Miracle and Other Christmas Stories

by Connie Willis

  “You’re quite right,” she said. “It is time. What Inspector Touffét said is true. I asked him here to solve a mystery, a mystery so baffling only the greatest detective in the world could solve it.”

  She stood up, as if to make a speech. “The research my Institute has done has proved that primates are capable of higher-thinking skills and complex planning, that they can think and understand and speak and even write.”

  “Madam,” Touffét said, half-rising.

  She waved him back to sitting. “The mystery that I wish Inspector Touffét to solve is this: Since it has been proved that primates have thoughts and ideas equivalent to those of humans, that they are by every standard human, why are they not treated as human? Why do they not have legal standing in the courts? Why are they not allowed to vote and own property? Why have they not been given their civil rights? Inspector Touffét, only you can solve this mystery. Only you can give us the answer! Why are apes not given equal standing with humans?”

  “You’ve been taken in, Touffét,” I said, I must admit with some pleasure. “Lady Charlotte only invited you here as a publicity stunt. She wanted you to be a pitchman for her Institute.” I laughed. “This time it’s you who’s the cat’s paw. She’s using you to get chimpanzees the vote.”

  “A cat’s paw,” he said, offended. “I do not allow myself to be used as a cat’s paw.” He pulled his bag off the top of the bureau. “What time is the next train to your sister’s?”

  “You’re leaving?” I said.

  “We are leaving,” he said. “Telephone your sister and tell her we will arrive tonight. Inspector Touffét does not allow himself to be used by anyone.”

  Well, at any rate my sister would be happy, I thought, going downstairs to telephone her. I pulled the train schedule out of my pocket. If we were able to catch the 9:30 train, we could be there before midnight. I wondered whether Lady Charlotte would arrange for us to be driven to the station, and whether the driver would be D’Artagnan. I decided under the circumstances I’d better phone for a taxi as well. D’Artagnan was devoted to her. He might not like the idea of our leaving.

  I started to open the door of the study and then stopped at the sound of a woman’s voice. “No, it’s going fine,” she said. “You should have seen me. I was great. I even ate roast beef.” There was a pause. “Tomorrow, while they’re touring the compound. Listen, I’ve gotta go.”

  I backed hastily away, not wishing to be caught eavesdropping, and into the solarium. For a moment I thought there were two people standing by the window, and then I realized it was Heidi and D’Artagnan. Heidi was signing animatedly to the gorilla, and he was nodding.

  They stopped as soon as they saw me, and D’Artagnan started toward me. “Help you, sir?”

  “I’m looking for a telephone,” I said, and he led me out into the corridor and over to the study.

  I phoned my sister. “Oh, good,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the station. Have you had dinner?”

  “Only a bite.”

  “I’ll bring you a sandwich.”

  When I got back upstairs, Touffét was already waiting by the lift with our bags. “Have you telephoned for a taxi?” he asked, pushing the lift button.

  “Yes,” I’d started to say, when the air was split by a shrill, terrified scream from somewhere above us.

  “Good Lord, Touffét!” I said. “It sounds like someone’s being murdered.”

  “No doubt Lady Charlotte has discovered I am leaving,” he said dryly, and pushed the button again.

  Rutgers came tumbling out of his room, and Leda’s blonde head appeared. “What was that? It sounded like an animal being tortured.”

  “I think we should take the stairs,” I said, but before I could turn, the lift opened, and Nurse Parchtry fell into my arms.

  “It’s Lord Alastair!” she sobbed. “He’s dead!” “Dead?” Touffét said.

  “Yes!” she said. “You must come!” She stepped back into the lift. “I think he’s been murdered!”

  We followed her into the lift. “Murdered?” Mick Rutgers said from down the hall, but the door was already shutting.

  “See if Sergeant Eustis has gone,” Touffét called through the closing door. “Now,” he said to Nurse Parchtry as the lift started. “Tell me exactly what happened. Everything. After the games did you return to the nursery?”

  “Yes. No, I went to my room to finish wrapping my Christmas presents,” she said guiltily. “I had the baby monitor with me.”

  “And you heard nothing?” Touffét asked.

  “No. I thought he was sleeping. He wasn’t making any noise at all.” She started to sob again. “I didn’t know the monitor was broken.”

  The lift doors parted, and we stepped out. The door to the anteroom stood ajar. “Was this door open when you arrived?”

  “Yes,” she said, leading the way into the anteroom. “And this one, too.” She pointed at the door to the nursery. “I thought he’d gotten out. But then I saw … him….” She buried her head in my jacket.

  “Come, madam,” Touffét said sternly. “You must pull yourself together. You said you had always wished to see me solve a mystery. Now you shall, but you must help me.”

  “You’re right, I did. I will,” she said, but when we went into the nursery, she hung back reluctantly and then grabbed on to my arm for support.

  The place was a shambles. Lord Alastair’s bed had been overturned and the bedclothes dragged off it. The pillows had been torn up, the stuffing flung in handfuls about the room. The rocking chair, bowls, toys, tire—all looked as if they had been thrown about the room in a violent rage. Lord Alastair lay on his back in the middle of the floor, half on a rumpled blanket, his face swollen and purple.

  “Did you touch anything?” Touffét asked, looking around the room.

  “No,” Nurse Parchtry said. “I knew from your cases not to.” She clapped her hand to her mouth. “I did touch him. I took his pulse and listened to his heart. I thought perhaps he wasn’t dead.”

  He looked dead to me. His face was a horrible purplish-blue color, his tongue pushing out of his mouth, his eyes bulging, his neck bruised. And she was a nurse. She should have known at a glance there was no hope of resuscitation.

  “Did you touch anything else?” Touffét said, squatting down and holding out his monocle to look closely at Lord Alastair’s neck.

  “No,” she said, “I screamed, and then I ran to find you.”

  “Where did you scream?”

  “Where?” she said blankly. “Right here. By the body.”

  He stood up and looked at the glass partition and then walked over to the wall. The baby monitor lay against it, its back off and the front of the case broken in two pieces.

  “That’s why there was no sound from the monitor,” I said. “That means he could have been killed any time after dinner.”

  “And no one has an alibi,” Nurse Parchtry said. “We were all out in the corridor by ourselves for several minutes.”

  Touffét had picked up the baby monitor and was examining the switch. “Should you be doing that?” I asked. “Won’t it smudge the fingerprints?”

  “There are no fingerprints,” he said, putting the monitor back down, “and none on the neck either.”

  “I warned you!” James said, appearing in the doorway. “I told you that ape was dangerous, and now he’s killed my father!” He strode over to the body.

  “I need to secure this crime scene,” Sergeant Eustis said, coming into the room, unreeling yards and yards of yellow “Do Not Cross” tape. “I’ll have to ask all of you to leave. Don’t touch anything,” he said sharply to James, who was putting his hand to his father’s neck. “This is a murder investigation. I’ll want to question everyone downstairs.”

  “Murder investigation!” James said. “There’s no need for any investigation! I’ll tell you who murdered my father. It was that ape!”

  “The evidence will tell us who killed him,” Sergeant Eustis said, walking
back over to the body. “Inspector Touffét, come look at this. It’s a hair.”

  He pointed to a long, coarse black hair lying on Lord Alastair’s pajama’d chest.

  “There! Look at that!” James said. “There’s your evidence!”

  Sergeant Eustis took out an evidence bag and a pair of tweezers and carefully placed the hair in the bag. While all this was going on, Touffét had walked over to the far wall and was looking at the lidded cup, which had apparently hit the wall and bounced. Cocoa was splattered across the wall in a long arc. Touffét picked up the cup, pried off the lid, sniffed at the contents, and then dipped a finger in and licked it off.

  “You mustn’t touch that!” Sergeant Eustis said, racing over, trailing long loops of yellow. “The fingerprints!”

  “You will not find any fingerprints,” Touffét said. “The murderer wore gloves.”

  “You see!” James shouted. “Even the Great Detective knows D’Artagnan did it. Why aren’t you out capturing him? He’s liable to kill someone else!”

  Touffét ignored him. He handed Sergeant Eustis the cup. “Have the residue analyzed. I think it will yield interesting results.”

  Sergeant Eustis put the cup into an evidence bag and handed it to the young constable who’d just arrived and was gaping at Lord Alastair. “Have the residue analyzed,” Sergeant Eustis said, “and take all these people downstairs. I will want to question everyone in the house.”

  “Question!” James raged. “This is a waste of time. It’s obvious what happened here. I warned you!”

  “Yes,” Touffét said, looking curiously at James. “You did.”

  I was surprised that Touffét didn’t object to being herded out of the nursery and into the lift by the constable, along with everyone else, but he only said, “Has Lady Charlotte been told?”

  “I’ll tell her,” Mick Rutgers volunteered, and Touffét gazed at him for a long moment, as if his mind were elsewhere, and then nodded. He continued to look at Rutgers as he went down the corridor and then turned to me. “Who do you think committed the murder, Bridlings?”

  “It seems perfectly straightforward,” I said. “James said the apes were dangerous, and, unfortunately, it appears he was right.”

  “Appears, yes. That is because you see only the surface.”

  “Well, what do you see?” I demanded. “The old man’s been strangled, furniture’s been smashed, there’s a gorilla hair on the body.”

  “Exactly. It is like a scene out of a mystery novel. I have something I wish you to do,” he said abruptly. “I wish you to find Leda Fox and tell her Sergeant Eustis wishes to speak to her.”

  “But he didn’t say he—”

  “He said he wished to question everyone.”

  “You don’t think Leda had anything to do with this?” I said. “She can’t have. She’s not strong enough. Lord Alastair was strangled. There was a terrific struggle.”

  “So it would appear,” he said. He motioned me out of the room.

  I went up to Leda’s room and was surprised to find her packing. “I’m not staying in the same house with a killer gorilla,” she said. “A cold house with a killer gorilla.”

  “No one’s allowed to leave,” I said. “Sergeant Eustis wants to question you.”

  I was surprised at her reaction. She went completely white. “Question me?” she stammered. “What about?”

  “Who saw what, where we all were at the time of the murder, and that sort of thing, I suppose,” I said, trying to reassure her.

  “But I thought they knew who did it,” she said. “I thought D’Artagnan did it.”

  “Knowing who did it and proving it are two different things,” I said. “I’m certain it’s just routine.”

  She started up to the nursery, and I went back to the study to find Touffét. He wasn’t there, nor was he in his room. Perhaps he’d gone back up to the nursery, too. I went out to the lift, and it opened, revealing Lady Charlotte. She looked pale and drawn. “Oh, Colonel Bridlings,” she said, “where is Inspector Touffét?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t—”

  “I am here, madam,” Touffét said, and I turned and looked at him in surprise, wondering where he’d come from.

  “Oh, Inspector,” she said, clutching at his hands. “I know I brought you here under false pretenses, but now you must solve this murder. D’Artagnan could not possibly have killed my father, but my brother is determined to—” She broke down.

  “Madam, compose yourself,” Touffét said. “I must ask you two questions. First, are any of your household keys missing?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, pulling the bunch of keys out of her pocket and examining them. “The key to the nursery,” she said suddenly. “But the keys have been with me all day. No, I didn’t have them when we went up to see my father, and Nurse Parchtry had to let us in. Let’s see, I had them this morning, and then I gave them to D’Artagnan because he’d misplaced his gloves—” She stopped, as if suddenly aware of what she’d said. “Oh, but you don’t think he—”

  “My second question is this,” Touffét said, “when your father had difficult days, could you hear him on the lower floors of the house?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “If only we’d heard him tonight. Poor old …” she clutched tearfully at Touffét’s sleeve. “Please say you will stay and solve the murder.”

  “I have already solved it,” he said. “I request that you ask everyone to come into the parlor, including Sergeant Eustis, and give them a glass of sherry. Bridlings and I will join you shortly.”

  As soon as she was gone, Touffét turned to me. “What time is the last train to Sussex?”

  “Eleven-fourteen,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he said, consulting his pocket watch. “More than enough time. You shall be at your sister’s in time to burn your fingers on the raisins.”

  “We don’t play Snapdragon,” I said. “We play charades. And how can you have solved the crime so quickly? Sergeant Eustis’s men haven’t even had time to gather evidence, let alone run forensics tests.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Forensics, evidence, they tell us only how the murder was done, not why.”

  They also frequently tell us who, I would have said, if Touffét had given me the opportunity, but he was still expounding.

  “‘Why’ is the only question that matters,” he said, “for if we know the ‘why,’ we know both who did the murder and how it was done. Go and tell your sister we will be on the train without fail.”

  I went downstairs and telephoned my sister again. “Oh, good,” she said, “we’re going to play Dumb Crambo this year!”

  As I hung up, Touffét said, “Bridlings!”

  I turned round, expecting to see him in the door. There was no one there. I went out into the corridor and looked up the stairs.

  “Bridlings,” Touffét said again, from inside the room. I went back in.

  “Bridlings, come here at once. I need you,” Touffét said, and laughed.

  “Where are you?” I asked, wondering if this was some sort of ventriloquist’s joke.

  “In the nursery,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

  Well, of course I could hear him or I wouldn’t be answering him. “Yes,” I said, looking all round the room and finally spying the baby monitor, half hidden behind a clock on one of the bookshelves. I reached to pick it up. “Don’t pick it up,” he said. “You will ruin the forensic evidence you consider so important.”

  “Do you want me to come up to the nursery?”

  “That will not be necessary. I have found out what I wished to know. Go into the parlor and make sure that Lady Charlotte has assembled everyone.”

  She had, though not in the parlor. “We don’t have a parlor,” she said, meeting me in the corridor as I came out of the library. “I’ve put everyone in the solarium, where we were last night. I hope that’s all right.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” I said.

  “And I didn’t ha
ve any sherry.” She stopped at the door. “I had Heidi make Singapore slings.”

  “Probably a very good idea,” I said, and opened the door.

  Leda was perched on a canvas-covered hassock, with Rutgers behind her. The nurse sat in one of the canvas chairs, and the police sergeant perched next to her on the coffee table. James leaned against one of the bookshelves with a drink in his hand. D’Artagnan stood over by the windows.

  As I came in, they all, except James and Heidi, who was offering him a tray of drinks, looked up expectantly and then relaxed.

  “Is it true?” Leda asked eagerly. “Has Monsieur Touffét solved the crime? Does he know who murdered Lord Alastair?”

  “We all know who murdered my father,” James said, pointing at D’Artagnan. “That animal flew into a rage and strangled him! Isn’t that right, Inspector Touffét?” he said to Touffét, who had just come in the door. “My father was killed by that animal!”

  “So I at first thought,” Touffét said, polishing his monocle. “A gorilla goes out of control, kills Lord Alastair in a violent rage, and destroys the nursery as he might his cage, throwing the furniture and the dishes against the wall. The baby monitor, also, was thrown against the wall and broken, which was why the nurse did not hear the murder being committed.”

  “You see!” James said to his sister. “Even your Great Detective says D’Artagnan did it.”

  “I said that so it seemed at first,” Touffét said, looking irritated at the remark about the Great Detective, “but then I began to notice things—the fact that there were no signs of forcible entry, that the baby monitor had been switched off before it was thrown against the wall, that though it looked like a scene of great violence, none of us had heard anything—things that made me think, perhaps this is not a violent crime at all, but a carefully planned murder.”

  “Carefully planned!” James shouted. “The gorilla choked the life out of him in a fit of animal rage.” He turned to Sergeant Eustis. “Why aren’t you upstairs, gathering forensic evidence to prove that was what happened?”

  “I do not need the forensic evidence,” Touffét said. He took out a meerschaum pipe and filled it. “To solve this murder, I need only the motive.”