Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

I suppressed my laughter, for the man in the street was no more out of the fashion than our client.

“I have seen enough of him for the time being,” said Pons.

Snawley immediately turned and called out. “Pip! Pip! Bring the lights!”

And Pip Scratch, as if he had been waiting in the wings, immediately came hurrying into the room with the candelabrum he had taken out at his employer’s command, set it down once more on the table, and departed.

“Mr. Snawley,” said Pons as we sat down again near the table, Pons half turned so that he could still look out on occasion through the bay windows toward the street-lamp, “I take it you are constantly adding to your collection?”

“Very cautiously, sir- ve-ry cautiously. I have so much now I scarcely know where to house it. There is very little- ve-ry little I do not have. Why, I doubt that I add two or three items a year.”

“What was your last acquisition, Mr. Snawley?”

Once again our client’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you ask that, Mr. Pons?”

“Because I wish to know.”

Snawley bent toward Pons and said in a voice that was unusually soft for him, almost as with affection, “It is the most precious of all the items in my collection. It is a manuscript in Dickens’s hand!”

“May I see it?”

Our client got up, pulled out of his pocket a keyring, and walked toward the locked cabinet I had previously noticed. He unlocked it and took from it a box that appeared to be of ebony, inlaid with ivory, and brought it back to the table. He unlocked this, in turn, and took from it the manuscript in a folder. He laid it before Pons almost with reverence, and stood back to watch Pons with the particular pride of possession that invariably animates the collector.

Pons turned back the cover.

The manuscript was yellowed, as with age, but the paper was obviously of good quality. Master Humphrey’s Clock was written at the top, and the signature of Charles Dickens meticulously below it, and below that, in the same script, began the text of the manuscript, which consisted of at least a dozen pages.

“Ah, it is a portion of The Old Curiosity Shop not used in the published versions of that book,” said Pons.

“You know it, sir!” cried our client with evident delight.

“Indeed, I do. And I recognize the script.”

“You do?” Snawley rubbed his hands together in his pleasure.

“Where did you acquire it?”

Snawley blinked at him. “It was offered to me by a gentleman who had fallen on evil days and needed the money-a trifle over a month and a half ago.”

“Indeed,” said Pons. “So you got it at a bargain?”

“I did, I did. The circumstances made it possible. He was desperate. He wanted five hundred pounds-a ridiculous figure.”

“I see. You beat him down?”

“Business is business, Mr. Pons. I bought it at two hundred pounds.”

Pons took one of the sheets and held it up against the candles.

“Take care, sir! Take care!” said our client nervously.

Pons lowered the sheet. “You have had it authenticated?”

“Authenticated? Sir, I am an authority on Dickens. Why should I pay some ‘expert’ a fee to disclose what I already know? This is Dickens’s handwriting. I have letters of Dickens by which to authenticate it. Not an i is dotted otherwise but as Dickens dotted his i’s, not a t is crossed otherwise. This is Dickens’s script, word for word, letter for letter.”

Offended, our client almost rudely picked up his treasure and restored it to box and cabinet. As he came back to his chair, he reminded Pons, “But you did not come here to see my collection. There is that fellow outside. How will you deal with him?”

“Ah, I propose to invite him to dinner,” answered Pons. “No later than tomorrow night-Christmas Eve. Or, rather, shall we put it that you will invite him here for dinner at that time?”

Our client’s jaw dropped. “You are surely joking,” he said in a strangled voice.

“It is Christmas, Mr. Snawley. We shall show him some of the spirit of the season.”

“I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry,” replied Snawley sourly. “Least of all that fellow out there. It is an ill-conceived and ill-timed jest.”

“It is no jest, Mr. Snawley.”

Pons’s eyes danced in the candlelight.

“I will have none of it,” said our client, coming to his feet as if to dismiss us.

“It is either that,” said Pons inexorably, “or my fee.”

“Name it, then! Name it-for I shall certainly not lay a board for that infernal rogue,” cried our client raising his voice.

“Five hundred pounds,” said Pons coldly.

“Five hundred pounds!” screamed Snawley.

Pons nodded, folded his arms across his chest, and looked as adamant as a rock.

Our client leaned and caught hold of the table as if he were about to fall. “Five hundred pounds!” he whispered. “It is robbery! Five hundred pounds!” He stood for a minute so, Pons unmoved the while, and presently a crafty expression came into his narrowed eyes. He began to work his lips out and in, as was his habit, and he turned his head to look directly at Pons. “You say,” he said, still in a whisper, “it is either five hundred pounds or-a dinner…”

“For four. The three of us and that lusty bawler out there,” said Pons.

“It would be less expensive,” agreed our client, licking his lips.

“Considerably. Particularly since I myself will supply the goose,” said Pons with the utmost savior faire.

“Done!” cried Snawley at once, as if he had suddenly got much the better of a bad bargain. “Done!” He drew back. “But since I have retained you, I leave it to you to invite him-for I will not!”

“Dinner at seven, Mr. Snawley?”

Our client nodded briskly. “As you like.”

“I will send around the goose in the morning.”

“There is no other fee, Mr. Pons! I have heard you aright? And you will dispose of that fellow out there?’ He inclined his head toward the street.

“I daresay he will not trouble you after tomorrow night,” said Pons.

“Then, since there is no further fee, you will not take it amiss if I do not drive you back? There is an underground nearby.”

“We will take it, Mr. Snawley.”

Snawley saw us to the door, the bracket of candles in his hand. At the threshold Pons paused.

“There must be nothing spared at dinner, Mr. Snawley,” he said. “We’ll want potatoes, dressing, vegetables, fruit, green salad, plum pudding-and a trifle more of that Amontillado.”

Our client sighed with resignation. “It will be done, though I may rue it.”

“Rue it you may,” said Pons cheerfully. “Good night, sir. And the appropriate greetings of the season to you.”

“Humbug! All humbug!” muttered our client, retreating into his house.

We went down the walk through the now much-thinned snowfall, and stood at its juncture with the street until the object of our client’s ire came around again. He was a stocky man with a good paunch on him, cherry-red cheeks and a nose of darker red, and merry little eyes that looked out of two rolls of fat, as it were. Coming close, he affected not to see us, until Pons strode out into his path, silencing his bawling of walnuts.

“Good evening, Mr. Auber.”

He started back, peering at Pons. “I don’t know ye, sir,” he said.

“But it is Mr. Auber, isn’t it? Mr. Micah Auber?”

Auber nodded hesitantly.

“Mr. Ebenezer Snawley would like your company at dinner tomorrow night at seven.”

For a long moment, mouth agape, Auber stared at him. “God bless my soul!” he said, finding his voice, “Did he know me, then?”