Holmes for the Holidays

by Martin H. Greenberg (ed)

  I reported my conclusions to Holmes, who nodded approvingly. "I assure you that I remember their names very well, Watson, for I had the advantage of you. I was first called to the house on twenty-eight December, and had investigated the entire family inside and out by five January."

  "A rather commonplace set of suspects, Holmes, who had opportunity to steal the jewel for years. Except for Miss DeVere. I would have looked first among the servants, no matter how long they had been in service with the Olivers."

  "Oh, I overlooked nobody, not even little Antonia's pet monkey, Curio."

  "A monkey?"

  "Like certain birds, they have an eye for things that glitter and, unlike certain birds, have clever little hands that could tip open a bell jar."

  "What about the scene of the crime, Holmes? Surely you gave it your first attention?"

  "Indeed, from which I deduced that Maria, the under-housemaid, is myopic; that the elderly butler, Fabian, suffers from Reynaud's Syndrome; that a ginger cat is resident in the house and often engages in games of chase when that rapscallion Curio escapes his cage in Antonia's bedchamber. Also evident was the fact that Mrs. Valentine Feste was undertaking a severe diet, and that kindly, silver-haired Grandmother Oliver is a kleptomaniac."

  "Goodness! One lowly sideboard told you all that?"

  "Recall, Watson, that every family member, and nearly every servant, would approach a display on the dining room sideboard daily, whether at breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, or dusting-up time. You, of course, realize that I detected a trail of orange and black hairs along the sideboard cloth: cat and monkey at play. The butler's problem was evident in wax droppings on the same cloth around the candleholders. I diagnosed failing circulation in the fingertips, which would prevent him from feeling the warm wax as it dripped. Correct, Doctor? The housemaid's myopia is obvious. Not a smudge or a speck of dust besmirched the bell jar, yet the wax just inches away on the Chinese sateen was not removed. She obviously cleans each object at close range, but fails to observe the larger picture. Likely Mrs. Oliver overlooks her failings out of kindness. Also, the twelve lords a-leaping were only nine, three replaced by a fragrant brown shaving that identified itself to my nose as clove remnants. In her rooms I found the fresh orange pomanders the old lady studs with fragrant cloves for the holidays, the three absent leaping lords, a handkerchief embroidered with the scarlet letter A for Antonia, and a twenty-pound note folded to fit in a gentleman's wallet.

  "The family swiftly excused the old dear, claiming the absent-mindedness of old age. Young Mr. Andrew Oliver's manner as he reclaimed the twenty-pound note was almost obsequious; he is obviously very short of funds and unwilling to tell his father why. As for the married daughter's regime of self-denial, so at odds with a holiday famed for the riches of the table, I found a crumpled handkerchief tucked between the wall and the sideboard, filled with crumbling fruitcake. No doubt her mother had pressed it upon her on Christmas Day, and she disposed of it as quickly as possible ... her personal handkerchief was embroidered with the royal blue letter 0. Doubtless she was responsible for Antonia's rococo A as well. God bless these merry embroiderers who must initial every piece of fabric within range; a child—nay, a monkey!—could have followed this trail."

  "Then your conclusion was immediately forthcoming. I cannot understand why it had to wait until January fifth to be fully resolved. And I still say that the sudden introduction of the lovely but loud Miss DeVere into the family scene is most suspicious."

  "Excellent, Watson! For one who went only to eat, not to observe, you showed early promise of deductive potential. I admit that for all my admiration of the lady's looks, I found her presence terribly wrong. But there was another instance of the younger Oliver's out-of-character behaviour that Christmas. When the family solicitor was kind enough to suggest my services on the day after Christmas, Andrew Oliver insisted that they should engage the Pinkertons instead, and Sebastian seconded him."

  "The Pinkertons are an American detective enterprise!" I objected in indignant British defence of my friend, "and cannot hold a Christmas candle to you."

  "Thank you, Watson, but the Pinkertons did then—and do even more today—have agents at work in England and on the Continent. The Americans are everywhere nowadays, as you know. Yet such an unlikely source as young Andrew recommending this . .. rival investigation firm struck me as significant."

  "Because he had good reason to discourage the use of a truly astute operative."

  "Exactly, Watson, and my investigations beyond the family circle soon turned up a story older than Christmas: the prodigal son. Young Andrew, although not consorting with music hall wenches, had managed to amass staggering gambling debts."

  "That, besides opportunity, Holmes, might explain the fact that the emerald disappeared on such a festive holiday. Gambling debts wait for nothing and no man. I cannot help but wonder if the puzzle had something to do with the Oliver family's mania for Christmas. From what you said, they did not omit a tradition. I even remember cut pine boughs twining the newel post and banister."

  "Indeed. You remember more with every moment, Watson. We shall soon have you solving this case from the comfort of your easy chair, as I have been known to do."

  "Pshaw, Holmes! Your conclusion is foregone. No point in my muddling my brains over something that is no longer an issue. Just tell me who the blasted culprit is."

  "That which is not worked for is not worth the having."

  "Oh, very well. If it amuses you. I still say some Christmas custom must be at the heart of it. What are there ... Yule logs, trees . . . that's it! The jewel was not removed immediately from the house, but strung up like a piece of tinsel in plain sight on the tree!"

  Holmes leapt up, puffing away like a great Western locomotive. "Wonderful, Watson!"

  I leapt up myself, much regretting the shock to my settling dinner. "That is the solution, then?"

  "No, my dear fellow, but it is a fine and devious suggestion. Where do you hide a jewel at Christmas? On a decorated pine tree. I of course examined every branch, which held only the traditional decorations, I fear. No Epiphany Emerald, no Koh-i-noor Diamond."

  I had reseated myself. "Not on the tree. Humph. That's where I would have hidden it, removing it after the holiday spirit had tarnished and nobody paid much attention to the tree."

  "What other ideas have you?" Holmes posed by the mantel, enjoying himself immensely.

  "Christmas cheer. I assume they had a wassail bowl."

  "The wrong colour, Watson."

  "What?"

  "Wassail is made from ale, wine, and spiced cider. One could have hidden a large topaz, or even a ruby, in the amber red fluid, but an emerald would visibly muddy the waters, so to speak. Green is too contrasting a colour to hide in the holiday punch. Besides, given the Olivers' unrelenting hospitality, I'm sure the ladle often scraped the bottom of the bowl. I did look, Watson, finding the punch bowl tasty, but bare of bounty."

  "So you considered that, too." I was encouraged by treading so closely in the master's footsteps. "What else? Snow? Sleigh rides? Carolers at the door—carolers invited in for a hot toddy!"

  Holmes nodded slowly. "An invading, high-spirited group. A trip to the dining room wassail bowl. A stealthily removed mitten and a rosy-cheeked thief carries home a unique and valuable palm warmer. Possible indeed. Young Andrew clearly showed signs of living far beyond his means. Perhaps a confederate among the carolers had been alerted to the gem. Excellent theory, Watson. Quite . .. sophisticated."

  "Were there carolers, Holmes?"

  "Unfortunately, no. The first thing I asked. This was the infamous homegrown crime. I fear. One of our delightful Twelfth Night dinner partners was responsible."

  "What of the son-in-law?"

  "There you have touched upon an interesting history! Mr. Valentine Feste. I made discreet enquiries, of course, of the servants. A tall, nervous sort of two-and-thirty. Sandy hair, pale eyes. Thin as Master Andrew's wallet. Apparently a banker, bu
t tight with his money, say the staff. Tightwads often have secret vices involving money, but I could uncover no gambling."

  "A banker would have the connections to sell such a significant stone abroad."

  "So would a banker's wife."

  "You suspected Olivia? A plump, dark-favoured woman, I recall, with an aging, sour look upon her face."

  "Perhaps from her concealment of the fruitcake, and other delicacies before that."

  "Exactly! You yourself pointed out that the woman was adept at hiding uneaten sweets, and such edibles are much larger than one gemstone. She would have mastered the skills to take and conceal the Epiphany Emerald."

  Holmes drew his pipe from his lips and stared at me. "That did not occur to me, Watson, I must admit."

  "You see! A simple family is never simple. Perhaps her pinch-penny husband had deprived Olivia of too much, such as money for a proper wardrobe, so that she resorted to collecting the family emerald as a consolation prize. Don't smile, Holmes. Any physician will tell you: diets drive women to strange extremes."

  "And the taking of the absent emerald, after a placid history of untouched display for many years, certainly was a strange extreme."

  "What other Christmas folderol? Plum pudding, I suppose."

  "Oh, yes, the Oliver ladies—Grandmother, Mrs. Barnaby, and Mrs. Valentine—spent a full day before Christmas demonstrating the concoction and storing of these culinary Christmas jewels to young Antonia. On hearing this, I immediately hied to the cellar with a fencing foil from Barnaby's library wall to skewer these plump, bagged puddings on their pegs into Swiss cheese. I confess to a trifling excitation when I plunged in my point and pulled out a large greenish gold nugget—an exceptionally overgrown Turkish raisin. 1 also speared a quantity of Greek currants and candied fruit peel. Nothing so tasty as a missing emerald however."

  "You destroyed the ladies' winter hoard of plum puddings! That is barbaric, Holmes. What did they have for dessert after you left?"

  "Just desserts, Watson. Just desserts."

  My stomach was protesting the massacre of the plum puddings with soft and, I hoped, undetectable growls. My body as well as my mind was growing keen on the guessing game. I changed my tactics.

  "I take it that the culprit was revealed."

  "Yes."

  "And the Epiphany Emerald was found?"

  "Indeed."

  "And both before my arrival Epiphany Eve for the Twelfth Night dinner?"

  Holmes paused, frowning. "Yes, so to speak."

  "Then how can / say who took it, when I was only present on that occasion? If some under-servant was missing, how would I know?"

  "I already said it was not a servant. It was someone at that table."

  "Someone who was not being publicly challenged as the culprit. Why?"

  "You were there, Watson! You have eyes and ears as well as an appetite. Think, and you will see the answer."

  "Very well." I shut those eyes.

  Now that we had talked so much about that blasted evening, I could evoke the scene as clearly as a painting on my wall. I had grown adept at marking details for my small excursions into print.

  I saw old Fabian hunched over the sideboard, and nearsighted Maria dodging between us to lay precariously swaying soup bowls on our chargers. Neither had been dismissed, though both's duties revolved around the scene of the crime, so I dismissed them, as Holmes urged.

  The elder Olivers occupied head and foot of table, with the capped, silver-haired grandmother on her son's right. I, and then Holmes, were seated next along the sideboard-facing length of the table; no accident, I do not doubt.

  Across from us sat Olivia and Valentine, the very image of Jack Sprat and his wife, then Andrew. The disgraceful Viola DeVere was next to him, then Antonia, at her mother's right, which meant that the forward hussy sat nearly opposite Holmes. Perhaps that was why he named her Pea Queen; she was most convenient.

  On Mrs. Oliver's left sat Miss DeVere's friend, who had been introduced, but whose name I did not recall, and whose appearance was even more of a mystery, since it was blocked by Holmes and Sebastian Oliver, who sat beside Holmes and opposite his lady love.

  Viola DeVere was radiant—nay, as luminous as a Halloween pumpkin in her tangerine satin gown fresh from the music-hall stage. A cheap violet cologne could not cover the odour of stale smoke and ale.

  Young Antonia seemed a bit subdued by her gaudy and reeking neighbour, barely lifting her head from her plate unless offered some new course. Even a child could appreciate how unfit that DeVere woman was for this refined company. Her mother and brother were most solicitous of the child, both of what she ate and of her mood. Perhaps Antonia was not used to so many strangers at the family table, and certainly she was unaccustomed to the booming tones of Miss DeVere's Bow Bells voice.

  "I'll 'ave some of that wine," she sang out to Fabian as he made his solemn rounds with the sherry that accompanied our soup. "Oooh, w'at a empty bowl of soupers we 'ave 'ere! All broth and no barley, just these ever-so-strange floating brown-like things. Look like button slices, they do."

  "Mushrooms." Mrs. Oliver used the same martyred tone in which she might explain exotica to little Antonia.

  "Fancy that! Not'ing more 'an cellar-sprouts, but cut so thin a body could starve on 'em. Well, bot'oms up!" With that she lifted a perilously full spoon to her painted lips and slurped consommé with the same bold musicality with which she sang. Even the slurp was off key.

  I glanced at Holmes, expecting his keen musical sense to show mortal offense, but he regarded this performance with a certain amusement. I knew him to be a frequenter of the concert hall; at that moment I wondered if he harboured a secret taste for the music hall.

  In the usual awkward silence that prevailed after one of Miss DeVere's pronouncements, I noticed that all present at the table— except the newcomer, who was thankfully silent if she sounded like her friend Viola—appeared oddly on edge. I had tried to peer around Holmes and Sebastian to view her, but she remained a silent and unseen dinner partner. No doubt she plied the stage, and her first name was Mignonette or some such nonsense. Could she be more than friend ... a confederate? This I wondered in retrospect. Holmes had investigated the entire family and, while all were able and possibly motivated to take the emerald, this stranger I had little noticed could be the key to the crime! If so, it was most unfair of Holmes to imply that I could name the culprit.

  "Miss DeVere's friend," I mentioned, opening my eyes to find Holmes back by the window, meditating on the snow-muffled street. "I barely recall her."

  "An invisible woman," he agreed. "In marked contrast to Madam Viola. But she and you were the only total strangers present."

  I bristled. "Are you saying that I was as nondescript as she on that occasion?"

  "Nondescript? Never, Watson! But she was. A day later I could barely remember her face." His eyes narrowed. "What a fool I was in those days. At times, Watson, just at times."

  "Yes. well, you were most unlike yourself that night. Not only did you not raise an eyebrow at the gauche Miss DeVere, yet you did raise a cry when you found the bean in the Twelfth Night cake, but you immediately named her Queen of the Pea, when almost any other woman present would have been far more suitable. It would have been gentlemanly, for instance, to give the honour to old Grandmother Oliver, or Mrs. Barnaby, or Mrs. Valentine, or even young Antonia."

  "Yes, it would have been gentlemanly, but poor misjudged Miss DeVere deserved some credit for her role in unraveling the mystery."

  "She betrayed young Andrew?"

  "She betrayed no one but the thief, but I anticipated her. I got the credit, and she was Queen of the Pea, apt compensation for a theatrical personality, no doubt. Besides, she was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, this was my only opportunity to crown a queen ... and I was not yet thirty then."

  "Holmes, this is so unlike you! You admit that another was a step ahead in solving the problem. You seem to admire this awful woman. And you still hav
e not said who took the emerald and where it had gone to."

  "I will say that Viola DeVere was the key."

  So the woman was significant! Holmes had just let that fact slip. "Holmes, I have it. The DeVere woman was introduced to the family after the emerald had been stolen, and that is the key, is it not?"

  He nodded, looking somewhat startled.

  "And your manner indicates that some last piece of the puzzle was put into place at the Twelfth Night dinner.1'

  Another nod.

  "Then it is simple. The Epiphany Emerald was not stolen on Christmas Day."

  "Indeed?"

  "No. It was taken by Sebastian, not Andrew, and merely concealed somewhere. Sebastian, after all, was as eager as Andrew to avoid your services. Perhaps he put his younger brother up to suggesting other investigators. Then Sebastian introduced this appalling hussy to distract his family from your investigation. This Viola DeVere was not a serious fiancée to a love-besotted young Romeo. She was exactly what she appeared to be and acted completely in character. Sebastian had hired her in the role, but his real lady-love was Viola's supposed "friend," to whom he planned to slip the emerald at dinner, so she could vanish into the anonymous night from whence she came. Later, they would rendezvous, exchange the jewel, which he would sell and no doubt buy the doxy some trinket. And his family would rest easy and unsuspicious when he suddenly came to his senses and jilted Miss DeVere in favour of this more sedate female."

  "Why would such a 'sedate' female be a music-hall performer?"

  "I don't know; this is simply a theory. But I don't recall you unmasking the plot at the dinner. Was the byplay too subtle for my unsuspecting, and much misled, mind?"

  Holmes laughed as he seldom did, in his odd, hearty, soundless fashion, coming over to collapse in the chair opposite me, still speechless with mirth.

  "On my word, Watson," he finally managed to sober up enough to say. "You are the supreme fiction writer; in the past I have complained of this, of your embellishments to fact, but now to this I bow. A quite fabulous plot and, alas, wasted on this simple problem. Why need I bother solving cases, when you can resolve them in such an inventive manner, replete with embroideries of Lewis Carroll logic?"