Crime at Christmas

by Jack Adrian (ed)

  Once more Timothy nodded in silence.

  'Very well. I shall speak to Roger in the morning—after you have returned me Bessie's Christmas present. I shall require that for future use. You can go now, Timothy.'

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  12 - Murder Under the Mistletoe by MARGERY ALLINGHAM

  MARGERY ALLINGHAM (1904-66) couldn't help becoming a writer, although it wasn't so much Fate that pushed her to it as blood (an ichor later to feature fairly strongly in her work).

  Her grandfather, William Allingham, was owner-editor of the Christian Globe back in the 1860s; her great-uncle, John Allingham, the black sheep of the family, spurned writing tracts for his brother and became a prolific hack for the bloods and penny-dreadfuls of the 1880s, immersing himself so deeply in the persona of his chief character, Ralph Rollington, that he later took on his name. Her mother, Emily Allingham {nee Hughes), was a journalist who also wrote weepies and Had-I-But-Knowners, and her father was the great H.J. of his ilk, something of a legend in his own lifetime who wrote prodigiously for dozens of boys' weekly papers from the 1890s to the year of his death (1935), and at one time was earning a princely £2.10.s.6d. (just over £2.50) per thousand words, a whole guinea more than the drudges who banged out adult serials for the newspapers.

  Margery Allingham herself left school at fifteen to work in the Amalgamated Press's vast fiction factory in London's Farringdon Street (aided and abetted by her father, then still one of the AP's chief scribblers), had a play, Dido And Aeneas, produced at the age of 18 (she once considered taking to the boards professionally, but wisely thought better of it), her first book, an energetic smuggling romp Blakkerchief Dick, published at 19 (actually written a couple of years before), and another play, Water In A Sieve, at 21.

  What ought to have happened after that was another thirty-odd years hard labour grinding out saleable trash for the cheaper end of the market. What actually happened was that she began to write breezy and entertaining detective stories (some under the absurd pseudonym 'Maxwell March') which gradually, through the 1930s, became very good and sharply characterized detective novels, and then, during the 1940s and 1950s, superlative and skilful novels of crime.

  She also wrote masterly short stories. Here is a late offering, in which her very human sleuth Albert Campion helps the excitable Superintendent Stanislaus Oates (Allingham was always very inventive with her names) clear his desk as retirement looms. . .

  MURDER under the Mistletoe—and the man who must have done it couldn't have done it. That's my Christmas and I don't feel merry thank you very much all the same.' Superintendent Stanislaus Oates favoured his old friend Mr Albert Campion with a pained smile and sat down in the chair indicated.

  It was the afternoon of Christmas Day and Mr Campion, only a trifle more owlish than usual behind his horn rims, had been fetched down from the children's party which he was attending at his brother-in-law's house in Knightsbridge to meet the Superintendent, who had moved heaven and earth to find him.

  'What do you want?' Mr Campion inquired facetiously. 'A little armchair miracle?'

  'I don't care if you do it swinging from a trapeze. I just want a reasonable explanation.' Oates was rattled. His dyspeptic face with the perpetually sad expression was slightly flushed and not with festivity. He plunged into his story.

  'About eleven last night a crook called Sampson was found shot dead in the back of a car in a garage under a small drinking club in Alcatraz Mews—the club is named The Humdinger. A large bunch of mistletoe which had been lying on the front seat ready to be driven home had been placed on top of the body partially hiding it—which was why it hadn't been found before. The gun, fitted with a silencer, but wiped of prints, was found under the front seat. The dead man was recognized at once by the owner of the car who is also the owner of the club. He was the owner's current boy friend. She is quite a well-known West End character called 'Girlski'. What did you say?'

  'I said 'Oo-er,' murmured Mr Campion. 'One of the Eumenides, no doubt?'

  'No.' Oates spoke innocently. 'She's not a Greek. Don't worry about her. Just keep your mind on the facts. She knows, as we do, that the only person who wanted to kill Sampson is a nasty little snake called Kroll. He has been out of circulation for the best of reasons. Sampson turned Queen's evidence against him in a matter concerning a conspiracy to rob Her Majesty's mails and when he was released last Tuesday Kroll came out breathing retribution.'

  'Not the Christmas spirit,' said Mr Campion inanely.

  'That is exactly what we thought,' Oates agreed. 'So about five o'clock yesterday afternoon two of our chaps, hearing that Kroll was at The Humdinger, where he might have been expected to make trouble, dropped along there and brought him in for questioning and he's been in custody ever since.

  'Well, now. We have at least a dozen reasonably sober witnesses to prove that Kroll did not meet Sampson at the Club. Sampson had been there earlier in the afternoon but he left about a quarter to four saying he'd got to do some Christmas shopping but promising to return. Fifteen minutes or so later Kroll came in and stayed there in full view of Girlski and the customers until our men turned up and collected him. Now what do you say?'

  'Too easy!' Mr Campion was suspicious. 'Kroll killed Sampson just before he came in himself. The two met in the dusk outside the club. Kroll forced Sampson into the garage and possibly into the car and shot him. With the way the traffic has been lately, he'd hardly have attracted attention had he used a mortar, let alone a gun with a silencer. He wiped the weapon, chucked it in the car, threw the mistletoe over the corpse, and went up to Girlski to renew old acquaintance and establish an alibi. Your chaps, arriving when they did, must have appeared welcome.'

  Oates nodded. 'We thought that. That is what happened. That is why this morning's development has set me gibbering. We now have two unimpeachable witnesses who swear that the dead man was in Chipperwood West at six last evening delivering some Christmas purchases he had made on behalf of a neighbour. That is a whole hour after Kroll was pulled in.

  'The assumption is that Sampson returned to Alcatraz Mews sometime later in the evening and was killed by someone else—which we know is not true. Unfortunately the Chipperwood West witnesses are not the kind of people we are going to shake. One of them is a friend of yours. She asked our Inspector if he knew you because you were "so good at crime and all that nonsense".'

  'Good Heavens!' Mr Campion spoke piously as the explanation of the Superintendent's unlikely visitation was made plain to him. 'I don't think I know Chipperwood West.'

  'It's a suburb which is becoming fashionable. Have you ever heard of Lady Larradine?'

  'Old Lady 'ell?' Mr Campion let the joke of his salad days escape without its being noticed by either of them. 'I don't believe it. She must be dead by this time!'

  'There's a type of woman who never dies before you do,' said Oates with apparent sincerity. 'She's quite a dragon, I understand from our Inspector. However, she isn't the actual witness. There are two of them. Brigadier Brose is one. Ever heard of him?'

  'I don't think I have.'

  'My information is that you'd remember him if you'd met him. Well, we'll find out. I'm taking you with me, Campion. I hope you don't mind?'

  'My sister will hate it. I'm due to be Santa Claus in about an hour.'

  'I can't help that.' Oates was adamant. 'If a bunch of silly crooks want to get spiteful at the festive season, someone must do the homework. Come and play Santa Claus with me. It's your last chance. I'm retiring in the summer.'

  Oates continued in the same vein as he and Mr Campion sat in the back of a police car threading their way through the deserted Christmas streets where the lamps were growing bright in the dusk.

  'I've had bad luck lately,' the Superintendent said seriously. 'Too much. It won't help my memoirs if I go out in a blaze of no enthusiasm. '

  'You're thinking of the Phaeton Robbery,' Mr Campion suggested. 'What are you calling the memoirs? Man-eaters of the Yard?'
>
  Oates's mild old eyes brightened, but not greatly.

  'Something of the kind,' he admitted. 'But no one could be blamed for not solving that blessed Phaeton business. Everyone concerned was bonkers. A silly old musical star, for thirty years the widow of an eccentric Duke, steps out into her London garden one autumn morning leaving the street door wide open and all her most valuable jewellery collected from strong rooms all over the country lying in a brown paper parcel on her bureau in the first room off the hall. Her excuse was that she was just going to take it to the Bond Street auctioneers and was carrying it herself for safety! The thief was equally mental to lift it.'

  'It wasn't saleable?'

  'Saleable! It couldn't even be broken up. The stuff is just about as well-known as the Crown Jewels. Great big enamels which the old Duke had collected at great expense. No fence would stay in the same room with them, yet, of course, they are worth the Earth as every newspaper has told us at length ever since they were pinched!'

  'He didn't get anything else either, did he?'

  'He was a madman.' Oates dismissed him with contempt. 'All he gained was the old lady's house-keeping money for a couple of months which was in her handbag—about a hundred and fifty quid—and the other two items which were on the same shelf, a soapstone monkey and plated paperknife. He simply wandered in, took the first things he happened to see and wandered out again. Any sneak thief, tramp, or casual snapper-upper could have done it and who gets blamed? Me!'

  He looked so woebegone that Mr Campion hastily changed the subject. 'Where are we going?' he inquired. 'To call on her ladyship? Do I understand that at the age of one hundred and forty-six or whatever it is she is cohabiting with a Brig? Which war?'

  'I can't tell you.' Oates was literal as usual. 'It could be the South African. They're all in a nice residential hotel—the sort of place that is very popular with the older members of the landed gentry just now.'

  'When you say landed, you mean as in fish?'

  'Roughly, yes. Elderly people living on capital. About forty of them. This place used to be called The Haven and has now been taken over by two ex-society widows and renamed The CCraven—with two Cs. It's a select hotel-cum-Old-Duck's Home for Mother's Friends. You know the sort of place?'

  'I can envisage it. Don't say your murdered chum from The Humdinger lived there too?'

  'No, he lived in a more modest place whose garden backs on The CCraven's grounds. The Brigadier and one of the other residents, a Mr Charlie Taunton, who has become a bosom friend of his, were in the habit of talking to Sampson over the wall. Taunton is a lazy man who seldom goes out and has little money but he very much wanted to get some gifts for his fellow guests—something in the nature of little jokes from the chain stores, I understand; but he dreaded the exertion of shopping for them and Sampson appears to have offered to get him some little items wholesale and to deliver them by six o'clock on Christmas Eve—in time for him to package them up and hand them to Lady Larradine who was dressing the tree at seven.'

  'And you say Sampson actually did this?' Mr Champion sounded bewildered.

  'Both old gentlemen—the Brigadier and Taunton—swear to it. They insist they went down to the wall at six and Sampson handed the parcel over as arranged. My Inspector is an experienced man and he doesn't think we'll be able to shake either of them.'

  'That leaves Kroll with a complete alibi. How did these Chipperwood witnesses hear of Sampson's death?'

  'Routine. The local police called at Sampson's home address this morning to report the death, only to discover the place closed. The land-lady and her family are away for the holiday and Sampson himself was due to spend it with Girlski. The police stamped about a bit, making sure of all this, and in the course of their investigations they were seen and hailed by the two old boys in the adjoining garden. The two were shocked to hear that their kind acquaintance was dead and volunteered the information that he had been with them at six.'

  Mr Campion looked blank. 'Perhaps they don't keep the same hours as anybody else,' he suggested. 'Old people can be highly eccentric.'

  Oates shook his head. 'We thought of that. My Inspector, who came down the moment the local police reported, insists that they are perfectly normal and quite positive. Moreover, they had the purchases. He saw the packages already on the tree. Lady Larradine pointed them out to him when she asked after you. She'll be delighted to see you, Campion.'

  'I can hardly wait!'

  'You don't have to,' said Oates grimly as they pulled up before a huge Edwardian villa. 'It's all yours.'

  'My dear Boy! You haven't aged any more than I have!'

  Lady Larradine's tremendous voice-one of her chief terrors, Mr Campion recollected-echoed over the crowded first-floor room where she received them. There she stood in an outmoded but glittering evening gown looking, as always, exactly like a spray-flecked seal.

  'I knew you'd come,' she bellowed. 'As soon as you got my oblique little S.O.S. How do you like our little hideout? Isn't it fun! Moira Spryg-Fysher and Janice Poole-Poole wanted something to do, so we all put our pennies in it and here we are!'

  'Almost too marvellous,' murmured Mr Campion in all sincerity. 'We really want a word with Brigadier Brose and Mr Taunton.'

  'Of course you do and so you shall! We're all waiting for the Christmas tree. Everybody will be there for that in about ten minutes in the drawing room. My dear, when we came they were calling it the Residents' Lounge!'

  Superintendent Oates remained grave. He was startled to discover that the dragon was not only fierce but also wily. The news that her apparently casual mention of Mr Campion to the Inspector had been a ruse to get hold of him shocked the innocent Superintendent. He retaliated by insisting that he must see the witnesses at once.

  Lady Larradine silenced him with a friendly roar. 'My dear man, you can't! They've gone for a walk. I always turn men out of the house after Christmas luncheon. They'll soon be back. The Brigadier won't miss his Tree! Ah. Here's Fiona. This is Janice Poole-Poole's daughter, Albert. Isn't she a pretty girl?'

  Mr Campion saw Miss Poole-Poole with relief, knowing of old that Oates was susceptible to the type. The newcomer was young and lovely and even her beehive hair and the fact that she appeared to have painted herself with two black eyes failed to spoil the exquisite smile she bestowed on the helpless officer.

  'Fabulous to have you really here,' she said and sounded as if she meant it. While he was still recovering, Lady Larradine led Oates to the window.

  'You can't see it because it's pitch-dark,' she said, 'but out there, down in the garden, there's a wall and it was over it that the Brigadier and Mr Taunton spoke to Mr Sampson at six o'clock last night. No one liked the man Sampson—I think Mr Taunton was almost afraid of him. Certainly he seems to have died very untidily!'

  'But he did buy Mr Taunton's Christmas gifts for him?'

  The dragon lifted a webby eyelid.

  'You have already been told that. At six last night Mr Taunton and the Brigadier went to meet him to get the box. I got them into their mufflers so I know! I had the packing paper ready, too, for Mr Taunton to take up to his room. . . Rather a small one on the third floor.'

  She lowered her voice to reduce it to the volume of distant traffic. 'Not many pennies, but a dear little man!'

  'Did you see these presents, Ma'am?'

  'Not before they were wrapped! That would have spoiled the surprise!'

  'I shall have to see them.' There was a mulish note in the Superintendent's voice which the lady was too experienced to ignore.

  'I've thought how to do that without upsetting anybody,' she said briskly. 'The Brigadier and I will cut the presents from the Tree and Fiona will be handing them round. All Mr Taunton's little gifts are in the very distinctive black and gold paper I bought from Millie's Boutique and so, Fiona, you must give every package in black and gold paper not to the person to whom it is addressed but to the Superintendent. Can you do that, dear?'

  Miss Poole-Poole seemed to
feel the task difficult but not impossible and the trusting smile she gave Oates cut short his objections like the sun melting frost.

  'Splendid!' The dragon's roar was hearty. 'Give me your arm, Superintendent. You shall take me down.'

  As the procession reached the hall, it ran into the Brigadier himself. He was a large, pink man, affable enough, but of a martial type and he bristled at the Superintendent. 'Extraordinary time to do your business—middle of Christmas Day!' he said after acknowledging the introductions.

  Oates inquired if he had enjoyed his walk.

  'Talk?' said the Brigadier. 'I've not been talking. I've been asleep in the card room. Where's old Taunton?'

  'He went for a walk, Athole dear,' bellowed the dragon gaily.

  'So he did. You sent him! Poor feller.'

  As the old soldier led the way to the open door of the drawing room, it occurred to both the Superintendent and Mr Campion that the secret of Lady Larradine's undoubted attraction for the Brigadier lay in the fact that he could hear her if no one else. The discovery cast a new light altogether on the story of the encounter with Sampson in the garden.

  Meanwhile, they had entered the drawing room and the party had begun. As Mr Campion glanced at the company, ranged in a full circle round a magnificent tree loaded with gifts and sparkling like a waterfall, he saw face after familiar face. They were elder acquaintances of the dizzy 1930s whom he had mourned as gone forever, when he thought of them at all. Yet here they all were, not only alive but released by great age from many of the restraints of convention.

  He noticed that every type of headgear from night-cap to tiara was being sported with fine individualistic enthusiasm. But Lady Larradine gave him little time to look about. She proceeded with her task immediately.