The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries Part 7

"Exactly, my dear. Some, but not all."

"But what could it have been, then?" quavered Wendy. "Cook is quite sure she only used the best of everything. And it stands to reason it was something that they ate here." She struggled to put her fears into words. "Here was the only place they all were."

"It stands to reason that it was something they were given here," agreed Henry, whom more than one amba.s.sador had accused of pedantry, "which is not quite the same thing."

She stared at him. "Henry, what do you mean?"

Inspector Milsom knew what he meant.

It was the evening of Boxing Day when he and Constable Bewman came to the Witheringtons' house.

"A number of people would appear to have suffered from the effects of ingesting a small quant.i.ty of a dangerous substance at this address," Milsom announced to the company a.s.sembled at his behest. "One with fatal results."

Mrs. G.o.diesky shuddered. "Me, I suffer a lot."

"Me, too," Peter Watkins chimed in.

"But not, I think, sir, your wife?" Inspector Milsom looked interrogatively at Dora Watkins.

"No, Inspector," said Dora. "I was quite all right."

"Just as well," said Tom Witherington. He still looked pale. "We needed her to look after us."

"Quite so," said the Inspector.

"It wasn't food poisoning, then?" said Wendy eagerly. "Cook will be very pleased ..."

"It would be more accurate, madam," said Inspector Milsom, who didn't have a cook to be in awe of, "to say that there was poison in the food."

Wendy paled. "Oh ..."

"This dangerous substance of which you speak," enquired Professor G.o.diesky with interest, "is its nature known?"

"In England," said the Inspector, "we call it corrosive sublimate ..."

"Mercury? Ah," the refugee nodded sagely, "that would explain everything."

"Not quite everything, sir," said the Inspector mildly. "Now, if we might see you one at a time, please."

"This poison, Inspector," said Henry after he had given his account of the carol-singing to the two policemen, "I take it that it is not easily available?"

"That is correct, sir. But specific groups of people can obtain it."

"Doctors and pharmacists?" hazarded Henry.

"And certain manufacturers ..."

"Certain ... Oh, Uncle George?" said Henry. "Of course. There's plenty of mercury in thermometers."

"The old gentleman is definitely a little confused, sir."

"And Professors of Chemistry?" said Henry.

"In his position," said the Inspector judiciously, "I should myself have considered having something with me just in case."

"There being a fate worse than death," agreed Henry swiftly, "such as life in some places in Europe today. Inspector, might I ask what form this poison takes?"

"It's a white crystalline substance."

"Easily confused with sugar?"

"It would seem easily enough," said the policeman drily.

"And what you don't know, Inspector," deduced Henry intelligently, "is whether it was scattered on the mince pies ... I take it it was on the mince pies?"

"They were the most likely vehicle," conceded the policeman.

"By accident or whether it was meant to make a number of people slightly ill or ..."

"Or," put in Detective Constable Bewman keenly, "one person very ill indeed?"

"Or," persisted Henry quietly, "both."

"That is so." He gave a dry cough. "As it happens it did both make several people ill and one fatally so."

"Which also might have been intended?" n.o.body had ever called Henry slow.

"From all accounts," said Milsom obliquely, "Mr. Steele had a weak tummy before he ingested the corrosive sublimate of mercury."

"Uncle George wasn't ill, was he?"

"No, sir, nor Dr. Friar." He gave his dry cough. "I am told that Dr. Friar never partakes of pastry."

"Mrs. Steele?"

"Slightly ill. She says she just had one mince pie. Mrs. Watkins didn't have any. Nor did the Professor."

" 'The one without the parsley,' " quoted Henry, "is the one without the poison."

"Just so, sir. It would appear at first sight from our immediate calculations quite possible that ..."

"Inspector, if you can hedge your bets as well as that before you say anything, we could find you a job in the Foreign Office."

"Thank you, sir. As I was saying, sir, it is possible that the poison was only in the mince pies furthest from the staircase. Bewman here has done a chart of where the victims took their pies from."

"Which would explain why some people were unaffected," said Henry.

"Which might explain it, sir." The Inspector clearly rivalled Henry in his precision. "The Professor just wasn't there to take one at all. He says he went to his room to finish his wife's Christmas present. He was carving something for her out of a piece of old wood."

" 'Needs must when the devil drives,' " responded Henry absently. He was still thinking. "It's a pretty little problem, as they say."

"Means and opportunity would seem to be present," murmured Milsom.

"That leaves motive, doesn't it?" said Henry.

"The old gentleman mightn't have had one, seeing he's as he is, sir, if you take my meaning and of course we don't know anything about the Professor and his wife, do we, sir? Not yet."

"Not a thing."

"That leaves the doctor ..."

"I'd've murdered Mrs. Friar years ago," announced Henry cheerfully, "if she had been my wife."

"And Mrs. Steele." There was a little pause and then Inspector Milsom said, "I understand the new young a.s.sistant at the pharmacy is more what you might call a contemporary of Mrs. Steele."

"Ah, so that's the way the wind's blowing, is it?"

"And then, sir," said the policeman, "after motive there's still what we always call down at the station the fourth dimension of crime ..."

"And what might that be, Inspector?"

"Proof." He got up to go. "Thank you for your help, sir."

Henry sat quite still after the two policemen had gone, his memory teasing him. Someone he knew had been poisoned with corrosive sublimate of mercury, served to him in tarts. By a tart, too, if history was to be believed.

No, not someone he knew.

Someone he knew of.

Someone they knew about at the Foreign Office because it had been a political murder, a famous political murder set round an eternal triangle ...

Henry Tyler sought out Professor G.o.diesky and explained.

"It was recorded by contemporary authors," Henry said, "that when the tarts poisoned with mercury were delivered to the Tower of London for Sir Thomas Overbury, the fingernail of the woman delivering them had accidentally been poked through the pastry ..."

The professor nodded sapiently. "And it was stained black?"

"That's right," said Henry. History did have some lessons to teach, in spite of what Henry Ford had said. "But it would wash off?"

"Yes," said Hans G.o.diesky simply.

"So I'm afraid that doesn't get us anywhere, does it?"

The academic leaned forward slightly, as if addressing a tutorial. "There is, however, one substance on which mercury always leaves its mark."

"There is?" said Henry.

"Its-how do you say it in English?-its ineradicable mark."

"That's how we say it," said Henry slowly. "And which substance, sir, would that be?"

"Gold, Mr. Tyler. Mercury stains gold."

"For ever?"

"For ever." He waved a hand. "An amalgam is created."

"And I," Henry gave a faint smile, "I was foolish enough to think it was diamonds that were for ever."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, Professor. Nothing at all. Forgive me, but I think I may be able to catch the Inspector and tell him to look to the lady. And her gold wedding ring."

"Look to the lady?" The refugee was now totally bewildered. "I do not understand ..."

"It's a quotation."

"Ach, sir, I fear I am only a scientist."

"There's a better quotation," said Henry, "about looking to science for the righting of wrongs. I rather think Mrs. Steele may have looked to science, too, to-er-improve her lot. And if she carefully scattered the corrosive sublimate over some mince pies and not others it would have been with her left hand ..."

"Because she was left-handed," said the Professor immediately. "That I remember. And you think one mince pie would have had-I know the English think this important-more than its fair share?"

"I do. Then all she had to do was to give her husband that one and Bob's your uncle. Clever of her to do it in someone else's house."

Hans G.o.diesky looked totally mystified. "And who was Bob?"

"Don't worry about Bob," said Henry from the door. "Think about Melchior and his gold instead."

BOXING UNCLEVER.

Robert Barnard.

WHEN SERIAL KILLER NOVELS, police procedurals, and violent crime fiction began to dominate the mystery genre, a handful of British authors maintained the legacy of the traditional detective story, and one of the stars of that challenging subgenre during the last quarter of the twentieth century was Robert Barnard. Born in the deliciously named town of Burnham-on-Crouch, he moved to Australia to teach after his graduation from Oxford University and then taught English at two universities in Norway before settling in Leeds. Many of his humorous and satiric detective novels feature the Scotland Yard inspector Perry Trethowan. "Boxing Unclever" was first published in A Cla.s.sic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

Boxing Unclever.

ROBERT BARNARD.

"THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS," said Sir Adrian Tremayne, fingering the stem of the small gla.s.s of port which was all he was allowed, "is not to be found in the gluttony and ostentation which that charlatan and sentimentalist Charles d.i.c.kens encouraged." He looked disparagingly round at the remains of the dinner still enc.u.mbering the long table. "Not in turkey and plum pudding, still less in crackers and expensive gifts. No-a thousand times!" His voice was thrilling, but was then lowered to a whisper, and it carried as it once had carried through the theatres of the nation. "The true spirit of Christmas lies of course in reconciliation."

"Reconciliation-very true," said the Reverend Sykes.