A Christmas Case

by L. B. Hathaway

  People stood and gasped collectively, and Mrs Fairbanks started to cry.

  ‘But why?’ asked Levin Smythe, slowly. ‘Some sort of private vendetta? What has he against us?’

  His partner, Andromeda, turned to him angrily. ‘You fool, Levin. It’s about money, nothing else. Isn’t it, Major Fairbanks?’ And she spat out the man’s name as if it were coal dust in her mouth. He stared away at the wall, unseeing.

  Posie rubbed at her face with her hands. It had all been too, too much tonight. She said, wearily:

  ‘I’m just guessing, sir, but I expect Major Fairbanks, or Robert Clampton, or whoever he is, bought Rebburn Abbey from Rufus here, who obviously needs the money more than we knew, and then also took out an insurance policy in his own name, against fire. If the place caught fire tonight and had to be demolished as a result, why, he’d probably be richer than ever. If he bought Rebburn Abbey cheap, he’d get the full market value and more back by way of an insurance payment. Even if we were all dead in our beds on Christmas morning.’

  She suppressed a shiver. ‘Can’t you get these lads to take him away, sir? It’s making me sick, being in the same room as him.’

  The Inspector was making some sort of signal to the man at the back, who must obviously be some big-timer in the local police force. To Posie’s surprise three more men in uniform sailed through the door. One sidled up to the doll’s house and carried it gingerly away. The other two waited.

  ‘Aren’t two men enough for that despicable creature, Lovelace?’ called out Rufus. ‘Why are these others loitering here?’

  ‘Because I’m not yet finished, your Grace, that’s why. The Major stays here for now. I said it was a dashed coincidence, an unlucky thing that I was here tonight. Certainly the case for Fairbanks, but it was unlucky for someone else in this room, too.’

  Posie’s heart skipped a beat and she stared in horror at the Inspector. She looked quickly at Dulcie Fairbanks, cowering down in her seat, refusing to look up at anyone, let alone her husband. Could it be that Dulcie was much older than she looked? Almost forty? That these two were a long-established deadly pair, had been intent on a murderous path together for years and years?

  The Inspector had followed Posie’s gaze, and spoke coolly:

  ‘You always were an unusual girl, weren’t you? A chameleon.’

  But suddenly he turned, and threw his gaze to the other side of the room.

  ‘Andromeda Keene, or should I say, Meggie McColl. I am arresting you on suspicion of being an accessory to the murders which took place at 98 Hanover Terrace in 1903. If you are found guilty by a Jury of a Court of this land you will hang for your crimes.’

  The room seemed to shift, the atmosphere to snag. Levin Smythe had collapsed into his chair, Posie’s head was reeling, and it seemed as if the only person who was still, who gathered all the quiet and poise in the place together, was the Cabaret star herself.

  In her handcuffs she stood very composed, head cocked to one side, as if about to go on stage to an adoring audience. She was silent.

  ‘I wouldn’t have known it was you, really, apart from that Irish song you sang tonight,’ explained Lovelace. ‘Your strength is in your invisibility, of course: in your ability to transform yourself. To mimic and to imitate. But that was chancing it a bit, wasn’t it? Laying it on good and thick. What was it? A sort of suicide note?’

  Andromeda Keene jutted out her lip and stared at the Major, who looked away. She flicked her short hair back dramatically, and when she eventually spoke it was in an accent quite different to the flat Midlands voice which she had used before. It was an Irish brogue, lilting and mournful, yet harsh and resentful too.

  ‘I wanted him to see me, to take note. I wanted to know if he recognised me. For him to know how it felt.’

  ‘What about the song, sir?’ asked Posie, barely able to keep up.

  ‘Do you remember I said I tried to find out any information I could about Meggie McColl by posting her photograph in the newspaper? Well, most of the reports told of a girl from the north, or Scotland…’

  ‘Liverpool, you said?’

  ‘Quite. But one letter insisted the girl was originally from Ireland, from Donegal. That McColl was a girl who had got herself into trouble, and headed for the ferry to Liverpool. But there was something else at the time which made me wonder if that letter was probably true…’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘A call, which must have cost a lot and been difficult to place, was made to Scotland Yard on the night of that dreadful fire. It got us involved. When I investigated later, it turned out that the woman who had made the call had spoken with a strong Irish accent.’

  Posie nodded, but the grounds and the evidence were tenuous as anything. Could the Inspector really make an arrest of this celebrated Cabaret star in such strange circumstances, with so little to go on?

  Posie spoke low to Andromeda. ‘Why did you do it?’ she said, simply.

  Andromeda fixed her dark, sparkling eyes on Posie for a moment, before reverting to staring at the Major. And then it was as if something broke in the girl, and she laughed hysterically, before the words tumbled out, fast and furious.

  ‘Because, would you believe it, I was in love with him. I met him at a music-hall, and he wanted to see where I lived and worked. I’d been running straight for a while: I liked the Wheeler family actually. But Robert wanted in on the whole thing, convinced me I’d be his mistress once he was all set up. He had me under some sort of spell – you should have seen him then, not like this old flabby-fat corpse standing across the way now – and he convinced me of his dirty plan. Said we’d be married well and truly, and off on a boat to somewhere on the other side of the world as soon as he’d made his pot of money. So I went along with it all, little fool that I was! I did everything he wanted. Except, like your fella here says, I got cold feet when the place was goin’ up in smoke. I alerted the fire brigade, and I called for the police, and Scotland Yard. And then I disappeared.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘It was just like in the song, Miss Parker.’

  And Andromeda Keene began to sing, in her natural, clear, Irish voice, despite her shackled arms.

  I once had a sweet-heart, I loved him so well.

  I loved him far better than my tongue could tell…

  The policemen at either side of her shot questioning looks over at the Inspector, but he shook his head and allowed it to continue:

  According to promise at midnight I rose,

  But all that I found was his discarded clothes,

  The sheets they lay empty, ’twas plain for to see

  And out of the window with another went he.

  ‘So he chucked you over?’ said Posie softly, staring at the girl in all her defiance.

  ‘Aye, you could say that. I was waiting for him in a shabby hotel in Bloomsbury where we’d arranged he would come after collecting that payment. Only, he never arrived. Police came, later. I think the vile toad had left the hotel’s address somewhere, knowing full well they might find me there, and of course they ransacked the place. I had to get out, pretending to be a house-maid. Ironically! I never set eyes on him again until I saw him this afternoon. And would you believe it, I didn’t think your Inspector here would put two and two together. I thought we’d both walk away scot-free.’

  As a confession, it was pretty damning.

  ‘Take them away, boys. In separate vans, and I don’t care if they get stuck in a snow drift all night long with no rugs or tea or anything to keep them warm, if you catch my meaning.’

  Something nagged at Posie, and she called out, awkwardly, for it was really no place of hers to ask:

  ‘Major, tell me this, did you recognise Meggie today when you arrived?’

  The man turned from between his two gaolers and narrowed his eyes over his shoulder.

  ‘I have no idea what you are referring to, Miss Parker. Of course I recognised Miss Keene, the famous Cabaret star, but before today I had never
clapped eyes on her. And I do not know, nor have ever known, anyone by the name of Meggie McColl. This is all a lot of nonsense.’

  With them removed, the room seemed suddenly sickeningly quiet. Rufus went upstairs to check on his wife, and Levin Smythe and Dulcie Fairbanks sat dumb with incomprehension. Lovelace was shaking hands with the burly Sergeant in the overcoat, and Posie strained to hear their conversation, being naturally nosy.

  ‘Thanks awfully for coming, I was afraid you wouldn’t get through in all this snow, with the impassable roads. I was waiting and waiting, wondering how long I could string it out. I couldn’t very well make an arrest all on my own with no manpower behind me.’

  The local Sergeant nodded, accepting a tot of brandy for a job well done. ‘I know, sir. I did telephone, telling you ‘Not yet.’ I can only apologise that we took our time. We didn’t do it deliberately, but to tell the truth the roads aren’t completely impassable yet.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No, we were held up by an accident. Horrible case really. It happened just before nine o’clock tonight, when you folks were probably finishing your dinner and starting off in here, I reckon.’

  ‘What happened exactly?’

  Posie felt a dreadful pin-prickly sensation come over her, a feeling of wanting to be sick without knowing why. She remembered the awful smell of blood.

  ‘It were that nice young Doctor, Dr Marlin he’s called. He was called.’

  ‘Eh? Come again?’

  ‘It seems he’d set out for a house call, all a-fluster. He told his wife he needed to get somewhere pretty urgently; it was a matter of life or death, he said, and he hurried off in his car. He was driving fast on the road, on the ice, and skidded, and went full-pelt into a great thwacking oak tree. Killed instantly.’

  ‘By gad!’ The Inspector was incredulous.

  ‘It were awful, sir, it really were. Blood everywhere, and such a thing on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘What time was this, you say?’

  ‘Just before nine o’clock, sir. We got to the scene of death about fifteen minutes later.’

  The Inspector was looking nervy, rubbing his hands, clicking his knuckles one by one. ‘I say, there must be some mistake. I thought…only, I thought we had him here at ten… He was insistent that Dolly was in trouble…’

  The Sergeant laughed good-humouredly.

  ‘There must be a mistake, sir. Dr Marlin couldn’t have come here then, he was already tucked up in the Mortuary, been dead an hour. You’re thinking of old Dr Hanratty who actually did make this house call… Although funny you should mention that thing about the Countess being in trouble. Dr Hanratty swore he’d received a call to his home from Dr Marlin at ten-past nine, asking him to attend urgently on the Countess up at Rebburn Abbey, as she was in trouble, and Hanratty came and joined us on the road just five minutes later, wondering what was going on. And when he saw young Marlin lying there cold he shivered like the grave itself. But it’s like I said to my boys: maybe Hanratty had had one too many brandies himself by that point?’

  Posie was trying to stay calm, breathing normally. She kept running over the young Doctor’s words:

  ‘I promised myself I’d check on her tonight if it was the last thing I did.’

  It seemed as if, somehow, it had been the very last thing he had done, after all. He had managed a warning of some kind, at least. Just in time to save Dolly’s life. Posie shivered.

  She was longing for bed, and actually, for home.

  For London. For life.

  And as the Sergeant slipped out the door, Posie and Lovelace looked at each other meaningfully for a second. But then they looked away, and it was the only time in both their lives that they ever addressed that issue.

  ****

  Nine

  Posie was up in her bedroom at Rebburn Abbey. It was freezing, and now past midnight. She had kept on the cricket jumper, and added whatever clothes she had to hand, and she was still cold.

  What a night!

  So many things to think about: things which mainly had no explanation. Thank goodness the Inspector’s mystery had been cleared up, though, after all this time.

  Watching the swirling snow outside, which showed no signs of stopping, Posie found herself being wrenched back to her very own unsolved mystery.

  Rufus had asked Posie quite brazenly, in front of all those people tonight, if, in fact, there had been another conclusion to her story. If her own mystery about Harry Jones, murdered on the beach at Broadstairs, had had another ending…

  She had assured him boldly that it had not. But he, of all people, knew she was keeping something back. That there was more.

  After all, Rufus had been there…

  She was suddenly transported back in time to another Christmas Eve, back to when she was just eleven. To 1903, that fateful year with its aborted trip to the seaside.

  In her memory, she saw herself dashing through the hallway of her father’s Rectory, her arms full of parcels, her heart full of Christmas happiness. There was so much to look at and enjoy.

  A Christmas tree, twelve-foot high, adorned with silver glass birds, filling the vast hallway of the Norfolk Rectory; the cold black and white tiles warmed for once by the festive cheer. A small crib carved from olive wood set up by the front door, bits of old white wool pretending to be snow.

  There were boughs of green holly and ivy hanging down from the bannisters, and pink and white paperchains looped over the shabby old hunting scenes on the stairs. A haughty Siamese cat was prowling around warily: not Mr Minks, he came later.

  There were snatches of the piano being played and a tinkling laughter which filled the house. The smell of gingerbread wafting along the corridors came up from the big service kitchen below.

  And Richard, her beloved brother, was home from Eton for a long Christmas holiday. This year, 1903, Richard had brought a friend home on Christmas Eve. She remembered the meeting.

  ‘Wotcha, Nosy. Have you met Rufus yet?’

  And so he stood before her. A young Lord, Rufus Cardigeon, whose father was thought to own half of Yorkshire, whose vast and sprawling family home, Rebburn Abbey, was a castle of truly magnificent proportions. Whose family riches had been collected since the days of William the Conqueror.

  It was an impressive-sounding background, but the boy himself was skinny and scrawny, and prone to endless colds, and although he was two years older than Posie he stood a head and shoulders shorter than her.

  ‘Wotcha, Nosy,’ said Rufus blearily, rubbing at his nose.

  ‘Wotcha, Snotty,’ Posie had retorted.

  There hadn’t been much time to get to know each other, for Christmas Eve was a busy time in the Rectory. It was all hands to the decks. The maids and Cook were all busy, and Posie and her brother were sent on endless errands all over the village, Rufus in tow.

  The Reverend Parker had been cloistered in his red-painted study all morning, with just the cat for company, presumably writing enough sermons and Christmas addresses for his large church and its big congregation to last through Christmas Week. Their mother, Rosa, was upstairs in one of the bedrooms doing last-minute wrapping of parcels.

  It had been about quarter-to-twelve, and the dinner gong hadn’t yet rung, and the Parker children had been taking the opportunity to hide out in the drawing room, where no-one could find them, when there came an almighty screaming from upstairs.

  It was their mother.

  Posie’s first thought was that she must be suffering from some sort of attack, or seizure, and she followed her brother hurriedly up the two flights of stairs, running breathlessly. Rufus dragged behind them both, all agog with excitement. He hadn’t got a mother, let alone a mother like this. Somewhere below, a door slammed heavily.

  ‘Mama?’ called out Richard, and went automatically to Rosa Parker’s bedroom, the other two children hot on his heels. But he found it empty.

  He tried his own bedroom, and then Posie’s, but both were also empty.

  They came
to their father’s room, and saw something out of a nightmare.

  Quite what she had been doing in there was anyone’s guess, but it seemed she had been looking for more wrapping paper. Rosa Parker, rising like some statuesque Madonna, was all decked out in festive green and red tartan, and she was surrounded by a detritus of small items. She was staring at the bed, at the white embroidered counterpane, at the Christmas gifts piled upon it.

  Posie found that now, twenty years later, quite surprisingly, she could bring almost all of the gifts to mind: a green leather-backed book; a small, delicate china doll the size of a child’s hand; a pair of patterned, shop-bought socks; a rather expensive-looking paint box complete with brushes.

  Christmas presents for all the family.

  The room was a tip. Drawers had been pulled out of the Reverend’s dark oak dresser and their contents jumbled over everything. The doors of the main cupboard swung open, revealing nothing more exciting than a few clean white shirts and off-duty flannel slacks, for the fancy priest’s uniform which the Reverend Parker wore on duty was all kept in the Vestry at church.

  ‘Mama, what’s wrong?’ Richard Parker had asked hurriedly, in some embarrassment, for it seemed now that his mother had seen nothing worse than perhaps a spider, and he would get grief all day long from his school chum about it.

  But Rosa Parker could not speak.

  She simply stared, and stared. And then Posie’s eyes followed her gaze quite carefully, as did Richard. Rosa was pointing at the middle of the counterpane, but not at the gifts, where something else lay partly covered by one of their father’s big red handkerchiefs.

  Posie looked, and so did Richard. Posie remembered her heart had seemed to constrict within her chest, and the moment went on forever. She could hardly breathe for fear.

  Their mother spoke in a terrible whisper. ‘I found them. They were hidden in the bottom drawer. Children, what will I do?’