Watson: They’re quite different, Holmes, but—yes, they’ve both got a peculiar curl where the letter finishes.
Holmes: Point No. 1, my dear Watson, but an isolated one. Now, although I could not recognize the handwriting, I knew this notepaper as soon as I saw and felt it. Look at the watermark, Watson, and tell me what you find.
Watson: (Holding the paper to the light) A. and N. (After a pause) Army and Navy… Why, Holmes, d’you mean that—
Holmes: I mean that this letter was written by your charming friend in the name of the Countess of Barton.
Watson: And what follows?
Holmes: Ah, that is what we are left to conjecture. What will follow immediately is another interview with the young woman who calls herself Violet de Vinne. By the way, Watson, after you had finished threatening me with that nasty-looking revolver a little while ago, what did you do with the instrument?
Watson: It’s here, Holmes, in my pocket.
Holmes: Then, having left my own in my bedroom, I think I’ll borrow it, if you don’t mind.
Watson: But surely, Holmes, you don’t suggest that—
Holmes: My dear Watson, I suggest nothing—except that we may possibly find ourselves in rather deeper waters than Miss de Vinne’s charm and innocence have hitherto led you to expect. (Goes to door) Mrs. Hudson, ask the lady to be good enough to rejoin us.
Mrs. Hudson: (Off) Very good, sir.
(Enter Miss de Vinne)
Holmes: (Amiably) Well, Miss de Vinne, are you rested?
Miss de Vinne: Well, a little perhaps, but as you can do nothing for me, hadn’t I better go?
Holmes: You look a little flushed, Miss de Vinne; do you feel the room rather too warm?
Miss de Vinne: No, Mr. Holmes, thank you, I—
Holmes: Anyhow, won’t you slip your coat off and—
Miss de Vinne: Oh no, really. (Gathers coat round her)
Holmes: (Threateningly) Then, if you won’t take your coat off, d’you mind showing me what is in the right-hand pocket of it? (A look of terror comes on Miss de Vinne’s face) The game’s up, Violet de Vinne. (Points revolver, at which Miss de Vinne screams and throws up her hands) Watson, oblige me by removing whatever you may discover in the right-hand pocket of Miss de Vinne’s coat.
Watson: (Taking out note-case) My own note-case, Holmes, with the ten five-pound notes in it!
Holmes: Ah!
Miss de Vinne: (Distractedly) Let me speak, let me speak. I’ll explain everything.
Holmes: Silence! Watson, was there anything else in the drawer of your dressing table besides your note-case?
Watson: I’m not sure, Holmes.
Holmes: Then I think we had better have some verification.
Miss de Vinne: No, no. Let me—
Holmes: Mrs. Hudson!
Mrs. Hudson: (Off) Coming, sir.
Holmes: (To Mrs. Hudson off) Kindly open the right-hand drawer of Dr. Watson’s dressing table and bring us anything that you may find in it.
Miss de Vinne: Mr. Holmes, you are torturing me. Let me tell you everything.
Holmes: Your opportunity will come in due course, but in all probability before a different tribunal. I am a private detective, not a Criminal Court judge. (Miss de Vinne weeps)
(Enter Mrs. Hudson with jewel case)
Mrs. Hudson: I found this, sir. But it must be something new that the doctor’s been buying. I’ve never seen it before. (Mrs. Hudson leaves)
Holmes: Ah, Watson, more surprises! (Opens case and holds up a string of pearls) The famous pearls belonging to the Countess of Barton, if I’m not mistaken.
Miss de Vinne: For pity’s sake, Mr. Holmes, let me speak. Even the lowest criminal has that right left him. And this time I will tell you the truth.
Holmes: (Sceptically) The truth? Well?
Miss de Vinne: Mr. Holmes, I have an only brother. He’s a dear—I love him better than anyone in the world—but, God forgive him, he’s a scamp… always in trouble, always in debt. Three days ago he wrote to me that he was in an even deeper hole than usual. If he couldn’t raise fifty pounds in the course of a week, he would be done for and, worse than that, dishonoured and disgraced forever. I couldn’t bear it. I’d no money. I daren’t tell my mother. I swore to myself that I’d get that fifty pounds if I had to steal it. That same day at Lady Barton’s, I was looking, as I’d often looked, at the famous pearls. An idea suddenly came to me. They were worn only once or twice a year on special occasions. Why shouldn’t I pawn them for a month or so? I could surely get fifty pounds for them and then somehow I would scrape together the money to redeem them. It was almost certain that Lady Barton wouldn’t want them for six months. Oh, I know I was mad, but I did it. I found a fairly obscure little pawnbroker quite near here, but to my horror he wouldn’t take the pearls—looked at me very suspiciously and wouldn’t budge, though I went to him two or three times. Then, this afternoon, the crash came. When Lady Barton discovered that the pearls were missing I rushed out of the house, saying that I would tell the police. But actually I went home and tried to think. I remembered your name. A wild scheme came into my head. If I could pretend to consult you and somehow leave the pearls in your house, then you could pretend that you had recovered them and return them to Lady Barton. Oh, I know you’ll laugh, but you don’t know how distraught I was. Then, when you sent me into that dressing room, I prowled about like a caged animal. I saw those banknotes and they seemed like a gift from Heaven. Why shouldn’t I leave the necklace in their place? You would get much more than fifty pounds for recovering them from Lady Barton and I should save my brother. There, that’s all… and now, I suppose, I exchange Dr. Watson’s dressing room for a cell at the police station!
Holmes: Well, Watson?
Watson: What an extraordinary story, Holmes!
Holmes: Yes, indeed. (Turning to Miss de Vinne) Miss de Vinne, you told us in the first instance a plausible story of which I did not believe a single word; now you have given us a version which in many particulars seems absurd and incredible. Yet I believe it to be the truth. Watson, haven’t I always told you that fact is immeasurably stranger than fiction?
Watson: Certainly, Holmes. But what are you going to do?
Holmes: Going to do? Why—er—I’m going to send for Mrs. Hudson. (Calling offstage) Mrs. Hudson!
Mrs. Hudson: (Off) Coming, sir. (Enters) Yes, sir.
Holmes: Oh, Mrs. Hudson, what are your views about Christmas?
Watson: Really, Holmes.
Holmes: My dear Watson, please don’t interrupt. As I was saying, Mrs. Hudson, I should be very much interested to know how you feel about Christmas.
Mrs. Hudson: Lor’, Mr. ’Olmes, what questions you do ask. I don’t hardly know exactly how to answer but… well… I suppose Christmas is the season of good will towards men—and women too, sir, if I may say so.
Holmes: (Slowly) ‘And women too.’ You observe that, Watson.
Watson: Yes, Holmes, and I agree.
Holmes: (To Miss de Vinne) My dear young lady, you will observe that the jury are agreed upon their verdict.
Miss de Vinne: Oh, Mr. Holmes, how can I ever thank you?
Holmes: Not a word. You must thank the members of the jury… Mrs. Hudson!
Mrs. Hudson: Yes, sir.
Holmes: Take Miss de Vinne, not into Dr. Watson’s room this time, but into your own comfortable kitchen and give her a cup of your famous tea.
Mrs. Hudson: How do the young lady take it, sir? Rather stronglike, with a bit of a tang to it?
Holmes: You must ask her that yourself. Anyhow Mrs. Hudson, give her a cup that cheers.
(Exeunt Mrs. Hudson and Miss de Vinne)
Watson: (In the highest spirits) Half a minute, Mrs. Hudson. I’m coming to see that Miss de Vinne has her tea as she likes it. And I tell you what, Holmes (Looking towards Miss de
Vinne and holding up note-case), you are not going to get your Mediterranean cruise.
(As Watson goes out, carol-singers are heard in the distance singing ‘Good King Wenceslas.’)
Holmes: (Relighting his pipe and smiling meditatively) Christmas Eve!
Curtain
Death in December
Victor Gunn
Victor Gunn was one of several pseudonyms used by Edwy Searles Brooks (1889–1965). Although not a best-seller to compare with Edgar Wallace, or as accomplished a stylist as Margery Allingham, he enjoyed a long career as a ‘mass producer’ of lively popular fiction. It was his proud—and remarkable—boast that he never earned a penny of his living other than from writing, and he produced well over one hundred novels as well as two thousand other stories. These figures appear on an impressively detailed website, www.edwysearlesbrooks.com, which explains that his unusual first name came from a Welsh king called Edwy the Fair. He was born in Hackney, the son of a Congregational minister who was also a seasoned political journalist.
Footsteps of Death, the first Victor Gunn novel featuring Chief Inspector Bill ‘Ironsides’ Cromwell, appeared in 1939. The dust jacket blurb summed him up as ‘essentially human, vividly alive—and refreshingly different. Bill Cromwell seldom does anything without a grumble, and the unconventional methods he sometimes employs would certainly get him dismissed from the Force if his Scotland Yard superiors knew anything about them. Not that Ironsides ever takes the slightest trouble to camouflage his actions. He is supremely contemptuous of official regulations and red tape. He ambles through an investigation in his own sweet way—and gets there every time.’ ‘Death in December’ comes from Ironsides Sees Red, originally published in 1943, in which the great man encounters mysterious crimes during the course of three separate holidays.
***
I. The Thing Which Left No Footprints
‘For years,’ said Johnny Lister, as he peered through the snow-flecked windscreen, ‘my old dad has been longing to meet you, Ironsides; and at last his wish is going to be fulfilled. You’d better let me go in first, so that I can brace him up with a couple of quick snifters.’
‘If he’s anything like his son, I’m the one who’ll need the snifters,’ retorted Bill Cromwell. ‘How the hell I ever let you talk me into accepting this Christmas invitation is more than I can understand. I hate parties. I hate noise. I hate crazy young people who drag you into drivelling games. I’m not sure that I don’t hate you. In other words, I’m nothing but a fool!’
Johnny chuckled. His respected—not very respected—chief had been grumbling all the way from London, and now that the speeding Alvis was well into the wild and hilly country of Derbyshire, he was more caustic than ever. For snow was falling and the broad road was a gleaming ribbon of white under the glare of the headlamps. And Ironsides, it appeared, hated snow too.
‘Cheer up, Old Iron,’ said Johnny lightly. ‘You’re going to like the old man; he has his faults and his funny ways, but he’s a good sport. You’re going to like Cloon Castle, too.’
‘The name’s enough to give you a fit of depression,’ growled the Chief Inspector. ‘It’s a wonder they didn’t call it Gloom Castle, and have done with it. By what I can see, it’s situated on the top of a damned mountain! How much longer have we got to climb this scenic railway?’
‘You should worry!’ said Johnny. ‘As long as we’ve got a good engine, and good brakes, what does it matter about hills? Or didn’t you know that the Peak District is largely composed of hills? Cloon Castle has belonged to the Cloon branch of our family since old Noah accidentally hit one of the peaks with his Ark. But the Cloons died out a couple of hundred years ago—’
‘Well, that’s something,’ said Cromwell, brightening.
‘And since then the Lister branch has done all the lording,’ continued the streamlined sergeant. ‘The last survivor of that particular clan was an aunt of mine, Lady Julia Lister. She handed in the bucket years ago, and Cloon Castle was scooped in by the old man. Until now he has done nothing with the place, and I haven’t even seen it. I spent all my boyhood and flowering youth at the family’s Essex hovel, a little cottage of about five hundred rooms—and one of them a bathroom, too. The old man thought it would be a good idea to open up Cloon Castle, and this house-party is a kind of Christmas house-warming.’
‘All I can say,’ grunted Bill Cromwell, ‘is that it’s disgusting that one family should possess so many whacking great mansions. It isn’t decent. It’s the kind of thing that creates class warfare.’
‘Class warfare, my big toe!’ said Johnny, grinning. ‘Why, the opening up of Cloon Castle alone has given good jobs to twenty or thirty people. As for this Christmas party, I understand it’s going to be a humdinger. Dancing…’
‘I hate dancing.’
‘Winter sports…’
‘I loathe winter sports.’
‘Amateur theatricals…’
‘I’d crawl a mile not to see amateur theatricals.’
‘There’s even a cold, gloomy, family crypt, where you can lie down and die,’ said Johnny. ‘Now tell me you hate lying down and dying, and I won’t believe you. For all I know, there’s a ghost haunting the place. It wouldn’t be a real ancestral castle without a ghost, would it? All I hope is that the old boy haunts you every night.’ He paused reflectively. ‘But, of course, it might be a beautiful girl ghost. In that case, I hope she haunts me every night.’
‘I’ll bet you’ll be haunted by girls, and they won’t be ghosts,’ said Ironsides caustically.
‘Here, steady! Not at night, in my bedroom!’
‘I wouldn’t put it past ’em,’ said Cromwell, with a sniff. ‘I know these country house-parties.’
‘I think,’ said Johnny carefully, ‘that we’ll change the subject. This one has every indication of developing into a recital of your shady past.’
The subject changed itself, as a matter of fact, for a finger-post, standing drunkenly at the side of the road, said, ‘Cloon C.—½ m.,’ and pointed uncertainly into the opening of a narrow side road. For a mile or two the Alvis had been purring sweetly along a perfectly level road, and Johnny and his passenger seemed to have reached a kind of plateau. Just within the range of the headlights there were low stone walls bordering the road, and here and there stunted hedges and wind-swept trees. A somewhat desolate wilderness, in fact.
The snow was not falling heavily, but in fine feathery flakes, and there was only about half an inch of it on the roads; not sufficient to affect Johnny’s driving. But the sky was black and solid and heavy, and any native of the district could have told Johnny that a lot of snow was on its way.
‘Christmas Eve, now, and sundry log fires awaiting us,’ said Johnny gaily, as he turned the Alvis’s long nose into the lane. ‘Ironsides, old sourpuss, we’re going to have the time of our lives. No routine—no murders—no crooks. Nothing but jollity and laughter.’
Ironsides grunted, and by the expression on his face it seemed that he preferred crooks and murders. He was not, in fact, much of a mixer, and parties always frightened him. For one thing, he had to wear respectable clothes, and brush his hair, and smoke cigars instead of his evil-smelling pipe. All in all, he wasn’t too happy about this binge.
An ancient stone wall, rather like a miniature Wall of China, soon loomed up on the left hand, and presently a great gateway came into view, with the gates standing wide open, and a dazzling electric light overhead, turning the night into day. There were faint tracks of other cars, but they had been almost obliterated by the freshly fallen snow—so that the drive, when the Alvis went gliding along it, was a broad white expanse in the gleam of the headlamps.
‘What price your Gloom Castle now?’ asked Johnny slyly, as they turned a bend in the drive. ‘We’re in good time to dress for dinner, and do full justice to the cocktails.’
The castle was in full view—a c
heery picture of gleaming lights from almost every window. It stood somewhat to the left, so the drive evidently took another turn a bit farther on.
‘Here, am I seeing things, Old Iron?’ ejaculated Johnny suddenly. ‘Who’s that rummy looking old cove?’
There was every reason for his surprised utterance. A couple of hundred yards in front of them, and just within full range of the headlights, an extraordinary figure was making its way directly across the drive, after emerging from the bushes to the right. Cromwell caught a glimpse of a queer, old-fashioned cape, and a high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat. There was something unnatural and grotesque in the stumbling gait of the cloaked figure, and never once did the man turn his face towards the approaching car, as one would have expected. ‘I say, he must be ill!’ muttered Johnny.
He slowed down, but by the time they reached the spot, and looked into the trees beside the drive, there was no sign of any living presence. Johnny drove on almost reluctantly, and he turned and gave Ironsides a strange look.
‘Stop the car!’ said the Chief Inspector, in a queer voice.
‘Damn it, Ironsides, you don’t think…’
‘I don’t know what I think,’ interrupted Bill Cromwell. ‘Either I’m mad, or blind—but I’ll swear that there were no footprints in the snow. Didn’t you notice?’
Johnny’s shapely jaw sagged a couple of cogs.
‘No footprints——!’ he began incredulously.
Then he stopped, swung the car straight across the drive and turned it about. He crawled back along his own tracks, his heart thudding. The drive was flooded with light, and suddenly Ironsides called a halt.
‘Just about here,’ he said, hopping out.
Down the centre of the drive were the clear-cut tracks of the Alvis, and the almost-obliterated tracks of previous cars underneath. To the right and left, and in the centre, a half-inch carpet of freshly-fallen virgin snow!
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