The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  Steven Bean, meanwhile, was sleeping just fine, curled up on the sofa in his apartment. I know: you’d think he’d be just about anywhere else doing anything else. But after scrounging money from his sister to fund his escape, he had hit on the brilliant idea of increasing the stash by joining a 24-hour poker game he knew of. By the time he wandered out into the streets the next evening, he was all but broke again—and so tired that he convinced himself it would surely be safe at his apartment by now. Sarkesian had probably only been sent to scare him anyway. He might even have been in the neighborhood to see someone else. Maybe it was Steven’s own guilty conscience that had made him jump to conclusions and panic when he saw the killer approaching. What he really needed, he thought, was to be home and snug on his own little sofa. And so that’s where he went and, after a few more drinks and a joint or two, he was out like a light.

  It’s amazing people do these things but they do. It’s amazing what little distance there needs to be between our actions and their consequences before the consequences seem to us to disappear entirely. One a.m. rolled around and there was Steven, snoring away with his hands tucked under his head, so deeply unconscious that even the entry buzzer couldn’t wake him.

  But the door woke him when it crashed open, when its wooden frame splintered and fragments of it went flying across the room. That made him sit bolt upright, his jaw dangling, his eyes spiraling crazily. Before he could speak—before he could even think—someone grabbed him by the shirtfront.

  It was Sarkesian.

  “The Death is coming,” the big man said. “Get up. Let’s go.”

  What had happened: Sarkesian had become a new man since his encounter with the “Angel of the Lord” and he was determined to stay that way. After getting the warning call from the manicurist, he understood that it was not enough to just save himself. Knowing that The Death would come after Steven first, he saw he was responsible for protecting him as well. A sterner moralist than I am might wonder why he didn’t call the police. But others had called the police in an attempt to avoid The Death and they were dead. No, Sarkesian knew Steven’s safety was in his own hands. So here he was, shaking him awake At the first mention of The Death’s terrible name, whatever was left of Steven’s drunken complacency vanished like an ace of spades at a magician’s fingersnap. He didn’t know why Sarkesian had come to help him. At the moment, he hardly knew where he was. But he did understand that he had to run—and that there was nowhere to run from the likes of Billy Shine.

  Sarkesian didn’t wait for him to figure this out, or for anything else. He grabbed him by the arm, got him dressed, and dragged him out the door. They were halfway down the second flight of stairs, Sarkesian in the lead, before he spoke again.

  “Where can you go?” he asked Steven over his shoulder.

  And Steven, still stupid with sleep, gave the only answer he could think of. “Tribeca. Above the bookshop. My sister’s there.”

  They took three cabs to avoid being followed. They traveled the last few blocks on foot. Soon they were running together through the severe, slanting shadows falling across the downtown boulevard from the line of brownstone buildings to their right. Tinsel and colored Christmas lights hung from the windows above them. And snow fell, a thin layer of it muffling their footsteps as they ran.

  As they approached the Mysterious Bookshop itself, they saw warm yellow light spilling through its storefront to lay in an oblong pool on the snowy sidewalk. Shadows moved behind the storefront’s display of brightly jacketed books. Murmuring voices and laughter trailed out from within and a Christmas carol was playing—“O Holy Night.”

  With a silent curse, Sarkesian understood: there was a Christmas party going on inside.

  A moment later, the voices and music grew louder. The bookshop door was coming open. A man and woman were leaving the party, waving over their shoulders as they stepped laughing into the night.

  Suddenly Steven found himself shoved hard into an alcove, Sarkesian’s massive body pressed against him, pinning him, hiding him. They huddled there together, still, as the couple walked away from them toward West Broadway.

  When Sarkesian’s body relaxed, Steven was able to move his arm, to lift his finger to point out his sister’s name above a mailbox in the alcove. Sarkesian nodded. But Steven didn’t press the buzzer button below Hailey’s name. He was afraid she would turn them away. Instead, he went to work on the lock of the outside door. His fingers were trembling with cold and fear, but it wasn’t much of a lock to speak of. In a second or two, he had worked it and they were inside.

  The talk and music from the bookshop came through the walls inside. “O, Little Town of Bethlehem” followed them up the stairway as Sarkesian and Steven raced to the fourth-floor landing. They made their way down the long hallway to the last door. Steven pounded on it with his fist. He shouted, “Hailey! It’s me! Open up!”

  There was a pause. Steven was gripped by the fear that Hailey herself might be at the party in the bookshop downstairs. But then, her sleepy voice came muffled from within, “Steven?”

  “Hailey, please! It’s life or death!”

  There was the sound of a chain sliding back. The door started to open …

  And at that moment, Sarkesian, waiting at Steven’s side, felt a chill on his neck and looked to his left.

  There was The Death standing at the other end of the hall.

  He had materialized there in his trademark fashion, without warning, silent as smoke. Now, like smoke, he began drifting toward them.

  Sarkesian reacted quickly. With one hand, he shoved Steven in the back, pushing him through Hailey’s door. With the other, he drew his gun.

  The Death also had a gun. He was lifting it, pointing it at Sarkesian.

  “Don’t you do it, Billy Shine!” Sarkesian shouted.

  He heard a loud clap: the terrified Steven had shut Hailey’s door, hoping Sarkesian would kill The Death while he cowered inside. But that changed nothing for Sarkesian. He was already moving down the hall toward Shine.

  The two killers walked toward each other, their guns upraised. They were fifty yards apart, then forty, then thirty-five. Sarkesian called out again: “Don’t do it!” The Death answered him with a gunshot. Sarkesian fired back. The men began pulling the triggers of their guns again and again in rapid succession. One blast blended with another, deafening in the narrow corridor. The two kept firing and walking toward each other as steadily as if hot metal were not ripping into them, were not tearing their insides apart.

  At last, their bullets were exhausted. Each heard the snap of an empty chamber. They stopped where they were, not ten yards between them. Shine lowered his arm and Sarkesian lowered his. Shine smiled. Then he pitched forward to the floor and The Death lay dead at Sarkesian’s feet.

  Sarkesian barely looked at him. He simply started walking again, stepping over the body without a pause. He let the gun slip from his fingers. It fell with a thud to the hall carpet. Only when he reached the stairway did he stagger for a moment. He held onto the banister until he was steady again. Then he started down the stairs.

  All this time, no one on the fourth floor had ventured out of his apartment. People heard the gunfire. They guessed what it was. They called the police and just hunkered down. But on the floors below there were doors opening, faces peeking out. The sound of choral music from the bookshop grew louder. “Silent Night.”

  As the moments passed with no more shots, people on the fourth floor looked out too. Hailey looked out and Steven peeked over her shoulder, hiding behind her.

  “Yes!” he said, pumping his fist when he saw that The Death had fallen.

  But Hailey said, “What happened to Sarkesian?”

  Steven had told her in a single sentence about his rescue. She had guessed the rest, guessed what had happened to Sarkesian as a result of their encounter in the theater. Tender soul that she was, she felt bad for the thug. She felt any injuries he might have suffered were in part her responsibility.

>   She came out of her apartment into the hall.

  “Sis! Sis!” Steven hissed after her, frantically waving her back.

  But she kept moving forward cautiously until she reached the stairway. She saw the trail of blood on the risers. With a soft cry of distress, she started down the stairs.

  She found Sarkesian lying on his back in front of the building, his blood running out into the snow. The partygoers in the Mysterious Bookshop had poured out of the store to investigate the noise and now stood gathered around him. The sound of sirens was growing louder as the police drew near. The bookshop door was propped open so that “Silent Night” drifted through the window into the air.

  No one came near Sarkesian. He lay alone in the center of the crowd. He blinked up at the falling snow, his breathing labored.

  Then Hailey came toward him, her long white flannel nightgown trailing behind her. Many people saw and heard what happened next. Many of them talked about it to the journalists who soon flooded the scene. And yet it was never reported in a single newspaper, never mentioned on radio or television even once. This is the first time it’s ever been told.

  Hailey knelt down in the snow beside Sarkesian. She leaned over him. He stirred, turning his eyes toward her. He tried to speak. He couldn’t. He licked his lips and tried again.

  “I see …” he whispered hoarsely. “I see an angel.”

  “Oh, Sarkesian,” said Hailey miserably. “I’m really not.”

  Sarkesian blinked slowly and shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “There.” And with a terrible effort, he lifted his enormous hand and pointed over her shoulder at the sky.

  Then his hand dropped back into the snow and he was dead.

  THE GHOST’S TOUCH

  Fergus Hume

  ALTHOUGH CHARLES DICKENS AND WILKIE COLLINS wrote mystery fiction, their books were not identified as being part of the genre, either by publishers, booksellers, or reviewers. It then falls to Fergus Hume to have the honor of writing the bestselling mystery novel, so described, of the nineteenth century, The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886). He paid to have it published but it quickly became successful and he sold all rights to a group of English investors for fifty pounds sterling. It went on to sell more than a half-million copies. Hume wrote an additional one hundred thirty novels—all of which have been completely forgotten. “The Ghost’s Touch” was first published in the author’s short story collection, The Dancer in Red (London, Digby, 1906).

  The Ghost’s Touch

  FERGUS HUME

  I SHALL NEVER FORGET THE TERRIBLE Christmas I spent at Ringshaw Grange in the year ’93. As an army doctor I have met with strange adventures in far lands, and have seen some gruesome sights in the little wars which are constantly being waged on the frontiers of our empire; but it was reserved for an old country house in Hants to be the scene of the most noteworthy episode in my life. The experience was a painful one, and I hope it may never be repeated; but indeed so ghastly an event is not likely to occur again. If my story reads more like fiction than truth, I can only quote the well-worn saying, of the latter being stranger than the former. Many a time in my wandering life have I proved the truth of this proverb.

  The whole affair rose out of the invitation which Frank Ringan sent me to spend Christmas with himself and his cousin Percy at the family seat near Christchurch. At that time I was home on leave from India; and shortly after my arrival I chanced to meet with Percy Ringan in Piccadilly. He was an Australian with whom I had been intimate some years before in Melbourne: a dapper little man with sleek fair hair and a transparent complexion, looking as fragile as a Dresden china image, yet with plenty of pluck and spirits. He suffered from heart disease, and was liable to faint on occasions; yet he fought against his mortal weakness with silent courage, and with certain precautions against over-excitement, he managed to enjoy life fairly well.

  Notwithstanding his pronounced effeminacy, and somewhat truckling subserviency to rank and high birth, I liked the little man very well for his many good qualities. On the present occasion I was glad to see him, and expressed my pleasure.

  “Although I did not expect to see you in England,” said I, after the first greetings had passed.

  “I have been in London these nine months, my dear Lascelles,” he said, in his usual mincing way, “partly by way of a change and partly to see my cousin Frank—who indeed invited me to come over from Australia.”

  “Is that the rich cousin you were always speaking about in Melbourne?”

  “Yes. But Frank is not rich. I am the wealthy Ringan, but he is the head of the family. You see, Doctor,” continued Percy, taking my arm and pursuing the subject in a conversational manner, “my father, being a younger son, emigrated to Melbourne in the gold-digging days, and made his fortune out there. His brother remained at home on the estates, with very little money to keep up the dignity of the family; so my father helped the head of his house from time to time. Five years ago both my uncle and father died, leaving Frank and me as heirs, the one to the family estate, the other to the Australian wealth. So—”

  “So you assist your cousin to keep up the dignity of the family as your father did before you.”

  “Well, yes, I do,” admitted Percy, frankly. “You see, we Ringans think a great deal of our birth and position. So much so, that we have made our wills in one another’s favour.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, if I die Frank inherits my money; and if he dies, I become heir to the Ringan estates. It seems strange that I should tell you all this, Lascelles; but you were so intimate with me in the old days that you can understand my apparent rashness.”

  I could not forbear a chuckle at the reason assigned by Percy for his confidence, especially as it was such a weak one. The little man had a tongue like a town-crier, and could no more keep his private affairs to himself than a woman could guard a secret. Besides, I saw very well that with his inherent snobbishness he desired to impress me with the position and antiquity of his family, and with the fact—undoubtedly true—that it ranked amongst the landed gentry of the kingdom.

  However, the weakness, though in bad taste, was harmless enough, and I had no scorn for the confession of it. Still, I felt a trifle bored, as I took little interest in the chronicling of such small beer, and shortly parted from Percy after promising to dine with him the following week.

  At this dinner, which took place at the Athenian Club, I met with the head of the Ringan family; or, to put it plainer, with Percy’s cousin Frank. Like the Australian he was small and neat, but enjoyed much better health and lacked the effeminacy of the other. Yet on the whole I liked Percy the best, as there was a sly cast about Frank’s countenance which I did not relish; and he patronized his colonial cousin in rather an offensive manner.

  The latter looked up to his English kinsman with all deference, and would, I am sure, have willingly given his gold to regild the somewhat tarnished escutcheon of the Ringans. Outwardly, the two cousins were so alike as to remind one of Tweedledum and Tweedledee; but after due consideration I decided that Percy was the better-natured and more honourable of the two.

  For some reason Frank Ringan seemed desirous of cultivating my acquaintance; and in one way and another I saw a good deal of him during my stay in London. Finally, when I was departing on a visit to some relatives in Norfolk he invited me to spend Christmas at Ringshaw Grange—not, as it afterwards appeared, without an ulterior motive.

  “I can take no refusal,” said he, with a heartiness which sat ill on him. “Percy, as an old friend of yours, has set his heart on my having you down; and—if I may say so—I have set my heart on the same thing.”

  “Oh, you really must come, Lascelles,” cried Percy, eagerly. “We are going to keep Christmas in the real old English fashion. Washington Irving’s style, you know: holly, wassail-bowl, games, and mistletoe.”

  “And perhaps a ghost or so,” finished Frank, laughing, yet with a side glance at his eager little cousin.

  �
��Ah,” said I. “So your Grange is haunted.”

  “I should think so,” said Percy, before his cousin could speak, “and with a good old Queen Anne ghost. Come down, Doctor, and Frank shall put you in the haunted chamber.”

  “No!” cried Frank, with a sharpness which rather surprised me, “I’ll put no one in the Blue Room; the consequences might be fatal. You smile, Lascelles, but I assure you our ghost has been proved to exist!”

  “That’s a paradox; a ghost can’t exist. But the story of your ghost—”

  “Is too long to tell now,” said Frank, laughing. “Come down to the Grange and you’ll hear it.”

  “Very good,” I replied, rather attracted by the idea of a haunted house, “you can count upon me for Christmas. But I warn you, Ringan, that I don’t believe in spirits. Ghosts went out with gas.”

  “Then they must have come in again with electric light,” retorted Frank Ringan, “for Lady Joan undoubtedly haunts the Grange. I don’t mind as it adds distinction to the house.”

  “All old families have a ghost,” said Percy, importantly. “It is very natural when one has ancestors.”

  There was no more said on the subject for the time being, but the upshot of this conversation was that I presented myself at Ringshaw Grange two or three days before Christmas. To speak the truth, I came more on Percy’s account than my own, as I knew the little man suffered from heart disease, and a sudden shock might prove fatal. If, in the unhealthy atmosphere of an old house, the inmates got talking of ghosts and goblins, it might be that the consequences would be dangerous to so highly strung and delicate a man as Percy Ringan.

  For this reason, joined to a sneaking desire to see the ghost, I found myself a guest at Ringshaw Grange. In one way I regret the visit; yet in another I regard it as providential that I was on the spot. Had I been absent the catastrophe might have been greater, although it could scarcely have been more terrible.