The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning (Anty Boisjoly Mysteries Book 2)

by PJ Fitzsimmons

  “To France,” said Ivor, and raised his cup. We all joined him in toasting, but a moment later Ivor lowered his cup and examined it suspiciously.

  “Did I drink that already?”

  “You neglected to fill it.” I leapt to ladle duty. “Allow me.”

  “Off-duty, Inspector?” asked Everett.

  “I’m never off-duty. Why do you ask?”

  “I admire that, Inspector. It’s part of what makes me proud to be British, the thin blue line. Ever vigilant, never flag nor fail. I just thought you had it all sorted it, is all.”

  “Not quite,” admitted Ivor. “I like to be thorough. And I’m still bothered by the footprints in the snow.”

  “Constable Kimble says that they prove conclusively that Miss Boisjoly — begging your pardon, Anty — must have done the murder.”

  “The murder? Pish.” Ivor rather exaggerated the ‘shhh’ on ‘pish’, as though he was slowly deflating. “That’s all done but the gavelling.”

  “Then what is it about the footprints, Inspector, which still weighs upon your mind?” I asked.

  “It’s as you said — there should be footprints on the roof of the church. Unless...” Ivor held my eye while he took another draw on his hot humour. “Unless it happened before yesterday’s snowfall. Then the tracks would have been covered up, at least enough to hide them from view.”

  “You’re talking about the missing cow,” I surmised.

  “Wouldn’t we all have noticed it missing sometime during the day?” asked Everett.

  “The inspector’s view is that, hardened as our minds are to the sight of the calf, we didn’t take note of the fact that it had been replaced.” I explained.

  “Most ingenious, Inspector,” said Everett. “How do you proceed from here?”

  “Good… old… fashioned…” Ivor tapped the table with each word, more or less. “Police work. I mean to search the museum.”

  “What? Tonight?” I asked.

  Ivor squinted in thought, as though focusing on the question, which occupied an uncertain spot somewhere in the air between us. “Yes. Why not? I’m feeling particularly…” He looked into his cup for inspiration. “...intuitive tonight.”

  “It’s too late,” complained Barking, nodding toward the clock. “It’s just gone nine-thirty.”

  “Crime never rests, Mister Barking,” declared Ivor.

  “I’ll have to get the key from the vicar,” said Barking, with petulant resignation. He disentangled himself from behind the table. “Back as soon as I can, that’s assuming I can even raise Mister Padget at this time of night.”

  Barking wrapped himself against the cold and left us.

  “Good lad,” said Ivor.

  “Solid gold,” agreed Everett. “However, I feel quite confident, Inspector, that you’ll find no evidence of foul play in the museum.”

  “Why do you say that?” Ivor asked this distractedly, then drained his cup and held it out for a refill, and I obliged.

  Everett took an uncharacteristically prolonged breath before declaring, “I believe that the bronze Hildy was taken by none other than... the Graze Hill Ghost.”

  “There’s a Graze Hill Ghost?” I asked.

  “I think so,” nodded Everett thoughtfully. “Do you like it? I find the alliteration works well. Having said that, there’s a lot to be said for ‘The Spirit of Hertfordshire’. Broader appeal, more upbeat and modern, puts Graze Hill at the centre of a regional campaign.”

  “Would this be the ghost of Flaps Fleming, who visited the bar?” I asked. “Or the mischievous phantom who nicked the bronze weather vane?”

  “Both. All of them. Including the spirit squadron. Have you heard that story? It’s a cracking tale.”

  “I did. Did you hear it from the major?”

  “Monty told me,” said Everett. “You could hear a pin drop. The major never mentioned it, though. Too painful. You could tell by the look on the poor man’s face. Monty kept asking him if he remembered the names of the fallen. It was all the major could do to look him in the eye.”

  “But the major wasn’t shy about any of his other stories, up to and including the encounter with the Zeppelins, when the entire squadron, according to Flaps, lost their lives.”

  “Chilling. Still sends shivers down my spine.”

  “I’ve seen this before,” said Ivor, as though confiding an insight. “He’s endeavouring to make a point.”

  “Very astute, Inspector. I am. Everett, did the major ever tell you about emerging from a cloud in perfect formation with a squadron of enemy fighters?”

  “An extraordinary tale of iron will,” confirmed Everett. “Do you think you could have held your nerve in such an encounter? I doubt I could have, but that’s the difference between heroes and the rest of us. No doubt Saint George was much the same, finding himself in close quarters with a dragon.”

  “How could a pilot, even a very skilled fighter pilot, survive an encounter with a full complement of experienced bosch assassins?” I mused.

  “By being English,” posited Everett.

  “Hear hear,” added Ivor. The men clinked their cups together and drank deeply.

  “And what was the point of the ghost story?” I asked. “It’s obviously piffle, so why tell it? And why tell it so publicly in the presence of one ostensibly able to put the lie to it?”

  “Embellishment, Anty,” explained Everett. “Among the finest British traditions, dating back to Milton. There’s a chap who knew that truth in the telling of lies is like meat in the making of pies — excellent if you happen to have some on hand, but if you’re going to maintain interest you’re going to want to tart it up a bit.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “Monty was making a point. A very risky, dangerous point.”

  “And what point are you trying to make, Boisjoly?” asked Ivor.

  “We had it backwards, Inspector. We believed the first person who told us about the double agent in the squadron,” I said. “But Monty wasn’t the spy — Flaps was.”

  “Steady on, Anty.”

  “The ghost story was Monty’s way of taunting Flaps with the names of the dead. And it’s why he’s here — for revenge.”

  “Where’s Monty now?” asked Ivor.

  “At Herding House,” I said, rising and pulling on my coat. “Alone, with my aunt.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tense Dark Work in a Dense Dark Wood

  I left brisk instructions with Sally, whom I judged the most reliably likely to be in contact with a giant policeman before the night was through, to send Kimble along at his earliest possible convenience.

  The night struck a discordant tone with full, flossy, flitting snowflakes falling in profusion, forming a close crowd that managed to be simultaneously sinister and convivial, like a society wedding. I pushed on against the elements, feeling decidedly heroic and fancying I looked much as Jack London must have pictured the character Buck when he wrote The Call of the Wild.

  I’m not sure what I expected when I burst through the door of Herding House but I feel sure that it wasn’t empty silence. The door had been left unlocked. The lights were out in the foyer. I inched through the darkness until I could delicately, carefully, give the dinner gong a wallop that, on a cricket pitch, would have been good for three runs. Four if there was long grass.

  Within moments the lights came up and Puckeridge appeared, somehow looking every bit the butler in spite of a silk dressing gown with an elephant embroidered on it.

  “Sorry to drag you away from what looks must have been a rollicking great knees-up in the Sultan’s tent,” I said, “but Herding House is still unfamiliar to me and I don’t know where one goes, exactly, when one needs urgently to burst through a door shouting ‘ah-ha!’ Could you direct me?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Where are Aunty Azalea and Monty?”

  “Miss Boisjoly and the Flight-Lieutenant have gone for a late-evening walk, sir. In the woods, I believe.”

&nb
sp; “Muster the staff, Puckeridge, we must find them. Have you any torches?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Pitchforks?”

  “No.”

  “No matter,” I said, without fully meaning it. “I’m running on ahead.”

  “Is anything the matter, sir?”

  “I hope not, Puckeridge,” I said, pulling open the door. “I truly do. See you on the moors.”

  The snow swirled about me as though I was, for the whipping winds and searching cold, a matter of great interest. I trudged through the snow between Herding House and Tannery Lodge, following two sets of footprints and a single set of walking-stick-prints, all of which were quickly filling in. The tracks led me to the treeline and deep enough into the woods to become convincingly lost. After that, the trail was swallowed by the arctic snows.

  In the depth of the woods the wind whistled through the trees and I experienced that special variety of disorientation available exclusively on winter nights in dense forests. Nevertheless, I forged ahead, squinting against the thick snowfall and, for all I could tell, walking in a circle. After somewhere between five and twenty-five minutes, I finally reached the treeline again, but I could only assume that I was on the wrong side of the woods from the village, for before me white hills rolled away into the murky horizon. I sighed at them, though in retrospect I realise they were blameless, and turned back into the darkness of the mystical wood in which East was West and Tops was Turvy. I reasoned that if I managed to walk in a straight-ish line, I would be heading toward the village and hence executing a scientific sweep — modesty forbids, but someone else might employ the term ‘military precision’ — the most likely to flush out Monty before he strangled Aunty Azalea or made good his escape under cover of the storm.

  Sure enough, after pushing through snowdrifts the approximate size and density of the sand dunes of Namibia, I saw the silhouettes of two figures projected onto the screen of the swirling snow. They blurred at the edges and presented a bit like a Chinese shadow theatre with even less plot than those sorts of productions usually have. This one appeared to be about two chaps standing in the driving snow, idly chatting about this and that, but then the story picked up a bit when one of the shadows quite suddenly stabbed the other in the neck with an immense knife.

  “Ack!” I yelled, or something very like that. I was probably aiming for an authoritative ‘Halt!’ or plaintive ‘Noooo!’ but — and I’d only just discovered this myself — I’m not at my creative best when witnessing a murder. Nevertheless, the effect was roughly as expected — whatever I managed to shout, it was received as ‘If you’re done murdering that fellow, perhaps you’d care to step this way and do me, next.’ And that’s what he did.

  Or at any rate, that was clearly his intention. I had something quite different in mind, and I dashed off into the night. My plan, if it could be called a plan and not merely a series of rapidly overleaping feral impulses, was to employ my unique familiarity with the terrain and qualities of the storm to once again trace a circle, luring the assailant into the dense, dark forest, and doubling back to see if there was anything that could be done for his victim.

  I didn’t look behind me but the only sound to join the howling wind and my own fumbling footsteps was someone else’s fumbling footsteps, and so I felt confident that the ‘luring’ part of my plan, at least, was highly effective. I ran on, neither gaining no losing ground, and then, drawing inspiration from raw fear, I dodged sharply right and behind a tree. I stopped and listened. The pursuing footsteps continued, briefly, and then were lost to the winds. Cautiously, bent low, I worked my way back to the scene of the crime.

  Cosmo was beyond help. I’m no expert but I can say with some confidence that, at the very least, it was quick. His eyes were open and he looked, quite understandably, surprised.

  The wind ebbed briefly and the curtain of snow parted long enough for me to see that we were at the treeline, and just beyond that was the village. I could make out no buildings over the ample accumulation of snow at the woods’ edge, but I could clearly see the clocktower — Cosmo had died at five minutes after ten.

  And, if his killer had his way, my own death would be recorded some minutes later. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the snow crunching under his footfalls as he figured out my cunning plan and was now following my footprints. I noticed that the knife that had been used to dispatch Cosmo was gone, doubtless still in the skilful hands of his assassin. I looked around quickly for a weapon or cover or, actually this should have been top of the list, Constable Kimble, and saw only the high snowbanks that had gathered at the treeline.

  In two strides, I was diving through the air, and I sunk neatly and fully into the soft snow. Doubtless something stuck out, but it was dark and this was my best chance. I listened to the footsteps as they slowed and came to a stop next to Cosmo’s body. I imagined the killer examining my footprints which, to him, would appear to have ended where I began my Olympian stride into the snowbank. His first instinct would have been to look up to see if I’d climbed a tree. Realising that was a ridiculous idea, he’d reach the next logical conclusion — I was hiding.

  His footfalls were slow, soft and searching. They shuffled from left to right, stopping at each checkpoint, doubtless to listen for the chattering of teeth or knocking of knees. Nevertheless, he was getting nearer. Through the wall of snow and howling wind it was difficult to determine distance, but some combination of sound, instinct and primal dread gave his position at, approximately, right in front of me, seconds from seeing me, and one second more than that from driving his blade through the snow and into my thumping heart.

  It felt like hours passed, but I think that I was holding my breath so, realistically, probably not. Still there was no sound. In my mind’s eye he stood there, just the other side of a flimsy film of snow. His blade, having developed a taste for human blood, flashed hungrily in the moonlight. I decided to give it a little longer. Not such a bad place to be, a snowbank, all things considered. Not the most comfortable place I’ve ever spent an evening, but certainly by a wide margin the most agreeable conditions in which, to date, I’d ever waited out a homicidal maniac.

  Gradually, reason resumed its reign. Some indeterminable period of time had passed, and a quick inventory determined that I was still alive. It was possible that the killer was waiting me out, but it was much more probable that he’d elected to cut his losses rather than risk being found next to a bleeding corpse. Furthermore, while it was far from a primary concern, by this time a considerable portion of the snowbank had melted through my clothing, and in addition to shivering with fear I was shivering for the standard reasons. I decided to take a peek.

  The moment I determined that I was alone — apart from poor Cosmo, of course, who was still very much a presence — I was overwhelmed with cold and damp. I followed the treeline, merely as a precaution, until I could see the Sulky Cow. Steeling my nerves, I crept out of the woods and across open land.

  I ached with cold. Everything I wore was wet and it conducted and compounded the cold in a way that was only marginally less comfortable than facing the elements naked. I yearned for the warmth of the pub and even more so for the hot, healing potion that even now simmered in an iron pot on the chimney hook.

  The pub was closed. Locked tight and dark. I looked back at the clocktower — midnight. I had been hiding in a snowbank for nearly two hours, and now I faced a cold, wet, aching, quaking walk to Herding House.

  I’m still not entirely sure what the poets mean when they claim that a heart ‘sings’, but when I saw Herding House, glowing warm and welcoming at the windows and the front doors thrown open, and Aunty Azalea standing at the foyer wrapped in blankets and fretting for her nephew, somebody was belting out Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. I staggered inside and into the arms of the blood relation, and wrapped myself in homecoming.

  “I have taken the liberty of running you a bath, sir,” said Vickers, whom until then I hadn’t noticed. “I’l
l just warm it up, sir, and lay out fresh evening wear.”

  “Momentarily, Vickers. Aunty, we must rouse Puckeridge and send him to fetch the constable — there’s been another murder.”

  “The constable’s here, dear,” said Aunty. “So is the inspector. They’re in the drawing room.”

  And indeed they were. Kimble was leaning on the mantelpiece with a cup and saucer, and Ivor was sitting in a Bergère chair with a snifter of brandy and his feet on a matching ottoman, gazing dreamily at the flames. Next to him was Monty, molesting the fire with a poker and splashing about a snifter of his own.

  “Well this is all very cosy,” I protested. Then to Kimble I said, “Did you not receive my urgent request to aid me in my search for… him… and… yes, I see the situation for myself, now.”

  “Miss Barnstable conveyed your message, yes sir,” said Kimble. “But by then Miss Boisjoly and Flight-Lieutenant Hern-Fowler were in the Sulky Cow.”

  “It was all very convivial,” said Ivor. “You should have been there. Everybody else was.”

  “Well, I can tell you who wasn’t,” I said. “Cosmo Millicent.”

  “Chinless chap with a lisp?”

  “That’s him, yes.”

  “He was there.”

  I looked for confirmation to the sober policeman.

  “Mister Millicent was in the pub.”

  “Along with everyone else? Including Aunty Azalea?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Kimble.

  “Excellent,” I said. “In that case, Constable, you don’t know it yet but you’re hot on the heels of a serial killer — when did Cosmo Millicent leave the pub, and who else left at the same time?”

  “He left when we all did, sir — quarter of eleven.”

  “Quarter of eleven?” I asked. “Hang on, when you say, quarter of eleven, do you mean to say one quarter of the hour of eleven, meaning fifteen minutes after ten, or quarter to eleven? Not that it makes the slightest difference, because that can’t be correct in either case — Cosmo Millicent was murdered tonight at five minutes past ten.”