by Merry Murder
“I know that. Bones! Drat it all, I haven’t had more than five minutes to get to the bottom of things, have I? I shall have to leave it to the cops to tie up a few loose ends and pinpoint the actual murderous little thug who did it. I am well used,” the Hon. Con laughed bitterly, “to having my case snatched out of my hands by so-called professionals the minute I’ve cracked it. I gave up expecting any credit for my achievements a long time ago.”
“In that case, dear,” suggested Miss Jones with a cunning born of panic, “why not leave the whole thing to the police? Let them solve it themselves. Why should you help them? They never help you.”
The Hon. Con thought a minute and then drew herself up proudly. She made a striking figure in her red Father Christmas suit and her flowing white whiskers. “Not in my nature to be a dog in the manger, Bones,” she said modestly. “Now, while we’re waiting, why don’t you improve the shining hour by making a list for the cops of all the kids who went past you this afternoon on their way to the cloakrooms? Better stick ’em in chronological order with an indication of the times where you can.”
“A list, dear?” bleated Miss Jones. “How can I possibly make a list? Every child at the party went out to the toilets at some time in the afternoon, and most of them more than once. You know what a shambles it was. Besides, I don’t know more than a handful of them by name. How could I?”
The Hon. Con shrugged a pair of shoulders which would have looked better in the front row of a rugby scrum. “Hope the cops don’t think, you’re trying to obstruct the course of justice,” she rumbled with sham concern.” ’Praps they’ll try and make you do it with photographs. You know, one of each kid so you can shuffle ’em around like a pack of cards till you get ’em in the right order.”
“But, Constance,” wailed Miss Jones, ever prey to her own sense of inadequacy, “half the time I didn’t even see the children’s faces! They were wearing those stupid animal masks. You can vouch for that, dear. Those who’d got them wore them the entire afternoon and—”
But the Hon. Con was no longer listening. Her somewhat protuberant eyes glazed over as they always did when sheer, undiluted inspiration was about to strike. “Golly!” she breathed in an awed voice. “I’ve got it! I’ve blooming well got it!”
“Got what, dear?”
“The solution, Bones! I know who done it!”
“Again, dear?” The words were unworthy, and Miss Jones was ashamed of herself for uttering them.
Luckily the Hon. Con was still up there on Cloud Nine. “It stands out a mile. It was that dwarf!”
“Dwarf, dear?”
“That midget who was with the circus entertainers. Oh, come on. Bones, rattle the old brain-box! You can’t have forgotten that crummy bunch.”
“I haven’t forgotten, dear,” said Miss Jones, who could sometimes turn the other cheek almost audibly. “It’s just that—”
“He put on an animal mask and walked right past you,” explained the Hon. Con jubilantly. “Twice. Both ways. Coming and going. You just took him for one of the kids and didn’t give him a second thought. Deuced cunning, eh? And he was the one who dished out the animal masks in the first place, wasn’t he? You all thought he’d gone potty, but it was part of his sinister plan. Premeditated, see!”
Miss Jones took one of her deep breaths. “Constance, dear—”
“Now don’t start nitpicking, Bones! Because it all fits. He knew where Lyonelle Lawn was going to be on duty and that she would be tucked away all on her own because he overheard Rose Johnson and Felicity Fowler having an argy-bargy about it. Remember? He and the rest of that grotty crew were standing there lapping up every word— and there can’t be many Lyonelle Lawns kicking around, can there? Oh, heck!” The Hon. Con’s lynx-like ears had caught the distant wail of a police siren. Little Mrs. Bellamy must have made it to the phone box in spite of some fervent prayers to the contrary. “Listen, Bones, are those circus people still in the Club?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, dear. They must have gone ages ago. You could check with Miss Simpson. She was on the front door and would have let them out.”
“Curses!” The Hon. Con had been picturing herself tossing the miniature miscreant bodily into the arms of the Totterbridge Constabulary. That would have caused a few astounded jaws to drop, all rightie!
Miss Jones’s mind meanwhile had been running on more mundane lines—such as slander and criminal libel and the bearing of false witness and what sort of damages a court might award to an outraged and injured midget against the rambunctious and wealthy daughter of a peer. Dear Constance never appeared to her best advantage in a court of law. She would keep telling the judge how to run the case and—”Constance, dear!”
The Hon. Con hitched up her Father Christmas trousers impatiently. “What now?”
Miss Jones put it as simply as she could. “Why should this midget have killed poor Mrs. Lawn!”
“Good grief, Bones, detectives don’t have to prove motive. Thought everybody knew that. All you need do is establish means and opportunity. Well, that’s what I’ve done. And I’ll bet he nicked the knife from the kitchens here.”
“But he must have had some reason, dear.”
“The stage!” The Hon. Con’s imagination always worked best under pressure. “Lyonelle Lawn used to be on the stage, didn’t she? Well, so’s that midget. They probably met up somewhere. You know what theatricals are like—all nerves and tension and things. There’d be a feud, I expect, or maybe she spurned his lascivious advances, or—”
But the time for leisurely speculation was past. Masculine voices and the tramp of heavy feet could be heard coming from the direction of the Margaret Thatcher Hall. The Hon. Con prepared herself for the encounter, smoothing down her scarlet tunic and fluffing up her white whiskers. “It’s all a question of psychology, really,” she whispered in an attempt to allay her chum’s only too evident distress. “I’m deliberately leaving this motive question for the police to solve for the sake of their morale. You follow me?
It’ll give them the chance to make a contribution and earn a bit of kudos—and it’ll stop ’em getting too shirty over the indisputable fact that I’ve unravelled the mystery and tied the whole blooming case up for ’em before they even got here.“
CHRISTMAS PARTY – Martin Werner
People in the advertising business said the Christmas party at French & Saunders was the social event of the year. For it wasn’t your ordinary holiday office party. Not the kind where the staff gets together for a few mild drinks out of paper cups, some sandwiches sent in from the local deli, and a long boring speech by the company president. At F&S it was all very different: just what you’d expect from New York’s hottest advertising agency.
The salaries there were the highest in town, the accounts were strictly blue chip, and the awards the agency won over the years filled an entire boardroom. And the people, of course, were the best, brightest, and most creative that money could buy.
With that reputation to uphold, the French & Saunders Christmas party naturally had to be the biggest and splashiest in the entire industry.
Year after year, that’s the way it was. Back in the late Seventies, when discos were all the rage, the company took over Numero Uno. the club people actually fought over to get in. Another year, F&S hired half the New York Philharmonic to provide entertainment. And in 1989, the guest bartenders were Mel Gibson. Madonna, and the cast of LA. Law.
There was one serious side to the party. That’s when the president reviewed the year’s business, announced how much the annual bonus would be, and then named the Board’s choices for People of the Year, the five lucky employees who made the most significant contributions to the agency’s success during the past twelve months.
The unwritten part to this latter (although everyone knew it, anyway) was that each one of the five would receive a very special individual bonus— some said as high as $50, 000 apiece.
Then French & Saunders bought fifteen floors in the
tallest, shiniest new office tower on Broadway, the one that had actually been praised by the N. Y. Times architecture critic.
The original plan was to hold the party in the brand-new offices that were to be ready just before Christmas. A foolish idea, as it turned out, because nothing in New York is ever finished when it’s promised. The delay meant the agency had to scramble and find a new party site—either that, or make do in the half finished building itself.
Amazingly—cleverly? —enough, that was the game plan the party committee decided to follow. Give the biggest, glitziest party in agency history amid half finished offices in which paneless windows looked out to the open skies, where debris and building supplies stood piled up in every corner, and where doors opened on nothing but a web of steel girders and the sidewalk seventy floors below.
Charlie Evanston, one of the company’s senior vice-presidents (he had just reached the ripe old of age of fifty), was chosen to be party chairman. He couldn’t have been happier. For Charlie had a deepdown feeling that this was finally going to be his year. After being passed over time and again for one of those five special Christmas bonuses, he just knew he was going to go home a winner.
Poor Charlie.
In mid-November—the plans for the party proceeding on schedule— the agency suddenly lost their multi-million-dollar Daisy Fresh Soap account, no reason given. Charlie had been the supervisor on the account for years, and although he couldn’t be held personally responsible for the loss a few people (enemies!) shook their heads and wondered if maybe someone else, someone a little stronger—and younger—couldn’t have held on to the business.
Two weeks later, another showpiece account—the prestigious Maximus Computer Systems—left the agency. Unheard of.
The trade papers gave away the reason in the one dreaded word “kickbacks.” Two French & Saunders television producers who had worked on the account had been skimming it for years.
Again, Charlie’s name came up. Not that he had anything remotely to do with the scandal. The trouble was that he personally had hired both offenders. And people remembered.
There’s a superstition that events like these happen in threes, so it was only a question of time before the next blow. And, sure enough, two weeks before Christmas, it happened. A murder, no less. A F&S writer shot his wife, her lover, and himself.
With that, French & Saunders moved from front-page sidelines in the trade papers straight to screaming headlines in every tabloid in town. In less than a month, it had been seriously downgraded from one of New York’s proudest enterprises to that most dreaded of advertising fates—an agency “in trouble.”
It was now a week before Christmas and every F&S employee was carrying around his or her own personal lump of cold, clammy fear. The telltale signs were everywhere. People making secret telephone calls to headhunters and getting their resumes in order. Bitter jokes about the cold winter and selling apples on street corners told in the elevators and washrooms. Rumors that a buyout was in the making and nobody was safe.
And yet, strange as it sounds, there were those who still thought there would be a happy ending. At the Christmas party, perhaps. A last-minute announcement that everything was as before—the agency was in good shape and, just like always, everyone would get that Christmas bonus.
Charlie was one of the most optimistic. He didn’t know why. Just a gut feeling that the world was still full of Christmas miracles and, bad times or not, he was going to be one of F&S’s five magical People of the Year.
Poor Charlie.
A few days before the party, his phone rang. It was the voice of J. Stewart French, president and chairman of the board.
“Hi, Charlie. Got a minute?”
“Sure.”
“I wonder if you’d mind coming up to my office. I’ve got a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about.”
Nothing menacing about that, thought Charlie. J probably wants to discuss the party. The food. The caterers. The security measures that would be needed so that no one would be in any danger in those half finished offices.
Very neatly, very efficiently, Charlie got out his files and headed upstairs. When he arrived in the president’s office—it was the only one that had been completely finished (vulgar but expensive, thought Charlie)—J was on the phone, his face pale and drawn, nothing like the way he usually looked, with that twelve-months-a-year suntan he was so proud of. He nodded over the phone. “Sit down, Charlie, sit down.”
Charlie sank into one of the comfortable $12,000 chairs beside the desk and waited. After a minute the conversation ended and J turned to give him his full attention. Charlie had known J for fifteen years and had never seen him so nervous and ill at ease.
Then he spoke.
“Charlie, they tell me you’ve really got the Christmas party all together. Looks like it’ll be a smash.”
“We’re hoping so, J.”
“Well, we can certainly use some good times around here. I don’t have to tell you that. It’s been a bad, bad year.”
“Things’ll be better. I know it.”
“Do you really think so, Charlie? Do you? I’d like to believe that, too. That’s why this party means so much to me. To all of us. Morale—”
“I know.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done your part. More than your part. That’s why I called you in.”
Here it comes, thought Charlie, here comes my special Christmas bonus! Ahead of time, before anyone else hears about it!
“I wanted you to be one of the first to know. The Board and I have agreed that, even with all our troubles, there’ll be something extra in everybody’s paycheck again this year. Nothing like before, of course, but it will be something.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Yeah. Wonderful. We monkeyed around with the budget and found we could come up with a few bucks. The problem is, we’ll have to make some cuts here and there.”
“Cuts?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m afraid there won’t be any of those special bonuses this year, Charlie. And I’ll level with you—you were down for one. After all these years, you had really earned it. I can’t tell you how sorry—”
Sure, thought Charlie. “It’s not the end of the world, J,” he said. “Maybe next year.”
“No, Charlie, that’s not all. With our losses and the cost of moving—I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’re doing something else. We’re cutting back—some of our best people. I’ve never had to do anything like that in my life.”
You bastard, Charlie thought. “Go on, J,” he said. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
J looked at him miserably. “You’re one of the people we’ll have to lose, Charlie. Wait a minute, please hear me out—it’s nothing personal. I wanted to save you. After all, we’ve been together fifteen years. I talked and talked. I even threatened to resign myself. But no one wanted to listen.”
Sure, Charlie thought.
“They said you hadn’t produced anything worthwhile in years. And there was the business of those two crazies you hired. And—”
“Is that it?” Charlie asked.
“Don’t get me wrong, Charlie. Please, let’s do the Christmas party as we planned, just as if nothing happened. As for leaving, take your time. I got you a year’s severance. And you can use your office to make calls, look around, and—”
“No problem, J.” Charlie was moving to the door. “I understand. And don’t worry about the party. Everything’s all taken care of.”
Not even a handshake.
Many people at some time or other have fantasized about killing the boss. In Charlie’s case, it was different. From the minute he heard the bad news from J, he became a changed man. Not outwardly, of course. He wasn’t about to become an overnight monster, buy a gun, make a bomb, sharpen an axe. No, he would be the same Charlie Evanston. Friendly. Smiling. Efficient. But now that he knew the worst, he began piling up all the long-suppressed injustices he had collected fro
m J for fifteen years. The conversations that stopped abruptly when he entered an executive meeting. The intimate dinners at J’s that he and his wife were never invited to. The countless other little slights. And. finally, this.
December 20. Party time! Everyone agreed it was the best bash French & Saunders had ever thrown.
The day was fair and warm. The milling crowds that drifted from the well stocked bars and refreshment tables didn’t even notice there wasn’t a heating system. The lack of carpets, the wide-open window spaces, the empty offices—it all added to the fun.
Carefully groomed waiters in white gloves and hard hats pressed their way from room to room, carrying silver trays laden with drinks and hors d’oeuvres. A heavy metal band blared somewhere. A troupe of strolling violinists pressed in and out. From the happy faces, laughter, and noise, you’d never know the agency had a care in the world.
But Charlie Evanston knew. He pushed his way over to a small crowd pressing around J. All of them were drunk, or on the way, and J. drink in hand, was swaying slightly. His laugh was louder than anybody’s whenever one of the clients told a funny story. He spotted Charlie and shouted to him. “Charlie, c’mere a minute! Folks, you all know my old pal Charlie Evanston. We’ve been together since this place opened its doors. He’s the guy who put this whole great party together.”
There were murmurs of approval as J drew Charlie into his embrace.
“J.” Charlie said, “I just came to ask you to come over here and let me show you something.”
“Oh, Charlie, always business. Can’t it wait till next week? After the holidays?”
“No, I think it’s important. Please come over here. Let me show you.”
“Oh, for Chrissakes, Charlie. What is it?”
“Just follow me. Won’t take long.”
J pulled away from the group with a back-in-a-minute wave of his hand and followed Charlie down a narrow hall to a room that would one day become the heart of the agency’s computer operation.
It was empty. Even the floors hadn’t been finished. Just some wooden planks, a few steel beams—and the sidewalk below. J glanced around the room and turned to Charlie. “So? What’s the problem?”
