Miracle and Other Christmas Stories

by Connie Willis

  “‘Heap on more wood!’” Present said, taking up his book again,” ‘The wind is chill; but let it whistle as it will, we’ll keep our Christmas merry still.’”

  I poured out more tea, and we ate the frosted cakes and Gemma’s figs and half a meat pie I found in the back of the refrigerator, and Present read us “Lochinvar,” with sound effects.

  As I was bringing in the second pot of tea, the clock began to strike, and outside, church bells began to ring. I looked at the clock. It was, impossibly, midnight.

  “Christmas already!” Present said jovially. “Here’s to evenings with friends that fly too fast.”

  “And the friends who make it fly,” I said.

  “To small successes,” Marley said, and raised his cup to me.

  I looked at Christmas Present, and then at Yet to Come, whose face I still could not see, and then back at Marley. He smiled slyly.

  “Come, come,” Present said into the silence. “We have not had a toast from Christmas Yet to Come.”

  “Yes, yes,” Marley said, clanking his chains excitedly. “Speak, Spirit.”

  Yet to Come took hold of his teacup handle with his bony fingers and raised his cup.

  I held my breath.

  “To Christmas,” he said, and why had I ever feared that voice? It was clear and childlike. Like Gemma’s voice, saying, “We’ll be together next Christmas.”

  “To Christmas,” the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come said, his voice growing stronger with each word, “God bless us Every One.”

  CAT’S PAW

  Come, Bridlings,” Touffét said impatiently as soon as I arrived. “Go home and pack your bags. We’re going to Suffolk for a jolly country Christmas.”

  “I thought you hated country Christmases,” I said. I had invited him only the week before down to my sister’s and gotten a violent rejection of the idea. “Country Christmases! Dreadful occasions!” he had said. “Holly and mistletoe and vile games—blindman’s bluff and that ridiculous game where people grab at burning raisins, and even viler food. Plum pudding!” he shuddered. “And wassail!”

  I protested that my sister was an excellent cook and that she never made wassail, she made eggnog. “I think you’d have an excellent time,” I said. “Everyone’s very pleasant.”

  “I can imagine,” he said. “No one drinks, everyone is faithful to his wife, the inheritance is equally and fairly divided, and none of your relatives would ever think of murdering anyone.”

  “Of course not!” I said, bristling.

  “Then I would rather spend Christmas here alone,” Touffét said. “At least then I shall not be subjected to roast goose and Dumb Crambo.”

  “We do not play Dumb Crambo,” I replied with dignity. “We play charades.”

  And now, scarcely a week later, Touffét was eagerly proposing going to the country.

  “I have just received a letter from Lady Charlotte Valladay,” he said, brandishing a sheet of pale pink notepaper, “asking me to come to Marwaite Manor. She wishes me to solve a mystery for her.” He examined the letter through his monocle. “What could be more delightful than murder in a country house at Christmas?”

  Actually, I could think of a number of things. I scanned the letter. “You must come,” she had written. “This is a mystery only you, the world’s greatest detective, can solve.” Lady Charlotte Valladay. And Marwaite Manor. Where had I heard those names before? Lady Charlotte.

  “It doesn’t say there’s been a murder,” I said. “It says a mystery.”

  Touffét was not listening. “We must hurry if we are to catch the 3:00 train from Euston. There won’t be time for you to go home and pack and come back here. You must meet me at the station. Come, don’t stand there looking foolish.”

  “The letter doesn’t say anything about my being invited,” I said. “It only mentions you. And I’ve already told my sister I’m spending Christmas with her.”

  “She does not mention you because it is of course assumed that I will bring my assistant.”

  “Hardly your assistant, Touffét. You never let me do anything.”

  “That is because you have not the mind of a detective. Always you see the facade. Never do you see what lies behind it.”

  “Then you obviously won’t need me,” I said.

  “But I do, Bridlings,” he said. “Who will record my exploits if you are not there? And who will point out the obvious and the incorrect, so that I may reject them and find the true solution?”

  “I would rather play charades,” I said, and picked up my hat. “I hope Lady Charlotte feeds you wassail and plum pudding. And makes you play Dumb Crambo.”

  In the end I went. I had been with Touffét on every one of his cases, and although I still could not place Lady Charlotte Valladay, it seemed to me her name had been connected to something interesting.

  And I had never experienced Christmas in a country manor, with the ancient hall decked in holly and Gains-boroughs, a huge Yule log on the fire, an old-fashioned Christmas feast—poached salmon, a roast joint, and a resplendent goose, with a different wine for every course. Perhaps they might even have a boar’s head.

  The bullet trains to Suffolk were all filled, and we could only get seats on an express. It was filled as well, and every passenger had not only luggage but huge shopping bags crammed with gifts which completely filled all the overhead compartments. I had to hold my bag and Touffét’s umbrella on my lap.

  I thought longingly of the first-class compartment I had booked on the train to my sister’s and hoped Marwaite Manor was at the near end of Suffolk.

  Marwaite Manor. Where had I heard that name? And Lady Charlotte’s? Not in the tabloids, I decided, though I had a vague idea of something controversial. A protest of some sort. What? Cloning? The revival of fox hunting?

  Perhaps she was an actress—they were always getting involved in causes. Or a royal scandal. No, she was too old. I seemed to remember she was in her fifties.

  Touffét, across from me, was deep in a book. I leaned forward slightly, trying to read the title. Touffét only reads mystery novels, he says, to study the methods of fictional detectives, but actually to criticize them. And, I suspected, to study their mannerisms. And co-opt them. He had already affected Lord Peter Wimsey’s monocle and Hercule Poirot’s treatment of his “assistant,” and he had met me at the station, wearing a Sherlock Holmesian—Inverness cape. Thank God he had not adopted Holmes’s deerstalker. Or his violin. At least thus far.

  The title was in very tiny print. I leaned forward farther, and Touffét looked up irritably. “This Dorothy Sayers, she is ridiculous,” he said, “she makes her Lord Peter read timetables of trains, decipher codes, use stopwatches, and it is all, all unnecessary. If he would only ask himself, ‘Who had a motive to murder Paul Alexis?’ he would have no need of all these shirt collar receipts and diagrams.”

  He flung it down. “It is Sherlock Holmes who has caused this foolish preoccupation with evidence,” he said, “with all his tobacco ashes and chemical experiments.” He grabbed the carpetbag off my lap and began rummaging through it. “Where have you put my other book, Bridlings?”

  I hadn’t touched it. I sometimes think he takes me along with him for the same reason that he reads mystery novels—so he can feel superior.

  He pulled a book from his bag, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue. No doubt he would find all sorts of things wrong with Inspector Dupin. He would probably think Dupin should have asked himself what motive an orangu—

  “Touffét!” I said. “I’ve remembered who Lady Charlotte Valladay is! She’s the ape woman!”

  “Ape woman?” Touffét said irritably. “You are saying Lady Charlotte is a carnival attraction? Covered in hair and scratching herself?”

  “No, no,” I said. “She’s a primate-rights activist, claims gorillas and orangutans should be allowed to vote, be given equal standing in the courts, and all that.”

  “Are you certain this is the same person?” Touff�
�t said.

  “Completely. Her father’s Lord Alastair Biddle, made his fortune in artificial intelligence. That’s how she got interested in primates. They were IA research subjects. She founded the Primate Intelligence Institute. I saw her on television just the other day, soliciting funds for it.”

  Touffét had taken out Lady Charlotte’s pink letter and was peering at it. “She says nothing at all about apes.”

  “Perhaps one of her orangutans has got loose and committed a murder, just like in The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” I said. “Looks like she made a monkey out of you, Touffét.”

  There was no one at the station to meet us. I suggested taking the single taxi parked at the end of the platform, but Touffét said, “Lady Charlotte will of course send someone to meet us.”

  After a quarter of an hour, during which it began to rain and I thought fondly of how my sister was always on the platform waiting for me, smiling and waving, I telephoned the manor.

  A man with a reedy, refined voice said, “Marwaite Manor,” and, when I asked for Lady Valladay, said formally, “One moment, please,” and Lady Charlotte came on. “Oh, Colonel Bridlings, I am so sorry about there not being anyone to meet you. They’ve refused to issue D’Artagnan a driver’s license, which is perfectly ridiculous, he drives better than I do, and there was no one else to send. If you could take a taxi, D’Artagnan will pay the driver when you get here. I’ll see you shortly.”

  By this time, of course, the taxi had long gone, and I had to telephone for one. As I was hanging up, a sunburned middle-aged man with a full red beard and a black shoulder bag accosted me.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” he said in a heavy Australian accent. “You’re going to Marwaite Manor, are you, mate?”

  “Yes,” I said warily. Journalists are always trying for interviews with Touffét, and the shoulder bag looked suspiciously like it could contain a vidcam.

  “I was wondering if I could bag a ride with you. I’m going to Marwaite Manor, too.” He stuck out his hand. “Mick Rutgers.”

  “Colonel Bridlings,” I said, and turned to Touffét, who had walked over to us and was peering at Mr. Rutgers through his monocle. “Allow me to introduce Inspector Touffét.”

  “Touffét?” Rutgers said sharply. “The detective?”

  “You have heard of me in Australia?” Touffét said.

  “Everyone has heard of the world’s greatest detective,” Rutgers said, recovering himself. “This is an honor. What brings you to Marwaite Manor?”

  “Lady Charlotte Valladay has asked me to solve a mystery.”

  “A mystery?” he said. “What mystery?”

  “I do not know,” Touffét said. “Ah, the taxi arrives.”

  I picked up our baggage. “I hope it’s not far to the manor.”

  “Only a coupla miles,” Rutgers said.

  “Ah, you have been here before?” Touffét said.

  “No, mate,” Rutgers said, the sharpness back in his voice. “Never set foot in England before, as a matter of fact. No, when she invited me she told me the manor was only a coupla miles from the station. Lady Charlotte. I work for the Australian Broadcasting Network.”

  I knew he was a photographer, I thought. “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Lady Charlotte said she had a big story, one we’d be interested in covering.”

  “And she didn’t say what the story was?” Touffét asked.

  Rutgers shook his head. “But whatever it is, she was paying all expenses, and I’d never seen England. So here I am.”

  We piled into the taxi and set out. It was, as Mr. Rutgers had said, “a coupla miles,” and in no time we’d arrived at Marwaite Manor.

  At least that’s what the scrolled wrought-iron sign above the granite gates said. But the buildings in the distance looked more like an industrial compound. There were numerous long metal sheds with parking lots between them and a great many ventilators and pipes. They looked grim in the freezing rain.

  The taxi driver drove past the compound and up a long hill and stopped in front of a four-story glass-and-chrome affair that looked like a company headquarters. “Are you certain this is Marwaite Manor?” I asked him as he was taking our bags out of the trunk.

  He nodded, handing me Touffét’s portmanteau and my bag. “Is the monkey paying me or are you?”

  “I beg your pardon,” I said sternly. I glanced toward Touffét, hoping he hadn’t heard the rude remark. He and Rutgers had already gone up to the front door. “Lady Charlotte’s butler will pay you,” I said stiffly, and followed them over to the door.

  It opened. A gorilla was standing there, dressed in a butler’s cutaway coat and trousers, and white gloves.

  “Good Lord,” I said.

  “We are here to see Lady Charlotte Valladay,” Touffét said, peering at him through his monocle.

  The gorilla opened the door farther.

  “I am Inspector Touffét and this is Mr. Rutgers.”

  “I think they understand sign language,” I whispered. “Rutgers, do you know any?”

  “Come please? Take bags?” the gorilla said, and I was so surprised I just stood there, gaping.

  “Take bags, sir?” the gorilla said again.

  “The taxi’s six pounds,” the taxi driver said, reaching past me with his hand outstretched. “And that doesn’t include the tip.”

  “Pay moment,” the gorilla said, and turned back to me. “Take bags, sir?”

  I had recovered myself sufficiently to hand them to him, trying not to flinch away from those huge paws in their incongruous white gloves, and to murmur, “Thank you.”

  “This way, sir,” the gorilla said, dropping to his gloved knuckles, and led us into an enormous entryway.

  “Excuse moment,” the gorilla said.

  It really was too odd, hearing that refined, upper-class voice coming out of that enormous gray-black gorilla.

  “Tell Lady Valladay you here.” He started out, still on all fours.

  “Good Lord, Touffét—” I had started to say, when a middle-aged woman in khaki and pearls bustled in.

  “Oh, Inspector Touffét! I’m so glad you’re here! Tanny, did you pay the taxi driver?”

  “Yes, madam,” the gorilla said.

  “Good. Stand up straight. Inspector Touffét, I’d like you to meet D’Artagnan.”

  The gorilla straightened, extended a monstrous gloved hand, and Touffét shook it, albeit a bit gingerly.

  “D’Artagnan was orphaned by poachers in Uganda when he was only two weeks old,” she said.

  “Rescued,” D’Artagnan said, pointing at Lady Valladay with a white-gloved finger.

  “I found him in Hong Kong in a cage the size of a shoebox,” she said, looking fondly at him. “He’s been here at the Institute twelve years.”

  “I thought gorillas couldn’t speak,” I said.

  “He’s had a laryngeal implant,” she said. “When we tour the compound, you’ll see our surgical unit.”

  “How’d he get the name D’Artagnan?” Rutgers asked.

  “He chose it himself. I don’t believe in picking names for primates as if they were pets. Our research here at the Institute has shown that primates are extremely intelligent. They are capable of high-level thinking, computation skills, and self-awareness. D’Artagnan is a conscious being, fully capable of making personal decisions. He’s scored 95 on IQ tests. He named himself after one of the Three Musketeers. It’s his favorite book.”

  “Good Lord, he can read, too?” I said.

  She shook her head. “Only a few words. I read it aloud to him.”

  D’Artagnan nodded his huge head. “Queen,” he said.

  “Yes, he loves the part about the Three Musketeers coming to the queen’s aid.” She turned to Rutgers. “And you must be Colonel Bridlings, who chronicles all his cases.”

  “Mick Rutgers,” he said, extending his sunburnt hand, “of ABN.”

  She looked confused. “But the press invitations were for the twenty-fi
fth.”

  “I’m sure the invitation said the twenty-fourth,” he said, fumbling for it in his jacket.

  “That’s what Ms. Fox said. I really must have Heidi start writing my invitations. Her penmanship is much neater than mine.”

  “I could come back tomorrow—” Rutgers said.

  “No, I’m delighted you’re here,” she said, and seemed to genuinely mean it. She turned her warm smile on me. “Then you must be Colonel Bridlings.”

  “Yes. How do you do?”

  “I’m so pleased to meet all of you. Come,” she said, taking Touffét’s arm, “I want to show you the compound, but first let me introduce you to everyone.”

  “You spoke of a murder you wished me to solve?” Touffét said.

  “A mystery only you can solve,” she said, smiling that lovely smile. She truly had a gift for making one feel warmly welcome.

  I wished I could say the same of Marwaite Manor, but the spacious glass-and-chrome hall she led us into was as welcoming as a dentist’s office. And it was cold! The icy rain outside the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to be falling in the room itself. The only furniture in the room was several uncomfortable-looking chrome-and-canvas chairs and a small glass table with greenery and candles on it.

  Two people were huddled in the center of the nearly empty hall, next to the glass table—a stout, balding man, and a pretty young woman in a thin dress. The woman had her arms folded across her bosom, as if trying to keep warm, and the stout man’s nose was red. A chimpanzee in a maid’s apron, a white collar, and a frilly cap was offering them drinks on a tray.

  They all looked up expectantly as we entered. Lady Valladay grabbed Touffét’s arm. “I have someone I want you to meet, Inspector,” she said, and led him over to the chimpanzee.

  “Inspector Touffét, I’d like you to meet Heidi,” she said.

  “She came from a medical research lab, and she’s one of your most devoted fans.”

  Now that we were closer to the chimpanzee, I could see that what I had taken for a collar was actually a white bandage round the chimpanzee’s shaved neck.