Murder for Christmas

by Francis Duncan

  Mordecai Tremaine looked dutifully interested.

  ‘Santa Claus?’

  ‘Benedict,’ explained his companion. ‘He puts on a red cloak and white beard he keeps specially for the occasion and comes down when the rest of us are in bed and loads up the Christmas tree. There’s a present for everyone in the house. I believe he looks forward to it all the year. But let me show you your room and then you can start to meet everybody.’

  He did not make any reference to the postscript that had accompanied his invitation. No doubt he would explain when he judged the moment to be opportune.

  By the time dinner was served all the introductions had been made, and Mordecai Tremaine, still bewildered by a procession of faces bearing names he had not heard before, found himself escorting Rosalind Marsh into the long dining-room glittering with silver and cut-glass.

  She was a very self-possessed young lady, which was invaluable in breaking the ice, for Tremaine had never been able to overcome the disadvantages of being an elderly bachelor who entertained youthful illusions concerning the opposite sex. She was quite ready to talk. To a diffident question he put to her she replied with a frank directness.

  ‘I’m a working woman,’ she told him. ‘I paint. And I run a curio and art shop in town. I’m very expensive and I make my living out of people who have no taste but lots of money.’

  Mordecai Tremaine hoped that he was not betraying that he was both in awe of her and dismayed by her cynicism. Rosalind Marsh’s beauty was of the type for which the category labelled statuesque is the obvious choice. Her fair hair was piled up in an elaborate coiffeur that revealed the full grace of her neck, so that she derived the maximum effect from the confident poise of her head. Her features were clear and regular and her skin was without flaw. Her eyes were wide and brilliant, possessing intelligence and vitality.

  But there was something wrong. Tremaine groped in his mind whilst he listened to her in an effort to discover what that something was. It was, he decided, the suggestion of firmness about her mouth and nose, a suggestion that was too near to harshness. She was too cold, too much the marble goddess. She lacked the warmth of womanhood to soften the too-perfect profile and bring a tinge of colour to her cheeks. She was an efficient woman who looked efficient—and was, therefore, a little forbidding.

  He realized that she had spoken to him.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m rather a social parasite now,’ he told her with a smile. ‘I don’t do anything to justify my existence. I used to be a tobacconist.’

  She was obviously at a loss for a moment or two. And then she said:

  ‘I believe this is your first visit here, isn’t it? Where did you and Benedict happen to meet?’

  It was plain what she really had in her mind. She meant:

  ‘You’re a queer find in this company. Where on earth did Benedict Grame pick you up?’

  Mordecai Tremaine’s eyes twinkled behind the pince-nez. He said:

  ‘A friend of mine gave a party. We both happened to be there.’

  The cloud that passed over her face was very faint, but it did not escape him. Nor did it escape him that the look she gave him was speculative, and that with her speculation was mixed a guarded watchfulness and something that was very like a flash of sympathy.

  He knew that she wanted to ask more questions. But he made no move to help her, and she did not know how to probe further without appearing ill-mannered. She pretended to concentrate upon her sole Colbert course, and Tremaine took advantage of his release to glance around the table.

  By now the conversation was lighthearted and general. No one seemed greatly interested in the mild-looking elderly man who was peering through his pince-nez at the rest of the company.

  So Mordecai Tremaine thought until he looked up to the end of the table and saw Nicholas Blaise. There was no doubt that Blaise had been watching him, and the other made no attempt to hide it. When he realized that he had been caught he smiled, as if he was sharing some secret understanding.

  It was only for an instant or two that their glances met, for Blaise turned away almost at once to address a remark to his companion, but it was enough to bring back to Tremaine’s mind all the dark suspicions with which he had been beset on his journey to Sherbroome. Why had that invitation been sent? Why was Nicholas Blaise so obviously interested in his reactions to the other guests?

  The incident had sharpened the edge of his curiosity. His eyes were keener as he continued his unobtrusive survey. Underneath the surface gaiety of this happy Christmas party, mystery was lurking. Which meant that there might be subtle hints of it to be noted by the shrewd observer.

  Almost opposite him the bald head of Ernest Lorring shone under the lights. The scientist was bending over his plate, taking no part in the conversation. His beak-like nose, large and inclined to be hooked, the fierce eyebrows and high cheekbones, gave him a forbidding air his expression did nothing to relieve.

  A great deal of Lorring’s work was of a highly confidential nature, and it seemed that constant practice in discouraging the curious had effectively negated what little talent he might once have possessed for taking part in social gatherings. His table companions had made several attempts to draw him and, having failed, had turned their attention to their other neighbours, leaving Lorring in aloof splendour, a rugged, silent island in the midst of a sea of conversation.

  Tremaine recalled what Nicholas Blaise had told him of the Christmas atmosphere Benedict Grame delighted to create at Sherbroome, and he wondered whether Lorring would thaw beneath its friendly warmth or whether he would remain, chillingly rimmed with frost, a disapproving and icy spectator. At the moment the odds seemed to be heavily on the frost continuing.

  When he looked beyond Lorring there was a glow within him. He had told himself, when he had been introduced to Denys Arden, that if he could roll thirty years from the calendar she was the kind of girl for whom he would be searching. Now, as she faced him, in an evening gown that emphasized her youthful beauty by its own decorative femininity, she sent admiration happily along his veins. She was so gloriously alive, so eager in her gestures and in her laughter. Beside her uninhibited natural charm, Rosalind Marsh was a marble image whose loveliness was not sustained by any vital flame.

  He realized that his companion had raised her head and was watching him. He said:

  ‘Are they engaged?’

  ‘Are who engaged?’ she said, although he sensed that she knew quite well of whom he was speaking.

  ‘Miss Arden and Mr. Wynton.’

  ‘No,’ she told him. ‘At least, not officially.’

  ‘A pity,’ he remarked. ‘They look as if they should be.’

  He had formed a good opinion of Roger Wynton at their first brief meeting an hour or so before, and the unashamed adoration with which he was looking at the girl, and the fact that her radiance was an obvious reaction to it confirmed that first judgement. Wynton seemed to be a sound, level-headed young fellow, who knew what he wanted without being unsufferably hectoring over it. And he was in love with Denys Arden and she with him.

  If it is open to question whether all the world does indeed love a lover, it is incontestable that Mordecai Tremaine could never resist the appeal lovers make. Romantic Stories provided him with the chief means of satisfying his emotions, but when he came in contact with real-life romance his sentimental soul went racing away joyously out of control. He sat regarding them mistily through his pince-nez, his head on one side. They made a charming pair. He sighed.

  ‘There’s a spanner in the works,’ said Rosalind Marsh drily.

  Tremaine came back to the dinner table from his sentimental dreams with a start.

  ‘A—a spanner?’ he said, just a little disconcerted by her swift perception.

  ‘His name’s Rainer,’ said his companion. She spoke in a low voice so that she would not be overheard, although there was small chance of it in view of the general hum of conversation. ‘Jeremy Rainer. He doesn’t like Roger. Whic
h makes it awkward for Denys because he happens to be her guardian.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Mordecai Tremaine. ‘That’s Rainer, isn’t it, next to Mrs. Tristam?’

  Lucia Tristam had arrived shortly before dinner with a middle-aged couple called Napier who apparently lived in the neighbourhood. Introductions had been hasty, but no one who had met Lucia Tristam was likely to forget her. She was no longer young, but maturity so far had merely ripened her attractions. With her richly luxuriant auburn hair, tawny eyes with flecks of green mirrored in them, and a superb figure of which she was fully conscious, she was a vivid, exciting creature.

  ‘Lucia the Magnificent,’ said Rosalind Marsh.

  Mordecai Tremaine savoured the phrase. Lucia the Magnificent! Certainly it fitted her colourful personality.

  Reluctantly he took his eyes from her to study Jeremy Rainer. It was like turning from brilliant sunshine into grey twilight. Rainer was smiling, but the smile was an artificial one that did not succeed in breaking the grim lines in which his face was set. He reminded Tremaine of Lorring. Like the scientist he did not appear to be sharing the gaiety of the dinner-party.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself much, does he?’

  Tremaine became aware that Rosalind Marsh was paying a great deal of attention to what he was doing, and he looked at her curiously. She said, anticipating him:

  ‘You’re very interested in all of us.’

  ‘I like to study people,’ he told her. ‘Besides, I’m anxious to sort everybody out. It’s a little bewildering encountering so many new faces all at once.’

  ‘If I can help you,’ she said, ‘don’t hesitate to ask me.’ There was a hardly noticeable pause and then she added, ‘For anything.’

  He knew that the words were intended to convey a message to him that went deeper than their surface meaning, but this time it was his turn to encounter the blank wall, for she did not offer him any further encouragement. He groped in vain for a clue, and was baffled by her apparent indifference.

  He looked away from her and glanced along the table once more, and as he did so he realized that his companions were not all complete strangers. Besides Benedict Grame and Nicholas Blaise there was someone else he had met before.

  It was a woman. She was flushed and excited now and she looked altogether more assured, but there was no mistaking her. It was the woman he had seen in the tea-shop in Calnford.

  Her companion was not present but he was not surprised at that. From the secretive atmosphere that had surrounded them in the tea-shop he did not imagine that they would be likely to share the same dinner-table. Otherwise why the clandestine meeting?

  If it had been a clandestine meeting. Mordecai Tremaine pulled sharply on the rein of his thoughts. He was racing away into the regions of imagination again, creating mystery where he had no sound reason for supposing that mystery existed.

  ‘Charlotte Grame,’ said Rosalind Marsh, in response to his question. ‘She’s Benedict’s sister.’

  ‘She lives here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘she lives here.’

  At intervals Mordecai Tremaine found his eyes straying towards Charlotte Grame. There was something about her that intrigued him. Something he could not define. She gave him the impression that she was playing a part, trying to conceal her true feelings. Once or twice, indeed, she seemed to him pathetically anxious to appear bright and gay.

  He could not tell whether or not she had recognized him as he had recognized her. She was never looking in his direction when he glanced at her, and although he tried he could not meet her eyes. He waited impatiently for the end of the meal. Although Nicholas Blaise had not overlooked anyone else he had not introduced Charlotte Grame. Tremaine wondered whether it had been merely accidental or whether he had deliberately refrained from doing so for reasons he would reveal later.

  More fancyings, he told himself, and tried to will Benedict Grame into initiating a move from the dinner-table.

  But Grame apparently was much too content with the situation to suggest a withdrawal. He was seated at the end of the table, beaming upon his guests like some benevolent giant, blue eyes twinkling under the bushy eyebrows, his laugh booming occasionally even above the hum of conversation.

  At any other time Tremaine’s sentimental soul would have warmed towards him. He was so openly enjoying himself, so obviously the small boy at a special party at which he was the most important figure. But now, with anxiety to meet Charlotte Grame bubbling up inside him with an increasing degree of effervescence, his tolerance was in a state any stock market expert would have described as reactionary.

  However, even Benedict Grame’s endurance had its limits, and as soon as he was able Tremaine approached Nicholas Blaise.

  One theory was promptly removed from his list. Blaise had not deliberately avoided introducing him to Charlotte Grame. She had been out of the house at the time of his arrival and had returned only in time to dress very hurriedly for dinner.

  Certainly, said Blaise, he would remedy the matter. Charlotte Grame was standing at the far end of the room talking to Lucia Tristam. Tremaine was sure that she saw them coming towards her, although she tried to give the impression that she was unaware of them. He saw her figure stiffen. A taut expression drew some of the colour from her cheeks. He knew that he was facing a woman tensing herself to meet an ordeal she had been dreading, and doing her utmost to keep her self-control.

  As Blaise introduced them she made no sign that she had ever seen him before, and at first Tremaine made no comment beyond the routine phrases required by courtesy. But when Blaise excused himself on the grounds that Benedict Grame wanted him, leaving them together, he said:

  ‘Didn’t I see you this afternoon in Calnford, Miss Grame?’

  He spoke in the manner of one who uttered a casual remark with the intention of making conversation and with no especial interest in the substance of what he was saying. But there was no doubt of its effect upon her. He heard the sighing gasp of her breath and saw her expression change. And then she said:

  ‘I—I don’t think so. We haven’t met before.’

  ‘Oh, we didn’t exactly meet,’ he told her. ‘I stopped in Calnford for a cup of tea, and I thought I saw you in the tea-shop. Tiny place just round by the Abbey.’

  ‘You must have been mistaken,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I haven’t been to Calnford today.’

  She was frightened now. Her eyes flickered away from him, as if searching for someone to whom she could appeal. Then he saw the relief in her face and he realized that Lucia Tristam was standing at his side.

  ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘You must have a double, Miss Grame. I could have sworn that it was you. But the light was poor and it’s easy to make a mistake over faces.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, clutching at the straw he had deliberately held out to her, ‘it’s easy to be mistaken.’ Her hand went out to Lucia Tristam’s arm. ‘Lucia—Mr. Tremaine thinks he saw me in a tea-shop in Calnford this afternoon. I’ve just been telling him that he couldn’t have. We were together all the time, weren’t we? He couldn’t have seen me.’

  ‘Of course he couldn’t, Charlotte,’ said Lucia Tristam’s cool voice. ‘Probably he saw someone who looked very much like you. Didn’t you, Mr. Tremaine?’

  Mordecai Tremaine turned to find himself within the disturbing range of those brilliantly wide eyes, held and yet baffled by the spell contained in the flecks of green that came and went. Lucia Tristam betrayed no trace of embarrassment or nervousness. He felt that she was surveying him with amusement, supremely conscious of her mastery of the situation.

  She added, after a deliberate pause:

  ‘Charlotte and I spent the afternoon together. We had a lot to talk over.’

  She meant, quite clearly, that the incident was closed. Mordecai Tremaine had made a mistake. He had not seen Charlotte Grame in Calnford. It was to be hoped that he would not refer to the matter again.

  Tremaine dutifully gave the impressi
on that he understood and would forget all about what he had thought he had seen. But he had no intention of forgetting. Because he had made no mistake. It had been Charlotte Grame whom he had seen in that tea-shop behaving like a very guilty conspirator. Her attitude now would have confirmed it even if he had possessed any lingering doubts, for her dismay had brought back the nervous, uncertain air she had managed to hide at dinner under that forced excitement.

  For some reason Charlotte Grame was lying. And Lucia Tristam was also lying.

  Why? What were they trying to conceal? Why were they at such pains to lie to a complete stranger over such an apparently innocent matter as a visit to an ordinary tea-shop?

  Mordecai Tremaine experienced another of those anticipatory stirrings within him. It was, he felt, going to be an interesting Christmas.

  4

  MORE snow fell during the night, and when Mordecai Tremaine looked out of his frosted window the countryside was smooth, and he could not trace the road along which he had come because the fresh fall had repaired the damage caused by car tyres and left a uniform whiteness everywhere. He pushed the window open and leaned out. The cold air numbed his face and took his breath away. He shivered and, drawing back into his bedroom, began his exercises.

  Normally he arose at 6.30 a.m. He had decided that to adhere to his custom at Sherbroome would merely mean wandering disconsolately about the house, an object of suspicion to the servants, and he had allowed himself the luxury of an extra hour in bed. By way of a peace offering to conscience he spent an additional ten minutes over his exercises and dressed in a healthy glow.

  Christmas Eve. He wondered what developments the day would bring. He had already seen enough to be aware that his fellow guests and the regular inhabitants formed an intriguingly diverse collection of human beings by whom anything might be concealed and among whom anything might happen. It was equally possible, of course, that despite their apparent peculiarities they were quite ordinary and unexciting people, but Mordecai Tremaine preferred to give his imagination the benefit of the doubt.