The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

by Martin H. Greenberg et al (Ed)

  “So what is the only other possibility? If the body in the belfry was Wigger’s, then the person we saw in the doorway was not Wigger. He fled from us simply because if Sheriff Lens and I had gotten any closer we’d have known he was not Wigger.”

  Volga’s face had drained of all color, and she stared silently as I spoke. “If not Wigger, then who? Well, the man in the cassock ran up into the belfry. We were right behind him and we found two persons up there—the dead Wigger and the live Lowara. If the man in the cassock was not Wigger—and I’ve shown he wasn’t—then he had to be you, Carranza.”

  “A good guess.”

  “More than that. I’d noticed earlier you were both the same size. At a distance your main distinguishing feature was your black hair and mustache. But I remembered that day two weeks ago when I was out here and noticed your earrings under your short hair. When I visited your cell, your hair was long enough to cover your ears. It couldn’t have grown that fast in two weeks, so I knew you were wearing wigs. If the hair was false, the mustache could be too—mere props to add to your gypsy image. A bit of deception for the gadjo.”

  “You have proved I was Wigger for a fleeting moment. You have not proved Volga killed him.”

  “Well, what did you accomplish by posing as Wigger? From a distance, with our vision blurred by the falling snow, the sheriff and I saw only a tall man in a black cassock, wearing Wigger’s thick glasses. If we hadn’t come after you we’d have gone away convinced that Wigger was still alive after Volga and the others had left the church. You did make two little slip-ups, though. When you turned away from us in the church doorway you bumped into the frame because you weren’t used to his thick glasses. And yesterday in the cell you told me how Wigger had stood in the doorway—something you couldn’t have seen if you’d really been in the belfry all that time, as you said.”

  “That does not implicate Volga!” the gypsy insisted.

  “Obviously you weren’t doing this to protect yourself, because it gave you no alibi. No one saw you leave the church. The only possible purpose of your brief impersonation was to shield another person—the real killer. Then I remembered that Volga was the last gypsy to leave the church. She’d been alone in there with Wigger, she was your wife, and she was the most likely person to be carrying your little dagger. Where? In your stocking top, Volga?”

  She covered her face with her hands. “He—he tried to—”

  “I know. Wigger wasn’t a real parson, and he’d been in trouble before because of his interest in parish wives. He tried to attack you up there, didn’t he? You were only a handsome gypsy woman to him. He knew you could never tell. You fought back, and your hand found the dagger you always carried. You stabbed him up there and killed him, and then you found Carranza in the church and told him what you’d done.”

  “It would have been a gypsy’s word against a parson’s reputation,” Carranza said. “They would never believe her. I sent her back with the wagon and tried to make it look as if he was still alive.”

  I nodded. “You put on his cassock because at a distance the bloody rip in the cassock wouldn’t show on the black cloth. But you couldn’t wear the white surplice without the blood showing. You barely had time to get the cassock back on Wigger’s body, stuff the surplice through the chicken wire, and push it out so it wouldn’t be found in the belfry. You couldn’t put that back on the body because you hadn’t been wearing it downstairs.”

  Carranza Lowara sighed. “It was hard work with my weak hand. I got the cassock back on the body just as the lock gave way. Will you call the sheriff now?”

  I watched his son playing with the other gypsies and wondered if I had the right to judge. Finally I said, “Pack up your wagons and be gone from here by nightfall. Never come near Northmont again.”

  “But—” Carranza began.

  “Wigger was not a good man, but maybe he wasn’t bad enough to deserve what he got. I don’t know. I only know if you stay around here I might change my mind.”

  Volga came to me. “Now I owe you more than ever.”

  “Go. It’s only a Christmas present I’m giving you. Go, before it fades like the melting snow.”

  And within an hour the wagons were on the road, heading south this time. Maybe they’d had enough of our New England winter.

  “I never told anyone that story,” Dr. Sam Hawthorne concluded. “It was the first time I took justice into my own hands, and I never knew if I did right or not. No, the gypsies didn’t come back. I never saw them again.”

  He emptied the last of the brandy and stood up. “It was in the spring of ’twenty-six that a famous French criminal sought shelter in Northmont. He was called the Eel because of his fantastic escapes. But I’ll save that story till next time. Another—ah—libation before you go?”

  DEATH ON CHRISTMAS EVE

  by Stanley Ellin

  Stanley Ellin writes slowly. He averages one short story a year, reworking his plots and phrases until they are perfect. From the beginning they have been winners. His first seven short stories won prizes in the annual contests of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Three Edgars (two for best short story, one for best novel of the year) and Le Grand Prix de Littérature Policière continue the tradition. Both his shorter works and his novels have been adapted for television and films.

  As a child I had been vastly impressed by the Boerum house. It was fairly new then, and glossy; a gigantic pile of Victorian rickrack, fretwork, and stained glass, flung together in such chaotic profusion that it was hard to encompass in one glance. Standing before it this early Christmas Eve, however, I could find no echo of that youthful impression. The gloss was long since gone; woodwork, glass, metal, all were merged to a dreary gray, and the shades behind the windows were drawn completely so that the house seemed to present a dozen blindly staring eyes to the passerby.

  When I rapped my stick sharply on the door, Celia opened it.

  “There is a doorbell right at hand,” she said. She was still wearing the long out-moded and badly wrinkled black dress she must have dragged from her mother’s trunk, and she looked, more than ever, the image of old Katrin in her later years: the scrawny body, the tightly compressed lips, the colorless hair drawn back hard enough to pull every wrinkle out of her forehead. She reminded me of a steel trap ready to snap down on anyone who touched her incautiously.

  I said, “I am aware that the doorbell has been disconnected, Celia,” and walked past her into the hallway. Without turning my head, I knew that she was glaring at me; then she sniffed once, hard and dry, and flung the door shut. Instantly we were in a murky dimness that made the smell of dry rot about me stick in my throat. I fumbled for the wall switch, but Celia said sharply, “No! This is not the time for lights.”

  I turned to the white blur of her face, which was all I could see of her. “Celia,” I said, “spare me the dramatics.”

  “There has been a death in this house. You know that.”

  “I have good reason to,” I said, “but your performance now does not impress me.”

  “She was my own brother’s wife. She was very dear to me.

  I took a step toward her in the murk and rested my stick on her shoulder. “Celia,” I said, “as your family’s lawyer, let me give you a word of advice. The inquest is over and done with, and you’ve been cleared. But nobody believed a word of your precious sentiments then, and nobody ever will. Keep that in mind, Celia.”

  She jerked away so sharply that the stick almost fell from my hand. “Is that what you have come to tell me?” she said.

  I said, “I came because I knew your brother would want to see me today. And if you don’t mind my saying so, I suggest that you keep to yourself while I talk to him. I don’t want any scenes.”

  “Then keep away from him yourself!” she cried. “He was at the inquest. He saw them clear my name. In a little while he will forget the evil he thinks of me. Keep away from him so that he can forget.”

  She was at her infuriating worst, a
nd to break the spell I started up the dark stairway, one hand warily on the balustrade. But I heard her follow eagerly behind, and in some eerie way it seemed as if she were not addressing me, but answering the groaning of the stairs under our feet.

  “When he comes to me,” she said, “I will forgive him. At first I was not sure, but now I know. I prayed for guidance, and I was told that life is too short for hatred. So when he comes to me I will forgive him.”

  I reached the head of the stairway and almost went sprawling. I swore in annoyance as I righted myself. “If you’re not going to use lights, Celia, you should, at least, keep the way clear. Why don’t you get that stuff out of here?”

  “Ah,” she said, “those are all poor Jessie’s belongings. It hurts Charlie so to see anything of hers, I knew this would be the best thing to do—to throw all her things out.”

  Then a note of alarm entered her voice. “But you won’t tell Charlie, will you? You won’t tell him?” she said, and kept repeating it on a higher and higher note as I moved away from her, so that when I entered Charlie’s room and closed the door behind me it almost sounded as if I had left a bat chittering behind me.

  As in the rest of the house, the shades in Charlie’s room were drawn to their full length. But a single bulb in the chandelier overhead dazzled me momentarily, and I had to look twice before I saw Charlie sprawled out on his bed with an arm flung over his eyes. Then he slowly came to his feet and peered at me.

  “Well,” he said at last, nodding toward the door, “she didn’t give you any light to come up, did she?”

  “No,” I said, “but I know the way.”

  “She’s like a mole,” he said. “Gets around better in the dark than I do in the light. She’d rather have it that way too. Otherwise she might look into a mirror and be scared of what she sees there.”

  “Yes,” I said, “she seems to be taking it very hard.”

  He laughed short and sharp as a sea-lion barking. “That’s because she’s still got the fear in her. All you get out of her now is how she loved Jessie, and how sorry she is. Maybe she figures if she says it enough, people might get to believe it. But give her a little time and she’ll be the same old Celia again.”

  I dropped my hat and stick on the bed and laid my overcoat beside them. Then I drew out a cigar and waited until he fumbled for a match and helped me to a light. His hand shook so violently that he had hard going for a moment and muttered angrily at himself. Then I slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, and waited.

  Charlie was Celia’s junior by five years, but seeing him then it struck me that he looked a dozen years older. His hair was the same pale blond, almost colorless so that it was hard to tell if it was graying or not. But his cheeks wore a fine, silvery stubble, and there were huge blue-black pouches under his eyes. And where Celia was braced against a rigid and uncompromising backbone, Charlie sagged, standing or sitting, as if he were on the verge of falling forward. He stared at me and tugged uncertainly at the limp mustache that dropped past the corners of his mouth.

  “You know what I wanted to see you about, don’t you?” he said.

  “I can imagine,” I said, “but I’d rather have you tell me.”

  “I’ll put it to you straight,” he said. “It’s Celia. I want to see her get what’s coming to her. Not jail. I want the law to take her and kill her, and I want to be there to watch it.”

  A large ash dropped to the floor, and I ground it carefully into the rug with my foot. I said, “You were at the inquest, Charlie; you saw what happened. Celia’s cleared, and unless additional evidence can be produced, she stays cleared.”

  “Evidence! My God, what more evidence does anyone need! They were arguing hammer and tongs at the top of the stairs. Celia just grabbed Jessie and threw her down to the bottom and killed her. That’s murder, isn’t it? Just the same as if she used a gun or poison or whatever she would have used if the stairs weren’t handy?”

  I sat down wearily in the old leather-bound armchair there and studied the new ash that was forming on my cigar. “Let me show it to you from the legal angle,” I said, and the monotone of my voice must have made it sound like a well-memorized formula. “First, there were no witnesses.”

  “I heard Jessie scream and I heard her fall,” he said doggedly, “and when I ran out and found her there, I heard Celia slam her door shut right then. She pushed Jessie and then scuttered like a rat to be out of the way.”

  “But you didn’t see anything. And since Celia claims that she wasn’t on the scene, there were no witnesses. In other words, Celia’s story cancels out your story, and since you weren’t an eyewitness you can’t very well make a murder out of what might have been an accident.”

  He slowly shook his head.

  “You don’t believe that,” he said. “You don’t really believe that. Because if you do, you can get out now and never come near me again.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I believe; I’m showing you the legal aspects of the case. What about motivation? What did Celia have to gain from Jessie’s death? Certainly there’s no money or property involved; she’s as financially independent as you are.”

  Charlie sat down on the edge of his bed and leaned toward me with his hands resting on his knees. “No,” he whispered, “there’s no money or property in it.”

  I spread my arms helplessly. “You see?”

  “But you know what it is,” he said. “It’s me. First, it was the old lady with her heart trouble any time I tried to call my soul my own. Then, when she died and I thought I was free, it was Celia. From the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night, it was Celia every step of the way. She never had a husband or a baby—but she had me!”

  I said quietly, “She’s your sister, Charlie. She loves you,” and he laughed that same unpleasant, short laugh.

  “She loves me like ivy loves a tree. When I think back now, I still can’t see how she did it, but she would just look at me a certain way and all the strength would go out of me. And it was like that until I met Jessie… I remember the day I brought Jessie home, and told Celia we were married. She swallowed it, but that look was in her eyes the same as it must have been when she pushed Jessie down those stairs.”

  I said, “But you admitted at the inquest that you never saw her threaten Jessie or do anything to hurt her.”

  “Of course I never saw! But when Jessie would go around sick to her heart every day and not say a word, or cry in bed every night and not tell me why, I knew damn well what was going on. You know what Jessie was like. She wasn’t so smart or pretty, but she was good-hearted as the day was long, and she was crazy about me. And when she started losing all that sparkle in her after only a month, I knew why. I talked to her and I talked to Celia, and both of them just shook their heads. All I could do was go around in circles, but when it happened, when I saw Jessie lying there, it didn’t surprise me. Maybe that sounds queer, but it didn’t surprise me at all.”

  “I don’t think it surprised anyone who knows Celia,” I said, “but you can’t make a case out of that.”

  He beat his fist against his knee and rocked from side to side. “What can I do?” he said. “That’s what I need you for—to tell me what to do. All my life I never got around to doing anything because of her. That’s what she’s banking on now—that I won’t do anything, and that she’ll get away with it. Then after a while, things’ll settle down, and we’ll be right back where we started from.”

  I said, “Charlie, you’re getting yourself all worked up to no end.”

  He stood up and stared at the door, and then at me. “But I can do something,” he whispered. “Do you know what?”

  He waited with the bright expectancy of one who has asked a clever riddle that he knows will stump the listener. I stood up facing him, and shook my head slowly. “No,” I said. “Whatever you’re thinking, put it out of your mind.”

  “Don’t mix me up,” he said. “You know you can get away with murder if you’re a
s smart as Celia. Don’t you think I’m as smart as Celia?”

  I caught his shoulders tightly. “For God’s sake, Charlie,” I said, “don’t start talking like that.”