The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories Read online

  “This lady says twenty pounds has been stolen from her handbag.” Blue Rinse just managed to refrain from emphasizing the word “lady.”

  “I’m very sorry. Shall we talk about it in the office?”

  “I don’t budge until I get my money back.” Lucy was carrying an umbrella, and she waved it threateningly. However, she allowed herself to be led along to the office. There the handbag was examined again and the salesgirl, now tearful, was interrogated. There also Lucy, having surreptitiously glanced at the time, put a hand into the capacious pocket of her coat, and discovered the purse. There was twenty pounds in it, just as she had said.

  She apologized, although the apology went much against the grain for her, declined the suggestion that she should return to the hat counter, and left the store with the consciousness of a job well done.

  “Well,” Sidley said. “I shouldn’t like to tangle with her on a dark night.”

  The time was now 10:40.

  The clock in the Jewellery Department stood at exactly 10:33 when a girl came running in, out of breath, and said to the manager. “Oh, Mr Marston, there’s a telephone call for Mr Davidson. It’s from America.”

  Marston was large, and inclined to be pompous. “Put it through here, then.”

  “I can’t. There’s something wrong with the line in this department—it seems to be dead.”

  Davidson had heard his name mentioned, and came over to them quickly. He was a crew-cut American, tough and lean. “It’ll be about my wife, she’s expecting a baby. Where’s the call?”

  “We’ve got it in Administration, one floor up.”

  “Come on, then.” Davidson started off at what was almost a run, and the girl trotted after him. Marston stared at both of them disapprovingly. He became aware that one of his clerks, Lester Jones, was looking rather odd.

  “Is anything the matter, Jones? Do you feel unwell?”

  Lester said that he was all right. The act of cutting the telephone cord had filled him with terror, but with the departure of Davidson he really did feel better. He thought of the money—and of Lucille.

  Lucille was just saying goodbye to Jim Baxter and his friend Eddie Grain. They were equipped with an arsenal of weapons, including flick knives, bicycle chains, and brass knuckles. They did not, however, carry revolvers.

  “You’ll be careful,” Lucille said to Jim.

  “Don’t worry. This is going to be like taking candy from a baby, isn’t it, Eddie?”

  “S’right,” Eddie said. He had a limited vocabulary, and an almost perpetual smile. He was a terror with a knife.

  The Canadian made the call from the striptease club. He had a girl with him. He had told her that it would be a big giggle. When he heard Davidson’s voice—the time was just after 10:34—he said, “Is that Mr Davidson?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is the James Long Foster Hospital in Chicago, Mr Davidson, Maternity floor.”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you speak up, please. I can’t hear you very well.”

  “Have you got some news of my wife?” Davidson said loudly. He was in a small booth next to the store switchboard. There was no reply. “Hello? Are you there?”

  The Canadian put one hand over the receiver, and ran the other up the girl’s bare thigh. “Let him stew a little.” The girl laughed. They could hear Davidson asking if they were still on the line. Then the Canadian spoke again.

  “Hello, hello, Mr Davidson. We seem to have a bad connection.”

  “I can hear you clearly. What news is there?”

  “No need to worry, Mr Davidson. Your wife is fine.”

  “Has she had the baby?”

  The Canadian chuckled. “Now, don’t be impatient. That’s not the kind of thing you can hurry, you know.”

  “What have you got to tell me then? Why are you calling?”

  The Canadian put his hand over the receiver again, said to the girl, “You say something.”

  “What shall I say?”

  “Doesn’t matter—that we’ve got the wires crossed or something.”

  The girl leaned over, picked up the telephone. “This is the operator. Who are you calling?”

  In the telephone booth sweat was running off Davidson. He hammered with his fist on the wall of the booth. “Damn you, get off the line! Put me back to the Maternity floor.”

  “This is the operator. Who do you want, please?”

  Davidson checked himself suddenly. The girl had a Cockney voice. “Who are you? What’s your game?”

  The girl handed the telephone back to the Canadian, looking frightened. “He’s on to me.”

  “Hell.” The Canadian picked up the receiver again, but the girl had left it, uncovered, and Davidson had heard the girl’s words. He dropped the telephone, pushed open the door of the booth, and raced for the stairs. As he ran he loosened the revolver in his hip pocket.

  The time was now 10:41.

  Straight Line brought the Jaguar smoothly to a stop in the space reserved for Orbin’s customers, and looked at his watch. It was 10:32.

  Nobody questioned him, nobody so much as gave him a glance. Beautiful, he thought, a nice smooth job, really couldn’t be simpler. Then his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  He saw in the rear-view mirror, standing just a few yards behind him, a policeman. Three men were evidently asking the policeman for directions, and the copper was consulting a London place map.

  Well, Straight thought, he can’t see anything of me except my back, and in a couple of minutes he’ll be gone. There was still plenty of time. Payne and Stacey weren’t due out of the building until 10:39 or 10:40. Yes, plenty of time.

  But there was a hollow feeling in Straight’s stomach as he watched the policeman in his mirror.

  Some minutes earlier, at 10:24, Payne and Stacey had met at the service elevator beside the Grocery Department on the ground floor. They had met this early because of the possibility that the elevator might be in use when they needed it, although from Lester’s observation it was used mostly in the early morning and late afternoon.

  They did not need the elevator until 10:30, and they would be very unlucky if it was permanently in use at that time. If they were that unlucky—well, Mr Payne had said with the pseudo-philosophy of the born gambler, they would have to call the job off. But even as he said this he knew that it was not true, and that having gone so far he would not turn back.

  The two men did not speak to each other, but advanced steadily toward the elevator by way of inspecting chow mein, hymettus honey, and real turtle soup. The Grocery Department was full of shoppers, and the two men were quite unnoticed. Mr Payne reached the elevator first and pressed the button. They were in luck. The door opened.

  Within seconds they were both inside. Still neither man spoke. Mr Payne pressed the button which said 3, and then, when they had passed the second floor, the button that said Emergency Stop. Jarringly the elevator came to a stop. It was now immobilized, so far as a call from outside was concerned. It could be put back into motion only by calling in engineers who would free the Emergency Stop mechanism—or, of course, by operating the elevator from inside.

  Stacey shivered a little. The elevator was designed for freight, and therefore roomy enough to hold twenty passengers; but Stacey had a slight tendency to claustrophobia which was increased by the thought that they were poised between floors. He said, “I suppose that bloody thing will work when you press the button?”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. Have faith in me.” Mr Payne opened the dingy suitcase, revealing as he did so that he was now wearing rubber gloves. In the suitcase were two long red cloaks, two fuzzy white wigs, two thick white beards, two pairs of outsize horn-rimmed spectacles, two red noses, and two hats with large tassels. “This may not be a perfect fit for you, but I don’t think you can deny that it’s a perfect d
isguise.”

  They put on the clothes, Mr Payne with the pleasure he always felt in dressing up, Stacey with a certain reluctance. The idea was clever, all right, he had to admit that, and when he looked in the elevator’s small mirror and saw a Santa Claus looking back at him, he was pleased to find himself totally unrecognizable. Deliberately he took the Smith and Wesson out of his jacket and put it into the pocket of the red cloak.

  “You understand, Stace, there is no question of using that weapon.”

  “Unless I have to.”

  “There is no question,” Mr Payne repeated firmly. “Violence is never necessary. It is a confession that one lacks intelligence.”

  “We got to point it at them, haven’t we? Show we mean business.”

  Mr Payne acknowledged that painful necessity by a downward twitch of his mouth, undiscernible beneath the false beard.

  “Isn’t it time, yet?”

  Mr Payne looked at his watch. “It is now ten twenty-nine. We go—over the top, you might call it—at ten thirty-two precisely. Compose yourself to wait, Stace.”

  Stacey grunted. He could not help admiring his companion, who stood peering into the small glass, adjusting his beard and moustache, and settling his cloak more comfortably. When at last Mr Payne nodded, and said, “Here we go,” and pressed the button marked 3, resentment was added to admiration. He’s all right now, but wait till we get to the action, Stacey thought. His gloved hand on the Smith and Wesson reassured him of strength and efficiency.

  The elevator shuddered, moved upward, stopped. The door opened. Mr Payne placed his suitcase in the open elevator door so that it would stay open and keep the elevator at the third floor. Then they stepped out.

  To Lester the time that passed after Davidson’s departure and before the elevator door opened was complete and absolute torture.

  The whole thing had seemed so easy when Mr Payne had outlined it to them. “It is simply a matter of perfect timing,” he had said. “If everybody plays his part properly, Stace and I will be back in the lift within five minutes. Planning is the essence of this, as of every scientific operation. Nobody will be hurt, and nobody will suffer financially except”—and here he had looked at Lester with a twinkle in his frosty eyes—“except the insurance company. And I don’t think the most tender-hearted of us will worry too much about the insurance company.”

  That was all very well, and Lester had done what he was supposed to do, but he hadn’t really been able to believe that the rest of it would happen. He had been terrified, but with the terror was mixed a sense of unreality.

  He still couldn’t believe, even when Davidson went to the telephone upstairs, that the plan would go through without a hitch. He was showing some costume jewellery to a thin old woman who kept roping necklaces around her scrawny neck, and while he did so he kept looking at the elevator, above which was the department clock. The hands moved slowly, after Davidson left, from 10:31 to 10:32.

  They’re not coming, Lester thought. It’s all off. A flood of relief, touched with regret but with relief predominating, went through him. Then the elevator door opened, and the two Santa Clauses stepped out. Lester started convulsively.

  “Young man,” the thin woman said severely, “it doesn’t seem to me that I have your undivided attention. Haven’t you anything in blue and amber?”

  It had been arranged that Lester would nod to signify that Davidson had left the department, or shake his head if anything had gone wrong. He nodded now as though he had St Vitus’s Dance.

  The thin woman looked at him, astonished. “Young man, is anything the matter?”

  “Blue and amber,” Lester said wildly, “amber and blue.” He pulled out a box from under the counter and began to look through it. His hands were shaking.

  Mr Payne had been right in his assumption that no surprise would be occasioned by the appearance of two Santa Clauses in any department at this time of year. This, he liked to think, was his own characteristic touch—the touch of, not to be unduly modest about it, creative genius. There were a dozen people in the Jewellery Department, half of them looking at the Russian Royal Family Jewels, which had proved less of an attraction than Sir Henry Orbin had hoped. Three of the others were wandering about in the idle way of people who are not really intending to buy anything, and the other three were at the counters, where they were being attended to by Lester, a salesgirl whose name was Miss Glenny, and by Marston himself.

  The appearance of the Santa Clauses aroused only the feeling of pleasure experienced by most people at sight of these slightly artificial figures of jollity. Even Marston barely glanced at them. There were half a dozen Santa Clauses in the store during the weeks before Christmas, and he assumed that these two were on their way to the Toy Department, which was also on the third floor, or to Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest tableau, which was this year’s display for children.

  The Santa Clauses walked across the floor together as though they were in fact going into Carpets and then on to the Toy Department, but after passing Lester they diverged. Mr Payne went to the archway that led from Jewellery to Carpets, and Stacey abruptly turned behind Lester toward the Manager’s Office.

  Marston, trying to sell an emerald brooch to an American who was not at all sure his wife would like it, looked up in surprise. He had a natural reluctance to make a fuss in public, and also to leave his customer; but when he saw Stacey with a hand actually on the door of his own small but sacred office he said to the American, “Excuse me a moment, sir,” and said to Miss Glenny, “Look after this gentleman, please”—by which he meant that the American should not be allowed to walk out with the emerald brooch—and called out, although not so loudly that the call could be thought of as anything so vulgar as a shout, “Just a moment, please. What are you doing there? What do you want?”

  Stacey ignored him. In doing so he was carrying out Mr Payne’s specific instructions. At some point it was inevitable that the people in the department would realize that a theft was taking place, but the longer they could be kept from realizing it, Mr Payne had said, the better. Stacey’s own inclination would have been to pull out his revolver at once and terrorize anybody likely to make trouble; but he did as he was told.

  The Manager’s Office was not much more than a cubbyhole, with papers neatly arranged on a desk; behind the desk, half a dozen keys were hanging on the wall. The showcase key, Lester had said, was the second from the left, but for the sake of appearances Stacey took all the keys. He had just turned to go when Marston opened the door and saw the keys in Stacey’s hand.

  The manager was not lacking in courage. He understood at once what was happening and, without speaking, tried to grapple with the intruder. Stacey drew the Smith and Wesson from his pocket and struck Marston hard with it on the forehead. The manager dropped to the ground. A trickle of blood came from his head.

  The office door was open, and there was no point in making any further attempt at deception. Stacey swung the revolver around and rasped, “Just keep quiet, and nobody else will get hurt.”

  Mr Payne produced his cap pistol and said, in a voice as unlike his usual cultured tones as possible, “Stay where you are. Don’t move. We shall be gone in five minutes.”

  Somebody said, “Well, I’m damned.” But no one moved. Marston lay on the floor, groaning. Stacey went to the showcase, pretended to fumble with another key, then inserted the right one. The case opened at once. The jewels lay naked and unprotected. He dropped the other keys on the floor, stretched in his gloved hands, picked up the royal jewels, and stuffed them into his pocket.

  It’s going to work, Lester thought unbelievingly, it’s going to work. He watched, fascinated, as the cascade of shining stuff vanished into Stacey’s pocket. Then he became aware that the thin woman was pressing something into his hand. Looking down, he saw with horror that it was a large, brand-new clasp knife, with the dangerous-looking blade open.

>   “Bought it for my nephew,” the thin woman whispered. “As he passes you, go for him.”

  It had been arranged that if Lester’s behaviour should arouse the least suspicion he should make a pretended attack on Stacey, who would give him a punch just severe enough to knock him down. Everything had gone so well, however, that this had not been necessary, but now it seemed to Lester that he had no choice.

  As the two Santa Clauses backed across the room toward the service elevator, covering the people at the counters with their revolvers, one real and the other a toy, Lester launched himself feebly at Stacey, with the clasp knife demonstratively raised. At the same time Marston, on the other side of Stacey and a little behind him, rose to his feet and staggered in the direction of the elevator.

  Stacey’s contempt for Lester increased with the sight of the knife, which he regarded as an unnecessary bit of bravado. He shifted the revolver to his left hand, and with his right punched Lester hard in the stomach. The blow doubled Lester up. He dropped the knife and collapsed to the floor, writhing in quite genuine pain.

  The delivery of the blow delayed Stacey so that Marston was almost up to him. Mr Payne, retreating rapidly to the elevator, shouted a warning, but the manager was on Stacey, clawing at his robes. He did not succeed in pulling off the red cloak, but his other hand came away with the wig, revealing Stacey’s own cropped brown hair. Stacey snatched back the wig, broke away, and fired the revolver with his left hand.

  Perhaps he could hardly have said himself whether he intended to hit Marston, or simply to stop him. The bullet missed the manager and hit Lester, who was rising on one knee. Lester dropped again. Miss Glenny screamed, another woman cried out, and Marston halted.

  Mr Payne and Stacey were almost at the elevator when Davidson came charging in through the Carpet Department entrance. The American drew the revolver from his pocket and shot, all in one swift movement. Stacey fired back wildly. Then the two Santa Clauses were in the service elevator, and the door closed on them.

  Davidson took one look at the empty showcase, and shouted to Marston, “Is there an emergency alarm that rings downstairs?”