The Mistletoe Murder

by P. D. James

  Adam said: “I’ll go upstairs and keep watch on the room. You’d better wait for the Suffolk police.”

  There was no reason why he should keep watch on the room, and he half-expected them to protest. However, no one did and he climbed the stairs alone. He entered the bedroom and locked the door with the key which was still in the keyhole. Going over to the bed, he scrutinised the corpse carefully, smelt the ointment with a grimace of distaste, and bent over the body. It was apparent that Harkerville had applied the grease liberally to his scalp before going to bed. The hands were lightly clenched but he could detect in the right palm a wodge of Christmas pudding. Rigor mortis was just beginning in the upper part of the body, but he gently raised the stiffening head and studied the pillow.

  After examining the cracker he turned his attention to the note. Turning it over, he saw that the back of the paper was slightly brown as if it had been scorched. Going over to the immense grate, he saw that someone had been burning papers. There was a pyramid of white ash which still gave a faint heat to his exploring hand. The burning had been thorough except for one small segment of board with what looked like a unicorn’s horn, and a scrap of letter. The paper was thick and the few type-written words plain. He read: “eight hundred pounds not unreasonable considering.” There was no more and he left both fragments in place.

  To the right of the window, there was a heavy oak desk. It suggested that Cuthbert Harkerville had slept more peaceably with his important papers close to hand. The desk was unlocked but was completely empty except for some bundles of old receipted bills held together with rubber bands. The desktop and the mantelshelf were likewise empty. The huge wardrobe, smelling of mothballs, held only clothes.

  Adam decided to take a look at the adjoining rooms, not without qualms that this was trespass. The room occupied by Mrs. Dagworth was as bleakly unfurnished as a prison cell, the only remarkable feature a mouldy stuffed bear holding a brass tray. Her unopened case lay on a bed too narrow for comfort and with a single hard pillow.

  The room to the right was equally small, but the absent Mavis had at least imposed on it some trace of adolescent personality. Posters of film and pop stars were stuck on the walls. There was a battered but comfortable cane chair and the bed was covered with a quilted bedspread patterned with leaping lambs in pink and blue. The small rickety wardrobe was empty; Mavis had discarded her half-used make-up jars into the wastepaper basket and had slung on top of them a variety of old and soiled clothes.

  Adam returned to the main bedroom and completed his unsuccessful search for two missing objects.

  The village was four miles distant and it was half an hour before Constable Taplow arrived. He was a thickset middle-aged man, his natural bulk enhanced by the layers of clothing he considered necessary for a cycle ride in December. Despite the fact that the snow had subsided, he insisted on wheeling his bicycle into the hall, to the obvious but silent disapproval of the family, leant it with care against the wall and patted the saddle gently, as if stabling a horse.

  After Adam had introduced himself and explained his presence, Constable Taplow said: “I suppose you’ll be wanting to get on your way then. No point in hanging around. I’ll deal with this.”

  Adam said firmly: “I’ll come up with you. I’ve got the key. I thought it a prudent precaution to lock the door.”

  Constable Taplow took the key and seemed about to comment on the over-fussiness of the Met, but refrained. They went up together. Taplow regarded the body with mild disapproval, surveyed the contents of the table, sniffed at the jar of ointment and took up the note.

  “Seems plain enough to me. He couldn’t face another family Christmas.”

  “You’ve met the family before?”

  “Never set eyes on any of them, except for the deceased. It’s known that the family come to the hall every year but they don’t show their faces, no more than he ever does—that is, did.”

  Adam suggested mildly: “A suspicious death, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No, I wouldn’t, and I’ll tell you why. This is where local knowledge counts. The family are all mad, or as near mad as makes no odds. His father did just the same.”

  “Killed himself at Christmas?”

  “Guy Fawkes Night. Filled all his pockets with Catherine wheels and bangers, stuffed bloody great rockets round his belt, drank a whole bottle of whisky and ran straight into the bonfire.”

  “And went out with a bang, not a whimper. I hope there weren’t any children present.”

  “He went out with a bang, that’s for sure. And they don’t invite children to Harkerville Hall. You won’t find vicar bringing the carol singers round here tonight.”

  Adam felt that he had a duty to persevere. He said: “His desk is almost empty. Someone’s been burning papers. The two half-burnt scraps are interesting.”

  “Suicides usually burn papers. I’ll look at them in good time. The paper that counts is here. This is a suicide note by any reckoning. Thanks for waiting, Sarge. I’ll take over now.”

  But when they reached the hall Constable Taplow said, with an attempt at nonchalance: “Perhaps you’d drop me at the nearest telephone box. Better let CID have a look at this lot before they take the old gentleman away.”

  Adam finally turned the MG seaward in the comfortable assurance that he had done as much as duty and inclination had required. If the local CID wanted him, then they knew where to find him. The Curious Case of the Christmas Cracker—an appropriate title, he felt, for such a bizarre preliminary to Christmas—could safely be left to the Suffolk police.

  But if he had hoped for a peaceful evening, he was to be disappointed. He only had time to take a leisurely bath, unpack his case and settle himself before the driftwood fire with the first drink of the evening in his hand, when Inspector Peck knocked on the door. He was very different from Constable Taplow; young for his rank, with a sharp-featured expressive face under the dark hair, and apparently impervious to cold since he wore only slacks and jacket, his only concession to the December night a large multicoloured knitted scarf wound twice round his neck. He was gracefully apologetic to Miss Dalgliesh but wasted no such niceties on her nephew.

  “I’ve done a bit of checking up on you, Sergeant. Not easy on Christmas Eve, but someone at the Met was alive and sober. Apparently you’re the Inspector’s blue-eyed boy. They say you’ve got a brain between your ears and eyes in your head. You’re coming back with me to Harkerville Hall.”

  “Now, Sir?” Adam’s glance at the fire was eloquent.

  “Now, as at this moment, at once, immediately, pronto. Bring your car. I’d drive you there and bring you back, but I’ve a feeling I’m likely to be at the hall for some little time.”

  Night had fallen now. As Dalgliesh went to his car the air felt and smelt colder. The snow had finally ceased drifting down and a moon was reeling between the scudding clouds. At the hall they parked their cars side by side.

  The door of the hall was opened by Mrs. Dagworth, who, with one malevolent look, let them in silently, then disappeared towards the kitchen. As they mounted the stairs, Harkerville appeared.

  Looking up at them, he said querulously: “I thought you were going to have Uncle taken away, Inspector. It’s hardly decent to leave him in his present state. Surely the district nurse can come and lay him out? This is all extremely upsetting for my sister.”

  “All in good time, Sir. I’m waiting for the police surgeon and the photographer.”

  “Photographer? Why on earth should you want him photographed? I consider that positively indecent. I’ve half a mind to telephone the Chief Constable.”

  “You do that, Sir. I think you’ll find he’s with his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Scotland, but I expect he’ll be glad to hear from you. It’ll quite make his Christmas, I don’t wonder.”

  In the bedroom Inspector Peck said: “I suppose you’re going to tell me that the suicide note isn’t entirely convincing. I’m inclined to agree, but tell that to the
coroner. You’ve heard the family history?”

  “Some of it. I’ve heard about the ascension of grandfather.”

  “And he wasn’t the only one. The Harkervilles have an aversion to natural death. Their lives are unremarkable so they ensure that their deaths are spectacular. So what struck you particularly about this little charade?”

  Dalgliesh said: “A number of oddities, Sir. If this were a detective story, you could call it ‘The Twelve Clues of Christmas.’ It’s taken a little mental agility to get the number to twelve, but I thought it appropriate.”

  “Cut out the cleverness, laddie, and get to the facts.”

  “This supposed suicide note for a start. It reads to me like the last page of a letter to one or more of the family. The paper was originally folded twice to get it into the envelope. The back is slightly singed. Someone has tried to iron out the creases. It hasn’t been entirely successful; you can still see two faint marks. And then there’s the wording. This was to be Harkerville’s last Christmas. It suggests that he expected to suffer Gertrude’s cooking for the final time, so why kill himself on Christmas Eve?”

  “Changed his mind. Not unknown. What do you suggest the note means?”

  “That he was planning to get away from here, perhaps to go abroad. There’s a small segment of cardboard in the grate, with part of the head of a unicorn. You can just see the horn. I think someone burnt his passport, perhaps to conceal the fact that he’s recently renewed it. There must have been travel documents, too, but the family burnt those together with most of his papers. And there’s this scrap of half-burnt letter. It could be taken as a demand for money, but I don’t think it is. Look at the comma, Sir. There could have been other digits before the eight hundred pounds. For example, suppose it read ‘four hundred thousand, eight hundred pounds not unreasonable considering the amount of land.’ It could have been from an estate agent. Perhaps he was planning to sell up, add the proceeds to his existing fortune and say goodbye to this place for ever.”

  “Escaping to the sun? Could be. And his darling will be waiting for him?”

  “So she may be, but on the Costa Brava, not in Heaven. You should take a look next door at the maid’s room, Sir. Nothing of any value left in the wardrobe and a pile of old clothes dumped unceremoniously in the waste-paper basket. Mavis is probably even now sitting in the sun waiting for a call from the aged person of her heart, dreaming of a few years of pampered luxury together, and then the rest of her life as a wealthy widow. Perhaps that’s why he bothered with the hair restorer. It’s rather pathetic, really.”

  “You’ll never make Inspector, lad, if you don’t curb that imagination. As for the lass, she lives in the village. Easy enough to check whether she’s at home.”

  Adam said: “Three clues so far: the singed note, the half-burnt passport, the scrap of letter. And then there’s the ointment. Why bother with hair restorer if you’re planning suicide?”

  “Could be habit. Suicides don’t always act rationally. Well, the act itself is totally irrational. Why take the one option that cuts out all the other options? Still, I grant that plastering on that ointment was odd.”

  “And he plastered it on thickly, Sir. Clue number four, the stained pillow. Rigor was just beginning to set in when I first saw him but I lifted the head. The pillow is sticky with the stuff, much more so than the paper hat. The hat must have been put on after he was dead. Then there’s the cracker. If that was pulled here in the bedroom, where’s the toy? The motto’s in the cracker still but not the favour.”

  Inspector Peck said: “You’re not the only one to search. I asked the family to leave the kitchen for a while and sit in the drawing room. I found this under the dresser.” He put his hand in his pocket and took out a sealed plastic envelope. Inside was a cheap gaudy brooch. He said: “We’ll check with the manufacturers but I don’t think there’s much doubt where this came from. God knows why they didn’t pull the cracker in the bedroom, but some people are superstitious about making a noise in the presence of the dead. I’ll grant you the Clue of the Christmas Cracker, Sergeant.”

  “And what about the Clue of the Counterfeit Cook, Sir? Why would Harkerville instruct his nephew to advertise for one? He’s known to be mean, a miser, and the note makes it plain that it was usually Gertrude who cooked the indigestible Christmas dinners. I think Mrs. Dagworth was brought in, not last night but this morning, to provide that evidence about hearing the cracker pulled just after nine o’clock and to give the others an alibi. If she arrived with them last night, as they claim, why is her case lying unopened on her bed next door? And she stated that the note was in Harkerville’s handwriting. How did she know? It was Helmut Harkerville who claims he engaged her, not his uncle. And there’s another thing: you’ve seen what a mess that kitchen is in. When she made tea for us and got out the old biscuits she knew exactly where to find what she wanted. She’s worked in that kitchen before.”

  “When do you suggest she arrived?”

  “On this morning’s early bus. It was important, after all, that Cuthbert Harkerville never saw her. She must have been here before. I think the family met her at Saxmundham. The car may be out of commission now, but when I arrived I saw two sets of tyre marks quite plainly in my headlights. They’re obliterated by the snow now, but they were plain then.”

  “Pity you didn’t preserve them. They’re not much good as evidence now. Still, you didn’t know at the time there was anything suspicious about the death. I’ll give you two clues for the counterfeit cook. A bit risky, though, wasn’t it, putting themselves in the power of a stranger? Why not keep it in the family?”

  “I think they did keep it in the family. If you call Mrs. Dagworth Mrs. Helmut Harkerville, I think you might get a reaction. No wonder she’s so sour, waiting on the others isn’t exactly congenial.”

  “Well, go on Sergeant. We’re not up to number twelve yet.”

  “There’s the holly, Sir. The stem is extremely prickly. There’s no holly in this room, so someone must have brought it up, probably from the hall. If it were Cuthbert Harkerville, how did he manage to avoid pricking his fingers either when he carried it or when he pushed it through the buttonhole? And the stem of the holly isn’t sticky with ointment.”

  “He could have put the holly in place before he smeared that stuff over his scalp.”

  “But would it have stayed in place? It’s very loose in the buttonhole. I think it was put there after he was dead. It might be worth asking the counterfeit cook why her finger has a plaster. One point for the holly, Sir?”

  “Fair enough, I suppose. I agree it must have been sticky if he’d stuck it in the buttonhole after he’d applied the ointment. All right, Sergeant, I know what you’re going to say next. We’re not exactly daft in the Suffolk CID. I suppose you’re going to call it the Clue of the Christmas Pudding?”

  “It does seem appropriate, Sir. It’s obvious from examining the pudding—an unseasonably pale concoction I thought—that a piece has been gouged out of the top, not sliced. Someone stuck in a hand. If that hand was Cuthbert Harkerville’s, why isn’t there pudding under his nails? The only splodge of pudding is in his right palm. Someone smeared the palm after his death. It was a stupid error, but then the Harkervilles strike me as more ingenious than intelligent. I’m not sure that the final clue isn’t the strongest. Judging by the onset of rigor, he probably died between eight and nine, early anyway. I think the family put an overdose of his sleeping pills into the thermos of strong coffee knowing that they’d be fatal taken with a generous slug of whisky. So why were the ashes in the grate still warm when I examined the fire eight hours later? And, more important, where are the matches? And that, by my reckoning, brings the number up to a seasonal dozen.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, Sergeant. God knows how I got drawn into this arithmetical nonsense. We’ve got a dozen questions. Let’s see if we can get any answers.”

  The Harkervilles were in the kitchen sitting disconsolately round the la
rge central table. The cook was sitting with them but, as if anxious to show that this familiarity was unusual, almost sprang to her feet at their entrance. The wait had had its effect on the family. Adam saw that he and Inspector Peck were now facing three frightened people. Only Helmut attempted to hide his anxiety with bluster.

  “It’s time you explained yourself, Inspector. I demand that my uncle’s body be decently laid out and removed and the family left in peace.”

  Without replying, Peck looked at the cook. “You seem curiously familiar with the kitchen, Mrs. Dagworth. And perhaps you can explain why, if you arrived last night, your suitcase is still lying packed on your bed, and how you knew that the suicide note was in the deceased’s handwriting?”

  The questions, although mildly put, were more dramatic in their effect than Adam could have expected. Gertrude turned on the cook and screamed: “You stupid bitch! Can’t you do even the simplest thing without making a mess of it? It’s been the same ever since you married into this family.”

  Helmut Harkerville, trying to retrieve the situation said loudly: “Stop it. No one is to answer any more questions. I demand to see my solicitor.”

  “That, of course, is your right,” said Inspector Peck. “In the meantime, perhaps the three of you would be good enough to come with me to the station.”

  Amid the ensuing expostulations, accusations and counter-accusations, Adam murmured a brief goodbye to the Inspector and left them to it. He pulled back the car hood and drove in a rush of cold cleansing air towards the growing rhythmic moaning of the North Sea.

  Miss Dalgliesh had no objection to her nephew’s job, thinking it entirely proper that murderers should be caught, but on the whole she preferred to take no active interest in the process. This evening, however, curiosity overcame her. While Adam was helping to carry the boeuf bourguignon and winter salad to the table, she said: “I hope your evening wasn’t interrupted for nothing. Is the case concluded? What did you think of it?”