The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (12 page)

“Gracious,”
said Mrs. Whistler. “You mean you were deliberately tempting people? Why, that’s
wicked!”

“My
secretary will type out a little statement,” he said, “saying you admit taking
the brooch. You’ll sign it, and then you can leave.”

“Dear
me,” said Mrs. Whistler. “I almost believe you are accusing me of
stealing.
Why, I can’t sign anything. It would be a lie.” She
stood up abruptly, snatching the brooch from Miss Vought. “Good afternoon,”
said Mrs. Whistler, taking a step toward the door.

Miss
Vought and Schlag swooped like hawks, seizing her. “No, you don’t, sister!”
Miss Vought pried the brooch from Mrs. Whistler’s fingers. “That’s evidence!”

“You’re
under arrest!” shouted Schlag, then howled in pain as Mrs. Whistler’s teeth
sank into his hand.

Joyce
Gifford sat in paralyzed shock, unable to move.

“The
cooler for you, honey!” cried Miss Vought, restraining Mrs. Whistler with a
hammerlock. “We’ve got the goods to fry you, and we’ll see that they throw away
the key!”

In
less than an hour Mrs. Whistler had been booked, mugged, and fingerprinted.

At
2:15
P
.
M
.
a nervous, bedraggled Santa Claus elbowed through the crowded first floor
aisles of MacTavish’s. Like the Pied Piper, he acquired pursuing children at
every step. “A bike!” “A beach ball!” “A ’rector set!”

For
a moment he leaned against Counter 18, warding off his tormentors. “Oh, Lord,”
he whispered hoarsely to Miss Hefron. “What a hell of a way to make a living!”

“Aren’t
you on the fourth floor?” she asked.

“Coffee
break,” Santa groaned. His closed hand rested near the tray of horoscope
brooches. A customer called to Miss Hefron and she turned away. Only for a
moment—

At
4:25
P.M
. Mr.
Schlag glared across his desk at a resolute young man who returned his hostile look
unflinchingly. “I, sir, am John R. Creighton, attorney-at-law.” A business card
was slammed onto the desk. “You, sir, are being sued for five hundred thousand
dollars!”

“I
beg your pardon?” The young attorney’s piercing eyes were utterly unnerving.
Mr. Schlag’s mouth felt dry.

“My
client,” continued John Creighton, “a distinguished American actress, is
suffering torment in the Los Angeles jail on trumped-up charges of shoplifting.
You, sir, are responsible for this malicious accusation.” The attorney’s voice
grew hollow. “May the Lord pity you, Mr. Schlag, for the courts never will!”

Schlag’s
confidence returned. He spoke quickly into the intercom. “Send Miss Vought up,
please. And come in yourself, Miss Gifford—with your notebook.” He turned back
to the lawyer. “You’re wasting your time, Mr. Creighton. This is clear-cut
theft, and we’ll prosecute to the fullest.”

“Take
notes, Miss Gifford,” snapped Schlag.

“Yes,
sir.” Joyce glanced at Johnny without batting an eyelash.

Five
minutes later Schlag was summing up the evidence. “The brooches were counted.
Only five remained. Then your client, this Mrs. Whistler—” he smirked at the
name “—told a preposterous tale about a stolen purse with a sales slip from
some imaginary store. We checked with the police and caught her flat-footed in
her lie.”

“I
see,” said Johnny slowly. “Who would have believed it?”

Joyce
looked anxiously at Johnny. He looked humble and defeated as her eyes pleaded
with him to do something.

At
last he spoke. “Maybe we could check the brooches one more time?”

“Certainly.”
The four marched downstairs to Counter 18, Joyce tagging behind in despair. “Miss
Hefron,” said Schlag, “has the number of brooches on this tray changed since
our incident with the
thief?”

Johnny
Creighton stared at the glittering jewelry. “The tray was knocked over,” he
said softly. “I wonder… Would you please pick up the tray? There’s just a chance…”

Joyce
lifted the tray from the counter. A Capricorn brooch, its clasp open, fell to
the floor with a twinkle of light. “Under the tray!” exclaimed Johnny. “Who
would have believed it!”

Miss
Hefron was wide-eyed. “When they spilled! One got caught in the velvet
underneath!”

Johnny’s
tone was ominous. “I count six brooches, Mr. Schlag. Shall we return to your
office?”

On
the mezzanine steps, Schlag hesitated, then raced on toward the door marked
Manager. A moment later he was shouting into the phone. “You’ve already gone to
press? But I only gave you that shoplifter story a couple of hours ago! You can’t
kill it?”

He
hung up quickly as Johnny entered the office, followed by a smiling Joyce Gifford
and a tense Miss Vought.

Taking
the phone, Johnny dialed a number. “Police Headquarters? Missing Property,
please… Yes, I’m calling about a black leather purse with identification for a
Mrs. Whistler… Oh, it’s been turned in? Fine!”

Johnny
smiled at the store manager. “It was turned in an hour ago. By a child—a mere street
urchin. A touching development, I think.”

“Lemme
talk to them!” Schlag snatched the phone. “That purse—is there a store sales
slip in it?” During the moment’s pause the receiver trembled against Schlag’s
ash-colored ear. “Yes? From Teague’s? For $8.85?” His voice sank to a hopeless
whisper. “Officer, at the bottom of that slip has a special tax been added…like
for jewelry.”

Fifteen
seconds later the phone was in its cradle and Dudley P. Schlag had collapsed in
his swivel chair.

Johnny
Creighton spoke softly but menacingly. “No doubt you’ll soon learn that Mrs.
Whistler reported the theft of her purse. Perhaps the officers didn’t report to
headquarters immediately. And I’m sure a clerk at Teague’s will remember Mrs.
Whistler’s buying a brooch this morning. We are charging you with false arrest
and imprisonment, slander, physical assault—”

“Assault?
No one touched her!”

“You’re
lying!” Joyce Gifford slammed her notebook shut. “You both attacked her! I saw
the whole brutal thing. You twisted her arm until she screamed and Mr. Schlag
tried to kick her. It’s a wonder the poor old lady isn’t dead!” She stepped
close to Johnny. “And I’ll swear to that, Mr.…is it Leighton?”

At
6:10 four people sat in Schlag’s office. Joyce Gifford was not present. She had
left MacTavish’s, never to return. Next to the store manager was Walter Matson,
legal counsel for MacTavish’s. Johnny Creighton was seated beside Mrs.
Whistler, whose hands were folded in her lap. A faraway look on her sweet face revealed
signs of recent suffering.

Johnny
was concluding his remarks. “On Monday we will sue for five hundred thousand
dollars. Mrs. Whistler will be an appealing plaintiff, don’t you think?”

“Five
hundred thousand!” Attorney Matson’s face was faintly purple. “You’re out of
your mind!”

“I
agree.” Mrs. Whistler put a gentle hand on Johnny’s arm. “Let’s end this
unpleasantness without a lot of fuss. I’ll drop this whole thing in exchange
for two little favors. I’ve been through a shocking experience. And I hate to
say it, but it’s entirely your fault, Mr. Schlag. So I expect MacTavish’s to
pay me six thousand four hundred and eight dollars and eighty-five cents. Also,
I met a charming woman today—in jail, of all places. Her name is Mrs. Blainey,
and—”

“A
shoplifter!” Schlag interrupted. “We’ve got a confession.”

“You
could drop the charges,” said Mrs. Whistler. “I just couldn’t be happy knowing
she was in prison.” Mrs. Whistler smiled brightly. “And when I’m unhappy, only
one thing consoles me. Money—lots of it. Five hundred thousand dollars of it.”

“Relax,
Dudley,” said the lawyer. “You’ve had it.”

Joyce
met them at the door of the apartment. She threw her arms first around Mrs.
Whistler, then around Johnny. “You were just wonderful,” she said. “Johnny, I
never saw you like that before!”

Johnny
blushed modestly. “Routine,” he said.

They
celebrated in a small candlelit restaurant. Johnny raised his glass. “Merry
Christmas for the Blainey family! Sixty-four hundred will pay off the mortgage
on their house.”

Mrs.
Whistler nodded. “And I’m getting back the eight eighty-five I spent for that
dreadful brooch this morning.” She frowned. “Oh, dear! I forgot about the rent
for the Santa costume.”

“What
Santa costume?” Joyce asked. But Johnny quickly changed the subject.

THE NECKLACE OF
PEARLS

by
Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was
perhaps the best English mystery writer of the 1920s. She invented a sort of
crossbreed between the novel and the detective story. Lord Peter Wimsey had his
debut in 1923, in
Whose Body.
His
popularity was firmly established by Sayers’s second book (1926),
Clouds of Witness.

A long
list of Wimsey stories, two non-Wimsey mysteries and three excellent
anthologies are evidence that Miss Sayers was an expert in the field of crime
literature. She never thought much, however, of her mystery career, preferring
to pursue her real interest, religious (Church-of-England) literature. In 1947
she announced that she would write no more detective stories.

Sir
Septimus Shale was accustomed to assert his authority once in the year, and
once only. He allowed his young and fashionable wife to fill his house with
diagrammatic furniture made of steel, to collect advanced artists and
antigrammatical poets, to believe in cocktails and relativity and to dress as
extravagantly as she pleased; but he did insist on an old-fashioned Christmas.
He was a simple-hearted man who really liked plum pudding and cracker mottoes,
and he could not get it out of his head that other people, “at bottom,” enjoyed
these things also. At Christmas, therefore, he firmly retired to his country
house in Essex, called in the servants to hang holly and mistletoe upon the
cubist electric fittings, loaded the steel sideboard with delicacies from
Fortnum & Mason, hung up stockings at the heads of the polished walnut
bedsteads, and even, on this occasion only, had the electric radiators removed
from the modernist grates and installed wood fires and a Yule log. He then
gathered his family and friends about him, filled them with as much Dickensian
good fare as he could persuade them to swallow, and, after their Christmas
dinner, set them down to play “Charades” and “Clumps” and “Animal, Vegetable,
and Mineral” in the drawing-room, concluding these diversions by “Hide-and-Seek”
in the dark all over the house. Because Sir Septimus was a very rich man, his
guests fell in with this invariable program, and if they were bored, they did
not tell him so.

Another
charming and traditional custom which he followed was that of presenting to his
daughter Margharita, a pearl on each successive birthday—this anniversary
happening to coincide with Christmas Eve. The pearls now numbered twenty, and
the collection was beginning to enjoy a certain celebrity and had been
photographed in the Society papers. Though not sensationally large—each one
being about the size of a marrow-fat pea—the pearls were of very great value.
They were of exquisite color and perfect shape and matched to a hair’s-weight.
On this particular Christmas Eve, the presentation of the twenty-first pearl
had been the occasion of a very special ceremony. There was a dance and there
were speeches. On the Christmas night, following, the more restricted family
party took place, with the turkey and the Victorian games. There were eleven
guests in addition to Sir Septimus and Lady Shale and their daughter, nearly
all related or connected to them in some way: John Shale, a brother with his
wife and their son and daughter, Henry and Betty; Betty’s fiancé, Oswald
Truegood a young man with parliamentary ambitions; George Comphrey, a cousin of
Lady Shale’s, aged about thirty and known as a man about town; Lavinia
Prescott, asked on George’s account; Joyce Trivett, asked on Henry Shale’s account;
Richard and Beryl Dennison, distant relations of Lady Shale, who lived a gay
and expensive life in town on nobody precisely knew what resources; and Lord
Peter Wimsey, asked, in a touching spirit of unreasonable hope, on Margharita’s
account. There were also, of course, William Norgate, secretary to Sir
Septimus, and Miss Tomkins, secretary to Lady Shale, who had to be there
because, without their calm efficiency, the Christmas arrangements could not
have been carried through.

Dinner
was over—a seemingly endless succession of soup, fish, turkey, roast beef, plum
pudding, mince pies, crystallized fruit, nuts, and five kinds of wine, presided
over by Sir Septimus, all smiles, by Lady Shale, all mocking deprecation, and
by Margharita, pretty and bored, with the necklace of twenty-one pearls
gleaming softly on her slender throat. Gorged and dyspeptic and longing only
for the horizontal position, the company had been shepherded into the drawing
room and set to play “Musical Chairs” (Miss Tomkins at the piano), “Hunt the
Slipper” (slipper provided by Miss Tomkins), and “Dumb Crambo” (costumes by
Miss Tomkins and Mr. William Norgate). The back drawing room (for Sir Septimus
clung to these old-fashioned names) provided an admirable dressing room, being
screened by folding doors from the large drawing room, in which the audience
sat on aluminum chairs, scrabbling uneasy toes on a floor of black glass under
the tremendous illumination of electricity reflected from a brass ceiling.