Crime at Christmas (16 page)

'Why, little
habits I detested. The way he dressed—one shoe always used to squeak when he
walked. The way he put extra spoonfuls of sugar on his morning cereal. The way
he coughed irritatingly after he'd smoked a cigarette too many. The—the thin
whistle of the breath in his nose whenever he breathed too near me. And the way
he would drop little hints to me about what a devil he was with the ladies,
trying to get it across to me that—Yes, all that night an inner voice kept
saying to me:
I hate
Mr Woolfolk!

'During this
last week he got on my nerves more than I can say. Yesterday was Christmas
Eve. After supper he left for town to visit my sister Caroline. She's been
deathly sick lately. I tried to amuse Beryl, but she was extra unruly and I
finally had to pack her off to bed as punishment. Mr Woolfolk returned about
ten o'clock. There was snow on his coat. He said, "It's snowing out."
And I thought that was a perfectly hateful. I
knew
it was snowing. I could see it on
him. It was a perfectly exasperating remark and I hated his false teeth when he
grinned at me. He hung his coat up and came over to me. He reached out and felt
my hand. It was the first time he'd ever touched me like that. Inwardly I
squirmed. I tried to draw my hand back without offending him. He said suggestively,
'I'm going out to the Music Box afterwards. Come out where you hear me
playing.'

'I answered
with as much sarcasm as I dared. "Christmas carols?" He was still
grinning. "No," he said. "Not exactly Christmas carols." I
didn't answer him. I walked away from him.' She paused to straighten her
eyeglasses primly on her narrow nose. 'Oh, I knew what he meant. But he didn't
press me about it. I worked on the Christmas tree and spread presents around it
until I noticed the clock striking in the hall. It was twelve midnight. I felt
he was down here in the parlour and went up the stairs. On the first landing I
stopped for a moment and looked out the window. The snow had stopped falling.
The moon was out. Everything was beautiful and white. I hurried up the rest of
the stairs to my bedroom. I locked the door. I felt too tired to open my diary
last night, but something kept drawing me to it. At last I decided: A few
words. When I opened it and saw what was in it, it fell out of my hands. The
last words written in it were:
Tonight
I'm
going to kill Mr Woolfolk!

She
swallowed painfully. 'I thought I must have gone insane. Why should I have
written such a terrible thing? It couldn't have been me. Yet it was in my own
handwriting. I flung the book back into the drawer and crawled into bed,
trembling, sick at my thoughts. It was as if some evil thing had come into the
house and taken possession of me during the past two weeks. I knew I walked in
my sleep. Beryl told me that she'd seen me. Once I found some silverware in my
room where I'd hidden it while I was asleep. I was afraid I'd do something
horrible when I had no conscious control of myself. I didn't want to go to
sleep, ever. I lay awake, fighting it, for as long a time as I could. I kept
listening. The house was still. But I couldn't keep awake. I couldn't. I did
fall asleep—and I dreamed . . .'

Her face
was the color of ashes. 'Somewhere in a dim corner of my mind I remembered Mr
Woolfolk saying, "Come where you hear me playing." My actions were
all of a dreamlike floating quality. In the distance I could hear Mr Woolfolk
playing a part of
La
Sornnambula
score. I don't know how I got there, but I was eventually facing him across the
Spanish shawl on the piano. The music had stopped. He was rising to his feet,
grinning. I hated him more than I ever did. There was a gun in my hand. I don't
know how it got there. He kept repeating, "Shoot me! Go ahead! Shoot me!
If you hate me so much, why don't you shoot?" I heard the shots stabbing
into my brain. Then it all faded out again.

'When I
woke up it was morning and I was in bed. I thought: Thank God, it's all been a
horrible dream. I dressed, woke Beryl up, and went down to make breakfast. Mr
Woolfolk wasn't anywhere in the house and when I looked outside for him I saw
those footprints that led to the Music Box.

That's
where he was. He wouldn't have stayed out here all night, unless—I
knew
what had happened, but I was too
terrified to go and look. And then Verl came. . .'

Banner
frowned. 'When did Woolfolk die?'

Verl
answered: 'The police say about four o'clock in the morning—four hours after
it'd stopped snowing.'

'And the
weapon used?'

'The old
horse pistol that was kept in the stable.'

'Have they
found it?'

'They
searched the house from top to bottom first, before they did find it. The
murderer had laid a stick across the chimney stack and the gun was hanging
halfway down on the inside tied to a string.'

Banner
heard a thin voice pipe up behind his chair. 'You should see the dog now. I
painted him blue.'

Banner swivelled
his big head. The child was staring at him with blank green eyes as if they
were painted on a wooden face. Two rat-tails of carroty hair hung down over her
scrawny shoulders. The pale-skinned arms had freckles sprinkled on them and her
bloodless lips were chapped.

Ora had
reached the limit of her endurance. She lifted her voice shrilly. 'Beryl! I
told you to stay in bed!'

'I won't. I
tore up the bed. You'll have to make it over.' She stared steadily at Banner.
'I don't like you. You're fat and filthy and you can't play the piano.'

Banner said
sweetly to Ora: ' Does Snookums know about Daddy?'

'Yes, we
told her,' said Ora.

'She
doesn't seem very grieved,' said Verl.

'Let her
stay up if she wants to.' Banner ploughed his hand into one of the roomy kangaroo
pockets of his coat and took out a paper-wrapped candy bar. He held it up.
'Butterscotch,' he said. 'It melts in your mouth. I would've given it to you,
tadpole, if you'd wiggled off to bed. But since you'd rather stay up—' He gave
a titanic shrug.

She watched
sullenly while he returned the butterscotch to his pocket. Then she sat on a
footstool and appeared to be reconsidering the situation.

Verl's mind
was tinkering with something. He said: 'Ora, has the radio aerial been fixed
yet?'

'No,' said
Ora listlessly.

'What
happened to it?' said Banner.

Beryl
squirmed on the footstool. 'I broke it yesterday,' she confessed.

'You
broke it!' said Banner.

Beryl
shrugged her thin shoulders. 'Sure. I was up on the roof, breaking off
shingles, when I thought I'd climb the aerial. Is it any business of yours?'

Banner
scowled. 'Yep. I investigate that under the head of monkey business.'

Ora was
sitting looking wide-eyed at Verl. 'How did you know the aerial was broken? I
never told—'

'Yes, you
did. You told me about it when you saw me yesterday in town.'

'I never
saw you yesterday!' she said strongly.

'Why, Ora,
you most certainly did. You dropped into
The Griffon
editorial office and asked me if I
wanted to go with you to the all-Tchaikovsky afternoon concert at the school
hall. And we went. And you liked the
Nutcracker Suite.'

'Verl! Stop
ragging me! I was right here all afternoon. I stayed in and cleaned the house.'

'See here,
Ora. You spent at least two full hours with me.'

'That's a
lie!'

Verl
checked an angry retort. 'Ora,' he said tightly, 'I can prove it. Several other
people saw you too, my father among them. Why should we all lie about it?'

She was
near frantic tears. 'But, Verl, I never left the house. I remember what I did
all afternoon. I never went out!'

'Someone
was masquerading as you, I suppose?' Verl shook his head. 'No, it was you.
We've grown up together. Nobody could pull off a deception like that.'

Beryl
perked up accusingly. 'You walk in your sleep.'

'People
don't act that wide-awake in their sleep,' argued Verl. 'I tell you, Ora, you
were awake and you were with me.'

'I won't
listen to any more.' Ora stood up. 'Beryl, for the last time, are you going to
lie down?'

Beryl
looked questioningly at Banner's pocket. 'I might go if—'

Banner
chuckled. 'Hunky-dory.' He put the butterscotch in her hand. 'Off to blanket
class.'

Beryl,
pacified, left with Ora.

Banner said
sternly: 'What snicklefritz needs is to get the tar whaled outta her.'

Verl flung
out his arms and snapped: 'Why should she deny being with me? I know I'm not
lying.'

'Mebbe she
ain't either,' said Banner cryptically. 'Does anybody like Beryl?'

'Her father
did. God knows why. She's a heller. She spies on people and tells nothing but
lies. Breaking the aerial was just another one of those things. She takes
showers with all her clothes on. She rings the dinner bell before time. She
lets all the horses out of the stable. She floods the garden. She puts heavy
books in her pillow-slip when she wants a pillow fight. She says Ora is loony.'

Verl broke off
suddenly.

Banner
glanced sideways at a slight sound and saw a strange woman standing in the
doorway. It was Caroline Spires. Caroline was totally different from her dowdy
sister. The figure was thickening (fat with sin, as Banner liked to put it),
but it was dressed in the latest of fashions. She had strawy blonde hair, fresh
from a cold perm-wave and a little too much pancake makeup on. Banner had a
feeling that in spite of her placid exterior she could be a vixen when aroused.

'Hello,
Caroline,' said Verl, with some surprise. 'I want you to meet Senator Banner.'

Caroline
teetered in on very high heels and used the properly sorrowful smile for the
occasion as she shook his hand. 'How do you do?' she enunciated.

'Meetcha,'
said Banner.

'Seeing you
standing there, Caroline,' went on Verl, 'gave me a turn. Ora said that last
night you weren't able to lift a finger. You've made a very rapid recovery.'

A crease of
annoyance came and went between her pencilled brows. 'Oh, no matter how I felt,
I couldn't stay away at a time like this.' She took a package wrapped in
holiday tissue from her handbag. 'I know that Caspar would have wanted me to
bring this.' She let her lower lip tremble. 'Who knows? In another few weeks I
might have been Mrs Woolfolk.'

Banner thought:
Nice acting, baby.

He said:
'You felt that Beryl needed you for a mother.'

'I should
say not,' said Caroline forcefully. 'She's ungovernable. I wouldn't feel safe
living in the same house with that brat. I wanted her sent away to a school. I
told him so. I wouldn't marry him under any other condition.'

'Woolfolk
visited you at your sick-bed last night. He left near ten. Didja get up any
time after that?'

She smiled
archly. 'I hardly dared. My nurse looked in every half hour to see if I was
asleep. Surely you don't think
I
did it. I'm not one that's likely to
kill a goose with golden eggs.' She twisted the wrapped gift over in her
manicured hands. 'Excuse me. I want to put this under the tree.' Before she
turned away she added: 'What a horrible Christmas!'

They
listened to her heels tap away in the hall.

Verl said:
'If she'd had her way with Woolfolk, she'd be mistress of Falconridge now.
Lately she's been afraid that Woolfolk might get too interested in Ora. There's
a rivalry between those two sisters, but it doesn't show on the surface. I
don't think she was sick for one minute. This sudden recovery proves it. She
did it to keep Woolfolk at her bedside morning and night. Finally he would have
married her out of sheer sympathy.'

Banner
studied him with his shrewd baby-blue eyes. 'Are you in love with Ora? Or vice
versa?'

Verl looked
genuinely surprised, then he grinned. 'That's funny. I never thought of that
before.' He shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, Senator. We've known each other
all our lives. We're good friends. But I doubt that Ora will ever marry anyone.
She's a born and bred spinster. Since she was a tot, Caroline put the fear of
men in her.' He paused. 'There's that interesting sidelight on Woolfolk that I
was telling you about. Come into the library. I'll show you.'