The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

The Haunted Crescent Peter Lovesey

Few contemporary mystery writers have been as beloved by their fans as Peter Lovesey, and fewer still have received a similar degree of the accolades of reviewers and his peers. His first book, Wobble to Death (1970), won the first prize in a contest sponsored by Macmillan for a best first mystery. The wonderfully funny novel The False Inspector Dew (1982) won the (British) Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger. Rough Cider (1986) and The Summons (1995) were nominated for Edgars. Waxwork (1978), The Summons, and Bloodhounds (1996) all won CWA Silver Daggers, and Lovesey was given the CWA’s Carter Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement in 2000. There have been many other awards from all around the world, but you get the idea. “The Haunted Crescent” was first published in Mistletoe Mysteries, edited by Charlotte MacLeod (New York, Mysterious Press, 1989).

A ghost was seen last Christmas in a certain house in the Royal Crescent. Believe me, this is true. I speak from personal experience, as a resident of the City of Bath and something of an authority on psychic phenomena. I readily admit that ninety-nine percent of so-called hauntings turn out to have been hallucinations of one sort or another, but this is the exception, a genuine haunted house. Out of consideration for the present owners (who for obvious reasons wish to preserve their privacy), I shall not disclose the exact address, but if you doubt me, read what happened to me on Christmas Eve, 1988.

The couple who own the house had gone to Norfolk for the festive season, leaving on Friday, December twenty-third. Good planning. The ghost was reputed to walk on Christmas Eve. Knowing of my interest, they had generously placed their house at my disposal. I am an ex-policeman, by the way, and it takes a lot to frighten me.

For those who like a ghost story with all the trimmings — deep snow and howling winds outside — I am sorry. I must disappoint you. Christmas, 1988, was not a white one in Bath. It was unseasonably warm. There wasn’t even any fog. All I can offer in the way of atmospheric effects are a full moon that night and an owl that hooted periodically in the trees at the far side of the sloping lawn that fronts the Crescent. It has to be admitted that this was not a spooky-looking barn owl, but a tawny owl, which on this night was making more of a high-pitched “kee-wik” call than a hoot, quite cheery, in fact. Do not despair, however. The things that happened in the house that night more than compensated for the absence of werewolves and banshees outside.

It is vital to the story that you are sufficiently informed about the building in which the events occurred. Whether you realize it or not, you have probably seen the Royal Crescent, if not as a resident, or a tourist, then in one of the numerous films in which it has appeared as a backdrop to the action. It is in a quiet location northwest of the city and comprises thirty houses in a semielliptical terrace completed in 1774 to the specification of John Wood the Younger. It stands comparison with any domestic building in Europe. I defy anyone not to respond to its uncomplicated grandeur, the majestic panorama of 114 Ionic columns topped by a portico and balustrade; and the roadway at the front where Jane Austen and Charles Dickens trod the cobbles. But you want me to come to the ghost.

My first intimation of something unaccountable came at about twenty past eleven that Christmas Eve. I was in the drawing room on the first floor. I had stationed myself there a couple of hours before. The door was ajar and the house was in darkness. No, that isn’t quite accurate. I should have said simply that none of the lights were switched on; actually the moonlight gave a certain amount of illumination, silver-blue rectangles projected across the carpet and over the base of the Christmas tree, producing an effect infinitely prettier than fairy lights. The furniture was easily visible, too, armchairs, table, and grand piano. One’s eyes adjust. It didn’t strike me as eerie to be alone in that unlit house. Anyone knows that a spirit of the departed is unlikely to manifest itself in electric light.

No house is totally silent, certainly no centrally heated house. The sounds produced by expanding floorboards in so-called haunted houses up and down the land must have fooled ghost-hunters by the hundred. In this case, as a precaution against a sudden freeze, the owners had left the system switched on. It was timed to turn off at eleven, so the knocks and creaks I was hearing now ought to have been the last of the night.

As events turned out, it wasn’t a sound that alerted me first. It was a sudden draft against my face and a flutter of white across the room. I tensed. The house had gone silent. I crossed the room to investigate.

The disturbance had been caused by a Christmas card falling off the mantelpiece into the grate. Nothing more alarming than that. Cards are always falling down. That’s why some people prefer to suspend them on strings. I stooped, picked up the card, and replaced it, smiling at my overactive imagination.

Yet I had definitely noticed a draft. The house was supposed to be free of drafts. All the doors and windows were closed and meticulously sealed against the elements. Strange. I listened, holding my breath. The drawing room where I was standing was well placed for picking up any unexplained sound in the house. It was at the center of the building. Below me were the ground floor and the cellar, above me the second floor and the attic.

Hearing nothing, I decided to venture out to the landing and listen there. I was mystified, yet unwilling at this stage to countenance a supernatural explanation. I was inclined to wonder whether the cut-off of the central heating had resulted in some trick of convection that gave the impression or the reality of a disturbance in the air. The falling card was not significant in itself. The draft required an explanation. My state of mind, you see, was calm and analytical.

Ten or fifteen seconds passed. I leaned over the banisters and looked down the stairwell to make sure that the front door was firmly shut, and so it proved to be. Then I heard a rustle from the room where I had been. I knew what it was — the card falling into the grate again — for another distinct movement of air had stirred the curtain on the landing window, causing a shift in the moonlight across the stairs. I was in no doubt anymore that this was worth investigating. My only uncertainty was whether to start with the floors above me, or below.

I chose the latter, reasoning that if, as I suspected, someone had opened a window, it was likely to be at the ground or basement levels. My assumption was wrong. I shall not draw out the suspense. I merely wish to record that I checked the cellar, kitchen, scullery, dining room, and study and found every window and external door secure and bolted from inside. No one could have entered after me.

So I began to work my way upstairs again, methodically visiting each room. And on the staircase to the second floor, I heard a sigh.

Occasionally in Victorian novels a character would “heave” a sigh. Somehow the phrase had always irritated me. In real life I never heard a sigh so weighty that it seemed to involve muscular effort — until this moment. This was a sound hauled up from the depths of somebody’s inner being, or so I deduced. Whether it really originated with somebody or some thing was open to speculation.

The sound had definitely come from above me. Unable by now to suppress my excitement, I moved up to the second-floor landing, where I found three doors, all closed. I moved from one to the other, opening them rapidly and glancing briefly inside. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. I hesitated. A bathroom. Had the “sigh,” I wondered, been caused by some aberration of the plumbing? Air locks are endemic in the complicated systems installed in these old Georgian buildings. The houses were not built with valves and cisterns. The efficiency of the pipework depended on the variable skill of generations of plumbers.

The sound must have been caused by trapped air.

Rationality reasserted itself. I would finish my inspection and prove to my total satisfaction that what I had heard was neither human nor spectral in origin. I closed the bathroom door behind me and crossed the landing to the last flight of stairs, more narrow than those I had used so far. In times past they had been the means of access to the servants’ quarters in the attic. I glanced up at the white-painted door at the head of these stairs and observed that it was slightly ajar.

My foot was on the first stair and my hand on the rail when I stiffened. That door moved.

It was being drawn inward. The movement was slow and deliberate. As the gap increased, a faint glow of moonlight was cast from the interior onto the paneling to my right. I stared up and watched the figure of a woman appear in the doorway.

She was in a white gown or robe that reached to her feet. Her hair hung loose to the level of her chest — fine, gently shifting hair so pale in color that it appeared to merge with the dress. Her skin, too, appeared bloodless. The eyes were flint black, however. They widened as they took me in. Her right hand crept to her throat and I heard her give a gasp.

The sensations I experienced in that moment of confrontation are difficult to convey. I was convinced that nothing of flesh and blood had entered that house in the hours I had been there. All the entrances were bolted — I had checked. I could not account for the phenomenon, or whatever it was, that had manifested itself, yet I refused to be convinced. I was unwilling to accept what my eyes were seeing and my rational faculties could not explain. She could not be a ghost.

I said, “Who are you?”

The figure swayed back as if startled. For a moment I thought she was going to close the attic door, but she remained staring at me, her hand still pressed to her throat. It was the face and form of a young woman, not more than twenty.

I asked, “Can you speak?”

She appeared to nod.

I said, “What are you doing here?”

She caught her breath. In a strange, half-whispered utterance she said, as if echoing my words, “Who are you?”

I took a step upward toward her. It evidently frightened her, for she backed away and became almost invisible in the shadowy interior of the attic room. I tried to dredge up some reassuring words. “It’s all right. Believe me, it’s all right.”

Then I twitched in surprise. Downstairs, the doorbell chimed. After eleven on Christmas Eve!

I said, “What on earth...?”

The woman in white whimpered something I couldn’t hear.

I tried to make light of it. “Santa, I expect.”

She didn’t react.

The bell rang a second time.

“He ought to be using the chimney,” I said. I had already decided to ignore the visitor, whoever it was. One unexpected caller was all I could cope with.

The young woman spoke up, and the words sprang clearly from her. “For God’s sake, send him away!”

“You know who it is?”

“Please! I beg you.”

“If you know who it is,” I said reasonably, “wouldn’t you like to answer it?”

“I can’t.”

The chimes rang out again.

I said, “Is it someone you know?”

“Please. Tell him to go away. If you answer the door he’ll go away.”

I was letting myself be persuaded. I needed her cooperation. I wanted to know about her. “All right,” I relented. “But will you be here when I come back?”

“I won’t leave.”

Instinctively I trusted her. I turned and descended the two flights of stairs to the hall. The bell rang again. Even though the house was in darkness, the caller had no intention of giving up.

I drew back the bolts, opened the front door a fraction, and looked out. A man was on the doorstep, leaning on the iron railing. A young man in a leather jacket glittering with studs and chains. His head was shaven. He, at any rate, looked like flesh and blood. He said, “What kept you?”

I said, “What do you want?”

He glared. “For crying out loud — who the hell are you?” His eyes slid sideways, checking the number on the wall.

I said with frigid courtesy, “I think you must have made a mistake.”

“No,” he said. “This is the house all right. What’s your game, mate? What are you doing here with the lights off?”

I told him that I was an observer of psychic phenomena.

“Come again?”

“Ghosts,” I said. “This house has the reputation of being haunted. The owners have kindly allowed me to keep watch tonight.”

“Oh, yes?” he said with heavy skepticism. “Spooks, is it? I’ll have a gander at them meself.” With that, he gave the door a shove. There was no security chain and I was unable to resist the pressure. He stepped across the threshold. “Ghost-buster, are you, mate? You wouldn’t, by any chance, be lifting the family silver at the same time? Anyone else in here?”

I said, “I take exception to that. You’ve no right to force your way in here.”

“No more right than you,” he said, stepping past me. “Were you upstairs when I rang?”

I said, “I’m going to call the police.”

He flapped his hand dismissively. “Be my guest. I’m going upstairs, right?”

Sheer panic inspired me to say, “If you do, you’ll be on film.”

“What?”

“The cameras are ready to roll,” I lied. “The place is riddled with mikes and tripwires.”

He said, “I don’t believe you,” but the tone of his voice said the opposite.

“This ghost is supposed to walk on Christmas Eve,” I told him. “I want to capture it on film.” I gave a special resonance to the word “capture.”

He said, “You’re round the twist.” And with as much dignity as he could muster he sidled back toward the door, which still stood open. Apparently he was leaving. “You ought to be locked up. You’re a nutcase.”

As he stepped out of the door I said, “Shall I tell the owners you called? What name shall I give?”

He swore and turned away. I closed the door and slid the bolts back into place. I was shaking. It had been an ugly, potentially dangerous incident. I’m not so capable of tackling an intruder as I once was and I was thankful that my powers of invention had served me so well.

I started up the stairs again and as I reached the top of the first flight, the young woman in white was waiting for me. She must have come down two floors to overhear what was being said. This area of the house was better illuminated than the attic stairs, so I got a better look at her. She appeared less ethereal now. Her dress was silk or satin, I observed. It was an evening gown. Her makeup was as pale as a mime artist’s, except for the black liner around her eyes.

She said, “How can I thank you enough?”

I answered flatly, “What I want from you, young lady, is an explanation.”

She crossed her arms, rubbing at her sleeves. “I feel shivery here. Do you mind if we go in there?”

As we moved into the drawing room I noticed that she made no attempt to switch on the light. She pointed to some cigarettes on the table. “Do you mind?”

I found some matches by the fireplace and gave her a light. “Who was that at the door?”

She inhaled hard. “Some guy I met at a party. I was supposed to be with someone else, but we got separated. You know how it is. Next thing I knew, this bloke in the leather jacket was chatting me up. He was all right at first. I didn’t know he was going to come on so strong. I mean I didn’t encourage him. I was trying to cool it. He offered me these tablets, but I refused. He said they would make me relax. By then I was really scared. I moved off fast. The stupid thing was that I moved upstairs. There were plenty of people about, and it seemed the easiest way to go. The bloke followed. He kept on following. I went right to the top of the house and shut myself in a room. I pushed a cupboard against the door. He was beating his fist on the door, saying what he was going to do to me. I was scared out of my skull. All I could think of doing was get through the window, so I did. I climbed out and found myself up there behind the little stone wall.”

“Of this building? The balustrade at the top?”

“Didn’t I make that clear? The party was in a house a couple of doors away from you. I ran along this narrow passageway between the roof and the wall, trying all the windows. The one upstairs was the first one I could shift.”

“The attic window. Now I understand.” The sudden draft was explained, and the gasp as she had caught her breath after the effort.

She said, “I’m really grateful.”

“Grateful?”

“Grateful to you for getting rid of him.”

I said, “It would be sensible now to call a taxi. Where do you live?”

“Not far. I can walk.”

“It wouldn’t be advisable, would it, after what happened? He’s persistent. He may be waiting.”

“I didn’t think.” She stubbed the cigarette into an ashtray. After a moment’s reflection she said, “All right. Where’s the phone?”

There was one in the study. While she was occupied, I gave some thought to what she had said. I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had something vastly more important on my mind.

She came back into the room. “Ten minutes, they reckon. Was it true what you said downstairs, about this house being haunted?”

“Mm?” I was still preoccupied.

“The spook. All that stuff about hidden cameras. Did you mean it?”

“There aren’t any cameras. I’m useless with machinery of any sort. I reckoned he’d think twice about coming in if he knew he was going to be on film. It was just a bluff.”

“And the bit about the ghost?”

“That was true.”

“Would you mind telling me about it?”

“Aren’t you afraid of the supernatural?”

“It’s scary, yes. Not so scary as what happened already. I want to know the story. Christmas Eve is a great night for a ghost story.”

I said, “It’s more than just a story.”

“Please.”

“On one condition. Before you get into that taxi, you tell me the truth about yourself — why you really came into this house tonight.”

She hesitated.

I said, “It needn’t go any further.”

“All right. Tell me about the ghost.” She reached for another cigarette and perched on the arm of a chair.

I crossed to the window and looked away over the lawn toward the trees silhouetted against the city lights. “It can be traced back, as all ghost stories can, to a story of death and an unquiet spirit. About a hundred and fifty years ago this house was owned by an army officer, a retired colonel by the name of Davenport. He had a daughter called Rosamund, and it was believed in the city that he doted on her. She was dressed fashionably and given a good education, which in those days was beyond the expectation of most young women. Rosamund was a lively, intelligent, and attractive girl. Her hair when she wore it long was very like yours, fine and extremely fair. Not surprisingly, she had admirers. The one she favored most was a young man from Bristol, Luke Robertson, who at that time was an architect. In the conventions of the time they formed an attachment which amounted to little more than a few chaperoned meetings, some letters, poems, and so on. They were lovers in a very old-fashioned sense that you may find difficult to credit. In physical terms it amounted to no more than a few stolen kisses, if that. Somewhere in this house there is supposed to be carved into woodwork the letters L and R linked. I can’t show you. I haven’t found it.”

Outside, a taxi trundled over the cobbles. I watched it draw up at a house some doors down. Two couples came out of the building, laughing, and climbed into the cab. It was obvious that they were leaving a party. The heavy beat of music carried up to me.

I said, “I wonder if it’s turned midnight. It might be Christmas Day already.”

She said, “Please go on with the story.”

“Colonel Davenport — the father of this girl — was a lonely man. His wife had died some years before. Lately he had become friendly with a neighbor, another resident of the Crescent, a widow approaching fifty years of age by the name of Mrs. Crandley, who lived in one of the houses at the far end of the building. She was a musician, a pianist, and she gave lessons. One of her pupils was Rosamund. So far as one can tell, Mrs. Crandley was a good teacher and the girl a promising pupil. Do you play?”

“What?”

I turned to face her. “I said, do you play the piano?”

“Oh. Just a bit,” said the girl.

“You didn’t tell me your name.”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. What happened between the colonel and Mrs. Crandley?”

“Their friendship blossomed. He wanted her to marry him. Mrs. Crandley was not unwilling. In fact, she agreed, subject to one condition. She had a son of twenty-seven called Justinian.”

“What was that?”

“Justinian. There was a vogue for calling your children after emperors. This Justinian was a dull fellow without much to recommend him. He was lazy and overweight. He rarely ventured out of the house. Mrs. Crandley despaired of him.”

“She wanted him off her hands?”

“That is what it amounted to. She wanted him married and she saw the perfect partner for him in Rosamund. Surely such a charming, talented girl would bring out some positive qualities in her lumpish son. Mrs. Crandley applied herself diligently to the plan, insisting that Justinian answer the doorbell each time Rosamund came for her music lesson. Then he would be told to sit in the room and listen to her playing. Everything Mrs. Crandley could do to promote the match was done. For his part, Justinian was content to go along with the plan. He was promised that if he married the girl he would be given his mother’s house, so the pattern of his life would alter little, except that a pretty wife would keep him company rather than a discontented, nagging mother. He began to eye Rosamund with increasing favor. So when the colonel proposed marriage to Mrs. Crandley, she assented on the understanding that Justinian would be married to Rosamund at the same time.”

“How about Rosamund? Was she given any choice?”

“You have to be aware that marriages were commonly arranged by the parents in those days.”

“But you said she already had a lover. He was perfectly respectable, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. “Absolutely. But Luke Robertson didn’t feature in Mrs. Crandley’s plan. He was ignored. Rosamund bowed under the pressure and became engaged to Justinian in the autumn of 1838. The double marriage was to take place in the Abbey on Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, dear — I think I can guess the rest of the story.”

“It may not be quite as you expect. As the day of the wedding approached, Rosamund began to dread the prospect. She pleaded with her father to allow her to break off the engagement. He wouldn’t hear of it. He loved Mrs. Crandley and his thoughts were all of her. In despair, Rosamund sent the maidservant with a message to Luke, asking him to meet her secretly on the basement steps. She had a romantic notion that Luke would elope with her.”

My listener was enthralled. “And did he come?”

“He came. Rosamund poured out her story. Luke listened with sympathy, but he was cautious. He didn’t see elopement as the solution. Rather bravely, he volunteered to speak to the colonel and appeal to him to allow Rosamund to marry the man of her choice. If that failed, he would remind the colonel that Rosamund could not be forced to take the sacred vows. Her consent had to be freely given in church, and she was entitled to withhold it. So this uncomfortable interview took place a day or two later. The colonel, naturally, was outraged. Luke was banished from the house and forbidden to speak to Rosamund again. The unfortunate girl was summoned by her father and accused of wickedly consorting with her former lover when she was promised to another. The story of the secret note and the meeting on the stairs was dragged from her. She was told that she wished to destroy her father’s marriage. She was said to be selfish and disloyal. Worse, she might be taken to court by Justinian for breach of promise.”

“Poor little soul! Did it break her?”

“No. Amazingly, she stood her ground. Luke’s support had given her courage. She would not marry Justinian. It was the colonel who backed down. He went to see Mrs. Crandley. When he returned, it was to tell Rosamund that his marriage would not, after all, take place. Mrs. Crandley had insisted on a double wedding, or nothing.”

“I wouldn’t have been in Rosamund’s shoes for a million pounds.”

“She was told by her father that she had behaved no better than a servant, secretly meeting her lover on the basement steps and trifling with another man’s affections, so in future he would treat her as a servant. And he did. He dismissed the housemaid. He ordered Rosamund to move her things to the maid’s room in the attic, and he gave her a list of duties that kept her busy from five-thirty each morning until late at night.”

“Cruel.”

“All his bitterness was heaped on her.”

“Did she kill herself?”

“No,” I said with only the slightest pause. “She was murdered.”

“Murdered?”

“On Christmas Eve, the day that the weddings would have taken place, she was suffocated in her bed.”

“Horrible!”

“A pillow was held against her face until she ceased to breathe. She was found dead in bed by the cook on Christmas morning after she failed to report for duty. The colonel was informed and the police were sent for.”

“Who killed her?”

“The inspector on the case, a local man without much experience of violent crimes, was in no doubt that Colonel Davenport was the murderer. He had a powerful motive. The animus he felt toward his daughter had been demonstrated by the way he treated her. It seemed that his anger had only increased as the days passed. On the date he was due to have married, it became insupportable.”

“Was it true? Did he confess to killing her?”

“He refused to make any statement. But the evidence against him was overwhelming. Three inches of snow fell on Christmas Eve. It stopped about eight-thirty that evening. The time of death was estimated at about eleven p.m. When the inspector and his men arrived next morning no footsteps were visible on the path leading to the front door except those of the cook, who had gone for the police. The only other person in the house was Colonel Davenport. So he was charged with murdering his own daughter. The trial was short, for he refused to plead. He remained silent to the end. He was found guilty and hanged at Bristol in February 1839.”

She put out the cigarette. “Grim.”

“Yes.”

“There’s more to the story, isn’t there? The ghost. You said something about an unquiet spirit.”

I said, “There was a feeling of unease about the fact that the colonel wouldn’t admit to the crime. After he was convicted and condemned, they tried to persuade him to confess, to lay his sins before his Maker. A murderer often would confess in the last days remaining to him, even after protesting innocence all through the trial. They all did their utmost to persuade him — the prison governor, the warders, the priest, and the hangman himself. Those people had harrowing duties to perform. It would have helped them to know that the man going to the gallows was truly guilty of the crime. Not one word would that proud old man speak.”

“You sound almost sorry for him. There wasn’t really any doubt, was there?”

I said, “There’s a continuous history of supernatural happenings in this house for a century and a half. Think about it. Suppose, for example, someone else committed the murder.”

“But who else could have?”

“Justinian Crandley.”

“That’s impossible. He didn’t live here. His footprints would have shown up in the snow.”

“Not if he entered the house as you did tonight — along the roof and through the attic window. He could have murdered Rosamund and returned to his own house by the same route.”

“It’s possible, I suppose, but why — what was his motive?”

“Revenge. He would have been master in his own house if the marriage had not been called off. Instead, he faced an indefinite future with his domineering and now embittered mother. He blamed Rosamund. He decided that if he was not to have her as his wife, no one else should.”

“Is that what you believe?”

“It is now,” said I.

“Why didn’t the colonel tell them he was innocent?”

“He blamed himself. He felt a deep sense of guilt for the way he had treated his own daughter. But for his selfishness the murder would never have taken place.”

“Do you think he knew the truth?”

“He must have worked it out. He loved Mrs. Crandley too much to cause her further unhappiness.”

There was an interval of silence, broken finally by the sound of car tires on the cobbles below.

She stood up. “Tonight when you saw me at the attic door you thought I was Rosamund’s ghost.”

I said, “No. Rosamund doesn’t haunt this place. Her spirit is at rest. I didn’t take you for a real ghost any more than I believed your story of escaping from the fellow in the leather jacket.”

She walked to the window. “It is my taxi.”

I wasn’t going to let her leave without admitting the truth. “You went to the party two doors along with the idea of breaking into this house. You climbed out onto the roof and forced your way in upstairs, meaning to let your friend in by the front door. You were going to burgle the place.”

She gasped and swung around. “How did you know that?”

“When I opened the door he was expecting you. He said ‘What kept you?’ He knew which house to call at, so it must have been planned. If your story had been true, he wouldn’t have known where to come.”

She stared down at the waiting cab.

I said, “Until I suggested the taxi, you were quite prepared to go out into the street where this man who had allegedly threatened you was waiting.”

“I’m leaving.”

“And I noticed that you didn’t want the lights turned on.”

Her tone altered. “You’re not one of the fuzz, are you? You wouldn’t turn me in? Give me a break, will you? It’s the first time. I’ll never try it again.”

“How can I know that?”

“I’ll give you my name and address, if you want. Then you can check.”

It is sufficient to state here that she supplied the information. I shall keep it to myself. I’m no longer in the business of exposing petty criminals. I saw her to her taxi. She promised to stop seeing her boyfriend. Perhaps you think I let her off too lightly. Her misdemeanor was minor compared with the discovery I had made — and I owed that discovery to her.

It released me from my obligation, you see. I told you I was once a policeman. An inspector, actually. I made a fatal mistake. I have had a hundred and fifty years to search for the truth and now that I found it I can rest. The haunting of the Royal Crescent is at an end.

A Christmas in Camp Edmund Cox

While we are accustomed to think of Christmas as a Dickensian event in Victorian England, or in a romantic little clapboard house in snowy Connecticut, it is a holiday celebrated in all parts of the world — snowy or not. This story is by Sir Edmund Charles Cox, who served for many years as a member of the Indian Imperial Police and wrote several factual books about that country. He also wrote three rare short story collections: John Carruthers, Indian Policeman (1905), The Achievements of John Carruthers (1911), and The Exploits of Kesho Naik, Dacoit (1912). In the books about his British policeman, Carruthers is at the center of all the stories, but each is narrated by different officers under his command. “A Christmas in Camp” was first published in The Achievements of John Carruthers (London, Constable, 1911).

Mr. Carruthers was furiously angry. I had seldom seen him angry at all, and never anything approaching this. He glared at me until I felt as if his glance would wither me away.

“You indescribable idiot,” he thundered. “You hopeless fool! You have ruined yourself for life. I did think that we had one decent young policeman. After all that I have done for you too. Good heavens, it is too monstrous. Ruined utterly! Never a stroke of honest work to be got out of you again! Talk of brains, intellect, enthusiasm, keenness! And all for what? Endless trouble, worry, and annoyance! Damn it, man, it is too intolerable!”

And what was the cause of all this outburst? Merely this, that I had asked him to congratulate me on my going to be married. I had hoped that he would be pleased, especially when I told him that she was the dearest girl in the world. But this only seemed to add fuel to the flames.

“The dearest girl in the world!” he snorted. “The fools always say that. They learn in good time what there is dear about it when they have to pay for their idiotcy.”

I felt unspeakably hurt and indignant. What crime had I committed? I was now twenty-six, and old enough to judge for myself, I thought; and many men married at that age and seemed to be as happy as possible. I had been home on three month’s privilege leave and had become engaged to — well, to the dearest girl in the world, without any possible exception. It was now August, and she was to come out in November, and we were to be married in the Bombay cathedral. I had the greatest regard for Mr. Carruthers, and I was looking forward to his congratulations on my good luck. And now to be treated like this! I felt exceedingly disconcerted. We both stood silent for a while. He had not even offered me a chair.

“Forgive me if I have been violent, Trench,” he said at last, holding out his hand, which I took. “I was quite upset at this sudden announcement. Why didn’t you have some consideration for me, and let me have a little preliminary warning by letter?”

“Well, you see, sir,” I replied, “I wanted to give you a surprise and have your congratulations personally.”

“By the prophets,” he said, “you certainly achieved your object in giving me a surprise; but this sort of surprise is not good for one — not for me at any rate. And as for my congratulations, well, my dear boy, as you have asked for them I am afraid you must have them. This is the prospect on which I have to congratulate you. A very pretty but evanescent glimpse of fairy land to begin with; then incessant thinking of every rupee, anna, and pie; worries about health; complaints about being in a wretched dull station, a transfer about every two years at ruinous expense, for double first-class fare doesn’t go far with a family; no money to go home on leave when leave is due; instead of investigating a crime at length, as you ought to, scheming how soon you can get back to the mem-sahib; and to pass on for a bit, in fifteen years’ time, when you are forty-one and a generous Government is giving you possibly eight hundred depreciated rupees a month, there will be three youngsters being educated at home and the wife there to look after them. You will be sending the family five hundred rupees a month; you will be in debt for their steamer passages, and paying this off at the rate of fifty rupees a month, leaving you two hundred and fifty to live on, the same as you had when you started life, a nice income on which to keep up the position of Head of the Police in a district; you will be all alone and fagged and worried and unable to do justice to your work; but there will be no going home for you, my boy, unless some old aunt leaves you a legacy; and long before your pension is due, though still comparatively young in years, you will be a despondent, worn-out, useless old man. You asked me for my congratulations and, by the Lord, you have had them.”

Here was food for reflection. I could have cried. I felt so miserable at this crushing summary of my future circumstances. For I knew that though it was one-sided, and did not say anything about the companionship of married life, and so on, yet truth compelled me to admit that I had seen something of the same kind in other cases. However, if every one, at all events in India, was going to look so far ahead as that, very few people would be married at all; and I cheered up at this reflection, and took a brighter view of the future. In fact, when I thought of the girl who was coming out to be my wife in a few months, and how delightful it would be to be in camp together, and ride together, and dine together in the tents, and breakfast together under the trees, how could I feel anything but overjoyed with life? And Mr. Carruthers, having scolded me to his heart’s content, to my unspeakable satisfaction wished me all the joy in the world, and said that if she was anything like the photograph I was indeed a lucky fellow. He was my best man at the wedding, and he gave us as a present on that occasion, a splendid district tonga, with a pair of fourteen-one ponies that went in saddle as well as in harness.

The good ship “Arabia” arrived in Bombay harbour one morning late in November, bringing a certain Ellen Bramwell, as well as a few hundred other passengers who did not count at all. We were married within a few hours. She looked perfection in her wedding gown of soft white satin, and a Limerick lace veil that had been worn by her mother; and I was, of course, in full uniform. After the ceremony there was a very pleasant little meeting of a few old friends, and Mr. Carruthers made a most neat and humorous speech, wishing good luck to the happy pair. Then we changed into travelling costume, and went up for a ten days’ honeymoon to the delightful hill station of Matheran — a few hours in the train and then a seven miles’ ride up the hill on hired ponies. I shall never forget what a delightful time we had there. But I must restrain my pen or it will fly away evolving sheets and sheets about the joys of Matheran. I must not omit to mention one very welcome wedding present; and that was an announcement in the “Government Gazette,” on the day of our wedding, which appointed me to act in a long vacancy as D.S.P. of Tarapur, the next district to Somapur, where Mr. Carruthers was again stationed.

“This is excellent news, Trench,” said he. “I will have a Christmas camp at Loni, just in my district, and on the borders of yours. You must both spend the holidays with me; and we will see what Mrs. Trench can do with a gun or a rifle.”

Of course we accepted, and looked forward greatly to this merry meeting. Things that are looked forward to sometimes fail to realise expectations; but this certainly didn’t. We enjoyed it immensely, and none the less for a mysterious and exciting incident that occurred. But I must not anticipate. It was exceptionally good cold weather. By this I mean it was colder than usual, and Ellen was glad of her winter wraps. There was just a touch of frost in the early morning, and a bite in the air, and everything looked heavenly in the brilliant sunshine, which was not too strong to prevent us from being out all day long. Late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve we arrived at the camp, after a twenty-four-mile drive in our wedding present tonga, the ponies as fresh as could be, and ready for a good many miles more. Mr. Carruthers was standing in front of his tent, and gave us the warmest of welcomes. I was surprised to see how extensive the camp was. There were half a dozen large tents, apart from those provided for servants’ and sepoys’ accommodation. They were all pitched under a beautiful mango tope. Everything was in perfect order; and rows of wild plantains had been planted in the ground to mark out the roads leading from tent to tent. Strings of yellow marigolds hung along the lines thus formed; and Ellen said that she had never seen anything so like fairyland.

“By the by, Trench,” said Mr. Carruthers, after we had exchanged greetings, “I have a little surprise for you. Who do you think are coming? Do you remember your visit to me at Indapur when the Collector was stolen away, one Fleming by name? Well, he and the mem-sahib and the two children will be here. I expect them any minute. She was rather pretty, if you recollect. Some one described her as looking like a dream, and having the most wonderful eyes and hair. But I don’t suppose you would have noticed such things.”

It was mean of Mr. Carruthers to indulge in this little pleasantry; but there was not a twinkle on his countenance, and Ellen seemed entirely unsuspicious that he was amusing himself at my expense. However, I lit a cigarette as quick as I could to cover my confusion. The Flemings arrived in due course. He seemed far brighter and livelier than he used to be; and though there was no denying that she was a pretty woman, when I saw her alongside Ellen I wondered how I could have admired her so much at Indapur. She and the wife were soon the best of friends, and a very merry party we all were. After dinner we put on warm coats and wraps and sat over a roaring bonfire a little way from the tents, and we roasted chestnuts and made jokes and told stories, and drank milk punch, and Ellen got out her guitar and sang to us, and Mr. Carruthers was the life and soul of the whole thing; and the whole thing was delightful. I forgot to mention that the two little Flemings, Jack and Dolly, were allowed to sit up as a great treat, and they enjoyed it all as much as their elders. Great excitement there was at bedtime as to whether “Christmas Father,” as they called him, would be able to find his way to the camp to fill their stockings; but Mr. Carruthers told them that Christmas Father was very clever and was sure not to disappoint them. Certainly by the result he would appear to have visited the tents in the night; for the stockings were full to overflowing the next morning. But I have a story to tell, and at this rate I shall never begin. But it is difficult to pass over such a jolly time without trying to write something about it. It would seem positively ungrateful not to do so.

Christmas Day was, indeed, a day to remember. Our host had provided seasonable presents for every one; and all the servants and orderlies were called up and presented with a rupee or two according to their respective rank and deserts, in recognition of which they respectfully salaamed to the Sahib-logue for their kindness in remembering the humble ones on Natal-kadin, or Christmas Day. The natives always speak of Christmas as Natal. I suppose the word was introduced by the Portuguese. Well, after a substantial chota hazri we all started out for the day. We drove six or seven miles in various conveyances, and we found breakfast arranged for us in a forest glade. We had a little shooting, and made a small bag of quail and black partridge. Mr. Carruthers initiated Ellen into the mysteries of loading and firing a gun, and aiming nowhere in particular and yet bringing down the bird. After a glorious day in the jungle we went back to the camp for dinner, and when that thoroughly enjoyable meal with its regulation puddings and mince pies was over, there was a wonderful surprise for us all.

“I want you to come out and see something that may interest you,” said our host. “Put on warm coats and come along.”

Out we went in obedience to instructions; and, lo and behold, where there had been a canvas enclosure to which I had given no particular attention there stood a gleaming, scintillating, dazzling Christmas tree, a mass of pretty things resting on its branches. There were no bounds to the delight of Jack and Dolly at the sight, and all of us felt a thrill of excitement at the sudden replica of the festivities that were being celebrated in thousands of homes in dear old England. Ellen could hardly contain herself, and she simply waltzed round and round the tree again and again. Jack and Dolly were laden with presents, and there was something for all of us; but this did not complete the proceedings. There was an enormous crowd of natives whose attendance had been invited. Every one in the place who had any children seemed to be there, including all the police who were blessed with youthful progeny. The natives had never seen such a sight before. They were immensely impressed, and there was a chorus of “Wah, wah,” “Arhe Bapre,” and similar ejaculations. For every child there was something, whether a handful of sweets or some glittering toy, and I think it will be a long time before that Natal-ka-din of Carruthers Sahib will pass out of remembrance at Loni. There are days in one’s life which stand out for ever in one’s memory, and I am sure this was one of them for all of us English people. As for the natives the Christmas tree was a foretaste of Bihisht or Paradise. Nevertheless it appeared to me that there was some kind of apprehension in the air. Mothers hung on to their children very persistently, never for a moment letting go of their hands, and anxious looks were distinctly noticeable. However, no one said anything, and neither Mr. Carruthers nor I were going to spoil the day’s enjoyment by asking if anything was wrong, and thus inviting a flow of eloquence on some possible or impossible subject. So the whole crowd went away quietly, after giving three cheers in English fashion for Carruthers Sahib.

The next morning when we had assembled and were doing justice to our chota hazri Ellen suddenly told us of a curious dream that she had had in the night.

“At least I suppose it must have been a dream,” she said, “though it did not in the least seem like a dream at the time. But, of course, on thinking over it, it could have been nothing else. Perhaps it was the result of the mince pies. I woke up with a feeling that some strange person was in the tent. There was not a sound to be heard, and at first I could not see anything. But I had a most vivid impression that someone, or something, was present. After a brief space of time, what do you think I saw? A tall figure passed along the foot of the bed, and its head was a horrible skull with red lights gleaming through the openings where its eyes had once been. Wasn’t it terrifying? I could have shrieked aloud, but I was positively afraid to, and something seemed to withhold me from uttering a sound. The figure disappeared as silently as it had come, and I don’t know how it left the tent. I soon went to sleep again; and now, of course, I know it must have been a dream. But it was ghastly, wasn’t it?”

Mr. Carruthers looked very attentive and concerned as he listened to this recital.

“What an extraordinary coincidence!” he exclaimed. “You know that I am an early riser; and for the last hour I have been listening to a deputation of the inhabitants of Loni, who want me to lay a ghost for them. A policeman’s duties in this country are of a very multifarious nature. By the by, Mrs. Trench, can you give me any further description of your ghostly visitor?”

Ellen reflected for a moment or so and then said:

“Yes; there was a dim light burning in the tent, you know, and I could see that the apparition, or whatever it was, was above middle height. He, or it — what am I to call it? — wore ordinary native costume with the exception of a red waistcoat with brass buttons.”

“This is indeed remarkable,” said Mr. Carruthers. “Now I will tell you the story that has been related to me to-day. The whole village is in a state of consternation; and it is all caused by a gentleman who exactly answers to the description you have given of what you saw in the night. The curious thing is that when I was in these parts a few years ago I personally knew this individual, who seems to have returned from the astral plane, or whatever it was that he went to after his departure from Loni. His name was Maruti.”

“Then why should it not be Maruti in the flesh, playing a practical joke?” asked the matter-of-fact Ellen.

“Because,” replied Mr. Carruthers, “Maruti is dead and buried, or rather burnt. He was a somewhat reckless kind of man, fond of spending more money than he earned. He was, as I remember him, very popular in the neighbourhood. He and his wife Chandra Bai resided in a small cottage on the outskirts of the village. With them lived Maruti’s brother Dhondi, whose intelligence was of the most limited order. However, he was able to do his work, which consisted in helping to cultivate a couple of fields. Chandra Bai was not a bad-looking woman, but was a terrible scold; and my friend Maruti was invariably worsted when there was a war of words. She, like her husband, was very extravagant, and was fond of new saris and ornaments. Maruti was willing enough to gratify her, but this resulted in his becoming more and more involved in debt to the village money-lender named Kashiram, and at last his fields were hopelessly mortgaged. I have mentioned his two fields, and as a matter of fact there were only two that were of any use. But there was a third one, a wretched barren piece of land, to which he attached greater value, from sentimental reasons, than to his really fertile fields, for its possession had been a matter of dispute from time immemorial between his own progenitors and those of one Tatya, a neighbour of Maruti’s. This Tatya, who now claimed the land, was an over-bearing, hectoring man; and there was bitter enmity between him and Maruti. Each had been heard to threaten that he would take the other’s life unless he gave up his claim to the disputed field. I must mention, Mrs. Trench, that Maruti, who was intensely conceited, used to wear a considerably larger puggree than his station in life entitled him to, and he was very proud of a ridiculous red waistcoat with brass buttons. Now you have all the dramatis personæ. As time went on Maruti’s financial position grew worse and worse. Chandra Bai upbraided him for not giving her more money to buy clothes and ornaments to deck herself out with; Kashiram refused to advance him a pice over and above what he had already had, and Tatya’s enmity became more bitter than ever. Suddenly one night Maruti disappeared. That was a little more than two years ago, when I was in this district. Inquiries were made in every direction, but not the faintest trace was found of Maruti or his red waistcoat. This seemed to sober Chandra Bai, and she and Dhondi managed to cultivate the two fields, pay the interest on the mortgage, and keep a roof over their heads for some time. But Tatya seized the disputed piece of land. As the last harvest was a bad one the interest on the mortgage was not available, and Kashiram has taken proceedings in the civil court to foreclose. Well, this morning early, as I have told you, a deputation came to me. They had, with the most unusual consideration for a Sahib’s feelings, refrained from saying anything before, lest they should spoil our Christmas Day; but they could keep silence no longer. This is their story. Four days ago, the day before I came to this camp, some coolies were engaged on making a new local fund road, about half a mile away, and they had to remove a large heap of stones. Beneath the stones what do you think they found? The body, or rather the skeleton, of Maruti, for the flesh, of course, was gone; but the identity was unmistakable from the red waistcoat, brass buttons, and exceptional puggree, which, though more or less stained, were perfectly recognisable. Instead of informing the police and having an inquest on the remains, they burnt them, red waistcoat, brass buttons, and all that very night, with the usual ceremonies. Then there was trouble. Maruti had slept peacefully under his stones ever since his disappearance; but his spirit was evidently displeased at the unwarrantable interference with his resting-place, and his ghost proceeded to worry his former relations and acquaintances. The ghost was not satisfied with the appurtenances that he had worn in this life. There were the original red waistcoat, brass buttons, and large puggree; but his face was a skull with fire gleaming in the sockets where his eyes had been, just as you describe it, Mrs. Trench. First he went to his own house, where Dhondi and Chandra Bai were having their meal. In a hoarse whisper he uttered ‘Beware!’ Chandra Bai went off into a swoon, while Dhondi ran shrieking down the village streets, with his extraordinary tale. Next the ghost visited Kashiram, the money-lender, and said, ‘Give me my mortgage bond, or you die!’ Terribly frightened and hardly knowing if he was in his senses or not the sowar produced the document, threw it at the feet of his unearthly visitor, and fled for his life. He next appeared to his old antagonist Tatya, and said, ‘Your turn has come!’ Tatya has behaved like a madman ever since. The ghost has been seen by various other people, and the whole village is, as I say, in a state of consternation.”

“Good heavens! How amazing! How extraordinary!” were a few of the exclamations that we listeners made on hearing this narrative.

“Wait a minute,” continued Mr. Carruthers; “I have not finished yet. It appears that last night, after they had all gone away from the Christmas tree, they went through the most elaborate ritual, which was warranted to lay any ghost in creation. This seems to have been the gist of the proceedings. All the caste-fellows of Maruti, together with Chandra Bai, went off to the place where Maruti’s body had been found.

They took with them one Mahdu, a gondhali, or master of occult ceremonies, and Govind, a bhagat, or medium, a kind of go-between who carries communications between mortals and the unseen world. The assembled persons sat down in a circle round these two agents of the supernatural. For some time Mahdu and Govind sat wrapped in deep thought, and then Mahdu commenced a strange wailing chant, in which he called upon the spirit of Maruti to remain peaceably in the under world, and to cease from troubling the inhabitants of Loni. Next Govind took a copper pot and asked all present to contribute a small coin, which should be expended on such comforts and luxuries as the deceased Maruti might require in his present abode. The collection was duly made, and so anxious were the people to appease the ghost that many of them promised other things in addition, such as an umbrella, a brass lota for drinking from, or a pair of shoes; and Tatya, who had been dragged most unwillingly to the conclave, offered to give a red waistcoat with brass buttons similar to that which Maruti used to wear on earth. At the mention of each item Govind said, ‘Receive this gift, Maruti, for thy needs in thy new home.’ Next Mahdu took out from a bag in which it had been brought, a black cock, and proceeded to cut its throat while reciting some weird incantations, and then sprinkled its blood upon the place where the corpse had been found and even upon the bystanders.”

“How horrible!” exclaimed Ellen. “Whatever was that for?”

“It was evidently an important part of the ritual necessary for the laying of a ghost,” answered Mr. Carruthers. “To continue, when this was done, the whole assembly at the direction of Mahdu, shouted three times, ‘O Shiva, receive his spirit,’ and with a general feeling of satisfaction and confidence that their efforts would be crowned with success they were on the point of returning to their homes when, to their horror, the ghost of Maruti appeared with his dreadful skull and the lights in his eyes, and pointing his hand towards Tatya he said, ‘Your turn has come!’ With wild screams of terror the assembly scattered to the winds, leaving the spectre in possession of the field. And now, finding that their gods have failed them, they have come to me to get them out of their difficulty. It is rather out of my line of business, and I confess I do not exactly see my way. I should have been inclined to think that the whole thing was the result of imagination were it not for Mrs. Trench’s narrative.”

“I am quite sure it was not any imagination on my part,” said Ellen. “It was either a dream or some sort of visitation. Why should I imagine or dream exactly the same thing which all those people think that they have seen, especially as I had never heard anything about it before?”

“Precisely, Mrs. Trench. Now as you are the only one of us who has seen the apparition, I wonder what you think about it, after hearing all the story. Have you any theory to suggest, or any advice to offer me as to clearing up the mystery?”

“I am very complimented at your asking my advice,” she said; “but I am half afraid you are making fun of me. I can’t suggest any explanation, much less any means of solving the conundrum. It is too dreadfully puzzling. The strange thing is that the ghost of Maruti kept perfectly quiet till they found the poor man’s body. What was the coincidence that made it walk from that time onward? Then the ghost evidently knew all about his mundane affairs, as he promptly visited the money-lender and the other man. I can’t manage the curious names yet. And the skull and the lights in the eyes. It is all most incomprehensible. And why should he have come to me? I’ll tell you one thing that I think, Mr. Carruthers, and that is, that the people who performed that elaborate ritual and incantation did not give or promise half enough to the poor ghost. In fact, they were very mean. Fancy an umbrella and a pair of shoes! Now if the rival were to give up his claim to the field, and the money-lender allowed his mortgage to go on without foreclosing, the ghost might be satisfied and keep quiet.”

“By Jove, splendid! Mrs. Trench,” said Mr. Carruthers, “that is a very concise summing up. There is nothing like getting the facts into order.

That is the first business of a policeman. You will be a credit to the force yet. This matter needs thinking out; but we will begin on your suggestion. I will send for these people and have a talk to them. Every one can listen to the conversation.”

In due course they all arrived. There was Mahdu, the gondhali, and Govind, the medium; there was Chandra Bai, who in spite of the mortgage was wearing some fine gold ornaments; Dhondi, the brother of the ghost; Kashiram, the money-lender; and Tatya, the claimant of the disputed field.

“Look here,” said Mr. Carruthers, when they were all seated, “I have been thinking much over this matter; and I have taken the opinion of this lady, who knows much more about ghosts than I do, and who has actually seen the spirit of Maruti, exactly as you all describe him. He entered the lady’s tent last night, after he had given you that fright at the place where the body was found. This proves that your story is quite true. Now, as I have told you, this is a very wise lady and learned on the subject of ghosts. And this is what she says. When Maruti was alive you gave him great trouble. After his death he was content to do nothing and remain quiet. But you disturbed his body, and he has become displeased. You have tried to pacify him by raising for his benefit a collection of small coins, and promising an umbrella and a pair of shoes, and so on; and Tatya, who has seized the land which Maruti believed to be his, has promised a red waistcoat and some buttons. Is not this foolish? Is this not contemptible? You have raised the enmity of a ghost, who can cause you all inconceivable trouble, and you think that you can pacify him by petty gifts such as you have told me of. This wise lady says that this is no ordinary ghost. The wearing of a skull with lights instead of eyes shows that it is a very extraordinary ghost, and therefore extraordinary means are required to avert his displeasure. Now if you want to be relieved of your terror you must all give that which you really value. Do you agree?”

There was a murmur signifying that they all concurred in the suggestion.

“Very well, then. Now in the first place, you, Chandra Bai, were very wrong, considering that your husband was a poor man and at the same time a generous, open-handed man, in being so extravagant and indulging in expensive clothes and ornaments which he could not possibly afford to give you, also in constantly scolding him and making his life unpleasant. You still wear valuable ornaments although your land is likely to be lost to you. What you will give to the ghost of your dead husband is all your ornaments, and a written statement that you regret your bad treatment of him. Will you do this, or will you be plagued by his ghost for the rest of your life? Yes, I thought you would agree. Next, Kashiram, I want a statement of your account with Maruti and his family. I can send for your books, so it is no use telling me any lies. Yes, I thought it would be something of the sort. Advanced altogether from time to time, six hundred rupees. Interest paid on loan, nine hundred rupees. Interest still due, four hundred rupees. Total due for interest and capital, one thousand rupees. And then you sowars wonder that you have your noses cut off now and then! Well, what you will give is this, a statement that nothing whatever remains due to you on account of either interest or principal. Do you agree or will you rather be plagued for the remainder of your life by the ghost of Maruti? Yes, I thought so. You, Tatya, will sign a paper that you renounce all claims to the disputed field. It is a bitter blow to you, but preferable to having your life ruined by the ghost. Next, Mahdu and Govind. You ought to know your business better. Fancy trying to put off a really superior ghost like this with such trumpery presents! Now this is my order. You will again meet to-night where you met last night, and make these new gifts to the ghost. You can have any ceremonies and incantations that you like, except that no cock is to be killed. This lady will be present, and she says that there is to be no cock-killing, as ghosts do not really like it, and she knows all about ghosts. Now you have permission to go.”

I explained to Ellen all that Mr. Carruthers had been saying in the vernacular, and she took him to task as severely as she could for putting the whole responsibility on her. But I don’t think she was seriously annoyed. Anyhow, she was quite pleased at the prospect of seeing the ceremony in the night, although not a little frightened at the idea. But the Flemings promised to come too, and that restored her courage. We were very excited about the ghost during the day, and we made all kinds of guesses regarding the strange mystery. Opinions were divided as to whether the proposed remedy would have any effect or not. Mr. Carruthers would not pronounce any theory. He insisted that the case was in the charge of Mrs. Trench, and that he was merely carrying out her suggestions. It was she, and she alone of our party, who had seen the ghost, and that was a clear sign that she was intended to have charge of the whole inquiry. She had begun so well that he had every confidence in her skill and intelligence, and her ability to unravel the mystery. Ellen laughed at this, and while disclaiming any powers such as she was credited with, promised to do her best. We had a delightful day. In the afternoon we drove to see the ruins of a really beautiful Hindoo temple, four or five miles off, and had our tea there beside a running stream. Mr. Carruthers had begged us to excuse him from making one of the party on the grounds that he had urgent work to dispose of. But we laughed him to scorn and insisted on his coming. He was quite unable to resist the united argument and entreaties of Ellen and Mrs. Fleming and Jack and Dolly, whatever he might have done if only Mr. Fleming and I were concerned. Mrs. Fleming said that if he were not with us to look after him her husband might be spirited away again, perhaps by the ghost this time, and there was no homing pigeon in his pocket to put a rescuer on the track. So we thoroughly enjoyed the outing, and forgot all about the spectre, and came back to dress for dinner. Mr. Carruthers was always very punctilious about regulation dinner costume in camp just as much as anywhere else. He said it made all the difference between feeding and dining. At dinner the conversation was, of course, mainly on the coming event, and after pulling some crackers and drinking to the health of absent friends we put on our warmest wraps and proceeded to the scene of the incantation. There was no road, so we had to walk, and it was pitch dark; but with the aid of some lanterns we managed to find our way without any particular difficulty. There was a tremendous crowd when we arrived at the place, and we found a row of chairs placed in position for the Sahib-logue. At Mr. Carruthers’ direction our lanterns were turned down.

“There is only one thing that I have to say before Mahdu and Govind begin,” said Mr. Carruthers. “You all know why we are here, to make proper and liberal offerings to the ghost of Maruti. Govind will recite the offerings to the departed spirit, and we may be sure that he will accept them and not trouble you again. But it is only reasonable to suppose that he will be present to accept the offerings; so it is my order that if he comes you are not to be frightened and run away, but just stay where you are. Now Mahdu and Govind, you can commence.”

It was a weird sight, if, indeed, you could have called it a sight. As our eyes got accustomed to the darkness we could just make out an enormous ring of people huddled closely together, while in the centre sat the two mystics, Mahdu the master of the ceremonies, and Govind the medium. Mahdu called for silence; and I must say a feeling of awe and of something supernatural crept over us all during the prolonged period of absolute stillness which succeeded. We could just make out the master of occult lore going through some strange ritual. At length Govind stood up and commenced a long-drawn piteous wail, which seemed to emanate from the depths of the earth, and ought to have been enough to lay every ghost in creation. Gradually the chant wove itself into intelligible words, and we could make out an invocation to Shiva to receive into rest the soul of the departed Maruti, for whose benefit they had now made the most complete offerings. Then the medium addressed his supplications to the departed.

“Spirit of Maruti,” he cried, “be pleased with our offerings. There has come to us a lady, young in years but old in wisdom, having full knowledge of the unseen world, who has taught us that what we promised was insufficient. Now we offer thee these things. Tatya gives up his claim to the disputed field; Kashiram remits the debts due to him; Chandra Bai gives all her ornaments, and offers amends for her harsh words. And Carruthers Sahib is witness. Be pleased, O Spirit of Maruti, to manifest thy acceptance and trouble us no more.”

A sudden stir in the part of the circle opposite to us attracted our attention. People edged away and made an opening. There were cries and shrieks; and men prostrated themselves and women swooned. For there, advancing through the opening, was a tall figure with two lights for its eyes; and, yes, we could make it out now, a skull for its head. There was a general movement, indicating that all were about to flee for their lives.

“Silence!” shouted Mr. Carruthers, jumping up. “Be still. There is nothing to fear. I told you to expect the spirit of Maruti. The wise lady says that you are to listen to him. Govind, repeat the offers that have been made.”

The medium’s teeth appeared to be chattering as he did what he was told; but he completed his task, much as he would obviously have preferred to be anywhere but where he was.

“Now, spirit of Maruti,” said Mr. Carruthers, “the wise lady bids you speak. Do you accept these offers and will your spirit cease from troubling the people of Loni?”

“The wise lady has spoken, and so shall it be,” replied the spirit, in a singularly human voice. “My spirit is satisfied.” And as a sign of agreement out went the lights in the eyes of the skull.

Mr. Carruthers leapt forward and stood beside the apparition.

“Now, my good people, you can go,” he said to the assembled throng. “You have heard the word, and you may be sure that you will be troubled no more.”

There was not much reluctance manifested in obeying the order to go. Off they all rushed as fast as their legs would carry them.

“What awful fun!” said Jack; but Dolly held on to her mother.

“Now we require a little explanation on one or two points,” said Mr. Carruthers, as he came back to our chairs leading with him a tall figure. “But first I want to see one thing. Now, Maruti, switch on those lights of yours.”

Instantly the lights gleamed in the sockets of the skull. They gave sufficient illumination for us to make out the figure of a man with a red waistcoat and brass buttons and a peculiarly big puggree. A close inspection showed us that the skull did not exactly cover the real face, but was rather above it, so giving an additional appearance of height. The skull was cleverly fixed on to the puggree, but in the dark, and of course the apparition would only manifest itself when it was dark or there was only a very dim light such as there generally is in native houses, this would not be noticed. Then Mr. Carruthers directed the orderlies to turn up the lanterns that we had brought with us, and irresistibly funny was the sight of the spirit of Maruti under the collective glare of our lamps.

“How do you do the trick?” asked the Chief.

“Sahib, yih lictric lait hai” was the reply, or, Anglicé, it is electric light. “It is nearly used up,” the speaker continued, “but it has frightened those fools here. A Sahib gave me the apparatus when I was on the sugar plantation at Mauritius; and I thought of this tamasha.”

The spectre laughed. It was not at all weird or uncanny; but a good, hearty, soul-filling laugh. We all joined in and laughed to our hearts’ content.

“Now, Mrs. Trench,” said the Chief, “we will have the ghost’s explanation in a minute or so. Meanwhile tell me this? You knew it was the real Maruti all along, didn’t you?”

“I was certain of it,” said Ellen, “in spite of the difficulties and improbabilities. Why he should have appeared from the exact time that the corpse was discovered and burnt, I do not know. But that didn’t very much matter. I don’t believe in ghosts, and so I was sure that it must have been a man. He knew too much about Maruti’s private affairs for it to be any one else but Maruti. As for the corpse, it might have been anybody’s, red waistcoat or no red waistcoat. The supply of red waistcoats in the world, even with brass buttons attached to them, is not necessarily limited to one.”

“Shabash: well done!” said the Chief; “you will be a great policeman some day. And then your advice about the offerings?”

“Well, I thought that Maruti had been rather roughly treated; and I wanted to do something for him. So far as I can make out, now he has everything that he desired.”

“Splendid,” said Mr. Carruthers. “Now, Maruti, you can tell us your story. What were the circumstances of your leaving Loni?”

“Sahib, I will tell you the truth. Fate was against me. I need not repeat what is known to the Sahib. There was Kashiram and Tatya, and there was Chandra Bai. I said to myself that I would go away secretly and not return until I had a thousand rupees. Sahib, I have brought more than a thousand — my wages on the sugar plantations. Yes, I went away with five rupees in my pocket and said not a word. I meant to begin life afresh. I gave up my name Maruti and have called myself Sakharam. As luck would have it, when I left the village after nightfall I met a beggar who asked me for alms. I offered him a rupee if he would exchange his rags for my red waistcoat and big puggree. He was very pleased to do so. I thought no more of him. I went to Mauritius and had good wages and saved them. I came back a few days ago. I had bought a waistcoat and puggree like I used to wear before. But I did not want to be known at first. I wished to see what had happened in my absence, so I hid my good clothes in the jungle outside the village and put on poor garments and disguised my face. Sahib, to my amazement I at once came upon a funeral party that was about to burn a corpse wearing my old waistcoat and puggree. I thought then of the beggar who had exchanged his clothes for mine. The people were all saying that it was the corpse of Maruti; and it was a strange thing that a man should witness his own funeral ceremony. And I heard about Tatya and the field, and Kashiram and the foreclosing of the mortgage. And I laughed and I swore to be revenged. And there was Chandra Bai. Her tongue is sharp, and she deserved a frightening; but I was greatly wishing to see her. And now by the favour of the Sahib and of the wise lady my destiny is made happy.”

“A very interesting story, Maruti,” said Mr. Carruthers. “But what were you doing in the wise lady’s tent?”

“In truth, Sahib, you had known me before, and had been kind to me, and an inclination came to me to see the Sahib in his tent, and when I entered the tent and found that it was not the tent of the Sahib, I was ashamed and went and hid in the jungle again.”

“Well, Maruti, the best thing you can do is to come to my camp to-morrow morning and there let me introduce you to your family and friends, so that further trouble may be avoided. There is some one else whom I have to see in the morning, and that is Tatya. There is the matter of the beggar who was killed when he was wearing clothes that gave him the appearance of Maruti. There was a talk of putting Maruti to death. Krishna,” he said to the head constable of the party, “let it be known that Tatya is to come to me the first thing to-morrow.”

I may here remark, parenthetically, that Tatya did not come in the morning, for he disappeared and was never seen again. Of course, proof would have been practically impossible; but there was no moral doubt that he had killed the beggar thinking that he was Maruti, and had hidden the body beneath the stones.

We walked back to the tents and a bottle of champagne was opened and consumed, and, I think, a pint in addition; and much talk and laughter we had over the day’s adventures. Mr. Carruthers said that Ellen was a born detective and the most promising member of the Force, and he quite forgave me for having been married.

Altogether this is quite the finest Christmas party that I can remember.

The Christmas Bogey Pat Frank

Harry Hart Frank, who wrote books and stories under the pseudonym Pat Frank, was an author, journalist, and government consultant. After service in World War II, he returned to work as a journalist but also began writing nonfiction books in which he took on the Washington bureaucracy, challenging many assumptions about how well the government functioned. Hart’s most enduringly popular work is the novel Alas, Babylon (1959), which tells the story of ordinary Americans in an isolated Florida community coping with survival following a Soviet-American nuclear war. “The Christmas Bogey” was first collected in This Week’s Stories of Mystery and Suspense (New York, Random House, 1957).

When the air force privately evaluated the affair later, delay in reporting the original sighting received much of the blame. This delay was the fault of Airman 2/c Warren Pitts, but the cause of Pitts’s lapse never was committed to paper, for it would sound so emotional and unmilitary. The truth is that Warren Pitts was only eighteen, and he was homesick, and weeping at his post.

Pitts was the youngest of five technicians assigned, that morning, to 48-hour duty in the Early Warning Radar shack atop a wind-scoured hill overlooking the sprawling Thule base in northern Greenland.

It was Tail End Charley duty. Down on the base everybody was celebrating. There was a USO troupe, including dancers from Hollywood, at the theater. Pitts had not seen a woman in three months. There was a Christmas tree, flown from Maine in a B-36 bomb bay, in the gymnasium. It was the only tree in a thousand miles. There were parties in the clubs and day rooms, and turkey dinners in the mess halls, and a mountain of still undistributed mail and packages. Pitts hadn’t received the Christmas box his folks had promised.

Even in the radar shack there was a celebration of a sort. In the other room the older men had concocted an eggnog from evaporated milk, powdered eggs, vanilla extract, and medicinal alcohol. Since Pitts didn’t drink, he had drawn the six to midnight watch.

The other room was bright, and warm, and they were listening to Christmas music on the radio, and Sergeant Hake was telling almost believable stories about girls he had known Stateside.

There was no light in the viewing room, so that vision would be sharper. Pitts sat lonely in darkness and watched a thin white sliver revolve in hypnotic circles on the screen.

He wasn’t thinking of himself as the guardian of a continent. He was thinking of Tucson’s hot sun. He hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, and wouldn’t see it for weeks more. He said, aloud, “Oh, God, I want to go home.”

When at last he looked up there was a fat, green blip winking evilly at him from the upper right-hand quadrant of the screen. How long it had been there he could not guess. It could have come across the Pole, or it might have entered from the east. The radar had a range of perhaps 300 miles. When he first saw the blip, it was closing on the 150-mile circle.

Had Pitts instantly reported this sighting, successful interception would have been possible at Thule, but he didn’t. He told the blip to go away. He begged it to go away. On occasion, Russian weather planes crossed the Pole, but always they turned around and went back and he wished this blip would do the same, so he would not have to explain to Sergeant Hake. The blip kept on coming, skirting the edge of the 150-mile circle, as if making a careful detour.

Pitts rose from his canvas chair and shouted, “I’ve got a bogey!”

Except for Sinatra singing “White Christmas,” there was silence in the other room, and then suddenly they were all in with him. Hake watched the blip for three revolutions, and said: “How long you been asleep, kid?”

“I haven’t been asleep. Honest I haven’t.”

The sergeant noted the boy’s reddened eyes and the tear channels down his pinched white face. He turned back to the scope.

“What do you think it is?” Pitts asked, fearfully.

“It could be a large flying saucer,” said Hake, “or it could be Santa Claus and eight tiny reindeer, or it could be an enemy jet bomber.” He reached for the telephone and called Central Radar Control.

That night Lieutenant Preble, a serious young man, had the duty. Ranged along the wall inside Control were many types of radar, including a repeater set from the early warning installation on the hill. Lieutenant Preble switched on this set. As it heated, the blip appeared. He estimated the bogey at 140 miles from Thule, bearing 80 degrees, speed 400 knots, and headed due south.

It could be a Scandinavian airliner bound for Canada and Chicago. And, it could be a jet tanker, on a training flight from Prestwick, Scotland, which had failed to report its position in the last hour.

Or it could be an enemy jet bomber sneaking around Thule.

Whatever it was, Radar Control had a standing order to scramble fighters and alert the batteries if a bogey could not be identified within 60 seconds. That would certainly have been done, except for several human factors.

Lieutenant Preble often played chess with a Captain Canova, an F-94 fighter pilot, and at this moment Captain Canova and his radar observer were in the ready room. In an alert, they would be scrambled — the first ones to face that icy air.

On a base like Thule you will find many poker, bridge, and gin rummy players, but few devoted to chess. So Lieutenant Preble and Captain Canova were firm friends, and Preble knew that this was probably Canova’s last duty at Thule.

In the morning, Canova would pack up and board the air tanker coming in from Scotland. Canova’s wife was ill and Canova had been given compassionate leave. The tanker’s base was Westover Field, Massachusetts, and Canova lived in Boston. He should be with his wife Christmas night — barring accident.

Outside, the temperature was 42 below, and the wind an erratic Phase Three — above 50 knots. If the bogey continued its course and speed, it would be an extreme long-range interception, outside the protective cloak of his radar. So there could very well be an accident.

Preble turned to his communicator and said, “Let’s try to raise this bogey. Call the tanker again.”

The tanker didn’t respond. Preble wasn’t worried about the tanker. There had been no distress calls, and near the magnetic pole on top of the world radio frequently went haywire.

They tried the commercial channels. No answer.

Preble took a good hold on the edge of his desk. The blip had closed to 120 miles, but it was now due east of Thule, and moving fast to the south. Each second, now, was taking it away. Unless he scrambled Canova immediately, there would be no chance for an intercept.

He looked at the clock. The big second hand was sweeping down like a guillotine.

Even if Canova shot down the bogey, it might turn out to be a transport loaded with people racing home for Christmas.

But whatever the bogey was, an alarm would stop the USO show in the theatre, and empty the clubs, and send some thousands of troops and gunners and airmen to their posts in the frightful cold, and wreck Christmas. If Canova shot down a friendly plane, there would be no more room for Lieutenant Preble at Thule, or perhaps anywhere.

Preble slammed his hand on the red alarm button, and spoke into the microphone: “Scramble, Lightning Blue! Ready, Lightning Red!”

He looked at the clock, and marked the hour, minute, and second. Canova would be airborne in under three minutes, requesting instructions. But the chase would be long, and would carry beyond the fringe area and guidance of his radar. In his heart, he knew he was too late. Outside, he heard the sirens screaming.

At 6:24 p.m., EST, Christmas Eve, the priority message from Thule reached the enormous plotting room of the Eastern Defense Command, Newburgh, New York. A bogey had slipped past Thule. Interception had been unsuccessful, and the pilot had returned to base. The bogey was headed for Labrador or Newfoundland at better than 400 miles an hour, estimated altitude 30,000 feet.

Upon the shoulders of Major Hayden, an ace in two wars but the youngest and least experienced officer on the senior staff, rested the awful responsibility for the safety and security of the vital third of the United States, from Chicago east to the Atlantic. This was normal, on Christmas Eve, for alone among the Master Controllers Major Hayden was a bachelor.

Major Hayden was not alarmed at this first report. The day’s intelligence forecasts showed that the world, this season, was comparatively peaceful. Also, it was only one plane, and Major Hayden did not believe an attack would be launched by one plane, or even so small a number as one hundred.

Besides, the bogey could be reasonably explained. One of his plotting boards showed every aircraft, military and commercial, aloft on the approaches to the Eastern states. The bogey could be a British Comet which had announced it was going far north to seek the jet stream. It could be a Scandinavian airliner looking for Goose Bay. It could be most anything.

Major Hayden ordered a miniature plane set upon the plotting board at the spot this bogey ought to be, according to its projected course and speed. A red flag, showing it was unidentified, topped this plane. He would keep his eyes on it.

He didn’t want to bother the General, although the General had visited the plotting room, at six, to look things over. The General always seemed anxious. This may have been because on December 7, 1941, when Major Hayden was a sophomore in college, the General was a major commanding a bomber squadron at Hickam Field, Hawaii, and all his planes had been bombed and shot up on the ground. The last thing the General had said was, “I’m going over to my daughter’s, at the Point, for dinner. You know the number. If anything happens call me.”

Major Hayden didn’t believe that anything, really, had happened yet. Besides, he knew that every Christmas Eve the General trimmed the tree for his grandchildren. He didn’t want to break that up.

Major Hayden did call the Royal Canadian Air Force liaison officer, and he did alert the outlying bases, and the border radar sites. Then he waited.

An hour later, reports began to come in. The jet tanker from Prestwick turned up at Thule, its radio out. The Comet landed at Gander after a record crossing. It had not been near Thule. The Scandinavian, it developed, was grounded in Iceland.

Major Hayden fretted. Every fifteen minutes, one of his girls inched the red-flagged bogey closer to his air space. The bogey became the only thing he could see on the board. He alerted all fighter bases north of Washington, and the anti-aircraft people, and the Ground Observer Corps. The GOC was apologetic. It doubted that many of its posts were manned. The GOC would do what it could, but he would have to remember that they were volunteers, and this was Christmas Eve.

When the second sighting came, there could be no doubt of the menace. The Limestone, Maine, radar picked up an unidentified blip moving at 600 knots and at 40,000 feet. It came out of an unguarded Canadian sector. Instead of moving down the coast toward the heavily populated areas, it had headed out to sea, dived steeply, and vanished. It had appeared so swiftly, and left the radar screen so suddenly, that interception had not been possible. Limestone’s best night-fighter pilots were older men, and away on Christmas leave.

Major Hayden knew what had happened, and what to expect. The intruder had shrewdly avoided the picket ships, and airfields, near the shore. Then it had crossed the danger zone at tremendous speed.

Once at sea, it had dropped below 4,000 feet — safe from the eyes of radar. Now it would come in at its target, very low, and achieve tactical surprise. Major Hayden called the General.

When the phone rang in the Smith home at West Point, the General, a spare man with iron-gray hair, was balanced atop a ladder, putting the angel on top of the tree, while his grandchildren shrilled their advice and admonitions. Tracy Smith, his daughter, answered the phone, and said, “It’s for you, Dad.”

The General said, “Tell ’em I’m busy. Tell ’em to wait a minute.”

It took the General three minutes to place the angel exactly as he wanted, and exactly straight and upright. “Well,” he said, climbing down, “there’s the angel that stands guard over this house.” At that moment, three minutes may have been the critical factor.

The General picked up the phone. He listened without speaking, and then said, “All right, red alert. Order SCAT. SCAT’s all that will save us now. I’m coming.”

When he put down the phone the General looked ten years older. His daughter said, “What’s up?”

“An unidentified plane,” he said, putting on his coat, “off the coast. I believe an enemy.”

“Just one?” said Tracy Smith.

“One plane, one bomb, one city,” said the General. “Maybe New York.”

And he was gone.

Major Hayden flashed the SCAT order to every airfield in his zone. SCAT meant Security Control of Air Traffic. Under SCAT, every plane, military and commercial — except fighters on tactical missions — was to land at the nearest field immediately. In thirty minutes the air must be cleared of everything except the enemy, and our fighters, to give the anti-aircraft batteries and the Nike rocket battalions a chance to work in congested areas.

Very shortly, Major Hayden discovered that on this particular night — of all nights — SCAT couldn’t operate properly. In all the big cities, holiday travel was setting records. Planes were stacked in layers up to 20,000 feet over Idlewild, La Guardia, and Newark. Boston, Philadelphia-Camden, and Washington National were the same. And the airways between cities were jammed. He didn’t know how long it would be before the Nike rockets could be used. A Nike is a smart rocket, but it cannot tell a transport loaded with 80 people from a jet bomber.

The General came into the plotting room just as the report came in from a lonely spotter at East Moriches, Long Island. A huge jet had come in from the sea at a speed he refused to estimate. It had swept wings, and its four engines were housed in these wings, close to the fuselage. It was bigger than a B-47. It had come in at 2,000 feet, and he swore it was marked with a red star.

The General knew, then, that it was too late, unless he ordered everything shot out of the air. This he could not do — not at Christmas.

A few minutes later a strange plane joined the traffic pattern circling Idlewild, easing itself between two Constellations. It was a jet. One of the Constellations came in for a landing, and then the jet turned on its wing lights and landed. It taxied up to the Administration Building, as if it owned the place, and the blue and red flames of its engines were snuffed out, one by one. Three men got out. They wore strange uniforms.

The Air Force liaison officer at Idlewild called in the news to the General. “Two of them are Poles,” he said, “and the other a Czech.

“The plane is this new type Russian 428 that they showed last May Day over Moscow, only this one is fitted out as a weather ship. These three guys said they had been planning this for almost a year. One of them used to live in Hamtramck, and another has an uncle in Pittsburgh, and they all speak English.”

“It’s wonderful!” the General said. “But it’s a miracle they got here. By rights, they should long ago have been shot down.”

“Well,” said the liaison officer, “they said they had it all figured out. They said nothing means so much to Americans as Christmas.”

“Yes,” said the General. “They’re three smart men. Real wise.”

The Killer Christian Andrew Klavan

Andrew Klavan has enjoyed both popular and critical success as a mystery writer, with numerous Edgar nominations, two of which were winners: Mrs. White (1987), co-authored with his brother Laurence under the pseudonym Margaret Tracy, the basis for White of the Eye, a film released in 1987 starring David Keith and Cathy Moriarty, and The Rain (1988), under the pseudonym Keith Peterson. In 1992, he was nominated for Best Novel for Don’t Say a Word, released as a film in 2001 starring Michael Douglas. His 1995 novel True Crime was released as a film in 1999 with Clint Eastwood as the director and the star. While still producing acclaimed crime fiction, he is also an active writer and blogger with libertarian conservative views. “The Killer Christian” was first published as a chapbook and given to customers of the Mysterious Bookshop as a Christmas gift in 2007.

A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. And, in fact, I learned a great many things working as a reporter. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything — not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of the time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he puts his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.

As an example of what I mean, consider the famous shootout above the Mysterious Bookshop in the downtown section of Manhattan known as Tribeca. Because of the drama of the violence, the personalities involved, and the high level arrests that followed, the newspaper and television coverage of the incident ran for weeks on end. Every crime expert in the country seems to have had his moment on the talk shows. Two separate nonfiction books were written about it, not to mention the one novel. And along with several movies and TV shows featuring gunfights reminiscent of the actual event, there was a docu-drama scripted by a Pulitzer Prize — winning newspaperman who covered the story, though it was never released theatrically and went straight to DVD.

There was all that — and no one got the story right. Oh, they got some of the facts down well enough, but the truth? So help me, they did not come nigh it. Why? Because they were journalists — and because the truth offended their sensibilities and contradicted their notions of what the world is like.

So they talked about how La Cosa Nostra had been hobbled by the trials of the ’80s and ’90s and how new gangs were moving in to divide the spoils left behind. They focused on what they called Sarkesian’s “betrayal” of Picarone and speculated about the underworld’s realigning loyalties and racial tensions. They even unearthed some evidence for a sort of professional rivalry between Sarkesian and the man known as “The Death.”

But the truth is, from the very start, this was really a story about faith and redemption — quite a mysterious story too, by the end of it. And that was too much for them — the journalists. They could not — they would not — see it that way. And because they couldn’t see it, they put forward the facts in such a fashion as to insure that you would fail to see it too.

It falls upon me, then, to tell it as it actually happened.

Sarkesian, to begin with, was a Christian, a Catholic, very devout. He took communion as often as he could, daily when he could, and went to confession no less frequently than once a week. What he said in those confessions of course I wouldn’t know, but it must’ve been pretty interesting because, along with being a Christian, Sarkesian was also an enforcer — a killer when he had to be — for Raymond Picarone. How Sarkesian reconciled these two facets of his life can be explained simply enough: he was stupid. Some people just are — a lot of people are, if you ask me — and he was one of them: dumb as dirt.

So on a given day, Sarkesian might kneel before the Prince of Peace asking that he be forgiven as he himself forgave; he might listen attentively to a sermon about charity and compassion; lift his eyes with childlike expectation to the priest who handed him the body of his Lord — and then toodle off to smash his knuckles into the mouth of one of Picarone’s debtors until the man’s teeth went pitter-pattering across the floor like a handful of pebbles. Virtually every journalist who reported the story discounted the sincerity of Sarkesian’s beliefs because of the nature of his actions, but they were mistaken in this. Indeed, if it seems strange to you that a man might hold his faith in one part of his mind and his deeds in another and never fully examine the latter in the light of the former... well, congratulations, you may be qualified to become a journalist yourself.

No. Sarkesian prayed with a committed heart and did his job with a committed heart and that his job included murder everyone who knew him knew. That he did that murder efficiently and without apparent compunction made him much feared by his employer’s enemies. It also made him much appreciated by his employer.

“Sarkesian,” Raymond Picarone used to say with an approving smile, “is not the sharpest razor at the barber shop, but when you tell him you need the thing done, it gets done.”

Now it happened one day that the thing Picarone needed done was the killing of a young man named Steven Bean. Bean was a minor functionary in Picarone’s organization and a sleazy weasel of a boy even for that company. For the third time in six months, Picarone had caught Bean skimming from his profits. He had decided to make an example of him.

So he summoned Sarkesian to his gentlemen’s club on West 45th Street by the river and he said to him, “Sarkesian... Stevie B... it’s no good... we have to make, you know, a new arrangement.” Picarone had taken to talking in this elliptical fashion in order to baffle any law enforcement personnel who might be eavesdropping electronically on his conversations.

Unfortunately Sarkesian, being not very intelligent as I said, was frequently also baffled. “Arrangement,” he said slowly, chewing on the word as if it were a solid mass and blinking his heavily lidded eyes.

“Yeah,” said Picarone impatiently. “Bean and us... I think we’re done... you see what I’m saying? It’s no good... we’ve come to a parting of the ways.”

Sarkesian blinked again and licked his thick lips uncertainly.

“Kill him!” said Picarone. “Would you just kill him? Christ, what an idiot.”

Sarkesian brightened, delighted to understand what was expected of him, and set off on his way.

It was mid-December and the city was done up for Christmas. The great snowflake was hung over Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and the great tree was sparkling by the skating rink just downtown. Gigantic ribbons decorated the sides of some buildings. Sprays of colored lights bedecked the fronts of others. And early flurries of snow had been blowing in from the north all week, enough to give the streets a festive wintry air but not so much as to be a pain in the neck and tie up traffic.

So when Steven Bean awoke one early evening in his cramped studio apartment on the Upper West Side, he staggered to the window and looked out at a cheery Yuletide scene. There was snow in the air and lights in the windows of the brownstones across the way. There were green wreaths on the doors and the sound of a tinkling bell drifting from where Santa Claus was standing on the corner.

Unfortunately, there was also Sarkesian, trudging over the sidewalk on his way to kill him.

Steven had full awareness of his guilt, as do we all, though he’d managed to push that awareness to one side of his consciousness, as likewise do we all. But seeing Sarkesian plodding along with his great shoulders hunched and his big, murdering hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his overcoat, the guilt awareness snapped back front and center and Steven understood exactly what the killer was here for.

He leapt off the sofa and jammed his scrawny legs into his jeans, his scrawny feet into his sneakers. He already had a sweatshirt on and was pulling a blue ski jacket over it as he rushed out of the apartment. He could hear the front door closing three floors below as he raced up the stairs. He could hear Sarkesian’s heavy footsteps rising toward him as he reached the next landing. There was a ladder there leading up to a trapdoor. Steven climbed quickly and pushed through the trap and up to the roof.

Here, the white sky opened above him and the swirling flakes fell cold upon his face. Steven dashed through the chill air, across the shadow of the water tower. He reached the parapet at the roof’s edge and leapt over it, flying across a narrow airshaft to land on the roof of the building next door. From there, he found his way to another trap, down another ladder, to the stairs of the neighboring building. In moments, he was on the street, running along the damp-darkened pavement, dodging the homecoming pedestrians. The streetlamps were just coming on above him as he passed, making the falling snow glisten against the night.

At first, as he ran, he asked himself where he would go, but it was really a rhetorical question. There was only one place he could go: to the downtown theater where he knew he would find his younger sister.

Hailey Bean was in her mid-twenties, and was just beginning to realize she was not going to be a successful actress. She was a sweet girl, kind and gentle and loving; practical, down-to-earth, and sane. Which is to say she was completely unsuited for a life in show business.

At the moment, however, she was rehearsing a very small part in a once-popular drama that was to be revived off-off — not to mention off — Broadway. Hailey’s role was that of an angel. At the end of the first act, she was to be lowered toward the stage in a harness-and-wire contraption. Hanging in mid-air, she would then deliver words of prophecy as the first act curtain fell. It was only a 45-second scene — with another scene about the same length in the second act — but it was pivotal. An elaborately beautiful costume — a white robe with gold trimming and two enormous feathery wings — had been designed to make Hailey’s attractive but not very imposing figure more impressive, and electronic enhancements and echoes were going to be added to her pleasing but less than awe-inspiring voice.

She was in the back of the small theater discussing these embellishments with the stage manager when Steven Bean burst through a rear door. Trying to keep a low profile, he planted himself in a dark corner — where he proceeded to make himself ridiculously conspicuous by gaping and whispering and waving frantically in an attempt to get his sister’s attention.

The differences in character between Hailey and her brother can probably be at least partially explained by the fact that they were, in fact, only half-siblings. Steven had endured his parents’ vituperative divorce, whereas Hailey had grown up in their mother’s second, more stable, and loving household. Hailey was aware of her advantages and she felt compassion for her brother. But she also knew he was corrupt and reckless and dangerous, incapable of feeling anything more for her than a sort of puling, hissing envy and a fear of her decency which could shade over into hatred whenever she refused to give him whatever it was he was trying to get out of her at the time.

Still, he was family. So, as soon as she politely could, she excused herself to the stage manager and went over to see what he wanted now.

“He’s after me” were the first words he gasped at her.

“Calm down.” Hailey touched his arm gently. “Who’s after you?”

“Sarkesian. He’s coming to kill me.”

The sister caught her breath and straightened. She didn’t bother with any expressions of disbelief. She believed him well enough. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hide me!” Steven whined.

“Steven, where can I hide you? My apartment is the first place he’ll look.”

“You must have friends!”

“Oh, Steven, I can’t send you to my friends with some thug coming after you.”

“Well, give me some money at least so I can get away!”

“I don’t have any more money.”

“I’m your brother and I’m going to be murdered in cold blood and everything’s fine for you and you won’t do anything for me,” Steven said.

Hailey sighed. She knew he was just trying to make her feel guilty but it didn’t matter that she knew: she felt guilty anyway. Especially because, as she was forced to admit to herself, she wasn’t being completely honest with him about the money.

Hailey was a clerk during the day at the Mysterious Bookshop, a store specializing in crime fiction located on Warren Street downtown. Because Hailey was pretty and efficient and meltingly feminine, she had become a favorite of the avuncular gentleman who ran the place. Sympathetic to her situation, he’d supplied her with an apartment in the brownstone over the shop and so her rent and expenses were fairly cheap. Thus, while it was true that Steven had all but cleaned out her savings six months ago when he’d gotten himself in trouble with Picarone’s bookies, Hailey, by working overtime and scrimping on luxuries, had actually managed to save up a little more since then. The trouble was, she had a strong feeling she was going to need that money pretty soon. In a sort of semi-subconscious way, she had begun making plans to give up her acting career and go back to school.

She hesitated another few seconds, but she couldn’t stand up to Steven’s terrified eyes and his accusatory wheedling and her own guilt. Finally she said, “All right. I can’t leave now. But come back at nine when the rehearsal is over and we’ll go to the bank and I’ll give you whatever I have.”

Steven whined and pleaded a little more, hoping to convince her to go with him right away or even to let him use her bank card, but she stood firm and at last he slunk back out into the snow.

On some other evening, he might well have persuaded her to come with him. But as it happened, this was the night of a special technical rehearsal dedicated almost entirely to her character. An hour after their conversation, Hailey was dressed in her winged robe of white and gold, trussed up in her harness and dangling in mid-air about ten feet off the stage.

She was alone. The other actors had gone home for the night. Only the director and the stage manager were left and they were shut away in the booth at the back of the balcony. They had finished perfecting the echo effect for Hailey’s voice and were now discussing their various lighting options, but where Hailey was, their conversation was inaudible. The theater was silent around her. For long periods, it was dark as well. Then, every so often, a spotlight would appear and catch Hailey dangling there in her magnificent winged costume. It would hold her in its glow for a moment as the director judged the effectiveness of the light’s color and intensity. Then it would go off again as he and the technician fell to discussing their options once more.

For Hailey, it was a boring process. And since the harness dug into the flesh under her arms, it was kind of uncomfortable too. To distract herself, she tried going over her part in her mind but as she only had four lines, her thoughts soon began to wander. She thought about Steven, of course, about the danger he was in and the troubles he had had as a child and the sad mess he had made of his adulthood. She thought about the money she was going to give him and how hard she had worked to save it and how long it would take her to save some more. She fretted that she would never find a way to improve her life. Ironically, if she could have peered only a little more than a decade into the future, she would have seen herself the mistress of a large house in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, the cheerful mother of no less than five children, and the wife of a man who felt more love and gratitude to her than I can rightly say. But for the present, all this lay obscured within the mists of time, and she hung in the darkness anxious and troubled.

Then, as she hung, she saw a pale slanting beam of light fall at the head of one of the theater’s aisles. Someone — a man — had opened the door from the foyer. Now his enormous shadow fell into the light and now he himself was there. He came forward a few steps, but as the foyer door swung shut behind him, the theater was plunged into a nearly impenetrable blackness, and he paused uncertainly.

Hailey felt her pulse speed up. She had caught a glimpse of the man as he entered and there was no doubt in her mind who he was. A hoodlum that size with a face that low — surely, this was the very Sarkesian her brother had told her about, the one who was coming to kill him.

Hailey dangled in the air and watched as the man began slowly advancing again down the aisle, hunting, no doubt, for Steven. She held her breath. Her heart pounded against her chest. The killer came nearly to the foot of the stage. He stopped almost directly beneath her. Sarkesian took a long slow look from one side of the proscenium to the other. Hailey shuddered with fear that he would now lift his eyes and see her.

And then the spotlight came on.

Suddenly, to Hailey’s horror, she was fully exposed, hanging there helpless and ridiculous in her white and golden robe with the feathery wings outstretched on either side of her.

Sarkesian looked up — and Hailey was surprised to see he seemed even more horrified than she was. He cried out. He threw his scaly ham-sized hands up beside his face. He leaned back as if afraid Hailey would strike him down on the spot. Frozen there, trembling, he stared up at her with a mixture of terror and awe.

Hailey understood at once what had happened — understood what Sarkesian must’ve thought she was, and understood too the incredible piety and even more incredible stupidity of a man capable of believing such a thing. Acting almost as quickly as she thought, she stretched out her arm and pointed her finger at him sternly.

“Sarkesian!” she thundered — and the echo effect, which the director had left on for further testing, magnified her voice so that it vibrated from floor to rafters. “Sarkesian — repent!”

At that, as if the timing had been arranged by a power higher even than the director, the spotlight went out again.

Hailey couldn’t see what happened next. The light had temporarily blinded her. But she heard Sarkesian send up a high-pitched wail — and the next instant, she could hear his enormous body fumbling and bumping into seats as he made his panicked way back up the aisle.

The door at the rear of the theater flew open. Sarkesian’s massive silhouette filled the lighted frame. Then he was gone. There was the light alone. The door swung shut. There was darkness.

Sarkesian didn’t look back. He didn’t even look to left or right. He ran out of the theater and into the street and was nearly struck down by an oncoming taxi. He found himself bent over the cab’s hood, both hands braced against the wet metal as he gaped through the windshield at the frightened driver. Waving his arm wildly to make the cabbie stay, he rushed around to the car’s side door and tumbled into the back seat. He gasped out his address to the driver. He sat huddled in a corner, shivering and whimpering, all the way home.

Now, all right, you may laugh at Sarkesian. But even outside of journalism, truth and fiction are sometimes impossibly intertwined. A figment of imagination, a myth, even a fraud may lead us to powerful revelations. Come to think of it, do we ever find revelations in any other way? If Sarkesian was fooled by Hailey’s quick-witted improvisation, if it caused him to stagger into his apartment and fall to his knees, if it made him pray and weep in the searing realization that he had lived a life of wretched wickedness in complete contravention to the commandments of his God — was that realization any less true for the way it came to him?

In any case, the fact is: he remained on his knees all night long. And when the gray day dawned, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He went to see Picarone. He found his boss eating breakfast with his wife on the terrace of their penthouse. The presence of the glamorous and somewhat regal Mrs. P. cowed Sarkesian and he spoke with his chin on his chest, gazing down at his own titanic feet.

“I can’t do that thing we talked about,” he said in his slow, dull voice. “I can’t do any of that anymore. The bad stuff. I gotta do, I don’t know, good stuff now, from now on. Like the Bible says.”

“O-o-oh,” said Picarone, lifting his chin. “Yeah. The Bible. Sure. Sure, Sarkesian, I get it. We’ll only give you the good stuff from now on. Like the Bible says, sure.”

It was touching, Mrs. Picarone later told her friends, to see Sarkesian’s great, granite face wreathed in childlike smiles as he floated dreamily out of the room.

When he was gone, Picarone picked up the phone. “Hey,” he said, “I need you to take care of a little weasel named Steven Bean for me. And while you’re at it, you can do me Sarkesian too.”

The call had gone out to a man named Billy Shine. He was known to all who feared him as “The Death.” There was no one who didn’t fear him. He was a lean, sinewy man with a long rat-like face. He moved like smoke and half the terror he inspired was due to the way he could appear beside you suddenly, as if out of thin air. He could find anyone anywhere and reach them no matter what. And when he did find them, when he did reach them, they were shortly thereafter dead.

Sarkesian would never have seen him coming. But he was tipped off — warned that The Death was on his trail. Mrs. Picarone had been sincere when she told her friends she’d been moved by Sarkesian’s simple faith. She was, in fact, a regular church-goer herself. Sometimes, she lay awake in a cold sweat, painfully aware of the contrast between the dictates of her religion and the source of her wealth. Normally, a quarter of an hour spent running her fingers over the contents of her jewelry box soothed her until she could sleep again. But that night, somehow, this was not enough. Exhausted, she made a stealthy phone call to a manicurist with whom Sarkesian sometimes shared a bed.

Steven Bean, meanwhile, was sleeping just fine, curled up on the sofa in his apartment. I know: you’d think he’d be just about anywhere else doing anything else. But after scrounging money from his sister to fund his escape, he had hit on the brilliant idea of increasing the stash by joining a 24-hour poker game he knew of. By the time he wandered out into the streets the next evening, he was all but broke again — and so tired that he convinced himself it would surely be safe at his apartment by now. Sarkesian had probably only been sent to scare him anyway. He might even have been in the neighborhood to see someone else. Maybe it was Steven’s own guilty conscience that had made him jump to conclusions and panic when he saw the killer approaching. What he really needed, he thought, was to be home and snug on his own little sofa. And so that’s where he went and, after a few more drinks and a joint or two, he was out like a light.

It’s amazing people do these things but they do. It’s amazing what little distance there needs to be between our actions and their consequences before the consequences seem to us to disappear entirely. One a.m. rolled around and there was Steven, snoring away with his hands tucked under his head, so deeply unconscious that even the entry buzzer couldn’t wake him.

But the door woke him when it crashed open, when its wooden frame splintered and fragments of it went flying across the room. That made him sit bolt upright, his jaw dangling, his eyes spiraling crazily. Before he could speak — before he could even think — someone grabbed him by the shirtfront.

It was Sarkesian.

“The Death is coming,” the big man said. “Get up. Let’s go.”

What had happened: Sarkesian had become a new man since his encounter with the “Angel of the Lord” and he was determined to stay that way. After getting the warning call from the manicurist, he understood that it was not enough to just save himself. Knowing that The Death would come after Steven first, he saw he was responsible for protecting him as well. A sterner moralist than I am might wonder why he didn’t call the police. But others had called the police in an attempt to avoid The Death and they were dead. No, Sarkesian knew Steven’s safety was in his own hands. So here he was, shaking him awake At the first mention of The Death’s terrible name, whatever was left of Steven’s drunken complacency vanished like an ace of spades at a magician’s fingersnap. He didn’t know why Sarkesian had come to help him. At the moment, he hardly knew where he was. But he did understand that he had to run — and that there was nowhere to run from the likes of Billy Shine.

Sarkesian didn’t wait for him to figure this out, or for anything else. He grabbed him by the arm, got him dressed, and dragged him out the door. They were halfway down the second flight of stairs, Sarkesian in the lead, before he spoke again.

“Where can you go?” he asked Steven over his shoulder.

And Steven, still stupid with sleep, gave the only answer he could think of. “Tribeca. Above the bookshop. My sister’s there.”

They took three cabs to avoid being followed. They traveled the last few blocks on foot. Soon they were running together through the severe, slanting shadows falling across the downtown boulevard from the line of brownstone buildings to their right. Tinsel and colored Christmas lights hung from the windows above them. And snow fell, a thin layer of it muffling their footsteps as they ran.

As they approached the Mysterious Bookshop itself, they saw warm yellow light spilling through its storefront to lay in an oblong pool on the snowy sidewalk. Shadows moved behind the storefront’s display of brightly jacketed books. Murmuring voices and laughter trailed out from within and a Christmas carol was playing — “O Holy Night.”

With a silent curse, Sarkesian understood: there was a Christmas party going on inside.

A moment later, the voices and music grew louder. The bookshop door was coming open. A man and woman were leaving the party, waving over their shoulders as they stepped laughing into the night.

Suddenly Steven found himself shoved hard into an alcove, Sarkesian’s massive body pressed against him, pinning him, hiding him. They huddled there together, still, as the couple walked away from them toward West Broadway.

When Sarkesian’s body relaxed, Steven was able to move his arm, to lift his finger to point out his sister’s name above a mailbox in the alcove. Sarkesian nodded. But Steven didn’t press the buzzer button below Hailey’s name. He was afraid she would turn them away. Instead, he went to work on the lock of the outside door. His fingers were trembling with cold and fear, but it wasn’t much of a lock to speak of. In a second or two, he had worked it and they were inside.

The talk and music from the bookshop came through the walls inside. “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” followed them up the stairway as Sarkesian and Steven raced to the fourth-floor landing. They made their way down the long hallway to the last door. Steven pounded on it with his fist. He shouted, “Hailey! It’s me! Open up!”

There was a pause. Steven was gripped by the fear that Hailey herself might be at the party in the bookshop downstairs. But then, her sleepy voice came muffled from within, “Steven?”

“Hailey, please! It’s life or death!”

There was the sound of a chain sliding back. The door started to open...

And at that moment, Sarkesian, waiting at Steven’s side, felt a chill on his neck and looked to his left.

There was The Death standing at the other end of the hall.

He had materialized there in his trademark fashion, without warning, silent as smoke. Now, like smoke, he began drifting toward them.

Sarkesian reacted quickly. With one hand, he shoved Steven in the back, pushing him through Hailey’s door. With the other, he drew his gun.

The Death also had a gun. He was lifting it, pointing it at Sarkesian.

“Don’t you do it, Billy Shine!” Sarkesian shouted.

He heard a loud clap: the terrified Steven had shut Hailey’s door, hoping Sarkesian would kill The Death while he cowered inside. But that changed nothing for Sarkesian. He was already moving down the hall toward Shine.

The two killers walked toward each other, their guns upraised. They were fifty yards apart, then forty, then thirty-five. Sarkesian called out again: “Don’t do it!” The Death answered him with a gunshot. Sarkesian fired back. The men began pulling the triggers of their guns again and again in rapid succession. One blast blended with another, deafening in the narrow corridor. The two kept firing and walking toward each other as steadily as if hot metal were not ripping into them, were not tearing their insides apart.

At last, their bullets were exhausted. Each heard the snap of an empty chamber. They stopped where they were, not ten yards between them. Shine lowered his arm and Sarkesian lowered his. Shine smiled. Then he pitched forward to the floor and The Death lay dead at Sarkesian’s feet.

Sarkesian barely looked at him. He simply started walking again, stepping over the body without a pause. He let the gun slip from his fingers. It fell with a thud to the hall carpet. Only when he reached the stairway did he stagger for a moment. He held onto the banister until he was steady again. Then he started down the stairs.

All this time, no one on the fourth floor had ventured out of his apartment. People heard the gunfire. They guessed what it was. They called the police and just hunkered down. But on the floors below there were doors opening, faces peeking out. The sound of choral music from the bookshop grew louder. “Silent Night.”

As the moments passed with no more shots, people on the fourth floor looked out too. Hailey looked out and Steven peeked over her shoulder, hiding behind her.

“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist when he saw that The Death had fallen.

But Hailey said, “What happened to Sarkesian?”

Steven had told her in a single sentence about his rescue. She had guessed the rest, guessed what had happened to Sarkesian as a result of their encounter in the theater. Tender soul that she was, she felt bad for the thug. She felt any injuries he might have suffered were in part her responsibility.

She came out of her apartment into the hall.

“Sis! Sis!” Steven hissed after her, frantically waving her back.

But she kept moving forward cautiously until she reached the stairway. She saw the trail of blood on the risers. With a soft cry of distress, she started down the stairs.

She found Sarkesian lying on his back in front of the building, his blood running out into the snow. The partygoers in the Mysterious Bookshop had poured out of the store to investigate the noise and now stood gathered around him. The sound of sirens was growing louder as the police drew near. The bookshop door was propped open so that “Silent Night” drifted through the window into the air.

No one came near Sarkesian. He lay alone in the center of the crowd. He blinked up at the falling snow, his breathing labored.

Then Hailey came toward him, her long white flannel nightgown trailing behind her. Many people saw and heard what happened next. Many of them talked about it to the journalists who soon flooded the scene. And yet it was never reported in a single newspaper, never mentioned on radio or television even once. This is the first time it’s ever been told.

Hailey knelt down in the snow beside Sarkesian. She leaned over him. He stirred, turning his eyes toward her. He tried to speak. He couldn’t. He licked his lips and tried again.

“I see...” he whispered hoarsely. “I see an angel.”

“Oh, Sarkesian,” said Hailey miserably. “I’m really not.”

Sarkesian blinked slowly and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “There.” And with a terrible effort, he lifted his enormous hand and pointed over her shoulder at the sky.

Then his hand dropped back into the snow and he was dead.

The Ghost’s Touch Fergus Hume

Although Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins wrote mystery fiction, their books were not identified as being part of the genre, either by publishers, booksellers, or reviewers. It then falls to Fergus Hume to have the honor of writing the bestselling mystery novel, so described, of the nineteenth century, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886). He paid to have it published but it quickly became successful and he sold all rights to a group of English investors for fifty pounds sterling. It went on to sell more than a half-million copies. Hume wrote an additional one hundred thirty novels — all of which have been completely forgotten. “The Ghost’s Touch” was first published in the author’s short story collection, The Dancer in Red (London, Digby, 1906).

I shall never forget the terrible Christmas I spent at Ringshaw Grange in the year ’93. As an army doctor I have met with strange adventures in far lands, and have seen some gruesome sights in the little wars which are constantly being waged on the frontiers of our empire; but it was reserved for an old country house in Hants to be the scene of the most noteworthy episode in my life. The experience was a painful one, and I hope it may never be repeated; but indeed so ghastly an event is not likely to occur again. If my story reads more like fiction than truth, I can only quote the well-worn saying, of the latter being stranger than the former. Many a time in my wandering life have I proved the truth of this proverb.

The whole affair rose out of the invitation which Frank Ringan sent me to spend Christmas with himself and his cousin Percy at the family seat near Christchurch. At that time I was home on leave from India; and shortly after my arrival I chanced to meet with Percy Ringan in Piccadilly. He was an Australian with whom I had been intimate some years before in Melbourne: a dapper little man with sleek fair hair and a transparent complexion, looking as fragile as a Dresden china image, yet with plenty of pluck and spirits. He suffered from heart disease, and was liable to faint on occasions; yet he fought against his mortal weakness with silent courage, and with certain precautions against over-excitement, he managed to enjoy life fairly well.

Notwithstanding his pronounced effeminacy, and somewhat truckling subserviency to rank and high birth, I liked the little man very well for his many good qualities. On the present occasion I was glad to see him, and expressed my pleasure.

“Although I did not expect to see you in England,” said I, after the first greetings had passed.

“I have been in London these nine months, my dear Lascelles,” he said, in his usual mincing way, “partly by way of a change and partly to see my cousin Frank — who indeed invited me to come over from Australia.”

“Is that the rich cousin you were always speaking about in Melbourne?”

“Yes. But Frank is not rich. I am the wealthy Ringan, but he is the head of the family. You see, Doctor,” continued Percy, taking my arm and pursuing the subject in a conversational manner, “my father, being a younger son, emigrated to Melbourne in the gold-digging days, and made his fortune out there. His brother remained at home on the estates, with very little money to keep up the dignity of the family; so my father helped the head of his house from time to time. Five years ago both my uncle and father died, leaving Frank and me as heirs, the one to the family estate, the other to the Australian wealth. So—”

“So you assist your cousin to keep up the dignity of the family as your father did before you.”

“Well, yes, I do,” admitted Percy, frankly. “You see, we Ringans think a great deal of our birth and position. So much so, that we have made our wills in one another’s favour.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if I die Frank inherits my money; and if he dies, I become heir to the Ringan estates. It seems strange that I should tell you all this, Lascelles; but you were so intimate with me in the old days that you can understand my apparent rashness.”

I could not forbear a chuckle at the reason assigned by Percy for his confidence, especially as it was such a weak one. The little man had a tongue like a town-crier, and could no more keep his private affairs to himself than a woman could guard a secret. Besides, I saw very well that with his inherent snobbishness he desired to impress me with the position and antiquity of his family, and with the fact — undoubtedly true — that it ranked amongst the landed gentry of the kingdom.

However, the weakness, though in bad taste, was harmless enough, and I had no scorn for the confession of it. Still, I felt a trifle bored, as I took little interest in the chronicling of such small beer, and shortly parted from Percy after promising to dine with him the following week.

At this dinner, which took place at the Athenian Club, I met with the head of the Ringan family; or, to put it plainer, with Percy’s cousin Frank. Like the Australian he was small and neat, but enjoyed much better health and lacked the effeminacy of the other. Yet on the whole I liked Percy the best, as there was a sly cast about Frank’s countenance which I did not relish; and he patronized his colonial cousin in rather an offensive manner.

The latter looked up to his English kinsman with all deference, and would, I am sure, have willingly given his gold to regild the somewhat tarnished escutcheon of the Ringans. Outwardly, the two cousins were so alike as to remind one of Tweedledum and Tweedledee; but after due consideration I decided that Percy was the better-natured and more honourable of the two.

For some reason Frank Ringan seemed desirous of cultivating my acquaintance; and in one way and another I saw a good deal of him during my stay in London. Finally, when I was departing on a visit to some relatives in Norfolk he invited me to spend Christmas at Ringshaw Grange — not, as it afterwards appeared, without an ulterior motive.

“I can take no refusal,” said he, with a heartiness which sat ill on him. “Percy, as an old friend of yours, has set his heart on my having you down; and — if I may say so — I have set my heart on the same thing.”

“Oh, you really must come, Lascelles,” cried Percy, eagerly. “We are going to keep Christmas in the real old English fashion. Washington Irving’s style, you know: holly, wassail-bowl, games, and mistletoe.”

“And perhaps a ghost or so,” finished Frank, laughing, yet with a side glance at his eager little cousin.

“Ah,” said I. “So your Grange is haunted.”

“I should think so,” said Percy, before his cousin could speak, “and with a good old Queen Anne ghost. Come down, Doctor, and Frank shall put you in the haunted chamber.”

“No!” cried Frank, with a sharpness which rather surprised me, “I’ll put no one in the Blue Room; the consequences might be fatal. You smile, Lascelles, but I assure you our ghost has been proved to exist!”

“That’s a paradox; a ghost can’t exist. But the story of your ghost—”

“Is too long to tell now,” said Frank, laughing. “Come down to the Grange and you’ll hear it.”

“Very good,” I replied, rather attracted by the idea of a haunted house, “you can count upon me for Christmas. But I warn you, Ringan, that I don’t believe in spirits. Ghosts went out with gas.”

“Then they must have come in again with electric light,” retorted Frank Ringan, “for Lady Joan undoubtedly haunts the Grange. I don’t mind as it adds distinction to the house.”

“All old families have a ghost,” said Percy, importantly. “It is very natural when one has ancestors.”

There was no more said on the subject for the time being, but the upshot of this conversation was that I presented myself at Ringshaw Grange two or three days before Christmas. To speak the truth, I came more on Percy’s account than my own, as I knew the little man suffered from heart disease, and a sudden shock might prove fatal. If, in the unhealthy atmosphere of an old house, the inmates got talking of ghosts and goblins, it might be that the consequences would be dangerous to so highly strung and delicate a man as Percy Ringan.

For this reason, joined to a sneaking desire to see the ghost, I found myself a guest at Ringshaw Grange. In one way I regret the visit; yet in another I regard it as providential that I was on the spot. Had I been absent the catastrophe might have been greater, although it could scarcely have been more terrible.

Ringshaw Grange was a quaint Elizabethan house, all gables and diamond casements, and oriel windows, and quaint terraces, looking like an illustration out of an old Christmas number. It was embowered in a large park, the trees of which came up almost to the doors, and when I saw it first in the moonlight — for it was by a late train that I came from London — it struck me as the very place for a ghost.

Here was a haunted house of the right quality if ever there was one, and I only hoped when I crossed the threshold that the local spectre would be worthy of its environment. In such an interesting house I did not think to pass a dull Christmas; but — God help me — I did not anticipate so tragic a Yuletide as I spent.

As our host was a bachelor and had no female relative to do the honours of his house the guests were all of the masculine gender. It is true that there was a housekeeper — a distant cousin, I understood — who was rather elderly but very juvenile as to dress and manner. She went by the name of Miss Laura, but no one saw much of her as, otherwise than attending to her duties, she remained mostly in her own rooms.

So our party was composed of young men — none save myself being over the age of thirty, and few being gifted with much intelligence. The talk was mostly of sport, of horse-racing, big game shooting, and yacht-sailing: so that I grew tired at times of these subjects and retired to the library to read and write. The day after I arrived Frank showed me over the house.

It was a wonderful old barrack of a place, with broad passages, twisting interminably like the labyrinth of Daedalus; small bedrooms furnished in an old-fashioned manner; and vast reception apartments with polished floors and painted ceilings. Also there were the customary number of family portraits frowning from the walls; suits of tarnished armour; and ancient tapestries embroidered with grim and ghastly legends of the past.

The old house was crammed with treasures, rare enough to drive an antiquarian crazy; and filled with the flotsam and jetsam of many centuries, mellowed by time into one soft hue, which put them all in keeping with one another. I must say that I was charmed with Ringshaw Grange, and no longer wondered at the pride taken by Percy Ringan in his family and their past glories.

“That’s all very well,” said Frank, to whom I remarked as much; “Percy is rich, and had he this place could keep it up in proper style; but I am as poor as a rat, and unless I can make a rich marriage, or inherit a comfortable legacy, house and furniture, park and timber may all come to the hammer.”

He looked gloomy as he spoke; and, feeling that I had touched on a somewhat delicate matter, I hastened to change the subject, by asking to be shown the famous Blue Chamber, which was said to be haunted. This was the true Mecca of my pilgrimage into Hants.

“It is along this passage,” said Frank, leading the way, “and not very far from your own quarters. There is nothing in its looks likely to hint at the ghost — at all events by day — but it is haunted for all that.”

Thus speaking he led me into a large room with a low ceiling, and a broad casement looking out onto the untrimmed park, where the woodland was most sylvan. The walls were hung with blue cloth embroidered with grotesque figures in black braid or thread, I know not which. There was a large old-fashioned bed with tester and figured curtains and a quantity of cumbersome furniture of the early Georgian epoch. Not having been inhabited for many years the room had a desolate and silent look — if one may use such an expression — and to my mind looked gruesome enough to conjure up a battalion of ghosts, let alone one.

“I don’t agree with you!” said I, in reply to my host’s remark. “To my mind this is the very model of a haunted chamber. What is the legend?”

“I’ll tell it to you on Christmas Eve,” replied Ringan, as we left the room. “It is rather a blood-curdling tale.”

“Do you believe it?” said I, struck by the solemn air of the speaker.

“I have had evidence to make me credulous,” he replied dryly, and closed the subject for the time being.

It was renewed on Christmas Eve when all our company were gathered round a huge wood fire in the library. Outside, the snow lay thick on the ground, and the gaunt trees stood up black and leafless out of the white expanse. The sky was of a frosty blue with sharply twinkling stars, and a hard-looking moon. On the snow the shadows of interlacing boughs were traced blackly as in Indian ink, and the cold was of Arctic severity.

But seated in the holly-decked apartment before a noble fire which roared bravely up the wide chimney we cared nothing for the frozen world out of doors. We laughed and talked, sang songs and recalled adventures, until somewhere about ten o’clock we fell into a ghostly vein quite in keeping with the goblin-haunted season. It was then that Frank Ringan was called upon to chill our blood with his local legend. This he did without much pressing.

“In the reign of the good Queen Anne,” said he, with a gravity befitting the subject, “my ancestor Hugh Ringan was the owner of this house. He was a silent misanthropic man, having been soured early in life by the treachery of a woman. Mistrusting the sex he refused to marry for many years; and it was not until he was fifty years of age that he was beguiled by the arts of a pretty girl into the toils of matrimony. The lady was Joan Challoner, the daughter of the Earl of Branscourt; and she was esteemed one of the beauties of Queen Anne’s court.

“It was in London that Hugh met her, and thinking from her innocent and child-like appearance that she would make him a true-hearted wife, he married her after a six months’ courtship and brought her with all honour to Ringshaw Grange. After his marriage he became more cheerful and less distrustful of his fellow-creatures. Lady Joan was all to him that a wife could be, and seemed devoted to her husband and child — for she early became a mother — when one Christmas Eve all this happiness came to an end.”

“Oh!” said I, rather cynically. “So Lady Joan proved to be no better than the rest of her sex.”

“So Hugh Ringan thought, Doctor; but he was as mistaken as you are. Lady Joan occupied the Blue Room, which I showed you the other day; and on Christmas Eve, when riding home late, Hugh saw a man descend from the window. Thunderstruck by the sight, he galloped after the man and caught him before he could mount a horse which was waiting for him. The cavalier was a handsome young fellow of twenty-five, who refused to answer Hugh’s questions. Thinking, naturally enough, that he had to do with a lover of his wife’s, Hugh fought a duel with the stranger and killed him after a hard fight.

“Leaving him dead on the snow he rode back to the Grange, and burst in on his wife to accuse her of perfidy. It was in vain that Lady Joan tried to defend herself by stating that the visitor was her brother, who was engaged in plots for the restoration of James II, and on that account wished to keep secret the fact of his presence in England. Hugh did not believe her, and told her plainly that he had killed her lover; whereupon Lady Joan burst out into a volley of reproaches and cursed her husband. Furious at what he deemed was her boldness Hugh at first attempted to kill her, but not thinking the punishment sufficient, he cut off her right hand.”

“Why?” asked everyone, quite unprepared for this information.

“Because in the first place Lady Joan was very proud of her beautiful white hands, and in the second Hugh had seen the stranger kiss her hand — her right hand — before he descended from the window. For these reasons he mutilated her thus terribly.”

“And she died.”

“Yes, a week after her hand was cut off. And she swore that she would come back to touch all those in the Blue Room — that is who slept in it — who were foredoomed to death. She kept her promise, for many people who have slept in that fatal room have been touched by the dead hand of Lady Joan, and have subsequently died.”

“Did Hugh find out that his wife was innocent?”

“He did,” replied Ringan, “and within a month after her death. The stranger was really her brother, plotting for James II, as she had stated. Hugh was not punished by man for his crime, but within a year he slept in the Blue Chamber and was found dead next morning with the mark of three fingers on his right wrist. It was thought that in his remorse he had courted death by sleeping in the room cursed by his wife.”

“And there was a mark on him?”

“On his right wrist red marks like a burn; the impression of three fingers. Since that time the room has been haunted.”

“Does everyone who sleeps in it die?” I asked.

“No. Many people have risen well and hearty in the morning. Only those who are doomed to an early death are thus touched!”

“When did the last case occur?”

“Three years ago” was Frank’s unexpected reply. “A friend of mine called Herbert Spencer would sleep in that room. He saw the ghost and was touched. He showed me the marks next morning — three red finger marks.”

“Did the omen hold good?”

“Yes. Spencer died three months afterwards. He was thrown from his horse.”

I was about to put further questions in a sceptical vein, when we heard shouts outside, and we all sprang to our feet as the door was thrown open to admit Miss Laura in a state of excitement.

“Fire! Fire!” she cried, almost distracted. “Oh! Mr. Ringan,” addressing herself to Percy, “your room is on fire! I—”

We waited to hear no more, but in a body rushed up to Percy’s room. Volumes of smoke were rolling out of the door, and flames were flashing within. Frank Ringan, however, was prompt and cool-headed. He had the alarm bell rung, summoned the servants, grooms, and stable hands, and in twenty minutes the fire was extinguished.

On asking how the fire had started, Miss Laura, with much hysterical sobbing, stated that she had gone into Percy’s room to see that all was ready and comfortable for the night. Unfortunately the wind wafted one of the bed-curtains towards the candle she was carrying, and in a moment the room was in a blaze. After pacifying Miss Laura, who could not help the accident, Frank turned to his cousin. By this time we were back again in the library.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “your room is swimming in water, and is charred with fire. I’m afraid you can’t stay there tonight; but I don’t know where to put you unless you take the Blue Room.”

“The Blue Room!” we all cried. “What! The haunted chamber?”

“Yes; all the other rooms are full. Still, if Percy is afraid—”

“Afraid!” cried Percy indignantly. “I’m not afraid at all. I’ll sleep in the Blue Room with the greatest of pleasure.”

“But the ghost—”

“I don’t care for the ghost,” interrupted the Australian, with a nervous laugh. “We have no ghosts in our part of the world, and as I have not seen one, I do not believe there is such a thing.”

We all tried to dissuade him from sleeping in the haunted room, and several of us offered to give up our apartments for the night — Frank among the number. But Percy’s dignity was touched, and he was resolute to keep his word. He had plenty of pluck, as I said before, and the fancy that we might think him a coward spurred him on to resist our entreaties.

The end of it was that shortly before midnight he went off to the Blue Room, and declared his intention of sleeping in it. There was nothing more to be said in the face of such obstinacy, so one by one we retired, quite unaware of the events to happen before the morning. So on that Christmas Eve the Blue Room had an unexpected tenant.

On going to my bedroom I could not sleep. The tale told by Frank Ringan haunted my fancy, and the idea of Percy sleeping in that ill-omened room made me nervous. I did not believe in ghosts myself, nor, so far as I knew, did Percy, but the little man suffered from heart disease — he was strung up to a high nervous pitch by our ghost stories — and if anything out of the common — even from natural causes — happened in that room, the shock might be fatal to its occupant.

I knew well enough that Percy, out of pride, would refuse to give up the room, yet I was determined that he should not sleep in it; so, failing persuasion, I employed stratagem. I had my medicine chest with me, and taking it from my portmanteau I prepared a powerful narcotic. I left this on the table and went along to the Blue Room, which, as I have said before, was not very far from mine.

A knock brought Percy to the door, clothed in pyjamas, and at a glance I could see that the ghostly atmosphere of the place was already telling on his nerves. He looked pale and disturbed, but his mouth was firmly set with an obstinate expression likely to resist my proposals. However, out of diplomacy, I made none, but blandly stated my errand, with more roughness, indeed, than was necessary.

“Come to my room, Percy,” I said, when he appeared, “and let me give you something to calm your nerves.”

“I’m not afraid!” he said, defiantly.

“Who said you were?” I rejoined, tartly. “You believe in ghosts no more than I do, so why should you be afraid? But after the alarm of fire your nerves are upset, and I want to give you something to put them right. Otherwise, you’ll get no sleep.”

“I shouldn’t mind a composing draught, certainly,” said the little man. “Have you it here?”

“No, it’s in my room, a few yards off. Come along.”

Quite deluded by my speech and manner, Percy followed me into my bedroom, and obediently enough swallowed the medicine. Then I made him sit down in a comfortable armchair, on the plea that he must not walk immediately after the draught. The result of my experiment was justified, for in less than ten minutes the poor little man was fast asleep under the influence of the narcotic. When thus helpless, I placed him on my bed, quite satisfied that he would not awaken until late the next day. My task accomplished, I extinguished the light, and went off myself to the Blue Room, intending to remain there for the night.

It may be asked why I did so, as I could easily have taken my rest on the sofa in my own room; but the fact is, I was anxious to sleep in a haunted chamber. I did not believe in ghosts, as I had never seen one, but as there was a chance of meeting here with an authentic phantom I did not wish to lose the opportunity.

Therefore when I saw that Percy was safe for the night, I took up my quarters in the ghostly territory, with much curiosity, but — as I can safely aver — no fear. All the same, in case of practical jokes on the part of the feather-headed young men in the house, I took my revolver with me. Thus prepared, I locked the door of the Blue Room and slipped into bed, leaving the light burning. The revolver I kept under my pillow ready to my hand in case of necessity.

“Now,” said I grimly, as I made myself comfortable, “I’m ready for ghosts, or goblins, or practical jokers.”

I lay awake for a long time, staring at the queer figures on the blue draperies of the apartment. In the pale flame of the candle they looked ghostly enough to disturb the nerves of anyone: and when the draught fluttered the tapestries the figures seemed to move as though alive. For this sight alone I was glad that Percy had not slept in that room. I could fancy the poor man lying in that vast bed with blanched face and beating heart, listening to every creak, and watching the fantastic embroideries waving on the walls. Brave as he was, I am sure the sounds and sights of that room would have shaken his nerves. I did not feel very comfortable myself, sceptic as I was.

When the candle had burned down pretty low I fell asleep. How long I slumbered I know not: but I woke up with the impression that something or someone was in the room. The candle had wasted nearly to the socket and the flame was flickering and leaping fitfully, so as to display the room one moment and leave it almost in darkness the next. I heard a soft step crossing the room, and as it drew near a sudden spurt of flame from the candle showed me a little woman standing by the side of the bed. She was dressed in a gown of flowered brocade, and wore the towering head dress of the Queen Anne epoch. Her face I could scarcely see, as the flash of flame was only momentary: but I felt what the Scotch call a deadly grue as I realized that this was the veritable phantom of Lady Joan.

For the moment the natural dread of the supernatural quite overpowered me, and with my hands and arms lying outside the counterpane I rested inert and chilled with fear. This sensation of helplessness in the presence of evil was like what one experiences in a nightmare of the worst kind.

When again the flame of the expiring candle shot up, I beheld the ghost close at hand, and — as I felt rather than saw — knew that it was bending over me. A faint odour of musk was in the air, and I heard the soft rustle of the brocaded skirts echo through the semi-darkness. The next moment I felt my right wrist gripped in a burning grasp, and the sudden pain roused my nerves from their paralysis.

With a yell I rolled over, away from the ghost, wrenching my wrist from that horrible clasp, and, almost mad with pain I groped with my left hand for the revolver. As I seized it the candle flared up for the last time, and I saw the ghost gliding back towards the tapestries. In a second I raised the revolver and fired. The next moment there was a wild cry of terror and agony, the fall of a heavy body on the floor, and almost before I knew where I was I found myself outside the door of the haunted room. To attract attention I fired another shot from my revolver, while the Thing on the floor moaned in the darkness most horribly.

In a few moments guests and servants, all in various stages of undress, came rushing along the passage bearing lights. A babel of voices arose, and I managed to babble some incoherent explanation, and led the way into the room. There on the floor lay the ghost, and we lowered the candles to look at its face. I sprang up with a cry on recognizing who it was.

“Frank Ringan!”

It was indeed Frank Ringan disguised as a woman in wig and brocades. He looked at me with a ghostly face, his mouth working nervously. With an effort he raised himself on his hands and tried to speak — whether in confession or exculpation, I know not. But the attempt was too much for him, a choking cry escaped his lips, a jet of blood burst from his mouth, and he fell back dead.

Over the rest of the events of that terrible night I draw a veil. There are some things it is as well not to speak of. Only I may state that all through the horror and confusion Percy Ringan, thanks to my strong sleeping draught, slumbered as peacefully as a child, thereby saving his life.

With the morning’s light came discoveries and explanations. We found one of the panels behind the tapestry of the Blue Room open, and it gave admittance into a passage which on examination proved to lead into Frank Ringan’s bedroom. On the floor we discovered a delicate hand formed of steel, and which bore marks of having been in the fire. On my right wrist were three distinct burns, which I have no hesitation in declaring were caused by the mechanical hand which we picked up near the dead man. And the explanation of these things came from Miss Laura, who was wild with terror at the death of her master, and said in her first outburst of grief and fear, what I am sure she regretted in her calmer moments.

“It’s all Frank’s fault,” she wept. “He was poor and wished to be rich. He got Percy to make his will in his favour, and wanted to kill him by a shock. He knew that Percy had heart disease and that a shock might prove fatal; so he contrived that his cousin should sleep in the Blue Room on Christmas Eve; and he himself played the ghost of Lady Joan with the burning hand. It was a steel hand, which he heated in his own room so as to mark with a scar those it touched.”

“Whose idea was this?” I asked, horrified by the devilish ingenuity of the scheme.

“Frank’s!” said Miss Laura, candidly. “He promised to marry me if I helped him to get the money by Percy’s death. We found that there was a secret passage leading to the Blue Room; so some years ago we invented the story that it was haunted.”

“Why, in God’s name?”

“Because Frank was always poor. He knew that his cousin in Australia had heart disease, and invited him home to kill him with fright. To make things safe he was always talking about the haunted room and telling the story so that everything should be ready for Percy on his arrival. Our plans were all carried out. Percy arrived and Frank got him to make the will in his favour. Then he was told the story of Lady Joan and her hand, and by setting fire to Percy’s room last night I got him to sleep in the Blue Chamber without any suspicion being aroused.”

“You wicked woman!” I cried. “Did you fire Percy’s room on purpose?”

“Yes. Frank promised to marry me if I helped him. We had to get Percy to sleep in the Blue Chamber, and I managed it by setting fire to his bedroom. He would have died with fright when Frank, as Lady Joan, touched him with the steel hand, and no one would have been the wiser. Your sleeping in that haunted room saved Percy’s life, Dr. Lascelles, yet Frank invited you down as part of his scheme, that you might examine the body and declare the death to be a natural one.”

“Was it Frank who burnt the wrist of Herbert Spencer some years ago?” I asked.

“Yes!” replied Miss Laura, wiping her red eyes. “We thought if the ghost appeared to a few other people, that Percy’s death might seem more natural. It was a mere coincidence that Mr. Spencer died three months after the ghost touched him.”

“Do you know you are a very wicked woman, Miss Laura?”

“I am a very unhappy one,” she retorted. “I have lost the only man I ever loved; and his miserable cousin survives to step into his shoes as the master of Ringshaw Grange.”

That was the sole conversation I had with the wretched woman, for shortly afterwards she disappeared, and I fancy must have gone abroad, as she was never more heard of. At the inquest held on the body of Frank the whole strange story came out, and was reported at full length by the London press to the dismay of ghost-seers: for the fame of Ringshaw Grange as a haunted mansion had been great in the land.

I was afraid lest the jury should bring in a verdict of manslaughter against me, but the peculiar features of the case being taken into consideration I was acquitted of blame, and shortly afterwards returned to India with an unblemished character. Percy Ringan was terribly distressed on hearing of his cousin’s death, and shocked by the discovery of his treachery. However, he was consoled by becoming the head of the family, and as he lives a quiet life at Ringshaw Grange there is not much chance of his early death from heart disease — at all events from a ghostly point of view.

The Blue Chamber is shut up, for it is haunted now by a worse spectre than that of Lady Joan, whose legend (purely fictitious) was so ingeniously set forth by Frank. It is haunted by the ghost of the cold-blooded scoundrel who fell into his own trap; and who met with his death in the very moment he was contriving that of another man. As to myself, I have given up ghost-hunting and sleeping in haunted rooms. Nothing will ever tempt me to experiment in that way again. One adventure of that sort is enough to last me a lifetime.

A Wreath for Marley Max Allan Collins

The versatile and prolific Max Allan Collins has written dozens of novels, including some about Nolan, a hit man; Mallory, a mystery writer who solves real-life crimes; Eliot Ness, who gained fame as the leader of the Untouchables; and Nathan Heller, a Chicago P. I. who becomes involved in well-known crimes of the era, meeting up with such famous characters as Orson Welles and Sally Rand, the fan-dancer. He also wrote the Dick Tracy comic strip, some Batman comic books, and created the comic book private eye Ms. Tree. His graphic novel, Road to Perdition, became the basis of the Academy Award — winning Tom Hanks film. “A Wreath for Marley” was first published in Dante’s Disciples, edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer (Clarkston, GA, White Wolf, 1995).

Private detective Richard Stone wasn’t much for celebrations, or holidays — or holiday celebrations, for that matter.

Nonetheless, this Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord 1942, he decided to throw a little holiday party in the modest two-room suite of offices on Wabash that he had once shared with his late partner, Jake Marley.

Present for the festivities were his sandy-tressed cutie-pie secretary, Katie Crockett, and his fresh-faced young partner, Joey Ernest. Last to arrive was his best pal (at least since Jake died), burly homicide dick Sgt. Hank Ross.

Katie had strung up some tinsel and decorated a little tree by her reception desk. Right now the little group was having a Yuletide toast with heavily rum-spiked egg nog. The darkly handsome Stone’s spirits were good — just this morning, he’d been declared 4-F, thanks to his flat feet.

“Every flatfoot should have ’em!” he laughed.

“What’d you do?” Ross asked. “Bribe the draft-board doc?”

“What’s it to you?” Stone grinned. “You cops get automatic deferments!”

And the two men clinked cups.

Actually, bribing the draft-board doctor was exactly what Stone had done; but he saw no need to mention it.

“Hell,” Joey said — and the word was quite a curse coming from this kid — “I wish I could go. If it wasn’t for this damn perforated eardrum...”

“You and Sinatra,” Stone laughed.

Katie said nothing; her eyes were on the framed picture on her desk — her young brother Ben, who was spending Christmas in the Pacific somewhere.

“I got presents for all of you,” Stone said, handing envelopes around.

“What’s this?” Joey asked, confused, opening his envelope to see a slip of paper with a name and address on the South Side.

“Best black market butcher in the city,” Stone said. “You and the missus and the brood can start the next year out with a coupla sirloins, on me.”

“I’d feel funny about that... it’s not legal...”

“Jesus! How can you be such a square and still work for me? You’re lucky there’s a manpower shortage, kid.”

Ross, envelope open, was thumbing through five twenty-dollar bills. “You always know just what to get me, Stoney.”

“Cops are so easy to shop for,” Stone said.

Katie, seeming embarrassed, whispered her thanks into Stone’s ear.

“Think nothin’ of it, baby,” he said. “It’s as much for me as for you.”

He’d given her a fifty-dollar gift certificate at the lingerie counter at Marshall Field’s. Not every boss would be so generous.

They all had gifts for him, too: Joey gave him a ten-dollar war bond, Katie a hand-tooled leather shoulder holster, and Hank the latest Esquire “Varga” calendar.

“To give this rat-trap some class,” the cop said.

Joey raised his cup. “Here’s to Mr. Marley,” he said.

“To Mr. Marley,” Katie said, her eyes suddenly moist. “Rest his soul.”

“Yeah,” Ross said, lifting his cup, “here’s to Jake — dead a year to the day.”

“To the night, actually,” Stone said, and hoisted his cup. “What the hell — to my partner Jake. You were a miserable bastard, but Merry Christmas, anyway.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way!” Katie said.

“Even if it’s the truth?” Stone asked with a smirk.

Suddenly it got quiet.

Then Ross asked, “Doesn’t it bother you, Stoney? You’re a detective and your partner’s murder goes unsolved? Ain’t it bad for business?”

“Naw. Not when you do mostly divorce work.”

Ross grinned, shook his head. “Stoney, you’re an example to us all,” he said, waved, and ambled out.

Katie had a heartsick expression. “Doesn’t Mr. Marley’s death mean anything to you? He was your best friend!”

Stone patted his .38 under his shoulder. “Sadie here’s my best friend. And, sure, Marley’s death means something to me: full ownership of the business, and the only name on the door is mine.”

She shook her head, slowly, sadly. “I’m so disappointed in you, Richard...”

He took her gently aside. “Then I’m not welcome at your apartment anymore?” he whispered.

“Of course you’re welcome. I’m still hoping you’ll come have Christmas dinner with my family and me, tomorrow.”

“I’m not much for family gatherings. Ain’t it enough I got you the black-market turkey?”

“Richard!” She shushed him. “Joey will hear...”

“What, and find out you’re no Saint Kate?” He gave her a smack of a kiss on the forehead, then patted her fanny. “See you the day after... we’ll give that new casino on Rush Street a try.”

She sighed, said, “Merry Christmas, Richard,” gathered her coat and purse, and went out.

Now it was just Joey and Stone. The younger man said, “You know, Katie’s starting to get suspicious.”

“About what?”

“About what. About you and Mrs. Marley!”

Stone snorted. “Katie just thinks I’m bein’ nice to my late partner’s widow.”

“You being ‘nice’ is part of why it seems so suspicious. While you were out today, Mrs. Marley called about five times.”

“The hell! Katie didn’t say so.”

“See what I mean?” Joey plucked his topcoat off the coat tree. “Mr. Stone — please don’t expect me to keep covering for you. It makes me feel... dirty.”

“Are you sure you were born in Chicago, kid?” Stone opened the door for him. “Go home! Have yourself a merry the hell little Christmas! Tell your kids Santa’s comin’, send ’em up to bed, and make the missus under the mistletoe one time for me.”

“Thanks for the sentiment, Mr. Stone,” he said, and was gone.

Stone — alone, now — decided to skip the egg nog and head straight for the rum. He was downing a cup when a knock called him to the door.

Two representatives of the Salvation Army stepped into his outer office, in uniform — a white-haired old gent, with a charity bucket, and a pretty shapely thing, her innocent face devoid of make-up under the Salvation Army bonnet.

“We’re stopping by some of the offices to—” the old man began.

“Make a touch,” Stone finished. “Sure thing. Help yourself to the egg nog, pops.” Then he cast a warm smile on the young woman. “Honey, step inside my private office... that’s where I keep the cash.”

He shut himself and the little dame inside his office and got a twenty-dollar bill out of his cashbox from a desk drawer, then tucked the bill inside the swell of the girl’s blouse.

Her eyes widened. “Please!”

“Baby, you don’t have to say ‘please.’ ” Stone put his hands on her waist and brought her to him. “Come on... give Santa a kiss.”

Her slap sounded like a gunshot, and stung like hell. He whisked the bill back out of her blouse.

“Some Christmas spirit you got,” he said, and opened the door and pushed her into the outer office.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the old man sputtered, and Stone wadded up the twenty, tossed it in the bucket, and shoved them both out the door.

“Squares,” he muttered, returning to his rum.

Before long, the door opened and a woman in black appeared there, like a curvaceous wraith. Her hair was icy blonde, her thin lips blood-red, like cuts in her angular white Joan Crawford-ish face. It had been a while since she’d seen forty, but she was better preserved than your grandma’s strawberry jam.

She fell immediately into his arms. “Merry Christmas, darling!”

“In a rat’s ass,” he said coldly, pushing her away.

“Darling... what’s wrong...?”

“You been calling the office again! I told you not to do that. People are gonna get the wrong idea.”

He’d been through this with her a million times: they were perfect suspects for Jake Marley’s murder; neither of them had an alibi for the time of the killing — Stone was in his apartment, alone, and Maggie claimed she’d been alone at home, too.

But to cover for each other, they had lied to the cops about being together at Marley’s penthouse, waiting for his return for a Christmas Eve supper.

“If people think we’re an item,” Stone told her, “we’ll be prime suspects!”

“It’s been a year...”

“That’s not long enough.”

She threw her head back and her blonde hair shimmered, and so did her diamond earrings. “I want to get out of black, and be on your arm, unashamed...”

“Since when were you ever ashamed of anything?” He shuddered, wishing he’d never met Maggie Marley, let alone climbed in bed with her; now, he was in bed with her, for God knew how long, and in every sense of the word...

She touched his face with a gloved hand. “Are we spending Christmas Eve together, Richard?”

“Can’t, baby. Gotta spend it with relatives.”

“Who, your uncle and aunt?” She smirked in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re going back to farm country, to see them... You hate it there!”

“Hey, wouldn’t be right not seein’ ’em. Christmas and all.”

Her gaze seemed troubled. “I’d hoped we could talk. Richard... we may have a problem...”

“Such as?”

“... Eddie’s trying to blackmail me.”

“Eddie? What does that slimy little bastard want?”

Eddie was Jake Marley’s brother.

“He’s in over his head with the Outfit,” she said.

“What, gambling losses again? He’ll never learn...”

“He’s trying to squeeze me for dough,” she said urgently. “He’s got photos of us, together... at that resort!”

“So what?” He shrugged.

“Photos of us in our room at that resort... and he’s got the guest register.”

Stone frowned. “That was just a week after Jake was killed.”

“I know. You were... consoling me.”

Who was she trying to kid?

Stone said, “I’ll talk to him.”

She moved close to him again. “He’s waiting for me now, at the Blue Spot Bar... would you keep the appointment for me, Richard?”

And she kissed him. Nobody kissed hotter than this dame. Or colder...

Half an hour later, Stone entered the smoky Rush Street saloon, where a thrush in a gown cut to her toenails was embracing the microphone, singing “White Christmas” off-key.

He found mustached weasel Eddie Marley sitting at the bar working on a Scotch — a bald little man in a bow tie and a plaid zoot suit.

“Hey, Dickie... nice to see ya. Buy ya a snort?”

“Don’t call me ‘Dickie.’ ”

“Stoney, then.”

“Grab your topcoat and let’s talk in my office,” Stone said, nodding toward the alley door.

A cat chasing a rat made garbage cans clatter as the two men came out into the alley. A cold Christmas rain was falling, puddling on the frozen remains of a snow and ice storm from a week before. Ducking into the recession of a doorway, Eddie got out a cigarette and Stone, a statue standing out in the rain, leaned in with a Zippo to light it for him.

For a moment, the world wasn’t pitch dark. But only for a moment.

“I don’t like to stick it to ya, Stoney... but if I don’t cough up five gees to the Outfit, I won’t live to see ’43! My brother left me high and dry, ya know.”

“I’m all choked up, Eddie.”

Eddie was shrugging. “Jake’s life insurance paid off big — double indemnity. So Maggie’s sittin’ pretty. And the agency partnership reverted to you — so you’re in the gravy. Where’s that leave Eddie?”

Stone picked him up by the throat. The little man’s eyes opened wide and his cigarette tumbled from his lips and sizzled in a puddle.

“It leaves you on your ass, Eddie.”

And the detective hurled the little man into the alley, onto the pavement, where he bounced up against some garbage cans.

“Ya shouldn’ta done that, ya bastid! I got the goods on ya!”

Stone’s footsteps splashed toward the little man. “You got nothin’, Eddie.”

“I got photos! I got your handwritin’ on a motel register!”

“Don’t try to tell me the bedroom-dick business. You bring me the negatives and the register page, and I’ll give you five C’s. First and last payment.”

The weasel’s eyes went very wide. “Five C’s?!? I need five G’s by tomorrow — they’ll break my knees if I don’t pay up! Have a heart — have some Christmas charity, fer chrissakes!”

Stone pulled his trenchcoat collar up around his face. “I gave at the office, Eddie. Five C’s is all you get.”

“What are ya — Scrooge? Maggie’s rich! And you’re rolling in your own dough!”

Stone kicked Eddie in the side and the little man howled.

“The negatives and the register page, Eddie. Hit me up again and you’ll take a permanent swim in the Chicago river. Agreed?”

“Agreed! Don’t hurt me anymore! Agreed!”

“Merry X-mas, moron,” Stone said, and exited the alley, pausing near the street to light up his own cigarette. Christmas carols were being piped through department-store loud speakers: “Joy to the world!”

“In a rat’s ass,” he muttered, and hailed a taxi. In the back seat, he sipped rum from a flask. The cabbie made holiday small talk and Stone said, “Make you a deal — skip the chatter and maybe you’ll get a tip for Christmas.”

Inside his Gold Coast apartment building, Stone was waiting for the elevator when he caught a strange reflection in a lobby mirror. He saw — or thought he saw — an imposing trenchcoated figure in a fedora standing behind him.

His late partner — Jake Marley!

Stone whirled, but... no one was there.

He blew out air, glanced at the mirror again, seeing only himself. “No more rum for you, pal.”

On the seventh floor, Stone unlocked 714 and slipped inside his apartment. The art moderne furnishings reflected his financial success; the divorce racket had made him damn near wealthy. He tossed his jacket on a half-circle white couch, loosened his tie and headed to his well-appointed bar, already changing his mind about more rum.

He’d been lying, of course, about going to see his uncle and aunt. Christmas out in the sticks — that was a laugh! That had just been an excuse, so he didn’t have to spend the night with that blood-sucking Maggie.

From the ice box he built a salami and swiss cheese on rye, smearing on hot mustard. Drifting back into the living room, where only one small lamp was on, he switched on his console radio, searching for sports or swing music or even war news, anything other than damn Christmas carols. But that maudlin muck was all he could find, and he switched it off in disgust.

Settling in a comfy overstuffed chair, still in his shoulder holster, he sat and ate and drank. Boredom crept in on him like ground fog.

Katie was busy with family tonight, and even most of the hookers he knew were taking the night off.

What the hell, he thought. I’ll just enjoy my own good company...

Without realizing it, he drifted off to sleep; a noise woke him, and Sadie — his trusty .38 — was in his hand before his eyes had opened all the way.

“Who’s there?” he said, and stood. Somebody had switched off the lamp! Who in hell? The room was in near darkness...

“Sorry, keed,” a familiar voice said. “The light hurts my peepers.”

Standing by the window was his late partner — Jake Marley.

“I must be dreamin’,” Stone said rationally, after just the briefest flinch of a reaction, “ ’cause, pal — you’re dead as a doornail.”

“I’m dead, all right,” Marley said. “Been dead a whole year.” Red neon, from the window behind him, pulsed in on the tall, trenchcoated fedora-sporting figure — a hawkishly handsome man with a grooved face and thin mustache. “But, keed — you ain’t dreamin’.”

“What sorta gag is this...?”

Stone walked over to Marley and took a close look: no make-up, no mask — it was no masquerade. And the trenchcoat had four scorched holes stitched across the front.

Bullet holes.

He put a hand on Marley’s shoulder — and it passed right through.

“Jesus!” Stone stepped back. “You’re not dead — I’m dead drunk.” He turned away. “Havin’ the heebie-jeebies or somethin’. When I wake up, you better be gone, or I’m callin’ Ripley...”

Marley smiled a little. “Nobody can see me but you, keed. Talk about it, and they’ll toss ya in the laughin’ academy, and toss away the key. Mind if I siddown? Feet are killin’ me.”

“Your eyes hurt, your feet hurt — what kinda goddamn ghost are you, anyway?”

“ ’Zactly what you said, keed,” Marley said, and he slowly moved toward the sofa, dragging himself along, to the sound of metallic scraping. “The God-damned kind... and I’ll stay that way if you don’t come through for me.”

Below the trenchcoat, Marley’s feet were heavily shackled, like a chain-gang prisoner.

“You think mine’s heavy,” Marley said, “wait’ll ya see what the boys in the metal shop are cookin’ up for you.”

The ghost sat heavily, his shackles clanking. Stone kept his distance.

“What do ya want from me, Jake?”

“The near-impossible, keed — I want ya to do the right thing.”

“The right thing?”

“Find my murderer, ya chowderhead! Jesus!” At that last exclamation, Marley cowered, glanced upward, muttering, “No offense, Boss,” and continued: “You’re a detective, Stoney — when a detective’s partner’s killed, he’s supposed to do somethin’ about it. That’s the code.”

“That’s the bunk,” Stone said. “I left it to the cops. They mucked it up.” He shrugged. “End of story.”

“Nooooo!” Marley moaned, sounding like a ghost for the first time, and making the hair stand up on Stone’s neck. “I was your partner, I was your only friend... your mentor... and you let me die an unsolved murder while you took over my business — and my wife.”

Stone flinched again; lighted up a Lucky. “You know about that, huh? Maggie, I mean.”

“Of course I know!” Marley waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, her I don’t care two cents about... she always was a witch, with a capital ‘b.’ Having her in your life is punishment enough for any crime. But, keed — you and me, we’re tied to each other! Chained for eternity...”

Convinced he was dreaming, Stone snorted.

“Really, Jake? How come?”

Marley leaned forward and his shackles clanked. “My best pal — a detective — didn’t think I was worth a measly murder investigation. Where I come from, a man who can’t inspire any more loyalty than that outta his best pal is one lost soul.”

Stone shrugged. “It was nothin’ personal.”

“Oh, I take gettin’ murdered real personal! And you didn’t give a rat’s ass who killed me! And that’s why you’re as good as damned.”

“Baloney!” Stone touched his stomach. “... or maybe salami...”

Marley shifted in his seat and his shackles rattled. “You knew I always looked after my little brother, Eddie — he’s a louse and weakling, but he was the only brother I had... and what have you done for Eddie? Tossed him in some garbage cans! Left ’im for the Boys to measure for cement overshoes!”

“He’s a weasel.”

“He’s your dead best pal’s brother! Cut him some slack!”

“I did cut him some slack! I didn’t kill him when he tried to blackmail me.”

“Over you sleeping with his dead brother’s wife, you mean?”

Stone batted the air dismissively. “The hell with you, Marley! You’re not real! You’re some meat that went bad. Some mustard that didn’t agree with me. I’m goin’ to bed.”

“You were right the first time,” Marley said. “You’re goin’ to hell... or anyway, hell’s waitin’ room. Like me.” Marley’s voice softened into a plea. “Stoney — help me outa this, pal. Help yourself.”

“How?”

“Solve my murder.”

Stone blew a smoke ring. “Is that all?”

Marley stood and a howling wind seemed to blow through the apartment, drapes waving like ghosts. “It means something to me!”

Now Stone was sweating; this was happening.

“One year ago,” Marley said in a deep rumbling voice, “they found me in the alley behind the Bismarck Hotel, my back to the wall, one bullet in the pump, two in the stomach, and one in between... remember?”

And Marley removed the bullet-scorched trenchcoat to reveal the four wounds — beams of red neon light from the window behind him cut through Marley like swords through a magician’s box.

“Remember?”

Stone was backing up, patting the air with his palms. “Okay, okay... why don’t you just tell me who bumped you off, and I’ll settle up for you. Then we’ll be square.”

“It’s not that easy... I’m not ... allowed to tell you.”

“Who made these goddamn rules?”

Marley raised an eyebrow, lifted a finger, pointed up. “Right again. To save us both, you gotta act like a detective... you gotta look for clues... and you must do this yourself... though you will be aided.”

“How?”

“You’re gonna have three more visitors.”

“Swell! Who’s first? Karloff, or Lugosi?”

Marley moved away from the couch, toward the door, shackles clanking. “Don’t blow it for the both of us, keed,” he said, and left through the door — through the door.

Stone stood staring at where his late partner had literally disappeared, and shook his head. Then he went to the bar and poured himself a drink. Soon he was questioning the reality of what had just happened; and, a drink later, he stumbled into his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, fully clothed.

He was sleeping the sound sleep of the dead-drunk when his bed got jostled.

Somebody was kicking it.

Waking to semi-darkness, Stone said, “Who in hell...”

Looming over him was a roughly handsome, Clark Gable — mustached figure in a straw hat and a white double-breasted seersucker.

Stone dove for Sadie, his .38 in its shoulder holster slung over his nightstand, but then, in an eyeblink, the guy was gone.

“Over here, boyo.”

Stone turned and the guy in the jauntily cocked straw hat was standing there, picking his teeth with a toothpick.

“Save yourself the ammo,” the guy said. “They already got me.”

And he unbuttoned his jacket and displayed several ugly gaping exit wounds.

“In the back,” the guy said, “the bastards.”

The guy looked oddly familiar. “Who the hell are you?”

“Let’s put it this way. If a bunch of trigger-happy feds are chasin’ ya, don’t duck down that alley by the Biograph — it’s a dead-end, brother.”

“John Dillinger!”

“Right — only it’s a hard ‘g,’ like in gun: Dillin-ger. Okay, sonny? Pet peeve o’ mine.” Dillinger was buttoning up his jacket.

“You... you must not have been killed wearing that suit.”

“Naw — it’s new. Christmas present from the Boss. I got a pretty good racket goin’ here — helpin’ chumps like you make good. Another five hundred years, and I get sprung.”

“How exactly is a cheap crook like you gonna help me make good?”

Dillinger grabbed Stone by the shirt front. Stone took a swing at the ghost, but his hand only passed through.

“There ain’t nothin’ cheap about John Dillinger! I didn’t rob nobody but banks, and times was hard, then, banks was the bad guys... and I never shot nobody. Otherwise, I’da got the big heat.”

“The big heat?”

Dillinger raised an eyebrow and angled a thumb, downward. “Which is where you’re headed, sonny, if you don’t get your lousy head screwed on right. Come with me.”

“Where are we goin’?”

“Into your past. Maybe that’s why I got picked for this caper — see, I was a Midwest farm kid like you. Come on! Don’t make me drag ya...”

Reluctantly, Stone followed the spirit into the next room...

... where Stone found himself not in the living room of his apartment, but in the snowy yard out in front of a small farmhouse. Snowflakes fell lazily upon an idyllic rural winter landscape; an eight-year-old boy was building a snowman.

“I know this place,” Stone said.

“You know the kid, too,” Dillinger said. “It’s you. You live in that house.”

“Why aren’t I cold? It’s gotta be freezing, but I feel like I’m still in my apartment.”

“You’re a shadow here, just like me,” Dillinger said.

“Dickie!” a voice called from the porch. “Come inside — you’ll catch your death!”

“Ma!” Stone said, and moved toward her. He studied her serene, beautiful face in the doorway. “Ma...”

He tried to touch her and his hand passed through.

Behind him, Dillinger said, “I told ya, boyo — you’re a shadow. Just lean back and watch... maybe you’ll learn somethin’.”

Then eight-year-old Dickie Stone ran right through the shadow of his future self, and inside the house, closing the door behind him, leaving Stone and Dillinger on the porch.

“Now what?” Stone asked.

“Since when were you shy about breaking and entering?” Dillinger said.

And walked through the door...

“Look who’s talking,” Stone said. He took a breath and followed.

Stone found himself in the cozy farmhouse, warmed by a wood-burning stove, which, surprisingly, he could feel. In one corner of the modestly furnished living room stood a pine tree, almost too tall for the room to contain, decorated with tinsel and a star, wrapped gifts scattered under it. A spinet piano hugged a wall. Stone watched his eight-year-old self strip out of an aviator cap and woolen coat and boots and sit at a little table where he began working on a puzzle.

“Five hundred pieces,” Stone said. “It’s a picture of Tom Mix and his horse what’s-his-name.”

“Tony,” said Dillinger.

“God, will ya smell that pine tree! And my mother’s cooking! If I’m a shadow, how come I can smell her cooking?”

“Hey, pal — don’t ask me. I’m just the tour guide. Maybe somebody upstairs wants your memory jogged.”

Stone moved into the kitchen, where his mother was at the stove, stirring gravy.

“God, that gravy smells good... can you smell it?”

“No,” said Dillinger.

“She’s baking mincemeat pie, too... you’re lucky you can’t smell that. Garbage! But Pa always liked it...”

“My ma made a mean plum pudding at Christmas,” Dillinger said.

“Mine, too! It’s bubbling on the stove! Can’t you smell it?”

“No! This is your past, pal, not mine...”

The back door opened and a man in a blue denim coat and woolen knit cap entered, stomping the snow off his workboots.

“That mincemeat pie must be what heaven smells like,” the man said. Sky-blue eyes were an incongruously gentle presence in his hard, weathered face.

“Pa,” Stone said.

Taking off his jacket, the man walked right through the shadow of his grown son. “Roads are still snowed in,” his father told his mother.

“Oh dear! I was so counting on Bob and Helen for Christmas supper!”

“That’s my uncle and aunt,” Stone told Dillinger. “Bob was mom’s brother.”

“They’ll be here,” Pa Stone said, with a thin smile. “Davey took the horse and buggy into town after them.”

“My brother Davey,” Stone explained to Dillinger.

“Oh dear,” his mother was saying. “He’s so frail... oh how could you...”

“Send a boy to do a man’s job? Sarah, Davey’s sixteen. Proud as I am of the boy for his school marks, he’s got to learn to be a man. Anyway, he wanted to do it. He likes to help.”

Stone’s ma could only say, “Oh dear,” again and again.

“Now, Sarah — I’ll not have these boys babied!”

“Well, the old S. O. B. sure didn’t baby me,”

Stone said to Dillinger.

“Davey just doesn’t have Dickie’s spirit,” said Pa. “Dickie’s always getting in scrapes, and he sure don’t make the grades Davey does, but the boy’s got gumption and guts.”

Stone had never known his pa felt that way about him.

“Then why are you so hard on the child, Jess?” his mother was asking. “Last time he got caught playing hookey from school, you gave him the waling of his life.”

“How else is the boy to learn? That’s how my pa taught me the straight and narrow path.”

“Straight and narrow razor strap’s more like it,” Stone said.

Ma was stroking Pa’s rough face. “You love both your boys. It’s Christmas, Jess. Why don’t you tell ’em how you feel?”

“They know,” he said gruffly.

Emotions churned in Stone, and he didn’t like it. “Tour guide — I’ve had about all of this I can take...”

“Not just yet,” Dillinger said. “Let’s go in the other room.”

They did, but it was suddenly later, after dark, the living room filled with family members sitting on sofas and chairs and even the floor, having cider after a supper that everybody was raving about.

A pudgy, good-natured man in his forties was saying to eight-year-old Dickie, “How do you like your gift, young man?”

The boy was wearing a policeman’s cap and a little tin badge; he also had a miniature nightstick, a pair of handcuffs, and a traffic whistle. “It’s the cat’s meow, Uncle Bob!”

“Where does he get those vulgar expressions?” his mother asked disapprovingly, but not sternly.

“Cap’n Billy’s Whiz Bang,” Stone whispered to Dillinger.

“Never missed an issue myself,” Dillinger said.

The boy started blowing the whistle shrilly and there was laughter, but the boy’s father said,

“Enough!”

And the boy obeyed.

The door opened. A boy of sixteen, but skinny and not much taller than Dickie, came in; bundled in winter clothes, he was bringing in a pile of firewood for the wood-burning stove.

“Davey,” Stone said.

“Did you like your older brother?” Dillinger asked.

“He was a great guy. You could always depend on him for a smile or a helpin’ hand... But what did it get him?”

Out of his winter jacket, firewood deposited, Davey went over to his younger brother and ruffled his hair. “Gonna get the bad guys, little brother?”

“I’m gonna bop ’em,” Dickie said, “then slap the cuffs on!”

“On Christmas?” Davey asked. “Even crooks got a right to celebrate the Savior’s birth, don’t ya think?”

“Yeah. Well, okay... day after, then.”

Everybody was laughing as little Dickie swung his nightstick at imaginary felons.

“Dickie, my lad,” said Uncle Bob, “someday I’ll hire you on at the station.”

Stone explained to Dillinger: “He was police chief, over at DeKalb.”

“Peachy,” said Dillinger.

Davey said, “Ma — how about sitting down at the piano, and helping put us all in the Yuletide spirit?”

“Yeah, Ma!” said little Dickie. “Tickle the ol’ ivories!”

Soon the group was singing carols, Davey leading them: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...”

“Seen enough?” Dillinger said.

“Just a second,” Stone said. “Let me hear a little more... this is the last decent Christmas I can remember...”

After a while, the gaily singing people began to fade, but the room remained, and suddenly Stone saw the figure of his father, kneeling at the window, a rifle in his hands, face contorted savagely. There was no Christmas tree, although Stone knew at once that this was indeed a later Christmas Day in his family’s history. His mother cowered by the piano; she seemed frightened and on the verge of tears. A fourteen-year-old Dickie was crouched beside his father near the window.

“God,” said Stone. “Not this Christmas...”

“Son,” his pa was saying to the teenage Stone, “I want you and your mother to go on out.”

“No, Pa! I want to stay beside you! Ma should go, but...”

“You’re not too big to get your hide tanned, boy.”

“Pa...”

A voice through a megaphone outside called: “Jess! It’s Bob! Let me come in and at least talk!”

“When hell freezes over!” Pa shouted. “Now get off my property, or so help me, I’ll shoot you where you stand!”

“Jess, that’s my brother,” Ma said, tears brimming. “And it’s... it’s not our property, anymore...”

“Whose is it, then? The bank’s? Did the bankers work this ground for twenty years? Did the bankers put blood and sweat and years into this land?”

Dillinger elbowed Stone. “That’s why this country needed guys like me. Say — where’s your older brother, anyway?”

“Dead,” Stone said. “He caught pneumonia the winter of ’28... stayed outside for hours and hours, helping get some family’s flivver out of a ditch in the wind and cold. All my folks’ dreams died with him.”

“Let Bob come in,” Ma was saying. “Hear him out.”

Pa thought it over; he looked so much older, now. Not years older — decades. Finally he said, “All right. For you, Sarah. Just ’cause he’s kin of yours.”

When the door opened, and Bob came in, he was in full police-chief array, under a fur-lined jacket; the badge on his cap gleamed.

“Jess,” he said solemnly, “you’re at the end of your string. I wish I could help you, but the bank’s foreclosed, and the law’s the law.”

“Why’s the law on their side?” teenage Stone asked. “Isn’t the law supposed to help everybody equal?”

“People with money get treated a hell of a lot more equal, son,” his father said bitterly.

“I worked out a deal,” Bob said. “You can keep your furniture. I can come over with the paddy wagon and load ’er up with your things; we’ll store ’em in my garage. There’ll be no charges brought. Helen and I have room for you and Sarah and Dick — you can stay with us till you find something.”

The rifle was still in Pa’s hands. “This is my home, Robert.”

“No, Jess — it’s a house the bank owns. Your home is your family, and you take them with you. Let me ask you this — what would Davey want you to do?”

Stone looked away; he knew what was coming: one of two times he ever saw his father cry — the other was the night Davey died.

A single tear running down his cheek, Pa said, “How am I supposed to support my family?”

Bob’s voice was gentle: “I got friends at the barb-wire factory. Already talked to ’em about you. They’ll take you on. Having a job in times like these is a blessing.”

Pa nodded. He sighed, handed his rifle over. “Thank you, Robert.”

“Yeah, Uncle Bob,” teenage Stone said sarcastically. “Merry Christmas! In a rat’s ass...”

“Richard!” his ma said.

His father slapped him.

“You ever do that to me again, old man,” teenage Stone said, pointing a hard finger at his father, “I’ll knock your damn block off!”

And as his teenage self rushed out, Stone shook his head. “Jesus! Did I have to say that to him, right then? Poor bastard hits rock bottom, and I find a way to push him down lower...”

Pa was standing rigidly, looking downward, as Ma clung to him in a desperate embrace. Uncle Bob, looking ashamed of himself, trudged out.

“You were just a kid,” Dillinger said. “What did you know?”

“Why are you puttin’ me through this hell?” Stone demanded. “I can’t change the past! What does any of this have to do with finding out who killed Jake Marley?!”

“Don’t ask me!” Dillinger flared. “I’m just the damn help!”

The bank robber’s ghost stalked out, and Stone — not eager to be left in this part of his past — quickly followed.

Stone now found himself, and his ghostly companion, in the reception area of a smalltown police station where officers milled and a reception desk loomed. Dillinger led Stone to a partitioned-off office where a Christmas wreath hung on a frosted glass door, which they went through without opening.

Jake Marley, Deputy Chief of Police of Dekalb, Illinois, sat leaned back in his chair, at his desk, smiling as he opened Christmas cards; as he did, cool green cash dropped out of each card.

“Lot of people remembered Jake at Christmas,” Stone said.

“Lot of people remember a lot of cops at Christmas,” Dillinger sneered.

A knock at the door prompted Marley to sweep the cash into a desk drawer. “Yeah?” he called gruffly. “What?”

The uniformed police officer who peeked in was a young Dick Stone. “Deputy Chief Marley? I had word you wanted me to drop by...?”

“Come on in, keed, come on in!” The slick mustached deputy chief gestured magnanimously to the chair opposite his desk. “Take a load off...”

Young Stone sat while his future self and the ghost of a public enemy eavesdropped nearby.

Marley’s smile tried a little too hard. “Yesterday was your first day on, I understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I just wanted you to know I don’t hold it against you, none — you gettin’ this job through patronage.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Marley shrugged. “Nothin’. A guy does what he has to, to get ahead. It’s unusual, your Uncle Bob playin’ that kinda game, though. He’s a real straight arrow.”

“Uncle Bob’s kind of a square john, but he’s family and I stand by him.”

“Swell! Admirable, keed. Admirable. But there’s things go on around here that he don’t know about... and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Young Stone frowned. “Such as?”

“Let me put it this way — if you got a fifty-dollar bill every month, for just lookin’ the other way... if it was for something truly harmless... could you sleep at night?”

“Lookin’ the other way, how?”

Marley explained that he was from Chicago — in ’26, a local congressman greased the wheels for him to land this rural deputy chief slot, so he could do some favors for the Outfit.

“Not so much goin’ on now,” said Marley, “not like back in dry days, when the Boys had stills out here. Couple roadhouses where people like to have some extra-legal fun...”

“Gambling and girls, you mean.”

“Right. And there’s a farmhouse the Boys use, when things get hot in the city, and a field where they like to do some... planting... now and then.”

“I don’t think I could sleep at night, knowing that’s going on.”

Marley’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

“Not for fifty a month.” The young officer grinned. “Seventy-five, maybe. A C-note, and I’d be asleep when my head hit the pillow.”

Marley stuck his hand across his desk. “I think this is gonna be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

They shook hands, but when young Stone brought his hand back, there was a C-note in it.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Marley.”

“Make it ‘Jake.’ Many happy returns, keed.”

Dillinger tugged Stone’s arm and they walked through the office wall and were suddenly in another office: the outer office of MARLEY AND STONE: CONFIDENTIAL INVESTIGATIONS. Katie was watering the base of a Christmas tree in the corner.

“This is, what?” Dillinger asked Stone. “Five years ago?”

“Right. Christmas Eve, ’37, I think...”

Marley was whispering to a five-years’ younger Stone. “Nice-lookin’ twist you hired.”

“She’ll class up the front office. And remember, Jake — I saw her first.”

Marley grinned. “What do I need with a kid like her, when I got a woman like Maggie? Ah! Speak of the devil...”

Maggie was entering the outer office on the arm of a blond, boyishly handsome man in a crisp business suit.

“Stoney,” Marley said, “meet our biggest client: this is Larry Turner... he’s the V. P. with Consolidated who’s tossing all that investigating our way.”

“Couldn’t do this without you, Mr. Turner,” Stone said.

“Make it ‘Larry,’ ” he said. “Pleasure to do business with such a well-connected firm.”

Dillinger said, “What’s this boy scout’s angle?”

Stone said, “We been kicking that boy scout back twenty percent of what his firm pays us since day one. I don’t know how Jake knew him, but Consolidated was the account that let us leave DeKalb and set up shop in the Loop.”

“How’d your Uncle Bob feel about you leaving the force?”

“He damn near cried... he always figured I’d step in and fill his shoes someday. Poor yokel... just didn’t have a clue — all that corruption going on right under his nose.”

“By his deputy chief and his nephew, you mean.”

Stone said nothing, but the five-years-ago him was saying to Marley, “Look — this insurance racket is swell. But the real dough is in divorce work.”

“You’re right, keed. I’m ahead of you... we get the incriminating photos of the cheating spouse, then sell ’em to the highest bidder.”

“Sweet! That’s what they get for not love, honor, and obeyin’.”

The private eyes shared a big horse laugh. Katie looked their way and smiled, glad to see her bosses enjoying themselves on Christmas Eve.

“Come on,” Dillinger said, summoning Stone with a crooked finger.

And the late bank robber walked Stone through a wall into the alley where Jake Marley lay crumpled against a brick wall, between two garbage cans, holes shot in the front of him, eyes wide and empty and staring.

Sgt. Hank Ross was showing the body to Stone. “Thought you better see this, pal. Poor slob never even got his gun out. Still tucked away under his buttoned-up topcoat. Shooter musta been somebody who knew him, don’t ya figure?”

Stone shrugged. “You’re the homicide dick.”

“Now, Stoney... I don’t want you looking into this. I know he was your partner, and your friend, but...”

“You talked me out of it.” Stone lighted up a Lucky. “I’ll take care of informin’ the widow.”

Ross just looked at him. Then he said, “Merry goddamn Christmas, Stoney.”

“In a rat’s ass,” he said, turning away from his dead partner.

“Jeez!” Dillinger said. “That’s cold! Couldn’t ya squeeze out just one tear for your old pal?”

Stone said nothing. His year-ago self walked right through him.

“You want the truth, Dillin-ger? All I was thinkin’ was, with all the people he jacked around, Jake was lucky to’ve lived this long. And how our partnership agreement spelled out that the business was mine, now.”

“Hell! I thought Gillis was cold.”

“Gillis?”

“Lester Gillis. Baby Face Nelson to you. Come on, sonny. You and me reached the end of the line.”

And Dillinger shoved Stone, hard — right through the brick wall; and when the detective blinked again, he was alone on his bed, in his apartment.

He sat up; rubbed his eyes, scratched his head. “Meat shortage or not, that salami gets pitched...”

He flopped back on the bed, still fully dressed, and stared at the ceiling; the dream was hanging with him — thoughts, images, of his mother, father, brother, even Marley, floated in front of him, speaking to him...

Out in the other room, the doorbell rang, startling him. He checked the round bakelite clock on his nightstand: two a.m. Who in hell would be calling on him at this hour?

On the other hand, he thought as he stumbled out to his door, talking to somebody with a pulse would be nice for a change...

And there on his doorstep was a crisply uniformed soldier, a freshly scrubbed young man with his overseas cap tugged down onto his forehead.

“Mr. Stone?”

“Ben? Is that you? Ben Crockett!” Stone’s grin split his face. “Katie’s little brother, back from the wars — is she gonna be tickled!”

The boy seemed somewhat dazed as he stepped inside.

“Uh, Ben... if you’re lookin’ for Katie, she’s at her place tonight.”

“I’m here to see you, Mr. Stone.”

“Well, that’s swell, kid... but why?”

“I’m not really sure,” the boy said. “May I sit down?”

“Sure, kid, sure! You want something to drink?”

“No thanks. You’ll have to excuse me, sir — I’m kinda confused. The briefing I got... it was pretty screwy.”

“Briefing?”

“Yeah. This is a temporary assignment. But they said I was ‘uniquely qualified’ for this mission.”

“What do they want you to do, kid? Haul me down for another physical?”

“That reminds me!” Private Crockett dug into a pocket and found a scrap of paper. “Does this mean anything to you? ‘Tell the 4-F Mr. Stone he really does have flat feet and the doctor he paid off was scamming him.’ ”

Stone’s mouth dropped open, then he laughed. “Well, that’s a Chicago doc for ya. So, is that the extent of your ‘mission’?”

The boy tucked the scrap of paper away. “No. There’s more... and it’s weird. I’m supposed to tell you to go look in the mirror.”

“Look in the mirror?”

“Yeah — that one over there, I guess.”

“Kid...”

“Please, Mr. Stone. I don’t think I get to go home for Christmas till I get this done.”

Stone sighed, said okay, and shuffled over to the mirror near his console radio; he saw his now unshaven, slightly bleary-eyed reflection, and the boy in his trim overseas cap looking gravely over his shoulder. “Now what, kid?”

“You’re supposed to look in there, is all. I was told you’re gonna see tomorrow... or, actually, it’s after midnight already, ain’t it? Anyway, Christmas Day, 1942...”

And the mirror before Stone became a window.

Through the window, he saw Maggie Marley and Larry Turner, the insurance company V. P., toasting cocktail glasses — Maggie in a negligee, Turner in a silk smoking jacket; they were snuggled on a couch in her fancy apartment.

“What the hell’s this?” Stone asked. “Maggie and that snake Turner... since when are they an item?”

“How much longer,” Maggie was saying to Turner, “do I have to put up with him?”

“You need Stone,” Turner said, nuzzling her neck. “He’s your alibi, baby.”

“But I didn’t kill Jake!”

“Sure you didn’t. Sure you didn’t... anyway, string him along a little way, then let him down easy... Right now you still need him in your pocket. He helped you get Eddie off your tail, didn’t he?”

Maggie frowned. “Well... you’re right about that. But his touch... it makes my skin crawl...”

“Why you little...” Stone began.

But the images in the mirror blurred, and were replaced with another image: Eddie Marley, in his sleazy little apartment, not answering his door, cowering as somebody out there was banging with a fist.

“Let us in, Eddie! We got a Christmas present for ya!”

Eddie, sweating, shaking like crazy, looked at a framed photo of his late brother Jake.

“How could you do this to me, Jake?” he whispered. “You promised you’d take care of me...”

The door splintered open and two Outfit thugs — huge hulking faceless creatures in topcoats and fedoras — cornered him quickly.

“Gimme another week, fellas! I can get ya five C’s today, to tide us over till then!”

“Too late, Eddie,” one ominous goon said. “You kept the Outfit waitin’ just one time too many...”

A hand filled itself with a .45 automatic that erupted once, twice, three times. Eddie crumpled to the floor, bleeding. Dying.

“Jake... Jake... you let me down... you promised...”

The mirror blurred again. Stone looked at Private Crockett. “Is that a done deal, kid? If that’s gonna happen Christmas Day, can’t I still bail that little weasel out...?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Stone. They didn’t tell me that.”

A new image began to form in the mirror: Stone’s young employee, Joey Ernest, seated in his living room, by a fireplace, looking glum — in fact, he seemed on the verge of tears. Nearby, his little boy of six and his little girl of four were playing with some nice new toys under a tree bright with Christmas lights.

Joey’s wife Linda, a pretty blonde in a red Christmas dress, came over and slipped an arm around him.

“Why are you so blue, darling?”

“I can’t help it... I know I should be happy. It’s been a great Christmas... but I feel so... so ashamed...”

“Darling...”

“Other guys my age, they’re fighting on bloody beaches to preserve the honor and glory of God and country. Me, I crawl around under beds and hide in hotel closets and take dirty pictures of adulterers.”

“Joey! The children!”

“I know! The children... I want to give them a good life... but do I have to do it like this? Covering up for my philandering boss, among a million other indignities? I’m quitting! I swear, I’m quitting Monday!”

She kissed his cheek. “Then I’ll stand right beside you.”

He gave her a hangdog look. “I shouldn’t have got us so far in over our heads with all these time payments... How are we gonna make it, Linda?”

“I’m going to take that job at the defense plant. Mom can look after the kids, when one of us isn’t here. It’s going to be fine.”

“Aw, Linda. I love you so much. Merry Christmas, baby.”

“Merry Christmas, darling.”

They were embracing as the image blurred.

Now the mirror filled with a tableau of homeless men in a soup kitchen. They were standing in line, receiving soup and bread and a hot meal. Serving them was the pretty young Salvation Army worker Stone made a pass at, at the office. In the background, voices of men at the mission were singing a carol: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

“We used to sing that song at home,” Stone told the soldier. “My ma would play the piano. Christ! What a heel.”

“Who, Mr. Stone?”

But the image on the mirror was different again: Katie Crockett and a plump older woman and a frail-looking older man...

“Hey, kid,” Stone said, “it’s your sister!”

“And my folks,” he said quietly.

... sitting around the Christmas tree in Katie’s little apartment, opening presents and chatting happily. The doorbell rang, and Katie bounced up to answer it.

But she didn’t come bouncing back.

“It’s... it’s a telegram from the war department,” Katie said.

“Oh no!” her mother said. “Not...”

“It’s Ben, isn’t it?” her father said.

They huddled together and read the telegram and tears streamed down their faces.

“Well, that’s wrong, kid,” Stone said to Private Crockett. “You gotta go there tomorrow, and straighten that out. It’s breaking their hearts — they think you’re dead!”

“Mr. Stone,” the boy said, removing his overseas cap, revealing the bullet hole in the center of his forehead, “I’m afraid they’re right.”

“God...”

“I have to go home now,” he said. “Tell sis I love her, would you, Mr. Stone? And the folks, too?”

The young soldier, like another image blurring in the mirror, faded away.

Alone in his bedroom again, Stone held his throbbing head in his hands. “Did somebody slip me a mickey or something?” Exhausted, he stumbled back to his bed, falling face first, and sleep, mercifully, descended.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you...

Stone’s eyes popped open; his bedroom was still dark. Someone was singing, a sort of hillbilly Bing Crosby, a strange voice, an earthy unearthly voice...

... blue Christmas, that’s certain...

The little round clock said 4 a.m.

... decorations of white...

“What the hell is that racket? The radio?”

“It’s me, sir,” the same voice said. Mellow, baritone, slurry.

Stone hauled himself off the bed and beheld the strangest apparition of all: the man standing before him wore a white leather outfit with a cape, glittering with rhinestones. The (slightly overweight) man had longish jet black hair, an insolently handsome if puffy face, and heavy-lidded eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Ah don’t mean to soun’ immodest, sir,” he said huskily, “but where ah come from they call me ‘the King.’ ”

“Don’t tell me you’re Jesus Christ!” Stone said, eyes popping.

“Not hardly, sir. Ah’m just a poor country boy. Right now, ah’d be about seven years old, sir.”

“If you’re seven years old, I’d cut down on the Baby Ruths, if I was you.”

The apparition in white moved toward him, a leather ghost; his shoes were strange, too — rhinestone-studded white cowboy boots. “Ah’m afraid you don’t understand, sir — ah’m the ghost of somebody who hasn’t grown up and lived yet, in your day... let alone died.”

“You haven’t died yet, but you’re a ghost? A ghost in a white-leather zoot suit! This is the best one yet. This is my favorite so far...”

“See, ah was a very famous person, or ah’m goin’ to be. Ah really don’t mean to brag, but ah was bigger than the Beatles.”

“You’re the biggest bug I ever saw, period, pal.”

“Sir, ah abused my talent, and my body, so ah’m payin’ some dues. That’s how come ah got this gig.”

“ ‘Gig’?”

“Ah’m here to show you a little preview of comin’ attractions, sir. Somethin’ that’s gonna go down ’long about next Christmas... Christmas of ’43...”

The apparition struck a strange pose, as if turning his entire body into a pointing arrow, and suddenly both the King and Stone were in a small chapel, bedecked rather garishly with Christmas decorations that seemed un-church-like, somehow.

“Where are we?”

“Welcome to my world, sir. We’re a few years early to appreciate it, but someday, this is gonna be a real bright light city.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

The King grinned sideways. “We’re in Vegas, man!”

Up at the front of the chapel, a man and woman faced a minister. Canned organ music was filtering in. A wedding ceremony was under way.

Stone walked up to have a look.

“I’ll be damned,” Stone said.

“That’s what we’re tryin’ to prevent, sir.”

“It’s Maggie and that creep Larry Turner! Getting hitched! Well, good riddance to both of ’em...”

“Maybe you oughta see how you’re spendin’ next Christmas...”

And now Stone and the rhinestone ghost were in a jail cell. So was a haggard-looking, next year’s Stone — in white-and-black prison garb, seated on his cot, looking desperate. On a stool across from him was Sgt. Hank Ross.

“Hank, you know I’m innocent!”

“I believe you, Stoney. But the jury didn’t. That eye witness held up...”

“He was bought and paid for!”

“... and your gun turning out to be the murder weapon, well...”

“You get an anonymous phone tip to match the slugs that killed Jake with my gun, a year later, and you don’t think that’s suspicious?”

“The ballistics tests were positive.”

“Some crooked cop must’ve switched the real bullets with some phonies shot from my gun! I told you, Hank, when I went to Miami on vacation, I left the gun in my desk drawer. Anybody coulda...”

“Old news, Stoney.”

“You gotta believe me...”

“I do. But with your appeal turned down...”

“What about the governor?”

“The papers want your ass, and the governor wants votes. You know how it works.”

“Yeah, Hank. I know how it works, all right...”

“Stoney, better put things right between you and your maker.” Ross sighed, heavily. “ ’Cause tomorrow about now... you’re gonna be meetin’ him.”

Ross patted his friend on the shoulder, called for the guard, and was soon gone. Stone stood and clung onto the bars of his cell as a forlorn harmonica played “Come All Ye Faithful.”

“Death row?” Stone said to the King. “Next Christmas, I’m on death row?”

“Sir, ah’m afraid that’s right. And ah think we’re gonna have to be movin’ on...”

And they were back in the apartment.

“I have no idea who the hell you are,” Stone said, “but I owe you. Of all the visions I’ve seen tonight, yours are the ones that brought it all home to me.”

“Thank you vurry much,” the King said.

Stone glanced away, but when he turned back, his visitor had left the building.

Almost dizzy, Stone fell back onto the bed, head whirling; sleep descended...

When he awakened, it was almost noon. He felt re-born. He showered and shaved, whistling “Joy to the World.” As he got dressed, he slung on his shoulder-holstered revolver, removing the gun and checking its cylinder.

“Jeez, Sadie,” Stone said. “What kinda girl are you? Loaded on Christmas...”

Chuckling, he tucked the gun in its holster, then frowned and had a closer look at the .38, studying its handle.

“I’ll be damned,” he said to himself. Then he smiled knowingly. “... Or maybe not.”

He slipped the gun back in its hand-tooled shoulder holster, tossed on his topcoat. Then, as an afterthought, he went to his wall safe and counted out five thousand dollars in C notes, and folded the wad in his pocket.

When Stone knocked at Eddie’s apartment, there was no answer. Was he too late? He yelled: “Eddie — it’s Stone! I got your cash. All five grand of it!”

Finally Eddie peeked out; he was a little bruised up from the rough handling Stone had given him last night. “What is this — a gag?”

“No. Lemme in.”

In the little apartment — strewn with old issues of Racing News, dirty clothes, and take-out dinner cartons — Stone counted the cash out to a stunned Eddie.

“What is this?”

“It’s a Christmas present, you little weasel.”

“Why...?”

“You’re my partner’s brother. I had a responsibility to help you out. But this is it... this’ll bail you out today, and don’t ask me for no more bail-outs in the future, got it? When the goons come, pay ’em off. And if you wanna lose your gambling habit, I might find some legwork for you to do, at the office. But otherwise, you’re on your own.”

“I don’t get it. Why help me, after I tried to blackmail you...?”

“Oh, well, I’ll break your arms if you try that again.”

“Now, that sounds like the old Stoney.”

“No — the old Stoney woulda killed you. Eddie — you said your brother promised to ‘take care of’ you, if anything happened to him. You seemed real sure of that...”

Eddie nodded emphatically. “He told me I was on his insurance policy — fifty percent was supposed to go to me, but somehow that witch wound up with all of it!”

Before long, Stone was knocking at the penthouse apartment door of the widow Marley.

Maggie tried not to betray her discomfort at seeing Stone. “Why, Richard,” she said, raising her voice, “what a lovely Christmas surpri—”

But he pushed past her, before Larry Turner could find a hiding place. Turner was caught by the fireplace, where no stockings were hung.

“Merry Christmas, Larry,” Stone said. “I got a present for ya...”

Stone pulled the .38 out from under his shoulder and pointed it at the trembling Turner, who wore the silk smoking jacket Stone had seen in the vision in the mirror last night.

“Actually, it’s a present you gave me,” Stone said. “My best friend — my best girl — is Sadie. My gun. Kind of a sad commentary, ain’t it?”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Stone... just don’t point that thing at me...”

“Funny thing is, this isn’t Sadie. Imagine — me goin’ around with the wrong dame for over a year, and not knowin’ it!”

Maggie said, “Richard, please put that gun away—”

“Sweetheart, would you mind standin’ over there by your boy friend? I honestly don’t think you were in on this, but I’m not takin’ any chances.”

She started to say something, and Stone said, “Move!” and, with the .38, waved her over by Turner.

Stone continued: “Sometime last year, Larry... I don’t know when exactly, just that it had to be before Christmas Eve... you stole my Sadie, and substituted a similar gun. Trouble is, Sadie has a little chip out of the handle... tiny, but it’s there, only it’s not there on this gun.”

“Why in hell would I do that?” Turner asked.

“Because you wanted to use my gun to kill Jake with. Which you did.”

“Kill Jake! Why would I...”

“Because you and Maggie are an item. A secret item, but an item. You fixed her insurance policy so that all those double-indemnity dollars went to her, even though Jake intended his no-good brother get half. Jake considered you a friend — that’s why his hands were in his pockets, and his gun under his coat, when you got up close to him and sent him those thirty-eight caliber Christmas greetings.”

“With your gun? If any of this were true, I’d have given that gun to the police, long ago.”

“Not necessarily. You’re an insurance man... using my gun was like takin’ out a policy. Any time it looked like suspicion was headed your way, or even Maggie’s, you could switch guns again and make a nice little anonymous call.”

Maggie was watching Turner, eyes wide, horror growing. “Is this true? Did you kill Jake?”

“It’s nonsense,” Turner told her dismissively.

“Well, then,” she said bitterly, “what was that gun you had me put in my wall safe? For my ‘protection,’ you said!”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Now I know what I want for Christmas,” Stone said. “Maggie, open the safe.”

She went to an oil painting of herself, removed it, and revealed the round safe, which she opened.

“Stand aside, sweetheart,” Stone said, “and let him get the gun out.”

Turner, sweating, licked his lips and reached in and grabbed the gun, wheeled, fired, dove behind the nearby couch. When Turner peeked around to fire again at Stone, the detective had already dropped to the floor. Stone returned fire, his slug piercing a plump couch cushion. Turner popped up again, and Stone nailed him through the shoulder.

Turner yelped and fell, his dropped gun spinning away harmlessly on the marble floor.

Stone stood over Turner, who looked up in anger and anguish, holding onto his shot-up shoulder. “You wanted me to try to shoot it out with you!”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause it was all theory till you tried to shoot me. Now it’ll hold up with the cops and in court.”

“You bastard, Stone... why don’t you just do it? Why don’t you just shoot me and be the hell done with it?”

“I don’t think so. First of all, I like the idea of you spendin’ next Christmas on death row. Second, you’re not worth goin’ to hell over.”

Stone phoned Sgt. Ross. “Yeah, I know you’re at home, Hank — but I got another present for ya — all gift-wrapped...”

He hung up, then found himself facing a slyly smiling Maggie.

“No hard feelings?” she asked.

“Naw. We were both louses. Both running around on each other.”

Maggie was looking at him seductively; running a finger up and down his arm. “You were so sexy shooting it out like that... I don’t think I was ever more attracted to you...”

He just laughed, shook his head, pushed her gently aside.

“I would rather go to hell,” he said.

Later, with Turner turned over to Ross, Stone stopped at Joey Ernest’s house out in the north suburbs.

“Mr. Stone — what are you...?”

“I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas, kid. And tell you my New Year’s resolution is to dump the divorce racket.”

“Really?”

“Really. There’s some retail credit action we can get... it won’t pay the big bucks, but we’ll be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.”

Joey’s face lighted up. “You don’t know what this means to me, Mr. Stone!”

“I think maybe I do. Incidentally, Mrs. Marley and me are kaput. No more covering up for your dirty boss.”

“Mr. Stone... come in and say hello to the family. We haven’t sat down to dinner yet. Please join us!”

“I’d love to say hi, but I can’t stay long. I have another engagement.”

Finally, he knocked at the door of Katie’s little apartment.

“Why... Richard!” Her beaming face told him that certain news hadn’t yet reached her.

“Can a guy change his mind? And his ways? I’d love to have Christmas with you and your folks.”

She slipped her arm in his and ushered him in. “Oh, they’ll be so thrilled to meet you! You’ve made me so happy, Richard...”

“I just wanted to be with you today,” he said, “and maybe sometime, before New Year’s, we could drive over to DeKalb and see my Uncle Bob and Aunt Helen.”

“That would be lovely!” she said, as she walked him into the living room with its sparkling Christmas tree. Her mother and father rose from the couch with smiles.

It would be a blue Christmas for this family, when the doorbell rang, as it would all too soon; but when it did, Stone at least wanted to be with them.

With Katie.

And when they would eventually go to the young soldier’s grave, to say a prayer and lay a wreath, Stone would do the same for his late friend and partner.