Murder for Christmas

by Francis Duncan

‘He didn’t give you any reason?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And that wasn’t like him either, was it?’

  ‘He doesn’t keep many things from me. I did wonder why he hadn’t made at least some comment. I thought——’

  She broke off as they heard the sound of the opening door. Instinctively they drew apart, turning to face it. A tall figure loomed upon the threshold. Saturnine in the gloom, it stood motionless.

  Denys found her mind behaving idiotically. Thunder Without, it said. Enter a Conspirator. She wanted to giggle nervously.

  And then Nicholas Blaise saw them standing at the deep window behind which was now a whirling curtain of softly falling snow. He came into the room. He said:

  ‘Hullo.’ And added, as he came towards them: ‘Cheering on the weather? It looks as though we’re going to have the traditional setting for the Christmas festivities.’

  His manner was easy, but his dark, questing eyes missed nothing. They did not know whether he had overheard any of their conversation and he gave them no hint.

  It was seldom possible to tell what Nicholas Blaise was thinking. Nor was it certain how much he knew. But he had been Benedict Grame’s secretary and intimate companion for many years, and undoubtedly he knew a great deal about every guest who came to Sherbroome House.

  It was difficult to assess his age. He had the air of a young man at first glance, but when one studied him more closely, the slightly receding hair, the shadowed experience in the dark brown eyes deepset against the long thin nose, the expression in the finely drawn intelligent face, all gave it the lie and revealed him as being older than he had seemed. His hands were long-fingered, artistic, expressive. He might be an unobtrusive background figure, but there was little that escaped him.

  There was a faint air of amusement about him now. He had the look of a man who was fully aware that an attempt was being made to keep something from him, and who was savouring the irony of the fact that he knew quite well what that something was.

  It was a little disturbing. Denys Arden found herself waiting for him to speak with a feeling of tension. It was absurd, of course. Nick was perfectly normal and was behaving in a perfectly ordinary way. It was her imagination that was making her think there was something vaguely mysterious in his manner. It was Roger’s fault. His ridiculous fancies about the house and the people in it were making her see things that did not exist.

  ‘I hope it will pitch.’ Blaise was peering out of the window. ‘If we have a good fall Benedict will be in his element.’

  It was so much the ordinary kind of remark he might have been expected to make that Denys felt security returning.

  ‘Uncle Benedict certainly likes to have all the Christmas trimmings,’ she said, with relief. ‘I suppose he’ll be playing his usual part?’

  Blaise turned back from the window with a smile.

  ‘I think he looks forward to Christmas Eve all the year. He was sorting out his costume this morning and he’s been hiding mysterious parcels for days past!’

  Christmas with Benedict Grame followed an orthodox and unvarying course. A house full of people, a large Christmas tree and Grame himself taking a child’s natural delight in appearing late on Christmas Eve in full regalia of long red cloak and white beard, making what he imagined to be an unobserved visit to the tree for the purpose of loading it with presents for his guests.

  He was a bachelor, and it seemed that having no children upon whom to expend his enthusiasms he had chosen this method of finding enjoyment. The very nature of his idiosyn-cracy ensured its being regarded tolerantly, and since Grame was a rich man whose generosity was well-known amongst his acquaintances, he was able to indulge in his annual playacting without ridicule. As a rule his guests knew of his custom before their arrival; if they didn’t they soon learned their cues from their more experienced companions.

  If any cynics, stripped of sentiment by contact with a harshly materialistic world, thought that it was an odd kind of foible for a man like Grame to possess, they kept their counsel. Courtesy and the Christmas atmosphere had a great deal to do with their attitude, of course, but it must be admitted that the fact that Benedict Grame was not the sort of man whom it was policy to cross was not without its own significance.

  The blue eyes sheltering beneath the bushy grey eyebrows were normally calmly philosophic, but there were times when they could flash a spark to kindle his anger. And on those occasions the big, raw-boned frame would seem to expand to dominating size, and one would realize that the slow-moving man who regarded life with such amused detachment, and who could derive a youthful pleasure from disporting himself as Father Christmas, had fire within him.

  Denys Arden had made the discovery when she was a small girl, and the respect it had engendered when the man she had always termed her uncle had found her engaged in a wild abandon of infant scribbling among the papers in the forbidden territory of his study, and had taken her to task, had remained with her through the years.

  For some inexplicable reason that ages-old but still remembered incident came fleetingly back into her mind as she stood looking at Nicholas Blaise. He wondered what was in her thoughts, but she did not tell him the reason for the flicker of amusement in her eyes. Instead she said:

  ‘Who’s going to be here, Nick?’

  ‘The usual crowd,’ he told her. ‘Rosalind Marsh, Austin Delamere—all of us, of course. The Napiers are coming. They’ll be bringing Mrs. Tristam.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Denys.

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicholas Blaise.

  Lucia Tristam was becoming a frequent visitor. Her age was indeterminate. She was over thirty, but beyond that speculation was difficult. Undeniably she was a good-looking woman. Her dark red hair, luxuriant and with a myriad subtle glints of flame in it when she tossed her head against the light with studied carelessness, would have saved her from being ignored in any gathering. Possessing in addition a colourful personality and a figure of tawny grace, she was in no danger of languishing unadmired.

  ‘She’s a widow, isn’t she?’ said Wynton.

  ‘So she says,’ observed the girl. ‘We don’t know that she’s a widow, any more than we know that her name really is Lucia.’

  ‘You mean they’re both attributes acquired for effect? I gather you’re not fond of the lady?’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Denys bluntly.

  ‘Of course, you haven’t met Mrs. Tristam yet,’ interposed Blaise, obviously sensing danger and addressing himself to Wynton before the girl could elaborate. ‘You haven’t been over a great deal since she’s been down here, and so far your visits and hers haven’t managed to coincide. She came to stay with the Napiers last September.’

  ‘For a month,’ said the girl.

  ‘I don’t think any definite time limit was set,’ remarked Blaise tactfully, ‘although she does seem to be extending her stay.’

  It was obvious that there was more to be told. Wynton said exploringly:

  ‘She seems to like the air in these parts.’

  Blaise gave him a shrewd glance. There was a glimmer of humour in his brown eyes.

  ‘I don’t think,’ he said, ‘it’s altogether the air.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Denys. ‘Nick is too polite. The Tristam woman is a man-hunter. At the moment she doesn’t seem to be able to make up her mind which man she wants. The odds are pretty even on Jeremy and Uncle Benedict.’

  Roger Wynton raised his eyebrows.

  ‘So that’s it.’

  ‘That,’ she told him, ‘is it.’

  ‘What do the victims think about it?’

  ‘She’s clever,’ said Denys. ‘She has a good figure. And you know what men are.’

  Nicholas Blaise had the wary look of a man who could see troubled waters ahead and had no wish to be lured into them.

  ‘I’ll continue my tour,’ he said. ‘I really came in to see if Benedict was here. You haven’t any idea where he is?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Wynton. ‘I haven�
�t seen him this afternoon.’

  Blaise was turning when Denys said:

  ‘Just a moment, Nick, before we lose you again. Had you finished telling us about the festivities? Is anyone coming whom we don’t know?’

  ‘Well, there’s Professor Lorring. I expect you know him by reputation at least. He’s the scientist. Oh, and there’s Mordecai Tremaine.’

  ‘Tremaine?’ said Wynton, and Blaise nodded.

  ‘Yes. It’s his first visit.’

  ‘Old or young?’ said Denys.

  ‘Elderly. Something in the sixties, I should imagine. He’s an interesting character. On the sentimental side. I think you’ll like him.’

  Blaise looked from one to the other of his companions as he spoke. They were not certain whether there was anything significant in his manner or not, and he took advantage of their hesitant silence to make his exit.

  ‘Sounds like the mixture as before,’ observed Wynton, as the door closed upon Blaise’s dark figure. ‘Apart from Lorring and Tremaine. And I don’t suppose they’ll make any violent difference.’

  ‘You must admit, Roger,’ said the girl, ‘that Uncle Benedict’s Christmas parties are usually very jolly affairs. He does his best to make things go with a swing.’

  ‘Yes,’ returned Wynton slowly. ‘Yes, he does.’

  He seemed to be preoccupied; he had replied to her in a mechanical fashion. But before she could make any comment the door opened again.

  Wynton sensed the dislike in Jeremy Rainer’s grey eyes even before the older man had crossed the room. He reacted instinctively and antagonism crackled between them.

  ‘I didn’t know you were here, Wynton.’

  The words were calm enough but the frost of enmity was on them. Denys said hastily:

  ‘Roger came over to take me out but I didn’t think the weather was very promising, so we decided not to bother, after all.’

  ‘You were very wise, my dear. It looks as if we’re in for a heavy fall.’

  ‘We were just saying to Nick that Uncle Benedict will be delighted. Snow is all he needs to complete his Christmas effects.’

  The girl was straining nervously to build up a conversation before the two men could reach each other’s throats. Rainer looked at her quickly, as though she had sounded some chord in him and he found the experience disconcerting.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  He moved to the window, and Roger Wynton studied the hard profile as it was poised against the wintry light. Like against like, he thought. Ice against ice.

  Jeremy Rainer had resigned most of his many directorships and was popularly believed to be financing his retirement out of the fortune he had made. He had earned the reputation of being ruthless in business, and some of the reason for that reputation was revealed now in the hawk-like curve of the nose, accentuated in profile, and in the taut line of the mouth that was shut tight above the rigid jaw.

  A hard man, unswayed by sentiment. So they said of him. And unswayed he seemed to be—except where Denys was concerned. Roger Wynton had to grant him that. Such humanity as there was in him had crystallized around his ward. There was no doubt of his fondness for her. No doubt that she was at the centre of his toughly fibred life.

  It was the reason, Wynton’s thoughts whispered, for the man’s attitude. He could not share Denys. She was the jewel he wished to shut away in his heart, and he could not bear the prospect of loss.

  A grey man. That was Jeremy Rainer. Grey hair; grey eyebrows, shaggily massive over the hard eyes that held a greyness as well; grey moustache, close-cropped and stiff; and a grey, forbidding soul.

  Damn him! Why should he usurp the right to control the life of another human being? Why should he presume to dictate to Denys?

  Momentarily a surge of anger that surprised him as it came swept through Wynton’s mind. He wanted to feel his hands upon the wide, intolerant shoulders, wanted to swing the grey form round and thrust his challenge into the wintry face. Wanted to shout that Denys was his and that he would marry her and that Jeremy Rainer could go to hell.

  And then the man had stepped back and both the grey illusion and the sudden storm of emotion were gone.

  ‘I thought I heard a car not long ago,’ Rainer said casually. ‘Anyone turned up yet, Denys?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she told him. ‘It was probably Roger you heard. Is anyone expected today? I thought zero hour was tomorrow.’

  ‘I did hear that Professor Lorring might be down,’ he said, ‘although most people won’t be arriving until tomorrow. Delamere, of course, will probably wait until the day after. He usually leaves his arrival until Christmas Eve. I suppose he imagines he can give us the impression that politicians have to work up to the last minute.’

  ‘What about the other new one?’ said Denys. ‘Besides Professor Lorring, I mean. What did Nick say his name was, Roger?’

  ‘Tremaine,’ said Wynton. ‘Mordecai Tremaine.’

  ‘Who’s Mordecai Tremaine?’ asked Rainer.

  ‘I’m disappointed,’ said the girl. ‘I thought you were going to tell us.’

  ‘Don’t know the fellow,’ returned Rainer. ‘Someone Benedict’s invited down, I suppose, to make up his Christmas party.’

  Wynton was frowning.

  ‘You know, Denys,’ he said slowly, ‘I believe I have heard of him. I’ve been trying to remember where ever since Blaise went out.’

  The frown deepened. And then, suddenly:

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s where I’ve seen his name! In the newspapers! He’s some sort of detective!’

  There was a sharp, snapping sound. Jeremy Rainer had just taken a cigarette from the silver box that stood on a nearby table. The sound was that of the lid being replaced.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said quickly.

  ‘It was that affair down in Sussex last summer,’ Wynton said. ‘This chap Tremaine was working with the police. The newspapers were full of it.’

  ‘He sounds exciting,’ said Denys. ‘What does he detect?’

  ‘The big job,’ said Wynton. ‘Murder.’

  And then he noticed a peculiar thing. Jeremy Rainer was lighting his cigarette, and he was taking rather a long time to do it. Because his hands were shaking.

  2

  CURIOSITY won the day. Mordecai Tremaine knew that if he refused the invitation he would not enjoy his Christmas, because he would be wondering all the time what would have happened if he had gone to Sherbroome and why Benedict Grame had asked him down.

  It was not as if he knew Grame well. Their acquaintanceship was so slight, in fact, that the pleasantly worded little note asking him if he would care to spend a few days at Sherbroome House at Christmas had surprised him into allowing his toast to go cold whilst he had read it at breakfast.

  The letter had been written by Nicholas Blaise, whom he knew to be Grame’s confidential secretary and companion. There was a postscript. Blaise had added, in his neat, artistically flowing hand:

  Please pay us a visit if you can possibly manage it. Benedict will be more than ordinarily grateful. As a matter of fact, I’ve a feeling that there’s something here to interest you. Benedict doesn’t say much—in fact, he doesn’t know I’m making this comment, so I’d be glad if you’d keep it confidential. But I can tell there’s something wrong, and frankly I’m getting scared.

  Mordecai Tremaine had already received several invitations from a wide circle of relatives and friends and he had, in fact, been making up his mind to spend Christmas in Dorset, where several nephews and nieces were busily rearing their families, and where he was sure of a welcome from sundry small boys and girls who were well aware that Uncle Mordy had a soft spot for them and could be depended upon to do anything they demanded of him. But that postscript would not be ignored. It had an air of mystery, and the lure of mystery was something it was not in Mordecai Tremaine to resist.

  In the end he sent off regretful excuses to Dorset and a letter of thanks and
acceptance to Sherbroome. He would arrive, he said, in the afternoon of the day before Christmas Eve, as suggested.

  And having taken the decision he sat down to think over what he knew of Benedict Grame.

  He had met him for the first time in the preceding September at a rather mixed party Anita Lane had given in her Kensington flat. Anita was a film critic of note, and in appearance was as unlike the successful career-woman she actually was as any woman could wish to be. Mordecai Tremaine had known her for several years, and he was very fond of her. In a purely platonic way, he always hastened to tell himself. After all, though she might be in her forties, he himself was past sixty—which was too big a gap to be bridged permanently without a great deal of thought.

  The party had been attended chiefly by artists, writers and theatrical people. Altogether a strange gathering in which to find Benedict Grame who, despite a catholic experience, was inclined to regard such folk with that air of wonder touched with awe, with which those who earn their living by the stage and the printed word are often viewed by laymen.

  Perhaps because they were all three just outside the magic circles of publisher’s contracts and backstage dressing-rooms, Grame and his companion, Nicholas Blaise, had gravitated towards Mordecai Tremaine. By the end of a prolonged evening—they had shared a taxi at 4 a.m.—they had discovered a great deal about each other. Grame had retired from active business and was now living the pleasant life of a country gentleman untroubled by inadequate capital. Blaise was officially his secretary, but was clearly a good deal more than a mere paid servant, being on terms of intimacy that showed that he possessed Grame’s full confidence.

  Mordecai Tremaine could not recall much that had passed between them. As he had grown more mellow he had also grown more hazy—it had not been a noticeably dry party—and at this distance of time large areas of conversation were completely uncharted.

  He had a dim recollection of explaining that he had once been the owner of a flourishing tobacconist’s business, and that he was now enjoying the fruits of his past toil. He was aware that he had mentioned his interest in criminology, and had spoken of his friendship with a number of police officers.