'And what about Mr Macdonald?'
'I'm not talking,' said the youth sullenly.
'Mr Macdonald isn't talking. Mrs Grant?'
'I've been in this compartment ever since, sir.'
'Ever since—?'
'Since I went out to damp my hankie for this young lady, when she'd fainted. Mr Kilmington was just before me, you'll mind. I saw him go through into the Guard's van.'
'Did you hear him say anything about walking to the village?'
'No, sir. He just hurried into the van, and then there was some havers about it's no' being lockit this time, and how he was going to report the Guard for it—I didna listen any more, wishing to get back to the young lady. I doubt the wee man would be for reporting everyone.'
'I see. And you've been sitting here with Mr Macdonald all the time?'
'Yes, sir. Except for ten minutes or so he was out of the compartment, just after you'd left.'
'What did you go out for?' Stansfield asked the young man.
'Just taking the air, brother, just taking the air.'
'You weren't taking Mr Kilmington's gold watch, as well as the air, by any chance?' Stansfield's keen eyes were fastened like a hook into Macdonald's, whose insolent expression visibly crumbled beneath them.
'I don't know what you mean,' he tried to bluster. 'You can't do this to me.'
'I mean that a man has been murdered: and, when the police search you, they will find his gold watch in your possession. Won't look too healthy for you, my young friend.'
'Naow! Give us a chance! It was only a joke, see?' The wretched Macdonald was whining now in his native cockney. 'He got me riled—the stuck-up way he said nobody'd ever got the better of him. So I thought I'd just show him—I'd have given it back, straight I would, only I couldn't find him afterwards. It was just a joke, I tell you. Anyway, it was Inez who lifted the ticker.'
'You dirty little rotter!' screeched the girl.
'Shut up, both of you! You can explain your joke to the police. Let's hope they don't die laughing.'
At this moment the train gave a lurch, and started back up the gradient. It halted at the signal-box, for Stansfield to telephone to Tebay, then clattered south again.
On Tebay platform, Stansfield was met by an Inspector and a Sergeant of the County Constabulary, with the Police Surgeon. No passengers were permitted to alight till he had had a few words with them. Then the four men boarded the train. After a brief pause in the Guard's van, where the Police Surgeon drew aside the Guard's black off-duty overcoat that had been laid over the body, and began his preliminary examination, they marched along to Stansfield's compartment. The Guard who, at his request, had locked this as the train was drawing up at the platform and was keeping an eye on its occupants, now unlocked it. The Inspector entered.
His first action was to search Macdonald. Finding the watch concealed on his person, he then charged Macdonald and Inez Blake with the theft. The Inspector next proceeded to make an arrest on the charge of wilful murder. . .
But WHO DID the Inspector arrest for the murder of the disagreeable Arthur J. Kilmington? And why? Nicholas Blake placed eight clues to the killer's identity in the text (two major clues; six minor ones); they cover motive as well as method.
Baffled? Read the story again—or meander through the rest of the stories in the book (there's never any hurry over Christmas) and then read it once more.
If you still can't identify the who, the how, and the why—click here to go to the end of the book where all is revealed.
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2 - Detective's Day Off by JOHN DICKSON CARR
TODAY, ALAS, John Dickson Carr (1906-77, also wrote as Carter Dickson) is not perhaps so well thought of as once he was—at least judging by the number of books-in-print a decade or so after his death. Probably the sea-change in taste caused by the Second Coming of the Private Eye over the past four or five years has a lot to do with that, because in many ways (viewpoint, politics, ideals, general attitude) Carr is unashamedly pre-War—although he did have a curiously modern fondness for female characters who were by no means virtuous, and strive as he might to fall in with the popular conventions his murderesses (of whom there were not a few) come alive as his heroines often don't. But then you never looked to Carr for sharply drawn and realistic characters (his two main detectives, Dr Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, though vastly entertaining, are wildly extravagant caricatures): you looked to him for dazzling virtuoso plots—and rarely were you disappointed. Carr could plot, in spades.
From 1930 to 1960, roughly, he virtually cornered the market in that toughest yet most alluring of sub-genres, the Impossible Crime, which of course takes in such knotty problems as the Locked-Room Murder, the Vanishing Corpse, the Disappearing Murderer, the Body-Surrounded-By-Unmarked-Sand, the Stiff-Found-In-A-House-Encircled-By-Virgin-Snow, and so on. Carr not only triumphantly rang the changes on all of these but also created a couple of score more brain-racking situations which (and here was the genius of the man) when explained were really as simple as ABC.
He was also (and this too goes against the current trend) a master of shuddery atmosphere, a genuine frisson-creator who preferred cold grue for his effects to bucketfuls of gore and eviscerated guts. Still my favourite Carr is The Burning Court (1937), a masterpiece not only for two Impossible Disappearances brilliantly explained but also for the aura of brooding horror that permeates its pages—and which, unsettlingly, lingers on after you've finished.
Carr wrote very good historical mysteries (one, Fire, Burn!, with a time-travel theme), quantities of chilling radio-plays for both CBS's Suspense series and the BBC's wonderful Appointment With Fear, and a host of short stories, many of which are now recognized classics.
'Detective's Day Off' is not a classic, but it is a model of its kind featuring, in its short space, not one but two astonishing vanishments from areas under police observation. It is also, as far as I know, the only John Dickson Carr short story never to have appeared in book form anywhere in the world. . .
WITH Christmas only three days away, men and women throughout London were celebrating the season of joy and goodwill by elbowing and pushing each other ferociously through every shop and department store.
And at Omniums, the giant store in Oxford Street, it was worse than anywhere.
Outside, past lanes of lighted windows, festive snowflakes sifted from a darkening sky. A loudspeaker van blared 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' to crowds struggling in slush.
Inside, frantic shoppers assailed the gift counters, and assaulted each other in the process.
Their noise was a shuffle and roar. Their aroma was a steam of wet overcoats.
And at the entrance to Toyland on the fifth floor stood a pretty, fair-haired girl. Her loving glance at the tall, handsome man beside her was clouded with annoyance. The little boy, clutching his hand, jumped up and down in a desperate attempt to break his far-away look of intense preoccupation.
The girl said: 'For heaven's sake, Bob, what is the matter with you?'
Detective Superintendent Robert Pollard for a moment did not reply. Officially off duty, he was still thinking hard about the case he had left for others to solve at New Scotland Yard—so that he could take his fiancée, Elsa Rawson, shopping at Omniums, and her six-year-old nephew, Tommy, to the toyfair.
'Bob,' said the girl again, in exasperation, 'do look as though you're enjoying yourself.'
'I've just thought,' said Bob, returning once again to the shopping battle. 'When I left the office, I didn't ring the Duty Room to say where I was going.'
'And that's all?' asked the astonished Elsa. 'That's all you're worried about?'
'Elsa, everybody has to phone the Duty Room when he leaves Scotland Yard. . .'
Young Tommy, saucer-eyed, leaped high in the air.
'Scotland Yard!' he cried in ecstasy. 'Scotland Yard . . .Yeepee!'
'Tommy, please do be quiet, said Elsa, 'or Uncle Bob won't take you to see Father Christmas.' Tomm
y writhed. Privately, he thought this Father Christmas business all a gag. But you couldn't be sure, and it was too close to Christmas to take any risks.
'Anyway, Bob, is it all that important?' she asked, searching his face closely for an endearing look.
From the moment they left for their shopping expedition, Elsa's suspicion grew—Bob did not have his mind on her. She wondered if perhaps Tommy's presence had annoyed him. Was he really more concerned about his precious crime work than pleasing her?
She couldn't restrain a petulant note when she asked:
'And how are all the little coppers at Scotland Yard? Are they having a happy Christmas?'
To Det. Supt. Pollard this was the last straw. He raised his powerful voice above a din which included the whiz of toy trains and a radio loudly blaring 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.
'If anybody at the Yard started singing about herald angels,' Pollard said. 'I hate to think what would happen to him. Anyway, they've got something else to think about right now, Elsa. It's a really big case. And we're all in a flap about it.'
'Is it a murder, Uncle Bob?' screamed Tommy.
'No, old chap, it's not a murder. And yet, in way, it's worse.'
'Crumbs,' said Tommy, and jumped so high that he seemed to be levitated from Pollard's hand.
'Bob, stop it!' snapped Elsa. 'You mustn't tease the child.'
'I am not teasing. This case isn't a teasing matter. It's not every day that we hear about two people, at exactly the same moment, but in completely different parts of London, both disappearing like soap-bubbles before the eyes of police witnesses.'
'Tommy, don't listen! He's joking!'
'Elsa, I'm not. A crook known as "The Colonel", and another crook known as "Shorty", both vanished off the face of the earth. Twenty thousand pounds' worth of uncut diamonds went with them. The point is how did they vanish?'
'Tommy, don't believe a word of this,' cried Elsa, gripping Tommy's other hand so that he was tugged between them. 'Uncle Bob never talks about police work. I can't make him talk about it!'
In fact, having just reached the howling centre of Toyland, Bob couldn't make himself heard.
Tommy was yanked away between his captors to a place of comparative quiet. There, behind his counter, the conjuror was exhibiting a large skull which first made whistling noises and then talked like Marshal Wyatt Earp.
Elsa was shivering with excitement.
'Why do they call him The Colonel?'
'Because he looks like a colonel in a comic paper. Middle-aged; military bearing; usually wears an eyeglass. Even when he doesn't wear an eyeglass, he has a gesture he can't help making. He keeps dragging down the side of his left eye. Like this!'
'Darling, for heaven's sake, don't leer. You look horrible.'
'Well, so does The Colonel. But you can spot that gesture a mile away, and you can spot him. As a rule, he's a confidence man.'
'A confidence man? You mean he swindled somebody out of £20,000 worth of uncut diamonds?'
'No!' Pollard snapped. 'It's worse. For the first time in his life, the fool used violence.'
'Did he murder somebody?' shouted Elsa. 'Cut some poor man's throat?'
Tommy, who had been trying vainly to scream gave it up and writhed in an agony of fascination. But Pollard only shook his head.
'Elsa, don't be so infernally bloodthirsty! No'.
'Then what was it?'
'In Sykes Street, a little turning off Upper Regent Street, there's a diamond-merchant named Van Bele. For years, Van Bele's been carrying regularly a fortune in uncut stones in a little wash-leather bag in his pocket. Up to now he's got away with it; nobody's bothered him.'
'And now?'
'On Tuesday, about 10.15 a.m., Van Bele had a phone-call asking him to visit some clients. It was a fake call; The Colonel sent it. Van Bele walked downstairs from his office. The Colonel, in his best Savile Row suit and overcoat, was waiting in the entry. He just walloped Van Bele on the jaw, knocked him out, took the little leather bag, and ran for it.'
Elsa spluttered.
'But—my dear Bob! Wouldn't they have caught him straight away?'
'No. With all this Christmas rush, he could have got clean away. But he had bad luck. Two constables were coming along Sykes Street opposite the Regent Street end. They saw our friend grab the bag and run.
'The Colonel jumped aboard a bus crossing Oxford Circus and went along Oxford Street. One of the constables followed; the other phoned the Yard.
'Within a few minutes they had the whole area covered in a net. In just two minutes, one of the Sweeneys—sorry, I mean a Flying Squad car—pulled up beside the bus in Oxford Street. The Colonel was standing on the platform.
'He jumped down, and dodged across the street. Two of our men followed, keeping him in sight. The Colonel, believe it or not, ran into Omnium's. Our men still had him in sight when he ducked into a telephone box in the basement. And that's all.'
'All? What do you mean?'
'The Colonel just vanished.'
'In the telephone box?'
'Apparently, yes.'
'But he can't have done!'
I know it's impossible. But it happened.'
Behind them, at the magician's counter, the talking skull left off gibbering and now loudly sang 'Silent Night' in competition to the radio's version of 'Silent Night'. But Elsa, Tommy, and Pollard himself had forgotten the pandemonium of Toyland.
'Remember,' Pollard insisted, 'that these diamonds were uncut. That's to say: they were only greyish lumps, like pebbles, and of no use to The Colonel until they were cut and polished.
'What's the first thing he would do? He'd get in touch with his diamond-cutter, of course. Naturally, Criminal Records knew who it was.'
'And this diamond-cutter was the other man you mentioned. . .Shorty?'
'Yes. Except that Shorty is a woman.'
'A woman?' said Elsa, yanking Tommy forward.
'Yes; why not?' retorted Pollard, yanking Tommy back. 'She's The Colonel's girlfriend. They live not far apart.
'After the first phone-call to the Yard, the division had orders to put a tail on Shorty. Not to arrest her—'
'Why ever not?'
'Dammit, Elsa, Shorty hadn't done anything—yet.
'But where was The Colonel meeting her to give her the diamonds? And how was he going to give her the diamonds? And when? That's what they had to know.'
'So. . .?'
'Two policewomen, in plain clothes, picked up Shorty outside her lodgings. Shorty was carrying a large parcel. She knew she was being followed. You'll have guessed she and The Colonel planned this before-hand, in case they were followed.
Shorty's quite an attractive trick, by the way: brunette, smooth skin, in her early twenties. She walked faster. So did the policewomen. Shorty hurried into Ilkley's—that big women's dress shop not far from here. So did the policewomen. And in the shop, Shorty dodged into a telephone box. . .'
Here Pollard had to stop.
'You're not going to tell me,' said Elsa, who still thought that her beloved was spinning a fairy story, 'that she disappeared out of a 'phone box?'
'Apparently, yes. Parcel and all.'
Elsa's pretty face coloured pink with anger. She turned away abruptly.
'I don't believe it,' she said, violently jerking Tommy's left arm. 'It's silly! Look at the crowd here now. Just look!'
'Very well,' said Pollard, jerking Tommy's right arm. 'I'm looking. What about it?'
'Crowds and crowds and crowds,' said Elsa, 'all moving. Could you be certain somebody's disappeared out of a 'phone box, even if you were only ten feet away?'
'You could be pretty certain that two different people couldn't vanish out of two different shops under the conditions the police established. As soon as The Colonel entered Omnium's, and Shorty entered Ilkley's, both places were surrounded. Every possible entrance or exit was guarded. Every nook and cranny was searched. Every customer was stopped and questioned . . .'
'Wa
it! What about all the sales staff?'
'They were the first to be questioned. Both Omnium's and Ilkley's open at nine o'clock. The managers could tell from their time-sheets that every person was at his or her proper place. No employee could have been larking about with a pocket full of diamonds, or could have changed places afterwards with somebody who had. Face it, my dear! Shorty and The Colonel didn't leave the shops. And yet they weren't in the buildings either. They'd simply vanished.'
Elsa marched forward, dragging the others like a string of sausages.
'Come along, Tommy,' she said in exasperation.
'It's not very nice of Uncle Bob to enrage you like this. He's insufferable, and I'll never speak to him again.'
'Now wait a bit, Elsa!'
'This way, Tommy; mind where you're going. We'll take you to see Father Christmas.'
They had pushed through to a long grotto, a kind of mysterious and softly lighted cavern, where even in Toyland voices were hushed.
Here children walked slowly.
At the grotto pay box, over which large red letters said that Father Christmas would be in attendance from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Pollard bought three tickets.
The grotto was murmurous with 'Oh's!' and 'Ah's!' Brightly painted in cardboard or plaster, figures and backgrounds showed fairy stories. They were well along in the cavern when Pollard stopped. His mouth fell open. He stood rigid, staring straight ahead.
At the end of the cavern, on a platform festooned in holly where children could mount the two steps and whisper their wishes, sat Father Christmas himself.
At Father Christmas's right hand was a table piled with small gift-boxes wrapped in bright paper.
Even as Pollard stared, a little girl of possibly 12 years walked up the steps.
She was very dainty in white fur jacket and white cap. Her long yellow curls fell forward as she bent to whisper.
Father Christmas chuckled. He nodded. Selecting a gift-box from the table, he turned back in one vast beam to give this present to his small friend. And, as he did so, Father Christmas's large left eyebrow closed down as though he leered or held an eyeglass.
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