by Carla Coupe
“I understand,” O’Hara broke in. “Let’s get back on the beam. You and Fargall fussed about it?”
“To such an extent that he told me, recently, that if I didn’t agree to a marriage with Penny he would change his will and name another physician to head the clinic.”
“Well, let’s check on everything,” O’Hara said. “You told me, Dr. Stampf, that you were late for the party here because you had to call on a patient.”
“Yes. Henry Zeller, who lives in the Royal Arms apartment house a block down the street. He’s rather old and getting almost helpless. Has a nurse continually.”
“Did he have a bad attack tonight?”
“Oh, nothing like that!” Dr. Stampf replied. “The nurse wanted to get off to go to a Christmas Eve party. So I called and let her go, then I sat with Mr. Zeller and gave him a sedative that would put him to sleep for hours, so the nurse wouldn’t have to hurry back. When he dozed off and I was sure he was all right, I hurried here.”
“Remember what time you got here?”
“A little before nine.”
“When did you go to visit Zeller?”
“About eight or a little before. The nurse possibly can verify the time.”
* * * *
O’Hara gave Rassman a direct look, and the detective sergeant slipped into the hall quickly. The Squad man, Carlson, appeared to take his place.
“Dr. Stampf, in fairness to you, I’m having your story checked,” O’Hara told him. “If you people will excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll attend to matters and then come back.”
Doc Layne had made arrangements for the removal of the bodies. The police photographer had flashed bulbs and exposed films. The fingerprints man had searched everywhere for prints. Reporters had got word of Fargall’s death and were waiting outside the front door, held there by O’Hara’s guard.
O’Hara hurried back to the living room, got from Penny the name of her uncle’s attorney, and went to the library to telephone him and apprise him of Fargall’s death. Then he went out and faced the reporters.
“Bear with me a little longer, boys, and I’ll give you the whole thing,” he said. “It’ll be a clean-up of the case, I hope. Mr. Fargall was murdered, and so was his old houseman, Fred Denshaw. That’s all for now.”
He got away from them, slammed the door shut in their faces, and went back along the hall, his head bent, thinking.
In the living room, he sat down on the end of a couch, lit a cigarette and glanced at the others.
“Miss Fargall, and you, Blodger, think carefully now before you answer. When did you see Denshaw last?”
“If he wasn’t the Santa Claus, it was just a little before Santa Claus came to the library,” Penny replied. “Uncle told him it was time for Santa Claus to appear. Denshaw was putting food on the buffet table.”
“This Santa Claus—did he resemble Denshaw?”
“Well, we supposed he was Denshaw,” Penny said. “Seemed the same size.”
“How about his voice?”
“He never spoke. Uncle never allowed that. Said it broke the illusion to have Santa Claus speak. He just gave us the presents and bowed.”
“Notice his hands?”
“He was wearing big fur gloves,” Bob Blodger put in.
“And very handy when it came to concealing a stubby hypo needle,” O’Hara remarked. “Just before your uncle collapsed, Miss Fargall, did you touch him?”
“No. I was sitting on the corner. Bob was beside me. Uncle was in the big easy chair beside the reading desk.”
“You touch him, Blodger, or shake hands with him?” O’Hara asked.
“No, sir. Are you intimating I killed him? And I wasn’t out of the library, so I couldn’t have killed Denshaw.”
“Very cleverly put,” O’Hara
O’Hara turned to Dr. Stampf. “Since this tragedy has occurred, I suppose hasn’t been changed, and you’ll have the chance to go ahead with the sanitarium.”
“I presume so,” Stampf replied. “It will be a monument to Mr. Fargall.”
“How long ago was it you would not marry Miss Fargall, and he threatened to change the will and name another doctor?”
“Three days ago, I believe.”
O’Hara got up and killed time pacing around the room. He was waiting for Rassman, who had gone to the Zeller apartment a block away. And finally Rassman returned and beckoned him, and O’Hara went into the hall. He listened to what Rassman had to say, then went back into the living room with Rassman beside him.
Rassman whispered to the squad man, Carlson, as he entered, and Carlson drifted across the room and unobtrusively took up his position. O’Hara took the center of the floor.
“I think we have this thing solved,” O’Hara said. “One of you now in this room killed both Mr. Fargall and Fred Denshaw.”
Penny and Bob Blodger and gave gasps of horror. Stampf brought out his cigarette case, carefully selected a cigarette, lit it with an expensive lighter, and returned lighter and case to his pockets. He fumbled for an instant in his waistcoat pocket, then settled back to smoke and listen.
“By the way, Dr. Stampf, you didn’t see Denshaw this evening?” O’Hara asked.
“I didn’t.”
“Nor see the Santa Claus, whoever played the part?”
“I did not.”
“When did you see the costume last?”
“Why, last Christmas Eve. I was a guest here at the usual party, and Denshaw played Santa Claus. I’ll always remember it, because Denshaw got nervous and knocked over a table and smashed a vase, and was apologizing all over the place.”
“I remember that, too,” said Penny.
“Dr. Stampf, you travel in fashionable society,” O’Hara said, “and I presume you wear evening clothes a great deal?”
“Almost every evening,” Stampf replied, smiling slightly. He also had a look of slight bewilderment in his face.
“You don’t have to put up your evening clothes in moth balls then,” O’Hara said, smiling also.
* * * *
Lieutenant O’Hara puffed at his cigarette a few times, then extinguished it carefully in an ash tray and straightened.
“Well, I think we can consider this case closed, which will give me a chance to spend Christmas at home with my family,” he said. “Dr. Stampf, you went to Zeller’s apartment a little before eight, as you said. Sergeant Rassman checked on that. The nurse had returned when Rassman was over at the apartment a few minutes ago. She says you came and she left immediately at about a quarter of eight.”
“That’s correct,” Stampf replied. “I talked with Zeller for a time, and finally gave him a sedative, then came here.”
“Isn’t it true, Doctor, that you gave him a sedative at once? He became unconscious immediately, and gave you an opportunity to leave, and Zeller couldn’t tell afterward what time you had left. His apartment on the second floor is served with a private automatic elevator, and nobody saw you leave. You hurried back here, entered house and accosted Denshaw in his room as he was preparing to put on the Santa Claus costume.”
“I beg your pardon!” Dr. Stampf expressed indignation.
“Wait until I am done,” O’Hara requested. “You held Denshaw, who was not a strong man, jabbed him with a needle and killed him. You put on the costume and hurried to the library and played Santa Claus. You killed Mr. Fargall. Then you went back to Denshaw’s room, took off the costume, hurried out of the house and around to the front door and rang the bell, getting here about the time Mr. Fargall dropped dead.”
“Are you daring to intimate—”
“I’m not intimating. I’m accusing you, and arresting you, for the murders of Mr. Fargall and Fred Denshaw. And knowing that the undertakers might discover the cause of death, you couldn’t certify to a natural death from a heart attack, so you called
the police. You probably thought Miss Fargall or Mr. Blodger would be suspected and blamed. You believed your alibi perfect.”
“Why should I—have killed those two men?”
“To get the fat job of handling a fortune for a clinic and sanitarium, make yourself an international reputation possibly, and have plenty of money to marry your old college sweetheart. You knew Fargall would change his will.”
“Preposterous!”
“Oh, let’s end it!” O’Hara snapped. “The Santa Claus costume reeked with moth balls. Denshaw’s clothes did not, so he didn’t have the costume on over them. But your evening clothes, which you use continually and which are never packed away in moth balls, do. You put on that costume and played Santa Claus tonight and killed Fargall… Watch him, Carlson!”
O’Hara barked the last words at his Squad man. Dr. Stampf had lifted his left hand and taken the cigarette from his mouth. Then his right hand went up swiftly and slipped something between his lips. His teeth crunched a capsule.
“This will make three of us,” Stampf said.
“You guessed it right, Lieutenant O’Hara.”
His head jerked up, he gasped, his eyes rolled, and he would have toppled from the chair if Carlson had not held the body back.
“I didn’t even have time to tell him how he left his tracks plain in the snow,” O’Hara said.
_______________
Johnston McCulley is best known as the creator of Zorro, although he wrote more than fifty novels, numerous short stories, and screenplays for both television and movies. He also appears in this book with “Thubway Tham’s Chrithtmath.”
A STAKE OF HOLLY, by Lillian Stewart Carl
Jacob Marley had been dead as a doornail, to begin with, and soon Ebenezer Scrooge would no longer be debating just why a doornail, rather than a coffin nail, was considered a fatal bit of ironmongery.
Tim Cratchit bent over his benefactor’s bed—it was his deathbed, but Tim was not yet ready to admit to that awful fact—Tim bent over Scrooge’s wasted features and said, “You sent for me, sir?”
Scrooge’s eyes fluttered open, and took a long moment to focus, as though they were already inspecting the new world to which they were bound. Then they lit with a pleasure that plumped the deep furrows in his face and tinged its ashen color with pink. “Tim, my lad. Always a good lad, aren’t you?”
“Thanks to you, sir.” The young man pulled a chair, lately abandoned by the nurse, closer to the bed and sat down. “Your generosity to my family these nineteen years . . .”
Laboriously Scrooge waved his hand in the air and let it fall back to the counterpane. It made a thump no louder than that of thistledown. “What right have I to demand thanks for going about my business as a steward of mankind and fulfilling my responsibility to my neighbor?”
“Still,” Tim insisted, “I owe you not only my health and my education, but my position with Lord Ector.”
“No, no, no, pass your gratitude on to someone else. Teach your children.… But I assume you will be blessed with offspring, even though you as yet have no prospects?”
Tim ducked his handsome features shyly. “I shall find a wife, never you fear, Mr. Scrooge. I don’t spend all my time cataloguing Ector’s collections.”
“No, you spend your spare hours scribbling stories.”
“Only the occasional tale for The London Illustrated News and the like.”
“And fine tales they are, Tim. Take care, though, not to neglect the finer sentiments.” The old man wheezed a moment, then coughed. “I was once engaged to be married, Tim.”
Tim, having heard this story many times before, nodded patiently.
“Belle Fezziwig, she was, daughter of my old employer. I let her slip through my fingers, for I preferred the touch of gold to that of a human hand.”
“Such was the curse of Midas,” murmured Tim.
The apron-swathed nurse clattered about the room, building up the fire and making mysterious motions with vials, spoons, and porringers. “Don’t be tiring him out now, young sir. He needs his rest, he does.”
“Bah,” muttered Scrooge. “Before long I’ll have rest aplenty. We all come to the grave in the end, as the Ghost, the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, reminded me. I can only hope that my efforts these last years have shortened the heavy chain I once dragged behind me and ensured that my death will be remarked upon with grief, not indifference, and never pleasure.”
Tim had heard that story as well. Indeed, he remembered his own part in it as vividly as any occurrence of his childhood. Scrooge claimed to have been visited one icy Christmas Eve first by the ghost of his old partner, Marley, and then by three mysterious spirits, who had thawed his cold heart and softened his flinty disposition. Tim would have thought the story merely a fancy on the old man’s part, save that Scrooge was the least fanciful man in the city of London. Save that Scrooge had manifestly changed his ways that Christmas, to the benefit of all.
“You sent for me, sir?” Tim repeated, sensing that his patron had matters burdening his sensibilities far and beyond the usual courtesies and reminiscences.
“Yes, so I did. Tim, I’d like for you to do something for me.”
“With pleasure, sir.”
“The three spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past with its white dress and the jet of light springing from its head, the Ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly giant, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shrouded in a black hood. Were they dreams, thrown up not from a feverish but from a frozen mind? Or were they truly visions from another dimension of this familiar world?”
Scrooge’s talon-like hand seized upon Tim’s, with its ink-stained forefinger. “The ghost of my old partner Marley told me this: that if a man’s spirit does not walk abroad among his fellow men in life, then it must do so after death. And, conversely, that a spirit working kindly in this little sphere of earth will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.”
”There are the spirits paying penance,” said Tim, elucidating the old man’s words, “and those whose generosity of temper persists beyond the grave.”
“Marley was one of the former. He told me this himself. But what of the other three ghosts? What events in their mortal lives sent them to me? Soon I too, shall be a spirit among spirits. I would like to seek out those who came to me, and thank them most humbly for their efforts. I must know, Tim, who they were in life.”
Tim had barely begun to digest this strange request when he felt a presence at his back, the bulk of the nurse looming over him like a great warship under full sail bearing down upon a dinghy. “Begging your pardon, sir . . .”
“Yes, Mrs. Gump?”
“If you’re wanting to contact the spiritual world, there’s none better at it than Mrs. Minnow in Bedford Square.”
“A medium?” Tim asked. “I know that even Her Majesty has employed spiritualists, endeavoring to speak with her late consort, Prince Albert, but still.…”
Scrooge’s hand tightened upon his, grasping the young man’s warm flesh as it had once grasped at gold coins, but to much greater effect. “Tim, I know not if this Mrs. Minnow could be of help to you, and through you to me, but if you please . . .”
“Yes,” said Tim, setting aside his qualms as unworthy of both mentor and student. “Yes, of course. I shall do everything in my power to answer your questions, Mr. Scrooge.”
“Bless you, my boy.” Releasing Tim’s hand, the old man settled back onto his pillow. The blush drained from his cheeks, leaving them the color of cold gruel. Still he smiled gently, even affectionately, up at his bedcurtains.
Tim took his leave, and walked out into a swirl of snowflakes with less spring in his step than steely determination in his soul.
* * * *
Mrs. Minnow’s parlor was all respectability. Not one hint of either charnel house or circus detracted from the sprigged wall
paper, the ponderous rosewood furniture, the circular table draped with a paisley-pattern shawl. The lady herself resembled a doll clothed in taffeta. When she told Tim to join those seated at the table, he did, even though he would have had more confidence in the spiritualist if either her apartments or her person had offered evidence of things, if not unseen, at least unsuspected.
With a sly silken rustle, Mrs. Minnow turned the flame in the oil lamp down to the smallest of flickers. “Let us all join hands,” she instructed, putting her words into effect by taking Tim’s right hand in her own soft grasp. He felt as though he were holding a mite of warm bread dough.
He allowed the bewhiskered gentleman on his left to clasp his other hand, and strained his eyes through the wintry gloom, but could see only shadows and implications, grey writ upon grey.
Another crinkle of fabric, and Mrs. Minnow began to murmur softly in what might or might not have been the Queen’s English. She could as well have been summoning a waiter as summoning spirits, Tim thought.…
A sudden swish in the air above the table, and a spatter of ice-cold water droplets, sent a ripple of surprise around its periphery. Like the gentleman on his left, Tim jerked in surprise. Mrs. Minnow did not.
The odor of pine boughs freshly cut in a snowy field came to Tim’s nose. A masculine voice reached his ears, although it seemed to issue from the female shape to his right. “There is someone here who remembers a Christmas Eve long ago.”
After a long pause, Tim found his voice. “Ah—yes.”
“I see a lad,” said the voice, “a small boy with a crutch, sitting before a fireplace.”
Now how did Mrs. Minnow know of this? For a moment Tim entertained the thought that Scrooge and his nurse and Mrs. Minnow herself were conspiring in an elaborate joke at his own expense. But if so, why?
In for a penny, in for a pound, he told himself, and directed the—the spirit guide—to speak of Scrooge’s past, not his own. “I was that boy. That I survived, nay prospered, and have achieved hale manhood I owe to a benefactor. It is on his behalf that I come here today. He is searching for the identity of three, er, friends who once did him the greatest of good turns.”