Murder On Christmas Eve, Page 2

  ‘Shove him off,’ said young Joel, seeing she didn’t at all care for being singled out. ‘He only does it to annoy people.’

  And she did, but he only jumped on again, I noticed as I closed the door on them and left. It was a Dymond party they were going to, the senior lot, up at the filling station. Not much point in trying to check up on all her cousins and swains when they were gathered for a booze-up. Coming out of a hangover, tomorrow, they might be easy meat. Not that I had any special reason to look their way, they were an extrovert lot, more given to grievous bodily harm in street punch-ups than anything secretive. But it was wide open.

  Well, we summed up. None of the lifted prints was on record, all we could do in that line was exclude all those that were Miss Thomson’s. This kind of sordid little opportunist break-in had come into local experience only fairly recently, and though it was no novelty now, it had never before led to a death. No motive but the impulse of greed, so no traces leading up to the act, and none leading away. Everyone connected with the church, and most of the village besides, knew about the bits of jewellery she had, but never before had anyone considered them as desirable loot. Victoriana now carry inflated values, and are in demand, but this still didn’t look calculated, just wanton. A kid’s crime, a teenager’s crime. Or the crime of a permanent teenager. They start at twelve years old now, but there are also the shiftless louts who never get beyond twelve years old, even in their forties.

  We checked all the obvious people, her part-time gardener – but he was demonstrably elsewhere at the time – and his drifter of a son, whose alibi was non-existent but voluble, the window-cleaner, a sidelong soul who played up his ailments and did rather well out of her, all the delivery men. Several there who were clear, one or two who could have been around, but had no particular reason to be.

  Then we went after all the youngsters who, on their records, were possibles. There were three with breaking-and-entering convictions, but if they’d been there they’d been gloved. Several others with petty theft against them were also without alibis. By the end of a pretty exhaustive survey the field was wide, and none of the runners seemed to be ahead of the rest, and we were still looking. None of the stolen property had so far showed up.

  Not, that is, until the Saturday. I was coming from Church Cottage through the graveyard again, and as I came near the corner where the dead flowers were shot, I noticed a glaring black patch making an irregular hole in the veil of frozen snow that still covered the ground. You couldn’t miss it, it showed up like a black eye. And part of it was the soil and rotting leaves showing through, and part, the blackest part, was the Trinity cat, head down and back arched, digging industriously like a terrier after a rat. The bent end of his tail lashed steadily, while the remaining eight inches stood erect.

  If he knew I was standing watching him, he didn’t care. Nothing was going to deflect him from what he was doing. And in a minute or two he heaved his prize clear, and clawed out to the light a little black leather handbag with a gilt clasp. No mistaking it, all stuck over as it was with dirt and rotting leaves. And he loved it, he was patting it and playing with it and rubbing his head against it, and purring like a steam-engine. He cursed, though, when I took it off him, and walked round and round me, pawing and swearing, telling me and the world he’d found it, and it was his.

  It hadn’t been there long. I’d been along that path often enough to know that the snow hadn’t been disturbed the day before. Also, the mess of humus fell off it pretty quick and clean, and left it hardly stained at all. I held it in my handkerchief and snapped the catch, and the inside was clean and empty, the lining slightly frayed from long use. The Trinity cat stood upright on his hind legs and protested loudly, and he had a voice that could outshout a Siamese.

  Somebody behind me said curiously: ‘Whatever’ve you got there?’ And there was young Joel standing openmouthed, staring, with Connie Dymond hanging on to his arm and gaping at the cat’s find in horrified recognition.

  ‘Oh, no! My gawd, that’s Miss Thomson’s bag, isn’t it? I’ve seen her carrying it hundreds of times.’

  ‘Did he dig it up?’ said Joel, incredulous. ‘You reckon the chap who – you know, him! – he buried it there? It could be anybody, everybody uses this way through.’

  ‘My gawd!’ said Connie, shrinking in fascinated horror against his side. ‘Look at that cat! You’d think he knows … He gives me the shivers! What’s got into him?’

  What, indeed? After I’d got rid of them and taken the bag away with me I was still wondering. I walked away with his prize and he followed me as far as the road, howling and swearing, and once I put the bag down, open, to see what he’d do, and he pounced on it and started his fun and games again until I took it from him. For the life of me I couldn’t see what there was about it to delight him, but he was in no doubt. I was beginning to feel right superstitious about this avenging detective cat, and to wonder what he was going to unearth next.

  I know I ought to have delivered the bag to the forensic lab, but somehow I hung on to it overnight. There was something fermenting at the back of my mind that I couldn’t yet grasp.

  Next morning we had two more at morning service besides the regulars. Young Joel hardly ever went to church, and I doubt if anybody’d ever seen Connie Dymond there before, but there they both were, large as life and solemn as death, in a middle pew, the boy sulky and scowling as if he’d been press-ganged into it, as he certainly had, Connie very subdued and big-eyed, with almost no make-up and an unusually grave and thoughtful face. Sudden death brings people up against daunting possibilities, and creates penitents. Young Joel felt silly there, but he was daft about her, plainly enough, she could get him to do what she wanted, and she’d wanted to make this gesture. She went through all the movements of devotion, he just sat, stood and kneeled awkwardly as required, and went on scowling.

  There was a bitter east wind when we came out. On the steps of the porch everybody dug out gloves and turned up collars against it, and so did young Joel, and as he hauled his gloves out of his coat pocket, out with them came a little bright thing that rolled down the steps in front of us all and came to rest in a crack between the flagstones of the path. A gleam of pale blue and gold. A dozen people must have recognised it. Mrs Downs gave tongue in a shriek that informed even those who hadn’t.

  ‘That’s Miss Thomson’s! It’s one of her turquoise earrings! How did you get hold of that, Joel Barnett?’

  How, indeed? Everybody stood staring at the tiny thing, and then at young Joel, and he was gazing at the flagstones, struck white and dumb. And all in a moment Connie Dymond had pulled her arm free of his and recoiled from him until her back was against the wall, and was edging away from him like somebody trying to get out of range of flood or fire, and her face a sight to be seen, blind and stiff with horror.

  ‘You!’ she said in a whisper. ‘It was you! Oh, my God, you did it – you killed her! And me keeping company – how could I? How could you!’

  She let out a screech and burst into sobs, and before anybody could stop her she turned and took to her heels, running for home like a mad thing.

  I let her go. She’d keep. And I got young Joel and that single ear-ring away from the Sunday congregation and into Trinity Cottage before half the people there knew what was happening, and shut the world out, all but old Joel who came panting and shaking after us a few minutes later.

  The boy was a long time getting his voice back, and when he did he had nothing to say but, hopelessly, over and over: ‘I didn’t! I never touched her, I wouldn’t. I don’t know how that thing got into my pocket. I didn’t do it. I never …’

  Human beings are not all that inventive. Given a similar set of circumstances they tend to come out with the same formula. And in any case, ‘deny everything and say nothing else’ is a very good rule when cornered.

  They thought I’d gone round the bend when I said: ‘Where’s the cat? See if you can get him in.’

  Old Joel was past w
ondering. He went out and rattled a saucer on the steps, and pretty soon the Trinity cat strolled in. Not at all excited, not wanting anything, fed and lazy, just curious enough to come and see why he was wanted. I turned him loose on young Joel’s overcoat, and he couldn’t have cared less. The pocket that had held the ear-ring held very little interest for him. He didn’t care about any of the clothes in the wardrobe, or on the pegs in the little hall. As far as he was concerned, this new find was a non-event.

  I sent for a constable and a car, and took young Joel in with me to the station, and all the village, you may be sure, either saw us pass or heard about it very shortly after. But I didn’t stop to take any statement from him, just left him there, and took the car up to Mary Melton’s place, where she breeds Siamese, and borrowed a cat-basket from her, the sort she uses to carry her queens to the vet. She asked what on earth I wanted it for, and I said to take the Trinity cat for a ride. She laughed her head off.

  ‘Well, he’s no queen,’ she said, ‘and no king, either. Not even a jack! And you’ll never get that wild thing into a basket.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I will,’ I said. ‘And if he isn’t any of the other picture cards, he’s probably going to turn out to be the joker.’

  A very neat basket it was, not too obviously meant for a cat. And it was no trick getting the Trinity cat into it, all I did was drop in Miss Thomson’s handbag, and he was in after it in a moment. He growled when he found himself shut in, but it was too late to complain then.

  At the house by the canal Connie Dymond’s mother let me in, but was none too happy about letting me see Connie, until I explained that I needed a statement from her before I could fit together young Joel’s movements all through those Christmas days.

  Naturally I understood that the girl was terribly upset, but she’d had a lucky escape, and the sooner everything was cleared up, the better for her. And it wouldn’t take long.

  It didn’t take long. Connie came down the stairs readily enough when her mother called her. She was all stained and pale and tearful, but had perked up somewhat with a sort of shivering pride in her own prominence. I’ve seen them like that before, getting the juice out of being the centre of attention even while they wish they were elsewhere. You could even say she hurried down, and she left the door of her bedroom open behind her, by the light coming through at the head of the stairs.

  ‘Oh, Sergeant Moon!’ she quavered at me from three steps up. ‘Isn’t it awful? I still can’t believe it! Can there be some mistake? Is there any chance it wasn’t…?’

  I said soothingly, yes, there was always a chance. And I slipped the latch of the cat-basket with one hand, so that the flap fell open, and the Trinity cat was out of there and up those stairs like a black flash, startling her so much she nearly fell down the last step, and steadied herself against the wall with a small shriek. And I blurted apologies for accidentally loosing him, and went up the stairs three at a time ahead of her, before she could recover her balance.

  He was up on his hind legs in her dolly little room, full of pop posters and frills and garish colours, pawing at the second drawer of her dressing-table, and singing a loud, joyous, impatient song. When I came plunging in, he even looked over his shoulder at me and stood down, as though he knew I’d open the drawer for him. And I did, and he was up among her fancy undies like a shot, and digging with his front paws.

  He found what he wanted just as she came in at the door. He yanked it out from among her bras and slips, and tossed it into the air, and in seconds he was on the floor with it, rolling and wrestling it, juggling it on his four paws like a circus turn, and purring fit to kill, a cat in ecstasy. A comic little thing it was, a muslin mouse with a plaited green nylon string for a tail, yellow beads for eyes, and nylon threads for whiskers, that rustled and sent out wafts of strong scent as he batted it around and sang to it. A catmint mouse, old Miss Thomson’s last-minute purchase from the pet shop for her dumb friend. If you could ever call the Trinity cat dumb! The only thing she bought that day small enough to be slipped into her handbag instead of the shopping bag.

  Connie let out a screech, and was across that room so fast I only just beat her to the open drawer. They were all there, the little pendant watch, the locket, the brooches, the true-lover’s-knot, the purse, even the other ear-ring. A mistake, she should have ditched both while she was about it, but she was too greedy. They were for pierced ears, anyhow, no good to Connie.

  I held them out in the palm of my hand – such a large haul they made – and let her see what she’d robbed and killed for.

  If she’d kept her head she might have made a fight of it even then, claimed he’d made her hide them for him, and she’d been afraid to tell on him directly, and could only think of staging that public act at church, to get him safely in custody before she came clean. But she went wild. She did the one deadly thing, turned and kicked out in a screaming fury at the Trinity cat. He was spinning like a humming-top, and all she touched was the kink in his tail. He whipped round and clawed a red streak down her leg through the nylon. And then she screamed again, and began to babble through hysterical sobs that she never meant to hurt the poor old sod, that it wasn’t her fault! Ever since she’d been going with young Joel she’d been seeing that little old bag going in and out, draped with her bits of gold. What in hell did an old witch like her want with jewellery? She had no right! At her age!

  ‘But I never meant to hurt her! She came in too soon,’ lamented Connie, still and for ever the aggrieved. ‘What was I supposed to do? I had to get away, didn’t I? She was between me and the door!’

  She was half her size, too, and nearly four times her age! Ah well! What the courts would do with Connie, thank God, was none of my business. I just took her in and charged her, and got her statement. Once we had her dabs it was all over, because she’d left a bunch of them sweaty and clear on that brass candlestick. But if it hadn’t been for the Trinity cat and his single-minded pursuit, scaring her into that ill-judged attempt to hand us young Joel as a scapegoat, she might, she just might, have got clean away with it. At least the boy could go home now, and count his blessings.

  Not that she was very bright, of course. Who but a stupid harpy, soaked in cheap perfume and gimcrack dreams, would have hung on even to the catmint mouse, mistaking it for an herbal sachet to put among her smalls?

  I saw the Trinity cat only this morning, sitting grooming in the church porch. He’s getting very self-important, as if he knows he’s a celebrity, though throughout he was only looking after the interests of Number One, like all cats. He’s lost interest in his mouse already, now most of the scent’s gone.

  The Santa Claus Club

  Julian Symons

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

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

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

  ‘Just tell me what you think of these,’ Lord Acrise said.

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

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

  Quarles looked at the envelopes. They were plain and cheap. The address was typed, and the word Personal was on top of each envelope. ‘Who is James Gliddon?’ he asked.

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

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

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

  ‘Snewin?’

  ‘My secretary. Been with me twelve years.’

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

  ‘Snewin – did we keep any of those old letters from Gliddon?’

  ‘No sir. You told me to destroy them.’

  ‘The last ones came from the Argentine, right?’

  ‘From Buenos Aires, to be exact, sir.’

  Acrise nodded, and Snewin scurried out.

  Quarles said, ‘Who else knows this story about Gliddon?’