The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 14

"Bondling!" The Inspector paled.

"I don't get it," complained Sergeant Velie.

"Ellery, you must be wrong," said Nikki. "At the time Mr. Bondling grabbed the doll off the platform, the theft had already taken place. It was the worthless copy he picked up."

"That," said Ellery, reaching for another sandwich, "was the focal point of his illusion. How do we know it was the worthless copy he picked up? Why, he said so. Simple, eh? He said so, and like the dumb bunnies we were, we took his unsupported word as gospel."

"That's right!" mumbled his father. "We didn't actually examine the doll till quite a few seconds later."

"Exactly," said Ellery in a munchy voice. "There was a short period of beautiful confusion, as Bondling knew there would be. I yelled to the boys to follow and grab Santa Claus-I mean, the Sergeant here. The detectives were momentarily demoralized. You, Dad, were stunned. Nikki looked as if the roof had fallen in. I essayed an excited explanation. Some detectives ran; others milled around. And while all this was happening-during those few moments when n.o.body was watching the genuine doll in Bondling's hand because everyone thought it was a fake-Bondling calmly slipped it into one of his greatcoat pockets and from the other produced the worthless copy which he'd been carrying there all day. When I did turn back to him, it was the copy I grabbed from his hand. And his illusion was complete.

"I know," said Ellery dryly. "It's rather on the let-down side. That's why illusionists guard their professional secrets so closely; knowledge is disenchantment. No doubt the incredulous amazement aroused in his periwigged London audience by Comus the French conjuror's dematerialization of his wife from the top of a table would have suffered the same fate if he'd revealed the trap door through which she had dropped. A good trick, like a good woman, is best in the dark. Sergeant, have another pastrami."

"Seems like funny chow to be eating early Christmas morning," said the Sergeant, reaching. Then he stopped. Then he said, "Bondling," and shook his head.

"Now that we know it was Bondling," said the Inspector, who had recovered a little, "it's a cinch to get that diamond back. He hasn't had time to dispose of it yet. I'll just give downtown a buzz-"

"Wait, Dad," said Ellery.

"Wait for what?"

"Whom are you going to sic the dogs on?"

"What?"

"You're going to call Headquarters, get a warrant, and so on. Who's your man?"

The Inspector felt his head. "Why ... Bondling, didn't you say?"

"It might be wise," said Ellery, thoughtfully searching with his tongue for a pickle seed, "to specify his alias."

"Alias?" said Nikki. "Does he have one?"

"What alias, son?"

"Comus."

"Comus!"

"Comus?"

"Comus."

"Oh, come off it," said Nikki, pouring herself a shot of coffee, straight, for she was in training for the Inspector's Christmas dinner. "How could Bondling be Comus when Bondling was with us all day?-and Comus kept making disguised appearances all over the place ... that Santa who gave me the note in front of the bank-the old man who kidnapped Lance Morganstern-the fat man with the mustache who s.n.a.t.c.hed Mrs. Rafferty's purse."

"Yeah," said the Sergeant. "How?"

"These illusions die hard," said Ellery. "Wasn't it Comus who phoned a few minutes ago to rag me about the theft? Wasn't it Comus who said he'd left the stolen dauphin-minus the diamond-on our doormat? Therefore Comus is Bondling.

"I told you Comus never does anything without a good reason," said Ellery. "Why did 'Comus' announce to 'Bondling' that he was going to steal the Dauphin's Doll? Bondling told us that-putting the finger on his alter ego-because he wanted us to believe he and Comus were separate individuals. He wanted us to watch for Comus and take Bondling for granted. In tactical execution of this strategy, Bondling provided us with three 'Comus'-appearances during the day-obviously, confederates.

"Yes," said Ellery, "I think, Dad, you'll find on backtracking that the great thief you've been trying to catch for five years has been a respectable estate attorney on Park Row all the time, shedding his quiddities and his quillets at night in favor of the soft shoe and the dark lantern. And now he'll have to exchange them all for a number and a grilled door. Well, well, it couldn't have happened at a more appropriate season; there's an old English proverb that says the Devil makes his Christmas pie of lawyers' tongues. Nikki, pa.s.s the pastrami."

* Deleted.-Editor.

MORSE'S GREATEST MYSTERY.

Colin Dexter.

IN THE TRADITION OF DOROTHY L. SAYERS and Michael Innes, Colin Dexter's mysteries combine scholarly erudition, well-constructed plots, and humor. His series character, Inspector Morse, appears in all of his novels and inspired an enormously successful British television series, the eponymous Inspector Morse, in which Dexter made a cameo appearance (much as Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k did) in almost every episode. It may be interesting to note that Dexter is one of the world's most accomplished solvers of crossword puzzles, winning its top compet.i.tions on several occasions. "Morse's Greatest Mystery" was first collected in Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories (London, Macmillan, 1993).

Morse's Greatest Mystery.

COLIN DEXTER.

"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice as near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?"

d.i.c.kens, A Christmas Carol.

HE HAD KNOCKED DIFFIDENTLY AT Morse's North Oxford flat. Few had been invited into those book-lined, Wagner-haunted rooms: and even he-Sergeant Lewis-had never felt himself an over-welcome guest. Even at Christmastime. Not that it sounded much like the season of goodwill as Morse waved Lewis inside and concluded his ill-tempered conversation with the bank manager.

"Look! If I keep a couple of hundred in my current account, that's my look-out. I'm not even asking for any interest on it. All I am asking is that you don't stick these b.l.o.o.d.y bank charges on when I go-what? once, twice a year?-into the red. It's not that I'm mean with money"-Lewis's eyebrows ascended a centimetre-"but if you charge me again I want you to ring and tell me why!"

Morse banged down the receiver and sat silent.

"You don't sound as if you've caught much of the Christmas spirit," ventured Lewis.

"I don't like Christmas-never have."

"You staying in Oxford, sir?"

"I'm going to decorate."

"What-decorate the Christmas cake?"

"Decorate the kitchen. I don't like Christmas cake-never did."

"You sound more like Scrooge every minute, sir."

"And I shall read a d.i.c.kens novel. I always do over Christmas. Re-read, rather."

"If I were just starting on d.i.c.kens, which one--?"

"I'd put Bleak House first, Little Dorrit second--"

The phone rang and Morse's secretary at HQ informed him that he'd won a 50 gift-token in the Police Charity Raffle, and this time Morse cradled the receiver with considerably better grace.

" 'Scrooge,' did you say, Lewis? I'll have you know I bought five tickets-a quid apiece!-in that Charity Raffle."

"I bought five tickets myself, sir."

Morse smiled complacently. "Let's be more charitable, Lewis! It's supporting these causes that's important, not winning."

"I'll be in the car, sir," said Lewis quietly. In truth, he was beginning to feel irritated. Morse's irascibility he could stomach; but he couldn't stick hearing much more about Morse's selfless generosity!

Morse's old Jaguar was in dock again ("Too mean to buy a new one!" his colleagues claimed) and it was Lewis's job that day to ferry the chief inspector around; doubtless, too (if things went to form), to treat him to the odd pint or two. Which indeed appeared a fair probability, since Morse had so managed things on that Tuesday morning that their arrival at the George would coincide with opening time. As they drove out past the railway station, Lewis told Morse what he'd managed to discover about the previous day's events ...

The patrons of the George had ama.s.sed 400 in aid of the Littlemore Charity for Mentally Handicapped Children, and this splendid total was to be presented to the Charity's Secretary at the end of the week, with a photographer promised from The Oxford Times to record the grand occasion. Mrs. Michaels, the landlady, had been dropped off at the bank in Carfax by her husband at about 10:30 a.m., and had there exchanged a motley a.s.semblage of coins and notes for forty brand-new tenners. After this she had bought several items (including grapes for a daughter just admitted to hospital) before catching a minibus back home, where she had arrived just after midday. The money, in a long white envelope, was in her shopping bag, together with her morning's purchases. Her husband had not yet returned from the Cash and Carry Stores, and on re-entering the George via the saloon bar, Mrs. Michaels had heard the telephone ringing. Thinking that it was probably the hospital (it was) she had dumped her bag on the bar counter and rushed to answer it. On her return, the envelope was gone.

At the time of the theft, there had been about thirty people in the saloon bar, including the regular OAPs, the usual cohort of pool-playing unemployables, and a pre-Christmas party from a local firm. And-yes!-from the very beginning Lewis had known that the chances of recovering the money were virtually nil. Even so, the three perfunctory interviews that Morse conducted appeared to Lewis to be sadly unsatisfactory.

After listening a while to the landlord's unilluminating testimony, Morse asked him why it had taken him so long to conduct his business at the Cash and Carry; and although the explanation given seemed perfectly adequate, Morse's dismissal of this first witness had seemed almost offensively abrupt. And no man could have been more quickly or more effectively antagonised than the temporary barman (on duty the previous morning) who refused to answer Morse's brusque enquiry about the present state of his overdraft. What then of the attractive, auburn-haired Mrs. Michaels? After a rather lopsided smile had introduced Morse to her regular if slightly nicotine-stained teeth, that distressed lady had been unable to fight back her tears as she sought to explain to Morse why she'd insisted on some genuine notes for the publicity photographer instead of a phonily magnified cheque.

But wait! Something dramatic had just happened to Morse, Lewis could see that: as if the light had suddenly shined upon a man that hitherto had sat in darkness. He (Morse) now asked-amazingly!-whether by any chance the good lady possessed a pair of bright green, high-heeled leather shoes; and when she replied that, yes, she did, Morse smiled serenely, as though he had solved the secret of the universe, and promptly summoned into the lounge bar not only the three he'd just interviewed but all those now in the George who had been drinking there the previous morning.

As they waited, Morse asked for the serial numbers of the stolen notes, and Lewis pa.s.sed over a sc.r.a.p of paper on which some figures had been hastily scribbled in blotchy Biro. "For Christ's sake, man!" hissed Morse. "Didn't they teach you to write at school?"

Lewis breathed heavily, counted to five, and then painstakingly rewrote the numbers on a virginal piece of paper: 773741773780. At which numbers Morse glanced cursorily before sticking the paper in his pocket, and proceeding to address the George's regulars.

He was virtually certain (he said) of who had stolen the money. What he was absolutely sure about was exactly where that money was at that very moment. He had the serial numbers of the notes-but that was of no importance whatsoever now. The thief might well have been tempted to spend the money earlier-but not any more! And why not? Because at this Christmas time that person no longer had the power to resist his better self.

In that bar, stilled now and silent as the grave itself, the faces of Morse's audience seemed mesmerised-and remained so as Morse gave his instructions that the notes should be replaced in their original envelope and returned (he cared not by what means) to Sergeant Lewis's office at Thames Valley Police HQ within the next twenty-four hours.

As they drove back, Lewis could restrain his curiosity no longer. "You really are confident that--?"

"Of course!"

"I never seem to be able to put the clues together myself, sir."

"Clues? What clues, Lewis? I didn't know we had any."

"Well, those shoes, for example. How do they fit in?"

"Who said they fitted in anywhere? It's just that I used to know an auburn-haired beauty who had six-six, Lewis!-pairs of bright green shoes. They suited her, she said."

"So ... they've got nothing to do with the case at all?"

"Not so far as I know," muttered Morse.

The next morning a white envelope was delivered to Lewis's office, though no one at reception could recall when or whence it had arrived. Lewis immediately rang Morse to congratulate him on the happy outcome of the case.

"There's just one thing, sir. I'd kept that sc.r.a.ppy bit of paper with the serial numbers on it, and these are brand-new notes all right-but they're not the same ones!"

"Really?" Morse sounded supremely unconcerned.

"You're not worried about it?"

"Good Lord, no! You just get that money back to ginger-k.n.o.b at the George, and tell her to settle for a jumbo cheque next time! Oh, and one other thing, Lewis. I'm on leave. So no interruptions from anybody-understand?"

"Yes, sir. And, er ... Happy Christmas, sir!"

"And to you, old friend!" replied Morse quietly.

The bank manager rang just before lunch that same day. "It's about the four hundred pounds you withdrew yesterday, Inspector. I did promise to ring about any further bank charges--"

"I explained to the girl," protested Morse. "I needed the money quickly."

"Oh, it's perfectly all right. But you did say you'd call in this morning to transfer--"

"Tomorrow! I'm up a ladder with a paint brush at the moment."

Morse put down the receiver and again sank back in the armchair with the crossword. But his mind was far away, and some of the words he himself had spoken kept echoing around his brain: something about one's better self ... And he smiled, for he knew that this would be a Christmas he might enjoy almost as much as the children up at Littlemore, perhaps. He had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all?

MORE THAN FLESH AND BLOOD.

Susan Moody.

SUSAN MOODY HAS CREATED several memorable characters for her mystery fiction, notably the jet-setting Penny Wanawake, who is tall, gorgeous, and "black and shiny as a licorice-stick." Her lover is a jewel thief whose loot is fenced, the proceeds sent to the poor in Africa by Penny. She is a powerful crime-fighter, though she does not regard stealing from the rich as a crime. Moody's other series detective is the somewhat more traditional Ca.s.sandra Swann, a businesswoman and bridge instructor. "More Than Flesh and Blood" was first published in A Cla.s.sic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

More Than Flesh and Blood.

SUSAN MOODY.

LOOKING BACK, HE WAS ALWAYS TO remember the place as like a honeycomb, full of golden light. The walls of the houses, made of some yellowish local stone, were glazed with it. Roofs, covered in ochre-edged rings of lichen, dripped it back into the single narrow street, where the front doors opened straight into what would once have been called the parlour.

After the long journey through the barren hills, the village welcomed him. Driving across the humped stone bridge, he knew at once that he'd found what he was looking for. He stopped the car and got out. There were no shops, no pub, no one to ask the way. At the far end of the street there were cows, creamy-gold in the fierce light of the starting-to-set sun, sauntering towards an open farm gate. Beyond it, stone buildings, mud and hay, metal churns, indicated a dairy. He followed them.

A woman was already clamping the first cow to the nozzles of an electric milking-machine. She looked up at him without straightening, her face strong from confronting the weather unprotected for fifty or sixty years.

"I'm trying to find this house," he said, city-diffident in the presence of elemental sources. He showed her the photograph, thumb and fourth finger grasping the edges of the thick cardboard.

"Aye," she said.