Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

“Hand-picked by her mother, no doubt?” Cord asked.

“Everything is hand-picked by the Dame. Van Loon is a stout fellow, although a bit of a tailor’s dummy. Family is well landed, across the river, in Brueckelen. Say, they’re playing ‘The Green Cockade,’ Captain. Let me introduce you to Miss Borden, one of our finest steppers.”

I watched them walk over to a comely piece of frippery, and then Cork and the young lady stepped onto the dance floor. “The Green Cockade” is one of Cork’s favorite tunes, and he dances it with gusto.

I drifted over to the serving table and took another cup of punch, watching all the time for some sign from our mysterious “hostess,” whoever she was. I mused that the calamity mentioned in the note might well have been pure hyperbole, for I could not see how any misfortune could befall this wealthy, joyous home.

With Cork off on the dance floor, Tell returned to my side and offered to find a dance partner for me. I declined, not being the most nimble of men, but did accept his bid to introduce me to a lovely young woman named Lydia Daws-Smith. The surname declared her to be the offspring of a very prominent family in the fur trade, and her breeding showed through a delightfully pretty face and pert figure. We were discussing the weather when I noticed four footmen carrying what appeared to be a closed sedan chair into the hall and through a door at the rear.

“My word, is a sultan among the assemblage?” I asked my companion.

“The sedan chair?” She giggled from behind her fan. “No, Mr. Oaks, no sultan. It’s our Queen’s throne. Gretchen will be transported into the hall at the stroke of midnight, and the Governor will proclaim her our New Year’s Sovereign.” She stopped for a moment, the smile gone. “Then she will step forward to our acclaim, and of course, mandatory idolatry.”

“I take it you do not like Gretchen very much, Miss Daws-Smith.”

“On the contrary, sir. She is one of my best friends. Now you will have to excuse me, for I see Gretchen is getting ready for the crowning, and I must help her.”

I watched the young girl as she followed Gretchen to the rear of the hall, where they entered a portal and closed the door behind them. Seconds later, Lydia Daws-Smith came back into the main hall and spoke with the Dame, who then went through the rear door.

Cork had finished his dance and rejoined me. “This exercise may be good for the liver,” he said, “but it plays hell with my thirst. Shall we get some refills?”

We walked back to the buffet table to slake his thirst, if that were ever possible. From the corner of my eye I caught sight of the Dame reentering the hall from the rear door. She crossed over to the Governor and was about to speak to him, when the orchestra struck up another tune. She seemed angry at the intrusion into what was obviously to have been the beginning of the coronation. But the Dame was ladylike and self-contained until the dancing was over. She then took a deep breath and nervously adjusted the neckline of her dress, which was shamefully bare from the bodice to the neck.

“Looks like the coronation is about to begin,” Major Tell said, coming up to us. “I’ll need a cup for the toast.”

We were joking at the far end of the table when a tremendous crash sounded. We turned to see a distraught Wilda van Schooner looking down at the punch bowl she had just dropped. The punch had splashed down her beautiful velvet dress, leaving her drenched and mortified.

“Oh-Oh,” Tell said under his breath. “Now we’ll hear some fireworks from Dame van Schooner.”

True to his prediction, the Dame sailed across the floor and gave biting instructions to the footmen to bring mops and pails. A woman, who Tell told me in a whisper was Hetta van der Malin, the Dame’s sister, came out of the crowd of tittering guests to cover her niece’s embarrassment.

“She was only trying to help, Ilsa,” the aunt said as she dabbed the girl’s dress with a handkerchief.

The Dame glared at them. “You’d better help her change, Hetta, if she is going to attend the coronation.”

The aunt and niece quickly left the ballroom, and the Dame whirled her skirts and returned to the Governor’s side. I overheard her say her apologies to him, and then she added, “My children don’t seem to know what servants are for. Well, shall we begin?”

At a wave of her hand, the orchestra struck up the “Grenadier’s March,” and six young stalwarts lined up in two ranks before the Governor. At his command, the lads did a left turn and marched off towards the rear portal in the distinctive long step of the regiment whose music they had borrowed for the occasion.

They disappeared into the room where Gretchen waited for transport, and within seconds they returned bearing the ornate screened sedan chair. “Aah’s” filled the room over the beauty and pageantry of the piece. I shot a glance at Dame van Schooner and noted that she was beaming proudly at the impeccably executed production.

When the sedan chair had been placed before the Governor, he stepped forward, took the curtain drawstrings, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our New Year’s Queen.”

The curtains were pulled open, and there she sat in majesty. More “aah’s” from the ladies until there was a screech and then another and, suddenly, pandemonium. Gretchen van Schooner sat on her portable throne, still beautiful, but horribly dead, with a French bayonet through her chest.

“My Lord!” Major Tell gasped and started forward toward the sedan chair. Cork touched his arm.

“You can do no good there. The rear room, man, that’s where the answer lies. Come, Oaks.” He moved quickly through the crowd, and I followed like a setter’s tail on point. When we reached the door, Cork turned to Tell.

“Major, use your authority to guard this door. Let no one enter.” He motioned me inside and closed the door behind us.

It was a small room, furnished in a masculine manner. Game trophies and the heads of local beasts protruded from the walls and were surrounded by a symmetrical display of weaponry such as daggers, blunderbusses, and swords.

“Our killer had not far to look for his instrument of death,” Cork said, pointing to an empty spot on the wall about three feet from the fireplace and six feet up from the floor. “Move with care, Oaks, lest we disturb some piece of evidence.”

I quickly looked around the rest of the chamber. There was a door in the south wall and a small window some ten feet to the left of it.

“The window!” I cried. “The killer must have come in-”

“I’m afraid not, Oaks,” Cork said, after examining it.

“The snow on the sill and panes is undisturbed. Besides, the floor in here is dry. Come, let’s open the other door.”

He drew it open to reveal a short narrow passage that was dimly lit with one sconced candle and had another door at its end. I started toward it and found my way blocked by Cork’s outthrust arm.

“Have a care, Oaks,” he said. “Don’t confound a trail with your own spore. Fetch a candelabrum from the table for more light.”

I did so, and to my amazement he got down on his hands and knees and inched forward along the passageway. I, too, assumed this stance and we crept along like a brace of hounds.

The polished planked floor proved dry and bare of dust until we were in front of the outer door. There, just inside the portal, was a pool of liquid.

“My Lord, it is blood!” I said.

“Mostly water from melted snow.”

“But, Captain, there is a red stain to it.”

“Yes,” he said. “Bloody snow, and yet the bayonet in that woman’s breast was driven with such force that no blood escaped from her body.”