The Finishing Stroke (5 page)

Craig nodded. ‘It changed hands several times after Nineteen Five. Dan bought it in the early ‘twenties. And by George, here he is. And Roland. Come in, come in!'

The publisher and the lawyer made an odd pair.

Dan Z. Freeman was a slight sallow man of forty with a big head further enlarged by a hairline that had retreated to the peak of his skull. He had beautiful, brilliant brown eyes.

The publisher seemed embarrassed by the ordeal of meeting a roomful of strangers. He shook hands with Ellery with the ardour of a drowning man embracing a providential bit of flotsam. Ellery had met him just once, when Freeman had accepted the manuscript of
The
Roman Hat Mystery
for publication.

‘So nice to see you again, Queen,' Freeman kept murmuring, ‘so very nice.' And at the first opportunity he slipped into a chair and effaced himself.

Roland Payn could not have effaced himself if he tried. He was a tall florid man in his early fifties with a shock of handsome white hair and the ready, rather absent, smile of a politician. His rich and easy baritone would have done credit to an actor of the old school. Ellery had heard of him through Inspector Queen, who liked to brag that he knew every lawyer in New York. Payn was an extremely cautious, shrewd attorney who, like a gilt-edged stock, attracted only the most conservative clientele. For all his distinguished appearance and pear-shaped tones, he rarely argued a case in court. The bulk of his practice was will and estate work.

‘Now that Messrs Payn and Freeman are here,' John announced. ‘I'm ready to let you all in on the first two of the four cosmic events I mentioned. Mr. Payn, speaking as the Craig family lawyer, how does my status change as of January sixth?'

‘That date marking your twenty-fifth birthday,' the white-haired attorney said, smiling, ‘by the terms of the last will of your father, John Sebastian Senior, you come into the principal estate, which has been held in trust for you since Nineteen Five. I'm sure John won't mind my remarking that this will make him a very well-cushioned young man indeed.'

‘And insufferable, of course,' Ellen Craig said, squeezing John's arm. ‘Imagine John a millionaire!'

‘Sickening, ain't it?' John grinned. ‘And now, Mr. Freeman. Speaking in your professional capacity, what happens on January sixth that I should know?'

The publisher flushed as all eyes went to him. ‘An event of far greater moment, I'm sure, than the mere acquisition of a fortune. On January sixth The House of Freeman is publishing the first book of verse of a promising young poet –
The Food of Love
, by John Sebastian.'

Everyone shouted. Rusty cried, ‘John, how wonderful! And you never breathed a word to me. Did you know, Mr. Craig?'

Craig's beard waggled. ‘You don't think anyone could deprive me of the pleasure of doing John's maiden book, Rusty! But Dan and I are a couple of old Trappists.' Craig affectionately pawed the publisher's slender shoulder. ‘We know how to keep our mouths shut.'

‘John, I'm so happy for you,' Valentina murmured. ‘Congratulations.' And she pulled his head down and kissed him.

Rusty Brown smiled.

‘I'll take some of that!' Ellen said gaily, and somehow she managed to get between Valentina and John and, after kissing him, to stay there.

John's ears were red. ‘I wanted it to be a surprise. Isn't it tremendous? I'm still pinching myself.'

‘And it will sell exactly four hundred and fifty-nine copies,' Marius said, waving his empty glass like a baton, ‘and get a smasher of a review from
The Journal of Veterinary Medicine.'

But his grating voice was lost in the hubbub; and by the time the last guest had arrived, Marius was tightly asleep in his chair.

The man whose modest valise Felton carried in from the Peerless was a spare old fellow of great vigour, with barely silvered black hair, childlike blue eyes, a big Yankee nose, and a clerical collar. Arthur Craig introduced him as the Reverend Mr. Andrew Gardiner, recently retired from his Episcopal rectorate in New York. He was actually a friend of the Browns'; Olivette Brown had been a communicant of his church for many years, and he had baptized and confirmed Rusty.

The instant she laid eyes on the old clergyman Valentina Warren grew silent. She curled up on the arm of sleeping Marius Carlo's chair, ruffling his black hair lightly. Her violet glance went often to Rusty's face. She did not look at John at all.

Ellery had been watching her. He murmured to Ellen Craig, ‘What goes on in that direction, Ellen?'

‘Do I look like the counterspy type?' Ellen murmured back. ‘You'll have to draw your own conclusions, Mr. See-It-All. I gather you do that very well.'

‘I conclude a triangle.'

‘I'm
not
helping you with your maths, Mr. Queen.'

‘You know my niece Ellen, I believe,' Craig said, coming over with the late arrival. ‘This is a friend of John's, Mr. Gardiner – Ellery Queen, the author. The Reverend Mr. Gardiner.'

Ellery was surprised at the iron in the old man's handshake. ‘I hear you're retired, Mr. Gardiner. Why in heaven's name would they retire a man with a grip like yours?'

‘I'm afraid heaven didn't have much to do with it, Mr. Queen,' the minister said, smiling. ‘It was the Bishop and his gentle reminder that I had passed the compulsory retirement age of seventy-two. Ellen, you're even more radiant than usual.'

‘My influence, I trust,' Ellery said. Ellen flushed slightly, but she seemed pleased.

‘In that case,' Mr. Gardiner said, twinkling, ‘having even a retired clergyman on the premises may come in handy. Mr. Craig, I hope it won't inconvenience you and your guests, but I should like to attend midnight mass. I believe you have an Episcopal church in Alderwood. If I might borrow a car later tonight –'

‘Nonsense, I'll have Felton or John drive you over,' Craig said. ‘The only thing is, the road to the main highway may be impassable in a few hours. I haven't heard the ploughs go through.'

‘Please don't put yourselves out, Mr. Craig. If necessary I'll walk. I noticed it's only a mile or so. I haven't missed a Christmas Eve mass in fifty-some years, and I don't think at my age it would be wise to begin lapsing from grace.'

‘We'll get you there,' John said. ‘Attention, everyone!' Marius Carlo awoke with a start. Ellery noted that the blonde girl perched on his chair-arm had gripped Carlo's hair hard.

‘Now that Mr. Gardiner's come, completing our party,' John beamed, ‘I can announce the third colossal event of January sixth. Mr. Gardiner's staying through the entire holiday and beyond for more than social reasons. Immediately after midnight of January fifth the Reverend's going to perform a marriage ceremony. Yep! Rusty and me.'

In the uproar that followed, Ellery managed to hang back so that he might observe Valentina and Marius. The actress was over-vivacious, her throaty voice shrill with tension, as she embraced Rusty and John. She was so pale Ellery thought she was about to faint. Evidently Marius thought so, too, for he gripped her arm and squeezed hard. Valentina fell back after a moment, shaking the musician's hand off fiercely. Ellery heard Marius say to her, ‘You're a lousy actress after all,' and her hissed, ‘Shut up, damn you!' Then they both smiled and held their glasses out as Felton, resuming his butler's role, came around to fill them for a toast.

Afterwards, Rusty herself demanded of the groom-to-be, ‘But darling, you said four things were going to happen on January sixth. What's the fourth?'

‘Ah, that's my big secret,' John laughed. ‘That's one nobody knows – and nobody's going to know until
the
night. Not even my bride.'

And no amount of wheedling on Rusty's part, or of good-natured quizzing by the others – including Arthur Craig, who kept smilingly insisting that he hadn't the faintest notion what John was referring to – would induce the young poet to reveal his secret.

It was in the oak-panelled dining room later, with the flames leaping in the fireplace and the party settling about the huge holly-decked oak table, that Ellery said to Ellen, beside whom he had been seated, ‘Here's an amusing coincidence.'

‘What, Ellery?'

‘December twenty-fifth through the night of January fifth – Christmas through what's officially known as Twelfth Night – that makes a holiday party of twelve days, Ellen.'

‘What of it?'

‘Look around. Twelve people in the party. Doesn't that strike you as interesting?'

‘Not in the least,' Ellen retorted. ‘What a peculiar mind you have.'

At that moment Olivette Brown exclaimed, ‘Twelve of us. I must say I'm ever so relieved there isn't another guest!'

‘You see?' Ellery murmured to Ellen Craig.

3 First Night:
Wednesday, December 25, 1929

In Which a Mystifying Santa Materializes from Limbo, and an Ox, a Little House, and a Camel Take the Centre of the Stage

Arthur Benjamin Craig's guests awakened to a picture postcard world of spotless snow and frosty evergreen. Even the taller shrubs had only their crests showing. There was no sign of driveway or road. The drifts dipped and swooped in clean parabolas wherever the eye turned.

Most of the household were up early, exclaiming over the beautiful view from the bay windows and enjoying the Christmas day buffet breakfast prepared by Craig's brawny cook-housekeeper, Mrs. Janssen, and served by the red-cheeked Irish maid. The dining room was noisy.

The Reverend Mr. Gardiner was disconsolate. He had missed celebrating his Christmas Eve mass in church after all. It had proved impossible to take a car out the night before, and even he had seen the folly of attempting to struggle through the drifts on foot. Craig had soothed his distress by switching the radio on at 11.30 p.m. and tuning in WOR so that he might hear the Choir Invisible and St Thomas's carillon; and then at midnight they all joined the old clergyman in listening to the midnight mass being broadcast over WEAF from the Shrine of the Sacred Heart. Rusty and John sat hand in hand on the floor before the radio, and Ellery was struck by the rigid white Benda mask of Valentina Warren's face as she watched them, and the sardonic curl of Carlo's lips. Ellen had noticed, too, and had seemed troubled.

Afterward, they sang carols and decorated the big tree in the living room; and then most of them had gone to bed.

Breakfast over, John announced that he had a Christmas morning surprise for everyone, and he herded them all into the living room.

‘Under the tree,' John said, and stopped, looking silly. There was nothing under the tree. He looked at Rusty, and Rusty looked at her mother.

‘I don't understand,' Rusty said. ‘We set them down here last night ourselves, after everyone went to bed.'

‘Funny,' John muttered. ‘Mabel?' The maid stuck her head in from the dining room. ‘Did you see any packages under the tree when you laid the fire in here this morning?'

‘No, Mr. John.'

‘If this is somebody's idea of a practical joke,' John began rather coldly, and then he laughed. They all turned. In the archway from the hall stood Santa Claus, and his arms were laden with small Christmas packages.

‘A Santa!'

‘John, you should have been an actor.'

‘But
I
didn't –'

‘Such a lovely idea!'

He was the classic Santa, with a great belly and a noble set of white whiskers and eyebrows. He set about distributing the gay little packages with wordless gusto.

‘Why, John, what an exquisite brooch.'

‘A money clip in the shape of … What is this?'

‘Mine seems to be a lamb.'

‘Don't you see?' Olivette Brown shrilled. ‘They're all your personal Signs. You're Aries, Ellen, so you get the lamb. Valentina, you're Sagittarius, so of course you get the archer. And so on. It was my inspiration, John, wasn't it?'

‘It certainly was. Rusty designed them, and she had Moylan's, the Fifth Avenue jewellers, make them up.'

‘We had quite a time nosing out everyone's birth-date,' Rusty laughed, ‘but we did it, and then it turned out that all twelve of us were born under different signs of the zodiac. Do you really like them?'

They were cunning little pieces in gold, with detail in semiprecious stones – brooches for the women, money clips for the men. Ellery's clip took the shape of an ingenious Castor and Pollux.

‘We really ought to thank Felton,' he said. ‘He did a noble job as Santa, John. Where is he?'

Santa Claus was gone.

‘Felton?' John said. ‘Was that Felton?'

‘You ought to know. Wasn't it?'

‘But I don't know, Ellery. I didn't arrange for any Santa. Did you, Arthur?'

‘I?' Craig shook his head. ‘I had nothing to do with it.'

A little silence fluttered down.

‘Well, it must have been Felton,' Ellery said. ‘It couldn't have been one of us – all twelve of us were here when he handed out the gifts. It certainly wasn't little Mabel in that Santa costume, or Mrs. Janssen. It had to be Felton.'

‘I, sir?' They turned, startled. But it was only Felton, in the doorway from the dining room. He was wearing a green rubber apron and a pair of soapy rubber gloves. ‘I've been in the pantry doing the breakfast dishes. Mrs. Janssen can tell you.'

The silence settled lower.

Arthur Craig said abruptly, ‘All right, Felton,' and the houseman backed off and disappeared. ‘I wonder who on earth it could have been.'

‘Your orientation may be faulty, Arthur,' Dan Z. Freeman murmured unexpectedly. ‘Maybe it was the ghost of Marley.'

No one laughed.

‘The thirteenth person,' Mrs. Brown panted. ‘
Thirteen
.'

John went over to the nearest bay and scowled out at the snow. Rusty joined him, saying something quietly. He shrugged.

‘Mysteries are your speciality, Mr. Queen, aren't they?' Dr. Dark said in his cheerful squeak. ‘How about solving this one for us?'

It cleared the air. Everyone began to urge Ellery – as Valentina put it – to go into his act.

‘It's probably depressingly simple,' Ellery said. ‘Someone arranged for a Santa to come in from outside. How about the culprit's confessing here and now? I really don't feel sleuth-like this early in the day.'

But all proclaimed their innocence.

‘Wait a minute.' And Ellery went out.

He came stamping back a few minutes later, slapping the snow from his trousers. ‘Not a print or mark of any kind in the snow anywhere near the house. So no one from outside stole in during the night, at least after it stopped snowing. Does anyone know just when the snow did stop?'

‘About two-thirty this morning,' Rusty said. ‘Just before John and I went upstairs.'

‘Then if someone did slip into the house, it was well before two-thirty a.m., or there'd be a trace in the snow. As I recall it, the rest of us went to bed about an hour before Rusty and John. I didn't hear a thing. Did any of you?'

But no one had.

‘Hm,' Ellery said. ‘Do you know, this is interesting.'

Their host shook his head, smiling. ‘I suggest we forget the whole thing.'

‘It may not be so easy to do that, Mr. Craig.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘The unbroken snow out there tells two stories. One, if Santa is an outsider, he entered your house well before half past two this morning. Two, whenever he entered your house – whether last night or last year –
he's still here
. Even if, like old St Nick, he attempted to get out via one of your chimneys, he'd need an airborne team of reindeer named Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Blitzen
et al
to make his getaway without touching the surface of the snow.'

‘Maybe he's done it since you came back in, Ellery!' Ellen dashed out. But she came back shaking her head. ‘There's nothing out there except the tracks you just made.'

‘It's certainly odd, Arthur,' Roland Payn remarked with a judicial frown. ‘Who could it have been?'

In the silence that followed, Marius Carlo asked, ‘How does the expert propose to proceed?'

‘The prognosis doesn't seem too dark, Marius,' Ellery said, smiling. ‘Whoever it was, he's still in the house, most likely hiding in one of the unused wings. If Mr. Craig has no objection, I'll make a search.'

The bearded man waved in a troubled way. ‘Perhaps, Mr. Queen, that would be best.'

‘Ellen, you know the house inside out. Suppose you and I search together.' Ellery added with a slight touch of dryness, ‘For tidiness, will everyone else please remain here?'

Ellen led the way upstairs, looking anxious.

‘What do you suppose it means, Ellery?'

‘Oh, someone's idea of a prank. Darned cleverly executed, too. Don't look so droopy, Ellen. Let's play it out in the same spirit of good clean fun.'

An hour later Mr. Queen showed none of the signs of a man enjoying a game. They had gone through room after room in the unoccupied wings without finding a trace of anyone; they had even climbed to the attic, and searched the servants' quarters under the eaves and several storerooms. On returning downstairs Ellery insisted on searching the cellar. By this time the cook, the maid and Felton were infected by the general unease, and they huddled in the big kitchen whispering. At the end, even though the story in the snow was plain enough, Ellery waded over to the outbuildings. One was a two-storey garage converted from an old carriage house, the other a stable. He searched them from floor to roof.

There was no sign of a thirteenth person.

‘The trouble is,' Ellery complained to Ellen, ‘there are so many rooms, cluttered with so much junk and so many closets, an intruder could hide out indefinitely just by dodging from one hiding place to another ahead of the search. I wonder what's behind this.'

‘Whatever it is, I don't like it.'

‘Twelve,' Ellery mumbled.

‘What?'

‘Twelve people in the party, twelve days and nights of Christmas, and now a vanishing Santa Claus who distributes twelve signs of the zodiac.'

‘You're cuckoo.'

‘By the beard of Mrs. Brown's false prophets,' Ellery muttered, ‘I don't know whether I am or not.'

It was little Mabel, the maid, who made the discovery. She was preparing to set the table for lunch when she gave voice to a piercing screech. Ellery, who with Ellen, Mr. Gardiner and some of the others was in the living room listening to a special broadcast from WJZ – a Christmas Day greeting to the United States from Holland – ran into the dining room. The Irish girl was flat against the wall, staring down horrified into a big oak linen chest.

‘I was –I was going for some place mats for the table,' Mabel said, her teeth clacking, ‘I opened the chest, and' – she pointed a trembling finger – ‘
there it was!
'

In the chest, neatly laid out, was a complete Santa Claus costume – suit, hat, boots, stuffing, mittens, and false eyebrows, wig and beard.

While Ellen quieted the terrified girl, Ellery eagerly examined the costume. But it was new-looking, bore no labels, and showed only slight signs of wear.

‘I must say whoever did this has a sense of humour,' the fat doctor chuckled. ‘He must have known Mabel or somebody would be having to go to the chest sooner or later today.'

Roland Payn uttered a dignified grunt. ‘I find him as funny as an off-colour story at a Tammany clambake.'

‘Joke all you want,' Olivette Brown said in a passionate vibrato, ‘but there's
something
in this house.
Danger
. I feel it. Yes … It's coming over me like a wave.' She had her eyes fast shut, and for a horrid moment Ellery thought she was going to go into a trance. But Dr. Dark's amused comment galvanized her.

‘You don't really believe that bosh, Mrs. Brown.'

‘Bosh!' She almost flew at him. ‘Don't blaspheme about things you don't understand, Doctor! There are more things in heaven and earth –'

‘Than in my philosophy, for one,' Ellery said, staring at the uncommunicative red suit. ‘I don't share the premonitions of your psyche, Mrs. Brown, but I have to admit I don't care for any of this, either. Didn't anyone catch even a glimpse of whoever put this costume in the chest this morning?'

But no one had.

The afternoon passed under a pall, not entirely identifiable with the gathering overcast. Gray clouds muffled the sun, the temperature rose, and Alderwood began to dig out of the drifts. Ploughs clanked by all day. A local garageman appeared with a small truck fitted out with a big wooden pusher, and cleared the Craig drive. John and Ellery seized shovels and helped Felton to dig a narrow path around the house.

But the joy seemed squeezed from everything. Rusty, Valentina and Ellen tried a snowball Fight and soon gave it up. There was some talk of hitching one of the horses from the stable to an old rusty-runnered sleigh standing in a corner of the garage, but that idea petered out, too.

In the music room Marius Carlo sat at the grand piano, one eye closed against the smoking cigarette in his mouth, and played furious little arpeggios and wickedly warped snatches of opera, pausing frequently to freshen his highball; while, deaf to Carlo's musical sarcasms, Olivette Brown curled up in a corner with a book she had found in Arthur Craig's library of Americana first editions, Cotton Mather's
Wonders of the Invisible World
. They made a curiously harmonious picture.

Dan Freeman, Dr. Dark and Mr. Gardiner took a tramp in the woods beyond the house. They found themselves engaged in a heated discussion of two current best sellers, Axel Munthe's
The Story of San Michele
and Abbé Ernest Dimnet's
The Art of Thinking
, neither of which any of them would have ordinarily considered controversial.

Craig and Payn lolled in the library, arguing over the relative merits of the Hoover administration. It was a subject that usually struck sparks between them, but today the lawyer was doing a lacklustre job of glossing over Black Thursday, and the best Craig could offer was a spiritless indictment of Senator Heflin and the Hoovercrats for having kept Al Smith – and presumably a sound economy – out of the White House.

The uneasy atmosphere was not cleared by Mrs. Janssen's elaborate Christmas dinner, which was served at five o'clock. Everyone seemed to be cocking at least one ear for a ghostly footstep overhead. Rusty and Ellen tried desperately to keep the table talk going, but it persisted in sputtering out into little silences.

‘This is more like a wake,' John exclaimed, throwing down his napkin. ‘Why don't we have our coffee and brandy in the living room? Maybe we can coax something cheerful out of the radio.'