A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

by Connie Willis

  There was no one at the station to meet us. I suggested taking the single taxi parked at the end of the platform, but Touffét said, “Lady Charlotte will of course send someone to meet us.”

  After a quarter of an hour, during which it began to rain and I thought fondly of how my sister was always on the platform waiting for me, smiling and waving, I telephoned the manor.

  A man with a reedy, refined voice said, “Marwaite Manor,” and, when I asked for Lady Valladay, said formally, “One moment, please,” and Lady Charlotte came on. “Oh, Colonel Bridlings, I am so sorry about there not being anyone to meet you. They’ve refused to issue D’Artagnan a driver’s license, which is perfectly ridiculous, he drives better than I do, and there was no one else to send. If you could take a taxi, D’Artagnan will pay the driver when you get here. I’ll see you shortly.”

  By this time, of course, the taxi had long gone, and I had to telephone for one. As I was hanging up, a sunburned middle-aged man with a full red beard and a black shoulder bag accosted me.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” he said in a heavy Australian accent. “You’re going to Marwaite Manor, are you, mate?”

  “Yes,” I said warily. Journalists are always trying for interviews with Touffét, and the shoulder bag looked suspiciously like it could contain a vidcam.

  “I was wondering if I could bag a ride with you. I’m going to Marwaite Manor, too.” He stuck out his hand. “Mick Rutgers.”

  “Colonel Bridlings,” I said, and turned to Touffét, who had walked over to us and was peering at Mr. Rutgers through his monocle. “Allow me to introduce Inspector Touffét.”

  “Touffét?” Rutgers said sharply. “The detective?”

  “You have heard of me in Australia?” Touffét said.

  “Everyone has heard of the world’s greatest detective,” Rutgers said, recovering himself. “This is an honor. What brings you to Marwaite Manor?”

  “Lady Charlotte Valladay has asked me to solve a mystery.”

  “A mystery?” he said. “What mystery?”

  “I do not know,” Touffét said. “Ah, the taxi arrives.”

  I picked up our baggage. “I hope it’s not far to the manor.”

  “Only a coupla miles,” Rutgers said.

  “Ah, you have been here before?” Touffét said.

  “No, mate,” Rutgers said, the sharpness back in his voice. “Never set foot in England before, as a matter of fact. No, when she invited me she told me the manor was only a coupla miles from the station. Lady Charlotte. I work for the Australian Broadcasting Network.”

  I knew he was a journalist, I thought. “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Lady Charlotte said she had a big story, one we’d be interested in covering.”

  “And she didn’t say what the story was?” Touffét asked.

  Rutgers shook his head. “But whatever it is, she was paying all expenses, and I’d never seen England. So here I am.”

  We piled into the taxi and set out. It was, as Mr. Rutgers had said, “a coupla miles,” and in no time we’d arrived at Marwaite Manor.

  At least that’s what the scrolled wrought-iron sign above the granite gates said. But the buildings in the distance looked more like an industrial compound. There were numerous long metal sheds with parking lots between them and a great many ventilators and pipes. They looked grim in the freezing rain.

  The taxi driver drove past the compound and up a long hill and stopped in front of a four-story glass-and-chrome affair that looked like a company headquarters. “Are you certain this is Marwaite Manor?” I asked him as he was taking our bags out of the trunk.

  He nodded, handing me Touffét’s portmanteau and my bag. “Is the monkey paying me or are you?”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said sternly. I glanced toward Touffét, hoping he hadn’t heard the rude remark. He and Rutgers had already gone up to the front door. “Lady Charlotte’s butler will pay you,” I said stiffly, and followed them over to the door.

  It opened. A gorilla was standing there, dressed in a butler’s cutaway coat and trousers, and white gloves.

  “Good Lord,” I said.

  “We are here to see Lady Charlotte Valladay,” Touffét said, peering at him through his monocle.

  The gorilla opened the door farther.

  “I am Inspector Touffét and this is Mr. Rutgers.”

  “I think they understand sign language,” I whispered. “Rutgers, do you know any?”

  “Come please? Take bags?” the gorilla said, and I was so surprised I just stood there, gaping.

  “Take bags, sir?” the gorilla said again.

  “The taxi’s six pounds,” the taxi driver said, reaching past me with his hand outstretched. “And that doesn’t include the tip.”

  “Pay moment,” the gorilla said, and turned back to me. “Take bags, sir?”

  I had recovered myself sufficiently to hand them to him, trying not to flinch away from those huge paws in their incongruous white gloves, and to murmur, “Thank you.”

  “This way, sir,” the gorilla said, dropping to his gloved knuckles, and led us into an enormous entryway.

  “Excuse moment,” the gorilla said.

  It really was too odd, hearing that refined, upper-class voice coming out of that enormous gray-black gorilla.

  “Tell Lady Valladay you here.” He started out, still on all fours.

  “Good Lord, Touffét—” I had started to say, when a middle-aged woman in khaki and pearls bustled in.

  “Oh, Inspector Touffét! I’m so glad you’re here! Tanny, did you pay the taxi driver?”

  “Yes, madam,” the gorilla said.

  “Good. Stand up straight. Inspector Touffét, I’d like you to meet D’Artagnan.”

  The gorilla straightened, extended a monstrous gloved hand, and Touffét shook it, albeit a bit gingerly.

  “D’Artagnan was orphaned by poachers in Uganda when he was only two weeks old,” she said.

  “Rescued,” D’Artagnan said, pointing at Lady Valladay with a white-gloved finger.

  “I found him in Hong Kong in a cage the size of a shoebox,” she said, looking fondly at him. “He’s been here at the Institute twelve years.”

  “I thought gorillas couldn’t speak,” I said.

  “He’s had a laryngeal implant,” she said. “When we tour the compound, you’ll see our surgical unit.”

  “How’d he get the name D’Artagnan?” Rutgers asked.

  “He chose it himself. I don’t believe in picking names for primates as if they were pets. Our research here at the Institute has shown that primates are extremely intelligent. They are capable of high-level thinking, computation skills, and self-awareness. D’Artagnan is a conscious being, fully capable of making personal decisions. He’s scored 95 on IQ tests. He named himself after one of the Three Musketeers. It’s his favorite book.”

  “Good Lord, he can read, too?” I said.

  She shook her head. “Only a few words. I read it aloud to him.”

  D’Artagnan nodded his huge head. “Queen,” he said.

  “Yes, he loves the part about the Three Musketeers coming to the queen’s aid.” She turned to Rutgers. “And you must be Colonel Bridlings, who chronicles all Inspector Touffét’s cases.”

  “Mick Rutgers,” he said, extending his sunburned hand, “of ABN.”

  She looked confused. “But the press invitations were for the twenty-fifth.”

  “I’m sure the invitation said the twenty-fourth,” he said, fumbling for it in his jacket.

  “That’s what Ms. Fox said. I really must have Heidi start writing my invitations. Her penmanship is much neater than mine.”

  “I could come back tomorrow—” Rutgers said.

  “No, I’m delighted you’re here,” she said, and seemed to genuinely mean it. She turned her warm smile on me. “Then you must be Colonel Bridlings.”

  “Yes. How do you do?”

  “I’m so pleased to meet all of you. Come,” she said, t
aking Touffét’s arm, “I want to show you the compound, but first let me introduce you to everyone.”

  “You spoke of a murder you wished me to solve?” Touffét said.

  “A mystery only you can solve,” she said, smiling that lovely smile. She truly had a gift for making one feel warmly welcome.

  I wished I could say the same of Marwaite Manor, but the spacious glass-and-chrome hall she led us into was as welcoming as a dentist’s office. And it was cold! The icy rain outside the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to be falling in the room itself. The only furniture in the room was several uncomfortable-looking chrome-and-canvas chairs and a small glass table with greenery and candles on it.

  Two people were huddled in the center of the nearly empty hall, next to the glass table—a stout, balding man and a pretty young woman in a thin dress. The woman had her arms folded across her bosom, as if trying to keep warm, and the stout man’s nose was red. A chimpanzee in a maid’s apron, a white collar, and a frilly cap was offering them drinks on a tray.

  They all looked up expectantly as we entered. Lady Valladay squeezed Touffét’s arm. “I have someone I want you to meet, Inspector,” she said, and led him over to the chimpanzee.

  “Inspector Touffét, I’d like you to meet Heidi,” she said. “She came from a medical research lab, and she’s one of your most devoted fans.”

  Now that we were closer to the chimpanzee, I could see that what I had taken for a collar was actually a white bandage round the chimpanzee’s shaved neck.

  “She just had her laryngeal implant, so she can’t speak yet,” Lady Valladay said, “but she has the highest IQ of any primate we’ve ever had here at the Institute, and she’s already reading at a primary school level. She’s read The Cat in the Hat and all the Curious George books, haven’t you, Heidi?” and the chimpanzee grinned widely and bobbed her head up and down. “But your books are her favorites, Inspector Touffét. She’s constantly after me to read them to her, and sometimes she even tries to read them on her own.”

  Lady Valladay led Touffét over to the table, her arm linked in his. “Our primates have even outperformed A-level students on higher-level-thinking tests, but in spite of all the studies the Institute has done, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of primates’ intelligence, people persist in thinking of them as animals instead of sentient creatures. They continue to put them in zoos, experiment on them, kill them for trophies. That’s why it’s so important that the Institute continue to exist.”

  “Continue to exist?” Touffét asked.

  “I’m afraid we’re sadly in need of funds,” she said. “If we don’t find additional donors soon, we’ll be forced to close. We—”

  “I beg your pardon,” the stout man said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I only wanted to tell you how much I admire your work.”

  “This is Sergeant Eustis, our local police detective. Perhaps you two can exchange information about your investigations.”

  “Oh, no,” Sergeant Eustis said, fumbling at his tie, “I haven’t had any interesting cases, compared to Mr. Touffét.”

  “What about—” she began, but the sergeant said, “I’d very much like to hear about the Sappina jewel robbery.”

  “A very satisfying case,” Touffét said, and launched into an account of it.

  I wandered over to where the pretty young woman stood by the table and introduced myself.

  “Leda Fox,” she said, and pointed to a press badge. “I’m a reporter with the Online Times. And I’m freezing.” She leaned forward to warm her hands over one of the candles. “You’d think with all the billions Lord Alastair’s got, he could afford to turn up the heat.”

  “Lord Alastair is a billionaire?”

  “Yes. He made his fortune in AI patents.”

  “I was wondering how the Institute was financed,” I said.

  “Oh, no, the Institute doesn’t get a penny. Lord Alastair never approved of primate research. It’s all financed by donations. So, what’s this mystery Inspector Touffét’s supposed to solve?”

  “I’m afraid I have no idea,” I said, sipping my drink. “What was the media told?”

  “The media?” she said blankly. “Oh. You mean what were we told? Not much. Just that we were all invited to be present at the solving of a mystery by Inspector Touffét. And we were sent a packet of information on primate intelligence.” She frowned. “I wonder what the mystery is.”

  “Something to do with the Institute, perhaps?” I asked. “Lady Charlotte seemed anxious to show us the facilities.”

  “She dragged me all over them this morning,” Leda said.

  “You do not like primates?”

  She shrugged. “Animals are all right, I suppose, but one tour is enough. She wants me to go again with all of you this afternoon, but there’s no way I’m going out in that,” she said, gesturing at the falling rain. “Tell her I have a headache.”

  Heidi shambled over with a tray full of silver goblets, one hand under the tray and the other dragging the floor.

  “What is it?” I asked Leda, taking one of them.

  “Wassail.”

  Heidi waddled over to Touffét and Sergeant Eustis.

  “Poor Touffét,” I said.

  “Doesn’t he like wassail?”

  “He doesn’t like Christmas.”

  “Do you think they’re really as smart as Lady Charlotte says?” Leda said, watching Heidi offer the tray to the police detective. “She says Heidi can do long division. I can’t do long division.”

  “Neither can I,” I said, but she wasn’t listening. She had turned to look at a tall man in his thirties who had just walked in.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Lady Charlotte’s brother, James,” she said. “I met him this morning.” She made a face.

  “You didn’t like him?”

  She leaned toward me and whispered, “Drunk.”

  “Well, well, so this is the Great Detective,” James said, walking over to Touffét.

  Lady Charlotte looked vexed. “Inspector Touffét, my brother, James.”

  James ignored her. “Have you solved my sister’s mystery yet? I heard you solve them”—he snapped his fingers next to Touffét’s nose—“like that!”

  Touffét stepped back. “Lady Charlotte has not yet informed me of the nature of the mystery.”

  “Oh, well, then maybe you can solve a mystery for me. Why is it my sister prefers monkeys to her own father and brother?”

  “James,” Lady Valladay said warningly.

  “Heidi!” James said, and snapped his fingers at her. “Bring me a drink.”

  The chimpanzee hesitated, looking frightened, and then shambled over to him and offered the tray.

  James grabbed a drink and turned back to Touffét. “It’s a true mystery to me. Why would she rather spend her time with a bunch of dangerous, smelly, stupid—”

  “James!” Lady Valladay snapped.

  “Oh, that’s right. They’re not stupid. They can do trigonometry. They can read Shakespeare. Isn’t that right, Heidi?” He tweaked her cap. “How much is two plus two, Heidi?”

  Heidi looked beseechingly at Lady Charlotte.

  “How do you spell ‘imbecile,’ Heidi?” James persisted.

  “That’s enough, James,” Lady Charlotte said, putting her arm around the chimpanzee. “Heidi, go unpack Inspector Touffét’s bags.” She took the tray from her. “That’s my good girl.”

  Lady Charlotte set the tray down. “Inspector, you and Colonel Bridlings must both be tired,” she said, ignoring James, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. “You’ll want to get settled in and have a chance to rest before we tour the compound. D’Artagnan will show you to your rooms, and we’ll meet in, say, an hour in the entryway.”

  A door slammed, but she paid no attention. “I do so want you to see our facility.” She led us to the door. “D’Artagnan, take them to their rooms.”

  “Yes, madam,” he said. He started to drop to al
l fours, but then straightened.

  “An hour, then,” she said, smiling, and went down the corridor and into another room, shutting the door behind her.

  D’Artagnan pushed the lift button.

  “I don’t care”—Lady Charlotte’s voice drifted down the hall—“I won’t have you ruining this. It’s too important.”

  “It’s my house,” James’s voice said.

  “It’s Father’s house.”

  “It won’t be forever,” James said, “and when I inherit it, there won’t be any monkeys in it. I’m shipping them back to the jungle the day Father dies.”

  “So this is your idea of a jolly Christmas?” I asked Touffét, waiting for him to put on his Inverness cape. I had spent the promised half hour attempting to find a telephone. I’d left in such a rush, I hadn’t had time to telephone my sister to tell her I couldn’t come. I attempted to ask Heidi, who was unpacking my things, but couldn’t make her understand, so I went downstairs in search of one myself.

  There was one in the study, a small frigid room across from the solarium. My sister was disappointed but optimistic.

  “Perhaps your Inspector Touffét will solve the mystery so quickly you can come tonight, or tomorrow. We could wait dinner.”

  “Better not,” I said. “We haven’t even been told what the mystery is yet.”

  I hung up and started back upstairs. As I came into the entryway, I caught a glimpse of Leda, in a hooded raincoat, going out the front door. She must have changed her mind about touring the compound, I thought, and wondered if I’d taken so long the others had left without me, but Touffét was in his room, putting on a wool sweater and wrapping a knitted scarf around his neck.

  “At least at my sister’s house it’s warm,” I said, “and no one ever threatens to turn anyone else out.”

  “Exactly,” Touffét said. “And there are no mysteries.” He put on his cape. “Here already there are several.”

  “Lady Charlotte’s told you why she invited us here?”

  He shook his head. “But certain things have struck me. What about you, Bridlings? Have you noticed nothing?”

  I thought about it. “I’ve noticed the brother’s a lout. And that Ms. Fox is very pretty.”