Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

“Why did you not demand its delivery when you gave him the necklace tonight?”

“I never said I gave it to him tonight.”

“But you did. You went into the den, not to see your daughter, but to meet der Trogue at the outside passage door. You lit a taper there, and he examined his booty at the entryway and then left, probably promising to turn over that scandalous painting when he had verified that the necklace was not an imitation.”

“Captain, you sound as if you were there.”

“The clues were. In the puddle just inside the door, there was a red substance. Oaks believed it was blood. It was a natural assumption, but when the question of your anger with a painter came to light, I considered what my eyes now confirm. Painters are sloppy fellows; look at this floor. Besides, blood is rarely magenta. It was paint, red paint, from his boot soles. Then, Madam, your part of the bargain completed, you returned to the den. Your daughter was still by the fire.”

“Yes.”

“And you returned to the ballroom.”

“Yes, leaving my soiled child to be murdered! He came back and killed her!”

“No, Dame van Schooner, he did not, although that is the way it will be recorded officially. The report will show that you entered the den and presented the van der Malin Chain to your daughter to wear on her night of triumph. My observation of the paint in the puddle will stand as the deduction that led us to der Trogue. We will say he gained entry into the house, killed your daughter, and took the necklace. And was later killed resisting capture.”

“But he did kill her!” the Dame insisted. “He had to be the one! She was alive when I left her. No one else entered the room until the honor guard went for her.”

Cork took both her hands.

“Dame van Schooner, I have twisted truth beyond reason for your sake tonight, but now you must face the hard truth. Der Trogue was a scoundrel, but he had no reason to kill Gretchen. What would he gain? And how could he get back in without leaving snow tracks? Gretchen’s executioner was in the den all the time-when Lydia was there, when you were. I think in your heart you know the answer-if you have the courage to face it.”

To watch her face was to see ice melt. Her eyes, her cold, diamond-blue eyes watered. “I can. But must it be said-here?”

“Yes.”

“Wilda. Oh, my God, Wilda.”

“Yes, Wilda. You have a great burden to bear, my dear lady.”

Her tears came freely now. “The curse of the van Schooners,” she cried. “Her father was insane, and his brother, Kaarl, lives in his lunatic’s attic. My mother thought she was infusing quality by our union.”

“Thus your stern exterior and addiction to purifying the bloodline with good stock.”

“Yes, I have been the man in our family far too long. I have had to be hard. I thank you for your consideration, Captain. Wilda will have to be put away, of course. Poor child, I saw the van Schooner blood curse in her years ago, but I never thought it would come to this.” The last was a sob. Then she took a deep breath. “I think I am needed at home.” She rose. “Thank you again, Captain. Will you destroy that?” She pointed to the portrait.

“Rest assured.”

As he opened the door for her, she turned back, with the breaking dawn framing her. “I wish it was I who had invited you to the ball. I saw you dancing and wondered who you were. You are quite tall.”

“Not too tall to bow, Madam,” Cork said, and all six-foot-six of him bent down and kissed her cheek. She left us with an escort from the detachment of soldiers that had followed our trail.

The room was quiet for a moment before Major Tell exploded. “Confound it, Cork, what the deuce is this? I am to falsify records to show der Trogue was a thief and a murderer and yet you say it was Wilda who killed her sister. What’s your proof, man?”

Cork walked over to the painting and smashed it on a chair back. “You deserve particulars, both of you. I said that Wilda was in the den all the time. Your natural query is, how did she get there unseen? Well, we all saw her. She was carried in-in the curtained sedan chair. In her twisted mind, she hated her sister, who would inherit everything, by her mother’s design. One does not put a great fortune into a madwoman’s hands.”

“Very well,” Tell said, “I can see her entry. How the deuce did she get out?”

“Incipient madness sometimes makes the mind clever, Major. She stayed in the sedan chair until her mother had left, then presented herself to Gretchen.”

“And killed her,” I interjected. “But she was back in the ballroom before the honor guard went in to get her sister.”

“There is the nub of it, Oaks. She left the den by the back passage, crossed the yard, and re-entered the house by the kitchen, in the far wing. Who would take any notice of a daughter of the house in a room filled with bustling cooks and servants coming and going with vittles for the buffet?”

“But she would have gotten her skirts wet in the snow,” I started to object. “Of course! The spilled punch bowl! It drenched her!”

Cork smiled broadly. “Yes, my lad. She entered the kitchen, scooped up the punch bowl, carried it into the ballroom, and then deliberately dropped it.”

“Well,” Tell grumped, “she may be sprung in the mind, but she understands the theory of tactical diversion.”

“Self-preservation is the last instinct to go, Major.”

“Yes, I believe you are right, Cork, but how are we to explain all this and still shield the Dame’s secret?”

Cork looked dead at me. “You, Oaks, have given us the answer.”

“I? Oh, when I said the killer took off his boots to avoid tracks in the den? You rejected that out of hand when I mentioned it.”

“I rejected it as a probability, not a possibility. Anything is possible, but not everything is probable. Is it probable that a killer bent on not leaving tracks would take off his boots inside the entry, where they would leave a puddle? No, I couldn’t accept it, but I’m sure the general public will.”

The major looked disturbed. “I can appreciate your desire to protect the Dame,” he said, “but to suppress evidence-”

“Calm yourself, Major, we are just balancing the books of human nature. I have saved the Crown the time and expense of trying and executing an extortionist. God knows how many victims he has fleeced by his artistic trickery over the years. And we have prevented the Dame from the commission of a homicide that any jury, I think, would have found justifiable. Let it stand as it is, Major; it is a neater package. The Dame has had enough tragedy in her life.”

The last of his words were soft and low-toned, and I watched as he stared into the flames. By jing, could it possibly be that this gallivanting, sunburnt American had fallen in love? But I quickly dismissed the thought. We are fated to our roles, we two-he, the unbroken stallion frolicking from pasture to pasture, and I, the frantic ostler following with an empty halter, hoping some day to put the beast to work. I persist.

“Ellery Queen” has a split personality. It is the pseudonym of Brooklyn-born cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, whose contrasting personalities gave a keen edge to their many years of mystery collaboration. Together they wrote a long list of novels, novelettes and short stories featuring their namesake detective, Ellery Queen. They edited over seventy anthologies and founded and edited Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Seven Edgars and a Raven attest to Ellery’s popularity.

However, Ellery Queen was more knowledgeable about crime than he was about plangonology, as the following story demonstrates. Attitudes have drastically changed since the 1940s. What contemporary collector wouldn’t give her eyeteeth to find the dolls in this story under her Christmas tree?