The Christmas Egg

by Mary Kelly

  He set some coffee on the stove and went out of the kitchen, up the small spiral staircase to the bedroom, where he switched on the light and the fire. The clothes, carefully laid out, looked rather pleasing. He began to undress, reflecting on the willful folly, as it seemed to him, of the committee of the North-West London Opera Group, which had decreed that this year the annual performance should take place a few days after Christmas. Ticket sales were reported to be encouraging, but he doubted whether, when the time came, more than half of the ticket holders would have strength to rise from their armchair torpor. He had seldom been so pleased, however, by the choice of opera and the part assigned to him.

  His life was taking a heavy dose of things Russian at this time, although the Karukhins were, technically, Russian no longer. He had heard from the Home Office. Olga Karukhina had applied for British nationality in September, 1926, and had duly received the certificate, in which the name of her grandson, a minor, was also entered, and had duly taken the oath of allegiance. Ivan had not repudiated his status on attaining majority. He was British, claiming British rights, protected by British laws and justice, and subject to the same.

  Brett’s hopes had risen. At least four British subjects must have known the Princess well enough to vouch for her character. He’d asked for their names and addresses. All of them had been resident in Stockholm in 1926, three of them members of the Foreign Service, the fourth a doctor. They were elderly then; now they were probably dead. Yet once here she would have had to advertise her intention to become a British citizen. Surely some Russians, immigrés or émigrés, whichever way they looked on themselves, would have seen that or have had it brought to their notice? Why hadn’t they sought her out? The Princess, he remembered, had not been loved.

  Brett sighed. The case had reached a point at which he could do nothing but wait, hoping that lines already flung out would take catches. He was grateful for the lull insofar as it had permitted him to come home; its effect was nevertheless depressing after the frustrations of the afternoon. One of Majendie’s partners was nursing a chill; another was in New York; and the last was already away for Christmas. Mrs. Minelli was all that Beddoes had said and no more. The only morsel of interest she had to offer him was that Mrs. Karukhina’s habit of locking the door was of comparatively recent origin, though she could not say exactly when it had started. Apart from this, there was no information—and no Ivan. But they were finished searching in the waters of the canal. Ivan was not there, at least not in that section of it.

  Ivan Ilarionovich Karukhin. The old headmaster at Esher remembered him as a sickly boy, often absent; his character as weak as his body, though in no way vicious; his mental caliber low. At fourteen he could write but not spell, and was capable of only simple reading and arithmetic. The headmaster had exerted himself on Ivan’s behalf because he could not help pitying so timorous, lonely, and neglected a boy, dressed always in other children’s castoffs, whose only relative was the old grandmother who had never stirred from their room since Ivan started school and who had imposed on him from the age of six the entire task of shopping for supplies.

  All in all, Brett was not surprised that the pathologists who had worked on Princess Olga’s corpse had cautiously concluded that appearances were not so far inconsistent with barbiturate poisoning. The cocoa in the mugs was still with the analysts, but Brett didn’t feel he had to wait for what they might tell him. One of his lines was cast to find out whether, when, where, or how Ivan had acquired sleeping tablets. That would take time, unless Ivan’s stupidity had made it easy for them. Brett didn’t care how long it took. As far as he was concerned, the death of Olga Vassilievna was an incident in the course of a case already begun. Olga Vassilievna, Princess Karukhina. There was a parallel, he thought, with The Queen of Spades—an old Russian aristocrat dead in her bedroom for the sake of a profitable secret.

  He surveyed himself in his mirror. The costume wasn’t at all bad. He added the hat, and was prepared to twirl into some of his prescribed antics when the doorbell rang.

  He hesitated for a second or two, conscious of his ludicrous appearance; then he went out of the bedroom and down the stairs. If the caller were a friend it wouldn’t matter what sort of figure he cut, and if it were a stranger it would matter still less. Nightingale didn’t think it could be anyone who knew them well, because the ring had come from the lower door, although he remembered that it was open and the stairs lit. He crossed the hall, opened the door, and looked down.

  He was so taken aback by what he saw that for a moment he couldn’t put a name to the girl, although he recognized her. He knew he had seen her recently, but not where he had seen her.

  “Good evening,” he called. “Won’t you come up?”

  She shot a swift glance up the stairs, and he knew who she was: Miss Cole, the girl from Majendie’s.

  “Good evening,” he repeated as she arrived at the top of the stairs. He tried to sound less puzzled than he felt.

  “Good evening.” The words were muttered, almost inaudible. With what seemed to be great reluctance she raised her eyes, whereupon her diffident frown lightened into a fixed stare of astonishment.

  “Sorry about these,” said Brett, recalling that she was receiving her first full view of the costume. “I was trying them on. Come in.” He closed the door behind her and turned around.

  “The thing is,” she said quickly, “you dropped a glove in the shop this morning, and I’ve brought it back to you.”

  He was at once enlightened and even more perplexed.

  “Yes, I found it on the floor near the case,” she went on at the same speed. “It must have gotten pushed off the top by the tray while you were looking at cameos. Or else you knocked it down without noticing while you were writing the check. Anyway . . .”

  She opened her handbag, fumbling a little, and took out the glove, which, old and rubbed as it was, had been wrapped in a sheet of tissue paper.

  “Thank you,” said Brett, taking it and stifling a desire to laugh. Majendie’s carried their personal service to outrageous lengths. A strong smell of coffee reached his nose. “Good Lord! I forgot. Excuse me . . .” He dashed into the kitchen. The coffee was in no danger, only bubbling rather frantically. He lowered the heat and went back to the hall.

  She was standing just where he had left her. Her eyes—darting apparently habitual nervous sulks—were even brighter than they had appeared in the shop, and her cheeks were rosier; probably, Brett thought, on account of the cold.

  “I was making coffee,” he said. “You’ll stay for some?”

  “Please don’t trouble . . .”

  “There’s no trouble,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t even have to make it. My wife left it ready for me. Please stay, if you’ve time.”

  “All right. Yes, I’ve got time,” she said awkwardly. “Thank you very much.”

  Having seen her comfortably settled, he permitted himself a quiet grin of congratulation. The evening had taken a pleasant turn, thanks to his inspired impulse. He hung up her coat, which was soft and warm and pale pink. A coat of that quality would cost her at least a month’s wages. He looked at the label; Majendie’s junior must be only nominally independent of indulgent parents. His eye was caught by a name professionally embroidered on the silk lining. Stephanie Cole. Stephanie.

  Still smiling, Brett went into the kitchen and started to set a tray at high speed. He caught sight of the concert ticket on top of the refrigerator and his smile grew a shade scornful.

  When he edged through the door with the tray, she stood up quickly.

  “Can I do anything?” she asked.

  “Clear a space on the small table and pull it close to your chair.”

  He stood watching her. She was dressed as if for a party in a black silk skirt and a scoop-necked blouse knitted in black wool that sparkled. A gold locket hung from a chain around her neck. Her hair was drawn through a ring clip and left to hang in a straight switch almost to her waist. She looked up. />
  “I think I should hardly have known you this evening,” he said quickly. “After the braids, the gray dress . . .”

  “Long hair gets untidy at work. And everyone has to wear that gray, at least, the women—a sort of uniform.”

  “It’s the dress of a stage Puritan,” he said, setting down the tray.

  At last, suddenly, she smiled, a cheek-rippling minx-like smile accompanied by a downcast glance.

  Somewhat thoughtfully Brett indicated the cream pitcher and she nodded.

  “I hope you didn’t have too cold a journey,” he said, pouring the coffee with care. “Did you have far to come?”

  “Sanderstead.”

  “What?” Brett nearly dropped the pot. “Do you mean to tell me there’s no one at Majendie’s who lives on this side of London who could have brought me an old, lost glove?”

  She was silent, blushing slightly, and showing a trace of her resentful look. It occurred to Brett that Majendie’s had sacrificed to their punctilio the person least in a position to protest.

  “But surely,” he went on, “they meant you to come here from Fitch Street?”

  “Majendie’s didn’t send me,” she said. “I came by myself.”

  “Oh,” said Brett, and handed her the cup. His head was filled with pelting queries, which he decided for the present to ignore.

  “Are you an actor?” she asked, tipping a heaped spoonful of sugar into her cup.

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to explain the reason for his outlandish garments, yet not to do so would be too pointed a snub of a purely natural question. “No,” he said, “I belong to an amateur opera club.”

  She didn’t seem unduly surprised. “What opera are you doing and what part have you got?” she asked.

  “Love for Three Oranges. I’m Truffaldino.” He paused, of two minds whether or not further information would be necessary or acceptable.

  “Love for Three Oranges,” she repeated. “That’s Russian, isn’t it? Prokofiev? It just happens to be something I’ve heard Geoffrey talk about. He works in Kellett’s,” she explained, “the record shop, you know. He quite often has lunch with me.”

  “Does he work in the front of the shop, selling?”

  “Yes.”

  “In his middle twenties, one eye blue and the other brown?”

  Stephanie stared. “How did you guess?”

  “He looks like a Geoffrey.”

  “Oh,” said Stephanie rather uncertainly. “Of course, he knows everything there is to know about music. He’s rather a bore, actually. Not because of what he talks about,” she added quickly, “but the way he says it. All the time I feel he’s preaching—no, not that exactly. Thinking he’s awfully kind to teach me.”

  “Patronizing,” Brett suggested, guiltily recollecting his own attitude to her probable knowledge of Love for Three Oranges. “Condescending.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I can never think of the right word. Of course, he’s not too bad. Anyway it’s awfully hard to avoid talking to people once they’ve actually sat down beside you and said hullo.”

  “Try going somewhere else for lunch.”

  “What, and waste my luncheon vouchers? I shouldn’t have much left after I’d paid my fares.”

  A certain edge to her lively voice reminded Brett of Beddoes; and there was a similarity of accent, no doubt a coincidence, although Beddoes lived not far from Sanderstead.

  “You like working at Majendie’s?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s all right. Rather boring. Tidying the office shelves, typing address labels—two fingers, I can’t really type—just doing any odd thing that nobody else can be bothered with. I wouldn’t mind if I could have more to do with the things in the shop. They’re lovely, some of them. But the only time I get a look is when I have to help the packers or dust the cases. Or get something out of the window for Mr. Lowrie; he’s so fat.”

  “I don’t see what more you could have to do with them, short of selling them to other people, in which case you wouldn’t see them for long. After all, I doubt whether even Mr. Majendie sits in front of a piece of porcelain in rapt contemplation.”

  “He does, you know,” said Stephanie. “I’ve seen him in his little office, when the door’s been open, sitting staring at something on his desk; not porcelain, usually jewelry. You can see he’s quite gone. I don’t know how he can bear to part with all that.”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t. I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to hang on to something he particularly fancied.” Brett reflected that Majendie’s house, though far from sparsely furnished, had not struck him as being stocked with collector’s pieces. But he could have a massive collection that was not displayed.

  “He has a collection,” Stephanie said, causing Brett to jump at the echo of his thought. “Down in Kent. It’s rather odd, that. His house isn’t far from my aunt’s farm. Only how I found out was when I was helping Mrs. Millet to tidy one of the chests in his room. She went out and he came in and started talking away to me. He’s awfully sweet, you know. He asked me what I was doing at Christmas—this was only the other morning—and I told him we always went down to this farm at Pettinge. ‘Pettinge, near Folkestone?’ he said. ‘But that’s only a few miles from my own home. You know Barton, Miss Cole?’ and so on and so on. He said I must call during the holidays and he’d show me his collection, said it would be interesting and useful to me. But I don’t suppose he really meant it.”

  “Don’t you?” said Brett. “I do.” He was thinking that if Stephanie had been less attractive the offer would never have been made. “You’re not unseen down among the cases and cupboards, and you won’t always stay there. By the way, what is a Chaffers?”

  “A big fat reference book of marks on porcelain. Why?”

  “Nothing. After all, they have to watch you for a while, to make sure you’re not completely dense or butter-fingered before they let you . . .”

  “Oh, don’t, don’t! I’ve had all that from Daddy. Probation, work your way up, learning the ropes, Rome not built in a day, et cetera. I suppose by the time I’m an old crow of forty they might let me into the holy of holies.”

  “More coffee?”

  “No thank you. It was awfully nice coffee though.” She put her cup on the tray, and her eyes rested not for the first time on the photograph of Christina which stood on the bookcase. “Is that your wife?”

  “A photograph of her,” said Brett idiotically.

  She shot him a well-merited look. “Is she English?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “So dark!”

  “She doesn’t look exactly like that now,” Brett volunteered. “She had her hair cut short a few weeks ago.”

  “What a shame! It suits her in that bun.”

  “I’m sorry you haven’t met her,” said Brett. “She’s gone to hear the new cantata. Has Geoffrey mentioned it?”

  “If he has, I wasn’t listening. Didn’t you want to go too?”

  “I was going, but I came home too late.”

  She looked at him in frank curiosity. “What’s your work?”

  “Guess!”

  “That’s just the trouble,” she complained. “I can’t. Does your wife work too?”

  “She’s a singer.”

  “Good heavens! What sort of singer?”

  “Chiefly of opera. She’s a mezzo-soprano. You can ask Geoffrey if he’s heard of Christina Gallen, but he may not know her. She was in Germany till this summer, and she hasn’t sung here since she came home, just taken a rest and looked around. But I think she’s getting tired of doing nothing.”

  He wished ardently that Christina were at home. She was adept at the sweet dispatch of lingering visitors. Pleasant as it was to talk and listen to Stephanie, he had to consider the length of her journey home and the fact that it was already quite late.

  “Do you go from Victoria?” he asked crudely.

  She looked reluctantly at the clock. “As a matter of fact I came to Chari
ng Cross,” she said.

  “Tattenham Corner line and change. All right, I’ll bring the car around.”

  “Oh no, please don’t bother,” she said embarrassed. “I came on the tube to Camden Town. It’s only a little way.”

  “Not so little. And why walk?”

  “But you mustn’t,” she protested, not very convincingly. He ignored this, and went out to the hall. As he lifted her coat from the peg he saw his glove lying on the table. Thoughtfully he picked it up.

  “Are you going out like that?”

  He turned around. She had followed him out of the room and was regarding him with an air of incredulous delight. He became aware of his gaudy Truffaldino clothes.

  “No one will see,” he said, holding the coat for her, not too close to him, but on the other hand not too far away.

  “But won’t you be cold?” She slipped her arms into the sleeves and raised a hand to flick her hair free of the collar, not quite succeeding, so that a few strands clung to the downy material and straggled across her shoulder. Brett resisted the temptation to set this to rights. Her hair was very pretty, evenly fair, glittering in its cleanness. There was no wave to it, as there had been in Christina’s when she let it down. Stephanie’s switch hung straight, marked only by the tiny kinks which constant plaiting imparts.

  Brett rather absently unhooked his coat and put it on. “At least I have my glove now.” He held it in the palm of his hand. “How did you do it?”

  “What?” she parried.

  “Get hold of it, know it was mine, find out where to bring it, everything. I’m just curious.”

  “I found it this morning. After you’d gone, I had to dust the glass shelf in that case. Did you notice there was a patch of dust on it? I didn’t think anyone would, except Mr. Emmanuel. Anyway I knelt down to open the back of the case and put my duster on the floor, and when I picked it up I saw the edge of the glove sticking out near the leg of the case. It must have fallen off the top and got kicked under either by me or Mr. Emmanuel. There’s only about four inches between the bottom of the case and the carpet. You couldn’t have seen it lying there.”