The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories Read online

  “The same thing happened afterwards, on some Christmas Eves,” she explained. “They played Blind Man’s Bluff over again. That is why people who live here do not care to risk it nowadays. It happens at a quarter-past seven—”

  Hunter stared at the curtains. “But it was a quarter past seven when we got here!” he said. “It must now be—”

  “Oh, yes,” said the girl, and her eyes brimmed over. “You see, I told you you had nothing to fear; it was all over then. But that is not why I thank you. I begged you to stay, and you did. You have listened to me, as no one else would. And now I have told it at last, and now I think both of us can sleep.”

  Not a fold stirred or altered in the dark curtains that closed the window bay; yet, as though a blurred lens had come into focus, they now seemed innocent and devoid of harm. You could have put a Christmas tree there. Rodney Hunter, with Muriel following his gaze, walked across and threw back the curtains. He saw a quiet window-seat covered with chintz, and the rising moon beyond the window. When he turned round, the girl in the old-fashioned dress was not there. But the front doors were open again, for he could feel a current of air blowing through the house.

  With his arm round Muriel, who was white-faced, he went out into the hall. They did not look long at the scorched and beaded stains at the foot of the panelling, for even the scars of fire seemed gentle now. Instead, they stood in the doorway looking out, while the house threw its great blaze of light across the frosty Weald. It was a welcoming light. Over the rise of a hill, black dots trudging in the frost showed that Jack Bannister’s party was returning; and they could hear the sound of voices carrying far. They heard one of the party carelessly singing a Christmas carol for glory and joy, and the laughter of children coming home.

  Paul Temple’s White Christmas

  Francis Durbridge

  Francis Henry Durbridge (1912–1998) became a household name as creator of Paul Temple, the debonair amateur detective to whom the hapless Sir Graham Forbes of Scotland Yard was forever turning for help when confounded by bewildering crime. Durbridge’s radio serials with their trademark cliff-hanger endings and multiple plot twists, became hugely popular in the Thirties, and in the post-war era; he became equally celebrated for a long run of television serials, including Melissa, Bat out of Hell, and A Game of Murder. There were four Paul Temple films, and other movies based on his work included The Vicious Circle (1957).

  As if all that wasn’t enough, there was a Paul Temple comic strip that enjoyed a long run in various newspapers, while a television series, Paul Temple, with the urbane Francis Matthews well cast as the gentlemanly sleuth, clocked up fifty-two episodes from 1969–1971; the television scripts and most of the comic strips were not, however, based on Durbridge’s serials. In the latter part of his career, he concentrated on writing for the stage, and several of his mystery plays, starting with Suddenly at Home (1971), became West End hits.

  As a writer, Durbridge’s strengths lay in building suspense, pace, and dialogue, and this helps to explain why his finest work was for radio and television. Writing prose narratives formed a relatively minor part of his output. The majority of his books were, in reality, novelizations; a rare exception was the stand-alone thriller Back Room Girl (1950). This little story first appeared in Radio Times on 20 December 1946.

  Steve stopped talking about Switzerland, tore up the Winter Sports brochure, and went out shopping. She said that she would meet Temple at the Penguin Club at a quarter past four. “I shan’t be a minute later than four-fifteen,” she said gaily.

  That was two hours ago.

  It was now precisely twenty-seven-and-a-half minutes past five and Temple was still waiting. He sat with his back to the bar staring out at the rain and drinking a dry martini. Cecil, the bar-tender, was talking about The Gregory Affair. He’d been talking about The Gregory Affair for thirty-seven minutes. Temple was tired. He was tired of waiting, of the Club, of Cecil, of hearing about The Gregory Affair, and—most of all—he was tired of the rain. He was almost beginning to wish that he’d taken Steve’s advice about Switzerland.

  It had just gone half past five when Steve arrived. She put her parcels down on the high stool and smiled at Cecil. “It’s filthy weather, Paul—don’t you wish we’d gone to Switzerland?”

  Temple brought his wristlet watch dangerously near her veil. He said: “It’s five-thirty, you’re just an hour and a quarter late, Steve!”

  “Yes. I bumped into Freda Gwenn and she never stopped talking. The poor dear’s wildly excited.”

  “Why is she excited?”

  “She’s going to Switzerland for Christmas and…”

  Temple took Steve by the arm, said goodbye to Cecil, and picked up the parcels.

  They stood for a moment in the doorway looking out at the rain. “If there’s anything I like better than a good old English winter,” said Steve, “it’s a good old English summer.”

  Temple said: “What do you expect at this time of the year?”

  “I know what I’d like! I’d like…”

  “You’d like to slide on your posterior all day,” said Temple, “and dance your feet off all night.”

  Steve said: “You are in a pleasant mood, darling! What you need is plenty of fresh air and exercise.” She was thinking of St Moritz and the Palace Hotel skating rink.

  Temple nodded. “It’s a good idea, we’ll walk back to the flat.”

  It was still raining but they walked.

  When they got back to the flat there was a note from Charlie. It was on the small table in the hall and like most of Charlie’s notes it was brief and to the point. “Off to the Palais de Danse. Sir Graham rang up—he’s ringing again. Be good. Charlie.”

  Temple didn’t care very much for the “be good” touch, but it was typical of Charlie. It was an hour later when Sir Graham telephoned. Steve was in the bathroom.

  “You remember that Luxembourg counterfeit business you helped us with last year?” the Commissioner said. Temple remembered it only too well. For one thing the leader of the organization—a man called Howell—had mysteriously disappeared.

  “Yes. I remember it, Sir Graham. Don’t tell me you’ve caught up with the elusive Mr Howell?”

  “We haven’t, but it rather looks as if the Swiss people have. They arrested a man they believe to be Howell just over twenty-four hours ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “Apparently this fellow had managed to get some sort of an organization together and was ready to start work at Grindelwald. By a sheer stroke of genius the Swiss authorities caught up with him.”

  “Did they get the rest of the organization?”

  “No, I’m afraid they didn’t.” Forbes laughed. “As a matter of fact they’re not absolutely certain that they’ve got Howell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Forbes said: “Well, the Swiss people seem to think that while Howell was lying low after the Luxembourg business he had a fairly drastic facial operation: you know the sort of thing—plastic surgery.”

  Temple could hear Steve splashing about in the bathroom. He said in a low voice: “Do I come into this, Sir Graham?”

  “I’m rather afraid you do, Temple,” said Sir Graham. “The Swiss authorities want somebody to go out there and identify Howell. Preferably somebody who worked on the Luxembourg business.”

  “Where is Howell?”

  “He was arrested at Grindelwald but they’ve taken him to Interlaken. I rather gather the police are a little frightened that the rest of the gang might try to rescue him.”

  Temple said: “When do you expect us to leave?”

  He heard Forbes chuckling at the other end of the wire.

  “I thought Steve would have to come into the picture!” he said. “You leave tomorrow morning on the eleven o’clock ’plane. You’ll land at Berne and go on to Interlaken by train.”
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br />   Temple said goodbye, put down the receiver, lit a cigarette, and sat watching the bathroom door. After a little while the door opened and Steve appeared. She was wearing a grey negligee. Temple had always thought it was a very nice negligee.

  Temple said: “I’ve got a surprise for you. I’ll give you three guesses.”

  Steve said: “It’s stopped raining.”

  “No.”

  “M.G.M. have bought your last novel?”

  “No.”

  Steve brushed her hair with the towel. “My intuition isn’t working tonight. I give up.”

  Temple said: “It looks like being a White Christmas after all. We leave for Berne tomorrow morning.”

  The ’plane landed at the airport and Temple and Steve made their way towards the Customs. Temple took one look at the weather. It was raining. “If there’s one thing I like better than a good old Swiss winter,” he said, “it’s a good old Swiss summer.”

  Steve laughed and took him by the arm. There was a man waiting for them at the barrier. A tall, clean-shaven, rather distinguished looking man in a dark brown overcoat.

  He touched his hat to Steve and addressed Temple:

  “Mr Paul Temple?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Velquez, sir. Inspector Velquez. I’ve been asked by the authorities to drive you into Berne.”

  Temple eyed him cautiously, and said: “Why Berne, Inspector?”

  The man smiled. “We’ve taken Howell to Berne, sir. We thought it might save time. My car is at your disposal.”

  Temple said: “Well, Inspector, my instructions are to proceed by train to Interlaken. I think I ought to get this change of programme confirmed by your superior.”

  Velquez smiled. He had quite a pleasant smile. “Then I advise you to telephone through to headquarters,” he said, “you’ll find the telephone in the waiting room and the number is Interlaken 9-8974. Ask for M. Dumas.”

  Steve stayed with Velquez while Temple telephoned.

  It was apparently M. Dumas himself who answered the telephone. He was extremely affable and rather amused by the precaution Paul Temple had taken.

  “Velquez is certainly one of our men,” he said, “he’ll have you here within twenty minutes.”

  “How do you know he’s your man?” said Temple, “he might be an impostor!”

  “Describe him!” snapped Dumas, and there was no mistaking the note of asperity in his voice.

  Paul Temple described Velquez.

  Dumas said: “You’ve nothing to worry about, Mr Temple—that’s Velquez all right.”

  Temple put down the receiver, walked out of the telephone booth, and went back to Velquez. Velquez was holding his umbrella over Steve and they appeared to be getting along famously together.

  He smiled when he saw Temple approaching.

  “Well,” said Velquez, “I take it I’m to have the pleasure of your company?”

  Temple nodded, grinned, and put his hand in his inside pocket. Both Velquez and Steve expected him to take out his cigarette case: they were not unnaturally surprised when they saw the revolver he was holding. It must be recorded in fact that Velquez was surprised, nervous, agitated, and not a little frightened.

  He had good reason to be—the revolver was pointing directly at him.

  * * *

  Paul Temple and Steve had left the electric train and were making their way towards the start of the snow run. It was Christmas Eve.

  As she started to fasten her skis, Steve said:

  “I suppose Velquez—the man who met us at the airport—was a friend of Howell’s?”

  “A very close friend,” said Temple. “The idea, apparently, was to abduct us and hold us as hostages until Howell was released.”

  “And what about the telephone call? Did you get through to that number Velquez gave you?”

  Temple nodded. “I got through all right and the old boy at the other end—a confederate of Velquez’s—confirmed that Velquez was a member of the Police.”

  “Then what made you suspicious?”

  Temple smiled. “I described Velquez to his friend as a tall, rather distinguished looking man with spectacles.”

  “But he didn’t wear spectacles!”

  “Of course he didn’t,” said Temple, “but his friend was just a trifle too anxious to be obliging and immediately jumped to the conclusion that Velquez had disguised himself for the occasion!”

  Steve looked puzzled for a split second, then she began to laugh. She was still laughing when she began her downward swoop with far less caution than her lack of practice warranted. At the first difficult turn she capsized in a smother of white foam, and Temple, barely ten yards behind, was unable to avoid her.

  They sat regarding each other for a moment, then Temple managed to regain his feet and went over to give her a hand.

  As they brushed the snow off their clothes Paul Temple looked at his wife and grinned.

  “We’re certainly having a White Christmas!” he said.

  Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech

  Cyril Hare

  Cyril Hare was a pen name adopted by Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark (1900–58), who was called to the Bar in 1924. His chambers were in Hare Court, and he lived in Cyril Mansions in Battersea, two addresses that supplied the component parts of his pseudonym. His first crime novel, Tenant for Death (1937), was a reworking of a stage play called Murder in Daylesford Gardens, and was followed by Death of a Sportsman (1938) and the admirably ingenious Suicide Excepted (1939). His fourth book, Tragedy at Law (1942), is widely regarded as his masterpiece, blending a fascinating and authentic portrayal of life on a legal circuit with an original plot and an unlikely but appealing protagonist in Francis Pettigrew, a barrister whose career, and love life, have proved something of a disappointment. Pettigrew returned in later books, and was rewarded by his creator with a late but happy marriage, and a spell as a judge.

  Hare’s tragically premature death cut short a crime writing career of distinction; it’s a mark of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow practitioners that his friend, the novelist and solicitor Michael Gilbert, edited a collection of his short stories, and that P.D. James referenced one of his cleverest plots in her novel The Private Patient. He was an accomplished writer of short stories, many of which were printed in the Evening Standard. This story first saw the light of day in that newspaper on 23 December 1949; it has subsequently appeared as ‘Your Old Leech’ and ‘The Present in the Post.’

  At Christmas-time we gladly greet ach old familiar face.

  At Christmas time we hope to meet th’ old familiar place.

  Five hundred loving greetings, dear, from you to me

  To welcome in the glad New Year look to see!

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

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

  “Leech?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “At Christmas-time we gladly greet…”

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

  “Five hundred loving greetings, dear…”

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

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

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