The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (3 page)

I
turned and walked out.

In
the hall I hesitated. I could have gone up to my room and phoned from there,
but in his present state it was quite possible he would listen in from his
desk, and the call I wanted to make was personal. So I got my hat and coat from
the rack, let myself out, descended the stoop steps, walked to the drugstore on
Ninth Avenue, found the booth unoccupied, and dialed a number. In a moment a musical
little voice—more a chirp than a voice—was in my ear.

“Kurt
Bottweill’s studio, good morning.”

“This
is Archie Goodwin, Cherry. May I speak to Margot?”

“Why,
certainly. Just a moment.”

It
was a fairly long moment. Then another voice. “Archie, darling!”

“Yes,
my own. I’ve got it.”

“I
knew you could!”

“Sure,
I can do anything. Not only that, you said up to a hundred bucks, and I thought
I would have to part with twenty at least, but it only took five. And not only
that, but it’s on me, because I’ve already had my money’s worth of fun out of
it, and more. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Shall I send it up by
messenger?”

“No,
I don’t think—I’d better come arid get it. Where are you?”

“In
a phone booth. I’d just as soon not go back to the office right now because Mr.
Wolfe wants to be alone to boil, so how about the Tulip Bar at the Churchill in
twenty minutes? I feel like buying you a drink.”

“I
feel like buying
you
a drink!”

She
should, since I was treating her to a marriage license.

II

When,
at three o’clock Friday afternoon, I wriggled out of the taxi at the curb in
front of the four-story building in the East Sixties, it was snowing. If it
kept up, New York might have an off-white Christmas.

During
the two days that had passed since I got my money’s worth from the marriage
license, the atmosphere around Wolfe’s place had not been very seasonable. If
we had had a case going, frequent and sustained communication would have been
unavoidable, but without one there was nothing that absolutely had to be said,
and we said it. Our handling of that trying period showed our true natures. At
table, for instance, I was polite and reserved, and spoke, when speaking seemed
necessary, in low and cultured tones. When Wolfe spoke he either snapped or
barked. Neither of us mentioned the state of bliss I was headed for, or the
adjustments that would have to be made, or my Friday date with my fiancée, or
his trip to Long Island. But he arranged it somehow, for precisely at
twelve-thirty on Friday a black limousine drew up in front of the house, and
Wolfe, with the brim of his old black hat turned down and the collar of his new
gray overcoat turned up for the snow, descended the stoop, stood massively, the
mountain of him, on the bottom step until the uniformed chauffeur had opened
the door, and crossed the sidewalk and climbed in. I watched it from above,
from a window of my room.

I
admit I was relieved and felt better. He had unquestionably needed a lesson and
I didn’t regret giving him one, but if he had passed up a chance for an orchid
powwow with the best hybridizer in England I would never have heard the last of
it. I went down to the kitchen and ate lunch with Fritz, who was so upset by
the atmosphere that he forgot to put the lemon juice in the soufflé. I wanted
to console him by telling him that everything would be rosy by Christmas, only
three days off, but of course that wouldn’t do.

I
had a notion to toss a coin to decide whether I would have a look at the new
exhibit of dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum or go to the Bottweill
party, but I was curious to know how Margot was making out with the license,
and also how the other Bottweill personnel were making out with each other. It
was surprising that they were still making out at all. Cherry Quon’s position
in the setup was apparently minor, since she functioned chiefly as a
receptionist and phone-answerer, but I had seen her black eyes dart daggers at
Margot Dickey, who should have been clear out of her reach. I had gathered that
it was Margot who was mainly relied upon to wrangle prospective customers into
the corral, that Bottweill himself put them under the spell, and that Alfred Kiernan’s
part was to make sure that before the spell wore off an order got signed on the
dotted line.

Of
course that wasn’t all. The order had to be filled, and that was handled, under
Bottweill’s supervision, by Emil Hatch in the workshop. Also funds were
required to buy the ingredients, and they were furnished by a specimen named
Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome. Margot had told me that Mrs. Jerome would be at the
party and would bring her son Leo, whom I had never met. According to Margot,
Leo, who had no connection with the Bottweill business or any other business,
devoted his time to two important activities: getting enough cash from his
mother to keep going as a junior playboy, and stopping the flow of cash to
Bottweill, or at least slowing it down.

It
was quite a tangle, an interesting exhibit of bipeds alive and kicking, and, deciding
it promised more entertainment than the dead dinosaurs, I took a taxi to the
East Sixties.

The
ground floor of the four-story building, formerly a deluxe double-width
residence, was now a beauty shop. The second floor was a real-estate office.
The third floor was Kurt Bottweill’s workshop, and on top was his studio. From
the vestibule I took the do-it-yourself elevator to the top, opened the door,
and stepped out into the glossy gold-leaf elegance I had first seen some months
back, when Bottweill had hired Wolfe to find out who had swiped some
tapestries. On that first visit I had decided that the only big difference
between chrome modern and Bottweill gold-leaf modern was the color, and I still
thought so. Not even skin deep; just a two-hundred-thousandth of an inch deep.
But on the panels and racks and furniture frames it gave the big skylighted
studio quite a tone, and the rugs and drapes and pictures, all modern, joined
in. It would have been a fine den for a blind millionaire.

“Archie!”
a voice called. “Come and help us sample!”

It
was Margot Dickey. In a far corner was a gold-leaf bar, some eight feet long,
and she was at it on a gold-leaf stool. Cherry Quon and Alfred Kiernan were
with her, also on stools, and behind the bar was Santa Claus, pouring from a
champagne bottle. It was certainly a modern touch to have Santa Claus tend bar,
but there was nothing modern about his costume. He was strictly traditional,
cut, color, size, mask, and all, except that the hand grasping the champagne
bottle wore a white glove. I assumed, crossing to them over the thick rugs,
that that was a touch of Bottweill elegance, and didn’t learn until later how
wrong I was.

They
gave me the season’s greetings and Santa Claus poured a glass of bubbles for
me. No gold leaf on the glass. I was glad I had come. To drink champagne with a
blonde at one elbow and a brunette at the other gives a man a sense of
well-being, and those two were fine specimens—the tall, slender Margot relaxed,
all curves, on the stool, and little slant-eyed black-eyed Cherry Quon, who
came only up to my collar when standing, sitting with her spine as straight as
a plumb line yet not stiff. I thought Cherry worthy of notice not only as a
statuette, though she was highly decorative, but as a possible source of new
light on human relations. Margot had told me that her father was half Chinese
and half Indian—not American Indian—and her mother was Dutch.

I
said that apparently I had come too early, but Alfred Kiernan said no, the
others were around and would be in shortly. He added that it was a pleasant
surprise to see me, as it was just a little family gathering and he hadn’t
known others had been invited. Kiernan, whose title was business manager, had
not liked a certain step I had taken when I was hunting the tapestries, and he
still didn’t, but an Irishman at a Christmas party likes everybody. My
impression was that he really was pleased, so I was too. Margot said she had
invited me, and Kiernan patted her on the arm and said that if she hadn’t he
would. About my age and fully as handsome, he was the kind who can pat the arm
of a queen or a president’s wife without making eyebrows go up.

He
said we needed another sample and turned to the bartender. “Mr. Claus, we’ll
try the Veuve Clicquot.” To us: “Just like Kurt to provide different brands. No
monotony for Kurt.” To the bartender: “May I call you by your first name,
Santy?”

“Certainly,
sir,” Santa Claus told him from behind the mask in a thin falsetto that didn’t
match in size. As he stooped and came up with a bottle, a door at the left
opened and two men entered. One of them, Emil Hatch, I had met before. When
briefing Wolfe on the tapestries and telling us about his staff, Bottweill had
called Margot Dickey his contact woman, Cherry Quon his handy girl, and Emil
Hatch his pet wizard, and when I met Hatch I found that he both looked the part
and acted it. He wasn’t much taller than Cherry Quon, and skinny, and something
had either pushed his left shoulder down or his right shoulder up, making him
lopsided, and he had a sour face, sour voice, and a sour taste.

When
the stranger was named to me as Leo Jerome, that placed him. I was acquainted
with his mother, Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome. She was a widow and an angel—that
is, Kurt Bottweill’s angel. During the investigation she had talked as if the
tapestries belonged to her, but that might have only been her manners, of which
she had plenty. I could have made guesses about her personal relations with
Bottweill, but hadn’t bothered. I have enough to do to handle my own personal
relations without wasting my brain power on other people’s. As for her son Leo,
he must have got his physique from his father—tall, bony, big-eared and
long-armed. He was probably approaching thirty, below Kiernan but above Margot
and Cherry.

When
he shoved in between Cherry and me, giving me his back, and Emil Hatch had
something to tell Kiernan—sour, no doubt—I touched Margot’s elbow and she slid
off the stool and let herself be steered across to a divan which had been
covered with designs by Euclid in six or seven colors. We stood looking down at
it.

“Mighty
pretty,” I said, “but nothing like as pretty as you. If only that license were
real! I can get a real one for two dollars. What do you say?”

“You!”
she
said scornfully. “You wouldn’t marry Miss Universe if she came on her knees
with a billion dollars.”

“I
dare her to try it. Did it work?”

“Perfect.
Simply perfect.”

“Then
you’re ditching me?”

“Yes,
Archie darling. But I’ll be a sister to you.”

“I’ve
got a sister. I want the license back for a souvenir, and anyway I don’t want
it kicking around. I could be hooked for forgery. You can mail it to me, once
my own.”

“No,
I can’t. He tore it up.”

“The
hell he did. Where are the pieces?”

“Gone.
He put them in his wastebasket. Will you come to the wedding?”

“What
wastebasket where?”

“The
gold one by his desk in his office. Last evening after dinner. Will you come to
the wedding?”

“I
will not. My heart is bleeding. So will Mr. Wolfe’s—and by the way, I’d better
get out of here. I’m not going to stand around and sulk.”

“You
won’t have to. He won’t know I’ve told you, and anyway, you wouldn’t be
expected— Here he comes!”

She
darted off to the bar and I headed that way. Through the door on the left
appeared Mrs. Perry Porter Jerome, all of her, plump and plushy, with folds of
mink trying to keep up as she breezed in. As she approached, those on stools
left them and got onto their feet, but that courtesy could have been as much
for her companion as for her. She was the angel, but Kurt Bottweill was the
boss. He stopped five paces short of the bar, extended his arms as far as they
would go, and sang out, “Merry Christmas, all my blessings! Merry merry merry!”

I
still hadn’t labeled him. My first impression, months ago, had been that he was
one of them, but that had been wrong. He was a man, all right, but the question
was, what kind. About average in height, round but not pudgy, maybe forty-two
or -three, his fine black hair slicked back so that he looked balder than he
was, he was nothing great to look at, but he had something, not only for women
but for men too. Wolfe had once invited him to stay for dinner, and they had
talked about the scrolls from the Dead Sea. I had seen him twice at baseball
games. His label would have to wait.

As
I joined them at the bar, where Santa Claus was pouring Mumms Cordon Rouge,
Bottweill squinted at me a moment and then grinned. “Goodwin! You here? Good!
Edith, your pet sleuth!”

Mrs.
Perry Porter Jerome, reaching for a glass, stopped her hand to look at me. “Who
asked you?” she demanded, then went on, with no room for a reply, “Cherry, I
suppose. Cherry
is
a blessing. Leo, quit tugging
at me. Very well, take it. It’s warm in here.” She let her son pull her coat
off, then reached for a glass. By the time Leo got back from depositing the
mink on the divan, we all had glasses, and when he had his we raised them, and
our eyes went to Bottweill.