Murder On Christmas Eve, Page 3

  ‘Just my wife.’

  ‘And what does this mean about you playing Santa Claus?’ ‘I’m this year’s chairman of the Santa Claus Club. We hold our raffle and dinner next Monday.’ Then Quarles remembered. The Santa Claus Club had been formed by ten rich men. Each year they met, every one of them dressed up as Santa Claus, and held a raffle. The members took it in turn to provide the prize that was raffled – it might be a case of Napoleon brandy, a modest cottage with some exclusive salmon fishing rights attached to it, or a Constable painting. Each Santa Claus bought one ticket for the raffle, at a cost of one thousand guineas. The total of ten thousand guineas was given to a Christmas charity. After the raffle the assembled Santa Clauses, each accompanied by one guest, ate a traditional English Christmas dinner.

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

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

  ‘To find him by next Monday is a tall order,’ Quarles said. ‘But I’ll try.’ He was at the door when Acrise said, ‘By the way, I’d like you to be my guest at the Club dinner on Monday night …’

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

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

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

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

  ‘There was still some doubt?’

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

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

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

  ‘I’d like to be there earlier.’

  ‘Good idea. Any time you like. You know where it is? Robert the Devil Restaurant …’

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

  It was here that Quarles arrived at half-past six, a big, suave man, rather too conspicuously elegant perhaps in a midnight-blue dinner jacket. He talked to Albert, the maitre d’hotel, whom he had known for some years, took an unobtrusive look at the waiters, went into and admired the sparkling kitchens. Albert observed his activities with tolerant amusement. ‘You are here on some sort of business, Mr Quarles?’

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

  ‘Perhaps half a dozen. They come, they go.’

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

  ‘No. There is not such a one.’

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

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

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

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

  ‘No sign.’

  ‘False alarm. Lot of nonsense. Got to dress up now.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Suggest we put it to the vote,’ Erdington said sharply.


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

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

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

  ‘I am a criminologist.’ This sounded better, Quarles thought, than ‘private detective’.

  ‘I remember your monograph on criminal calligraphy. Quite fascinating.’

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

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

  ‘Not very. I’m greatly privileged to be here.’

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

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

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

  ‘It’s excellent.’

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

  ‘Do you have any speeches?’

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

  ‘What sort of surprise?’

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

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

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

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

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

  Quarles leaned towards Acrise. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right.’

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

  ‘A little surprise,’ he said. ‘In the spirit of Christmas.’

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

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

  ‘I am Scrooge,’ said Snewin.

  ‘I am Marley,’ wailed grey sackcloth, clanking his chains vigorously.

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

  There was a ripple of laughter.

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

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

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

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

  ‘He’s dead.’

  There was a murmur of surprise and horror, and now they all drew back, as men do instinctively from the presence of death. ‘Heart attack?’ somebody said.

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

  ‘You seem to have done well so far,’ Erdington said drily. ‘May I look at the body?’

  ‘If you wish.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Quarles said, ‘Isn’t he here? But Lord Acrise is dead.’ Snewin coughed. ‘Excuse me, sir, but would it be possible for my colleagues from our local dramatic society to retire?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘That means the napkin must still be here,’ Davis said. ‘It does.’

  ‘Then I vote that we submit to a search!’

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

  ‘James Gliddon?’

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

  There was a dead silence in the room.

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