The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories Page 15

  “At Christmas-time we hope to meet…”

  He put down his paper unread and stared forlornly out of the carriage window. It was at Christmas-time, four years before, that the whole thing started—at his stepmother’s Christmas Eve party, just such a boring family function as the one he would have to attend in a few days’ time. There had been some silly games to amuse the children—Blind Man’s Buff and Musical Chairs—and in the course of them his wallet must have slipped from his pocket. He discovered the loss next morning, went round to the house and retrieved it. But when it came into his hands again there was one item missing from its contents. Just one. A letter, quite short and explicit, signed in a name that had about then become fairly notorious in connection with an unsavoury enquiry into certain large-scale dealings in government securities. How he could have been fool enough to keep it a moment longer than was necessary!…but it was no good going back on that.

  And then the messages from Leech had begun. Leech had the letter. Leech considered it his duty to send it to the principal of Trent’s firm, who was also Trent’s father-in-law. But, meanwhile, Leech was a trifle short of money, and for a small consideration…So it had begun, and so, year in and year out, it had gone on.

  He had been so sure that it was James! That seedy, unsuccessful stock-jobber, with his gambling debts and his inordinate thirst for whisky, had seemed the very stuff of which blackmailers are made. But he had got rid of James last February, and here was Leech again, hungrier than ever. Trent shifted uneasily in his seat. “Got rid of him” was hardly the right way to put it. One must be fair to oneself. He had merely assisted James to get rid of his worthless self. He had done no more than ask James to dinner at his club, fill him up with whisky and leave him to drive home on a foggy night with the roads treacherous with frost. There had been an unfortunate incident on the Kingston bypass, and that was the end of James—and, incidentally, of two perfect strangers who had happened to be on the road at the same time. Forget it! The point was that the dinner—and the whisky—had been a dead loss. He would not make the same mistake again. This Christmas Eve he intended to make sure who his persecutor was. Once he knew, there would be no half measures.

  * * *

  Revelation came to him midway through Mrs John Trent’s party—at the very moment, in fact, when the presents were being distributed from the Christmas tree, when the room was bathed in the soft radiance of coloured candles and noisy with the “Oohs!” and “Aahs!” of excited children and with the rustle of hastily unfolded paper parcels. It was so simple, and so unexpected, that he could have laughed aloud. Appropriately enough, it was his own contribution to the party that was responsible. For some time past it had been his unwritten duty, as the prosperous member of the family, to present his stepmother with some delicacy to help out the straitened resources of her house in providing a feast worthy of the occasion. This year, his gift had taken the form of half a dozen bottles of champagne—part of a consignment which he suspected of being corked. That champagne, acting on a head unused to anything stronger than lemonade, was enough to loosen Bessie’s tongue for one fatal instant.

  Bessie! Of all people, faded, spinsterish Bessie! Bessie, with her woolwork and her charities—Bessie with her large, stupid, appealing eyes and her air of frustration, that put you in mind of a bud frosted just before it could come into flower! And yet, when you came to think of it, it was natural enough. Probably, of all the Grigson tribe, he disliked her the most. He felt for her all the loathing one must naturally feel for a person one has treated badly; and he had been simple enough to believe that she did not resent it.

  She was just his own age, and from the moment that he had been introduced into the family had constituted herself his protector against the unkindness of his elder step-brother. She had been, in her revoltingly sentimental phrase, his “own special sister”. As they grew up, the roles were reversed, and she became his protégée, the admiring spectator of his early struggles. Then it had become pretty clear that she and everybody else expected him to marry her. He had considered the idea quite seriously for some time. She was pretty enough in those days, and, as the phrase went, worshipped the ground he trod on. But he had had the good sense to see in time that he must look elsewhere if he wanted to make his way in the world. His engagement to Hilda had been a blow to Bessie. Her old-maidish look and her absorption in good works dated from then. But she had been sweetly forgiving—to all appearances. Now, as he stood there under the mistletoe, with a ridiculous paper cap on his head, he marvelled how he could have been so easily deceived. As though, after all, anyone could have written that Christmas card but a woman!

  Bessie was smiling at him still—smiling with the confidential air of the mildly tipsy, her upturned shiny nose glowing pink in the candle-light. She had assumed a slightly puzzled expression, as though trying to recollect what she had said. Timothy smiled back and raised his glass to her. He was stone-cold sober, and he could remind her of her words when the occasion arose.

  “My present for you, Timothy, is in the post. You’ll get it tomorrow, I expect. I thought you’d like a change from those horrid Christmas cards!”

  And the words had been accompanied with an unmistakable wink.

  “Uncle Timothy!” One of James’s bouncing girls jumped up at him and gave him a smacking kiss. He put her down with a grin and tickled her ribs as he did so. He suddenly felt light-hearted and on good terms with all the world—one woman excepted. He moved away from the mistletoe and strolled round the room, exchanging pleasantries with all the family. He could look them in the face now without a qualm. He clicked glasses with Roger, the prematurely aged, overworked G.P. No need to worry now whether his money was going in that direction! He slapped Peter on the back and endured patiently five minutes’ confidential chat on the difficulties of the motor-car business in these days. To Marjorie, James’s widow, looking wan and ever so brave in her made-over black frock, he spoke just the right words of blended sympathy and cheer. He even found in his pockets some half-crowns for his great, hulking step-nephews. Then he was standing by his stepmother near the fireplace, whence she presided quietly over the noisy, cheerful scene, beaming gentle good nature from her faded blue eyes.

  “A delightful evening,” he said, and meant it.

  “Thanks to you, Timothy, in great part,” she replied. “You have always been so good to us.”

  Wonderful what a little doubtful champagne would do! He would have given a lot to see her face if he were to say: “I suppose you are not aware that your youngest daughter, who is just now pulling a cracker with that ugly little boy of Peter’s, is blackmailing me and that I shortly intend to stop her mouth for good?”

  He turned away. What a gang they all were! What a shabby, out-at-elbows gang! Not a decently cut suit or a well-turned-out woman among the lot of them! And he had imagined that his money had been going to support some of them! Why, they all simply reeked of honest poverty! He could see it now. Bessie explained everything. It was typical of her twisted mind to wring cash from him by threats and give it all away in charities.

  “You have always been so good to us.” Come to think of it, his stepmother was worth the whole of the rest put together. She must be hard put to it, keeping up Father’s old house, with precious little coming in from her children. Perhaps one day, when his money was really his own again, he might see his way to do something for her… But there was a lot to do before he could indulge in extravagant fancies like that.

  Hilda was coming across the room towards him. Her elegance made an agreeable contrast to the get-up of the Grigson women. She looked tired and rather bored, which was not unusual for her at parties at this house.

  “Timothy,” she murmured, “can’t we get out of here? My head feels like a ton of bricks, and if I’m going to be fit for anything tomorrow morning—”

  Timothy cut her short.

  “You go home straight away, darling,�
� he said. “I can see that it’s high time you were in bed. Take the car. I can walk—it’s a fine evening. Don’t wait up for me.”

  “You’re not coming? I thought you said—”

  “No. I shall have to stay and see the party through. There’s a little matter of family business I’d better dispose of while I have the chance.”

  Hilda looked at him in slightly amused surprise.

  “Well, if you feel that way,” she said. “You seem to be very devoted to your family all of a sudden. You’d better keep an eye on Bessie while you are about it. She’s had about as much as she can carry.”

  Hilda was right. Bessie was decidedly merry. And Timothy continued to keep an eye on her. Thanks to his attentions, by the end of the evening, when Christmas Day had been seen in and the guests were fumbling for their wraps, she had reached a stage when she could barely stand. “Another glass,” thought Timothy from the depths of his experience, “and she’ll pass right out.”

  “I’ll give you a lift home, Bessie,” said Roger, looking at her with a professional eye. “We can just squeeze you in.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Roger!” Bessie giggled. “I can manage perfectly well. As if I couldn’t walk as far as the end of the drive!”

  “I’ll look after her,” said Timothy heartily. “I’m walking myself, and we can guide each other’s wandering footsteps home. Where’s your coat, Bessie? Are you sure you’ve got all your precious presents?”

  He prolonged his leave-taking until all the rest had gone, then helped Bessie into her worn fur coat and stepped out of the house, supporting her with an affectionate right arm. It was all going to be too deliciously simple.

  Bessie lived in the lodge of the old house. She preferred to be independent, and the arrangement suited everyone, especially since James after one of his reverses on the turf had brought his family to live with his mother to save expense. It suited Timothy admirably now. Tenderly he escorted her to the end of the drive, tenderly he assisted her to insert her latchkey in the door, tenderly he supported her into the little sitting-room that gave out of the hall.

  There Bessie considerately saved him an enormous amount of trouble and a possibly unpleasant scene. As he put her down upon the sofa she finally succumbed to the champagne. Her eyes closed, her mouth opened and she lay like a log where he had placed her.

  Timothy was genuinely relieved. He was prepared to go to any lengths to rid himself from the menace of blackmail, but if he could lay his hands on the damning letter without physical violence he would be well satisfied. It would be open to him to take it out of Bessie in other ways later on. He looked quickly round the room. He knew its contents by heart. It had hardly changed at all since the day when Bessie first furnished her own room when she left school. The same old battered desk stood in the corner, where from the earliest days she had kept her treasures. He flung it open, and a flood of bills, receipts, charitable appeals and yet more charitable appeals came cascading out. One after another, he went through the drawers with ever-increasing urgency, but still failed to find what he sought. Finally he came upon a small inner drawer which resisted his attempts to open it. He tugged at it in vain, and then seized the poker from the fireplace and burst the flimsy lock by main force. Then he dragged the drawer from its place and settled himself to examine its contents.

  It was crammed as full as it could hold with papers. At the very top was the programme of a May Week Ball for his last year at Cambridge. Then there were snapshots, press-cuttings—an account of his own wedding among them—and, for the rest, piles of letters, all in his handwriting. The wretched woman seemed to have hoarded every scrap he had ever written to her. As he turned them over, some of the phrases he had used in them floated into his mind, and he began to apprehend for the first time what the depth of her resentment must have been when he threw her over.

  But where the devil did she keep the only letter that mattered?

  As he straightened himself from the desk he heard close behind him a hideous, choking sound. He spun round quickly. Bessie was standing behind him, her face a mask of horror. Her mouth was wide open in dismay. She drew a long shuddering breath. In another moment she was going to scream at the top of her voice…

  Timothy’s pent-up fury could be contained no longer. With all his force he drove his fist full into that gaping, foolish face. Bessie went down as though she had been shot and her head struck the leg of a table with the crack of a dry stick broken in two. She did not move again.

  Although it was quiet enough in the room after that, he never heard his stepmother come in. Perhaps it was the sound of his own pulses drumming in his ears that had deafened him. He did not even know how long she had been there. Certainly it was long enough for her to take in everything that was to be seen there, for her voice, when she spoke, was perfectly under control.

  “You have killed Bessie,” she said. It was a calm statement of fact rather than an accusation.

  He nodded, speechless.

  “But you have not found the letter.”

  He shook his head.

  “Didn’t you understand what she told you this evening? The letter is in the post. It was her Christmas present to you. Poor, simple, loving Bessie!”

  He stared at her, aghast.

  “It was only just now that I found that it was missing from my jewel-case,” she went on, still in the same flat, quiet voice. “I don’t know how she found out about it, but love—even a crazy love like hers—gives people a strange insight sometimes.”

  He licked his dry lips.

  “Then you were Leech?” he faltered.

  “Of course. Who else? How otherwise do you think I could have kept the house open and my children out of debt on my income? No, Timothy, don’t come any nearer. You are not going to commit two murders tonight. I don’t think you have the nerve in any case, but to be on the safe side I have brought the little pistol your father gave me when he came out of the army in 1918. Sit down.”

  He found himself crouching on the sofa, looking helplessly up into her pitiless old face. The body that had been Bessie lay between them.

  “Bessie’s heart was very weak,” she said reflectively. “Roger had been worried about it for some time. If I have a word with him, I dare say he will see his way to issue a death certificate. It will, of course, be a little expensive. Shall we say a thousand pounds this year instead of five hundred? You would prefer that, Timothy, I dare say, to—the alternative?”

  Once more Timothy nodded in silence.

  “Very well. I shall speak to Roger in the morning—after you have returned me Bessie’s Christmas present. I shall require that for future use. You can go now, Timothy.”

  A Bit of Wire-Pulling

  E. C. R. Lorac

  Edith Caroline Rivett (1894–1958) produced no fewer than seventy-one crime novels, forty-eight of them under the name E.C.R. Lorac, and the remainder as by Carol Carnac. She was born in Hendon, and studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. As Lorac, her series detective was Chief Inspector Macdonald, a “London Scot” who made his debut in The Murder on the Burrows (1931). Macdonald is a likeable, if lightly sketched, character, and Lorac continued to write about him until the end of her life. Her earlier novels were often set in London; examples include The Organ Speaks (1935), which earned a rhapsodic review in the Sunday Times from Dorothy L. Sayers, the atmospheric Bats in the Belfry (1937), and a lively war-time whodunit, Murder by Matchlight (1945). After the Second World War, Lorac moved to the north west of England, and wrote a number of mysteries set around the Lune valley, including The Theft of the Iron Dogs (1948); she proved at least as skilled in evoking rural life and landscapes as in describing the scurry and bustle of the capital.

  Lorac, who served as Secretary of the Detection Club for a number of years, had a relatively leisurely approach to storytelling which meant that she preferred to make use of the space afforded by a
novel to writing short stories. This tale, one of her few attempts at the short mystery, was collected under its present title in The Evening Standard Detective Book, Series 2 (1951); in its original incarnation in the Evening Standard on 11 October 1950, the title was ‘Death at the Bridge Table’.

  “It’s a very rare thing for a murder to be committed actually in the presence of a police officer,” said Inspector Lang, the old C.I.D. man.

  “I should think it’s unique,” growled Dr Walton, and Harland (a rising young barrister) put in:

  “Tell us the yarn, Inspector. We’re a safe audience, and it’s just the night for a yarn.”

  The three men were chance guests at an inn in the Lake District. It was Easter-time, but the weather had turned dirty on them: a shrill north-easter had brought snow and put a stop to rock climbing and walking. That evening, sitting over a grand log fire, the three men had disclosed their callings and were soon deep in mutual “shop”.

  Inspector Lang stretched out his long legs to the fire. “Aye, it was quite a story,” he said, “and it happened on just such a dirty night as this one. You may remember hearing of Sir Charles Leighton—one of the wealthiest industrialists in the north. It all began when Leighton came to the Chief Constable saying he was receiving threatening letters. Not surprising, maybe, because he’d been a harsh old devil in his time. We couldn’t trace the writer, and at last Leighton demanded police protection. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘this last letter tells me I’m for it before the old year’s out. Today’s December 30th. Now I haven’t given the police much trouble during my life. I reckon you can give me police protection until New Year’s Day—and if I’m scuppered by some agitator I’ve sacked it’s up to you to catch him.’ The Chief Constable said Leighton was a man of some importance and we’d better oblige him. And that’s how I went with Sir Charles to a bridge party at his son-in-law’s on New Year’s Eve. Not that I play bridge—but that didn’t matter. I drove with him to Harrowby Manor—poshed up in a dinner jacket and all—and quite an evening I had of it. No one but Sir Charles knew I was a C.I.D. man, of course.