Crime at Christmas (23 page)

M
URDER
under the Mistletoe—and the man who
must have done it couldn't have done it. That's my Christmas and I don't feel
merry thank you very much all the same.' Superintendent Stanislaus Oates
favoured his old friend Mr Albert Campion with a pained smile and sat down in
the chair indicated.

It was the
afternoon of Christmas Day and Mr Campion, only a trifle more owlish than usual
behind his horn rims, had been fetched down from the children's party which he
was attending at his brother-in-law's house in Knightsbridge to meet the Superintendent,
who had moved heaven and earth to find him.

'What do
you want?' Mr Campion inquired facetiously. 'A little armchair miracle?'

'I don't
care if you do it swinging from a trapeze. I just want a reasonable explanation.'
Oates was rattled. His dyspeptic face with the perpetually sad expression was
slightly flushed and not with festivity. He plunged into his story.

'About
eleven last night a crook called Sampson was found shot dead in the back of a
car in a garage under a small drinking club in Alcatraz Mews—the club is named
The Humdinger. A large bunch of mistletoe which had been lying on the front
seat ready to be driven home had been placed on top of the body partially
hiding it—which was why it hadn't been found before. The gun, fitted with a
silencer, but wiped of prints, was found under the front seat. The dead man was
recognized at once by the owner of the car who is also the owner of the club.
He was the owner's current boy friend. She is quite a well-known West End
character called 'Girlski'. What did you say?'

'I said
'Oo-er,' murmured Mr Campion. 'One of the Eumenides, no doubt?'

'No.' Oates
spoke innocently. 'She's not a Greek. Don't worry about her. Just keep your
mind on the facts. She knows, as we do, that the only person who wanted to kill
Sampson is a nasty little snake called Kroll. He has been out of circulation
for the best of reasons. Sampson turned Queen's evidence against him in a
matter concerning a conspiracy to rob Her Majesty's mails and when he was
released last Tuesday Kroll came out breathing retribution.'

'Not the
Christmas spirit,' said Mr Campion inanely.

'That is
exactly what
we
thought,' Oates agreed. 'So about
five o'clock yesterday afternoon two of our chaps, hearing that Kroll was at
The Humdinger, where he might have been expected to make trouble, dropped along
there and brought him in for questioning and he's been in custody ever since.

'Well, now.
We have at least a dozen reasonably sober witnesses to prove that Kroll did not
meet Sampson at the Club. Sampson had been there earlier in the afternoon but
he left about a quarter to four saying he'd got to do some Christmas shopping
but promising to return. Fifteen minutes or so later Kroll came in and stayed
there in full view of Girlski and the customers until our men turned up and
collected him.
Now
what do you say?'

'Too easy!'
Mr Campion was suspicious. 'Kroll killed Sampson just before he came in
himself. The two met in the dusk outside the club. Kroll forced Sampson into
the garage and possibly into the car and shot him. With the way the traffic has
been lately, he'd hardly have attracted attention had he used a mortar, let
alone a gun with a silencer. He wiped the weapon, chucked it in the car, threw
the mistletoe over the corpse, and went up to Girlski to renew old acquaintance
and establish an alibi. Your chaps, arriving when they did, must have appeared
welcome.'

Oates
nodded. 'We thought that.
That is what happened.
That is why this morning's
development has set me gibbering. We now have two unimpeachable witnesses who
swear that the dead man was in Chipperwood West at six last evening delivering
some Christmas purchases he had made on behalf of a neighbour. That is
a whole hour
after Kroll was pulled in.

'The
assumption is that Sampson returned to Alcatraz Mews sometime later in the
evening and was killed by someone else—which we know is not true. Unfortunately
the Chipperwood West witnesses are not the kind of people we are going to
shake. One of them is a friend of yours. She asked our Inspector if he knew you
because you were "so good at crime and all that nonsense".'

'Good
Heavens!' Mr Campion spoke piously as the explanation of the Superintendent's
unlikely visitation was made plain to him. 'I don't think I know Chipperwood
West.'

'It's a
suburb which is becoming fashionable. Have you ever heard of Lady Larradine?'

'Old Lady
'ell?' Mr Campion let the joke of his salad days escape without its being
noticed by either of them. 'I don't believe it. She must be dead by this time!'

'There's a
type of woman who never dies before you do,' said Oates with apparent
sincerity. 'She's quite a dragon, I understand from our Inspector. However,
she isn't the actual witness. There are two of them. Brigadier Brose is one.
Ever heard of
him?'

'I don't
think I have.'

'My
information is that you'd remember him if you'd met him. Well, we'll find out.
I'm taking you with me, Campion. I hope you don't mind?'

'My sister
will hate it. I'm due to be Santa Claus in about an hour.'

'I can't
help that.' Oates was adamant. 'If a bunch of silly crooks want to get spiteful
at the festive season, someone must do the homework. Come and play Santa Claus
with me. It's your last chance. I'm retiring in the summer.'

Oates
continued in the same vein as he and Mr Campion sat in the back of a police car
threading their way through the deserted Christmas streets where the lamps were
growing bright in the dusk.

'I've had
bad luck lately,' the Superintendent said seriously. 'Too much. It won't help
my memoirs if I go out in a blaze of no enthusiasm. '

'You're
thinking of the Phaeton Robbery,' Mr Campion suggested. 'What are you calling
the memoirs?
Man-eaters
of the Yard?'

Oates's
mild old eyes brightened, but not greatly.

'Something
of the kind,' he admitted. 'But no one could be blamed for not solving that
blessed Phaeton business. Everyone concerned was bonkers. A silly old musical
star, for thirty years the widow of an eccentric Duke, steps out into her
London garden one autumn morning leaving the street door wide open and all her
most valuable jewellery collected from strong rooms all over the country lying
in a brown paper parcel on her bureau in the first room off the hall. Her
excuse was that she was just going to take it to the Bond Street auctioneers
and was carrying it herself for safety! The thief was equally mental to lift
it.'

'It wasn't
saleable?'

'Saleable!
It couldn't even be broken up. The stuff is just about as well-known as the
Crown Jewels. Great big enamels which the old Duke had collected at great
expense. No fence would stay in the same room with them, yet, of course, they
are worth the Earth as every newspaper has told us at length ever since they
were pinched!'

'He didn't
get anything else either, did he?'

'He was a
madman.' Oates dismissed him with contempt. 'All he gained was the old lady's house-keeping
money for a couple of months which was in her handbag—about a hundred and
fifty quid—and the other two items which were on the same shelf, a soapstone
monkey and plated paperknife. He simply wandered in, took the first things he
happened to see and wandered out again. Any sneak thief, tramp, or casual
snapper-upper could have done it and who gets blamed?
Me!'

He looked
so woebegone that Mr Campion hastily changed the subject. 'Where are we
going?' he inquired. 'To call on her ladyship? Do I understand that at the age
of one hundred and forty-six or whatever it is she is cohabiting with a Brig?
Which war?'

'I can't
tell you.' Oates was literal as usual. 'It could be the South African. They're
all in a nice residential hotel—the sort of place that is very popular with the
older members of the landed gentry just now.'

'When you
say landed, you mean as in fish?'

'Roughly,
yes. Elderly people living on capital. About forty of them. This place used to
be called
The Haven
and has now been taken over by two
ex-society widows and renamed
The CCraven
—with two Cs. It's a select hotel-cum-Old-Duck's Home for Mother's
Friends. You know the sort of place?'

'I can
envisage it. Don't say your murdered chum from The Humdinger lived there too?'

'No, he
lived in a more modest place whose garden backs on
The CCraven's
grounds. The Brigadier and one of
the other residents, a Mr Charlie Taunton, who has become a bosom friend of
his, were in the habit of talking to Sampson over the wall. Taunton is a lazy
man who seldom goes out and has little money but he very much wanted to get
some gifts for his fellow guests—something in the nature of little jokes from
the chain stores, I understand; but he dreaded the exertion of shopping for
them and Sampson appears to have offered to get him some little items wholesale
and to deliver them by six o'clock on Christmas Eve—in time for him to package
them up and hand them to Lady Larradine who was dressing the tree at seven.'

'And you
say Sampson actually did this?' Mr Champion sounded bewildered.

'Both old
gentlemen—the Brigadier and Taunton—swear to it. They insist they went down to
the wall at six and Sampson handed the parcel over as arranged. My Inspector is
an experienced man and he doesn't think we'll be able to shake either of them.'

'That
leaves Kroll with a complete alibi. How did these Chipperwood witnesses hear of
Sampson's death?'

'Routine.
The local police called at Sampson's home address this morning to report the
death, only to discover the place closed. The land-lady and her family are away
for the holiday and Sampson himself was due to spend it with Girlski. The
police stamped about a bit, making sure of all this, and in the course of their
investigations they were seen and hailed by the two old boys in the adjoining
garden. The two were shocked to hear that their kind acquaintance was dead and
volunteered the information that he had been with them at six.'

Mr Campion
looked blank. 'Perhaps they don't keep the same hours as anybody else,' he
suggested. 'Old people can be highly eccentric.'

Oates shook
his head. 'We thought of that. My Inspector, who came down the moment the local
police reported, insists that they are perfectly normal and quite positive.
Moreover, they had the purchases. He saw the packages already on the tree.
Lady Larradine pointed them out to him when she asked after you. She'll be
delighted to see you, Campion.'

'I can
hardly wait!'

'You don't
have to,' said Oates grimly as they pulled up before a huge Edwardian villa.
'It's all yours.'

'My dear
Boy! You haven't aged any more than I have!'

Lady
Larradine's tremendous voice-one of her chief terrors, Mr Campion
recollected-echoed over the crowded first-floor room where she received them.
There she stood in an outmoded but glittering evening gown looking, as always,
exactly like a spray-flecked seal.

'I
knew
you'd come,' she bellowed. 'As soon
as you got my oblique little S.O.S. How do you like our little hideout? Isn't
it
f
un!
Moira Spryg-Fysher and Janice
Poole-Poole wanted something to do, so we all put our pennies in it and here we
are!'

'Almost too
marvellous,' murmured Mr Campion in all sincerity. 'We really want a word with
Brigadier Brose and Mr Taunton.'

'Of course
you do and so you shall! We're all waiting for the Christmas tree. Everybody
will be there for that in about ten minutes in the drawing room. My dear, when
we
came they were calling it the
Residents' Lounge!'

Superintendent
Oates remained grave. He was startled to discover that the dragon was not only
fierce but also wily. The news that her apparently casual mention of Mr Campion
to the Inspector had been a ruse to get hold of him shocked the innocent
Superintendent. He retaliated by insisting that he must see the witnesses at
once.