Crime at Christmas (30 page)

'And who
are you?' Roddy Davis peered at Quarles' card and said, 'Of course, I know your
name.'

'I am a
criminologist.' This sounded better, Quarles thought, than 'private detective.'

'I remember
your monograph on criminal calligraphy. Quite fascinating.'

So Davis
did
know who he was. It would be easy,
Quarles thought, to underrate the intelligence of this man.

'These
beards really do get in the way rather,' Davis said. 'But there, one must
suffer for tradition. Have you known Acrise long?'

'Not very.
I'm greatly privileged to be here.'

Quarles had
been watching, as closely as he could, the pouring of the wine, the serving of
the food. He had seen nothing suspicious. Now, to get away from Davis'
questions, he turned to his host.

'Damned
awkward business before dinner,' Acrise said. 'Might have been, at least. Can't
let well alone, Erdington.'

He picked
up his turkey leg, attacked it with Elizabethan gusto, wiped his mouth and
Fingers with his napkin. 'Like this wine?'

'It's
excellent.'

'Chose it
myself. They've got some good Burgundies here.' Acrise's speech was slightly
slurred, and it seemed to Quarles that he was rapidly getting drunk.

'Do you
have any speeches?'

'No
speeches. Just sing carols. But I've got a little surprise for 'em.'

'What sort
of surprise?'

'Very much
in the spirit of Christmas, and a good joke too. But if I told you, it wouldn't
be a surprise, would it?'

There was a
general cry of pleasure as Albert himself brought in the great plum pudding,
topped with holly and blazing with brandy.

'That's the
most wonderful pudding I've ever seen in my life,' Endell said. 'Are we really
going to eat it?'

'Of
course,' Acrise said irritably. He stood up, swaying a little, and picked up
the knife beside the pudding.

'I don't
like to be critical, but our Chairman is really not cutting the pudding very
well,' Roddy Davis whispered to Quarles. And indeed, it was more of a stab than
a cut that Acrise made at the pudding. Albert took over, and cut it quickly and
efficiently. Bowls of brandy butter were circulated.

Quarles
leaned towards Acrise. 'Are you all right?'

'Of course
I'm all right.'

The
slurring was very noticeable now. Acrise ate no pudding, but he drank some more
wine, and dabbed at his lips. When the pudding was finished, he got slowly to
his feet again and toasted the Queen. Cigars were lighted. Acrise was not
smoking. He whispered something to the waiter, who nodded and left the room.
Acrise got up again, leaning heavily on the table.

'A little
surprise,' he said. 'In the spirit of Christmas.'

Quarles had
thought that he was beyond being surprised by the activities of the Santa Claus
Club, but he was astonished at the sight of the three figures who entered the
room.

They were
led by Snewin, somehow more mouselike than ever, wearing a long, white smock
and a red nightcap with a tassel. He was followed by an older man dressed in a
kind of grey sackcloth, with a face so white that it might have been covered in
plaster of Paris. This man carried chains, which he shook. At the rear came a
young-middle-aged lady who seemed to be completely hung with tinsel.

'I am
Scrooge,' said Snewin.

'I am
Marley,' wailed grey sackcloth, clanking his chains vigorously.

'And I,'
said the young-middle-aged lady, with abominable sprightliness, 'am the ghost
of Christmas past.'

There was a
ripple of laughter.

'We have
come,' said Snewin in a thin, mouse voice, 'to perform for you our own
interpretation of
A
Christmas Carol. .
.

Oh, sir,
what's the matter?'

Lord Acrise
stood up in his robes, tore off his wig, pulled at his beard, tried to say
something. Then he clutched at the side of his chair and fell sideways, so that
he leaned heavily against Endell and slipped slowly to the floor.

There
ensued a minute of confused, important activity. Endell made some sort of
exclamation and rose from his chair, slightly obstructing Quarles. Erdington
was first beside the body, holding the wrist in his hand, listening for the
heart. Then they were all crowding round. Snewin, at Quarles' left shoulder,
was babbling something, and at his right were Roddy Davis and Endell.

'Stand
back,' Erdington snapped. He stayed on his knees for another few moments,
looking curiously at Acrise's puffed, distorted face, bluish around the mouth.
Then he stood up.

'He's
dead.'

There was a
murmur of surprise and horror, and now they all drew back, as men do
instinctively from the presence of death.

'Heart
attack?' somebody said.

Quarles moved to his side. 'I'm a private detective, Sir James. Lord
Acrise feared an attempt on his life, and asked me to come along here.'

'You seem to have done well so far,' Erdington said drily.

'May I look at the body?'

'If you wish'.

As Quarles bent down, he caught the smell of bitter almonds. 'There's a
smell like prussic acid, but the way he died precludes cyanide, I think. He
seemed to become very drunk during dinner, and his speech was blurred. Does
that suggest anything to you?'

'I'm a brain surgeon, not a physician.' Erdington stared at the floor. 'Nitro-benzene?'

'That's what I thought. We shall have to notify the police.'

Quarles went to the door and spoke to a disturbed Albert. Then he returned
to the room and clapped his hands.

'Gentlemen. My name is Francis Quarles, and I am a private detective. Lord
Acrise asked me to come here tonight because he had received a threat that this
would be his last evening alive. The threat said, "I shall be there, and I
shall watch with pleasure as you squirm in agony". Lord Acrise has been
poisoned. It seems certain that the man who made the threat is in this room.'

'Gliddon,' a voice said. Snewin had divested himself of the white smock
and red nightcap, and now appeared as his customary respectable self.

'Yes. This letter, and others he had received, were signed with the name
of James Gliddon, a man who bore a grudge against Lord Acrise which went back
nearly half a century. Gliddon became a profes
sional smuggler and crook. He would
now be in his late sixties.'

'But dammit
man, this Gliddon's not here.' That was the General, who took off his wig and
beard. 'Lot of tomfoolery.'

In a
shamefaced way the other members of the Santa Claus Club removed their facial
trappings. Marley took off his chains and the lady discarded her cloak of
tinsel.

Quarles
said, 'Isn't he here? But Lord Acrise is dead.'

Snewin
coughed. 'Excuse me, sir, but would it be possible for my colleagues from our
local dramatic society to retire?'

'Everybody
must stay in this room until the police arrive,' Quarles said grimly. 'The
problem, as you will all realize, is how the poison was administered. All of us
ate the same food, drank the same wine. I sat next to Lord Acrise, and I
watched as closely as possible to make sure of this. After dinner some of you
smoked cigars or cigarettes, but not Lord Acrise.'

'Just a
moment.' It was Roddy Davis who spoke. 'This sounds fantastic, but wasn't it
Sherlock Holmes who said that when you'd eliminated all other possibilities,
even a fantastic one must be right? Supposing poison in powder form was put on
to Acrise's food? Through the pepper pots, say . . .'

Erdington
was shaking his head, but Quarles unscrewed both salt and pepper pots and
tasted their contents. 'Salt and pepper,' he said briefly. 'Hello, what's
this.'

'It's
Acrise's napkin,' Endell said. 'What's remarkable about that?'

'It's a
napkin, but not the one Acrise used. He wiped his mouth half a dozen times on
his napkin, and wiped his greasy fingers on it too, when he'd gnawed a turkey
bone. He must certainly have left grease marks on it. But look at this napkin.'

He held it
up, and they saw that it was spotless. Quarles said softly, 'The murderer's
mistake.'

Quarles
turned to Erdington. 'Sir James and I agree that the poison used was probably nitro-benzene.
This is deadly as a liquid, but it is also poisonous as a vapour—isn't that
so?'

Erdington
nodded. 'You'll remember the case of the unfortunate young man who used shoe
polish containing nitro-benzene on damp shoes, put them on and wore them, and
was killed by the fumes.'

'Yes.
Somebody made sure that Lord Acrise had a napkin that had been soaked in nitro-benzene
but was dry enough to use. The same person substituted the proper napkin, the
one belonging to the restaurant, after Acrise was dead.'

'That means
the napkin must still be here,' Davis said.

'It does.'

'Then I
vote that we submit to a search!'

'That won't
be necessary,' Quarles said. 'Only one person here fulfils all the
qualifications of the murderer.'

'James
Gliddon?'

'No.
Gliddon is almost certainly dead, as I found out when I made enquiries about
him. But the murderer is somebody who knew about Acrise's relationship with
Gliddon, and tried to be clever by writing those letters to lead us along a
wrong track.' He paused. 'Then the murderer is somebody who had the opportunity
of coming in here before dinner, and who knew exactly where Acrise would be
sitting.'

There was a
dead silence in the room.

Quarles
said, 'He removed any possible suspicion from himself, as he thought, by being
absent from the dinner table, but he arranged to come in afterwards to exchange
the napkins. He probably put the poisoned napkin into the clothes he discarded.
As for motive, long-standing hatred might be enough, but he is also somebody
who knew that he would benefit handsomely when Acrise died. . .stop him, will
you?'

But the
General, with a tackle reminiscent of the days when he had been the best wing
three-quarter in the country, had already brought to the floor Lord Acrise's
secretary, Snewin.

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