The Twelve Crimes of Christmas Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Introduction: NOEL, NOEL!

  by Isaac Asimov

  CHRISTMAS PARTY

  by Rex Stout

  DO YOUR CHRISTMAS SHOPLIFTING EARLY

  by Robert Somerlott

  THE NECKLACE OF PEARLS

  by Dorothy L. Sayers

  FATHER CRUMLISH CELEBRATES CHRISTMAS

  by Alice Scanlan Reach

  THE CHRISTMAS MASQUE

  by S. S. Rafferty

  THE DAUPHIN’S DOLL

  by Ellery Queen

  BY THE CHIMNEY WITH CARE

  by Nick O’Donohoe

  THE PROBLEM OF THE CHRISTMAS STEEPLE

  by Edward D. Hoch

  DEATH ON CHRISTMAS EVE

  by Stanley Ellin

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE UNIQUE DICKENSIANS

  by August Derleth

  BLIND MAN’S HOOD

  by John Dickson Carr

  THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

  by Isaac Asimov

  “AN EXCELLENT ANTHOLOGY…FOCUSING ON CRIME, LIGHTHEARTED PUZZLES, HORROR, TERROR AND SPOOKINESS AT CHRISTMAS.”

  Booklist

  “AND AT CHRISTMAS-TIME,

  TOO”

  Whenever some despicable thing is done during the month of December, the general reaction is a disapproving “and at Christmas-time, 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. Consequently, we bring you a dozen fictional transgressions and misdeeds that are 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.

  —From the Introduction by Isaac Asimov

  “IT’S TIME TO TRIM THE TREE, STRETCH OUT BESIDE IT AND WATCH AS A DOZEN MASTERS OF MALEVOLENCE BURY THE BODIES.”

  Chicago Tribune

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  THE

  TWELVE

  CRIMES OF

  CHRISTMAS

  EDITED BY CAROL-LYNN RÖSSEL WAUGH,

  MARTIN HARRY GREENBERG AND

  ISAAC ASIMOV

  AVON

  PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT, DISCUS AND FLARE BOOKS

  THE TWELVE CRIMES OF CHRISTMAS is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form.

  AVON BOOKS

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  New York, New York 10019

  Copyright © 1981 by Nightfall, Inc., Carol-Lynn Rössel Waugh, and Martin Harry Greenberg Published by arrangement with the authors library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-65078

  ISBN: 0-380-78931-0

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Avon Books.

  First Avon Printing, November, 1981

  AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

  Printed in Canada

  WFH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  To Charles Gordon Waugh

  C-L. R. W.,

  M. H. G. and

  I. A.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “The Thirteenth Day of Christmas,” by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1977 by Isaac Asimov. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Blind Man’s Hood,” by John Dickson Carr. From The Department of Queer Complaints, by Carter Dickson. Copyright © 1940 by William Morrow and Company; renewed 1968 by John Dickson Carr. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

  “The Adventure of the Unique Dickensians,” by August Derleth. Copyright © 1968 by Arkham House Publishers, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Arkham House Publishers, Inc., Sauk City, Wisconsin.

  “Death on Christmas Eve,” by Stanley Ellin. Copyright © 1950, 1978 by Stanley Ellin. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  “The Problem of the Christmas Steeple,” by Edward D. Hoch. Copyright © 1976 by Edward D. Hoch. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Larry Sternig Literary Agency.

  “By the Chimney with Care,” by Nick O’Donohoe. Copyright © 1978 by Renown Publications, Inc. First published in Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Hintz Literary Agency.

  “The Dauphin’s Doll,” by Ellery Queen. Copyright © 1948, 1951 by Ellery Queen; renewed. Reprinted by permission of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10022.

  “The Christmas Masque,” by S. S. Rafferty. Copyright © 1976 by S. S. Rafferty. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Father Crumlish Celebrates Christmas,” by Alice Scanlan Reach. Copyright © 1967 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of Ann Elmo Agency, Inc.

  “The Necklace of Pearls,” by Dorothy L. Sayers. From Lord Peter, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Copyright © 1933 by Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming; renewed 1961 by Lloyds Bank Ltd., Executors. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

  “Do Your Christmas Shoplifting Early,” by Robert Somerlott. Copyright © 1965 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of McIntosh and Otis, Inc.

  “Christmas Party,” by Rex Stout. From And Four to Go, by Rex Stout. Copyright © 1956, 1957 by Rex Stout. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, Inc.

  Introduction: NOEL, NOEL!

  by Isaac Asimov

  Throughout the North Temperate zone (in which western civilization arose and matured), there is always a reminder in the sky that things will not last.

  All through the summer and fall, when the world is smiling and green things are growing and harvests are collected and stored, the Sun marks out a path in the sky that each day is lower toward the southern horizon than on the day before. The lower the sun is, the less intense is its warmth and the shorter the days get, so that the less-intense warmth has ever less time to do its job.

  This is a sobering reminder in the very midst of prosperity that winter is coming, a time of dreary cold and of the apparent death of the plant world.

  Yet the decline of the Sun slows and finally there comes a time when the Sun halts its southward drop altogether and then begins to mark out a higher and higher path each day than the day before. The weather continues cold for months after the Sun starts its rise, but that rise is a portent and a promise in the midst of decay that the winter will not last forever and that spring is coming, and with it a renewal of warmth and life and happiness.

/>   We know exactly what causes this. We know about the Earth’s tipped axis and how it affects the Sun’s apparent path in the sky in the course of the Earth’s annual revolution about its luminary.

  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.”
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br />   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.”