Crime at Christmas

by Jack Adrian (ed)

  Each guest had been provided with a small invalid table beside his armchair, and Oates, reluctant but wax in Fiona's hands, was no exception. The Superintendent found himself seated between a mountain in flannel and a wraith in mauve mink, waiting his turn with the same beady-eyed avidity.

  Christmas Tree procedure at The CCraven proved to be well organized. The dragon did little work herself. Armed with a swagger stick, she merely prodded parcel after parcel hanging amid the boughs while the task of detaching them was performed by the Brigadier who handed them to Fiona.

  Either to add to the excitement or perhaps to muffle any unfortunate comment on gifts received by the uninhibited company, jolly Christmas music was played throughout, and under cover of the noise Mr Campion was able to tackle his hostess.

  'Where is Taunton!' he whispered.

  'Such a nice little man. Most presentable, but just a little teeny-weeny bit dishonest.'

  Lady Larradine ignored the question in his eyes and continued to put him in the picture at great speed, while supervising the Tree at the same time. 'Fifty-seven convictions, I believe, but only small ones. I only got it all out of him last week. Shattering! He'd been so useful, amusing the Brigadier. When he came, he looked like a lost soul with no luggage, but after no time at all he settled in perfectly.'

  She paused and stabbed at a ball of coloured cellophane with her stick before returning to her startled guest.

  'Albert, I am terribly afraid that it was poor Mr Taunton who took that dreadful jewellery of Maisie Phaeton's. It appears to have been entirely her fault. He was merely wandering past her house, feeling in need of care and attention. The door was wide open and Mr Taunton suddenly found himself inside, picking up a few odds and ends. When he discovered from all that fuss in the newspapers what he had got hold of—how well-known it was, I mean—he was quite horrified and had to hide. And where better place than here with us where he never had to go out?'

  'Where indeed!' Mr Campion dared not glance across the room at the Superintendent unwrapping his black and gold parcels. 'Where is he now? Poor Mr Taunton, I mean.'

  'Of course I hadn't the faintest idea what was worrying the man until he confessed,' the dragon went on stonily. 'Then I realized that something would have to be done at once to protect everybody. The wretch had hidden all that frightful stuff in our tool shed for three months, not daring to keep it in the house; and to make matters worse, the impossible person at the end of the garden, Mr Sampson, had recognized him and would keep speaking. Apparently people in the—er—underworld all know each other just like those of us in—er—other closed circles do.'

  Mr Campion, whose hair was standing on end, had a moment of inspiration. 'This absurd rigmarole about Taunton getting Sampson to buy him some Christmas gifts wholesale was your idea!' he said accusingly.

  The dragon stared. 'It seemed the best way of getting Maisie's jewellery back to her without any one person being involved,' she said frankly. 'I knew we should all recognize the things the moment we saw them and I was certain that after a lot of argument we should decide to pack them up and send them round to her. But, if there were any repercussions, we should all be in it—quite a formidable array, dear Boy—and the blame could be traced to Mr Sampson if absolutely necessary. You see, the Brigadier is convinced that Sampson was there last night. Mr Taunton very cleverly left him on the lawn and went behind the tool shed and came back with the box.'

  'How completely immoral!' Mr Campion couldn't restrain himself.

  The dragon had the grace to look embarrassed.

  'I don't think the Sampson angle would ever have arisen,' she said. 'But if it had, Sampson was quite a terrible person. Almost a black-mailer. Utterly dishonest and inconsiderate. Think how he has spoiled everything and endangered us all by getting himself killed on the one afternoon when we said he was here, so that the police were brought in. Just the one thing I was trying to avoid. When the Inspector appeared this morning I was so upset I thought of you!'

  In his not unnatural alarm Mr Campion so far forgot himself as to touch her sleeve. 'Where is Taunton now?'

  The dragon threshed her train. 'Really, Boy! What a fidget you are! If you must know, I gave him his Christmas present—every penny I had in cash for he was broke again, he told me—and sent him for a nice long walk after lunch. Having seen the Inspector here this morning he was glad to go—'

  She paused and a granite gleam came into her hooded eyes. 'If that Superintendent friend of yours has the stupidity to try to find him once Maisie has her monstrosities back, none of us will be able to identify him, I'm afraid. And there's another thing. If the Brigadier should be forced to give evidence, I am sure he will stick to his guns about Mr Sampson being down in the garden here at six o'clock last night. That would mean that the man Kroll would have to go unpunished for his revenge murder, wouldn't it? Sampson was a terrible person—but no one should have killed him.'

  Mr Campion was silenced. He glanced fearfully across the room.

  The Superintendent was seated at his table wearing the strained yet slap-happy expression of a man with concussion. On his left was a pile of black and gilt wrappings, on his right a rajah's ransom in somewhat specialized form.

  From where he stood, Mr Campion could see two examples amid the rest- a breastplate in gold, pearl, and enamel in the shape of a unicorn and an item which looked like a plover's egg in tourmaline encased in a ducal coronet. There was also a soapstone monkey and a solid-silver paperknife.

  Much later that evening Mr Campion and the Superintendent drove quietly back to headquarters. Oates had a large cardboard box on his knee. He clasped it tenderly.

  He had been silent for a long time when a thought occurred to him. 'Why did they take him into the house in the first place?' he said. 'An elderly crook looking lost! And no luggage!'

  Mr Campion's pale eyes flickered behind his spectacles.

  'Don't forget the Duchess' house-keeping money,' he murmured. 'I should think he offered one of the widows who really run that place the first three months' payment in cash, wouldn't you? That must be an impressive phenomenon in that sort of business, I fancy.'

  Oates caught his breath and fell silent once more. Presently he burst out again.

  'Those people! That woman!' he exploded. 'When they were younger they led me a pretty dance—losing things or getting themselves swindled. But now they're old they take the blessed biscuit! Do you see how she's tied my hands, Campion?'

  Mr Campion tried not to grin.

  'Snapdragons are just permissible at Christmas,' he said. 'Handled with extreme caution they burn very few fingers, it seems to me.'

  Mr Campion tapped the cardboard box. 'And some of them provide a few plums for retiring coppers, don't they, Superintendent?'

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  13 - Christmas Train by WILL SCOTT

  THE LATE Will Scott was a humorist who nourished during the 1920s and 1930s; one of a number of second line dependables who rarely, if ever, made it into Punch, and were actually not too bothered that they didn't. Apart from anything else, Punch payments weren't all that marvellous (times haven't changed), it was something of a closed shop (times haven't changed), and in any case there were, in those golden inter-War years—golden for writers, anyhow—dozens of other humorous weeklies, as well as fortnightlies and monthlies (times definitely have changed, alas), whose editors were desperate to fill the gaps between the cartoons and the adverts. Scott and his brethren were more than happy to inject into those spaces a little light relief.

  Browse through the yellowing pages of the old magazines—Passing Show, The Humorist, Everybody's Weekly, the Sunny Mag, the Jolly Mag, the Happy Mag (home of Richmal Crompton's exuberantly scruffy William), John Bull—and there they all are, yesterday's mirth-merchants (listed here to give them some slight, if posthumous, glory): Ashley Sterne, K. R. G. Browne, A. B. Cox, H. F. Maltby, A. A. Thomson, Herbert Farjeon, C. Hedley Barker, F. W. Thomas, H. M. Raleigh, W. Hodgson Burnett, A. M. Burrag
e, M. O. Sale, et al. All masters at the art of getting over a joke or a wry comment or a little fantastical farce into a piece no shorter than 500 words, no longer than a thousand.

  No one got fat on it, but if you were quick and inventive you could place four or five pieces a week and that netted a darn sight more than the three-quid wage on which suburbia depended.

  Most kept at their humorous hackwork until fingers or brain gave out. Some broke away, at least from the awful weekly grind: There was a time when F. W. Thomas, who wrote a daily column for the Star newspaper as well as a weekly one for Tit-Bits, was producing two or three books a year of his collected trifles. Herbert Farjeon—just one member of an extraordinary family: Eleanor produced quantities of light verse and children's books; J. Jefferson over seventy not at all bad thrillers—wrote or contributed to scores of theatrical revues. The scandalously neglected A. M. Burrage wrote one of the finest novels to come out of the 1914-18 conflict, War Is War (1930), as well as around a hundred ghost stories in the classic English tradition. And if anyone reading this does not know who A. B. Cox was, why on earth are you reading this? (Try 'Berkeley, Anthony' or 'lies, Francis' in any of the standard works to gauge Mr Cox's contribution to the art of the detective story.)

  Will Scott turned to crime. He wrote three novels concerning his offbeat detective Disher; another book featured the exploits of the even more eccentric 'Giglamps', a sort of tramp who kept on stumbling into sort of criminous situations, sometimes solving them, often profiting from them. Sort of.

  One hero Scott created never made it between hard or soft covers, which is a pity. Jeremiah Jones, alias the Laughing Crook, was a kind of updated Raffles without the boring bits. Like the rather more swashbuckling Simon Templar, the Laughing Crook came straight out of Edgar Wallace's the Brigand and the Mixer and is none the worse for that. He's certainly more stylish than Berkeley Gray's gruesome Norman Conquest, more fun than John Creasey's plodding Toff.

  Scott wrote a long series of Laughing Crook tales for the weekly Passing Show. Jones's Scotland Yard nemesis was the bulky Inspector Beecham, whom he invariably, and amusingly, led up the garden path. As here. . .

  YOU'RE sure of your facts, Maxwell?' Mr Jeremiah Jones inquired.

  'Positive, sir,' replied the sober Maxwell. 'Mr Hadlow Cribb landed this morning at Southampton. He has the jewels with him. Forty thousand pounds' worth. The trouble is, you can't get that lot through the Customs without somebody getting to know. And I got to know. It cost a bit!'

  'Luxuries,' reflected Mr Jones, with a grin, 'are always expensive. But go on.'

  'Mr Hadlow Cribb leaves Liverpool Street tonight for his country home at Friars Topliss where he intends to spend Christmas,' Maxwell proceeded. 'The jewels, of course, go with him. The train is due out at fourteen minutes past six.'

  'Four hours,' murmured Mr Jones, with a glance at his watch. 'Busy train. It won't be too easy. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wish I'd had a little experience of this kind of work.'

  'I ought to add,' Maxwell resumed, 'that Mr Hadlow Cribb was accompanied up from Southampton by Marks.'

  'Marks?' Mr Jeremiah Jones' eyebrows lifted quickly. 'The new fellow in Beecham's office?'

  'Exactly,' said Maxwell with a sigh.

  'Scotland Yard protection! No, it isn't going to be too easy,' Mr Jones repeated. 'Can you get word to Dawlish,' he added as he reached for the telephone.

  'Dawlish?'

  Mr Jones nodded.

  'You mean—as it were—put him wise?'

  'Very wise, in a tactful way.'

  'I might,' said Maxwell doubtfully.

  'Aren't you sure?'

  'I'm positive,' said Maxwell.

  'Right. Then go and do it. Meet me here at five-thirty. Have everything ready—most important—mind you've got a bag that's as near as blow it to the one Mr Hadlow Cribb will carry his jewels in.'

  'It shall be done,' Maxwell promised. And away he went.

  Mr Jones unhooked the receiver.

  'That Scotland Yard?' he was saying presently. 'Inspector Beecham? Say Mr Jones—an old friend!'

  A minute passed and then a sly smile spread across Mr Jones' cheerful face.

  'That you, Beecham? How are you? Merry Christmas! Well, why not? Peace on earth, goodwill to all men, and that kind of thing.

  'Listen, Beecham, my own—I've a Christmas box for you. You remember I promised you, if I could get it, the—er—inside dope, as it's called—crude expression, I know, but it is called that, isn't it? I thought you'd know. . . My dear fellow, I am getting on with it; do let me finish. . .

  'About that hold-up at Clapham the other week, when the girl was knocked out. You know how I hate brutality. I mean, he could have drugged her quite as easily, couldn't he? . . . But I'm telling you! I've got your man, address and everything.

  'Listen, I shall be in the Baltic at four. . .No, no, Beecham, dear, I'd much rather see you personally. . .It's your face. It brightens my day. Baltic at four. Better write it down. You're so forgetful!'

  After which Mr Jones, with a happy chuckle, hooked the receiver, went to Liverpool Street, bought a couple of first-class train tickets, and proceeded to his accustomed corner in the dim saloon of the Baltic Hotel, off Piccadilly.

  Promptly at four o'clock the stolid face of Detective-Inspector Beecham of Scotland Yard appeared in sight, and the Scotland Yard man took a seat beside Mr Jones without a word.

  'Compliments of the season!' said the latter brightly.

  Beecham grunted.

  'Cheer up!' Mr Jones beamed.

  'You owe me some information,' Beecham reminded him.

  'I have it here,' said Mr Jones, producing a pocket-book, which he placed on the table.

  'When I say owe I mean owe,' Beecham added. 'Don't imagine you're paying off a debt. You're merely paying off arrears. You've slipped through my fingers so often that I take this without hesitation. I've a right to it. But it wipes nothing off. If I can get you tomorrow, I'll get you!'

  'Why not tonight?' Mr Jones smiled.

  'The first chance I get,' Beecham growled.

  Mr Jones pulled a slip of paper from his pocket-book and began to unfold it. If he heard the suppressed gasp at his side he took no notice of it. He proceeded to unfold the little slip. But it wasn't the slip that had caused the Scotland Yard man to gasp. It was the sight of the two railway tickets. First class. To Friars Topliss.

  'Here's the address,' said Mr Jones, passing the slip to the detective. You'll Find your man there. You'll find the evidence too. And he richly deserves what's coming to him. You can tell him I said so, if you like, when you explain I obtained the information against him and so did your job for you.'

  'Anything else?' asked Beecham.

  'Nothing,' said Mr Jones, 'unless you'll let me call the waiter again, so that we can toast each other in the true festive—'

  'I'll be going,' said Beecham curtly as he rose.

  'You have a heart of stone, dear Beecham,' sighed Mr Jones. 'And yet, on Christmas Eve, when you see your stocking and the chimney shaft—who knows?'

  But Detective-Inspector Beecham was already on his way to the door—and Scotland Yard.

  Back in his office the big man rang a bell and summoned his new assistant Marks to his side.

  'Ah, Marks,' he said crisply. 'About Mr Hadlow Cribb. He's being accompanied tonight on the train?'

  'I'm going myself, sir,' said Marks.

  'You needn't trouble,' Beecham grunted.

  'Not trouble, sir?’

  ‘I'm going, myself!'

  And as Beecham pecked the end off a big cigar he almost smiled his self-satisfaction.

  The six-fourteen out of Liverpool Street faced the snow before it started. The snow blew in through the open end of the great building, covering the front of the engine and the sides of the passengers and the friends who were seeing them off. It was agreed by the majority that the weather was seasonable, but the vote was unanimous that the journey was certain to be
long and uncomfortable.

  In the laughing, grumbling, cheerful and anxious holiday crowds a small greyish man passed unnoticed. The cheerful ones were too cheerful to take the slightest interest in a figure so small and grey; the anxious ones too anxious. He passed through to the train as though he and the inconspicuous black bag he carried did not in fact exist, and when he sank wheezily into the corner of a first-class compartment that compartment still seemed empty.

  Whereas everybody, cheerful or anxious, had at least one glance to spare for the tall and handsome Mr Jeremiah Jones, who, with the grave and dignified Maxwell at his heels, strode along the platform with an assurance which implied that if he had not bought the station at least he had a ten-day option upon it.

  But since nobody had noticed the first greyish man, nobody noticed now that the inconspicuous black bag which Maxwell carried in the wake of Mr Jones was the very twin brother of the inconspicuous black bag which the greyish man had carried a few moments before.

  Except, that is, just one eager watcher with a black half-moon moustache, who now moved out of the obscurity of a dark corner and passed through the barrier not twenty feet behind Mr Jones and Maxwell.

  Mr Jones and Maxwell passed the first-class compartment in which the greyish Mr Hadlow Cribb sat with his forty thousand pounds' worth of jewels, walked on until they were beyond the dining car and then selected a first-class compartment of their own.

  But the eagerly watchful Detective-Inspector Beecham had a few quiet words with the guard at the other end of the train and sank back into obscurity once more, this time in the shadows of the guard's van.

  The train moved out of the station and Detective-Inspector Beecham moved out of the guard's van together. The train moved out into the unfriendliness of the winter night, but Beecham moved out into the comparative cosiness of the corridor. This he traversed as far as the second coach where, having satisfied himself that Mr Hadlow Cribb was still alone and his shabby case unmolested, he took up his stand round the angle of the passage at the end of the coach and watched.