The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (10 page)

Saul
halted because of an interruption. Purley Stebbins, seated next to him, got up
and stepped over to Margot Dickey and stood there behind her chair. To me it
seemed unnecessary, since I was sitting not much more than arm’s length from
her and might have been trusted to grab her if she tried to start anything, but
Purley is never very considerate of other people’s feelings, especially mine.

Saul
resumed, “Naturally it was Miss Dickey I was interested in, since they had
moved in on a signal from Kiernan. But they had her, so that was okay. They
took us to a room back of the parcel room and started in on me, and I followed
your instructions. I told them I would answer no questions, would say nothing
whatever, except in the presence of Nero Wolfe, because I was acting under your
orders. When they saw I meant it they took us out to two police cars and
brought us here. Anything else?”

“No,”
Wolfe told him. “Satisfactory.” He turned to Cramer. “I assume Mr. Panzer is
correct in concluding that Mr. Kiernan gave your men a signal. So Mr. Kiernan
had gone to you with the message?”

“Yes.”
Cramer had taken a cigar from his pocket and was squeezing it in his hand. He
does that sometimes when he would like to squeeze Wolfe’s throat instead. “So
had three of the others—Mrs. Jerome, her son, and Hatch.”

“But
Miss Dickey hadn’t?”

“No.
Neither had Miss Quon.”

“Miss
Quon was probably reluctant, understandably. She told me last evening that the
police’s ideas of Orientals are very primitive. As for Miss Dickey, I may say
that I am not surprised. For a reason that does not concern you, I am even a
little gratified. I have told you that she told Mr. Goodwin that Bottweill had
torn up the marriage license and put the pieces in his wastebasket, and they
weren’t there when Mr. Goodwin looked for them, and the wastebasket hadn’t been
emptied since early Thursday evening. It was difficult to conceive a reason for
anyone to fish around in the wastebasket to remove those pieces, so presumably
Miss Dickey lied; and if she lied about the license, the rest of what she told
Mr. Goodwin was under suspicion.”

Wolfe
upturned a palm. “Why would she tell him that Bottweill was going to marry her
if it wasn’t true? Surely a stupid thing to do, since he would inevitably learn
the truth. But it wasn’t so stupid if she knew that Bottweill would soon die;
indeed it was far from stupid if she had already put the poison in the bottle;
it would purge her of motive, or at least help. It was a fair surmise that at
their meeting in his office Thursday evening Bottweill had told her, not that
he would marry her, but that he had decided to marry Miss Quon, and she decided
to kill him and proceeded to do so. And it must be admitted that she would
probably never have been exposed but for the complications injected by Santa
Claus and my resulting intervention. Have you any comment, Miss Dickey?”

Cramer
left his chair, commanding her, “Don’t answer! I’m running this now,” but she
spoke.

“Cherry
took those pieces from the wastebasket! She did it! She killed him!” She
started up, but Purley had her arm and Cramer told her, moving for her, “She
didn’t go there to meet a blackmailer, and you did. Look in her bag, Purley. I’ll
watch her.”

IX

Cherry
Quon was back in the red leather chair. The others had gone, and she and Wolfe
and I were alone. They hadn’t put cuffs on Margot Dickey, but Purley had kept
hold of her arm as they crossed the threshold, with Cramer right behind. Saul
Panzer, no longer in custody, had gone along by request. Mrs. Jerome and Leo
had been the first to leave. Kiernan had asked Cherry if he could take her
home, but Wolfe had said no, he wanted to speak with her privately, and Kiernan
and Hatch had left together, which showed a fine Christmas spirit, since Hatch
had made no exceptions when he said he despised all of them.

Cherry
was on the edge of the chair, spine straight, hands together in her lap. “You
didn’t do it the way I said,” she chirped, without steel.

“No,”
Wolfe agreed, “but I did it.” He was curt. “You ignored one complication, the
possibility that you killed Bottweill yourself. I didn’t, I assure you. I
couldn’t very well send you one of the notes from Santa Claus, under the
circumstances; but if those notes had flushed no prey, if none of them had gone
to the rendezvous without first notifying the police, I would have assumed that
you were guilty and would have proceeded to expose you. How, I don’t know; I
let that wait on the event; and now that Miss Dickey has taken the bait and
betrayed herself it doesn’t matter.”

Her
eyes had widened. “You really thought I might have killed Kurt?”

“Certainly.
A woman capable of trying to blackmail me to manufacture evidence of murder
would be capable of anything. And, speaking of evidence, while there can be no
certainty about a jury’s decision when a personable young woman is on trial for
murder, now that Miss Dickey is manifestly guilty you may be sure that Mr.
Cramer will dig up all he can get, and there should be enough. That brings me
to the point I wanted to speak about. In the quest for evidence you will all be
questioned exhaustively and repeatedly. It will—”

“We
wouldn’t,” Cherry put in, “if you had done it the way I said. That would have
been proof.”

“I
preferred my way.” Wolfe, having a point to make, was controlling himself. “It
will be an ordeal for you. They will question you at length about your talk
with Bottweill yesterday morning at breakfast, wanting to know all that he said
about his meeting with Miss Dickey in his office Thursday evening, and under
the pressure of inquisition you might inadvertently let something slip
regarding what he told you about Santa Claus. If you do they will certainly
follow it up. I strongly advise you to avoid making such a slip. Even if they
believe you, the identity of Santa Claus is no longer important, since they
have the murderer, and if they come to me with such a tale I’ll have no great
difficulty dealing with it.”

He
turned a hand over. “And in the end they probably won’t believe you. They’ll
think you invented it for some cunning and obscure purpose—as you say, you are
an Oriental—and all you would get for it would be more questions. They might
even suspect that you were somehow involved in the murder itself. They are
quite capable of unreasonable suspicions. So I suggest these considerations as
much on your behalf as on mine. I think you will be wise to forget about Santa
Claus.”

She
was eying him, straight and steady. “I like to be wise,” she said.

“I’m
sure you do, Miss Quon.”

“I
still think you should have done it my way, but it’s done now. Is that all?”

He
nodded. “That’s all.”

She
looked at me, and it took a second for me to realize that she was smiling at me.
I thought it wouldn’t hurt to smile back, and did. She left the chair and came
to me, extending a hand, and I arose and took it. She looked up at me.

“I
would like to shake hands with Mr. Wolfe, but I know he doesn’t like to shake
hands. You know, Mr. Goodwin, it must be a very great pleasure to work for a
man as clever as Mr. Wolfe. So extremely clever. It has been very exciting to
be here. Now I say good-by.”

She
turned and went.

DO YOUR CHRISTMAS
SHOPLIFTING EARLY

by Robert Somerlott

Robert Somerlott is a
versatile writer who has published numerous novels and short stories under his
own name and under several pen names, including two novels that were alternate
selections of the Book-of-the-Month Club. His shorter fiction has appeared in
The Best American Short
Stories,
several college textbooks and in both the mystery-genre and “slick” magazines.
Novels published under his own name include
The Flamingos, The
Inquisitor’s House,
and
most recently,
Blaze.

Shortly
after Mrs. Whistler retired from the stage, she discovered her true genius for
escapades bordering on crime. But with modesty astounding in an actress, she
has always managed to stay in the background. No one—except her son, Johnny
Creighton—has ever suspected that Mrs. Whistler was the secret force behind
several headline events that startled the country in the last few years.

For
instance, millions of newspaper readers are aware that 267 animals staged a
mass breakout from the St. Louis pound on Thanksgiving Day, 1959. Only Johnny
Creighton knows that Mrs. Whistler engineered the escape. (The incident,
headlined by newspapers as “Dog Days in Missouri,” triggered pound reform laws
in that state.)

Johnny
was also the only one to know every detail of how Mrs. Whistler brought the
powerful MacTavish Department Store of Los Angeles to its knees in less than 24
hours. There exists no court transcript, and the only memento of this case is
an unflattering mug shot of Mrs. Whistler taken at the Los Angeles jail.
Despite the atrocious lighting, Mrs. Whistler looks exactly as she did in her
farewell performance on Broadway as the artist’s mother in
Arrangement in Gray,
a role she became so identified with that
she legally adopted the name of the character. In the photo she wears a dark dress;
her white round collar is visible, but her lace cuffs are not. Her sweet
expression of sublime patience was not marred by the ordeal she was suffering—an
ordeal for which others would soon pay heavily.

Mrs.
Whistler had no intention of getting involved in “The Affair of the Capricorn
Brooch.” When she descended, unannounced, from the smoggy skies of Southern
California on Friday, December 18, it was for the innocent purpose of spending
the Christmas holiday with Johnny.

Still,
the moment he heard the voice on the phone he had a premonition of trouble.
Oddly enough, he was thinking about his mother when her call came through. He
had been sitting in his two-by-four law office, daydreaming of pretty Joyce
Gifford, who had almost, but not quite, agreed to marry him. How, he wondered,
could he explain his mother to Joyce? Just then the phone rang.

“Johnny,
dear,” said a gentle voice. “Surprise! It’s Mother.”

“Mother?”
His first reaction was panic. “Where are you? What have you done?”

“I’m
at the airport. I’ve come for Christmas.”

“Don’t
make a move till I get there. And, Mother,” he pleaded, “don’t
do
anything!”

“Whatever
do you mean, dear?” Mrs. Whistler was faintly reproachful.

As
he battled through the freeway traffic, Johnny could not rid himself of the suspicion
that his mother was up to something. But at the airport, and later in his
apartment, her manner was so subdued that Johnny was totally unprepared for the
events that followed. She’s getting old, he thought, she’s settling down at
last. The idea brought relief—and a little sadness.

At
6:30 Joyce Gifford, her usually calm face white with anger, knocked at Johnny’s
door.

Johnny
greeted her with a quick hug. “Hi, darling. Merry Christmas!” He lowered his
voice. “I want you to meet my mother. She just arrived from New York.”

In
the living room an elderly lady was seated on the couch. Vainly, Joyce tried to
remember where she’d seen her before—there was something hauntingly familiar
about the black dress, the folded hands, the sad-sweet face.

“How
do you do?” said the old lady. “I’m Mrs. Whistler.” Joyce nearly dropped her
purse. “You’re upset, my dear,” she said. “I could tell the moment you came in.”

“Does
it show that much? I’ve—I’ve had a horrible day!”

“Good
Lord,” said Johnny, “what’s the matter?”

“Tomorrow
I’m quitting my job at MacTavish’s. Mr. Schlag can find himself a secretary—if
anybody alive can stand him! It was the most terrible scene! All over this poor
pathetic woman they caught shoplifting.”

“Shoplifting?”
Mrs. Whistler leaned forward. “Isn’t that interesting!”

Johnny
saw the intent expression on his mother’s face. A danger signal flashed through
him and he tried to interrupt. But it was too late.

“I
just can’t tell you how horrible the whole thing was,” said Joyce.

“Try,
my dear,” said Mrs. Whistler gently. “Try.”

During
the first thirty-three years of its existence, MacTavish’s (“A Wee Penny Saved
Is a Big Penny Earned”) had dealt with petty shoplifters in a routine way:
first offenders were usually dismissed with threats of embarrassment. Otherwise
respectable kleptomaniacs were delivered to their humiliated relatives.
Suspected professionals were prosecuted relentlessly.

Then
Dudley P. Schlag, nephew of a large stockholder, became manager, and things changed.

“Once
a thief, always a thief!” he declared, beating his bony little fist on the desk
top. He assumed personal charge of store security and would neglect any other
duty for the pleasure of watching a terrified teen-ager squirm under his
merciless, watery eye.