The Santa Klaus Murder

by Mavis Doriel Hay

  I sent a message to Lady Evershot, asking her to come and speak to me in the library. I had not seen her since I had shared that uneasy lunch with the family the day before, and then she had sat at the other end of the table, between her husband and Kenneth Stour, very quiet and preoccupied but still a bit jumpy, I thought.

  When she joined me in the library I remembered my wife’s remarks yesterday. Dittie, I thought to myself, cannot be more than thirty-two, but one might have taken her for forty and not a very well preserved forty at that. She had never been so lovely as Eleanor, who had perfect features and the knack of always posing in a becoming attitude. But before the girls were married I had always considered Dittie the more attractive, because she was more lively and intelligent. Now, as my wife said, she had a hard look. There was something impersonal in her expression, and a tightness of the lips, a recklessness of make-up resulting in crudity, which would have justified a description of her as middle-aged and embittered.

  I asked her to tell me again, very carefully, exactly what she had done on the afternoon of Christmas Day when she heard the news of the murder. To make it easy for her I said I realized that everyone was very upset when I questioned them that evening and might now be able to give clearer accounts of the events.

  She sat in the chair opposite to me, her face in the full light of the window. Her hands were clasped in her lap and before she began to speak she clenched them more tightly and drew a deep breath, as if bracing herself for an effort. She looked past me, out of the window.

  “I was sitting in the drawing-room with several of the others. I was on the qui vive, I suppose, because we were expecting a summons to the hall for the final scene of the Santa Klaus masquerade, as my father had planned it. Oliver Witcombe came in, in the Santa Klaus dress, looked round and went straight to George, who was twiddling the wireless knobs. I could see there was something wrong—no; don’t ask me how I could see; it wasn’t seeing, really of course; it was one of those occasions when one feels something tingling in the atmosphere. Oliver spoke to George in a low voice and I got up and joined them. I was sitting fairly near them. The others didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual. I suppose that, living with David, I’ve become specially sensitive to people’s feelings. You know, I expect, that David is—well, unbalanced; badly shell-shocked. One must always be ready for an upset.”

  She had been talking almost as if I wasn’t there; as if she were recalling the scene for purposes of her own. Now she paused and turned to me.

  “I’m telling you as a friend, Colonel Halstock. I expect that’s irregular. I know you’re questioning me as Chief Constable. But I can explain things more easily like this, if you don’t mind. I was stupid before, because I was—well—frightened, and so I was on my guard. I don’t think I told you anything untrue but I didn’t explain as much as I might have done. I’ll try to make up for that. After the finger-print business yesterday, I realized that I should have to explain and I meant to, even if you hadn’t asked me.”

  “Go on, Dittie. Tell me in your own way,” I urged her. “Probably you all think me a tactless brute, but I’m doing my best to help you all and I’m most profoundly sorry for you all.”

  “Yes,” Dittie agreed dreamily. “It’s horrible.” Then, suddenly, she asked: “You haven’t got a policeman concealed anywhere, taking shorthand notes?”

  I assured her that this was a private conversation, though if she told me anything that was of importance to the case, I might have to ask her to make a statement afterwards. She nodded and looked out of the window again and went on.

  “I got to the point where I went up to George and Oliver in the drawing-room, to find out what was wrong. I’m trying to explain to you how it was that I reached the study before anyone else, as you probably know. I quickly gathered that something was seriously the matter, in the study. I didn’t wait to hear details. George was beginning to fuss about what was to be done. I slipped away from the drawing-room and through the hall and into the library.”

  “You didn’t go to the door that leads from the hall straight into the study?” I asked her.

  Dittie turned to me with a look of faint surprise.

  “No; I didn’t. I don’t quite know why, except that we often used that way through the library into the study. I found the study door locked, but the key was in it, so I opened it and went in. I saw my father—you know how he looked. I went up to his table to see just what had happened. There was a pistol lying on the table and just behind him was an open window. Of course, I thought—someone—had come in through the window and shot him. I couldn’t think what to do; I felt I must do something, but my mind wouldn’t work. I could only think of the window and I pulled at it, but it was stiff and I thought I had only a few minutes, so I closed and latched the shutters and as I turned round again the door opened and Hilda came in, and some others. Of course I see now that it was hopelessly silly; that if things had been as I thought, I had done nothing to help; nothing. But I couldn’t think clearly.”

  She paused, but I judged that it was only to find words for the rest of her explanation. Soon she began to speak again, in a faint, strained voice.

  “Colonel Halstock, I suppose you know what I thought and why I was so desperate. I had seen Kenneth on Monday at the Tollards. He didn’t tell you because he guessed I hadn’t mentioned it and he didn’t want to make you think I was being secretive. No one else here knows that I was there, except David. We said we were going to lunch with the FitzPaines at Manton and David went there, but he dropped me at the Tollards. I simply had to see Kenneth. He had been in the States for a year and is only just back. I didn’t want to tell the family and have a lot of gossip and all of them telling me what they think my duty is. I’d rather they didn’t have to know.”

  I couldn’t see that her visit to the Tollards affected the case, but I reminded her that any fact which was relevant couldn’t be concealed.

  “Yes, I know,” Dittie said listlessly. “I’ve made up my mind to all that and I’ll go through with it. You’re wondering why David collaborated in this. It isn’t easy to explain because David’s character is so contradictory, but he is fond of me and he wants to keep me and yet he realizes that he’s a pretty tough sort of husband. Yet we get on together on the whole and understand each other pretty well. He knows I’m fond of Kenneth and should manage to see Kenneth in any case, so he has the sense not to make a fuss about it. I can’t bear hiding things and pretending and I’m always at my worst if I have to do it.

  “Well, I talked to Kenneth on Monday and he asked me, not for the first time, to go away with him and leave David. I said I couldn’t—not for any virtuous reason but because I am a coward. I am so desperately afraid of being poor—what I should call being poor, which is not being able to have every sort of convenience and to pay people to see to everything that’s troublesome and to travel and run away from oneself. I know it’s despicable, but those are the things that make life bearable. I suppose you can’t believe that I’m really fond of Kenneth. He’s rich now, I know, but the stage is so uncertain and actors, even successful ones, so often end in miserable poverty.

  “It seemed to me that there were two possibilities. Either we stayed in London and I should be continually meeting David’s friends, and Eleanor and her friends, and they would all think me a cad, and although I despise their opinions, I can’t stand up against them. Or else we should go abroad—which Kenneth suggested—and then his career might go to bits and we should be poor. And, you see, I should be cut out of Father’s will if I went off with Kenneth. That was certain, and I couldn’t face losing what I felt I really had a right to and that meant so much to me. Comfort and security—they mean a terrible lot. I can’t take risks. When I told Kenneth that, he said rather bitterly that after Father’s death, when we might both be too old to care, he supposed I would go to him.

  “When I saw the open window, I thought of that. Of
course now I see that the idea was absurd, but I couldn’t think. I was sure that Kenneth had shot my father; that made me his murderer, too, because I had given Kenneth the idea that it was the only way of getting me. I closed the shutters—when I couldn’t shut the window—so that you wouldn’t know anyone had come in from outside. When I saw Kenneth the next day, I thought he had rushed over to see if I had changed my mind about him. And I hadn’t; that seemed, in a way, the most awful part of all. I had been awake all the night, thinking over the situation. Father was dead; I should probably be pretty well off. It would be safe to go away with Kenneth. Yes, I’m a coward; I wouldn’t risk anything; I had to be safe. And yet I knew I still wouldn’t go. It wasn’t just people’s opinions; it’s horrible to feel that everyone is despising you, but I could get away from them. It’s—it’s just David.” Her voice broke. Her eyes were shining and a tear trickled down one cheek. “He’s so dependent on me. If he was more of a brute I could leave him. The story of inherited lunacy, by the way, is all bunk. He’s just neurotic, through shell-shock. But it’s not his fault. It would be so horribly mean to leave him, when I’m the one person who can be of help to him. Oh, do you understand?”

  She dropped her head, propping her forehead in one hand, to hide her face, while she dabbed at her tears.

  I thought I did understand. While she had been rather morbidly proclaiming her cowardice and worldliness as the reason for her refusal to run away with Stour, it was really a very honourable determination to stand by her husband and give him what help she could.

  I tried to comfort her and told her that she had explained a good deal, but I wanted to ask her a few questions. To begin with, what had convinced her that Kenneth was not the murderer? Had she lighted upon some clue?

  “No,” she told me. “We’re all utterly in the dark. I wish you could get to the bottom of it—well; I suppose I do; but of course we’re all frightened of what the solution may be. Not that we have any definite suspicion, but just that it’s all such a wretched mess. Kenneth explained that he couldn’t have done it; I could see he was speaking the truth and there must be a dozen people who can witness that he was at the Tollards’ party all that afternoon. You must know that, of course.”

  I asked her if she had never suspected Sir David. She turned to me in amazement.

  “David! But why should he? Surely you don’t think David did it? He couldn’t have any motive at all! Besides, if he did anything so frightful, he couldn’t keep it to himself. I should know something was wrong.”

  I asked her what she could remember about her husband’s movements that afternoon.

  “David was certainly in the library at first and he went out and came back after about ten minutes. He told me afterwards that he went out of the front door to get some air. I’ve known him do that before, and he probably wanted to get away from the noise of the crackers; he can’t stand bangs. I had asked Father not to have crackers, because of that, and he had promised that there shouldn’t be any, so I was surprised when I heard them. But I thought he had just decided, as usual, that my fussiness ought not to be taken into account.”

  “Do you remember just who was in the library when Witcombe came in?” I asked.

  “Oh yes, because I looked round before I left. I think I was trying to guess how they would all behave and what sort of a fuss there would be. I think I told you on Christmas Day that I couldn’t remember. It was true—then; I couldn’t bring my mind to bear on anything except what I thought Kenneth had done and how I could protect him. But I’m sure, now, that Gordon was there, with Shakespeare and the Times crossword.”

  “Shakespeare?” I inquired, taking him for a hitherto unmentioned guest.

  “Yes, Shakespeare’s works,” Dittie explained, with a hint of a smile. “There was a special crossword, with all the clues taken from the plays. George was there, as you know. David was there, too; he had come back. And when he came back he was quite calm and undisturbed. That would show that he couldn’t have done anything frightful when he went out, or even have known about it. I don’t think there was anyone else. Patricia and Eleanor had gone into the hall when the crackers began and Aunt Mildred had gone to fetch her knitting.”

  “Miss Melbury hadn’t come back?” I asked.

  “No, I’m sure she didn’t come back.”

  “And Philip Cheriton?” I asked.

  “No, he wasn’t there at all, nor Jennifer.”

  I asked if she could remember who was in the hall, but she shook her head. “I went straight through; there were the children and several others, but I didn’t really notice. I don’t think I can tell you anything else.”

  I asked her one more question. Had there been any talk about a new will which Sir Osmond may have made or may have intended to make? Did she think her father had confided in anyone his intended method of dividing his property?

  “I’m sure he hadn’t told any of us. We all had suspicions that Miss Portisham knew all about it, but of course we could hardly ask her. There was a great deal of talk; the others were always worrying about what Father would leave them. Oh, yes! I was too; I was just as bad as the others; worse, perhaps. But we none of us knew a thing, and we don’t know yet.”

  I thought she was speaking the truth. Just before she went out she turned and said:

  “I’m glad to have got this off my chest. You and your wife were always nice to me. I’m glad you know all this. I’ve had a pretty awful time, but somehow it’s a relief to know how I stand. I always thought that Father’s death might make a difference, and now I see that it doesn’t, and I know I’ve just got to stay as I am and stick it out. I’ve made up my mind to it now.”

  Poor Dittie! It was a pretty grim prospect, I thought, tied to that morose unbalanced husband. But perhaps, if she could make a job of it, it would be a finer thing than a runaway match with Kenneth Stour.

  I was trying to convey this idea to Dittie when we heard a timid knock at the door. I called “Come in!” and Miss Portisham appeared and immediately withdrew in a fluster of apology. Dittie hurried out after her and sent her in. She was carrying a wad of typewritten sheets clipped together.

  “I hope I did right to bring this to you, Colonel Halstock?” she inquired. I had forgotten for the moment about what Kenneth called the homework, and I looked surprised.

  “My account of the events of—of that terrible day,” she explained. “I do hope it is what you require. I tried my best, as you said, to write just as if nothing had happened. I am afraid you may find that much of what I have put down is trivial, but of course, it is so hard to judge. I did my best to put down just what I saw and noticed.”

  Having those neatly typed sheets in my hand, I could not refrain from sitting down to glance through them and see if any significant facts were embedded there. I skipped over a good deal of wordy explanation at the beginning and through what seemed the unimportant events of the morning of Christmas Day, until the sentence, Sir Osmond then told me he was going to the study, caught my eye. I read on, and so came to the astounding evidence of the anonymous letter. I think I let out some sudden exclamation of amazement, for I heard a little startled squeak from Miss Portisham and realized that she was still standing there, evidently uncertain whether she had been dismissed or not.

  “It’s this typewritten letter with no signature which Sir Osmond received on—when was it—Christmas morning,” I explained. “It may be important. Why haven’t we heard of it before?”

  “Really, I didn’t know that it was important. Everything is so—so—unusual. I find it very difficult, Colonel Halstock, to judge what it is right to do. In the ordinary way, of course, I should never have mentioned that letter to anyone, it being evidently Sir Osmond’s private business. I was not asked about it, of course, and really it did not come into my mind until I came to write this account, when it struck me that it might have some bearing on the case, though of course, that is
only my idea. I hope I did right to mention it now? I should not like to feel I have been guilty of any breach of confidence.”

  I wondered what more the girl might have locked away in her confidential safe deposit of a mind, but apparently there was nothing else that she could think of, that she had not mentioned in the account. The facts about the typewritten note seemed to be that Miss Portisham had found it on the hall table, where letters and papers were usually put, and had brought it to Sir Osmond. She assumed that it had come by hand because it had no stamp or postmark, but she did not know who had brought it. It was in an envelope of ordinary kind; in fact, similar to some which were kept in the study and generally used by her for Sir Osmond’s business letters. After Sir Osmond had read the letter, he had looked at the envelope rather carefully and had then torn it across and thrown it into the waste-paper basket. The letter he had folded and put in his breast-pocket. Miss Portisham had observed that it was typed on a small sheet of white paper, which also was similar to some kept in the stationery rack on her typewriting table in the study, though she could not be sure that it was exactly the same. He had made no comment on reading the letter, “except a sort of Hm!”

  “Do you think it had been written on your typewriter?” I asked her.

  “Oh, Colonel Halstock, I never thought of such a thing! I naturally thought the letter was brought to the house by someone, who wrote it to make an appointment of some sort; an arrangement to telephone to Sir Osmond at a stated time, I supposed.”

  “He didn’t say anything about a telephone call?”

  “Oh, no. I just thought it must be a telephone call; that seemed most likely. And of course no visitor did come.”