The Finishing Stroke (6 page)

‘Uncle Don is on at six-thirty,' Marius said innocently. ‘Or would these giants of art and intellect prefer ‘Amos and Andy' at seven, or the ‘Happy Wonder Bakers' at eight-thirty? By all means let's listen to that great instrument of culture.'

But there was no listening to the radio until much later Christmas night. For the first thing they encountered on entering the living room was a fresh mystery.

Under the tree lay a large package done up in red and green metallic paper, tied with gilt ribbon. To the ribbon was attached a Christmas card in the shape of a jolly Santa Claus, and on the card was neatly typewritten the name ‘John Sebastian'.

‘Here's a pleasant change,' John laughed. ‘Who's the modest sender?'

He turned the package this way and that, searching for a clue to its donor. But there was none.

Chill invaded the room.

‘Oh, piffle,' John said suddenly. ‘Someone's kind enough to give me a present, and we all stand around looking as if we expect it to blow up.' He tore off the wrappings, revealing an unmarked white box. Removing the lid, he found a number of objects nested there, each swathed in red tissue paper. Upon them lay a plain white card with some typing on it.

John read it aloud, frowning.

‘What the deuce,' John said. ‘It doesn't make sense.'

‘Just gibble-gobble,' Ellen said. ‘What's it supposed to mean?'

Ellery said abruptly, ‘May I see that, John?'

They clustered around, reading the queer doggerel over Ellery's shoulder.

‘ “Your true love,” ' he mused. ‘I don't see whom that could mean except you, Rusty. Didn't you send this?'

‘No,' Rusty said. ‘I have a middleclass weakness for signing my name.'

‘You, Mr. Craig?'

‘No, no.'

Ellery said quietly, ‘See what they are, John.'

John took the box over to the refectory table and lifted out the topmost object with extreme care. But then, violently, he tore off the tissue paper.

The object was a small hand-carving of lustrous brown sandalwood on a simple wooden base. It had been carved in the shape of an ox, with delicately sweeping horns.

‘Looks Oriental,' Ellery muttered.

Rusty shook her head. ‘East Indian, I'd say.'

Ellery turned the little ox over and nodded. The words
MADE IN INDIA
were stamped into the base.

‘Take that larger thing out next, John.'

John removed it from the box, but this time it was Ellery who stripped away the tissue.

It was a house, as advertised – a sort of doll's house, rather crudely made. It was constructed with a certain ingenuity of miniature blocks painted red, to simulate brickwork. Its roof, of tiny bits of black slate, lay on the upper storey a trifle askew. Ellery removed it, exposing the upper storey. There were little rooms and hallways and a flight of stairs leading up from the ground floor.

‘ “An unfinished house,” ' Ellery pointed out. ‘This little doorway has a door missing up here on the upper floor, and see down here.' On the ground floor, in one of the outer walls, a window was missing.

‘But what does it mean?' Ellen demanded.

Ellery shrugged. There was no furniture in the toy house, and he turned the whole thing upside down, looking for a maker's mark, some clue to its origin. There was none.

‘Home-made, undoubtedly. Well, let's have a look at that last thing, John – what did it say? A camel?'

It was a tiny camel, two-humped and heavy – Ellery guessed it was of some lead alloy, like the toy soldiers of an earlier generation – on to which a skin of grey and white enamel had been baked. As in the case of the little house, there was no clue to its make or origin.

‘Mediterranean, I think,' Rusty said.

‘More likely Asiatic,' Ellery said. ‘The two-humped camel is Bactrian, not Arabian. Well, I suppose it doesn't matter where these things came from, although someone's gone to the devil of a lot of trouble for the sake of whatever it is he has in mind. I wonder what the juxtaposition of these three objects is supposed to convey …'

‘Lunacy,' Dr. Dark said promptly.

‘I don't think so, Doctor, tempting as the suggestion is. The verse seems a bit too lucid. By the way, has anyone seen any of these things before?'

There was a general shaking of heads.

‘I don't get this at all,' John said angrily.

‘I do!' Olivette Brown cried. ‘There's a spirit-influence at work. I don't see it all yet, but the camel … in India, no ghost will cross the threshold of a house if camel bones are buried under it … and there's a house, isn't there – and, yes! isn't that little ox labelled “Made in India”?'

‘Doesn't that seem a bit on the complicated side, Mrs. Brown?' Ellery murmured. ‘Let's see, now … Two of the three objects represent animals, the third a house. That doesn't seem to tie in, unless this were a zoo house, which it clearly isn't. The materials vary – the ox is wood; the house is wood, simulated brick and slate; the camel is metal and enamel. Their sizes are inconsistent – the ox is bigger than the camel, and the house is on a different scale from either. Colours? Brown, red and black and white, and grey and white.'

‘This is very much like reading
The Roman Hat Mystery
all over again,' Publisher Freeman said. ‘Go on!'

‘There's nowhere to go, Mr. Freeman. I can't see that these objects have anything in common except the irritating fact that they were given to John by an unknown donor for an undisclosed reason. John, does any explanation at all suggest itself to you?'

‘Hell, no,' John said. ‘Except that it has a nasty feel. Don't ask me why!'

‘Oh, it's probably someone's idea of fun,' Rusty said, taking John's arm. ‘Don't look so grim, darling.'

‘The ox,' her mother exclaimed. ‘That's one of the signs of Taurus! Which one of us is Taurus again? Why, that's you, Mr. Craig.'

The bearded host looked unhappy. ‘I suppose it is, Mrs. Brown. But let me assure you –'

Rusty said sharply, ‘Mother, don't be silly.'

‘Well, dear, he
is
.'

‘Ellery,' Ellen said. ‘There may be a clue in the wording of the message.'

‘If there is, I'm blind to it. It's evident, of course, that the rhymester is taking off on that old English carol – what's it called …?' His mouth remained open. ‘I'll be double-jiggered,' he said softly. ‘Of course. “The Twelve Days of Christmas”!' At their blank looks he said, ‘I'd already remarked to Ellen the curious recurrence of the number twelve since these mysteries began. Twelve people in our party – for a holiday consisting of the so-called Twelve Days of Christmas – and among the twelve people, by coincidence (or is it?) we have represented the twelve different signs of the zodiac. Now these gifts come, and the verse that comes with them is a parody of the English carol actually known as “The Twelve Days of Christmas”! Remember how the original goes? “On the first day of Christmas/My true love sent to me,/A partridge in a pear tree./On the second day of Christmas/My true love sent to me,/Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.” And so forth. The third day adds “three French hens,” repeating two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree; the fourth day adds “four calling birds”; and it keeps going that way, each additional item being followed by a repetition of all the preceding ones, until it winds up on the twelfth day with “twelve drummers drumming.” '

‘Charming,' a voice said. ‘But so what?'

Ellery did not have to turn to recognize its owner. ‘I don't know, Marius. Except that we're plainly at the mere beginning of something. The carol would hardly be used as a model for these high jinks unless the user intended to follow it through.'

‘O happy day, O day of joy,' John said. ‘Or is it?'

‘I don't know that, either. I rather doubt, however, that the giving of joy is the motivating mood of whoever sent this. I'm afraid, John, for all its air of damfoolery, you'll have to take this seriously. People don't usually go to such elaborate lengths for the sake of a joke. Or, if it's a joke, its point is alarmingly obscure.'

No one said anything. They were gripped in a sort of helplessness, not knowing whether to laugh or be nervous.

Ellery tapped the white card. The only
modus operandi
I can suggest is to study this parody with an eye to its differences from the original. By the way, the spacing out of the words “ox”, “house”, “camel” in the typing on the card I think we can construe as an effort at emphasis – to call particular attention to the nature of the gifts.

‘Now as to the differences from the carol. They begin at once. In its first line the carol speaks of the first
day
of Christmas. In the card's first line
day
becomes
night.

‘The second line shows variation, too. The carol says, “
My
true love
sent
to me.” The message says, “
Your
true love
sends
to
you
” – particularizing John. In the third line the partridge in the pear tree becomes for some unfathomable reason a “sandal-wood ox”, and then the rhymester proceeds to throw in gratis two items that aren't in the original at all, even numerically – the “unfinished house” and the “grey and white camel”.' Ellery said suddenly, ‘I suppose all this sounds pretty silly, but nothing I can say about it is quite so silly-sounding as what it says in and of itself. Still, someone went to the trouble of gathering or making these things, packing them, writing out the verse, wrapping the whole production as a Christmas gift, and then skulking about in some hideaway in this convenient maze of a house until he found the chance to slip downstairs unobserved and deposit the box under the tree. With fifteen of us – we twelve and the three in help – moving unpredictably about down here, that safari to the tree was extremely risky if he wanted to remain unseen, or at least unseen in the cat-and-mouse role he's playing. No, the absurdities are on the surface only … What's this?'

He had absently turned the white card over. Now he was frowning at some markings on the back.

They crowded about him, becoming a sort of panicky little mob. Even Mrs. Brown, for all her rapport with the spirit world, had developed a greenish pallor underneath her rouge.

The markings were in pencil:

‘There's the word “ox”,' Freeman murmured, ‘clear as a publisher's conscience. But I'm damned if I can make sense out of the rest of it – I beg your pardon, Mr. Gardiner.'

‘It's quite all right, Mr. Freeman,' the old clergyman said, waving his episcopal fingers. ‘I'm probably more familiar with damnation than anyone here. You know, this is most fascinating.'

‘Those two doodads at the bottom,' Dr. Dark said intently. ‘Like two humps. The two humps of the camel!'

‘And that central drawing,' Mr. Gardiner muttered. ‘It strikes me, Mr. Queen, that may well represent the little house with the missing window downstairs and the peak of the roof.'

Ellery nodded. ‘Yes, these markings undoubtedly refer to the three gifts in the box – the camel only begun, as if the pencil-user was either interrupted or for some other reason didn't get to complete the drawing.' He shook his head. ‘I'm afraid I can't contribute anything more. Except the prediction that there will be further “gifts” of this sort, perhaps a box of them for each of the twelve nights of Christmas. And that would add another twelve to the series of twelve-things taking shape. Twelve gifts, John, to you.'

‘And nuts to
him,
wherever he is,' John said. ‘I'm fed up with this foolishness. Anyone feel like a hike into town?'

Apparently no one did except Rusty. The pair got into turtle-neck sweaters, stocking caps and boots and left the house. A few minutes later Valentina and Marius decided that they might enjoy a tramp in the snow after all; and Ellery saw them slip out after Rusty and John. But he was too preoccupied with the esoterics of the number 12 to consider the human implications.