Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

And it was then that Auber, calculating that the time was right for it, turned to our client and said, “And now, if ye’ve no mind, I’d like a look at your collection of Dickens, Mr. Snawley.”

“I daresay you would,” said Snawley. “I have the largest such in the world.”

“It is you who says it.”

“I wait to hear you say it, too!”

Auber smiled and half closed his eyes. “If it is all that matters to ye, I will agree to it.”

“Hear! Hear!” cried Snawley, and got a little unsteadily to his feet and went over to his shelves, followed like a shadow by the faithful Pip, and with Auber’s eyes on him as if he feared that Snawley and his collection might escape him after all.

Snawley unlocked his cabinet and handed Pip a book or two, and carried another himself. They brought them to the table, and Snawley took one after the other of them and laid them down lovingly. They were inscribed copies of David Copperfield, Edwin Drood, and The Pickwick Papers. After Auber had fittingly admired and exclaimed over them, our client went back for more, and returned this time with copies of The Monthly Magazine containing Sketches by Boz, with interlineations in Dickens’s hand.

Pip kept the fire going on the hearth, and between this task and dancing attendance upon his master, he was continually occupied, going back and forth, to and fro, with the firelight flickering on his bony face and hands, and the candle flames leaping up and dying away to fill the room with grotesque shadows, as the four of us bent over one treasure after another, and the clock crept around from ten to eleven, and moved upon midnight. A parade of books and papers moved from the cabinet to the table and back to the cabinet again-letters in Dickens’s hand, letters to Dickens from his publishers, old drawings by Cruikshank and ‘Phiz’ of Dickens’ characters-Oliver Twist, Fagin, Jonas Chuzzlewit, Mr. Bumble, Little Amy Dorrit, Uriah Heep, Caroline Jellyby, Seth Pecksniff, Sam Weller, Samuel Pickwick, and many another-so that it was late when at last Snawley came to his recently acquired treasure, and brought this too to the table.

“And this, Mr. Auber, is the crown jewel, you might say, of my collection,” he said.

He made to turn back the cover, but Auber suddenly put forth a hand and held the cover down. Snawley started back a little, but did not take his own hands from his prized manuscript.

“Let me tell ye what it is, Mr. Snawley,” said Auber. “It is a manuscript in Dickens’s hand-a part of that greater work known as Master Humphrey’s Clock, and specifically that portion of it which became The Old Curiosity Shop. But this portion of it was deleted from the book. It is a manuscript of fourteen and a half pages, with Dickens’s signature beneath the title on the first page.”

Snawley regarded him with wide, alarmed eyes. “How can you know this, Mr. Auber?”

“Because it was stolen from me two months ago.”

A cry of rage escaped Snawley. He pulled the precious manuscript away from Auber’s restraining hand.

“It is mine!” he cried. “I bought it!”

“For how much?”

“Two hundred pounds.”

“The precise sum I paid for it a year ago.”

“You shall not have it,” cried Snawley.

“I mean to have it,” said Auber, springing up.

Pons, too, came to his feet. “Pray, gentlemen, one moment. You will allow, I think, that I should have a few words in this matter. Permit me to have that manuscript for a few minutes, Mr. Snawley.”

“On condition it comes back to my hand, sir!”

“That is a condition easy for me to grant, but one the fulfilment of which you may not so readily demand.”

“This fellow speaks in riddles,” said Snawley testily, as he handed the manuscript to Pons.

Pons took it, opened the cover, and picked up the first page of the manuscript, that with the signature of Dickens on it. He handed it back to Snawley.

“Pray hold it up to the light and describe the watermark, Mr. Snawley.”

Our client held it before the candles. After studying it for a few moments he said hesitantly, “Why, I believe it is a rose on a stem, sir.”

“Is that all, Mr. Snawley?”

“No, no, I see now there are three letters, very small, at the base of the stem-KTC.”

Pons held out his hand for the page, and took up another. This one he handed to Auber. “Examine it, Mr. Auber.”

Auber in turn held it up to the candles. “Yes, we’ve made no mistake, Mr. Snawley. It is a rose, delicately done-a fine rose. And the letters are clear-KTC, all run together.”

“That is the watermark of Kehnaway, Teape & Company, in Aldgate,” said Pons.

“I know of them,” said Snawley. “A highly reputable firm.”

“They were established in 1871,” continued Pons. “Mr. Dickens died on June 8, 1870.”

For a moment of frozen horror for the collectors there was not a sound.

“It cannot be!” cried our client then.

“Ye cannot mean it!” echoed Auber.

“The watermark cannot lie, gentlemen,” said Pons dryly, “but alas! the script can.”

“I bought it in good faith,” said Auber, aghast.

“And had it stolen in good faith,” said Pons, chuckling.

“I bought it from a reputable dealer,” said Auber.

“From the shop of Jason Brompton, in Edgware Road,” said Pons. “But not from him-rather from his assistant.”

Auber gazed at Pons in astonishment. “How did ye know?”

“Because there is only one forger in London with the skill and patience to have wrought this manuscript,” said Pons. “His name is Dennis Golders.”

“I will charge him!” cried Auber.

“Ah, I fear that cannot be done. Mr. Golders left Brompton’s last January, and is now in His Majesty’s service. I shall see, nevertheless, what I can do in the matter, but do not count on my success.”

Snawley fell back into his chair.

Auber did likewise.

Pip Scratch came quietly forward and poured them both a little sherry.

Midnight struck.

“It is Christmas day, gentlemen,” said Pons. “It is time to leave you. Now you have had a sad blow in common, perhaps you may find something to give you mutual pleasure in all these shelves! Even collectors must take the fraudulent with the genuine.”

Snawley raised his head. “You are right, Mr. Pons. Pip! Pip!” he shouted, as if Pip Scratch were not standing behind him. “Put on your coat and bring out the cab. Drive the gentlemen home!”

Our client and his visitor accompanied us to the door and saw us into the hansom cab Pip Scratch had brought down the driveway from the coach house.

“Merry Christmas, gentlemen!” cried Pons, leaning out.

“It burns my lips,” said Snawley with a wry smile. “But I will say it.”

He wished us both a Merry Christmas, and then, arm in arm, the two collectors turned and went a trifle unsteadily back into the house.

“This has been a rare Christmas, Parker, a rare Christmas, indeed,” mused Pons, as we rode toward our quarters through the dark London streets in our client’s hansom cab.

“I doubt we’ll ever see its like again,” I agreed.

“Do not deny us hope, Parker,” replied Pons. He cocked his head in my direction and looked at me quizzically. “Did I not see you eyeing the clock with some apprehension in the course of the past half hour?”

“You did, indeed,” I admitted. “I feared-I had the conviction, indeed I did-that the three of them would vanish at the stroke of midnight!”

Well known for his “locked-room” mysteries, John Dickson Carr was a master practitioner of the true detective story, and played fair with the reader. Under his own name and a pseudonym, Carter Dickson, he produced a long list of short stories, mysteries and historical novels, several of which were made into movies and radio plays. Although most of his works were set in England, Carr was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, the son of a criminal lawyer. The best of his works weave a marvelous sense of time and place into their fabric.