Prowl through the pages of a hundred years' worth of detective novels and short stories and there ought to be something seasonal to tempt the palate. Nero Wolfe, now—he was a gourmet; anything from him? And Robert Parker's Spenser has a habit of whipping together tasty little snacks when the pace slackens. But nothing springs immediately to mind. The trouble is, at Christmas (as we've seen) dire things sometimes happen even in the best-regulated circles, and food tends to be given a low priority at times of crisis.
In Cyril Hare's An English Murder Christmas Dinner at Warbeck Hall was a bad-tempered affair which ended with cyanide in the champagne. And festive fare isn't mentioned at all by the house-party guests in Hercule Poirot's Christmas. Hardly surprising, I suppose; the host had had his throat cut on Christmas Eve. Mind you, for year after year Sexton Blake (the detective who out-Holmesed Holmes in almost every particular) cleverly managed it so that he sat down to Christmas dinner only after whatever knotty problem he was presented with had been well and truly disentangled, although—after a strenuous bout with Zenith the Albino, say, or the Red Vulture, or the Crime Minister—he was singularly unadventurous in the food line: either goose or turkey with all the trimmings, a flaming plum pudding, and trifle to follow.
The gorge rises. No, something simple is required. Better, something simple yet oddball. And better still, something from an offbeat source.
Luckily, I stumbled across a recipe not too long ago—by someone who certainly wrote mystery stories but who's far better known in quite another field.
Captain W. E. Johns (1893-1968) wasn't really a captain but a Flying-Officer, a touch lower in the ranking system. But one can forgive a great storyteller such mild deceit. And Johns was a great storyteller, make no mistake about it, despite nowadays being dumped on from a great height by trendy sociologists and librarians who should know better as a racist, sexist, warmongering jingoist. Actually, he was a humanist and anti-imperialist whose view was that most of the world's woes may be placed squarely at the door of the land- grabbing white man. He vigorously campaigned for sexual equality, was an anti-appeaser, and his message to his readers, in book after book, was: Put not your trust in politicians, generals, those in authority; inevitably, they will betray you. All in all, not a bad philosophy.
Johns was a machine-gunner at Gallipoli and there saw enough carnage to last him nine lifetimes; he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, was shot down in 1918, and then made a nuisance of himself escaping from various POW camps. His first book Mossyface, an adult thriller published under a pseudonym, was issued in the exceedingly scarce Weekly Telegraph Novels series in the early 1920s (later reprinted by Mellifont, a cheap paperback firm, in 1932). After that Johns wrote more adult thrillers then concentrated on turning out two or three books a year featuring his flying-ace hero James Bigglesworth. He wrote over a hundred Biggles novels and short-story collections; over 160 books in all, including thrillers, detective novels, buccaneering yarns, and technical flying manuals.
Johns was an excellent journalist and a very fine, and courageous, editor; during the 1930s he was at the helm of two of the most popular flying magazines of the day, until the government had him kicked out of the editor's chair because of his vitriolic attacks on them over the betrayal of Czechoslovakia at Munich and his muscular anti-appeasement line.
He was also a keen gardener who for ten years (from 1934 to 1944) wrote a delightful column for Theo. A. Stephens' splendid little magazine My Garden. This took the form of a monthly diary describing the trials and tribulations of the amateur gardener.
Christmas of 1939 was a particularly vexing period. A neighbour was getting uppity about one of Johns's noble Scotch firs, and he was also having problems with the Customs, who had impounded a parcel of bulbs from California. There were shortages everywhere, his handyman had joined the army, petty rules and regulations were doing bad things to his blood pressure. Still, the gloom was not entirely unrelieved:
There is something extremely satisfying about harvesting one's own produce. This year, for the simple reason that there was no one else to do it, I have had to dry and store the root crops and the fruit, so I dole them out to the household with a sparing hand. I suppose it is a deep-rooted instinct that makes people always pick the big ones, whether it be peaches or potatoes.
Which reminds me, here is a recipe for a wartime winter sweet which, apart from being cheap, has the advantage of requiring neither sugar nor cream; it is a good way of using up windfall apples. I've often made it, so can recommend it.
Weigh 1 ½ lbs of quick cooking apples—the sort that soon go to a white pulp. Peel, core and quarter (small quarters). Place in saucepan with just enough water to prevent burning, and the strained juice of half a lemon. Cook to a pulp. Turn into a large basin and beat to make sure that there are no lumps. Well stir in one small tin of sweetened condensed milk with one whisked egg. Return to saucepan, and cook over low heat, stirring, for a few minutes—until it begins to thicken. Turn into glass goblets, and serve cold. Serves six.
To be honest, Johns didn't call his recipe “Biggles' Apple Snowballs”, I did. He called it 'Apple Snow', but what's in a name? As W. C. Fields once nearly said, 'It'll taste just as well.'
Indeed. Certainly tastier than cold Christmas pud for the umpteenth time. And I can vouch for that.
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Acknowledgements
Every effort has been made to contact the owners of all the copyrighted stories, and grateful thanks are extended to the copyright holders for allowing them to be reprinted. If any necessary acknowledgements have been omitted, the editor and publisher hope that the copyright holders concerned will accept their apologies in advance.
'A Problem in White' by Nicholas Blake/C. Day Lewis. Copyright © 1949. Reprinted by permission of A.D. Peters & Co. Ltd.
'Detective's Day Off' by John Dickson Carr. Copyright © 1957. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates Ltd. and Harold Ober Associates Inc.
'The Three Travellers' by Edward D. Hoch. Copyright © 1976. Reprinted by permission of the author.
'Murder in Store' by Peter Lovesey. Copyright © 1985. Reprinted by permission of John Farquharson Ltd.
'Waxworks' by Ethel Lina White. Copyright © 1930. Reprinted by permission of Laurence Pollinger Ltd on behalf of the Estate of Ethel Lina White.
'Serenade to a Killer' by Joseph Coramings. Copyright © 1957. Reprinted by permission of the author.
'No Room at the Inn' by Bill Pronzini. Copyright © 1988.
'Santa-San Solves It' by James Melville. Copyright © 1988.
'Sister Bessie' by Cyril Hare. Copyright © 1949, 1959. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of the Revd C. P. Gordon Clark.
'Murder Under the Mistletoe' by Margery Allingham. Copyright © P. & M. Youngman Carter Ltd 1963. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London.
'The Santa Claus Club' by Julian Symons. Copyright © 1960, 1965. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown Ltd, London.
'The Plot Against Santa Claus' by James Powell. Copyright © 1971. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc, 845 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, USA.
Special thanks and acknowledgements to the following: Bob Adey (not least for letting me prowl through his loft); Ed Hoch (for his usual friendly help); Bob Sampson and Walker Martin (for their sleuthing amongst the browned and brittle pages of old pulp magazines); Bill Pronzini and Barry Pike (for both suggesting superb stories, which I subsequently couldn't use—well, you tried); A. J. Flavell, Assistant Librarian of that most civilized of repositories, the Bodleian; the old Firm of Bill Lofts and Derek Adley; the Revd Charles Gordon Clark; Sarah Cartledge of Woman's Own; G. R. Samways, Eric Fayne, John Cooper, Maurice Hall, Fr Francis Hertzberg and Mary Cadogan; and, not least, Robyn Sisman (for one very good reason best known to herself).
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Sources
The stories in this collecti
on originally appeared as follows:
Margery Allingham
'Murder Under the Mistletoe': Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (US), January 1963.
Robert Arthur
'A Present for Christmas': Detective Fiction Weekly (US), 21 January 1939.
Nicholas Blake
'A Problem in White': as 'The Snow Line', Strand Magazine, February 1949. As 'A Study in White', Queen's Awards, 4th Series (1949).
Anthony Burgess
'The Great Christmas Train Mystery': Suspense, December 1960.
John Dickson Carr
'Detective's Day Off': Weekend, 25/29 December 1957.
Joseph Commings
'Serenade to a Killer': Mystery Digest (US), July 1957.
Cyril Hare
'Sister Bessie': Evening Standard, 23 December 1949. The Best Short Stories of Cyril Hare (1959).
Edward D. Hoch
'The Three Travellers': Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (US), January 1976 (as by 'R.L. Stevens').
Peter Lovesey
'Murder in Store': Woman's Own, 21/28 December 1985.
James Powell
'The Plot Against Santa Claus': Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (US), January 1971.
Will Scott
'Christmas Train': Passing Show, 23 December 1933.
'Herlock Sholmes'
'The Secret in the Pudding Bag': Penny Popular, 27 December 1924.
Julian Symons
'The Santa Claus Club': Suspense, December 1960. Francis Quarles Investigates (1965).
'Peter Todd'
'Herlock Sholmes's Christmas Case': Magnet, 3 December 1916.
Edgar Wallace
'Stuffing': John Bull Xmas Annual, December 1926.
Ethel Lina White
'Waxworks': Pearson's Magazine, December 1930.
James Melville's Santa-San Solves It and Bill Pronzini's No Room at the Inn were written especially for this collection, and now appear in print for the first time.
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Solution to A PROBLEM IN WHITE
The solution to Nicholas Blake's puzzle-story is printed overleaf.
DON'T turn the page until you've read the first story or unless, having read it you can't stand the suspense any longer. . .
THE Inspector arrested the Guard for the wilful murder of Arthur J. Kilmington.
Kilmington's pocket had been picked by Inez Blake, when she pretended to faint at 8:25, and his gold watch was at once passed by her to her accomplice, Macdonald.
Now Kilmington was constantly consulting his watch. It is inconceivable, if he was not killed till after 9 p.m., that he should not have missed the watch and made a scene. This point was clinched by the first-class passenger, who deposed that a man, answering to the description of Kilmington, had asked him the time at 8:50: if it had really been Kilmington, he would certainly, before inquiring the time of anyone else, have first tried to consult his own watch, found it was gone, and reported the theft. The fact that Kilmington neither reported the loss to the Guard, nor returned to his original compartment to look for the watch, proves he must have been murdered before he became aware of the loss, i.e. shortly after he left the compartment at 8:27. But the Guard claimed to have spoken to Kilmington at 9 p.m. Therefore the Guard was lying. And why should he lie, except to create an alibi for himself? This is Clue A.
The Guard claimed to have talked with Kilmington at 9 p.m. Now, at 8:55 the blizzard had diminished to a light snowfall, which soon afterwards ceased. When Stansfield discovered the body, it was buried under snow. Therefore Kilmington must have been murdered while the blizzard was still raging, i.e. some time before 9 p.m. Therefore the Guard was lying when he said Kilmington was alive at 9 p.m. This is Clue B.
Henry Stansfield, who was investigating on behalf of the Cosmopolitan Insurance Company the loss of the Countess of Axminster's emeralds, reconstructed the crime as follows:
Motive. The Guard's wife had been gravely ill before Christmas: then, just about the time of the train robbery, he had got her the best surgeon in Glasgow and put her in a nursing home (evidence of engine-driver: Clue C): a Guard's pay does not usually run to such expensive treatment; it seemed likely, therefore, that the man, driven desperate by his wife's need, had agreed to take part in the robbery in return for a substantial bribe. What part did he play? During the investigation, the Guard had stated that he had left his van for five minutes, while the train was climbing the last section of Shap Bank, and on his return found the mail-bags missing. But Kilmington, who was travelling on this train, had found the Guard's van locked at this point, and now (evidence of Mrs Grant: Clue D) declared his intention of reporting the Guard. The latter knew that Kilmington's report would contradict his own evidence and thus convict him of complicity in the crime, since he had locked the van for a few minutes to throw out the mail-bags himself, and pretended to Kilmington that he had been asleep (evidence of K.) when the latter knocked at the door. So Kilmington had to be silenced.
Stansfield already had Percy Dukes under suspicion as the organiser of the robbery. During the journey, Dukes gave himself away three times. First, although it had not been mentioned in the papers, he betrayed knowledge of the point on the line where the bags had been thrown out. Second, though the loss of the emeralds had been also kept out of the Press, Dukes knew it was an emerald necklace which had been stolen; Stansfield had laid a trap for him by calling it a bracelet, but later in conversation Dukes referred to the 'necklace'. Third, his great discomposure at the (false) statement by Stansfield that the emeralds were worth £25,000 was the reaction of a criminal who believes he has been badly gypped by the fence to whom he has sold them.
Dukes was now planning a second train robbery, and meant to compel the Guard to act as accomplice again. Inez Blake's evidence (Clue E) of hearing him say "You're going to help us again, chum," etc., clearly pointed to the Guard's complicity in the previous robbery; it was almost certainly the Guard to whom she had heard Dukes say this, for only a railway servant would have known about the existence of a platelayers' hut up the line, and made an appointment to meet Dukes there; moreover, to anyone but a railway servant Dukes could have talked about his plans for the next robbery on the train itself, without either of them incurring suspicion should they be seen talking together.
Method. At 8:27 Kilmington goes into the Guard's van. He threatens to report the Guard, though he is quite unaware of the dire consequences this would entail for the latter. The Guard, probably on the pretext of showing him the route to the village, gets Kilmington out of the train, walks him away from the lighted area, stuns him (the bruise was a light one and did not reveal itself to Stansfield's brief examination of the body), carries him to the spot where Stansfield found the body, packs mouth and nostrils tight with snow. Then, instead of leaving well alone, the Guard decides to create an alibi for himself. He takes his victim's hat, returns to the train, puts on his own dark, off-duty overcoat, finds a solitary passenger asleep, masquerades as Kilmington inquiring the time, and strengthens the impression by saying he'd walk to the village if the relief engine did not turn up in five minutes, then returns to the body and throws down the hat beside it (Stansfield found the hat only lightly covered with snow, as compared with the body: Clue F). Moreover, the passenger noticed that the inquirer was wearing blue trousers (Clue G); the Guard's regulation suit was blue; Duke's suit was grey, Macdonald's a loud check—therefore the masquerader could not have been either of them.
The time is now 8:55. The Guard decides to reinforce his alibi by going to intercept the returning fireman. He takes a short cut from the body to the platelayers' hut. The track he now makes, compared with the beaten trail towards the village, is much more lightly filled in with snow when Stansfield finds it (Clue H); therefore it must have been made some little time after the murder, and could not incriminate Percy Dukes. The Guard meets the fireman just after 8:55.
They walk back to the train. The Guard is taken aside by Dukes, who has gone out
for his 'airing,' and the conversation overheard by Inez Blake takes place. The Guard tells Dukes he will meet him presently in the platelayers' hut; this is vaguely aimed to incriminate Dukes, should the murder by any chance be discovered, for Dukes would find it difficult to explain why he should have sat alone in a cold hut for half an hour just around the time when Kilmington was presumably murdered only 150 yards away.
The Guard now goes along to the engine and stays there chatting with the crew for some forty minutes. His alibi is thus established for the period from 8:55 to 9:40 p.m. His plan might well have succeeded but for three unlucky factors he could not possibly have taken into account—Stansfield's presence on the train, the blizzard stopping soon after 9 p.m., and the theft of Arthur J. Kilmington's watch.
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End of Crime at Christmas
Table of Contents
Crime at Christmas
Contents
Introduction
1- A Problem in White by NICHOLAS BLAKE
2 - Detective's Day Off by JOHN DICKSON CARR
3 - Santa-San Solves It by JAMES MELVILLE
4 - Herlock Sholmes's Christmas Case by PETER TODD
II
Crime at Christmas Page 26