by Otto Penzler
“I didn’t realize that. Although you did tend to clutter up the house with all sorts of silly—”
“How about a thousand dollars for the lot? I’d like to hang that Santa in my den, to remind me of my days with Kubla.”
“That seems a fair price, and this stuff is only gathering dust up here.”
His brother’s check ought to get here tomorrow. He could write Amy a check for a thousand and still cover his condo payment and some of the other bills. And if he could sell the Van Gelder, very quietly, for even $450,000—hell, he could live on that for years. Sure, if you invested that wisely, you could even live well here in Fair-field County.
“I’ll take them with me, Amy, and send you a check first thing—”
“Oh, I’ll have to talk it over with Tops first.”
“Sure, of course. Can you phone him over in Long Island? Now, I mean.”
“Well, he’s off at lunch somewhere, I’m not exactly sure where, with Mommy Nayland and Dr. Boopsy and—”
“Dr. Boopsy?”
“His real name is Bublitzky. When Tops was little, he couldn’t pronounce that and his cute way of—”
“You can get in touch with him tonight, though?”
“Or tomorrow morning, yes.”
“I could take them along now, save me another trip and you more bother. He’s likely to say okay and—”
“I’d better not, Harry. I don’t want to annoy Tops by making a household decision without consulting him first. Unlike the days when you and I were … um … living in the same house, Tops and I have a very democratic marriage.”
“So did we, Amy, until you declared yourself fuhrer and … But that’s, as you say, all lost in the dim past.” He forced himself to smile. “Do call me as soon as you talk it over with your husband. And be sure to wish Tops a joyous Noel.”
* * *
Harry waited until noon the next day before phoning Amy. He didn’t want to convey undue eagerness, which might make his erstwhile wife suspicious.
He let the phone ring eleven times.
After pacing his living room for what seemed a half hour but was actually only thirteen minutes, he tried the Southport mansion again. This time he got their answering tape.
While Chopin music played softly in the background, a thin, nasal male voice said, “Well, hi, this is, as you no doubt expected, the Nayland residence. But, as you may not have expected, neither Tops nor Amy can come to the phone just now. You know the drill, so wait for the beep, won’t you?”
Not waiting for the beep, Harry hung up, muttering, “What an asshole.”
A chill, heavy rain was falling outside and it made his narrow view even bleaker. Harry sat there, phone waiting in his lap, watching the view for another twenty-six minutes.
Then he punched out Amy’s number again.
She answered, sounding impatient and out of breath, on the sixth ring. “Yes, what?”
“This is Harry and—”
“Oh, you picked a rotten time to call, dear heart. I’ve got Mr. Sanhammel in the parlor in his shorts and—”
“Beg pardon?”
“It’s because of the Santa Claus Choraleers,” she explained. “I’ll be right back, Mr. Sanhammel. He’s going on eighty, poor dear man.”
“But why is he in your parlor in his underwear?”
“That should be obvious. As people grow older, they tend to put on weight, as you well know. His Santa Claus suit doesn’t fit him anymore and has to be let out, quite a bit in fact, especially around the middle. But poor old Mrs. Sanhammel happens to be in intensive care at the Norwalk Hospital because of her—”
“What are the Santa Claus Choraleers?”
“A Southport tradition.”
“Oh, so?”
“Every Christmas Eve they roam the streets and byways of our town, every man jack of them dressed as St. Nicholas, stopping at various spots to sing carols and unoffensive hymns.”
“That’s fascinating, Amy. Now about—”
“You don’t think it’s fascinating at all. I can tell by that familiar patronizing tone in—”
“Actually I was wondering if you’d talked to your husband about those second-rate old ad paintings. I’m going to be over your way this—”
“Yes, I did. Tops feels that if they’re really only worth one thousand dollars, why we’ll donate them to St. Norby.”
“I’ll go up to twelve hundred. I’ll donate the money to St. Norby and save them the trouble of—”
“Let me be absolutely candid with you, Harry,” she cut in. “Tops says he’d rather toss the paintings on the landfill than sell them to an odious toad such as yourself.”
“What gave him the notion I was an odious toad?”
After a few silent seconds she answered, “Well, I may have exagerated my accounts of some of the low points of our wretched marriage, Harry.”
He said, “Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“It’s no use. He won’t sell them to you. But, hey, you can go to the fair at the church next month. I’ll have Father Boody send you an invitation.”
That was too risky. If the Van Gelder got out in public, somebody else might recognize it. “Wouldn’t it be much easier if—”
“Poor Mr. Sanhammel is getting all covered with gooseflesh. I really have to go. Merry Christmas and maybe I’ll see you at the church fair next month.”
“Yeah, Merry Christmas.”
The most difficult part was finding a Santa Claus suit. Harry didn’t come up with his plan until the afternoon of Christmas Eve and by then the few costume shops in his part of Connecticut had long since sold or rented what they’d had in stock.
He persisted, however, and finally located a used-clothing outlet over in Westchester County that had one threadbare Santa costume for sale. They wanted two hundred dollars for the damn thing, but since the check from his brother had come in, he was able to rush over into New York State with the cash to buy it. The beard was in bad shape, stringy and a dirty yellow color. When he got it home, Harry used some ivory spray paint on the whiskers and livened them up considerably.
The rest of that gray afternoon and into the evening he sat at his drawing board, studying all the material he’d saved about the Cyclops Security System from the days when he worked on the account. It seemed to him definitely possible, just by using the tools he had on hand, to outfox the type of alarm setup they were using at Amy’s mansion.
His plan was a simple one. There’d be a dozen costumed Santas—he’d found out how many choraleers there were from the back files of the Southport weekly at the library—roaming the streets of the town from nine until midnight. Nobody was likely to pay much attention to a thirteenth. Especially not on Christmas Eve. Amy and Tops were now over in Long Island and their house sat empty.
The Van Gelder Santa painting was resting quietly up in the attic. All Harry had to do was disarm the alarm system, enter the house, and gather up the picture. To throw suspicion off himself, he’d also swipe whatever silver and jewelry he could find. And he’d take all those awful Busino paintings that decorated the hall. The police would assume that the thief had stolen the advertising art under the assumption that it, too, was valuable.
Then, after a safe interval, he’d sell the painting and live on the $500,000. There wouldn’t be any more job interviews with art directors who were ten or twenty years younger. No more loans or lectures from Roy.
To explain his income, he’d pretend he was doing gallery painting. As a matter of fact, he’d been a damn good painter once and he might really give that a try again.
His plan wasn’t a bad one. But what Harry hadn’t anticipated was the fourteenth Santa Claus.
A strong wind came up at nightfall and the rain grew heavier. When Harry went running out to his carport, shortly after ten p.m., the rain hit at him hard.
He was carrying the Santa costume in a large, cloth laundry bag. Later, after he’d changed into the outfit, he was going to use the sack to carry off the
Van Gelder and the rest of the loot. No one would pay much attention to a Santa Claus with what looked like a bulging sack of toys.
The Southport library sat less than a block from Amy’s mansion. The building was dark and there were only two other cars in the unlit parking lot. Harry parked there and opened the sack. He took out the jacket to the Santa suit.
After glancing around at the rainswept lot, he started getting into the jacket. The sleeves had several moth holes in them. Next he struggled into the pants, which were tough to tug on over his jeans. He heard a ripping sound, but when he felt at the trousers he couldn’t locate a rip.
The rain was drumming on the car roof, the wind rattled the tree branches overhead.
“Oh, shit,” he said aloud. “Where’s the beard? Where’s the damn beard?”
He thrust his hand deep into the sack again.
“Ow! Damn it.”
He’d stuck his forefinger with one of the screwdrivers he’d brought along for working on the alarm system.
“Ah, here it is.” He yanked out what felt like the false whiskers. It turned out, however, to be his Santa hat.
“I had the beard. I know I put it in the sack.”
Then he noticed something white on the floor of the car, over on the passenger side. He grabbed up the beard and attached it with the wire ear loops. Stretching up, he attempted to get a look at himself in the rearview mirror. The thing was all steamed and there wasn’t enough light anyway.
Harry started to open the door. “Half-wit,” he reminded himself. “Gloves! You almost forgot the damn gloves.”
They were in the laundry bag someplace, too. “Ow!” He found them and slipped them on.
Nodding to himself, Harry gathered up the big laundry bag and left the car.
Wind and rain struck at him, shoving him off in the wrong direction. He fought, gasping, and managed to get himself aimed right. The wind caught at the beard, and unhooked it from one ear.
Harry rescued it, got the whiskers back in place. As he stood on the sidewalk watching Amy’s dark mansion across the way, a Mercedes drove by on the wet street.
The driver honked and someone yelled, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Sanhammel!” out a briefly lowered window.
Harry waved. Maybe he was putting on weight.
After the car had been swallowed up by darkness, he ran across the street. He sloshed swiftly across the lawn, circled around to the backside of the Victorian house.
He intended to enter by the back door, which couldn’t be seen from the street and was sheltered by a stand of maples. Down across the back acre of lawn was a narrow stretch of beach. The water on the Sound was dark and foamy.
“This is typical of Amy,” he muttered when he reached the rear door. “She was always going off and leaving things wide open.”
The door stood an inch open. Gingerly Harry reached out with his gloved right hand and pushed at the door. Creaking faintly, it swung open inward.
After listening for a half minute, he crossed the threshold and started along the back hall. The house smelled exactly as it had the other day.
In the front hall, he stopped and frowned. Even in this dim light he noticed that the Busino paintings weren’t hanging on the walls anymore.
Then he spotted them, stacked and leaning against the bottom steps of the staircase.
That was just ten seconds before he became aware that somebody was coming down the stairs.
“Well, sir, hi there,” said Harry, affecting what he hoped was an older man’s voice. “I’m Mr. Sanhammel from—”
“You walked in at the wrong time, friend.” The man approaching him had a suitcase in his right hand and a .38 revolver in his left. Tucked under his arm was a lighted flash.
He was also wearing a Santa Claus suit and a handsome beard.
“Damn! Somebody else with the same idea.” Harry pivoted and made ready to run.
The other Santa came diving down the stairs. He dropped the suitcase and it hit the floor with a metallic rattle. He grabbed Harry by the arm, swung him around, and hit him hard across the temple with the butt of his gun.
That wasn’t what killed Harry, though. It was falling to the floor and cracking his head against the frame of the topmost Busino.
What the burglar did next was to gather up the loot he’d left downstairs, add it to the loot he’d gathered upstairs, and stash it all in his suitcase along with Harry’s laundry bag. Leaving it behind for a few moments, he carried the obviously dead Harry out of the house and down across the back acre. He left him lying at the edge of the water.
Returning to the house, he collected his things, took his leave, and reset the alarm system. When they found Harry’s body down on the beach, it probably wouldn’t occur to them that a burglary had been committed. Not immediately anyway.
None of the advertising art in the attic was stolen. In January, Amy and Tops did donate the paintings to the St. Norbert fair.
A young commercial artist from Westport picked up the Van Gelder for $225. Harry, by the way, overestimated the value of the Santa painting. It brought only $260,000 when it was auctioned at a Manhattan gallery last month.
THE THIEVES WHO COULDN’T HELP SNEEZING
Thomas Hardy
NO, THIS IS NOT THE USUAL TALE of gloom and doom that is so closely associated with the work of the Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy. The title alone suggests a sense of lightness and in that expectation you will not be disappointed. In 1896, by contrast, disturbed by the public uproar over the unconventional subjects of two of his greatest novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), Hardy announced that he would never write fiction again. A bishop solemnly burned the books, “probably in his despair at not being able to burn me,” Hardy noted. “The Thieves Who Couldn’t Help Sneezing” was first published in the December 1877 issue of Father Christmas.
The Thieves Who Couldn’t Help Sneezing
THOMAS HARDY
MANY YEARS AGO, WHEN OAK-TREES now past their prime were about as large as elderly gentlemen’s walking-sticks, there lived in Wessex a yeoman’s son, whose name was Hubert. He was about fourteen years of age, and was as remarkable for his candor and lightness of heart as for his physical courage, of which, indeed, he was a little vain.
One cold Christmas Eve his father, having no other help at hand, sent him on an important errand to a small town several miles from home. He travelled on horseback, and was detained by the business till a late hour the evening. At last, however, it was completed; he returned to the inn, the horse was saddled, and he started on his way. His journey homeward lay through the Vale of Blackmore, a fertile but somewhat lonely district, with heavy clay roads and crooked lanes. In those days, too, a great part of it was thickly wooded.
It must have been about nine o’clock when, riding along amid the over-hanging trees upon his stout-legged cob, Jerry, and singing a Christmas carol, to be in harmony with the season, Hubert fancied that he heard a noise among the boughs. This recalled to his mind that the spot he was traversing bore an evil name. Men had been waylaid there. He looked at Jerry, and wished he had been of any other color than light gray; for on this account the docile animal’s form was visible even here in the dense shade. “What do I care?” he said aloud, after a few minutes of reflection. “Jerry’s legs are too nimble to allow any highwayman to come near me.”
“Ha! ha! indeed,” was said in a deep voice; and the next moment a man darted from the thicket on his right hand, another man from the thicket on his left hand, and another from a tree-trunk a few yards ahead. Hubert’s bridle was seized, he was pulled from his horse, and although he struck out with all his might, as a brave boy would naturally do, he was overpowered. His arms were tied behind him, his legs bound tightly together, and he was thrown into the ditch. The robbers, whose faces he could now dimly perceive to be artificially blackened, at once departed, leading off the horse.
As soon as Hubert had a little recovered himself, he found that by great exertion h
e was able to extricate his legs from the cord; but, in spite of every endeavor, his arms remained bound as fast as before. All, therefore, that he could do was to rise to his feet and proceed on his way with his arms behind him, and trust to chance for getting them unfastened. He knew that it would be impossible to reach home on foot that night, and in such a condition; but he walked on. Owing to the confusion which this attack caused in his brain, he lost his way, and would have been inclined to lie down and rest till morning among the dead leaves had he not known the danger of sleeping without wrappers in a frost so severe. So he wandered further onwards, his arms wrung and numbed by the cord which pinioned him, and his heart aching for the loss of poor Jerry, who never had been known to kick, or bite, or show a single vicious habit. He was not a little glad when he discerned through the trees a distant light. Towards this he made his way, and presently found himself in front of a large mansion with flanking wings, gables, and towers, the battlements and chimneys showing their shapes against the stars.
All was silent; but the door stood wide open, it being from this door that the light shone which had attracted him. On entering he found himself in a vast apartment arranged as a dining-hall, and brilliantly illuminated. The walls were covered with a great deal of dark wainscoting, formed into moulded panels, carvings, closet-doors, and the usual fittings of a house of that kind. But what drew his attention most was the large table in the midst of the hall, upon which was spread a sumptuous supper, as yet untouched. Chairs were placed around, and it appeared as if something had occurred to interrupt the meal just at the time when all were ready to begin.
Even had Hubert been so inclined, he could not have eaten in his helpless state, unless by dipping his mouth into the dishes, like a pig or cow. He wished first to obtain assistance; and was about to penetrate further into the house for that purpose when he heard hasty footsteps in the porch and the words, “Be quick!” uttered in the deep voice which had reached him when he was dragged from the horse. There was only just time for him to dart under the table before three men entered the dining-hall. Peeping from beneath the hanging edges of the tablecloth, he perceived that their faces, too, were blackened, which at once removed any remaining doubts he may have felt that these were the same thieves.