A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

by Connie Willis

Touffét looked pleased. “Ah, yes, a most satisfying case,” he said, and launched into an account of it.

  “What’s a cat’s paw?” Leda whispered to me. “It’s not like a rabbit’s foot, is it?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s when someone uses another person for their own ends. It comes from an old tale about a monkey who used a cat’s paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire.”

  “That’s cruel,” Nurse Parchtry said.

  “No crueler than keeping apes captive and dressing them up in human clothes,” Leda hissed.

  “You don’t approve of Lady Charlotte’s work?” Nurse Parchtry said, shocked.

  “N-no, of course I didn’t mean that,” Leda said, looking flustered. She took a forkful of roast beef and then laid it back down on her plate.

  “Lady Charlotte has only the primates’ best interests at heart in all her work,” Nurse Parchtry said firmly. “She’s utterly devoted to them, and they’d do anything for her. She saved them, you know, from terrible fates. Heidi was being experimented on.”

  Lady Charlotte had apparently heard the last part of that. “Experiments?” she said, interrupting Touffét in the middle of his case. “Primates are still being experimented on, in spite of our having proved they’re conscious creatures and can feel pain just as we do. Our research has shown that they can acquire knowledge, solve complex problems, use tools, and manipulate language. Everything that humans can do.”

  “Not quite,” Sergeant Eustis said. “They can’t commit crimes or tell lies. Or cheat at cards.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Mick Rutgers said, “primates can.”

  “Cheat at cards?” Sergeant Eustis said. “Don’t tell me D’Artagnan plays poker, too?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Various studies have shown that apes are capable of deception,” Rutgers said. “Apes in the wild frequently hide food and then retrieve it when the rest of the troop is asleep, and signing apes who have done something naughty will lie when asked whether they did it. Several times Lucy hid a key in her mouth and waited until her owners were gone, and then let herself out. Their ability to lie and deceive is proof of their capability for higher forms of thinking, since it involves determining what another creature thinks and how it can be fooled.”

  Lady Charlotte was looking curiously at Rutgers. “You seem to know a great deal about primates, for a reporter,” she said.

  “It was in the informational packet you sent,” he said.

  “And you’re quite right, they are capable of deception,” she said. “But they are also capable of affection, fear, grief, gentleness, and devotion. They are far better creatures than we are.”

  “Is that why they attack people for no reason?” James said, coming in and sitting down next to his sister. He snapped his fingers, and Heidi hurried to bring him a plate of roast beef, looking frightened. “Is that why the University of Oklahoma had to shut down their research program after one of their apes bit the finger off a visiting surgeon? Because they’re better creatures?”

  He snatched the plate away from Heidi. “Has my sister told you about Lucy yet? Poor Lucy, who got sent back to the jungle to be killed by poachers? Did she tell you why Lucy got sent back? Because she attacked her owner.” He smiled maliciously at Heidi. “That could happen to you, too, you know. And your friend D’Artagnan.”

  “I’d attack my owner, too, if I were an intelligent creature being treated like a slave,” Mick Rutgers said, and Lady Charlotte gave him a grateful look, and then frowned, as if she were trying to place something.

  I’d hoped there would at least be a plum pudding in honor of Christmas, but there was only vanilla custard, which reminded me unpleasantly of Lord Alastair’s tapioca, but at least it meant an end to the meal. When Lady Charlotte said, “Shall we adjourn to the solarium?” I practically leaped out of my chair.

  “Not yet,” Touffét said. “Madam, you still have not informed me of the mystery you wished me to solve.”

  “All in good time,” she said. “We must play a game first. No Christmas Eve is complete without games. Who wants to play Hunt the Slipper?”

  “I do,” Nurse Parchtry piped up, and then looked nervous, as if she should not have called attention to herself.

  “I have no intention of hunting all over the house for someone’s smelly shoe,” James said, and Touffét shot him an approving glance.

  “How about Musical Chairs?”

  “No. That’s as bad as Hunt the Slipper,” James said. “I think we should play Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral.”

  “That’s because you’re so good at it,” Lady Charlotte said, but some of the bitterness seemed to have gone out of both their voices, perhaps because it was, after all, Christmas Eve.

  Lady Charlotte led the way to the library. “I’m so glad Lord Alastair is still asleep,” Nurse Parchtry said to me as we followed Lady Charlotte. She held the monitor up close to my ear. I could barely hear his faint, even breathing. “He won’t wake up for hours,” she said happily. “I love Christmas games.”

  “You should have come with me to my sister’s, Touffét,” I whispered to him. “You would only have had to play charades.”

  “Who shall be first?” Lady Charlotte said after we’d settled ourselves in the canvas chairs. “Sergeant Eustis? You must go and stand out in the corridor while we decide on an object.”

  Sergeant Eustis obligingly went out of the room and shut the door behind him.

  “All right, what shall it be?” Lady Charlotte said brightly.

  “Vegetable,” Leda said.

  “A Christmas tree,” Nurse Parchtry said eagerly.

  “He’d guess that in a minute,” James said. “A literary character. It always takes them at least a dozen questions to determine it’s fictional.”

  “Father Christmas!” Nurse Parchtry said.

  Everyone ignored her.

  “What do you think it should be, Inspector Touffét?” Lady Charlotte asked.

  “The mystery which you asked me here to solve,” Touffét said.

  “No, that’s too complicated,” Lady Charlotte said. “I’ve got it! Fingerprints! It’s perfect for a police officer.”

  A spirited discussion ensued over whether fingerprints were animal, vegetable, or mineral, and, unable to decide, they chose Goldilocks instead.

  “She’s a fictional character, and she committed a crime.”

  Sergeant Eustis was called in and began guessing. As predicted, he used thirteen of his twenty questions to determine that it was a fictional character, and then astonished everyone by guessing “Goldilocks” immediately.

  “How did you guess?” Leda asked.

  “It’s always Goldilocks,” he said. “Because I’m a police detective. Breaking and entering, you know.”

  One by one, everyone except Touffét took their turn at standing in the corridor and attempting to guess—a plum pudding (Nurse Parchtry’s suggestion), the slipper in Hunt the Slipper, a map of Borneo, and a pair of embroidery scissors.

  When it was James’s turn, he demanded to be allowed to take a chair with him out into the corridor. “I don’t intend to stand there forever while you all try to pick something that will fool me. I must warn you, I have never failed to guess the answer.”

  “He’s quite right,” Lady Charlotte said, smiling. “Last Christmas he guessed it in four.”

  “Mistletoe,” Nurse Parchtry said.

  “It’s got to be a fictional character,” Rutgers said. “He admitted himself it’s the hardest to guess.”

  “No, his is always a fictional character. It needs to be someone real. And someone obscure. Anastasia!”

  “I would hardly call Anastasia obscure,” I said.

  “No, but if he asks ‘Is the person living?’ we can say we don’t know, and he’ll think it’s a fictional character.”

  “What if he’s already asked if it’s a fictional character and we’ve said no?”

  “But it was a fictional character,” Leda said. “I
saw the Disney film when I was little.”

  “And when he asks if it’s animal, vegetable, or mineral,” Sergeant Eustis said. “We can say mineral. Because her body was burned to ashes.”

  “We don’t know that,” Lady Charlotte said. “Her bones have never been found.”

  It was a good thing James had insisted on the chair. It took us nearly fifteen minutes to decide, during which time Touffét looked increasingly as if he were going to explode.

  “But, if he knows we know he always guesses fictional characters,” Sergeant Eustis said, “then he’ll think we won’t choose one, so we should.”

  “King Kong,” Nurse Parchtry said.

  There was an embarrassed silence.

  “I think perhaps we should avoid any references to primates,” Lady Charlotte said finally.

  We finally decided on R2D2, who was both mineral and animal (the actor inside him) and fictional and real (the actual tin can), and had the advantage of being from an old movie, which Lady Charlotte said her brother never watched.

  James guessed it in four questions.

  “All right,” Lady Charlotte said, looking round the room. “Who hasn’t gone yet? Mr. Rutgers?”

  “I was a pair of embroidery scissors, remember?”

  “Oh, yes. Mr. Touffét, you’re the only one left. Come along. I’m sure you’ll solve it even more quickly than my brother.”

  “Madam,” Touffét said, and his voice was deadly quiet. “I did not come to Marwaite Manor to play at games. I came in response to your request to solve a mystery. I wish to know what it is.”

  Either Lady Charlotte was tired of thinking up things, or she sensed the deadliness in Touffét’s voice.

  “You’re quite right,” she said. “It is time. What Inspector Touffét said is true. I asked him here to solve a mystery, a mystery so baffling only the greatest detective in the world could solve it.”

  She stood up, as if to make a speech. “The research my Institute has done has proved that primates are capable of higher-thinking skills and complex planning, that they can think and understand and speak and even write.”

  “Madam,” Touffét said, half rising.

  She waved him back to sitting. “The mystery that I wish Inspector Touffét to solve is this: Since it has been proved that primates have thoughts and ideas equivalent to those of humans, that they are by every standard human, why are they not treated as human? Why do they not have legal standing in the courts? Why are they not allowed to vote and own property? Why have they not been given their civil rights? Inspector Touffét, only you can solve this mystery. Only you can give us the answer! Why are apes not given equal standing with humans?”

  “You’ve been taken in, Touffét,” I said, I must admit with some pleasure. “Lady Charlotte only invited you here as a publicity stunt. She wanted you to be a pitchman for her Institute.” I laughed. “This time it’s you who’s the cat’s paw. She’s using you to get chimpanzees the vote.”

  “A cat’s paw,” he said, offended. “I do not allow myself to be used as a cat’s paw.” He pulled his bag off the top of the bureau. “What time is the next train to your sister’s?”

  “You’re leaving?” I said.

  “We are leaving,” he said. “Telephone your sister and tell her we will arrive tonight. Inspector Touffét does not allow himself to be used by anyone.”

  Well, at any rate my sister would be happy, I thought, going downstairs to telephone her. I pulled the train schedule out of my pocket. If we were able to catch the 9:30 train, we could be there before midnight. I wondered whether Lady Charlotte would arrange for us to be driven to the station, and whether the driver would be D’Artagnan. I decided under the circumstances I’d better phone for a taxi as well. D’Artagnan was devoted to her. He might not like the idea of our leaving.

  I started to open the door of the study and then stopped at the sound of a woman’s voice. “No, it’s going fine,” she said. “You should have seen me. I was great. I even ate roast beef.” There was a pause. “Tomorrow, while they’re touring the compound. Listen, I’ve gotta go.”

  I backed hastily away, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping, and into the solarium. For a moment I thought there were two people standing by the window, and then I realized it was Heidi and D’Artagnan. Heidi was signing animatedly to the gorilla, and he was nodding.

  They stopped as soon as they saw me, and D’Artagnan started toward me. “Help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for a telephone,” I said, and he led me out into the corridor and over to the study.

  I phoned my sister. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the station. Have you had dinner?”

  “Only a bite.”

  “I’ll bring you a sandwich.”

  When I got back upstairs, Touffét was already waiting by the lift with our bags. “Have you telephoned for a taxi?” he asked, pushing the lift button.

  “Yes,” I’d started to say, when the air was split by a shrill, terrified scream from somewhere above us.

  “Good Lord, Touffét!” I said. “It sounds like someone’s being murdered.”

  “No doubt Lady Charlotte has discovered I am leaving,” he said dryly, and pushed the button again.

  Rutgers came tumbling out of his room, and Leda’s blond head appeared. “What was that? It sounded like an animal being tortured.”

  “I think we should take the stairs,” I said, but before I could turn, the lift opened, and Nurse Parchtry fell into my arms.

  “It’s Lord Alastair!” she sobbed. “He’s dead!”

  “Dead?” Touffét said.

  “Yes!” she said. “You must come!” She stepped back into the lift. “I think he’s been murdered!”

  We followed her into the lift. “Murdered?” Mick Rutgers said from down the hall, but the door was already shutting.

  “See if Sergeant Eustis has gone,” Touffét called through the closing door. “Now,” he said to Nurse Parchtry as the lift started. “Tell me exactly what happened. Everything. After the games did you return to the nursery?”

  “Yes. No, I went to my room to finish wrapping my Christmas presents,” she said guiltily. “I had the baby monitor with me.”

  “And you heard nothing?” Touffét asked.

  “No. I thought he was sleeping. He wasn’t making any noise at all.” She started to sob again. “I didn’t know the monitor was broken.”

  The lift doors parted, and we stepped out. The door to the anteroom stood ajar. “Was this door open when you arrived?”

  “Yes,” she said, leading the way into the anteroom. “And this one, too.” She pointed at the door to the nursery. “I thought he’d gotten out. But then I saw…him….” She buried her head in my jacket.

  “Come, madam,” Touffét said sternly. “You must pull yourself together. You said you had always wished to see me solve a mystery. Now you shall, but you must help me.”

  “You’re right, I did. I will,” she said, but when we went into the nursery, she hung back reluctantly and then grabbed on to my arm for support.

  The place was a shambles. Lord Alastair’s bed had been overturned and the bedclothes dragged off it. The pillows had been torn up, the stuffing flung in handfuls about the room. The rocking chair, bowls, toys, tire—all looked as if they had been thrown about the room in a violent rage. Lord Alastair lay on his back in the middle of the floor, half on a rumpled blanket, his face swollen and purple.

  “Did you touch anything?” Touffét asked, looking around the room.

  “No,” Nurse Parchtry said. “I knew from your cases not to.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “I did touch him. I took his pulse and listened to his heart. I thought perhaps he wasn’t dead.”

  He looked dead to me. His face was a horrible purplish-blue color, his tongue pushing out of his mouth, his eyes bulging, his neck bruised. And she was a nurse. She should have known at a glance there was no hope of resuscitation.

  “Did you touch anything else?” Touff
ét said, squatting down and holding out his monocle to look closely at Lord Alastair’s neck.

  “No,” she said. “I screamed, and then I ran to find you.”

  “Where did you scream?”

  “Where?” she said blankly. “Right here. By the body.”

  He stood up and looked at the glass partition and then walked over to the wall. The baby monitor lay against it, its back off and the front of the case broken in two pieces.

  “That’s why there was no sound from the monitor,” I said. “That means he could have been killed anytime after dinner.”

  “And no one has an alibi,” Nurse Parchtry said. “We were all out in the corridor by ourselves for several minutes.”

  Touffét had picked up the baby monitor and was examining the switch. “Should you be doing that?” I asked. “Won’t it smudge the fingerprints?”

  “There are no fingerprints,” he said, putting the monitor back down, “and none on the neck, either.”

  “I warned you!” James said, appearing in the doorway. “I told you that ape was dangerous, and now he’s killed my father!” He strode over to the body.

  “I need to secure this crime scene,” Sergeant Eustis said, coming into the room, unreeling yards and yards of yellow “Do Not Cross” tape. “I’ll have to ask all of you to leave. Don’t touch anything,” he said sharply to James, who was putting his hand to his father’s neck. “This is a murder investigation. I’ll want to question everyone downstairs.”

  “Murder investigation!” James said. “There’s no need for any investigation! I’ll tell you who murdered my father. It was that ape!”

  “The evidence will tell us who killed him,” Sergeant Eustis said, walking back over to the body. “Inspector Touffét, come look at this. It’s a hair.”

  He pointed to a long, coarse black hair lying on Lord Alastair’s pajama’d chest.

  “There! Look at that!” James said. “There’s your evidence!”

  Sergeant Eustis took out an evidence bag and a pair of tweezers and carefully placed the hair in the bag. While all this was going on, Touffét had walked over to the far wall and was looking at the lidded cup, which had apparently hit the wall and bounced. Cocoa was splattered across the wall in a long arc. Touffét picked up the cup, pried off the lid, sniffed at the contents, and then dipped a finger in and licked it off.