The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (21 page)

“Right next to yours, if you’ll follow me,
gentlemen.”

Tell’s chamber was at the back of the house,
where we found him sitting in the unlighted room, looking out at the moonlit
yard.

“Nothing yet, Major?” Cork asked, walking to
the window to join him.

“Not a sign or a shadow. I have men hiding at
the front and down there near the garden gate and over to the left by the
stable. Do you really expect him to make a move?”

“Conjecture coasts us nothing, although I have
more information now.”

Although the room was bathed in moonlight, as usual
I was in the dark. “Would either of you gentlemen mind telling me what this is
all about?
Who
is coming?”

“Going would be more like it,” the major said.

“Going—ah, I see! The killer hid himself in the
house somewhere and you expect him to make a break for it when everyone is
bedded down. But where could he have hidden? Your men searched the den and
passageway for secret panels, did they not?”

“Ask your employer,” Tell said. “I am only
following his orders—hold on, Cork, look down by the passage door.”

I
looked over Cork’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of a
cloaked figure in a cockade, moving among the
shadows towards the stable.

“Our mounts are ready, Major?” Tell nodded. “Excellent.
Let us be off.”

As I followed them downstairs, I remarked on my
own puzzlement. “Why are we going to
follow
this scoundrel? Why
not stop him and unmask him?”

“Because I know who our mysterious figure is,
Oaks. It is the destination that is the heart of the matter,” Cork said as we
hurried into the ballroom and back to the den door.

Once inside, I saw that Tell had placed our
greatcoats in readiness, and we bustled into them. Cork walked over to the
weapon wall and looked at two empty hooks.

“A brace of pistols are gone. Our shadow is
armed, as expected,” he said.

“I’ll take this one,” I said, reaching for a
ball-shot handgun.

“No need, Oaks,” Cork said. “We are not the
targets. Come, fellows, we want to be mounted and ready.”

The night was cold as we waited behind a small
knoll twenty yards down from the stable yard. Suddenly the doors of the stable
burst open and a black stallion charged into the moonlight, bearing its rider
to the south. “Now, keep a small distance but do not lose sight for a second,” Cork
commanded, and spurred his horse forward.

We followed through the drifts for ten minutes
and saw our quarry turn into a small alley. When we reached the spot, we found
the lathered mount tied to a stairway which went up the side of the building to
a door on the second-story landing. With Cork in the lead, we went up the cold
stairs and assembled ourselves in front of the door. “Now!” Cork whispered, and
we butted our shoulders against the wood paneling and fell into the room.

Our cloaked figure had a terrified man at
gunpoint. The victim was a man in his forties, coiled into a corner. I was
about to rush the person with the pistols, when the tricornered hat turned to
reveal the chiseled face and cold blue eyes of Dame Ilsa van Schooner.

“Drop the pistols, Madam; you are only
compounding your problem,” Cork said firmly.

“He murdered my child!”

“I swear, Dame Ilsa!” The man groveled before
her. His voice was foreign in inflection. “Please, you must hear me out. Yes, I
am scum, but I am not a murderer.”

Cork walked forward and put his hands over the
pistol barrels. For a split second, the Dame looked up at him and her stern
face went soft. “He’s going to pay,” she said.

“Yes, but not for your daughter’s death.”

“But only he could have—” She caught herself up
in a flash of thought. Her lips quivered, and she released the pistol butts
into Cork’s control. He took her by the arm and guided her to a chair.

The tension was broken, and I took my first
look about. It was a large and comfortable bachelor’s room. Then I saw the work
area at the far end—with an easel, palettes, and paint pots.

“The painter! He’s Jan der Trogue, the one who
painted the portrait.”

“You know about the painting?” the Dame said
with surprise.

I started to tell her about seeing it in her
sister’s sitting room, but never got it out. Der Trogue had grabbed the pistol
that Cork had stupidly left on the table and pointed it at us as he edged
towards the open door. “Stay where you are,” he warned. “I owe you my life,
sir.” He bowed to Cork. “But it is not fitting to die at a woman’s hands.”

“Nor a hangman’s,” Cork said. “For you will
surely go to the gallows for your other crime.”

“Not this man, my fine fellow. Now, stay where
you are, and no one will get hurt.” He whirled out onto the landing and started
to race down the stairs. Cork walked to the door. To my surprise, he had the
other pistol in his hand. He stepped out onto the snowy landing.

“Defend yourself!” Cork cried. Then, after a
tense moment, Cork took careful aim and fired. I grimaced as I heard der Trogue’s
body tumbling down the rest of the stairs.

Cork came back into the room with the smoking
pistol in his hand. “Be sure your report says ‘fleeing arrest,’ Major,” he
said, shutting the door.

“Escape from what? You said he didn’t kill the
girl! This is most confusing and, to say the least, irregular!”

“Precisely put, Major. Confusing from the start
and irregular for a finish. But first to the irregularity. What we say, see,
and do here tonight stays with us alone.” He turned to the Dame. “We will have
to search the room. Will you help, since you have been here before?”

“Yes.” She got up and started to open drawers
and cupboards. She turned to us and held out a black felt bag which Cork
opened.

“Gentlemen, I give you the van der Malin Chain,
and quite exquisite it is.”

“So he did steal it,” I said.

“In a manner of speaking, Oaks, yes. But,
Madam, should we not also find what you were so willing to pay a king’s ransom
for?”

“Perhaps it is on the easel. I only saw the
miniature.”

Cork took the drape from the easel and revealed
a portrait of a nude woman reposing on a couch.

“It’s Gretchen!” I gasped. “Was that der Trogue’s
game? Blackmail?”

“Yes, Mr. Oaks, it was,” the Dame said. “I knew
it was not an artist’s trick of painting one head on another’s body. That
strawberry mark on the thigh was Gretchen’s. How did you know of its existence,
Captain? I told no one, not even my sister.”

“Your actions helped tell me. You ordered your
own portrait burned two days ago, the same day your sister sent me a note and
an invitation to the Masque.”

“A note?”

“Portending calamity,” I added.

“Oh, the fool. She must have learned about my
failure to raise enough cash to meet that fiend’s demands.”

“Your sudden disdain for a fine portrait
betrayed your disgust with the artist, not with the art. Then Wilda told us
that you had planned to have your daughters painted by the same man, and,
considering the time elapsed since your portrait was finished, I assumed that
Gretchen’s had been started.”

“It was, and he seduced her. She confessed it
to me after I saw the miniature he brought to me.”

“Why did you not demand its delivery when you
gave him the necklace tonight?”

“I never said I gave it to him tonight.”

“But you did. You went into the den, not to see
your daughter, but to meet der Trogue at the outside passage door. You lit a
taper there, and he examined his booty at the entryway and then left, probably
promising to turn over that scandalous painting when he had verified that the
necklace was not an imitation.”

“Captain, you sound as if you were there.”

“The clues were. In the puddle just inside the
door, there was a red substance. Oaks believed it was blood. It was a natural
assumption, but when the question of your anger with a painter came to light, I
considered what my eyes now confirm. Painters are sloppy fellows; look at this
floor. Besides, blood is rarely magenta. It was paint, red paint, from his boot
soles. Then, Madam, your part of the bargain completed, you returned to the
den. Your daughter was still by the fire.”

“Yes.”

“And you returned to the ballroom.”

“Yes, leaving my soiled child to be murdered!
He came back and killed her!”

“No, Dame van Schooner, he did not, although
that is the way it will be recorded officially. The report will show that you
entered the den and presented the van der Malin Chain to your daughter to wear
on her night of triumph. My observation of the paint in the puddle will stand
as the deduction that led us to der Trogue. We will say he gained entry into
the house, killed your daughter, and took the necklace. And was later killed
resisting capture.”

“But he
did
kill her!” the Dame insisted. “He had to be the one! She was alive when I left
her. No one else entered the room until the honor guard went for her.”

Cork took both her hands.

“Dame van Schooner, I have twisted truth beyond
reason for your sake tonight, but now you must face the hard truth. Der Trogue
was a scoundrel, but he had no reason to kill Gretchen. What would he gain? And
how could he get back in without leaving snow tracks? Gretchen’s executioner
was in the den all the time—when Lydia was there, when you were. I think in
your heart you know the answer—if you have the courage to face it.”

To watch her face was to see ice melt. Her
eyes, her cold, diamond-blue eyes watered. “I can. But must it be said—here?”

“Yes.”

“Wilda. Oh, my God, Wilda.”

“Yes, Wilda. You have a great burden to bear,
my dear lady.”

Her tears came freely now. “The curse of the
van Schooners,” she cried. “Her father was insane, and his brother, Kaarl,
lives in his lunatic’s attic. My mother thought she was infusing quality by our
union.”

“Thus your stern exterior and addiction to
purifying the bloodline with good stock.”

“Yes, I have been the man in our family far too
long. I have had to be hard. I thank you for your consideration, Captain. Wilda
will have to be put away, of course. Poor child, I saw the van Schooner blood
curse in her years ago, but I never thought it would come to this.” The last
was a sob. Then she took a deep breath. “I think I am needed at home.” She
rose. “Thank you again, Captain. Will you destroy that?” She pointed to the
portrait.

“Rest assured.”

As he opened the door for her, she turned back,
with the breaking dawn framing her. “I wish it was I who had invited you to the
ball. I saw you dancing and wondered who you were. You are quite tall.”

“Not too tall to bow, Madam,” Cork said, and
all six-foot-six of him bent down and kissed her cheek. She left us with an
escort from the detachment of soldiers that had followed our trail.

The room was quiet for a moment before Major
Tell exploded. “Confound it, Cork, what the deuce is this? I am to falsify
records to show der Trogue was a thief and a murderer and yet you say it was
Wilda who killed her sister. What’s your proof, man?”

Cork walked over to the painting and smashed it
on a chair back. “You deserve particulars, both of you. I said that Wilda was
in the den all the time. Your natural query is, how did she get there unseen?
Well, we all saw her. She was carried in—in the curtained sedan chair. In her
twisted mind, she hated her sister, who would inherit everything, by her mother’s
design. One does not put a great fortune into a madwoman’s hands.”

“Very well,” Tell said, “I can see her entry.
How the deuce did she get out?”

“Incipient madness sometimes makes the mind
clever, Major. She stayed in the sedan chair until her mother had left, then
presented herself to Gretchen.”

“And killed her,” I interjected. “But she was
back in the ballroom before the honor guard went in to get her sister.”