Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (72 page)

“Then who?”

“When I first arrived,
you were helping Carol Fletcher with a balky lighter. Yes, you, Riker! You
dropped it into your pocket, unthinking, and that’s why she didn’t have it
later. It fell out while you were struggling with Gibson. While you were
killing him, Riker.”

Riker uttered a single
obscenity and his hand went for the service revolver on his belt. Leopold had
expected it. He moved in fast and threw two quick punches, one to the stomach
and one to the jaw. Riker went down and it was over.

* * *

Carol Fletcher heard what
had happened and she came over to Leopold. “Thanks for recovering my lighter,” she
said. “I hope you didn’t suspect me.”

He shook his head, eyeing
Fletcher. “Of course not. But I sure as hell wish your husband had told me it
was yours.”

“I had to find out what
it was doing there,” Fletcher mumbled. “God, it’s not every day your wife’s
lighter, that you gave her two Christmases ago, turns up as a clue in a murder.”

Leopold handed it back to
her. “Maybe this’ll teach you to stop smoking.”

“You knew it was Riker
anyway?”

“I was pretty sure. With
sixty men drinking beer all around here, no murderer could take a chance of
walking out of that Men’s Room unseen. His best bet was to pretend finding the
body, which is just what he did. Be
sides that, of the four detectives on the scene early,
Riker’s Vice Squad position was the most logical for Freese’s bribery.”

“Was
there a tape recording?” Fletcher asked.

Leopold
was staring at the Christmas tree. “I think Gibson was telling the truth on
that one. Except that
he
never called it a tape. I did that. I jumped to a
conclusion. He simply told me it was an old machine, purchased after the war.
In those early days tape recorders weren’t the only kind. For a while wire
recorders were almost as popular.”

“Wire!”

Leopold
nodded and started toward the Christmas tree. “We know that Gibson helped you
put up the tree, Carol. I’m betting that one of those wires holding it in place
is none other than the recorded conversation of Carl Freese, Tommy Gibson, and
Sergeant Riker.”

The name Thomas Hardy has meant
surefire gloom and doom for a century. To students of his craft, a Hardy work,
set amid the wild midlands of Wessex, promises fatalism and man struggling
unsuccessfully against nature. To the dedicated undergraduate embarking on a
course in English literature, a comprehensive assignment on Hardy becomes like
an extended holiday with a religious martyr. First depression sets in. Later
only electroshock therapy can restore the will to live. No one has ever gone to
Thomas Hardy for light reading.

Some of this grimness surely
reflects Hardy’s own frustrations with life. He had always hoped to become a
writer and poet but a strong-willed father dictated a career in architecture.
Only after his literary success was assured did he devote himself entirely to
the work he loved.

What a surprise then, to discover
this almost frivolous adventure of a juvenile detective among so much adversity
and pessimism. “The Thieves Who Couldn’t Help Sneezing” is startling proof that
man cannot live on misery alone. Not even Thomas Hardy.

Many years ago,
when oak-trees now past their prime were about as large as
elderly gentlemen’s walking-sticks, there lived in Wessex a yeoman’s son, whose
name was Hubert. He was about fourteen years of age, and was as remarkable for
his candor and lightness of heart as for his physical courage, of which,
indeed, he was a little vain.

One
cold Christmas Eve his father, having no other help at hand, sent him on an
important errand to a small town several miles from home. He travelled on
horseback, and was detained by the business till a late hour that evening. At
last, however, it was completed; he returned to the inn, the horse was saddled,
and he started on his way. His journey homeward lay through the Vale of
Blackmore, a fertile but somewhat lonely district, with heavy clay roads and
crooked lanes. In those days, too, a great part of it was thickly wooded.

It
must have been about nine o’clock when, riding along amid the overhanging trees
upon his stout-legged cob, Jerry, and singing a Christmas carol, to be in
harmony with the season, Hubert fancied that he heard a noise among the boughs.
This recalled to his mind that the spot he was traversing bore an evil name.
Men had been waylaid there. He looked at Jerry, and wished he had been of any
other color than light gray; for on this account the docile animal’s form was
visible even here in the dense shade. “What do I care?” he said aloud, after a
few minutes of reflection. “Jerry’s legs are too nimble to allow any highwayman
to come near me.”

“Ha!
ha! indeed,” was said in a deep voice; and the next moment a man darted from
the thicket on his right hand, another man from the thicket on his left hand,
and another from a tree-trunk a few yards ahead. Hubert’s bridle. was seized,
he was pulled from his horse, and although he struck out with all his might, as
a brave boy would naturally do, he was overpowered. His arms were tied behind
him, his legs bound tightly together, and he was thrown into the ditch. The
robbers, whose faces he could now dimly perceive to be artificially blackened,
at once departed, leading off the horse.

As
soon as Hubert had a little recovered himself, he found that by great exertion
he was able to extricate his legs from the cord; but, in spite of every
endeavor, his arms remained bound as fast as before. All, therefore, that he
could do was to rise to his feet and proceed on his way with his arms behind
him, and trust to chance for getting them unfastened. He knew that it would be
impossible to reach home on foot that night, and in such a condition; but he
walked on. Owing to the confusion which this attack caused in his brain, he
lost his way, and would have been inclined to lie down and rest till morning
among the dead leaves had he not known the danger of sleeping without wrappers
in a frost so severe. So he wandered further onwards, his arms wrung and numbed
by the cord which pinioned him, and his heart aching for the loss of poor
Jerry, who never had been known to kick, or bite, or show a single vicious
habit. He was not a little glad when he discerned through the trees a distant
light. Towards this he made his way, and presently found himself in front of a
large mansion with flanking wings, gables, and towers, the battlements and
chimneys showing their shapes against the stars.

All
was silent; but the door stood wide open, it being from this door that the
light shone which had attracted him. On entering he found himself in a vast
apartment arranged as a dining-hall, and brilliantly illuminated. The walls
were covered with a great deal of dark wainscoting, formed into moulded panels,
carvings, closet-doors, and the usual fittings of a house of that kind. But
what drew his attention most was the large table in the midst of the hall, upon
which was spread a sumptuous supper, as yet untouched. Chairs were placed
around, and it appeared as if something had occurred to interrupt the meal just
at the time when all were ready to begin.

Even
had Hubert been so inclined, he could not have eaten in his helpless state,
unless by dipping his mouth into the dishes, like a pig or cow. He wished first
to obtain assistance: and was about to penetrate further into the house for
that purpose when he heard hasty footsteps in the porch and the words, “Be
quick!” uttered in the deep voice which had reached him when he was dragged
from the horse. There was only just time for him to dart under the table before
three men entered the dining-hall. Peeping from beneath the hanging edges of
the tablecloth, he perceived that their faces, too, were blackened, which at
once removed any remaining doubts he may have felt that these were the same
thieves.

“Now,
then,” said the first—the man with the deep voice— “let us hide ourselves. They
will all be back again in a minute. That was a good trick to get them out of
the house—eh?”

“Yes.
You well imitated the cries of a man in distress,” said the second.

“Excellently,”
said the third.

“But
they will soon find out that it was a false alarm. Come, where shall we hide?
It must be some place we can stay in for two or three hours, till all are in
bed and asleep. Ah! I have it. Come this way! I have learnt that the further
closet is not opened once in a twelve-month; it will serve our purpose exactly.”

The
speaker advanced into a corridor which led from the hall. Creeping a little
farther forward, Hubert could discern that the closet stood at the end, facing
the dining-hall. The thieves entered it, and closed the door. Hardly breathing,
Hubert glided forward, to learn a little more of their intention, if possible;
and, coming close, he could hear the robbers whispering about the different
rooms where the jewels, plate, and other valuables of the house were kept,
which they plainly meant to steal.

They
had not been long in hiding when a gay chattering of ladies and gentlemen was
audible on the terrace without. Hubert felt that it would not do to be caught
prowling about the house, unless he wished to be taken for a robber himself;
and he slipped softly back to the hall, out the door, and stood in a dark
corner of the porch, where he could see everything without being himself seen.
In a moment or two a whole troop of personages came gliding past him into the
house. There were an elderly gentleman and lady, eight or nine young ladies, as
many young men, besides half-a-dozen men-servants and maids. The mansion had
apparently been quite emptied of its occupants.

“Now,
children and young people, we will resume our meal,” said the old gentleman. “What
the noise could have been I cannot understand. I never felt so certain in my
life that there was a person being murdered outside my door.”

Then
the ladies began saying how frightened they had been, and how they had expected
an adventure, and how it had ended in nothing at all.

“Wait
awhile,” said Hubert to himself. “You’ll have adventure enough by-and-by,
ladies.”

It
appeared that the young men and women were married sons and daughters of the
old couple, who had come that day to spend Christmas with their parents.

The
door was then closed, Hubert being left outside in the porch. He thought this a
proper moment for asking their assistance; and, since he was unable to knock
with his hands, began boldly to kick the door.

“Hullo!”
“What disturbance are you making here?” said a footman who opened it; and,
seizing Hubert by the shoulder, he pulled him into the dining-hall. “Here’s a
strange boy I have found making a noise in the porch, Sir Simon.”

Everybody
turned.