Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (2 page)

Christie, in fact, all but owned
this institution at the time of her death. Her expressions of the season took a
civilized and genteel form—poisoning, jewel robbery and an occasional
well-placed knitting needle.

On the other side of the Atlantic,
the Christmas Crime story took a more rugged form. In a land that offered the
delights of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, buffalo stampedes and Bonnie and
Clyde, writers could hardly be expected to confine themselves to the pleasures
of a cup of tea laced with strychnine. Consequently we find O. Henry’s “The
Chapparal Christmas Gift” out on the plain, Damon Runyon’s “Dancing Dan’s
Christmas” in downtown Manhattan, and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe at the most
barbaric of American Christmas events, an office “Christmas Party.” A few
colonial practitioners did stay close to the English format, as does James
Mines’s “Mother’s Milk,” which appears for the first time in this collection.

“Mother’s Milk” has a contemporary
tone to it—a breath of fresh air that puts one in mind of packed shopping
centers, post office lines, Santa Claus parades, and the quiet corners where
Christmas lists are made and later regretted. Writers such as the late John
Collier, in his “Back for Christmas,” and the American master Stanley Ellin, in
“Death on Christmas Eve,” give us a sense of the tyranny of Christmas,
depicting those familiar moments of silent desperation with a passion that only
a great writer can summon.

For another contemporary view, as
well as a swipe at the hard-boiled school of mystery fiction, one need look no
further than Woody Allen’s “Mr. Big.” Not the classic Christmas story perhaps.
Not even a true Christmas story in the purest sense of the words, but “Mr. Big”
does look at some basic modern day religious questions, and does reflect the
tradition of giving it to your fellow man at this special time of the year.

Baynard Kendrick’s “Silent Night”
and Edward Hoch’s “Christmas is for Cops” represent the Christmas crime
investigation story in two generations. The police procedural, as a distinct
form, came into its own in the decade of social awareness that began in the
early 1960’s. Hoch’s story reminds us that the police were not always
well-liked, but they were a ready mirror for reflecting social phenomena. And
they were not immune when the irresistible forces of crime and Christmas came
together.

For those readers demanding escape,
John Dickson Carr, in “Blind Man’s Hood,” and Lillian de la Torre, in “The
Stolen Christmas Box,” reach all the way back to Restoration and Georgian
England, when people really dressed to kill. No duels here, unfortunately. Not
even a good beheading, but other delights of the season abound: lying,
stealing, cheating, gouging and—even—murder around the wassail bowl.

“Markheim,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s
classic tale of Christmas shopping, is here, as is an uncharacteristically
light-hearted account of a juvenile detective by Thomas Hardy, “The Thieves Who
Could Not Help Sneezing.” I trust that the discriminating reader will not be
put off by this unexpected bit of seasonal ‘myrrth’ from a source who generally
seemed to know better.

A mixture of times is to be found in
Ellery Queen’s “The Adventure of the Dauphin’s Doll,” a reminder that Christmas
is, after all, for children, even if they are no longer around.

For more seasonal malfeasance with
an international flavor, the celebrated Belgian writer Georges Simenon provides
“Maigret’s Christmas,” a stark Gallic offering that contrasts well with the
American sweets and English savories found elsewhere in this volume. From
Bombay comes an unusual Christmas tale featuring “Inspector Ghote and the Miracle
Baby” by the distinguished English author and critic H. R. F. Keating.

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown
offers a last hope for the true believers, those select few still unjaded by
the seasonal glut of credit card offers, bargain tinsel, and Christmas Muzak. “The
Flying Stars” serves notice that crime does not always pay, even at Christmas.
And could a traditional Christmas be traditional without the Master? Sherlock
Holmes stars in one of his earliest and best cases, “The Adventure of the Blue
Carbuncle.”

There you have it, twenty-five
classic Christmas misadventures. And as a Boxing Day bonus, D. B. Wyndham Lewis’s
Christmas crime story to end all Christmas crime stories, “Ring Out, Wild Bells.”

Now, settle back. Relax. Forget that
peculiar noise in your chimney. Ignore that odd aftertaste in the brandy. Don’t
think about that strange red fluid dripping from one of the stockings on the
mantlepiece. Disregard that heavy-breathing behind your chair. Read. Enjoy. And
God help us every one.

Thomas Godfrey

Let
us begin our Christmas criminologies at the end. The end of Hermione Carpenter,
to be exact. Author John Collier was the master of the story of ordinary people
suddenly caught up by a bitterly ironic turn of events, all told in a light,
casual tone. Not surprisingly, film director Alfred Hitchcock was among
Collier’s admirers. He popularized this type of writing in the movies and on
television.

It was the start of “black humor,” a
form of expression that was very popular during the days of the Vietnamese War.
Collier, along with Stanley Ellin, Roald Dahl and Robert Bloch, formed the Four
Horsemen of Contemporary Crime Fiction, a quartet descended from
film noir
and Cornell Woolrich, that
perfected a distinctive style of mystery-suspense writing that still prevails.

“Back for Christmas” is a
masterpiece of contradictions, a literary web that is both light and lethal,
immoral and just, logical and absurd. It is as contemporary as the last
election, yet more durable than any political career. Hitchcock adapted it for
his television series, one of the few shows he directed himself. Ironically,
Hitchcock’s name came to overshadow Collier’s, as it did all of the writers he
worked with. Yet, even if one forgets the name John Collier, it is unlikely
that he will ever forget “Back for Christmas.”

“Doctor,”
said Major Sinclair, “we
certainly must have you with us for Christmas.” It was afternoon and the
Carpenters’ living room was filled with friends who had come to say last-minute
farewells to the Doctor and his wife.

“He shall be back,” said Mrs.
Carpenter. “I promise you.”

“It’s hardly certain,” said Dr.
Carpenter. “I’d like nothing better, of course.”

“After all,” said Mr. Hewitt, “you’ve
contracted to lecture only for three months.”

“Anything may happen,” said Dr.
Carpenter.

“Whatever happens,” said Mrs.
Carpenter, beaming at them, “he shall be back in England for Christmas. You may
all believe me.”

They all believed her. The Doctor
himself almost believed her. For ten years she had been promising him for
dinner parties, garden parties, committees, heaven knows what, and the promises
had always been kept.

The farewells began. There was a
fluting of compliments on dear Hermione’s marvellous arrangements. She and her
husband would drive to Southampton that evening. They would embark the
following day. No trains, no bustle, no last-minute worries. Certainly the
Doctor was marvellously looked after. He would be a great success in America.
Especially with Hermione to see to everything. She would have a wonderful time,
too. She would see the skyscrapers. Nothing like that in Little Godwearing. But
she must be very sure to bring him back. “Yes, I will bring him back. You may
rely upon it.” He mustn’t be persuaded. No extensions. No wonderful post at
some super-American hospital. Our infirmary needs him. And he must be back by
Christmas. “Yes,” Mrs. Carpenter called to the last departing guest, “I shall
see to it. He shall be back by Christmas.”

The final arrangements for closing
the house were very well managed. The maids soon had the tea things washed up;
they came in, said goodbye, and were in time to catch the afternoon bus to
Devizes.

Nothing remained but odds and ends,
locking doors, seeing that everything was tidy. “Go upstairs,” said Hermione, “and
change into your brown tweeds. Empty the pockets of that suit before you put it
in your bag. I’ll see to everything else. All you have to do is not to get in
the way.”

The Doctor went upstairs and took
off the suit he was wearing, but instead of the brown tweeds, he put on an old,
dirty bath gown, which he took from the back of his wardrobe. Then, after
making one or two little arrangements, he leaned over the head of the stairs
and called to his wife, “Hermione! Have you a moment to spare?”

“Of course, dear. I’m just finished.”

“Just come up here for a moment.
There’s something rather extraordinary up here.”

Hermione immediately came up. “Good
heavens, my dear man!” she said when she saw her husband. “What are you
lounging about in that filthy old thing for? I told you to have it burned long
ago.”

“Who in the world,” said the Doctor,
“has dropped a gold chain down the bathtub drain?”

“Nobody has, of course,” said
Hermione. “Nobody wears such a thing.”

“Then what is it doing there?” said
the Doctor. “Take this flashlight. If you lean right over, you can see it
shining, deep down.”

“Some Woolworth’s bangle off one of
the maids,” said Hermione. “It can be nothing else.” However, she took the
flashlight and leaned over, squinting into the drain. The Doctor, raising a
short length of lead pipe, struck two or three times with great force and
precision, and tilting the body by the knees, tumbled it into the tub.

He then slipped off the bathrobe
and, standing completely naked, unwrapped a towel full of implements and put
them into the washbasin. He spread several sheets of newspaper on the floor and
turned once more to his victim.

She was dead, of course—horribly
doubled up, like a somersaulter, at one end of the tub. He stood looking at her
for a very long time, thinking of absolutely nothing at all. Then he saw how
much blood there was and his mind began to move again.

First he pushed and pulled until she
lay straight in the bath, then he removed her clothing. In a narrow bathtub
this was an extremely clumsy business, but he managed it at last and then
turned on the taps. The water rushed into the tub, then dwindled, then died
away, and the last of it gurgled down the drain.

“Good God!” he said. “She turned it
off at the main.”

There was only one thing to do: the
Doctor hastily wiped his hands on a towel, opened the bathroom door with a
clean corner of the towel, threw it back onto the bath stool, and ran
downstairs, barefoot, light as a cat. The cellar door was in a corner of the
entrance hall, under the stairs. He knew just where the cut-off was. He had
reason to: he had been pottering about down there for some time past—trying to
scrape out a bin for wine, he had told Hermione. He pushed open the cellar
door, went down the steep steps, and just before the closing door plunged the
cellar into pitch darkness, he put his hand on the tap and turned it on. Then
he felt his way back along the grimy wall till he came to the steps. He was
about to ascend them when the bell rang.

The Doctor was scarcely aware of the
ringing as a sound. It was like a spike of iron pushed slowly up through his
stomach. It went on until it reached his brain. Then something broke. He threw
himself down in the coal dust on the floor and said, “I’m through. I’m through.”