The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  “Thank you,” said Mr. Jones, and turned to Maxwell.

  “This is where we get off,” he said. “Got everything, Maxwell?”

  “Everything, sir,” Maxwell answered. “Don’t forget the bag.”

  Maxwell stopped and picked up the shabby bag.

  “Here it is, sir.”

  Mr. Jones rose. Maxwell rose too. Beecham stared, dissatisfied with he knew not what.

  Maxwell helped Mr. Jones into his big overcoat, pulled on his own and waited. Mr. Jones pulled his hat down over his ears and turned up the collar of his coat.

  The train stopped.

  “Well, good-bye, Beecham, dear fellow,” Mr. Jones said breezily. “And, if I don’t see you before, a Happy New Year.”

  And out to the snow-covered platform he went, with Maxwell and the shabby little bag after him.

  Beecham blinked. That little bag … Was it possible? Even before Hadlow Cribb reached the train? Or, by some trick, while he, Beecham, had been waiting his chance in the guard’s van?

  “Crafty, but I wonder if he’s really a fool?” he thought solemnly.

  The driving wind covered Mr. Jones and the faithful Maxwell with snow in the twinkling of an eye. They dashed across the bleak platform of Etching Vale to the shelter of the station wall. And under this shelter they hurried to the barriers. Here Mr. Jones offered two tickets.

  The collector peered at the tickets in the doubtful lamplight.

  “Pardon, sir,” he said, “but this is Etching Vale.”

  “Remarkable how you can tell, with all this snow on it,” remarked Mr. Jones.

  “These tickets are for Friars Topliss, sir,” said the collector.

  “I know,” said Mr. Jones, “but I’ve changed my mind. I thought I’d get off here. It sort of called to me.”

  “Not allowed to break the journey, sir,” the collector reminded him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to pay again.”

  Mr. Jones thrust a note into the collector’s hand.

  “Take it out of that,” he said, “and buy your wife something for Christmas out of the balance.”

  “No wife, sir,” the collector grinned.

  “Soon will have,” Mr. Jones assured him, “with such charm as yours.”

  He passed out into the snow-covered station square of Little Etching Vale, the soft footfalls of Maxwell on his left and, as he soon realized, other soft footfalls on his right. He turned and there once more was the stolid figure of Detective-Inspector Beecham.

  “Not again!” he exclaimed. “But, my dear Beecham, I thought you were going on?”

  “I thought you might be, too,” said Beecham.

  “I changed my mind,” Mr. Jones informed him.

  “I changed my mind,” retorted Beecham. “A costly process, I found it,” said Mr. Jones.

  “I didn’t!” said Beecham.

  “Oh, well, of course, you’re known to the police,” said Mr. Jones, “which makes a difference!”

  He smiled and waited, but Beecham waited too.

  “Where now?” he asked.

  “Where would you like to go?” said Beecham.

  “You don’t mean, do you, that the drinks are now on you?” said Mr. Jones. “But Beecham, my own, this is too touching! Very well—there’s a decent-looking, old-fashioned hostel over there. Shall we?”

  “Anywhere,” growled Beecham.

  They crossed the square to the old-fashioned hostel where, to Mr. Jones’s surprise, the Scotland Yard man immediately booked a private room and ordered the drinks to be sent up there.

  “If you’ll join me,” he said to Mr. Jones.

  “Delighted,” Mr. Jones agreed. “Does Maxwell remain in the weather and hold the horses’ heads?”

  “There’ll be room for the three of us upstairs,” said Beecham.

  “What could be better?” said Mr. Jones.

  And upstairs they went, with a waiter and tray to follow them.

  “Cosy,” remarked Mr. Jones, when the waiter had left them and closed the door. “Shall you be staying here long?”

  “About as long as it will take me to go through that little bag of yours,” Beecham answered.

  “Beecham!” Mr. Jones gasped. “I don’t understand you.”

  “You will,” said Beecham. “I always thought you’d be too clever. You let me see your train tickets this afternoon. After that, I just had to take this trip with you. Hand over the bag.”

  “You know, Beecham, my sweet,” said Mr. Jones, “really I don’t think you have the right.”

  “I can soon get that,” said Beecham. “Please yourself, if you want to waste time. You’ll waste it in my presence, that’s all.”

  Mr. Jones sighed.

  “Maxwell,” he said, “nobody trusts us. It’s a suspicious world. Pass the little bag to the gentleman.”

  Maxwell passed the little bag to the gentleman, and the gentleman, frowning, promptly dragged it open. Out fell pyjamas, combs, and toothbrushes. Nothing else. Beecham clicked his teeth and looked up.

  “Pockets, probably?” he said.

  “No friendliness at all, observed Mr. Jones with a fresh sigh. “Your pockets, Maxwell.”

  Maxwell emptied his pockets. Mr. Jones emptied his. The detective’s complexion darkened. He turned once more to the little bag, fumbled inside it, threw it on the floor. His hands passed swiftly, but certainly, down the attire of the other two men; then, with a muttered exclamation, he picked up a telephone that stood on a corner table.

  “Friars Topliss police, quick!” he shouted.

  “You might tell me, sweet Beecham,” Mr. Jones put in, “what is on your mind.”

  But Beecham didn’t. He sat glaring at the instrument in front of his nose until there was a faint tinkle.

  “Yes?” he roared. “This is Detective-Inspector Beecham of Scotland Yard. Is the six-fourteen from Liverpool Street—what? Good Lord! Battered up? But I saw him—the jewels? Gone! I’ll come along!”

  He dropped the receiver and spun round.

  “Without having the faintest idea as to what is on your mind,” said Mr. Jones, “I think you must admit that I never batter them up. I may have many failings, but never that.”

  “I don’t exactly know where you come into this,” snapped Beecham, “but bear this in mind. I’ll land you.”

  “I doubt it.” Mr. Jones smiled. “You’d like to, I fear, but it’s such a disappointing world.”

  Beecham strode to the door.

  “Say good-bye to the gentleman, Maxwell,” said Mr. Jones.

  And Maxwell said good-bye to the gentleman.

  “Dapper” Dawlish, expert but unlikeable, let himself into his Baker Street flat and snapped on the lights. He was satisfied with himself and the world in general. Or, at least, he was until he snapped on the lights.

  Then he found himself looking down the barrel of an automatic, and he changed his opinion of the world at once.

  “Good evening,” said Mr. Jones. “Or morning. Or what is it? Travelling about the world in a snowstorm makes one lose one’s sense of time.”

  “Who are you?” snarled Dawlish.

  “Doesn’t matter in the least,” said Mr. Jones.

  “What do you want?”

  “The jewels you stole from Mr. Hadlow Cribb on the Friars Topliss train,” said Mr. Jones. “And I want them now. I’ve been waiting two hours without a fire. I’m depressed. And when I’m depressed I’m nasty. That bulge in your right pocket, I believe. Come on! One—two——”

  Which was where “Dapper” Dawlish threw in. “I’m hanged if I see how you knew,” he grumbled.

  “But, of course, I knew,” said Mr. Jones. “It was I who had you put wise this afternoon that the stuff would be on the train.”

  “You?”

  “Mind, you wouldn’t have stood an earthly chance if I hadn’t been on the train to take their attention away,” Mr. Jones added. “They watched dear old Cribb and you’d never have got near him. Brains, my lad. That’s what gets you to t
he top.

  “Mind, I couldn’t have got the things. I’m too popular with the C.I.D. They won’t let me out of their sight. Which is why I sometimes have to leave the labouring to others. Which reminds me.”

  He opened the parcel of gems, separated one from the rest, and tossed it on the table.

  “The labourer is worthy of his hire,” he said, with a smile. “You’d have got two—or even three—if you hadn’t battered him up. Battering-up is a thing I detest. Or, at least, I’ve always thought so. I may change my mind one day. Even this day. Try following me and see! Good-bye, Mr.—Dawlish the name is, I believe. Charmed to have met you. And a Merry Christmas.”

  MARKHEIM

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  IT MAY BE DIFFICULT TO REMEMBER that Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the greatest adventure story authors of all time with such classics as Treasure Island (1883), Prince Otto (1885), Kidnapped (1886), and The Black Arrow (1888) to his credit, also wrote the beloved volume of poems for young readers, A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885). He frequently wrote of mystery and crime, most famously The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), a macabre allegory once described as the only crime story in which the solution is more terrifying than the problem. The classic murder story “Markheim” was first published in The Broken Shaft (London, Unwin, 1885).

  Markheim

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  “YES,” SAID THE DEALER, “OUR windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest,” and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor; “and in that case,” he continued, “I profit by my virtue.”

  Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside.

  The dealer chuckled. “You come to me on Christmas Day,” he resumed, “when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of manner that I remark in you today very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for it.”

  The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his usual business voice, though still with a note of irony, “You can give, as usual, a clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?” he continued. “Still your uncle’s cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!”

  And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe, looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and a touch of horror.

  “This time,” said he, “you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle’s cabinet is bare to the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a lady,” he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared; “and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected.”

  There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence.

  “Well, sir,” said the dealer, “be it so. You are an old customer after all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady now,” he went on, “this hand glass—fifteenth century, warranted; comes from a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable collector.”

  The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stopped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot, a sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand that now received the glass.

  “A glass,” he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more clearly. “A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?”

  “And why not?” cried the dealer. “Why not a glass?”

  Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. “You ask me why not?” he said. “Why, look here—look in it—look at yourself! Do you like to see it? No! nor—nor any man.”

  The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing worse on hand, he chuckled. “Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard-favoured,” said he.

  “I ask you,” said Markheim, “for a Christmas present, and you give me this—this damned reminder of years, and sins and follies—this hand-conscience? Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell me. It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself. I hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?”

  The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.

  “What are you driving at?” the dealer asked.

  “Not charitable?” returned the other gloomily. “Not charitable; not pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?”

  “I will tell you what it is,” began the dealer, with some sharpness, and then broke off again into a chuckle. “But I see this is a love match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady’s health.”

  “Ah!” cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. “Ah, have you been in love? Tell me about that.”

  “I,” cried the dealer. “I in love! I never had the time, nor have I the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?”

  “Where is the hurry?” returned Markheim. “It is very pleasant to stand here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff’s edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other: why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?”

  “I have just one word to say to you,” said the dealer. “Either make your purchase, or walk out of my shop!”

  “True, true,” said Markheim. “Enough fooling. To business. Show me something else.”

  The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out.

  “This, perhaps, may suit,” observed the dealer: and then, as he began to re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long, skewerlike dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a hen, striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a heap.

  Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age; other
s garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad’s feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings.

  He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and wavering like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.

  From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim’s eyes returned to the body of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there it must lie till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy.

  “Time was that when the brains were out,” he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer.

  The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.

  The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle, beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some from Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet.