“That’s enough, Tom,” the priest interrupted after a moment. “Now tell me, lad, will you be coming to Devotions tonight? I’ve a call to make and I thought, with this snow, you might give me a lift.”
“Glad to, Father.” Suspicion crept into Madigan’s voice. “But if you’re up to something—”
The pastor brought the conversation to an abrupt end by hanging up.
Herbie Morris was on the verge of locking up The Doll House when Father Crumlish and Big Tom walked in.
“Can you give this a bit of glue, Herbie?” Father asked as he handed the storekeeper the broken lamb.
“Forget it, Father,” Herbie said, shrugging. “Help yourself to a new one.”
“No need. I’m sure you can fix this one and it’ll do fine.”
Then, as Herbie began to administer to the statuette, the pastor walked over to a display of flaxen-haired dolls and leaned across the counter to select one. But the doll eluded his grasp and toppled over. The motion caused it to close its eyes, open its mouth, and emit the realistic sound of a child crying.
“I see your telephone is close by,” Father said, pointing to the instrument on a counter across the aisle. “So it’s little wonder that Detective Casey thought he heard a real child crying while you were on the phone with him at headquarters. One of these dolls must have fallen over just as you were telling him to arrest Charley Abbott for John Everett’s murder.”
The priest was aware of Madigan’s startled exclamation and the sound of something splintering. Herbie stood staring down at his hands, which had convulsively gripped the lamb he’d been holding, and broken it beyond repair.
“I know that you were notified that this building is going to be torn down, Herbie,” Father said, “and I know these four walls are your whole life. But were you so bitter that you were driven to commit murder to get revenge?”
“I didn’t want revenge,” Herbie burst out passionately. “I just wanted to keep my store. That’s all!” He wrung his hands despairingly. “I pleaded with Everett for two months, but he wouldn’t listen. Said he wanted this land for a parking lot.” Morris’s shoulders sagged and he began to weep.
Madigan moved to the man’s side. “Go on,” he said in a hard voice.
“When I went to his house that night, I took the gun just to frighten him. But he still wouldn’t change his mind. I went crazy, I guess, and—” He halted and looked pleadingly at the priest. “I didn’t really mean to kill him, Father. Honest!”
“What about his wallet?” Madigan prodded him.
“It fell out of his pocket. There was a lot of money in it—almost a thousand dollars. I—I just took it.”
“And then hid it, along with the gun, in the room of a poor innocent man,” Father Crumlish said, trying to contain his anger. “And to make sure that Charley would be charged with your crime, you called the police.”
“But the police would have come after me,” Herbie protested, as if to justify his actions. “I read in the papers that they were checking Everett’s properties and all his tenants. I was afraid—” The look on Father’s face caused Herbie’s voice to trail away.
“Not half as afraid as Charley when you kept warning him that the police would accuse him because of his mental record, because he worked in the Liberty Building and was going to lose his job. That’s what you did, didn’t you?” Father asked in a voice like thunder. “You deliberately put fear into his befuddled mind, told him he’d be put away—”
The priest halted and gazed at the little storekeeper’s bald bowed head. There were many more harsh words on the tip of his tongue that he might have said. But, as a priest, he knew that he must forego the saying of them.
Instead he murmured, “God have mercy on you.”
Then he turned and walked out into the night. It had begun to snow again—soft, gentle flakes. They fell on Father Crumlish’s cheeks and mingled with a few drops of moisture that were already there.
It was almost midnight before Big Tom Madigan rang St. Brigid’s doorbell. Under the circumstances Father wasn’t surprised by the policeman’s late visit.
“How did you know, Father?” Madigan asked as he sank into a chair.
Wearily Father related the incident at the crib. “After what I heard at the Swansons and what Casey told me, a crying child was on my mind. And then, when I saw what looked like tears on the Infant’s face, I got to thinking about all the homeless—” He paused for a long moment.
“Only a few hours before, Herbie had told me how hard it was, particularly at Christmas, to be lonely and without a real home. Charley was suspected of murder because he was going to lose his job. But wasn’t it more reasonable to suspect a man who was going to lose his life’s work? His whole world?” Father sighed. “I knew Herbie never could have opened another store in a new location. He would have had to pay much higher rent, and he was barely making ends meet where he was.” It was some moments before Father spoke again. “Tom,” he said brightly, sitting upright in his chair. “I happen to know that the kitchen table is loaded down with Christmas cookies.”
The policeman chuckled. “And I happen to know that Emma Catt counts every one of ’em. So don’t think you can sneak a few.”
“Follow me, lad,” Father said confidently as he got to his feet. “You’re on the list for a dozen for Christmas. Is there any law against my giving you your present now?”
“Not that I know of, Father,” Madigan replied, grinning.
“And in the true Christmas spirit, Tom”—Father Crumlish’s eyes twinkled merrily—“I’m sure you’ll want to share and share alike.”
Father Crumlish’s Christmas Cookies
RECIPE:
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sifted flour
1 1/4 cups very finely chopped blanched almonds
3/4 cup very finely chopped candied fruit and peels 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
(1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
(2) Combine butter, sugar, and cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat.
(3) Stir in other ingredients to form a batter.
(4) Drop batter by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet, spacing them about three inches apart.
(5) Bake ten minutes or until cookies begin to brown around the edges. Cool and then remove to a flat surface. If desired, while cookies are still warm, drizzle melted chocolate over tops.
YIELD: About 24 cookies
—Courtesy of the author
THE CHRISTMAS MASQUE
by S. S. Rafferty
Born in New England in 1930, “S. S. Rafferty” worked as a newspaperman and free-lance writer, and was a Marine Corps news correspondent during the Korean conflict. Following military service, he went into the advertising business in Boston and later New York, where he served as vice president of a major agency.
In 1977 he decided to write full time and has now published over sixty short stories in the mystery genre. He is perhaps best known for three series detectives: Captain Jeremy Cork, an eighteenth-century American colonial “fact finder’’; Dr. Amos Phipps, a nineteenth-century New York criminologist known as “The Hawk”; and Chick Kelly, a modern-day stand-up comic who delightfully mixes detection with schtick. The Captain Cork stories were collected under the title Fatal Flourishes, and the other two richly deserve to be.
As much as I prefer the steady ways of New England, I have to agree with Captain Jeremy Cork that the Puritans certainly know how to avoid a good time. They just ignore it. That’s why every twenty-third of December we come to the New York colony from our home base in Connecticut to celebrate the midwinter holidays.
I am often critical of my employer’s inattention to his many business enterprises and his preoccupation with the solution of crime—but I give him credit for the way he keeps Christmas. That is, as long as I can st
op him from keeping it clear into February.
In our travels about these colonies, I have witnessed many merry parties, from the lush gentility of the Carolinas to the roughshod ribaldry of the New Hampshire tree line; but nothing can match the excitement of the Port of New York. The place teems with prosperous men who ply their fortunes in furs, potash, naval timber, and other prime goods. And the populace is drawn from everywhere: Sephardim from Brazil, Huguenots from France, visitors from London, expatriates from Naples, Irishmen running to or from something. I once counted eighteen different languages being spoken here.
And so it was in the Christmas week of 1754 that we took our usual rooms at Marshall’s, in John Street, a few steps from the Histrionic Academy, and let the yuletide roll over us. Cork’s celebrity opens many doors to us, and there was the expected flood of invitations for one frivolity after another.
I was seated at a small work table in our rooms on December twenty-third, attempting to arrange our social obligations into a reasonable program. My primary task was to sort out those invitations which begged our presence on Christmas Eve itself, for that would be our high point. Little did I realize that a knock on our door would not only decide the issue, but plunge us into one of the most bizarre of those damnable social puzzles Cork so thoroughly enjoys.
The messenger was a small lad, no more than seven or eight, and he was bundled against the elements from head to toe. Before I could open the envelope to see if an immediate reply was required, the child was gone.
I was opening the message when Cork walked in from the inner bedchamber. Marshall’s is one of the few places on earth with doorways high enough to accommodate his six-foot-six frame.
“I take the liberty,” I said. “It’s addressed to us both.”
“On fine French linen paper, I see.”
“Well, well,” I said, reading fine handscript. “This is quite an honor.”
“From the quality of the paper and the fact that you are ‘honored’ just to read the message, I assume the reader is rich, money being the primer for your respect, Oaks.”
That is not absolutely true. I find nothing wrong with poverty; however, it is a condition I do not wish to experience. In fact, as Cork’s financial yeoman, it is my sworn duty to keep it from our doorsill. The invitation was from none other than Dame Ilsa van Schooner, asking us to take part in her famous Christmas Eve Masque at her great house on the Broad Way. Considering that we had already been invited to such questionable activities as a cockfight, a party at a doss house, a drinking duel at Cosgrove’s, and an evening of sport at the Gentlemen’s Club, I was indeed honored to hear from a leader of New York quality.
Cork was glancing at the invitation when I discovered a smaller piece of paper still in the envelope. “This is odd,” I said, reading it:
van Schooner Haus
22 December
Dear Sirs:
I implore you to accept the enclosed, for I need you very much to investigate a situation of some calamity for us. I shall make myself known at the Masque.
It was unsigned. I passed it to the captain, who studied it for a moment and then picked up the invitation again.
“I’m afraid your being honored is misplaced, my old son,” he said. “The invitation was written by a skilled hand, possibly an Ephrata penman, hired for such work. But our names have been fitted in by a less skilled writer. The author of the note has by some means invited us without the hostess’s knowledge. Our sub rosa bidder must be in some dire difficulty, for she does not dare risk discovery by signing her name.”
“Her?”
“No doubt about it. The hand is feminine, and written in haste. I thought it odd that a mere boy should deliver this. It is usually the task of a footman, who would wait for a reply. This is truly intriguing—an impending calamity stalking the wealthy home in which she lives.”
“How can you be sure of that, sir?”
“I can only surmise. She had access to the invitations and she says ‘calamity for us,’ which implies her family. Hello.” He looked up suddenly as the door opened and a serving girl entered with a tray, followed by a man in royal red. “Sweet Jerusalem!” Cork got to his feet. “Major Tell in the flesh! Sally, my girl, you had better have Marshall send up extra Apple Knock and oysters. Tell, it is prophetic that you should appear just as a new puzzle emerges.”
Prophetic indeed. Major Philip Tell is a King’s agent-at-large, and he invariably embroiled us in some case of skulduggery whenever he was in our purlieu. But I bore him no ill this time, for he had nothing to do with the affair. In fact, his vast knowledge of the colonial scene might prove helpful.
“Well, lads,” Tell said, taking off his rogueloure and tossing his heavy cloak onto a chair. “I knew Christmas would bring you to New York. You look fit, Captain, and I see Oaks is still at his account books.”
When Cork told him of our invitation and the curious accompanying note, the officer gave a low whistle. “The van Schooners, no less! Well, we shall share the festivities, for I am also a guest at the affair. The note is a little disturbing, however. Dame Ilsa is the mistress of a large fortune and extensive land holdings, which could be the spark for foul play.”
“You think she sent the note?” I asked.
“Nonsense,” Cork interjected. “She would not have had to purloin her own invitation. What can you tell us of the household, Major?”
I don’t know if Tell’s fund of knowledge is part of his duties or his general nosiness, but he certainly keeps his ear to the ground. No gossip-monger could hold a candle to him.
“The family fortune was founded by her grandfather, Nils van der Malin—patroon holdings up the Hudson, pearl potash, naval stores, that sort of old money. Under Charles the Second’s Duke of York grant, Nils was rewarded for his support with a baronetcy. The title fell in the distaff side to Dame Ilsa’s mother, old Gretchen van der Malin. She was a terror of a woman, who wore men’s riding clothes and ran her estates with an iron fist and a riding crop. She had a young man of the Orange peerage brought over as consort, and they produced Ilsa. The current Dame, is more genteel than her mother was, but just as stern and autocratic. She, in turn, married a van Schooner—Gustave. I believe, a soldier of some distinction in the Lowland campaigns. He died of drink after fathering two daughters, Gretchen and her younger sister, Wilda.
“The line is certainly Amazonite and breeds true,” Cork said with a chuckle. “Not a climate I would relish, although strong women have their fascination.”
“Breeds true is correct, Captain. The husbands were little more than sire stallions; good blood but ruined by idleness.”
This last, about being “ruined by idleness,” was ignored by Cork, but I marked it, as well he knew.
“Young Gretchen,” Tell went on, “is also true to her namesake. A beauty, but cold as a steel blade, and as well honed. They say she is a dead shot and an adept horsewoman.”
“You have obviously been to the van Schooner Haus, as our correspondent calls it.”
“Oh, yes, on several occasions. It is truly a place to behold.”
“No doubt, Major.” Cork poured a glass of Apple Knock. “Who else lives there besides the servants?”
“The younger daughter, Wilda. of course, and the Dame’s spinster sister, Hetta van der Malin, and an ancient older brother of the dead husband—the brother is named Kaarl. I have only seen him once, but I am told he was quite the wastrel in his day, and suffers from the afflictions of such a life.”
“Mmm,” Cork murmured, offering the glass to Tell. “I change my original Amazonite observation to that of Queen Bee. Well, someone in that house feels in need of help, but we shall have to wait until tomorrow night to find out why.”
“Or who,” I said.
“That,” Cork said, “is the heart of the mystery.”
The snow started falling soon after dinner that night and kept falling into the dawn. By noon of the twenty-fourth, the wind had drifted nature’s white blanket into knee-hig
h banks. When it finally stopped in the late afternoon, New York was well covered under a blotchy sky. The inclemency, however, did not deter attendance at the van Schooner Ball.
I had seen the van Schooner home from the road many times, and always marveled at its striking architecture, which is in the Palladio style. The main section is a three-story structure, and it is flanked by one-story wings at both sides.
The Twelve Crimes of Christmas Page 13