Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

“Thanks, Al.” Bottweill took it. “My secret public vice.” He raised the glass. “I repeat, there are times when love takes over. (Santa Claus, where is yours? But I suppose you can’t drink through that mask.) There are times when all the little demons disappear down their ratholes, and ugliness itself takes on the shape of beauty; when the darkest corner is touched by light; when the coldest heart feels the glow of warmth; when the trumpet call of good will and good cheer drowns out all the Babel of mean little noise. This is such a time. Merry Christmas! Merry merry merry!”

I was ready to touch glasses, but both the angel and the boss steered theirs to their lips, so I and the others followed suit. I thought Bottweill’s eloquence deserved more than a sip, so I took a healthy gulp, and from the corner of my eye I saw that he was doing likewise with the Pernod. As I lowered the glass my eyes went to Mrs. Jerome, as she spoke.

“That was lovely,” she declared. “Simply lovely. I must write it down and have it printed. That part about the trumpet call- Kurt! What is it? Kurt!”

He had dropped the glass and was clutching his throat with both hands. As I moved he turned loose of his throat, thrust his arms out, and let out a yell. I think he yelled “Merry!” but I wasn’t really listening. Others started for him too, but my reflexes were better trained for emergencies than any of theirs, so I got him first. As I got my arms around him he started choking and gurgling, and a spasm went over him from head to foot that nearly loosened my grip. They were making noises, but no screams, and someone was clawing at my arm. As I was telling them to get back and give me room, he was suddenly a dead weight, and I almost went down with him and might have if Kiernan hadn’t grabbed his arm.

I called, “Get a doctor!” and Cherry ran to a table where there was a gold-leaf phone. Kiernan and I let Bottweill down on the rug. He was out, breathing fast and hard, but as I was straightening his head his breathing slowed down and foam showed on his lips. Mrs. Jerome was commanding us, “Do something, do something!”

There was nothing to do, and I knew it. While I was holding onto him I had got a whiff of his breath, and now, kneeling, I leaned over to get my nose an inch from his, and I knew that smell, and it takes a big dose to hit that quick and hard. Kiernan was loosening Bottweill’s tie and collar. Cherry Quon called to us that she had tried a doctor and couldn’t get him and was trying another. Margot was squatting at Bottweill’s feet, taking his shoes off, and I could have told her she might as well let him die with his boots on but didn’t. I had two fingers on his wrist and my other hand inside his shirt, and could feel him going.

When I could feel nothing I abandoned the chest and wrist, took his hand, which was a fist, straightened the middle finger, and pressed its nail with my thumbtip until it was white. When I removed my thumb the nail stayed white. Dropping the hand, I yanked a little cluster of fibers from the rug, told Kiernan not to move, placed the fibers against Bottweill’s nostrils, fastened my eyes on them, and held my breath for thirty seconds. The fibers didn’t move.

I stood up and spoke. “His heart has stopped and he’s not breathing. If a doctor came within three minutes and washed out his stomach with chemicals he wouldn’t have with him, there might be one chance in a thousand. As it is-”

“Can’t you do something?” Mrs. Jerome squawked.

“Not for him, no. I’m not an officer of the law, but I’m a licensed detective, and I’m supposed to know how to act in these circumstances, and I’ll get it if I don’t follow the rules. Of course-”

“Do something!” Mrs. Jerome squawked.

Kiernan’s voice came from behind me. “He’s dead.”

I didn’t turn to ask what test he had used. “Of course,” I told them, “his drink was poisoned. Until the police come no one will touch anything, especially the bottle of Pernod, and no one will leave this room. You will-”

I stopped dead. Then I demanded, “Where is Santa Claus?”

Their heads turned to look at the bar. No bartender. On the chance that it had been too much for him, I pushed between Leo Jerome and Emil Hatch to step to the end of the bar, but he wasn’t on the floor either.

I wheeled. “Did anyone see him go?”

They hadn’t. Hatch said, “He didn’t take the elevator. I’m sure he didn’t. He must have-” He started off.

I blocked him. “You stay here. I’ll take a look. Kiernan, phone the police. Spring seven-three-one-hundred.”

I made for the door on the left and passed through, pulling it shut as I went, and was in Bottweill’s office, which I had seen before. It was one-fourth the size of the studio, and much more subdued, but was by no means squalid. I crossed to the far end, saw through the glass panel that Bottweill’s private elevator wasn’t there, and pressed the button. A clank and a whirr came from inside the shaft, and it was coming. When it was up and had jolted to a stop I opened the door, and there on the floor was Santa Claus, but only the outside of him. He had molted. Jacket, breeches, mask, wig…I didn’t check to see if it was all there, because I had another errand and not much time for it.

Propping the elevator door open with a chair, I went and circled around Bottweill’s big gold-leaf desk to his gold-leaf wastebasket. It was one-third full. Bending, I started to paw, decided that was inefficient, picked it up and dumped it, and began tossing things back in one by one. Some of the items were torn pieces of paper, but none of them came from a marriage license. When I had finished I stayed down a moment, squatting, wondering if I had hurried too much and possibly missed it, and I might have gone through it again if I hadn’t heard a faint noise from the studio that sounded like the elevator door opening. I went to the door to the studio and opened it, and as I crossed the sill two uniformed cops were deciding whether to give their first glance to the dead or the living.

Three hours later we were seated, more or less in a group, and my old friend and foe, Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide, stood surveying us, his square jaw jutting and his big burly frame erect.

He spoke. “Mr. Kiernan and Mr. Hatch will be taken to the District Attorney’s office for further questioning. The rest of you can go for the present, but you will keep yourselves available at the addresses you have given. Before you go I want to ask you again, here together, about the man who was here as Santa Claus. You have all claimed you know nothing about him. Do you still claim that?”

It was twenty minutes to seven. Some two dozen city employees-medical examiner, photographer, fingerprinters, meat-basket bearers, the whole kaboodle-had finished the on-the-scene routine, including private interviews with the eyewitnesses. I had made the highest score, having had sessions with Stebbins, a precinct man, and Inspector Cramer, who had departed around five o’clock to organize the hunt for Santa Claus.

“I’m not objecting,” Kiernan told Stebbins, “to going to the District Attorney’s office. I’m not objecting to anything. But we’ve told you all we can, I know I have. It seems to me your job is to find him.”

“Do you mean to say,” Mrs. Jerome demanded, “that no one knows anything at all about him?”

“So they say,” Purley told her. “No one even knew there was going to be a Santa Claus, so they say. He was brought to this room by Bottweill, about a quarter to three, from his office. The idea is that Bottweill himself had arranged for him, and he came up in the private elevator and put on the costume in Bottweill’s office. You may as well know there is some corroboration of that. We have found out where the costume came from-Burleson’s, on Forty-sixth Street. Bottweill phoned them yesterday afternoon and ordered it sent here, marked personal. Miss Quon admits receiving the package and taking it to Bottweill in his office.”