Nick returned the letter to its envelope and slipped it into his pocket. It told him nothing, except that the two victims might have known each other. Maybe Bajon had replaced Averly as one of the Santas.
“Thanks for your efforts anyway,” Vivian Delmos said.
“I did what I could.”
When he didn’t move, she asked, “Are you waiting for something more?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?”
“Your beard.”
That evening Nick returned to Grady Culhane’s little office off Times Square. The young security man seemed uneasy as soon as he walked in the door. “I was hoping you wouldn’t come here,” he said.
Nick opened the paper bag he was carrying. “Why’s that? I’ve brought you the beard.”
“The beard was yesterday. Things have moved beyond that now. The cops are all over the place.”
“What do you mean?”
“The extortion payoff. The money was left exactly as instructed, on the upper deck of the ferry that left Staten Island at three o’clock, before the evening rush hour. The police had it covered from every angle, even if he’d tossed the package overboard to a waiting boat.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. When the ferry docked in Manhattan some little old lady picked up the package and turned it in to lost and found.”
“She got to it before the extortionist.”
“Maybe,” Culhane answered gloomily.
“What’s the matter?”
“The Outreach Center reported that someone was snooping around the first victim’s things this afternoon, and stole a box.”
“That was me.”
“I was afraid it might be. That means the cops are after you.”
“How come?”
“They figure the killer was at the Outreach Center and that’s why he couldn’t pick up the extortion money from the three o’clock ferry.”
“I certainly don’t go around strangling Santas!” Nick objected. “You didn’t even hire me till after the killings.”
“I know, but try to tell them that! They need a fall guy. right away, or the city could lose millions in Christmas sales this final week. Who wants to bring the kids to see Santa Claus if he might be dead?”
A thought suddenly struck Nick. “You seemed nervous when I came in. Are they watching this office?”
“I had to tell them you were the one who set off the smoke bomb in the store yesterday. They were spending too much time on that angle and I tried to show them it was a dead end by admitting my part in it. Instead they got to thinking you were involved somehow.”
“Just give me the rest of my money and I’m out of here.”
“I don’t have it right now.”
Nick decided he’d overstayed his welcome. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised as he headed for the door.
They were waiting in the hall. A tall black man with a badge in one hand and a gun in the other barked, “Police! Up against the wall!”
His name was Sergeant Rynor and he was no more friendly within the confines of the precinct station. “You deny you were at the Outreach Center between three and four this afternoon, Mr. Velvet?”
“I told you I want a lawyer,” Nick answered.
“He’ll be here soon enough. And when he arrives we’re going to run a lineup. Then we’ll talk about the Santa Claus killings.”
Ralph Aarons was a dapper Manhattan attorney whom Nick had used on rare occasions. He wasn’t in the habit of getting in legal jams, especially in the New York area. Aarons made a good appearance, but he was hardly the sort to defend an accused serial Santa strangler.
“They’ve got a witness named Stover,” the lawyer told him. “If he can place you at the Outreach Center, it may be trouble.”
“We’ll see,” Nick said. He’d been thinking hard while he waited for Aarons to arrive.
Sergeant Rynor appeared in the doorway. “We’re ready for you, Velvet. Up here on stage, please.”
There were five other men. and Nick took the third position. The others were about his age and size but with different coloring and appearance. He guessed at least two of them were probably detectives. Chris Stover was brought in and escorted into a booth with a one-way glass. Over a loudspeaker, each of them was asked to step forward in turn. Then it was over. Apparently it had taken only a moment for Stover to identify him.
As Nick was being led away, Chris Stover and the other detectives came out of the booth. Nick paused ten feet from him and pointed dramatically. “That’s the man!” his voice thundered like the wrath of God. “He’s the one who killed the Santas and I can prove it!”
Nick couldn’t prove it, and Chris Stover should have snorted and kept on walking. But he was taken off guard, startled into a foolish action. Perhaps in that unthinking instant he imagined the whole lineup had been merely a trick to unmask him. He gave one terrified glance at Nick and then tried to run, shoving two detectives out of the way in his dash for freedom.
It was Sergeant Rynor who finally grabbed him, before he even got close to the door.
‘ We’re holding him,” the black detective told Nick Velvet ten minutes later in the interrogation room, “but you’d better have a good story. Are you trying to tell us that Chris Stover is the extortionist who’s been threatening the city’s department stores for the past several days?”
“I don’t think there was ever a real extortion plot. It was a matter of a big threat being used as a smokescreen to hide a smaller but no less deadly crime— the murders of Russell Bajon and Larry Averly.”
“You’d better explain that.”
Nick leaned back in the chair and collected his thoughts. “Grady Culhane told me about the extortion threats and even showed me a copy of the first letter. It was delivered to Kliman’s president on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the second strangling of a Santa Claus. Those two killings were meant to appear to be random acts against two random Santas, committed as a demonstration that the extortionist meant business. But the note mentioned the names of the two victims—Bajon and Averly. You didn’t identify the second victim until later that day, and the killer had no chance to steal identification from his victim. The strangler knew the names of Bajon and Averly because these killings weren’t random at all. He deliberately selected these victims, not as part of an extortion plot but for another motive altogether.”
Rynor was making notes now, along with taping Nick’s interrogation. Ralph Aarons. perhaps sensing things were going well for Nick, made no attempt to interrupt. “What other motive?” the detective asked.
“I learned earlier today that Bajon might have been involved in a shoplifting ring. And I also have a letter here that the second victim sent to Bajon two weeks ago. Not only did they know each other, but Averly had arranged for Bajon to take over some money-making enterprise from him. I think you’ll find that Averly used to act as a Santa Claus for the Outreach Center. This year he passed the job on to Bajon, who became involved with the shoplifting.”
“You’re telling me that a man dressed in a bulky and highly visible Santa Claus costume was shoplifting?”
“No. I’m telling you that Santa stood on the corner with his collection chimney and the shoplifters came out of the stores with watches, rings, and other jewelry, and dropped them in the chimney. If the man was caught, there was no evidence on him, and the store detectives never considered Santa as an accessory.”
“It’s just wild enough to be true. But why would Stover kill them?”
“Bajon must have been skimming off the loot, or threatening to blackmail Stover. Once he decided to kill Bajon. he knew he had to kill Averly too, because the older man knew what was going on. When I guessed about Santa’s chimney being used for shoplifting loot, Chris Stover became the most likely brains behind the operation. After all, he was the one who picked up the Santas and chimneys each night. He was the one who told them where to stand. Only Monday night he parked the van in the next bloc
k and walked up and strangled Bajon, then hurried back to the van and acted like he was just driving up.”
“Maybe,” Sergeant Rynor said thoughtfully. “It could have been like that. The extortion letter was just a red herring to cover the real motive. He never had any intention of going after that money on the Staten Island ferry.”
“Can you prove all this?” Aarons asked, his legal mind in gear.
“We’ll get a search warrant for Stover’s office and room at the Center. If we find any shoplifted items there, I think he’ll be ready to talk, and name the rest of the gang.”
Nick knew he wasn’t off the hook unless they found what they were looking for, but he came up lucky. The police uncovered dozens of jewelry items, along with a spool of wire that matched the wire used to kill the two Santas. After that, Chris Stover ceased his denials.
The way things turned out, Nick never did collect the balance of his fee from Grady Culhane. Some people just didn’t have any Christmas spirit.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH – Georges Simenon
“At home we always used to go to Midnight Mass. I can’t remember a Christmas when we missed it, though it meant a good half hour’s drive from the farm to the village.”
The speaker, Sommer, was making some coffee on a little electric stove.
“There were five of us,” he went on. “Five boys, that is. The winters were colder in those days. Sometimes we had to go by sledge.”
Lecœur, on the switchboard, had taken off his earphones to listen. “In what part of the country was that?”
“Lorraine.”
“The winters in Lorraine were no colder thirty or forty years ago than they are now—only, of course, in those days the peasant had no cars. How many times did you go to Midnight Mass by sledge?”
“Couldn’t say, exactly.”
“Three times? Twice? Perhaps no more than once. Only it made a great impression on you, as you were a child.”
“Anyhow, when we got back, we’d all have black pudding, and I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I’ve never had anything like it since. I don’t know what my mother used to put in them, but her boudins were quite different from anyone else’s. My wife’s tried, but it wasn’t the same thing, though she had the exact recipe from my eldest sister—at least, my sister swore it was.”
He walked over to one of the huge, uncurtained windows, through which was nothing but blackness, and scratched the pane with a fingernail.
“Hallo, there’s frost forming. That again reminds me of when I was little. The water used to freeze in our rooms and we’d have to break the ice in the morning when we wanted to wash.”
“People didn’t have central heating in those days.” answered Lecœur coolly.
There were three of them on night duty. Les nuiteux, they were called. They had been in that vast room since eleven o’clock, and now, at six on that Christmas morning, all three were looking a bit jaded. Three or four empty bottles were lying about, with the remains of the sandwiches they had brought with them.
A lamp no bigger than an aspirin tablet lit up on one of the walls. Its position told Lecœur at once where the call came from.
“Thirteenth Arrondissement, Croulebarbe,” he murmured, replacing his earphones. He seized a plug and pushed it into a hole.
“Croulebarbe? Your car’s been called out—what for?”
“A call from the Boulevard Masséna. Two drunks fighting.”
Lecœur carefully made a little cross in one of the columns of his notebook.
“How are you getting on down your way?”
“There are only four of us here. Two are playing dominoes.”
“Had any boudin tonight?”
“No. Why?”
“Never mind. I must ring off now. There’s a call from the Sixteenth.”
A gigantic map of Paris was drawn on the wall in front of him and on it each police station was represented by a little lamp. As soon as anything happened anywhere, a lamp would light up and Lecœur would plug into the appropriate socket.
“Chaillot? Hallo! Your car’s out?”
In front of each police station throughout the twenty arrondissements of Paris, one or more cars stood waiting, ready to dash off the moment an alarm was raised.
“What with?”
“Veronal.”
That would be a woman. It was the third suicide that night, the second in the smart district of Passy.
Another little cross was entered in the appropriate column of Lecœur’s notebook. Mambret, the third member of the watch, was sitting at a desk filling out forms.
“Hallo! Odéon? What’s going on? Oh, a car stolen.”
That was for Mambret, who took down the particulars, then phoned them through to Piedbœuf in the room above. Piedbœuf, the teleprinter operator, had such a resounding voice that the others could hear it through the ceiling. This was the forty-eighth car whose details he had circulated that night.
An ordinary night, in fact—for them. Not so for the world outside. For this was the great night, la nuit de Noël. Not only was there the Midnight Mass, but all the theaters and cinemas were crammed, and at the big stores, which stayed open till twelve, a crowd of people jostled each other in a last-minute scramble to finish off their Christmas shopping.
Indoors were family gatherings feasting on roast turkey and perhaps also on boudins made, like the ones Sommer had been talking about, from a secret recipe handed down from mother to daughter.
There were children sleeping restlessly while their parents crept about playing the part of Santa Claus. arranging the presents they would find on waking.
At the restaurants and cabarets every table had been booked at least a week in advance. In the Salvation Army barge on the Seine, tramps and paupers queued up for an extra special.
Sommer had a wife and five children. Piedbœuf, the teleprinter operator upstairs, was a father of one week’s standing. Without the frost on the window-panes, they wouldn’t have known it was freezing outside. In that vast, dingy room they were in a world apart, surrounded on all sides by the empty offices of the Prefecture de Police, which stood facing the Palais de Justice. It wasn’t till the following day that those offices would once again be teeming with people in search of passport visas, driving licenses, and permits of every description.
In the courtyard below, cars stood waiting for emergency calls, the men of the flying squad dozing on the seats. Nothing, however, had happened that night of sufficient importance to justify their being called out. You could see that from the little crosses in Lecœur’s notebook. He didn’t bother to count them, but he could tell at a glance that there were something like two hundred in the drunks’ column.
No doubt there’d have been a lot more if it hadn’t been that this was a night for indulgence. In most cases the police were able to persuade those who had had too much to go home and keep out of trouble. Those arrested were the ones in whom drink raised the devil, those who smashed windows or molested other people.
Two hundred of that sort—a handful of women among them—were now out of harm’s way, sleeping heavily on the wooden benches in the lockups.
There’d been five knifings. Two near the Porte d’ltalie. Three in the remoter part of Montmartre. not in the Montmartre of the Moulin Rouge and the Lapin Agile but in the Zone, beyond where the Fortifs used to be, whose population included over 100,000 Arabs living in huts made of old packing cases and roofing-felt.
A few children had been lost in the exodus from the churches, but they were soon returned to their anxious parents.
“Hallo! Chaillot? How’s your veronal case getting on?”
She wasn’t dead. Of course not! Few went as far as that. Suicide is all very well as a gesture—indeed, it can be a very effective one. But there’s no need to go and kill yourself!
“Talking of boudin,” said Mambret, who was smoking an enormous meerschaum pipe, “that reminds me of—”
They were never to know what he was reminded of. There w
ere steps in the corridor, then the handle of the door was turned. All three looked round at once, wondering who could be coming to see them at ten past six in the morning.
“Salut!” said the man who entered, throwing his hat down on a chair.
“Whatever brings you here, Janvier?”
It was a detective of the Brigade des Homicides, who walked straight to the stove to warm his hands.
“I got pretty bored sitting all by myself and I thought I might as well come over here. After all, if the killer’s going to do his stuff I’d hear about it quicker here than anywhere.”
He, too, had been on duty all night, but round the corner, in the Police Judiciaire.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, picking up the coffeepot. “There’s a bitter wind blowing.”
It had made his ears red.
“I don’t suppose we’ll hear till eight, probably later,” said Lecœur.
For the last fifteen years, he had spent his nights in that room, sitting at the switchboard, keeping an eye on the big map with the little lamps. He knew half the police in Paris by name, or, at any rate, those who did night duty. Of many he knew even their private affairs, as, when things were quiet, he would have long chats with them over the telephone to pass the time away. “Oh. it’s you, Dumas. How are things at home?”
But though there were many whose voices were familiar, there were hardly any of them he knew by sight.
Nor was his acquaintance confined to the police. He was on equally familiar terms with many of the hospitals.
“Hallo! Bichat? What about the chap who was brought in half an hour ago? Is he dead yet?”
He was dead, and another little cross went into the notebook. The latter was, in its unpretentious way, quite a mine of information. If you asked Lecœur how many murders in the last twelve months had been done for the sake of money, he’d give the answer in a moment—sixty-seven.
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