Crime at Christmas

by Jack Adrian (ed)

  Then there was port and brandy and cigars for some, and everybody got redder in the face. One old one with a fair pot on him said, in a colonel-sort-of-voice, 'An excellent lunch, steward, really excellent.'

  'And excellently served,' said somebody else.

  'Hear, hear,' said one young smasher.

  'Our compliments to the chef,' said another.

  'And a very merry Christmas,' said another.

  So I thought, and Bert and young Jack thought, that this was going to be all right. This was going to be real sort of compensation for working on Christmas Day. In my mind's eye I could see five bob tips, ten bob tips, all sorts of tips just flowing in, some of the kinder-hearted ones saying, 'And here's an extra ten bob to buy something for the kids.'

  So, all ready for this, we began to take the bills round, saying, just to remind them, 'I hope your lunch was satisfactory, sir,' and 'I trust you enjoyed your lunch, madam.' They all said they did, and this colonel-type kept on saying 'Excellent, excellent,' with a big Corona Corona stuck in his gob.

  And here's where the mystery came in. At least it was a mystery at the time, such a big sort of mystery that I really began to think we were all haunted, and very nearly decided to get off for good at the next stop.

  Not one tip did we get. Not a sausage. Not a threepenny joey, not a solitary claud. As true as I'm standing here now, not one of those well-fed and, as they themselves put it, highly satisfied passengers, whether first-class or third as it was then, gave as much as a worn-out meg. They'd gorged themselves silly, saying 'Excellent, excellent' and 'Really delightful, steward,' but every ounce of change we put on their plates they scooped right back in their pockets or purses or what have you.

  I couldn't believe it, nor could Bert and young Jack. I mean, we were too flabbergasted even to get a bit nasty, which, all things considered, we would have been quite right to get. I just gasped like a fish at them. I even said to the colonel bloke. 'Are you sure you enjoyed your lunch, sir?' and he said, 'Excellent, excellent. Really first-class, steward, really first-rate lunch.' And some idiot next to him—idiot I thought then, anyway—said, 'Hear, hear.'

  As they made their way back to their compartments, some of them even gave me the old pat on the back with 'Merry Christmas, steward,' and all the rest of it. They must have seen us all looking a bit gloomy, but I suppose they'd put it down to us being far from home and our loved ones and all that load of tripe on Christmas Day, working like blacks instead of watching others guzzle. Anyway, that ungrateful-seeming lot went back to their compartments to snore it off. And when we'd packed everything away and had our own bit to eat, the lot of us just sat about, gloomy as you-know-what, wondering about it all.

  'I just can't understand it,' said young Jack. He was near to crying, that poor young lad was, and I couldn't really blame him.

  'Mystery, that's what it is,' said Bert. 'I never known anything like it.'

  'Like as though everybody's haunted,' I

  said. That had been in my mind all day.

  Anyway, tea-time came along and we only had one customer. He was a big, tall sort of a bloke who didn't look a bit Christmassy. He ordered a pot of tea, just that. When he asked how much, I said a bob. And he gave a bob, just that. But I was past caring. He went back to his compartment, then five minutes later he was back again, asking for another pot of tea. He knew it was a bob now, and a bob he gave, just that. As I say, I was past caring. He went back to his compartment again, and blow me if he wasn't back five minutes later asking for another pot of tea.

  'You seem to like our tea,' I said, bitter.

  'Yes,' he said, 'I like your tea. It's a nice pot of tea. It's worth a bob,' he said. He saw me looking a bit gloomy, so he made himself a bit more comfortable behind his pot of tea and said, 'Not been too good a day for you lot, has it?'

  'I don't quite understand what you mean,' I said, trying not to look interested.

  'Come off it,' he said. 'All that lot saying what a good time had been had by all, mistletoe in the dining-car and what-not, and not one penny piece in tips from the whole lot put together.'

  'What about it?' I said.

  'I'm on duty,' said this bloke. 'I get my expenses, see, but that doesn't cover tips. I'm on duty, and I've been asking some of the passengers about it all. They were a bit surprised to find out that you didn't get what you should have got.'

  'Surprised, were they?' I said.

  'Yes. And would you like to know why you didn't? Would you like to know what happened?'

  He seemed a bit too eager to tell me all about it—there was a bit too much relish about him, as you might say. So I said, 'It's up to you whether you tell me or not.'

  'Right,' he said. And he leaned back more comfortable, his hands over his belly. 'I've missed her now,' he said. 'I've been after her all over Christmas. She was a bit too quick. She got off just before I got on. We'll get her, though, never fear, never have any fear about that, matey. She goes under various names—Mrs Mervin, the Hon. Dora Goffin, Fast Lizzie, and various others more. She's a very good-looking woman, and very well-spoken.'

  'Well,' I said, 'What about it?'

  'She's been up and down the train all morning, I gather. She was on other trains yesterday and the day before. She goes up to the passengers and she says, ever so polite and well-off, "Don't you think it would be ever so nice and ever so jolly an idea if we gave a little present to the dining-car staff? After all, it is Christmas, isn't it, and they do work ever so hard, don't they?'

  He said all this in a refined sort of voice, a kind of squeak, like taking the Mickey out of somebody speaking well-off. It began to dawn on me then what had happened.

  'Yes,' said this copper-in-disguise, 'that's what happened.' He spoke in his ordinary voice again, quite common. 'I don't know how much she got away with, but it must have been a nice little bit. People are always generous round about Christmas. I suppose she got off at Reading. Anyway, we'll get her yet. But that doesn't help you much, does it?' He looked at me in a pitying sort of way and said, 'Fetch us another pot of that tea. If you don't mind,' he added politely.

  When I brought it, he was ready with his bob. But he looked at me sort of pitying again and said, 'Here. Just to show you that a heart of gold beats beneath this rough exterior, here's a tanner. That comes out of my own pocket, mind, not expenses. Don't forget to share it with the others.'

  I could have thrown it in his face, but it doesn't do to be impolite to a copper. Besides, it was Christmas Day. Peace on earth and all that tripe.

  Never mind.

  Back to Table of Contents

  18 - The Plot Against Santa Claus by JAMES POWELL

  THERE ARE three major strikes against James Powell (b. 1932): (1) he's very funny, (2) he writes short stories, (3) his short stories are mystery-oriented. What could be worse?

  Frankly, not a lot. Received wisdom, out of the thin-lipped, pursed mouths of flinty-eyed publishers' accountants, has it that (1) humour doesn't sell (Wodehouse excepted; he's an irritating aberration), (2) short stories don't sell, and (3) publishing a volume of humorous mystery short stories is the only sure-fire way to the bankruptcy court there is. You could issue a book entitled On the Fifty-Three Distinct Regional Variations In the Bomongo Sub-Dialect and it'd be a hot one; you could push out a twenty-eight volume set on Cuban cooking and Book Club buyers'd be fighting with axes for the reprint rights. Publish a volume of funny detective stories and (so the theory goes) as far as the book-buying public are concerned it'd be akin to serving up rare topside of beef at a vegan Thanksgiving.

  Well, I don't know about that. All I know is, I'd buy it. Like a shot. And especially if it was by James Powell.

  Powell is not just funny, he's hilarious. He makes me guffaw out loud. I once read a Powell story in Ellery Queen on a Tube journey from Baker Street to West Hampstead and nearly cleared the compartment. They thought I was either a subway crazy or having a fit. I think what probably shook them most was that I was laughing helplessly a
t a story in a mystery magazine, and you just don't snort like a horse and howl like a jackass when you're reading a mystery story.

  But that's the point. James Powell is funny—very, very funny—but he still manages, just about, to keep within the mystery tradition. There are still problems to be solved, wacky as those problems often are; there are still good guys and villains, even though the good guys are sometimes numbskulls and nincompoops, the villains really rather interesting when you get right down to it.

  My favourite types of Powell stories are those where he takes a traditional fairy tale or a patently infantile situation and gives it a good shaking. Such as this absurd—and actually, towards the end, almost nail-biting—offering featuring murder and mayhem in a place where you would least expect it.

  So come with us now, dear reader, to the most magical land there ever was. . . come with us to the Toyworks beneath the North Pole—only don't read this story with a full glass in your hand. . .

  RORY BIGTOES, Santa's Security Chief, was tall for an elf, measuring almost seven inches from the curly tips of his shoes to the top of his fedora. But he had to stride to keep abreast of Garth Hardnoggin, the quick little Director General of the Toy-works, as they hurried, beards streaming back over their shoulders, through the racket and bustle of Shop Number 5, one of the many vaulted caverns honeycombing the undiscovered island beneath the Polar icecap.

  Director General Hardnoggin wasn't pleased. He slapped his megaphone, the symbol of his office (for as a member of the Board he spoke directly to Santa Claus), against his thigh. 'A bomb in the Board Room on Christmas Eve!' he muttered with angry disbelief.

  'I'll admit that Security doesn't look good,' said Bigtoes.

  Hardnoggin gave a snort and stopped at a construction site for Dick and Jane Doll dollhouses. Elf carpenters and painters were hard at work, pipes in their jaws and beards tucked into their belts. A foreman darted over to show Hardnoggin the wallpaper samples for the dining room.

  'See this unit, Bigtoes?' said Hardnoggin, 'Split-level ranch type. Wall-to-wall carpeting. Breakfast nook. Your choice of Early American or French Provincial furnishings. They said I couldn't build it for the price. But I did. And how did I do it?'

  'Cardboard,' said a passing elf, an old carpenter with a plank over his shoulder.

  'And what's wrong with cardboard? Good substantial cardboard for the interior walls!' shouted the Director General striding off again. 'Let them bellyache, Bigtoes. I'm not out to win any popularity contests. But I do my job. Let's see you do yours. Find Dirk Crouchback and Find him fast.'

  At the automotive section the new Lazaretto sports cars (1/32 scale) were coming off the assembly line. Hardnoggin stopped to slam one of the car doors. 'You left out the kachunk,' he told an elf engineer in white coveralls.

  'Nobody gets a tin door to go kachunk,' said the engineer.

  'Detroit does. So can we,' said Hardnoggin, moving on. 'You think I don't miss the good old days, Bigtoes?' he said. 'I was a spinner. And a damn good one. Nobody made a top that could spin as long and smooth as Garth Hardnoggin's.'

  'I was a jacksmith myself,' said Bigtoes. Satisfying work, building each jack-in-the-box from the ground up, carpentering the box, rigging the spring mechanism, making the funny head, spreading each careful coat of paint.

  'How many could you make in a week?' asked Director General Hardnoggin.

  'Three, with overtime,' said Security Chief Bigtoes.

  Hardnoggin nodded. 'And how many children had empty stockings on Christmas morning because we couldn't handcraft enough stuff to go around? That's where your Ghengis Khans, your Hitlers, and your Stalins come from, Bigtoes—children who through no fault of their own didn't get any toys for Christmas. So Santa had to make a policy decision: quality or quantity? He opted for quantity.'

  Crouchback, at that time one of Santa's right-hand elves, had blamed the decision on Hardnoggin's sinister influence. By way of protest he had placed a bomb in the new plastic machine. The explosion had coated three elves with a thick layer of plastic which had to be chipped off with hammers and chisels. Of course they lost their beards. Santa, who was particularly sensitive about beards, sentenced Crouchback to two years in the cooler, as the elves called it. This meant he was assigned to a refrigerator (one in Ottawa, Canada, as it happened) with the responsibility of turning the light on and off as the door was opened or closed.

  But after a month Crouchback had failed to answer the daily roll call which Security made by means of a two way intercom system. He had fled the refrigerator and become a renegade elf. Then suddenly, three years later, Crouchback had reappeared at the North Pole, a shadowy fugitive figure, editor of a clandestine newspaper, The Midnight Elf, which made violent attacks on Director General Hardnoggin and his policies. More recently, Crouchback had become the leader of SHAFT—Santa's Helpers Against Flimsy Toys—an organization of dissident groups including the Anti-plastic League, the Sons and Daughters of the Good Old Days, the Ban the Toy-Bomb people and the Hippie Elves for Peace. . .

  'Santa opted for quantity,' repeated Hardnoggin. 'And I carried out his decision. Just between the two of us it hasn't always been easy.' Hardnoggin waved his megaphone at the Pacification and Rehabilitation Section where thousands of toy bacteriological warfare kits (JiffyPox) were being converted to civilian use (The Freckle Machine). After years of pondering Santa had finally ordered a halt to war-toy production. His decision was considered a victory for SHAFT and a defeat for Hardnoggin.

  'Unilateral disarmament is a mistake, Bigtoes,' said Hardnoggin grimly as they passed through a door marked Santa's Executive Helpers Only and into the carpeted world of the front office. 'Mark my words, right now the tanks and planes are rolling off the assembly lines at Acme Toy and into the department stores.' (Acme Toy, the international consortium of toymakers, was the elves' greatest bugbear.) 'So the rich kids will have war toys, while the poor kids won't even have a popgun. That's not democratic.'

  Bigtoes stopped at a door marked Security. Hardnoggin strode on without slackening his pace. 'Sticks-and-Stones session at five o'clock,' he said over his shoulder. 'Don't be late. And do your job. Find Crouch-back!'

  Dejected, Bigtoes slumped down at his desk, receiving a sympathetic smile from Charity Nosegay, his little blonde blue-eyed secretary. Charity was a recent acquisition and Bigtoes had intended to make a play for her once the Sticks-and-Stones paperwork was out of the way. (Security had to prepare a report for Santa on each alleged naughty boy and girl.) Now that play would have to wait.

  Bigtoes sighed. Security looked bad. Bigtoes had even been warned. The night before, a battered and broken elf had crawled into his office, gasped, 'He's going to kill Santa,' and died. It was Darby Shortribs who had once been a brilliant doll designer. But then one day he had decided that if war toys encouraged little boys to become soldiers when they grew up, then dolls encouraged little girls to become mothers, contributing to overpopulation. So Shortribs had joined SHAFT and risen to membership on its Central Committee.

  The trail of Shortribs' blood had led to the Quality Control lab and the Endurance Machine which simulated the brutal punishment, the bashing, crushing, and kicking that a toy receives at the hands of a four-year-old (or two two-year-olds). A hell of a way for an elf to die!

  After Shortribs' warning, Bigtoes had alerted his Security elves and sent a flying squad after Crouchback. But the SHAFT leader had disappeared. The next morning a bomb had exploded in the Board Room.

  On the top of Bigtoes' desk were the remains of that bomb. Small enough to fit into an elf's briefcase, it had been placed under the Board Room table, just at Santa's feet. If Owen Brassbottom, Santa's Traffic Manager, hadn't chosen just that moment to usher the jolly old man into the Map Room to pinpoint the spot where, with the permission and blessing of the Strategic Air Command, Santa's sleigh and reindeer were to penetrate the DEW Line, there wouldn't have been much left of Santa from the waist down. Seconds before the bomb went off, Director General Hardnogg
in had been called from the room to take a private phone call. Fergus Bandylegs, Vice-President of Santa Enterprises, Inc., had just gone down to the other end of the table to discuss something with Tom Thumbskin, Santa's Creative Head, and escaped the blast. But Thumbskin had to be sent to the hospital with a concussion when his chair—the elves sat on high chairs with ladders up the side like those used by lifeguards—was knocked over backward by the explosion.

  All this was important, for the room had been searched before the meeting and found safe. So the bomb must have been brought in by a member of the Board. It certainly hadn't been Traffic Manager Brassbottom who had saved Santa, and probably not Thumbskin. That left Director General Hardnoggin and Vice-President Bandylegs. . .

  'Any luck checking out that personal phone call Hardnoggin received just before the bomb went off?' asked Bigtoes.

  Charity shook her golden locks.

  'The switchboard operator fainted right after she took the call. She's still out cold.'

  Leaving the Toyworks, Bigtoes walked quickly down a corridor lined with expensive boutiques and fashionable restaurants. On one wall of Mademoiselle Fanny's Salon of Haute Couture some SHAFT elf had written: Santa, Si! Hardnoggin, No! On one wall of the Hotel St. Nicholas some Hardnoggin backer had written: Support Your Local Director General! Bigtoes was no philosopher and the social unrest that was racking the North Pole confused him. Once, in disguise, he had attended a SHAFT rally in The Underwood, that vast and forbidding cavern of phosphorescent stinkhorn and hanging roots. Gathered beneath an immense picture of Santa were hippie elves with their beards tied in outlandish knots, matron-lady elves in sensible shoes, tweedy elves and green-collar elves.