by Merry Murder
“You don’t know what it’s done for me to tell you this. Please don’t feel hurt; but in that uniform and everything you don’t seem quite like a person. I can talk and feel free. And this has been hurting me all night and I had to say it.”
I wanted to take the two of them and knock their heads together; only first off I had to find that emerald and ruby necklace. It isn’t my job to heal broken hearts. I was feeling O. K. now, so we went back to the others.
Only they weren’t there. There wasn’t anybody in the room but only the drunk. I guessed where Mickey and Dopey were: stripped and being searched.
“Who’s that?” I asked Snow White.
She looked at the Little Pig. “Poor fellow. He’s been going through torture tonight too. That’s Bela Strauss.”
“Bella’s a woman’s name.”
“He’s part Hungarian.” (I guess that might explain anything. ) “He comes from Vienna. They brought him out here to write music for pictures because his name is Strauss. But he’s a very serious composer—you know, like...” and she said some tongue twisters that didn’t mean anything to me. “They think because his name is Strauss he can write all sorts of pretty dance tunes, and they won’t let him write anything else. It’s made him all twisted and unhappy, and he drinks too much.”
“I can see that.” I walked over and shook him. The sailor cap fell off. He stirred and looked up at me. I think it was the uniform that got him. He sat up sharp and said something in I guess German. Then he thought around a while and found some words in English.
“Why are you here? Why the police?” It came out in little one-syllable lumps, like he had to hunt hard for each sound. I told him. I tried to make it simple, but that wasn’t easy. Snow White knew a little German, so she helped.
“Ach!” he sighed. “And I through it all slept!”
“That’s one word for it,” I said.
But this thief of jewels—him I have seen.” It was a sweet job to get it out of him. but it boiled down to this: Where he passed out was on that same couch where they took me—right in the dressing-room. He came to once when he heard somebody in there, and he saw the person take something out of a box. Something red and green.
“Who was it?”
“The face, you understand, I do not see it. But the costume, yes. I see that clear. It was Mikki Maus.” It sounded funny to hear something as American as Mickey Mouse in an accent like that.
It took Snow White a couple of seconds to realize who wore the Mickey Mouse outfit. Then she said “Philip” and fainted.
Officer Tom Smith laid down his manuscript. “That’s all, Mr. Quilter.”
“All. sir?”
“When Michaels came in, I told him. He figured Newton must’ve got away with the necklace and then the English crook made his try later and got the other stuff. They didn’t find the necklace anywhere: but he must’ve pulled a fast one and stashed it away some place. With direct evidence like that, what can you do? They’re holding him.”
“And you chose, sir, not to end your story on that note of finality?”
“I couldn’t, Mr. Quilter. I... I like that girl who was Snow White. I want to see the two of them together again and I’d sooner he was innocent. And besides, when we were leaving. Beverly Benson caught me alone. She said. ‘I can’t talk to your Lieutenant. He is not sympathetic. But you... ‘ “ Tom Smith almost blushed. “So she went on about how certain she was that Newton was innocent and begged me to help her prove it. So I promised.”
“Hm,” said Mr. Quilter. “Your problem, sir, is simple. You have good human values there in your story. Now we must round them out properly. And the solution is simple. We have two women in love with the hero, one highly sympathetic and the other less so; for the spectacle of a passée actress pursuing a new celebrity is not a pleasant one. This less sympathetic woman, to please the audience, must redeem herself with a gesture of self-immolation to secure the hero’s happiness with the heroine. Therefore, sir, let her confess to the robbery.”
“Confess to the... But Mr. Quilter, that makes a different story out of it. I’m trying to write as close as I can to what happened. And I promised—”
“Damme, sir, it’s obvious. She did steal the necklace herself. She hasn’t worked for years. She must need money. You mentioned insurance. The necklace was probably pawned long ago, and now she is trying to collect.”
“But that won’t work. It really was stolen. Somebody saw it earlier in the evening, and the search didn’t locate it. And believe me, that squad knows how to search.”
“Fiddle-faddle, sir.” Mr. Quilter’s close-cropped scalp was beginning to twitch. “What was seen must have been a paste imitation. She could dissolve that readily in acid and dispose of it down the plumbing. And Wappingham’s presence makes her plot doubly sure; she knew him for what he was, and invited him as a scapegoat.”
Tom Smith squirmed. “I’d almost think you were right, Mr. Quilter. Only Bela Strauss did see Newton take the necklace.”
Mr. Quilter laughed. “If that is all that perturbs you...” He rose to his feet. “Come with me, sir. One of my neighbors is a Viennese writer now acting as a reader in German for Metropolis. He is also new in this country; his cultural background is identical with Strauss’s. Come. But first we must step down to the corner drugstore and purchase what I believe is termed a comic book.”
Mr. Quilter, his eyes agleam, hardly apologized for their intrusion into the home of the Viennese writer. He simply pointed at a picture in the comic book and demanded, “Tell me, sir. What character is that?”
The bemused Viennese smiled. “Why, that is Mikki Maus.”
Mr. Quilter’s finger rested on a pert little drawing of Minnie.
Philip Newton sat in the cold jail cell, but he was oblivious of the cold. He was holding his wife’s hands through the bars and she was saying, “I could come to you now, dear, where I couldn’t before. Then you might have thought it was just because you were successful, but now I can tell you how much I love you and need you—need you even when you’re in disgrace....”
They were kissing through the bars when Michaels came with the good news. “She’s admitted it, all right. It was just the way Smith reconstructed it. She’d destroyed the paste replica and was trying to use us to pull off an insurance frame. She cracked when we had Strauss point out a picture of what he called ‘Mikki Maus. ‘ So you’re free again, Newton. How’s that for a Christmas present?”
“I’ve got a better one. officer. We’re getting married again.”
“You wouldn’t need a new wedding ring, would you?” Michaels asked with filial devotion. “Michaels, Fifth between Spring and Broadway—fine stock.”
Mr. Quilter laid down the final draft of Tom Smith’s story, complete now with ending, and fixed the officer with a reproachful gaze. “You omitted, sir, the explanation of why such a misunderstanding should arise.”
Tom Smith shifted uncomfortably. “I’m afraid, Mr. Quilter. I couldn’t remember all that straight.”
“It is simple. The noun Maus in German is of feminine gender. Therefore a Mikki Maus is a female. The male, naturally, is a Mikki Mäserich. I recall a delightful Viennese song of some seasons ago, which we once employed as background music, wherein the singer declares that he and his beloved will be forever paired, ‘wie die Mikki Mikki Mikki Mikki Mikki Maus und der Mikki Mäserich.‘ “
“Gosh.” said Tom Smith. “You know a lot of things.”
Mr. Quilter allowed himself to beam. “Between us, sir, there should be little that we do not know.”
“We sure make a swell team as a detective.”
The beam faded. “As a detective? Damme, sir, do you think I cared about your robbery? I simply explained the inevitable denouement to this story.”
“But she didn’t confess and make a gesture. Michaels had to prove it on
her.”
“All the better, sir. That makes her mysterious and deep. A Bette Davis role. I think we will first t
ry for a magazine sale on this. Studios are more impressed by matter already in print. Then I shall show it to F. X., and we shall watch the squirmings of that genius Aram Melekian.”
Tom Smith looked out the window, frowning. They made a team, all right; but which way? He still itched to write, but the promotion Michaels had promised him sounded good, too. Were he and this strange lean old man a team for writing or for detection?
The friendly red and green lights of the neighborhood Christmas trees seemed an equally good omen either way.
ON CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE MORNING – Margery Allingham
Sir Leo Persuivant, the Chief Constable, had been sitting in his comfortable study after a magnificent lunch and talking shyly of the sadness of Christmas while his guest, Mr. Albert Campion, most favored of his large house party, had been laughing at him gently.
It was true, the younger man had admitted, his pale eyes sleepy behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, that, however good the organization, the festival was never quite the same after one was middle-aged, but then only dear old Leo would expect it to be. and meanwhile, what a truly remarkable bird that had been!
But at that point the Superintendent had arrived with his grim little story and everything had seemed quite spoiled.
At the moment their visitor sat in a highbacked chair, against a paneled wall festooned with holly and tinsel, his round black eyes hard and preoccupied under his short gray hair. Superintendent Bussy was one of those lean and urgent countrymen who never quite lose their fondness for a genuine wonder. Despite years of experience and disillusion, the thing that simply can’t have happened and yet indubitably has happened, retains a place in their cosmos. He was holding forth about one now. It had already ruined his Christmas and had kept a great many other people out in the sleet all day; but nothing would induce him to leave it alone even for five minutes. The turkey sandwiches, which Sir Leo had insisted on ordering for him, were disappearing without him noticing them and the glass of scotch and soda stood untasted.
“You can see I had to come at once,” he was saying for the third time. “I had to. I don’t see what happened and that’s a fact. It’s a sort of miracle. Besides,” he eyed them angrily, “fancy killing a poor old postman on Christmas morning! That’s inhuman, isn’t it? Unnatural.”
Sir Leo nodded his white head. “Horrible,” he agreed. “Now, let me get this clear. The man appears to have been run down at the Benham-Ashby crossroads...”
Bussy took a handful of cigarettes from the box at his side and arranged them in a cross on the table.
“Look,” he said. “Here is the Ashby road with a slight bend in it, and here, running at right angles slap through the curve, is the Benham road. As you know as well as I do, Sir Leo, they’re both good wide main thoroughfares, as roads go in these parts. This morning the Benham postman, old Fred Noakes. a bachelor thank God and a good chap, came along the Benham Road loaded down with Christmas mail.”
“On a bicycle?” asked Campion.
“Naturally. On a bicycle. He called at the last farm before the crossroads and left just about 10 o’clock. We know that because he had a cup of tea there. Then his way led him over the crossing and on towards Benham proper.”
He paused and looked up from his cigarettes.
“There was very little traffic early today, terrible weather all the time, and quite a bit of activity later; so we’ve got no skid marks to help us. Well, to resume: no one seems to have seen old Noakes. poor chap, until close on half an hour later. Then the Benham constable, who lives some 300 yards from the crossing and on the Benham road, came out of his house and walked down to his gate to see if the mail had come. He saw the postman at once, lying in the middle of the road across his machine. He was dead then.”
“You suggest he’d been trying to carry on, do you?” put in Sir Leo.
“Yes. He was walking, pushing the bike, and had dropped in his tracks. There was a depressed fracture in the side of his skull where something—say, a car mirror—had struck him. I’ve got the doctor’s report. I’ll show you that later. Meanwhile there’s something else.”
Bussy’s finger turned to his other line of cigarettes.
“Also, just about 10, there were a couple of fellows walking here on the Ashby road, just before the bend. They report that they were almost run down by a wildly driven car which came up behind them. It missed them and careered off out of their sight round the bend towards the crossing. But a few minutes later, half a mile farther on, on the other side of the crossroads, a police car met and succeeded in stopping the same car. There was a row and the driver, getting the wind up suddenly, started up again, skidded and smashed the car into the nearest telephone pole. The car turned out to be stolen and there were four half-full bottles of gin in the back. The two occupants were both fighting drunk and are now detained.”
Mr. Campion took off his spectacles and blinked at the speaker.
“You suggest that there was a connection, do you? —that the postman and the gin drinkers met at the crossroads? Any signs on the car?”
Bussy shrugged his shoulders. “Our chaps are at work on that now,” he said. “The second smash has complicated things a bit, but last time I ‘phoned they were hopeful.”
“But my dear fellow!” Sir Leo was puzzled. “If you can get expert evidence of a collision between the car and the postman, your worries are over. That is, of course, if the medical evidence permits the theory that the unfortunate fellow picked himself up and struggled the 300 yards towards the constable’s house.”
Bussy hesitated.
“There’s the trouble,” he admitted. “If that were all we’d be sitting pretty, but it’s not and I’ll tell you why. In that 300 yards of Benham Road, between the crossing and the spot where old Fred died, there is a stile which leads to a footpath. Down the footpath, the best part of a quarter of a mile over very rough going, there is one small cottage, and at that cottage letters were delivered this morning. The doctor says Noakes might have staggered the 300 yards up the road leaning on his bike, but he puts his foot down and says the other journey, over the stile and so on, would have been absolutely impossible. I’ve talked to the doctor. He’s the best man in the world on the job and we won’t shake him on that.”
“All of which would argue.” observed Mr. Campion brightly, “that the postman was hit by a car after he came back from the cottage—between the stile and the constable’s house.”
“That’s what the constable thought.” Bussy’s black eyes were snapping. “As soon as he’d telephoned for help he slipped down to the cottage to see if Noakes had actually called there. When he found he had, he searched the road. He was mystified though because both he and his missus had been at their window for an hour watching for the mail and they hadn’t seen a vehicle of any sort go by either way. If a car did hit the postman where he fell, it must have turned and gone back afterwards.”
Leo frowned at him. “What about the other witnesses? Did they see any second car?”
“No.” Bussy was getting to the heart of the matter and his face shone with honest wonder. “I made sure of that. Everybody sticks to it that there was no other car or cart about and a good job too, they say, considering the way the smashed-up car was being driven. As I see it, it’s a proper mystery, a kind of not very nice miracle, and those two beauties are going to get away with murder on the strength of it. Whatever our fellows find on the car they’ll never get past the doctor’s testimony.”
Mr. Campion got up sadly. The sleet was beating on the windows, and from inside the house came the more cheerful sound of tea cups. He nodded to Sir Leo.
“I fear we shall have to see that footpath before it gets too dark. In this weather, conditions may have changed by tomorrow.”
Sir Leo sighed.” ‘On Christmas day in the morning!’ “ he quoted bitterly. “Perhaps you’re right.”
They stopped their dreary journey at the Benham police station to pick up the constable. He proved to be a pleasant youngste
r with a face like one of the angel choir and boots like a fairy tale, but he had liked the postman and was anxious to serve as their guide.
They inspected the crossroads and the bend and the spot where the car had come to grief. By the time they reached the stile, the world was gray and freezing, and all trace of Christmas had vanished, leaving only the hopeless winter it had been invented to refute.
Mr. Campion negotiated the stile and Sir Leo followed him with some difficulty. It was an awkward climb, and the path below was narrow and slippery. It wound out into the mist before them, apparently without end.
The procession slid and scrambled on in silence for what seemed a mile, only to encounter a second stile and a plank bridge over a stream, followed by a brief area of what appeared to be simple bog. As he struggled out of it, Bussy pushed back his dripping hat and gazed at the constable.
“You’re not having a game with us, I suppose?” he inquired.
“No, sir.” The boy was all blush. “The little house is just here. You can’t make it out because it’s a bit low. There it is. sir. There.”
He pointed to a hump in the near distance which they had all taken to be a haystack. Gradually it emerged as the roof of a hovel which squatted with its back towards them in the wet waste.
“Good Heavens!” Sir Leo regarded its desolation with dismay. ‘Does anybody really live there?”
“Oh, yes, sir. An old widow lady. Mrs. Fyson’s the name.”
“Alone?” He was aghast. “How old?”
“I don’t rightly know, sir. Quite old. Over 75, must be.”
Sir Leo stopped in his tracks and a silence fell on the company. The scene was so forlorn, so unutterably quiet in its loneliness, that the world might have died.
It was Campion who broke the spell.
“Definitely no walk for a dying man,” he said firmly. “Doctor’s evidence completely convincing, don’t you think? Now that we’re here, perhaps we should drop in and see the householder.”