The Case of the
Ghost of Christmas Morning
Copyright 2021 PJ Fitzsimmons.
All Rights Reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
The Final Flight of Flaps Fleming
“MERRY CHRISTMAS ANTY DEAR. There’s a dead body under the tree.”
...was very nearly the last thing I expected to hear upon arrival at my Aunty Boisjoly’s cosy, sixteen-bedroom burrow in snowy Hertfordshire. She was the shy aunty, you see, and not usually very clever at gift-giving. I still haven’t grown into the spats she gave me for my christening.
But I had rather owed Aunty Azalea Boisjoly a visit since the untimely passing of her brother and my father — not coincidentally one and the same chap — left us both similarly alone against the fates. So here I was, in the delightful dairy town of Graze Hill, tracking Aunty Azalea to the warm and well-appointed Victorian-style drawing-room of her country seat, Herding House.
“A body, Aunty?” I said. “I don’t even see a tree. I’m not disappointed, mind you, in either case. I mention it more as a point of order.”
“We don’t have a tree, Anty,” said Aunty. “I can’t bear to have strangers in the house, you know that. Instead, there’s a glass bauble on the rubber plant in the library. Would you like to see it?”
“In good time,” I said. “First, if there isn’t one in the house, to what tree do you refer and, perhaps more pressingly, to what body?”
Aunty Azalea was always the eccentric one in a family not widely famed for an extravagant excess of marbles. She was very like my father and myself physically — tall and narrow with a pasty-white and chestnut livery and the famous Boisjoly eyebrows that give the impression that we’re easily and constantly surprised — but in addition to belonging to the school that pronounced the family name “Bo-juhlay”, like the wine region, as opposed to “Boo-juhlay”, like the wine region, she was timid almost to the degree of genius. She was to bashfulness what that Pythagoras chap was to sorting out the area of the square of the hypotenuse once and for all.
“Flaps Fleming is dead,” said Aunty Azalea.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said, glancing about for, I suppose, context. “Was he, you know, an actual chap, this Flaps Fleming, or a beloved goose or some such?”
“He was my neighbour, Anty. Major Aaron Fleming.”
“Quite sure?” I asked. “It would make a good name for a goose, Flaps.”
“I was hoping you’d know what to do.”
“Of course, Aunty dear, leave it all to me,” I said. “Are we quite certain, though, that there’s anything to be done? If the poor chap’s already snuffed it then I’d have to say that the situation’s largely out of our hands.”
“I mean about the police and all that.” Aunty Azalea fidgeted nervously with a heavy, velvet curtain as a pretext for hiding herself in it. “The major has been murdered.”
“Murdered? Are you quite sure?”
“He’s under a Christmas tree in his living room with a knife in his back.”
“I see,” I said. “I think I’m twigging to the state of affairs now, Aunty, but your telling was something of a slow burn, if you don’t mind me saying so. You’ll probably want to jump straight to the punchline, in future, when recounting the discovery of a murder.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Aunty, munificently.
“Sound policy, favourite aunt. Doubtless my late father mentioned my modest reputation among London’s smart set as a problem-solver.”
“I don’t think so,” said Aunty, meditatively. “He only mentioned that you were a highly effective spendthrift.”
“That is, I confess, my principal occupation,” I confirmed, “and it consumes most of my waking hours, but I have my fingers in many pies, running the gamut from clubbing, idling, and man-about-towning, to helping mates through scrapes. Perhaps you heard of the twin tragedies that befell the Canterfell family this past summer?”
“No.”
“No? It was in all the papers. They made Fiddles Canterfell an earl, in the end, rather than hanging him for murder, thanks in no small part to me. How about the Fernsby-Loftis affair at the Ritz last year?”
Aunty peered at me from behind the curtain, like a nervous chorus girl. “I don’t believe so. Who died?”
“Well, nobody, in the literal sense, it was more in the line of an ill-advised wedding toast. But I was able to convince the bride’s father that, in the rich architectural tradition of the Loftis family, a gargoyle is regarded as a thing of great beauty.”
“I don’t know that it’s pertinent to the situation at hand, Anty,” said Aunt Azalea uncertainly. “What did they do when they found your father?”
“Scraped him off the tracks with putty knives, I’m told,” I said. “But that doesn’t apply here. What you want is to involve the local constabulary, straight away.”
“But it’s Christmas day.”
“There is that,” I agreed, “but in my experience the forces of law and order like to be kept abreast of this sort of thing, irrespective of the season.”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Anty,” said Aunty, folding herself yet deeper into the rich purple drapery. “I couldn’t bear to be questioned by the police.”
“I regret, Aunty, that may prove unavoidable, but I’ll do what I can to spare you human interaction. Is that the bell?” I referred to the leather pull next to the fireplace. I gave it a jingle and entertained myself with the whisky decanter and soda syphon until Puckeridge, Aunty’s longtime butler and head of household staff, appeared at the drawing-room door. I’d never met the man before arriving at the manor that day, but I’d understood from my father that Puckeridge was local talent, the second son of a proud dairy family, and he’d acquired the equivalent of a PhD in butlering at some of the great houses of Bedfordshire. He was accordingly as correct as high tea and otherwise a stout representative of his beef and milk-fed heritage, generous of jowl and midships.
“Were you able to locate Miss Boisjoly, sir?”
“I did, thanks very much, Puckeridge. She was just where you guessed she’d be, in the drawing-room. Still is, in fact, wrapped in that curtain.”
“I’m pleased to have been of service.”
“In that case, Puckeridge, I have some jolly good news for you. We need someone to pop into town and fetch the constable.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You’ll probably want to know why,” I ventured.
“If you deem it necessary, sir.”
“Seems your neighbour’s been carved for Christmas,” I said. “Do you know this Flaps Fleming chap?”
“Major Aaron Fleming is our neighbour, sir,” said Puckeridge with a nod so subtle it might have been telepathic. “He lives in the cottage on the hill.”
“Point of order, Puckeridge,” I said. “He used to live on the cottage on the hill, which is the gist of that which we need you to confide to the constable. Graze Hill does have a constable, does it not?”
“It does, sir. We share a police station with the town of Steeple Herding, where your train arrived this morning.”
“Excellent,” I said. “I’d send Vickers, you understand, but, well, you understand.” I referred, of course, to my own valet, who had accompanied me to Graze Hill. Vickers had been my father’s valet and his father’s before him, and his age was the subject of much conjecture.
“Of course, Mister Boisjoly,” said Puckeridge. “Mister Vickers is currently resting on some linen in the below-stairs laundry. I’ve taken the liberty of u
npacking your bags in the Heath Room.”
“Heath Room?”
“First floor, second left, sir. Overlooking the pastures and, as a point of uncommon interest, the cottage of Major Fleming.”
“Was major his active rank, Puckeridge?”
“It is an honorific, sir,” said Puckeridge. “Major Fleming was a hero of the Great War.”
“That was a decade ago,” I said. “Should I have heard of him? Was he one of those iron-willed blighters who took and held some strategically indispensable bit of no-man’s land with just a riding crop and a bucket of British pluck?”
“He was a flying ace, to my understanding.”
“Ah, a flyboy.
“In the vernacular of the time, yes sir. He flew several hundred sorties over France and Belgium, I understand, and is credited with shooting down forty-one enemy aircraft.”
“Is that impressive?” I asked. “Forty-one isn’t much of a score in darts, and the skillset strikes me as similar.”
“Five air combat victories is the customary requirement for achieving the status of ace, I believe.”
“Ah, well, different game, different rules. Did the major live alone in the cottage?”
“He did, sir.”
“Had he lived there long?”
“The Flemings have been a part of Graze Hill and the area for generations,” said Puckeridge, with the fluent authority of the butler with local knowledge. “The major took occupancy of Tannery Lodge, one of the family dwellings, at the end of the war.”
“My aunt says that she saw him this morning, or at any rate she saw his earthly remains. Were you aware of that?”
“I was not acquainted with Miss Boisjoly’s movements until just now, sir.”
“It might become necessary for someone to confirm where she was and when.”
“That may prove difficult, sir,” said Puckeridge with a vague eyebrow of resentment cocked toward the cocoon of drapery which enveloped my aunt. “Miss Boisjoly is often quite circumspect with the household staff.”
“Do you hear that Aunty?” I called. “The staff have noticed that you hide in the curtains.”
“I’m not hiding in the curtains,” came the muffled reply. “I’m examining them… for moths. You know how I feel about moths.”
“Miss Boisjoly is very vigilant with regards to the moth problem,” confirmed Puckeridge.
“I’ll just bet she is,” I said. “Thank you, Puckeridge. You’d best be conveying our warmest compliments of the season to the local constabulary.”
I left Aunty Azalea to her study of the British moth and imitation thereof and retired to the Heath Room. Vickers and I had arrived at Steeple Herding only an hour ago on the Christmas morning omnibus which, in the spirit of the season, had stopped to pay its respects to stations it hadn’t seen in years, and often lingered to catch up on old times. I was looking forward to the comatose quiet that is English dairy country in the wintertime. I was, if it’s not introducing the nuts before the soup, soon to be disappointed.
As advertised, my room looked out onto the eponymous heath, and it was magnificent. At the absolute worst of times Hertfordshire farmland is a rolling delight of stacked rock fences and shaggy hedgerows delineating pasture from ploughland, randomly punctuated by hewn stone cottages with thatched roofs, wooden outbuildings, and cows.
However, with a deep blanket of snow on the fields and treetops, and settling on the thatched roofs like woolly nightcaps, nature had raised the stakes considerably. Now, jolly puffs of smoke lingered above the cottages, telling of warm hearths and spirits within, field and meadow joined in fluffy, white conviviality, and the cows were all snug in their cow-houses. Or I assume they were, because there wasn’t a living thing to be seen from my window to the horizon except, in due course, a great block of a policeman, shaped like two normal sized-policemen stacked sideways, behaving in a most peculiar manner.
The constable was taking, for his size, slow and graceful strides, tracing an invisible path between the grounds of Herding House and a squat structure of timber and thatching that peeked at us over the edge of a shallow dale. I took this to be Tannery Lodge, the home of Flaps Fleming. I idled at the window and watched the bobby in the snow, partially out of curiosity and partially because of the bucolic symmetry of a winter landscape observed from a deep leather armchair in a low, beamed-ceiling bedroom of stone walls, a four-poster bed, and a crackling fire in a pot-belly brazier.
The immense policeman would occasionally stoop to examine a compelling bit of snow and take note of it in his notebook, before continuing and eventually disappearing over the meadow’s edge. By and by, he returned, performing the same staggered, fastidious examination of his route, and now that he was facing me I could see that he was a square-jawed, serious-faced chap who, having resigned himself to gingerhood, had gone all in and sprouted a wobbly great orange moustache .
“Constable Kimble,” announced Puckeridge as I tapped down the rustic oak staircase to the main hall. In the doorway was a giant in royal blue with brass buttons, stamping snow off his boots with the energy and effect of one sinking piles for a railway platform. The foyer of Herding House, like most of the place, is of a hunting lodge aesthetic, and with each stomp the wagon-wheel chandelier shuddered, the wood-panelled walls creaked and their paintings of pastoral Hertfordshire bounced, and Puckeridge aged about a year.
“Compliments of the season,” I said, offering my hand. The constable regarded me from a strategic advantage, high atop his shoulders .
“Mister Boisjoly, I presume.”
“Live and in person for three nights only,” I said. “We appreciate your prompt arrival, Constable. Anyone with the constitution of the average aunty would be understandably nonplussed by the situation, but my Aunt Azalea has a considerably lower than average tolerance for encountering dead bodies on Christmas morning.”
“Christmas morning, you say, sir.”
“It most certainly is, Constable. Which is why we’re so grateful for your quick reply to the call of duty, but I suppose one day is much like any other on the thin blue line, all murder and mayhem and loitering with intent, what?”
The constable’s eyebrows lowered magnificently, like resplendent boot brushes, and he fixed me with an analytical eye.
“I am aware of the date, Mister Boisjoly,” he said. “What I wish to establish is the certitude of the recollection of Miss Boisjoly, vis-a-vis the time of day.”
“She seemed quite certain when I spoke to her.”
“Nevertheless, sir, I will be requiring the lady’s statement in person.”
“Might I ask why, Constable? She has quite pressing business with some drapery, at the moment.”
“There was a heavy snowfall, last night.”
“I noticed,” I said. “And I would like to take this opportunity to say how much I appreciate it. It’s not really Christmas without a deep layer of the stuff, settling on thatched roofs like woolly nightcaps, etc., don’t you think?”
“The consequence of a fresh snowfall, in the case of a death by suspicious circumstances, is that footprints are clearly demarcated and preserved.”
“Handy, in police work, I should think,” I said.
“It is indeed most helpful, sir,” said Constable Kimble. “In the case of the death of Major Fleming, there are only two sets of footprints.”
“Intriguing,” I said. “Sounds like you’re already hot on the trail of the killer. Whose footprints are they?”
“Those of the victim,” said Constable Kimble, with some considerable gravity, “and those of your aunt, Azalea Boisjoly.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Intrepid Interception of the Inevitable Inspector
“You made it, Vickers, just in the nick of tea-time.”
My valet, refreshed from his rest in the Herding House laundry, had appeared at the door of the Heath Room, bearing a tarnished tray and a bewildered expression.
“Tea-time?” This was not out of character for Vicker
s. The man had been a pillar of the British valeting industry by that point for the better part of a century, and the pinions would intermittently pop a sprocket. It’s a good job I’m not a man of routine, because Vickers would oft-times serve cocktails at sunrise and run my bath in lieu of preparing dinner.
“Tea-time, Vickers,” I confirmed. “I offer, as exhibit A, the silver platter in your hands.” Vickers looked down at the tray with some surprise, as though it had followed him from the kitchen of its own free will. “Which, I observe, is empty.”
“I had the distinct impression that something was missing,” said Vickers, looking at his reflection in the tray.
“No matter, Vickers. I would seek your counsel on matters more pressing.”
“More pressing than tea, sir?”
“If you can imagine it. Tell me, what’s the general disposition below-stairs at Herding House?”
“Herding House?” said Vickers. He relaxed his scrutiny of the tray and ventured into the room, taking it in like a tourist on Regents Street.
“We’re at Herding House, Vickers,” I reminded him. “We’re visiting my Aunty Azalea.”
“Of course. Herding House.” Vickers locked the tray under his arm and assumed a military bearing. “The facilities and servants’ quarters occupy the back half of the ground floor. Accommodations are very generous.”
“You’re not arm-wrestling Puckeridge for the top bunk, then.”
“No, sir. My room is most commodious.”
“I’m delirious to hear it,” I said. “But in fact I was enquiring more about the mood among the staff, with particular emphasis on the untimely passing of Flaps Fleming.”
“My impression is that Major Fleming was regarded, both here and throughout the village, as something of a local treasure.” Vickers was gearing up, now, and had reached something nearing a cruising speed. The man had little capacity nor, so far as I could tell, interest in forming new memories, but his recollection of the distant past was encyclopaedic.
“Had you heard of him?”
The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 2) Page 1