Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

“Follow me, lad,” Father said confidently as he got to his feet. “You’re on the list for a dozen for Christmas. Is there any law against my giving you your present now?”

“Not that I know of, Father,” Madigan replied, grinning.

“And in the true Christmas spirit, Tom”-Father Crumlish’s eyes twinkled merrily-“I’m sure you’ll want to share and share alike.”

Father Crumlish’s Christmas Cookies

R ECIPE :

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup sifted flour

1 1/4 cups very finely chopped blanched almonds

3/4 cup very finely chopped candied fruit and peels 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

(1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

(2) Combine butter, sugar, and cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat.

(3) Stir in other ingredients to form a batter.

(4) Drop batter by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet, spacing them about three inches apart.

(5) Bake ten minutes or until cookies begin to brown around the edges. Cool and then remove to a flat surface. If desired, while cookies are still warm, drizzle melted chocolate over tops.

Y IELD: About 24 cookies

– Courtesy of the author

Born in New England in 1930, “S. S. Rafferty” worked as a newspaperman and free-lance writer, and was a Marine Corps news correspondent during the Korean conflict. Following military service, he went into the advertising business in Boston and later New York, where he served as vice president of a major agency.

In 1977 he decided to write full time and has now published over sixty short stories in the mystery genre. He is perhaps best known for three series detectives: Captain Jeremy Cork, an eighteenth-century American colonial “fact finder’’; Dr. Amos Phipps, a nineteenth-century New York criminologist known as “The Hawk”; and Chick Kelly, a modern-day stand-up comic who delightfully mixes detection with schtick. The Captain Cork stories were collected under the title Fatal Flourishes, and the other two richly deserve to be.

As much as I prefer the steady ways of New England, I have to agree with Captain Jeremy Cork that the Puritans certainly know how to avoid a good time. They just ignore it. That’s why every twenty-third of December we come to the New York colony from our home base in Connecticut to celebrate the midwinter holidays.

I am often critical of my employer’s inattention to his many business enterprises and his preoccupation with the solution of crime-but I give him credit for the way he keeps Christmas. That is, as long as I can stop him from keeping it clear into February.

In our travels about these colonies, I have witnessed many merry parties, from the lush gentility of the Carolinas to the roughshod ribaldry of the New Hampshire tree line; but nothing can match the excitement of the Port of New York. The place teems with prosperous men who ply their fortunes in furs, potash, naval timber, and other prime goods. And the populace is drawn from everywhere: Sephardim from Brazil, Huguenots from France, visitors from London, expatriates from Naples, Irishmen running to or from something. I once counted eighteen different languages being spoken here.

And so it was in the Christmas week of 1754 that we took our usual rooms at Marshall’s, in John Street, a few steps from the Histrionic Academy, and let the yuletide roll over us. Cork’s celebrity opens many doors to us, and there was the expected flood of invitations for one frivolity after another.

I was seated at a small work table in our rooms on December twenty-third, attempting to arrange our social obligations into a reasonable program. My primary task was to sort out those invitations which begged our presence on Christmas Eve itself, for that would be our high point. Little did I realize that a knock on our door would not only decide the issue, but plunge us into one of the most bizarre of those damnable social puzzles Cork so thoroughly enjoys.

The messenger was a small lad, no more than seven or eight, and he was bundled against the elements from head to toe. Before I could open the envelope to see if an immediate reply was required, the child was gone.

I was opening the message when Cork walked in from the inner bedchamber. Marshall’s is one of the few places on earth with doorways high enough to accommodate his six-foot-six frame.

“I take the liberty,” I said. “It’s addressed to us both.”

“On fine French linen paper, I see.”

“Well, well,” I said, reading fine handscript. “This is quite an honor.”

“From the quality of the paper and the fact that you are ‘honored’ just to read the message, I assume the reader is rich, money being the primer for your respect, Oaks.”

That is not absolutely true. I find nothing wrong with poverty; however, it is a condition I do not wish to experience. In fact, as Cork’s financial yeoman, it is my sworn duty to keep it from our doorsill. The invitation was from none other than Dame Ilsa van Schooner, asking us to take part in her famous Christmas Eve Masque at her great house on the Broad Way. Considering that we had already been invited to such questionable activities as a cockfight, a party at a doss house, a drinking duel at Cosgrove’s, and an evening of sport at the Gentlemen’s Club, I was indeed honored to hear from a leader of New York quality.

Cork was glancing at the invitation when I discovered a smaller piece of paper still in the envelope. “This is odd,” I said, reading it:

van Schooner Haus

22 December

Dear Sirs:

I implore you to accept the enclosed, for I need you very much to investigate a situation of some calamity for us. I shall make myself known at the Masque.

It was unsigned. I passed it to the captain, who studied it for a moment and then picked up the invitation again.

“I’m afraid your being honored is misplaced, my old son,” he said. “The invitation was written by a skilled hand, possibly an Ephrata penman, hired for such work. But our names have been fitted in by a less skilled writer. The author of the note has by some means invited us without the hostess’s knowledge. Our sub rosa bidder must be in some dire difficulty, for she does not dare risk discovery by signing her name.”

“Her?”

“No doubt about it. The hand is feminine, and written in haste. I thought it odd that a mere boy should deliver this. It is usually the task of a footman, who would wait for a reply. This is truly intriguing-an impending calamity stalking the wealthy home in which she lives.”

“How can you be sure of that, sir?”

“I can only surmise. She had access to the invitations and she says ‘calamity for us,’ which implies her family. Hello.” He looked up suddenly as the door opened and a serving girl entered with a tray, followed by a man in royal red. “Sweet Jerusalem!” Cork got to his feet. “Major Tell in the flesh! Sally, my girl, you had better have Marshall send up extra Apple Knock and oysters. Tell, it is prophetic that you should appear just as a new puzzle emerges.”

Prophetic indeed. Major Philip Tell is a King’s agent-at-large, and he invariably embroiled us in some case of skulduggery whenever he was in our purlieu. But I bore him no ill this time, for he had nothing to do with the affair. In fact, his vast knowledge of the colonial scene might prove helpful.

“Well, lads,” Tell said, taking off his rogueloure and tossing his heavy cloak onto a chair. “I knew Christmas would bring you to New York. You look fit, Captain, and I see Oaks is still at his account books.”