The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (13 page)

It
was William Norgate who, after taking the temperature of the meeting, suggested
to Lady Shale that they should play at something less athletic. Lady Shale
agreed and, as usual, suggested bridge. Sir Septimus, as usual, blew the
suggestion aside.

“Bridge?
Nonsense! Nonsense! Play bridge every day of your lives. This is Christmastime.
Something we can all play together. How about ‘Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral’?”

This
intellectual pastime was a favorite with Sir Septimus; he was rather good at
putting pregnant questions. After a brief discussion, it became evident that
this game was an inevitable part of the program. The party settled down to it,
Sir Septimus undertaking to “go out” first and set the thing going.

Presently
they had guessed, among other things, Miss Tomkin’s mother’s photograph, a
gramophone record of “I want to be happy” (much scientific research into the
exact composition of records, settled by William Norgate out of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
),
the smallest stickleback in the stream at the bottom of the garden, the new
planet, Pluto, the scarf, worn by Mrs. Dennison (very confusing, because it was
not silk, which would be animal, or artificial silk, which would be vegetable,
but made of spun glass—mineral, a very clever choice of subject), and had
failed to guess the Prime Minister’s wireless speech—which was voted not fair,
since nobody could decide whether it was animal by nature or a kind of gas. It
was decided that they should do one more word and then go on to “Hide-and-Seek.”
Oswald Truegood had retired into the back room and shut the door behind him
while the party discussed the next subject of examination, when suddenly Sir
Septimus broke in on the argument by calling to ids daughter:

“Hullo,
Margy! What have you done with your necklace?”

“I
took it off, Dad, because I thought it might get broken in ‘Dumb Crambo.’ It’s
over here on this table. No, it isn’t. Did you take it, mother?”

“No,
I didn’t. If I’d seen it, I should have. You are
a
careless
child.”

“I
believe you’ve got it yourself, Dad. You’re teasing.”

Sir
Septimus denied the accusation with some energy. Everybody got up and began to
hunt about. There were not many places in that bare and polished room where a
necklace could be hidden. After ten minutes’ fruitless investigation, Richard
Dennison, who had been seated next to the table where the pearls had been
placed, began to look rather uncomfortable.

“Awkward,
you know,” he remarked to Wimsey.

At
this moment, Oswald Truegood put his head through the folding doors and asked
whether they hadn’t settled on something by now, because he was getting the
fidgets.

This
directed the attention of the searchers to the inner room. Margharita must have
been mistaken. She had taken it in there, and it had got mixed up with the
dressing-up clothes somehow. The room was ransacked. Everything was lifted up
and shaken. The thing began to look serious. After half an hour of desperate
energy it became apparent that the pearls were nowhere to be found.

“They
must be somewhere in these two rooms, you know,” said Wimsey. “The back drawing
room has no door, and nobody could have gone out of the front drawing room
without being seen. Unless the windows—”

No.
The windows were all guarded on the outside by heavy shutters which it needed
two footmen to take down and replace. The pearls had not gone out that way. In
fact, the mere suggestion that they had left the drawing room at all was
disagreeable. Because—because—

It
was William Norgate, efficient as ever, who coldly and boldly faced the issue.

“I
think, Sir Septimus, it would be a relief to the minds of everybody present if
we could all be searched.”

Sir
Septimus was horrified, but the guests, having found a leader, backed up
Norgate. The door was locked, and the search was conducted—the ladies in the
inner room and the men in the outer.

Nothing
resulted from it except some very interesting information about the belongings
habitually carried about by the average man and woman. It was natural that Lord
Peter Wimsey should possess a pair of forceps, a pocket lens, and a small
folding foot rule—was he not a Sherlock Holmes in high life? But that Oswald Truegood
should have two liver pills in a screw of paper and Henry Shale a pocket
edition of
The Odes of Horace
was unexpected. Why did
John Shale distend the pockets of his dress suit with a stump of red sealing
wax, an ugly little mascot, and a five-shilling piece? George Comphrey had a
pair of folding scissors and three wrapped lumps of sugar, of the sort served
in restaurants and dining cars—evidence of a not uncommon form of kleptomania;
but that the tidy and exact Norgate should burden himself with a reel of white
cotton, three separate lengths of string, and twelve safety pins on a card
seemed really remarkable till one remembered that he had superintended all the
Christmas decorations. Richard Dennison, amid some confusion and laughter, was
found to cherish a lady’s garter, a powder compact, and half a potato; the
last-named, he said, was a prophylactic against rheumatism (to which he was subject),
while the other objects belonged to his wife. On the ladies’ side, the more
striking exhibits were a little book on palmistry, three invisible hairpins,
and a baby’s photograph (Miss Tomkins); a Chinese trick cigarette-case with a
secret compartment (Beryl Dennison); a
very
private letter and an outfit for mending stocking runs (Lavinia Prescott); and
a pair of eyebrow tweezers and a small packet of white powder, said to be for
headaches (Betty Shale). An agitating moment followed the production from Joyce
Trivett’s handbag of a small string of pearls—but it was promptly remembered
that these had come out of one of the crackers at dinner time, and they were,
in fact, synthetic. In short, the search was unproductive of anything beyond a
general shamefacedness and the discomfort always produced by undressing and
redressing in a hurry at the wrong time of the day.

It
was then that somebody, very grudgingly and haltingly, mentioned the horrid
word “Police.” Sir Septimus, naturally, was appalled by the idea. It was
disgusting. He would not allow it. The pearls must be somewhere. They must
search the rooms again. Could not Lord Peter Wimsey, with his experience of—er—mysterious
happenings, do something to assist them?

“Eh?”
said his lordship. “Oh, by Jove, yes—by all means, certainly. That is to say,
provided nobody supposes—eh, what? I mean to say, you don’t know that I’m not a
suspicious character, do you, what?”

Lady
Shale interposed with authority.

“We
don’t think
anybody
ought to be suspected,”
she said, “but, if we did, we’d know it couldn’t be you. You know
far
too much about crimes to want to commit one.”

“All
right,” said Wimsey. “But after the way the place has been gone over…” He
shrugged his shoulders.

“Yes,
I’m afraid you won’t be able to find any footprints,” said Margharita. “But we
may have overlooked something.”

Wimsey
nodded.

“I’ll
try. Do you all mind sitting down on your chairs in the outer room and staying
there? All except one of you—I’d better have a witness to anything I do or
find. Sir Septimus—you’d be the best person, I think.”

He
shepherded them to their places and began a slow circuit of the two rooms,
exploring every surface, gazing up to the polished brazen ceiling and crawling
on hands and knees in the approved fashion across the black and shining desert of
the floors. Sir Septimus followed, staring when Wimsey stared, bending with his
hands upon his knees when Wimsey crawled, and puffing at intervals with
astonishment and chagrin. Their progress rather resembled that of a man taking
out a very inquisitive puppy for a very leisurely constitutional. Fortunately,
Lady Shale’s taste in furnishing made investigation easier; there were scarcely
any nooks or corners where anything could be concealed.

They
reached the inner drawing room, and here the dressing-lip clothes were again
minutely examined, but without result. Finally, Wimsey lay down flat on his
stomach to squint under a steel cabinet which was one of the very few pieces of
furniture which possessed short legs. Something about it seemed to catch his
attention. He rolled up his sleeve and plunged his arm into the cavity, kicked
convulsively in the effort to reach farther than was humanly possible, pulled
out from his pocket and extended his folding foot rule, fished with it under
the cabinet, and eventually succeeded in extracting what he sought.

It
was a very minute object—in fact, a pin. Not an ordinary pin, but one
resembling those used by entomologists to impale extremely small moths on the
setting board. It was about three-quarters of an inch in length, as fine as a
very fine needle, with a sharp point and a particularly small head.

“Bless
my soul!” said Sir Septimus. “What’s that?”

“Does
anybody here happen to collect moths or beetles or anything?” asked Wimsey,
squatting on his haunches and examining the pin.

“I’m
pretty sure they don’t,” replied Sir Septimus. “I’ll ask them.”

“Don’t
do that.” Wimsey bent his head and stared at the floor, from which his own face
stared meditatively back at him.

“I
see,” said Wimsey presently. “That’s how it was done. All right, Sir Septimus.
I know where the pearls are, but I don’t know who took them. Perhaps it would
be as well—for everybody’s satisfaction—just to find out. In the meantime they
are perfectly safe. Don’t tell anyone that we’ve found this pin or that we’ve
discovered anything. Send all these people to bed. Lock the drawing-room door
and keep the key, and we’ll get our man—or woman—by breakfast-time.”

“God
bless my soul,” said Sir Septimus, very much puzzled.

Lord
Peter Wimsey kept careful watch that night upon the drawing-room door. Nobody,
however, came near it. Either the thief suspected a trap or he felt confident
that any time would do to recover the pearls. Wimsey, however, did not feel
that he was wasting his time. He was making a list of people who had been left
alone in the back drawing room during the playing of “Animal, Vegetable, and
Mineral.” The list ran as follows:

Sir Septimus Shale

Lavinia Prescott

William Norgate

Joyce Trivett and Henry Shale (together,
because they had claimed to be incapable of guessing anything unaided)

Mrs. Dennison

Betty Shale

George Comphrey

Richard Dennison

Miss Tomkins

Oswald Truegood

He
also made out a list of the persons to whom pearls might be useful or
desirable. Unfortunately, this list agreed in almost all respects with the
first (always excepting Sir Septimus) and so was not very helpful. The two
secretaries had both come well recommended, but that was exactly what they
would have done had they come with ulterior designs; the Dennisons were
notorious livers from hand to mouth; Betty Shale carried mysterious white
powders in her handbag and was known to be in with a rather rapid set in town;
Henry was a harmless dilettante, but Joyce Trivett could twist him round her
little finger and was what Jane Austen liked to call “expensive and dissipated”;
Comphrey speculated; Oswald Truegood was rather frequently present at Epsom and
Newmarket—the search for motives was only too fatally easy.

When
the second housemaid and the under-footman appeared in the passage with
household implements, Wimsey abandoned his vigil, but he was down early to
breakfast. Sir Septimus, with his wife and daughter, was down before him, and a
certain air of tension made itself felt. Wimsey, standing on the hearth before
the fire, made conversation about the weather and politics.

The
party assembled gradually, but, as though by common consent, nothing was said
about pearls until after breakfast, when Oswald Truegood took the bull by the
horns.

“Well,
now!” said he. “How’s the detective getting along? Got your man, Wimsey?”

“Not
yet,” said Wimsey easily.

Sir
Septimus, looking at Wimsey as though for his cue, cleared his throat and
dashed into speech.

“All
very tiresome,” he said, “all very unpleasant. Hr’rm. Nothing for it but the
police, I’m afraid. Just at Christmas, too. Hr’rm. Spoiled the party. Can’t
stand seeing all this stuff about the place.” He waved his hand towards the
festoons of evergreens and colored paper that adorned the walls. “Take it all
down, eh, what? No heart in it. Hr’rm. Burn the lot.”

“What
a pity, when we worked so hard over it,” said Joyce.

“Oh,
leave it, Uncle,” said Henry Shale. “You’re bothering too much about the
pearls. They’re sure to turn up.”

“Shall
I ring for James?” suggested William Norgate.

“No,”
interrupted Comphrey, “let’s do it ourselves. It’ll give us something to do and
take our minds off our troubles.”