Murder On Christmas Eve

by G. K. Chesterton

  But the General, with a tackle reminiscent of the days when he had been the best wing three-quarter in the country, had already brought to the floor Lord Acrise’s secretary, Snewin.

  The Four Seasons

  Michael Innes

  The archdeacon had told us a ghost story, and as the polite murmurs of interest and appreciation died away our hostess threw a log in the fire. It was quite a small log, but nevertheless the action committed us to a further sleepy, even if very tolerably comfortable half-hour. And this prompted one of the younger people to a question, the precise phrasing of which was perhaps a shade lacking in tact, ‘And now,’ she asked, ‘couldn’t we have a really exciting one?’

  ‘A mystery story,’ another girl said. ‘A murder in a sealed room, and then some frightfully cunning detection, and all ending up in a terribly thrilling chase.’

  ‘That is just what Sir John could give us.’ Our hostess turned to Appleby. ‘You wouldn’t be so unkind as to refuse?’

  For a moment the Assistant Commissioner was silent, so that I wondered whether he was going to contrive some polite excuse. A long career at Scotland Yard had provided him with plenty of horrific material, and there had been occasions on which I had known him come out with it forthrightly enough. But he had old-fashioned ideas on what was suitable for mixed company. So I wasn’t very surprised by his words when he presently did speak.

  ‘Do you know, I’m afraid that positively nothing in the murderous way comes into my head. But an affair that had its moment of mystery – well, I think I can manage that.’

  ‘Only a moment of it?’ The girl who had required excitement was reproachful.

  Appleby shook his head. ‘Oh – what I shall tell you was abundantly mysterious. But mystery, you know, is another matter. One is lucky ever to get a glimpse of it.’ Appleby paused, and it was plain that he spoke seriously. Then he told us his tale.

  ‘John and Elizabeth Fray were old friends of my wife’s family, and for some years we used to spend a week with them just before Christmas. The party would be rather like this one, and the house was similar, too – which is no doubt what has put the incident I am going to describe into my mind. Fray Manor rambled in an easy, unassuming fashion over a good deal of ground and back through several centuries. The oldest bit was undoubtedly at the top. You may judge that to be a good mysterious touch at the start, although I hasten to add that it has no particular relevance for my story.

  ‘Well then, there, at the top of the house, was a fine late-Elizabethan Long Gallery, with a magnificent view through high, grey-mullioned windows. Not your sort of view, though. Fray is in the Fen Country; and the house looks out over level fields stretching to the horizon, with here and there a canal or windmill or church tower, and everywhere an enormous sky.

  ‘But there was another particular in which the set-up at Fray isn’t to be compared with this.’ And here Appleby turned to our hostess with a smile. ‘Neither John nor Elizabeth had the sort of grasp you and Hugh possess of family history – and particularly of family possessions. I don’t mean that they were indifferent to John’s inheritance – far from it. But they were vague, and I think felt that through all past and all future time Fray had been and would be the same. In point of fact, there were ominous signs that they were mistaken, and the family fortunes were altogether shakier than they understood.

  ‘I used to doubt whether their small son, Robin, would much mend matters. For Robin too was vague – although in what might be called a potentially more distinguished way. He was a shy child, but with some hidden flame in him – of passion, of imagination: one couldn’t tell what. Certainly he was more likely to add something to the ideal than to the practical world. I’m afraid that I can’t describe him better than that – which is a pity, since my story turns on him.’

  ‘Robin Fray is its hero?’ The Archdeacon asked this. And Appleby nodded. ‘Yes. Not, I’m glad to say, the tragic hero. Although in a sense, it was a near thing.’

  ‘I don’t need to tell you much about the house-party. It wasn’t large, and we nearly all were friends of long standing. But there were three exceptions. Miss Shibley was an elderly woman who painted dogs, and John Fray’s admiration for this accomplishment was so great that he had made Elizabeth invite her to stop, pretty well out of the blue. Then there was a fellow called Habgood, who appeared to do free-lance articles on country houses for the magazines. Finally, and in rather a different category, there was an American cousin, Charles Fray.

  ‘The actual cousinship must have been extremely remote, since the American branch of the family had been established in New England for many generations. But I was amused to notice that Charles knew far more about the family history than John did. Not that Charles obtruded his knowledge. He was an observant, rather diffident bachelor. It was with some surprise that I gathered he was a highly successful business executive and extremely wealthy. He was due to conclude his visit a couple of days after my own arrival. I was sorry about this, because he seemed to me a thoroughly nice fellow.

  ‘I’ve mentioned the Long Gallery. We had tea there on the last afternoon of Charles Fray’s stay, and it happened that he and I made a little tour of inspection of the paintings lining one side of the place. There were a great many of them, although if Frays had ever had luck on their continental wanderings, and brought home a Titian or a Rubens, it had long since gone to the sale room. But there is often a mild charm in a collection of mediocre pictures that have accreted over some centuries in that sort of house, and my American acquaintance was clearly delighted with this record of his English relatives’ artistic tastes.

  ‘There was one painting in particular that he paused before. For some moments I couldn’t see why. It was a small autumnal landscape with figures, executed in the Flemish taste of the late sixteenth century, which would have been pleasing enough if the quality of the painting hadn’t been rather notably poor. What was represented was a bleak, level scene with a windmill in the middle distance and the towers of a tiny town closing the horizon. In the foreground was the gable of a house, with an attic window out of which a small boy was gazing rather disconsolately at the prospect. I had just taken this in when Charles Fray touched my arm and pointed across the Gallery. I saw his point. There, through the large Tudor window, was an actual landscape very like the painted one we had been glancing at. It was possible to guess at once what had prompted some bygone Fray to make this particular purchase. But that, at the moment, wasn’t all. At the real window our small friend Robin was himself gazing wistfully out over the bare fields. He and the boy in the picture, one could feel, were both longing for a gorgeous fall of snow.’

  Appleby paused on this. The Archdeacon, whose successfully accomplished ghost story gave him the status of a performer who had retired into the wings, judged it proper to offer a word of encouragement. ‘A pleasing incident,’ he said. ‘It makes a picture in itself.’

  ‘No doubt. But it was then handled a shade heavily – chiefly by Miss Shibley, the woman who painted dogs. She came up at that moment, and I pointed out the correspondence that had attracted us. She brought it into general notice, and even teased Robin a little. She asked him if he knew the painting was a magic painting, and that it would never, never snow again outside until it had snowed in the painting first. It would have been difficult to tell what Robin made of this. I thought Charles Fray looked a little startled, and that at the same time he was watching the child curiously. Then he turned the conversation by asking John whether he knew anything about the origin of the Flemish painting.

  ‘But John, of course, was as vague as usual. He had once been told some story about it, which had entirely gone out of his head. He did remember that when his father died there had been some reason for having it specially looked at by the fellow who came down and valued everything. It hadn’t proved to be worth much.

  ‘Habgood, the guest who went round writing up country houses, took a hand at this point. That is to say, he peered at the paintin
g with a good deal of curiosity, and then rather baldly remarked that its owner was certainly right, and that it was artistically worthless. I believe John Fray was slightly nettled; probably he liked the thing just because it had a smack of his own familiar landscape; and the incident was closed by some other guest having the good sense to cause a diversion.

  ‘The next morning Charles Fray took his departure. I remember him looking up at the sky as he prepared to step into his car, and saying – in rather a whimsical tone – something about snow coming soon. It was true that that great sky appeared heavy with it. But certainly not a flake had fallen.

  ‘And now I come to the sudden crisis of the affair. What remained of the party was gathered in the drawing-room shortly after lunch when Robin burst in upon us like a small madman. “It’s come!” he shouted. “It’s come, it’s come, it’s come!” His eyes were blazing, and as he stared at us it happened that for a second I met his gaze directly. You remember my saying that there was a moment not simply of the mysterious, but of mystery, in the business? Well, this was it. The boy had met a mystery. He had met the real thing. And he was exalted.

  ‘But now his mother was pulling him up – gently enough, but decidedly. “Robin dear, don’t be so noisy. And what has come?”

  ‘“The snow. It’s come, I tell you!”

  ‘I think we all turned and looked through the window. The sky was more leaden than ever – but still no snow was falling. And suddenly, the boy laughed – quite wildly. “Sillies!” he shouted. “Dear old sillies! Not outside. In the picture. Don’t you remember? It has to be in the picture –”

  ‘There was an awkward silence. Some of us, I imagine, borne of us, I imagine, supposed the child to be delirious, and the more obtuse may have concluded that it was all some sort of impertinent joke. I could see Robin’s parents exchange an alarmed glance. They were simple souls remember, and probably regarded their boy as being at best dangerously dreamy and fanciful.

  ‘Habgood was the first person to produce what looked like a sensible reaction. “I suppose,” he said, “that somebody may have been perpetrating a trick up there? I’ll go and see.” And then he turned to Robin. “There’s often a good deal of magic in pictures, you know. But it doesn’t always last.” He gave the boy a kindly pat on the shoulder, and left the room.

  ‘For some seconds we were all silent. And then somebody gave a little involuntary exclamation, and pointed to the window. The first flakes were coming down.’

  Our hostess gave a deft kick at her small log, and flame flickered up around it. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘there was magic in the picture.’

  Appleby nodded. ‘I was hoping so, too. And I was in possession, you know, of an important piece of evidence.’ ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Just that single glance of the boy’s. To a policeman, a wink – or call it the absolute absence of one – ought to be as good as a nod, any day. Somehow it suddenly struck us that we’d all better follow Habgood up to the Long Gallery. I said so, pretty vigorously – and then led the way, with Robin’s hand in mine.

  ‘As we mounted the final flight of stairs, Habgood came down to meet us. He glanced at the boy, and for a moment he just didn’t appear to know what to say. It was uncomfortable, as you may guess. And then he found what wasn’t a bad tone – light, but not in the least condescending or facetious. “It’s gone. Robin. It’s gone, as it came. It’s true, isn’t it, that all snow doesn’t lie?”

  ‘The boy said nothing, but I felt his hand tremble, and I saw that he had gone very pale. Suddenly he gave a tug; I let him go; and he ran to the far end of the Gallery where the picture hung. By the time he got to the end of that long vista he looked quite comically – or tragically – small.

  ‘When we came up with him he was very still, gazing at the familiar, the mediocre, the untransformed autumnal painting – hanging as it had always hung on the known, predictable wall. He seemed to have no disposition to cry, and for a moment nobody had anything to say. Then some worthy woman began talking nervously to Elizabeth Fray about tricks of light, and what a charming fancy of Robin’s it had been. Outside, the snow was still falling.

  ‘I looked at the little painting, and suddenly I was quite sure that there should indeed be snow there too. This wasn’t entirely intuition. I had, in fact, been doing my best to think. And now I asked John Fray to close the doors at either end of the Gallery, and to let nobody out. Then I searched the place – pretty grimly, for I had a notion that, so far as the boy’s confidence in this universe was concerned, rather a lot depended on it. Of course there hadn’t been time to find a really cunning hiding-place. Within half-an-hour, Robin had his snow-scene in his hands.’

  The girl who had wanted a sealed room and a thrilling chase cried out delightedly at this. ‘Really and truly?’

  Appleby smiled at her. ‘Really and truly. There it was: the same landscape, the same attic window, the same small boy. But everywhere, snow. And such snow! Teniers couldn’t have done it. Nor could he have done the figures with which the small landscape was peopled. Against that snow their life was miraculous. What Robin Fray held was, in its minor way, a masterpiece. Which is what, from the elder Breughel, you might expect.’

  Appleby had paused. ‘Explanations? Well, not many are needed. What had prompted Miss Shibley to her joke about the picture being transformed into a snow-scene? The subconscious memory of a bit of art-history gathered in her student days. What had sent Habgood, the only man with any sort of connoisseurship, to the Long Gallery, before anybody else could check up on Robin’s apparently fantastic story? Fuller knowledge of the same bit of history. That was as much as I could obscurely guess while the episode was taking place.

  Now I can add what I discovered later.

  ‘Breughel is believed to have painted four companion pictures: an identical scene, but at the four seasons of the year Spring and Summer survive – the first in Hungary and the second in a public collection in New York. Long ago, a Fray came into possession of Autumn. But his grandson – it was long before a Pieter Breughel was accounted very valuable – gave it away to a friend who fancied it, but first caused a mediocre copy to be made by an itinerant painter from the Low Countries. No doubt he wanted some record of a landscape that a little recalled his own estate. Later still, the original Autumn perished in a fire. The copy that remained at Fray had, of course, no more than historical interest or value; nobody would give more than a few hundred pounds for it at the most.

  ‘The fourth painting, Winter, had long been thought to have perished. But Charles Fray, who was a collector, had run it to earth somewhere. Knowing that the English Frays had once owned the original Autumn, he brought Winter with him on his visit, intending it as a parting gift – a princely gift – to his kinsman and to the home of his ancestors. Miss Shibley’s joke prompted him to substitute it for the old copy of Autumn just before leaving. The old copy of Autumn itself he simply left leaning against the wall. The situation, he supposed, would thus at once explain itself, and at the same time give Robin, to whom he had taken a great fancy, a little amusement.

  ‘So you see what happened. As soon as Robin tumbled in on us with his story, Habgood realised that Winter had turned up – and that if he could make off with it when only Robin had seen it, the boy would simply be disbelieved. Things might, of course, go wrong if Charles Fray made inquiries. But if Charles got no acknowledgement of his gift from his English kinsman he would almost certainly remain silent; and if Winter was subsequently heard of on the market he would presume that John Fray was behind the sale. Habgood was astute.’

  Our hostess considered. ‘But not at all nice. What happened to Winter?’

  ‘It hangs in Robin Fray’s bedroom now. And I don’t think he’ll ever have to sell it. The benevolent transatlantic cousin has been around again, and Robin looks like being his heir.’

  No Sanity Clause

  Ian Rankin

  It was all Edgar Allan Poe’s fault. Either that or the Scottish Parliament. Joey Br
iggs was spending most of his days in the run-up to Christmas sheltering from Edinburgh’s biting December winds. He’d been walking up George IV Bridge one day and had watched a down-and-out slouching into the Central Library. Joey had hesitated. He wasn’t a down-and-out, not yet anyway. Maybe he would be soon, if Scully Aitchison MSP got his way, but for now Joey had a bedsit and a trickle of state cash. Thing was, nothing made you miss money more than Christmas. The shop windows displayed their magnetic pull. There were queues at the cash machines. Kids tugged on their parents’ sleeves, ready with something new to add to the present list. Boyfriends were out buying gold, while families piled the food trolley high.

  And then there was Joey, nine weeks out of prison and nobody to call his friend. He knew there was nothing waiting for him back in his home town. His wife had taken the children and tiptoed out of his life. Joey’s sister had written to him in prison with the news. So, eleven months on, Joey had walked through the gates of Saughton Jail and taken the first bus into the city centre, purchased an evening paper and started the hunt for somewhere to live.

  The bedsit was fine. It was one of four in a tenement basement just off South Clerk Street, sharing a kitchen and bathroom. The other men worked, didn’t say much. Joey’s room had a gas fire with a coin-meter beside it, too expensive to keep it going all day. He’d tried sitting in the kitchen with the stove lit, until the landlord had caught him. Then he’d tried steeping in the bath, topping up the hot. But the water always seemed to run cold after half a tub.

  ‘You could try getting a job,’ the landlord had said.

  Not so easy with a prison record. Most of the jobs were for security and nightwatch. Joey didn’t think he’d get very far there.