The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (2 page)

Primitive
man did not know this, however, nor did he have any concept of the Sun being
kept on course by the inexorability of celestial mechanics. He felt the fall
and rise of the Sun to be the work of all-powerful gods, who acted out of
obscure motives of their own, either in whimsical benevolence or petulant
anger.

In
short, primitive man could never be sure that the Sun would not, on
this
occasion, continue its weary decline until it disappeared
forever beyond the southern horizon, leaving Earth to eternal winter and death.

Consequently,
on or about the time when the Sun halts in its southern flight and begins its
climb back to warmth and life (this turning point—the “winter solstice”—comes
on December 21, by our calendar), there is a vast outpouring of relief. It is
natural that the time be celebrated with grand festivals and merrymaking.

To
the Romans, Saturn was the god of the spring planting and was eventually viewed
as being in charge of agriculture generally. When the Sun made its turn,
therefore, and there was the promise of successful spring planting to come, the
Romans considered it the result of Saturn’s benevolent care in setting a limit
to the Solar decline. Their winter solstice festival was thus in his honor and
was called the “Saturnalia.”

It
was the happiest and most popular of all the Roman festivals and it was
eventually extended to seven days in length, running from December 17 to
December 24. It was a time of unrestrained gaiety and feasting; public offices,
businesses, schools were all closed in its honor; servants and slaves were
allowed a period of relative freedom in which they might mingle with their
masters in mutual bonhomie; gifts were exchanged. Such was the all-round
benevolence of the time that a little sexual license was winked at. (It was
this last that incurred the wrath of moralists and has caused “saturnalian” to
refer to anything marked by orgies of drink and sex.)

By
the third century of our era, however, the Roman gods were moribund, and
eastern religions more and more swayed the hearts and minds of Roman citizens.
Yet one aspect of the old religion remained untouchable, and that was the
Saturnalia. Whatever else of their old ways the peoples of the Roman Empire
were willing to give up, the Saturnalia had to remain.

The
most prominent of the new religions was, for a time, Mithraism, which was a
form of Sun worship. Mithraists saw in the fall and rise of the Sun the promise
that after man’s death there would come a glorious resurrection. The Saturnalia
suited them, therefore, and they added to it a climactic day of their own. On
December 25, the day after the conclusion of the Saturnalia, the Mithraists
celebrated the birth of Mithra, the symbolic representation of the light of the
Sun. This great “day of the invincible Sun” was the most popular aspect of
Mithraism.

The
Mithraists made the major mistake, however, of excluding women from their
religious rituals. The rival religion of Christianity wisely included women,
which insured that while many fathers were Mithraists, many mothers were
Christians, and the children were far more apt to follow their mothers’ early
teachings than their fathers’ later ones.

Even
so, Mithraism remained hard to defeat while it celebrated the Saturnalia and
the day of the invincible Sun. Some time after
A
.
D
. 300, therefore, the
Christians invented Christmas. It became proper for Christians to enjoy
December 25 and all the saturnalian happiness associated with it, provided they
called it a celebration of the birth of Jesus the Son and not Mithra the Sun.
(There is, of course, no Biblical warrant for December 25 as the day of the
birth of Jesus.)

The
Saturnalia is, in any case, the victor, and the Christmas we now celebrate is
only formally Jesus’ birthday. For many, that aspect of it is quickly disposed
of with minimum fuss. It is the Saturnalia on which our attention is fixed—the
gift-giving, the holiday cheer, the time of good feeling, the eating, drinking,
celebrating.

In
fact, in the modern United States we have a much bigger and better Saturnalia
than ever the Romans did. From the moment Thanksgiving is over, all the
traditional Christmas decorations begin to blossom forth in businesses, homes
and streets, and we all enjoy (or sometimes suffer) an intense four-week
celebration. Even the permitted sexual license survives—in attenuated form—in
the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe. What we celebrate is a purely
pagan festival presided over by Santa Claus—a comparatively modern invention,
frozen into his present form in 1822, with the publication of “A Visit from St.
Nicholas,” by Clement C. Moore.

Another
modern myth that has grown up around Christmas is that it is a time of
universal benevolence in which even the hardest heart will soften, a theme
immortalized forever in Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” first published
in 1843.

As
a result, whenever some despicable thing is done during the month of December,
the general reaction is a disapproving “and at Christmastime, too,” as though
it would be less despicable if done at any other time.

This,
you may be sure, has not escaped the attention of crime writers. In their
search for graphic wrongdoing, they need not stress violence or sex if they do
not wish to; they need only place the deed in the month of December and draw
attention to Christmas.

Consequently,
we bring you a dozen fictional transgressions and misdeeds that are somehow
associated with Christmas. If by any chance you feel a bit cloyed at that time
of year and need a salutary counterweight to the saccharinity of the season
(and which of us does not, now and then), here is the book for you.

So
stretch out beside the Christmas tree and read.

CHRISTMAS PARTY

by Rex
Stout

America’s best-known fictional detective is
most likely Rex Stout’s corpulent creation, Nero Wolfe. His New York brownstone,
its inhabitants, his lifestyle and idiosyncracies are nearly as familiar to the
reader as are Holmes’s digs at 221B Baker Street.

Stout was in love with the
English language and a stickler (as is Nero Wolfe) for its correct usage. He
used it gracefully, ingeniously and with good humor.

I

“I’m
sorry, sir,” I said. I tried to sound sorry. “But I told you two days ago,
Monday, that I had a date for Friday afternoon, and you said all right. So I’ll
drive you to Long Island Saturday or Sunday.”

Nero
Wolfe shook his head. “That won’t do. Mr. Thompson’s ship docks Friday morning,
and he will be at Mr. Hewitt’s place only until Saturday noon, when he leaves
for New Orleans. As you know, he is the best hybridizer in England, and I am
grateful to Mr. Hewitt for inviting me to spend a few hours with him. As I
remember, the drive takes about an hour and a half, so we should leave at
twelve-thirty.”

I
decided to count ten, and swiveled my chair, facing my desk, so as to have
privacy for it. As usual when we have no important case going, we had been
getting on each other’s nerves for a week, and I admit I was a little touchy,
but his taking it for granted like that was a little too much. When I had
finished the count I turned my head, to where he was perched on his throne
behind his desk, and darned if he hadn’t gone back to his book, making it plain
that he regarded it as settled. That was much too much. I swiveled my chair to
confront him.

“I
really am sorry,’’ I said, not trying to sound sorry, “but I have to keep that
date Friday afternoon. It’s a Christmas party at the office of Kurt
Bottweill—you remember him, we did a job for him a few months ago, the stolen
tapestries. You may not remember a member of his staff named Margot Dickey, but
I do. I have been seeing her some, and I promised her I’d go to the party. We
never have a Christmas office party here. As for going to Long Island, your
idea that a car is a death trap if I’m not driving it is unsound. You can take
a taxi, or hire a Baxter man, or get Saul Panzer to drive you.”

Wolfe
had lowered his book. “I hope to get some useful information from Mr. Thompson,
and you will take notes.”

“Not
if I’m not there. Hewitt’s secretary knows orchid terms as well as I do. So do
you.”

I
admit those last three words were a bit strong, but he shouldn’t have gone back
to his book. His lips tightened. “Archie. How many times in the past year have
I asked you to drive me somewhere?”

“If
you call it asking, maybe eighteen or twenty.”

“Not
excessive, surely. If my feeling that you alone are to be trusted at the wheel
of a car is an aberration, I have it. We will leave for Mr. Hewitt’s place
Friday at twelve-thirty.”

So
there we were. I took a breath, but I didn’t need to count ten again. If he was
to be taught a lesson, and he certainly needed one, luckily I had in my
possession a document that would make it good. Reaching to my inside breast
pocket, I took out a folded sheet of paper.

“I
didn’t intend,” I told him, “to spring this on you until tomorrow, or maybe
even later, but I guess it will have to be now. Just as well, I suppose.”

I
left my chair, unfolded the paper, and handed it to him. He put his book down
to take it, gave it a look, shot a glance at me, looked at the paper again, and
let it drop on his desk.

He
snorted. “Pfui. What flummery is this?”

“No
flummery. As you see, it’s a marriage license for Archie Goodwin and Margot
Dickey. It cost me two bucks. I could be mushy about it, but I won’t. I will
only say that if I am hooked at last, it took an expert. She intends to spread
the tidings at the Christmas office party, and of course I have to be there.
When you announce you have caught a fish it helps to have the fish present in
person. Frankly, I would prefer to drive you to Long Island, but it can’t be
done.”

The
effect was all I could have asked. He gazed at me through narrowed eyes long
enough to count eleven, then picked up the document and gazed at it. He flicked
it from him to the edge of the desk as if it were crawling with germs, and
focused on me again.

“You
are deranged,” he said evenly and distinctly. “Sit down.”

I
nodded. “I suppose,” I agreed, remaining upright, “it’s a form of madness, but
so what if I’ve got it? Like what Margot was reading to me the other night—some
poet, I think it was some Greek—‘O love, resistless in thy might, thou
triumphest even—’ ”

“Shut
up and sit down!”

“Yes,
sir.” I didn’t move. “But we’re not rushing it. We haven’t set the date, and
there’ll be plenty of time to decide on adjustments. You may not want me here
any more, but that’s up to you. As far as I’m concerned, I would like to stay.
My long association with you has had its flaws, but I would hate to end it. The
pay is okay, especially if I get a raise the first of the year, which is a week
from Monday. I have grown to regard this old brownstone as my home, although
you own it and although there are two creaky boards in the floor of my room. I
appreciate working for the greatest private detective in the free world, no
matter how eccentric he is. I appreciate being able to go up to the plant rooms
whenever I feel like it and look at ten thousand orchids, especially the
odontoglossums. I fully appreciate—”

 “Sit
down!”

“I’m
too worked up to sit. I fully appreciate Fritz’s cooking. I like the billiard
table in the basement. I like West Thirty-fifth Street. I like the one-way
glass panel in the front door. I like this rug I’m standing on. I like your
favorite color, yellow. I have told Margot all this, and more, including the
fact that you are allergic to women. We have discussed it, and we think it may
be worth trying, say for a month, when we get back from the honeymoon. My room
could be our bedroom, and the other room on that floor could be our living
room. There are plenty of closets. We could eat with you, as I have been, or we
could eat up there, as you prefer. If the trial works out, new furniture or
redecorating would be up to us. She will keep her job with Kurt Bottweill, so
she wouldn’t be here during the day, and since he’s an interior decorator we
would get things wholesale. Of course we merely suggest this for your
consideration. It’s your house.”

I
picked up my marriage license, folded it, and returned it to my pocket.

His
eyes had stayed narrow and his lips tight. “I don’t believe it,” he growled. “What
about Miss Rowan?”

“We
won’t drag Miss Rowan into this,” I said stiffly.

“What
about the thousands of others you dally with?”

“Not
thousands. Not even a thousand. I’ll have to look up ‘dally.’ They’ll get
theirs, as Margot has got hers. As you see, I’m deranged only up to a point. I
realize—”

“Sit
down.”

“No,
sir. I know this will have to be discussed, but right now you’re stirred up and
it would be better to wait for a day or two, or maybe more. By Saturday the
idea of a woman in the house may have you boiling even worse than you are now,
or it may have cooled you down to a simmer. If the former, no discussion will
be needed. If the latter, you may decide it’s worth a try. I hope you do.”