Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (3 page)

“They’ve got no right to come.
Fools!” he said. Then he heard himself panting. “None of this,” he said to
himself. “None of this.”

He began to revive. He got to his
feet, and when the bell rang again the sound passed through him almost
painlessly. “Let them go away,” he said. Then he heard the front door open. He
said, “I don’t care.” His shoulder came up, like that of a boxer, to shield his
face. “I give up,” he said.

He heard people calling. “Herbert!” “Hermione!”
It was the Wallingfords. “Damn them! They come butting in. People anxious to
get off. All naked! And blood and coal dust! I’m done! I’m through! I can’t do
it.”

“Herbert!”

“Hermione!”

“Where the dickens can they be?”

“The car’s there.”

“Maybe they’ve popped round to Mrs.
Liddell’s.”

“We must see them.”

“Or to the shops, maybe. Something
at the last minute.”

“Not Hermione. I say, listen! Isn’t
that someone having a bath? Shall I shout? What about whanging on the door?”

“Sh-h-h! Don’t. It might not be
tactful.”

“No harm in a shout.”

“Look, dear. Let’s come in on our
way back. Hermione said they wouldn’t be leaving before seven. They’re dining
on the way, in Salisbury.”

“Think so? All right. Only I want a
last drink with old Herbert. He’d be hurt.”

“Let’s hurry. We can be back by half
past six.”

The Doctor heard them walk out and
the front door close quietly behind them. He thought, “Half past six. I can do
it.”

He crossed the hall, sprang the
latch of the front door, went upstairs, and taking his instruments from the
washbasin, finished what he had to do. He came down again, clad in his bath
gown, carrying parcel after parcel of towelling or newspaper neatly secured
with safety pins. These he packed carefully into the narrow, deep hole he had
made in the corner of the cellar, shovelled in the soil, spread coal dust over
all, satisfied himself that everything was in order, and went upstairs again.
He then thoroughly cleansed the bath, and himself, and the bath again, dressed,
and took his wife’s clothing and his bath gown to the incinerator.

One or two more little touches and
everything was in order. It was only quarter past six. The Wallingfords were
always late; he had only to get into the car and drive off. It was a pity he
couldn’t wait till after dusk, but he could make a detour to avoid passing
through the main street, and even if he was seen driving alone, people would
only think Hermione had gone on ahead for some reason and they would forget
about it.

Still, he was glad when he had
finally got away, entirely unobserved, on the open road, driving into the
gathering dusk. He had to drive very carefully; he found himself unable to
judge distances, his reactions were abnormally delayed, but that was a detail.
When it was quite dark he allowed himself to stop the car on the top of the
downs, in order to think.

The stars were superb. He could see
the lights of one or two little towns far away on the plain below him. He was
exultant. Everything that was to follow was perfectly simple. Marion was
waiting in Chicago. She already believed him to be a widower. The lecture
people could be put off with a word. He had nothing to do but establish himself
in some thriving out-of-the-way town in America and he was safe forever. There
were Hermione’s clothes, of course, in the suitcases: they could be disposed of
through the porthole. Thank heaven she wrote her letters on the typewriter—a
little thing like handwriting might have prevented everything. “But there you
are,” he said. “She was up-to-date, efficient all along the line. Managed
everything. Managed herself to death, damn her!”

“There’s no reason to get excited,” he
thought. “I’ll write a few letters for her, then fewer and fewer. Write
myself—always expecting to get back, never quite able to. Keep the house one
year, then another, then another; they’ll get used to it. Might even come back
alone in a year or two and clear it up properly. Nothing easier. But not for
Christmas!” He started up the engine and was off.

In New York he felt free at last,
really free. He was safe. He could look back with pleasure—at least after a
meal, lighting his cigarette, he could look back with a sort of pleasure—to the
minute he had passed in the cellar listening to the bell, the door, and the
voices. He could look forward to Marion.

As he strolled through the lobby of
his hotel, the clerk, smiling, held up letters for him. It was the first batch
from England. Well, what did that matter? It would be fun dashing off the
typewritten sheets in Hermione’s downright style, signing them with her
squiggle, telling everyone what a success his first lecture had been, how
thrilled he was with America but how certainly she’d bring him back for
Christmas. Doubts could creep in later.

He glanced over the letters. Most
were for Hermione. From the Sinclairs, the Wallingfords, the vicar, and a
business letter from Holt & Sons, Builders and Decorators.

He stood in the lounge, people
brushing by him. He opened the letters with his thumb, reading here and there,
smiling. They all seemed very confident  he would be back for Christmas. They
relied on Hermione. “That’s where they make their big mistake,” said the
Doctor, who had taken to American phrases. The builders’ letter he kept to the
last. Some bill, probably. It was:

Dear Madam
,

We are in receipt of your kind
acceptance of estimate as below and also of key.

We beg to repeat you may have every
confidence in same being ready in ample time for Christmas present as stated.
We are setting men to work this week.

We are, Madam,

Yours
faithfully,

Paul
Holt & Sons

To excavating, building up, suitably
lining one sunken wine bin in cellar as indicated, using best materials, making
good, etc.

….....£18/0/0

TWELVE NOVELS OF CRIME AND CHRISTMAS
TO GET YOU THROUGH THE SEASON:

Tied Up In Tinsel
by Ngaio Marsh (1971) in
which Inspector Roderick Alleyn and his wife Agatha Troy tackle the death of an
unpopular servant who disappears after playing Santa Claus.

Red Christmas
by Patrick Ruell (1972)
in which Murder disrupts a ‘Dickensian’ Christmas weekend for vacationers at a
secluded Victorian inn.

Spence and the Holiday Murders
by Michael Allen (1977)
in which a rich, young bachelor is blown up in the driveway of his South Coast
England home two days before Christmas.

The Gooseberry Fool
by James McClure (1974)
in which South African police Lt. Tromp Kramer and his Bantu assistant Sgt.
Mickey Zondi investigate the death of a government engineer during a Christmas
heat wave.

A Corpse for Christmas (Homicide at
Yuletide)
by Henry Kane (1951) in which hard-boiled private eye Peter Chambers gets
involved with a scientist who is supposed to be dead and some ladies who are
trying to accommodate him.

The Finishing Stroke
by Ellery Queen (1958)
in which an unidentified body turns up in the library of a publisher’s estate
during a twelve day Christmas party.

An English Murder
by Cecil Hare (1951) in
which members of an English Christmas party are snowbound in a castle with a
murderer.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (Murder
for Christmas)
by Agatha Christie (1938) in which the famous Belgian sleuth investigates the
Christmas Eve slaying of a wealthy old financier with a lot of unhappy
relatives.

No Holiday for Murder
by Dell Shannon (1973)
in which Det. Lt. Luis Mendoza finds his Christmas duty preoccupied with the
strange death of a devout Mormon at Los Angeles International Airport.

Rest You Merry
by Charlotte MacLeod
(1973) in which college professor Peter Shandy finds the body of the assistant
college librarian beneath his Christmas tree.

Sadie When She Died
by Ed McBain (1972) in
which 87th Precinct Det. Steve Carella solves the case of an adulterous wife
who appears to be the victim of a local junkie-burglar. The truth arrives as a
Christmas gift.

The Christmas Card Murders
by David William
Meredith (1951) in which four people in a small New Jersey town get identical
Christmas cards telling them that they will not live to see the new year.

If
the American cinema found a voice for the 1970’s, it was that of Woody Allen,
the writer-actor-director whose films came into their own during that
fragmented decade. Neurotic, crowded, abused, but still surviving, Allen’s
self-absorbed characters trudged through these disappointing years in a fashion
to which almost everyone could relate.

In his first collection of satirical
writings,
Getting Even,
he included this send-up
of the hard-boiled private eye, popularized by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond
Chandler. Unlike many who have tried to parody this style, Allen gives strong
evidence of knowing what he is sending up.

There is no Sam Spade or Philip
Marlowe Christmas story. On the West Coast, Christmas looks pretty much like
any other day, only with less traffic. So, in the absence of these
quintessential private eyes, we have the tribulations of — hang on to your
trenchcoats — Kaiser Lupowitz as he encounters ‘Mr. Big.’

I was sitting
in my office, cleaning
the debris out of my thirty-eight and wondering where my next case was coming
from. I like being a private eye, and even though once in a while I’ve had my
gums massaged with an automobile jack, the sweet smell of greenbacks makes it
all worth it. Not to mention the dames, which are a minor preoccupation of mine
that I rank just ahead of breathing. That’s why, when the door to my office
swung open and a long-haired blonde named Heather Butkiss came striding in and
told me she was a nudie model and needed my help, my salivary glands shifted
into third. She wore a short skirt and a tight sweater and her figure described
a set of parabolas that could cause cardiac arrest in a yak.

“What can I do for you, sugar?”

“I want you to find someone for me.”

“Missing person? Have you tried the
police?”

“Not exactly, Mr. Lupowitz.”

“Call me Kaiser, sugar. All right,
so what’s the scam?”

“God.”

“God?”

“That’s right, God. The Creator, the
Underlying Principle, the First Cause of Things, the All Encompassing. I want
you to find Him for me.”

I’ve had some fruit cakes up in the
office before, but when they’re built like she was, you listened.

“Why?”

“That’s my business, Kaiser. You
just find Him.”

“I’m sorry, sugar. You got the wrong
boy.”

“But why?”