caroline forcefully. “She’s ungovernable. I wouldn’t feel safe living in the same house with that brat. I wanted her sent away to a school. I told him so. I wouldn’t marry him under any other condition.”

“Woolfolk visited you at your sick-bed last night. He left near ten. Didja get up any time after that?”

She smiled archly. “I hardly dared. My nurse looked in every half hour to see if I was asleep. Surely you don’t think I did it. I’m not one that’s likely to kill a goose with golden eggs.” She twisted the wrapped gift over in her manicured hands. “Excuse me. I want to put this under the tree.” Before she turned away she added: “What a horrible Christmas!”

They listened to her heels tap away in the hall.

Verl said: “If she’d had her way with Woolfolk, she’d be mistress of Falconridge now. Lately she’s been afraid that Woolfolk might get too interested in Ora. There’s a rivalry between those two sisters, but it doesn’t show on the surface. I don’t think she was sick for one minute. This sudden recovery proves it. She did it to keep Woolfolk at her bedside morning and night. Finally he would have married her out of sheer sympathy.”

Banner studied him with his shrewd baby-blue eyes. “Are you in love with Ora? Or vice versa?”

Verl looked genuinely surprised, then he grinned. “That’s funny. I never thought of that before.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Senator. We’ve known each other all our lives. We’re good friends. But I doubt that Ora will ever marry anyone. She’s a born and bred spinster. Since she was a tot, Caroline put the fear of men in her.” He paused. “There’s that interesting sidelight on Woolfolk that I was telling you about. Come into the library. I’ll show you.”

Banner followed him in.

Three of the room’s four walls were banked with heavy books.

Verl waved his hand at them. “Abnormal psychology — every last one of them.” He handled a volume. “Most of these subjects are old familiars with me. I majored in psych at Holy Cross.”

Banner ran his eye over the titles: Paranoia. Mania. Melancholy. Hallucination. Hypochondria. Sadism. Masochism. Lycanthropy.

There was a volume lying closed on a square table. Banner leafed through it and stopped at a chapter headed Schizophrenia. There was a marginal note in a fine masculine hand: There’s no doubt she has a split personality.

Banner snapped the book shut. To whom had Woolfolk referred? Ora? Beryl? Caroline? Or someone else?

Banner trotted across the library and laid the book on a victrola top. “What kinda gun did the police find hanging down the chimney?”

“I told you. The old horse pistol. A single loader.”

“When the police searched the house, they didn’t find another gun?”

“Another one? No. Why should they? It was the horse pistol that killed Woolfolk.”

Without answering, Banner galumphed across the carpet and out of the library. He went into the dining room. Verl followed.

The Christmas fir was there. The gifts underneath its tinseled boughs were undisturbed. Beryl, the little brat, had hung some of her soiled underwear on the tree. Caroline was nowhere in sight.

Banner plumped down on his well-padded knees and sorted out all the packages meant for Woolfolk. He ripped open the smaller ones like a ghoulish vandal. It wasn’t until he reached the fifth package. When he tore it open a small black automatic fell out and clattered on the parquet floor.

“The devil!” cried Verl. “How’d that get there?”

Banner’s head shot around, his eyes probing. “You’ve seen it before?”

“Yes. It’s Woolfolk’s.”

“Tell Ora and Caroline to come to the library.”

“But, Senator, what’s the gun doing there?”

“That’s where Ora hid it and that’s the one place the police neglected to look.”

“Ora!”

“Find her and Caroline! Skeedaddle!”

Verl ran upstairs.

Banner stuck a pencil into the pistol-barrel and picked it up. He pranced into the library and looked thoughtfully at the victrola. Then he opened the records cabinet and hunted. Finally he held up a record to the dull light from the window. He chuckled. The label said: Selections from La Somnambula. Pianist, Caspar Woolfolk.

He heard the other three coming.

“Ora,” he said to her in his bullfrog voice as she came faltering in, “your story didn’t fuse. If you’d walked out to the li’l house on the lawn in your sleep, you’d’ve left tracks in the snow. And when you told me how you killed Woolfolk you used the word shots.”

“I did,” she said frantically. “I kept shooting over and over. I don’t know how many times.”

“Woolfolk was shot only once. He was killed with a single loader. You can’t fire the horse pistol more than once without jamming in another round.”

Ora stared. “You mean I didn’t shoot—”

Banner held up the black automatic. “This’s the gun you shot at him with.”

“Then I killed him after all,” she cried in bewildered despair.

Banner chuckled. “With blanks!”

“Blanks!” exploded Verl. “What kind of games were they playing last night?”

“Mighty deep ones,” said Banner seriously. “Woolfolk was hipped on psychology. What started him off we’ll go into later. Woolfolk tried an ignoble experiment on Ora. Would she — hypnotized — be compelled to commit murder!”

“Hypnotism!” Verl snapped his fingers with elation.

“Sure,” said Banner. “Woolfolk babbled about the magic mirror, Carl Saxtus’s zinc button, and Father Hell’s magnet. It’s all hypnotism!”

“I was hypnotized?” said Ora dully. “Oh no. No. Mr. Woolfolk never hypnotized me. He couldn’t do that against my will. Nobody can.”

“You walk in your sleep, duck,” said Banner. “Somnambulism’s the nearest thing to a hypnotic trance. Woolfolk would meet you and gently suggest—”

“He saw me — he saw me in my night clothes!” She was mortified. This was worse than being accused of murder.

Banner grinned and continued: “Bug doctors call it post-hypnotic suggestion. You tell a person to do something the next day and to forget they’ve done it.”

“That’s why she didn’t remember being with me in town yesterday afternoon,” said Verl.

“Yass. At his suggestion, Ora, you put notations in your diary. He was experimenting with you, as I said. He was conditioning your mind for a pseudo murder. He wanted to see how far a gentle-natured woman, like yourself, would go. And he’d selected himself as the victim. Finally Woolfolk was ready for the experiment. He told you to come where you could hear him playing.”

“I remember that,” she said.

Caroline Spires, in the background, was drinking it all in greedily, not making a sound.

Banner said: “Last night, Ora, you woke up about 3:30, under post-hypnotic compulsion. The little black automatic, loaded with blanks, had been laid on your night table by your bed by Woolfolk himself. You couldn’t help but see it when you woke. You took the gun in your hand and started downstairs. You could hear Woolfolk’s arrangement of La Somnambula. But the music wasn’t coming from outside the house. It came from right here in the library. Woolfolk had considered the cold and the snow and your scanty nightdress. So he duplicated the Music Box here in the library. All he needed was piano music and a piano. He built up this square table with books and threw the large Spanish shawl over all of it. You thought it was the piano, cuz the shawl always covered the piano. The music you heard was from one of Woolfolk’s own recordings being played on the victrola.” He jabbed a dynamic forefinger at it. “He turned it off when he heard you coming. He rose up, then goaded you till you fired the harmless automatic at him. That’s how you murdered Woolfolk.”

She sobbed with relief.

“But somebody did kill Woolfolk in the Music Box!” cried Verl.

“I’m coming to that. After Ora fled back to her room, he put the record and books away — probably with mixed emotions over what’d just occurred — and threw the Spanish shawl over his arm. He went to the door. It was nearly four o’clock. It’d stopped snowing some time before. Carrying the shawl, he walked across the snow to the Music Box, leaving the only tracks.”

The others were breathlessly silent.

“The murderer was waiting in the little house — had been waiting there for hours...”

“Ah,” said Verl. It was as soft as a prayer.

Caroline cleared her throat raspingly. “How did the murderer know that Caspar was going out there at all?”

“Cuz,” said Banner, “the murderer overheard Woolfolk telling Ora to come where he would be playing. And where else would that be but the Music Box where the piano is?” There was a light dawning in Verl’s eyes, but Banner went on evenly: “Woolfolk came in and arranged the shawl and sheet music on the piano, putting everything back in its proper place, y’see. The murderer was hiding behind the grandfather’s clock, the horse pistol cocked, the fingers that held it stiff from waiting. As Woolfolk sat down on the bench to run his fingers over the keys, the murderer stepped out into view and fired. Woolfolk, a bullet in his skull, fell forward onto the piano.”

“My God,” breathed Ora, her hand fluttering at her white throat.

Verl was excited. “But now you’ve got the murderer trapped out there!”

“For the moment. To walk back across the snow would leave distinctive, incriminating footprints. There had to be another way.” Banner looked into Verl’s luminous eyes. “You told me the answer at the orphanage, in your first recital of your discovery of the crime. There’s only one way out.”

“I?” said Verl incredulously. “I know?”

Banner nodded grimly. “You said that when you came into the little house the day was so gloomy that you had to switch on the light. Later I also called attention to the tipped-over table lamp. That means electricity!”

“No, I can’t—” puzzled Verl.

“And electricity means wires!”

“Oh,” said Verl, like a deflated balloon.

“The insulated wire runs at a long slant up from under the eaves to the cross-armed pole thirty feet away. You can reach the wire from one of the windows. It ain’t slippy. It hasn’t been cold enough for ice. More poles carry the wire across the snow to the trampled road, where all footprints’re lost.” Banner shrugged. “That’s all there is to know.”

Caroline whispered: “Then the murderer is someone who would have no trouble climbing. Like a little monkey.”

“Yass,” said Banner gloomily. “Someone who can climb things like radio aerials. That should’ve given you an idea. A tomboy—”

Ora had her hands up to her mouth in shocked horror.

Someone screamed in the hall and dashed in furiously to spit and tear at Banner.

“He was going to send me away!” Beryl screeched at him. “I heard him tell Caroline! He wanted to marry her and send me away! And he liked Ora even better than me!”

Ora sat horrified listening to a child’s confession of murder.

Later a psychiatrist said to Banner: “So Woolfolk took up psychology to study his own child’s case. His layman’s diagnosis was correct. She is schizophrenic.”

Another psychiatrist interrupted: “I think, in this particular case, that dementia praecox is the more precise term.”

Banner waggled his big speckled hand at both of them and grunted: “Gentlemen, she was just plain nuts.”