‘Third point: how did the killer lure Harry out onto that walkway, especially when he was still removing his costume and had the beard on?’
‘He might have been stabbed in the office below,’ Lisa said, her voice a mere whisper.
I shook my head. ‘No midget could have carried Harry’s body up that ladder. He went up there by himself, with his murderer, and with the fake beard still on, because it was someone he trusted.’
‘You’re forgetting I was with you when he was killed.’
‘Correction – you were with me when his body fell from the walkway. An hour ago on the road I passed a boy fishing off a bridge. And I remembered you picking up a reel of fishing line in the workroom. It hadn’t been left by a child at all. You simply needed it for your scheme. You went back upstairs, called your brother up to the walkway on some pretext, stabbed him, and left his body right at the edge where it could easily be slid beneath the railing. You tied one end of the fishing line to his body and dropped the other end over the side of the lighthouse to the ground. It was nearly dark at the time, and I didn’t see it when I went out. You called me back because you needed me for your alibi. I suppose you’d been waiting for days for the right person to happen along just at dusk. You pulled on the line and Harry’s body rolled off the catwalk, nearly hitting us as it fell to the ground.’
‘If that’s true, what happened to the fishing line?’
‘I missed it in the dim light when I examined the body. Then when I went upstairs to radio for help, you simply untied it from the body and hid it away.’
‘Why would I kill my own brother?’
‘Because you discovered he was responsible for sending your father to prison. It was Harry who printed that phoney stock prospectus and tried to defraud investors with dreams of an amusement park. Your father was covering up for him. When you learned about that, and learned that Harry was involved in the bootlegging scheme with Paul Lane, it was more than you could bear.’
The fight had gone out of her. ‘At first I couldn’t believe the things he’d done – letting Daddy go to prison for his crime! And then this thing with Lane! I—’
‘How did it happen?’ I asked quietly.
Her voice was sombre. ‘I waited a week for someone like you to come by – someone alone. Then I called him up there and gave him one last chance. I told him he had to confess to the police and get Daddy out of prison or I’d kill him. He laughed and made a grab for the dagger and I stabbed him. I used the fishing line just like you said. It was strong but thin, and almost invisible in the fading light.’ She looked away. ‘I thought I was lucky you came along, but I guess luck doesn’t run in the family.’
‘You have to tell Springer,’ I said. ‘He’s looking for that waiter. If you let an innocent man go to prison, you’d be as wrong as your brother was.’
‘All that planning,’ she said. ‘For nothing.’
‘That was how it ended,’ Dr Sam concluded. ‘I wasn’t particularly proud of my part in the affair, and I never told the folks back in Northmont about it. When my nurse April asked about the tape on my ribs I told her I’d fallen down. But by the time Christmas came we had snow, and it was a merry holiday for all of us. Then early the following year came that business at the cemetery – which didn’t involve a ghost. But that’s for next time.’
Credits
‘The Man with the Sack’ by Margery Allingham, reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Margery Allingham.
‘The Adventure of the Red Widow’ by Adrian Conan Doyle & John Dickson Carr from The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes © The Estate of Adrian Conan Doyle and the Estate of John Dickson Carr, 1952. Grateful acknowledgement is made to Conan Doyle Estate Ltd and David Higham Associates.
‘Camberwell Crackers’ © Anthony Horowitz, 2018.
‘A Problem in White’ by Nicholas Blake, reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (www.petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of The Estate of Nicholas Blake.
‘Loopy’ by Ruth Rendell from The New Girlfriend and Other Stories © Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd, 1985, is reprinted by permission of United Agents.
‘Morse’s Greatest Mystery’ © Colin Dexter, 1987. Reproduced with permission of the Licensor through PLSclear.
‘The Jar of Ginger’ © Gladys Mitchell, 1950, reprinted by permission of the author, care of Gregory and Company.
‘Rumpole and the Old Familiar Faces’ © John Mortimer, 2001, London. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
‘The Problem of Santa’s Lighthouse’ © Edward D. Hoch, 1931, reprinted by permission of the Estate care of Sternig & Byrne Literary Agency.
While every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders of each story, the author and publishers would be grateful for information where they have been unable to trace them, and would be glad to make amendments in further editions.
A Very Murderous Christmas Page 17
