Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (49 page)

He noted the others as they entered the drawing room. Dowager Lady Fairhaven, changed into dark linen trousers and a striped shirt, gave the police detectives an appraising stare, in which Tom read distaste mixed with a kind of surrender to the inevitable. Anna followed a step behind, but her eyes sought John’s, lighting like two tiny beacons when they met his. He responded with a repentant smile and a gesture to join him. She declined a drink. Jamie remained the barman. But Marguerite accepted a brandy. Tom watched her raise an interrogatory eyebrow at Jamie’s semi-formal dress, but she said nothing, taking a seat on the Hepplewhite sofa angled to the fireplace.

She had barely done so when Lucinda seemed to glide into the room from the hall on a breath of silvery laughter, as if responding to a private joke, followed in short order by Dominic, his lips compressed into a moue of amusement. Stopped short at the sight of the detectives, Lucinda pulled the solemn face of a naughty child caught misbehaving. As she stepped to the drinks table, Tom glanced at her. For a moment, a pink balloon of nostalgia hovered over his younger self—two days younger, but a birthday younger—and he marvelled at how
swiftly passion had turned to embers. He popped the balloon. He had a confession to make, and steeling himself was the task ahead. He returned Lucinda’s enigmatic smile with a tight one of his own as she took a chair. Dominic, after fetching a brandy, chose to stand behind her, as if to be on guard. Looking around, he remarked to vacant response:

“How terribly Agatha Christie,” adding, “Hello, John. It’s been a long time.”

“Very,” John responded noncommittally as Lucinda cast him and Anna a studied glance.

Of family and guests, Hector (with Bonzo) arrived last, just as the clock was striking the hour, his expression sullen, as if dinner had been a trial and he’d had more than his fill of houseguests, including the police who received his bristling, slightly truculent glance. Tom watched him slew his eyes around the unusual arrangement of bodies and land on John.

“So, you’ve been hiding in plain sight all these years.”

“I’ve been living my life, Hector.”

Lord Fairhaven grunted. “I’m sorry Georgina can’t be here to greet you.”

“Where is she?” Marguerite’s tone suggested she knew very well.

“Having an early night. She suffers from migraines. Inspector”—Hector turned to Bliss—“I may have said. I trust you don’t mind.”

The time it took Bliss to respond—five seconds in which Madrun arrived in the room burdened with a tray of coffee things—indicated he did mind, very much, but he replied evenly: “If we have further enquiries, we’ll take them up when Her Ladyship is recovered.”

“In the meantime, Inspector,” Hector continued in a voice rimed with new frost, taking a chair opposite his mother, “what have you planned for us this evening?”

DI Bliss replied dryly: “Mr. Christmas has prepared an entertainment, Your Lordship.”

Tom watched Hector’s eyebrows curl into commas of disapproval as he glanced from the inspector to Tom. “Have you really,” he drawled, running his hand over Bonzo’s silky head. “How interesting.”

“I’m not sure
entertainment
is the suitable word.” Tom looked past Hector’s head to see Madrun’s eyes behind her spectacles glittering at the sight of the Honourable John Sebastian Hamilton Allan. Apparently, downstairs, whoever was left there, hadn’t been informed of his presence. “It’s more of a lesson—a parable, if you will—wrapped in an entertainment.”

The whisky Jamie had poured him earlier affording him Dutch courage was also scorching his empty stomach. Along with everyone else but Hector, he refused coffee, fearing it would only add to the internal sludge, but he wished the coffee had arrived with biscuits.

“As a few of you know,” he began when most everyone had settled into a comfortable position, “I was, when I was younger, a professional magician. Conventions, fairs, boat cruises, a little television, that sort of thing. I’d been enchanted by magic since I was a child. But when I felt the call, I didn’t turn my back utterly on magic—or perhaps
illusion
is the better word, as I don’t want to give anyone the impression I’m doing anything supernatural.” He glanced at Madrun, who frowned at him as she bent to serve Lord Fairhaven a demitasse of coffee from a tray.

“I’ve found that sleight of hand and illusion can be a good way of presenting a spiritual or moral lesson in a visual way. Not to put myself in the same august company, but Jesus Himself used parables—visual aids—in His ministry, and you can’t say He wasn’t something of a showman, although—”

“Will you be turning water into wine and producing loaves and fishes to feed the multitudes?” Dominic interrupted.

“Those I can’t expect to match.” Tom smiled a tight smile. “Anyway,” he continued, unsure if his patter, unscripted and unrehearsed, was drawing the punters in, “on Saturday evening, Max very much wanted me to perform a certain sleight of hand, one from a category of cut-and-restored effects that always seem to appeal to children. I wasn’t in a position to fulfill his wish—quite literally—because my foot was wrapped and elevated. In that instant, too, I was without my magic kit and certain paraphernalia. The—”

“If this is for Max’s benefit, shouldn’t the boy be here?” Hector frowned at him over the edge of his cup.

“Max and Miranda are playing Cluedo in the library, Hector,” Marguerite replied in his stead. “Tom’s trick may appeal to children, but this is intended as an adult gathering.”

“It feels rather like we’re playing Cluedo in the drawing room.” Hector scowled.

“I was about to say,” Tom continued, picking up the thread of his introduction, “that many magic performances, of whatever style, usually include one or two illusions where something appears to be broken or destroyed and yet is restored. I think when we see something destroyed, we experience a kind of psychic bruise, a spiritual strain, if you will. We’ve all, each of us, experienced life’s destructive side, have we not?” He
looked to them for agreement and noted a few flickers of recognition. “I don’t think I need to point out that we have most profoundly experienced that side this weekend.”

Tom paused to allow the truth of this to be absorbed—his eyes went to Marguerite—before appending his message: “However, there remains, as ever, the promise of healing and restoration.” He smiled. “Now, I need a volunteer from the audience.”

“We’re hardly an ‘audience,’ Vicar.”

“Hector, darling,
please
,” Marguerite’s tone was weary.

“I need,” Tom began again, “a volunteer from those assembled who is wearing a suit this evening.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw DI Bliss elbow DS Blessing, each of whom was wearing a dark suit, but he quickly cut in:

“Ah, Lord Kirkbride, thank you. Lord Kirkbride will do splendidly. Come forwards.” Tom beckoned Jamie, who stepped beside him at the fireplace and took a military stance, hands behind back, head held high.

“Lord Kirkbride,” Tom continued, “your suit is from …?”

“Oh … Gieves and Hawkes, this one, I think. Hector and I have the same tailor, don’t we, Hector?”

“Why are you all got up this evening anyway, James?” Hector glanced from his own casual trousers and open-necked shirt to Dominic impeccably, though informally, dressed in a cream polo shirt and navy trousers to John in his crumpled khakis.

“I … I’ve run out of things to wear. We were on the moor late this afternoon, some of us. Got a bit damp.”

“Yes, I know.” Hector’s brow furrowed. Tom noted a new, wary expression settle on his face; he continued,

“And your shirt, Lord Kirkbride?”

“I’m not sure. Turnbull and Asser would be my guess. I’d have to look at the label. I suppose Jane could—”

“A mere bagatelle, my lord. Not important. And your tie?”

“School tie. Shrewsbury. I’ve had it forever. Well, since school, of course. It only ever gets an airing if I attend one of the Old Salopian events, as I did last week. Like my regimental tie. Only comes out of the box, so to speak, when I have a regimental do.”

“And did this come ‘out of the box’?” Tom asked.

“Well, it came out of a drawer—the drawer in the dresser in our room here, if that’s what you mean.”

“School ties—ties that bind, in a way.” Tom felt something cool and metallic slip into the palm of his hand. “My tie was navy with double red stripes. I attended Gravesend Grammar, opened by Princess Beatrice in 1893. Not quite the same as being founded under Edward the Sixth—”

“Actually, Father wanted us to go to Ludgrove and to Eton, as he had, but Mother wouldn’t wear it. She was from the colonies, like my wife.” Jamie smiled at Jane. “And couldn’t bear the idea of us being away from her. So, as Packwood Haugh and Shrewsbury were in effect only down the road … We were day pupils, all of us. Olly for a time, too, at Shrewsbury.”

Mention of Oliver seemed to charge the atmosphere. Tom glanced about to note a certain shifting of limbs and straightening of attire. Only Lucinda sipped her coffee in unstudied casualness, while the two policemen continued to observe the proceedings with barely disguised impatience.

“What if I were to tell you, Lord Kirkbride”—Tom kept his attention on the others rather than his interlocutor—“that
the tie you are wearing may have been the instrument that strangled Lord Morborne?”

All eyes hared to Jamie’s neck, including Jamie’s.

“What!” Bliss was the first to speak.

“Detective Inspector, I asked Lord Kirkbride—”

“I heard you, Mr. Christmas. What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“This!”

Tom splayed the palm of his hand to reveal a pair of scissors—cuticle scissors, it was true, from his shaving kit, the only ones he had available—but they would do. To a short, sharp collective gasp, followed swiftly by a noisier rendition, he pulled Jamie’s tie from the confinement of his suit jacket and dug the sharp edge of the scissors into the fabric an inch below the knot. If he’d had fabric shears he could have bisected the tie in one quick snip. But three were sufficient, even though the cloth retained some damp from the moor. Before Jamie had time to simulate dismay at the desecration, Tom was holding the limpid strip of cloth up for display and Bliss was stepping forward in a bull charge.

“Where did you find that?” he snapped.

“In my dresser drawer, as I said, Detective Inspector,” Jamie replied.

“Is this a confession?”

“Of course, it isn’t. It’s simply my tie, which I found in my drawer.”

“Then”—Bliss focused his pique on Tom—“how do you know it was used on Lord Morborne?”

“Inspector,” Marguerite said crossly, “do you mind? You’re spoiling the effect.”

“Mr. Christmas, you have tampered with evidence!”

“But Inspector, I shall restore evidence in short order. Lady Kirkbride?” Tom gestured to Jane, who stepped nearer. “And Lord Kirkbride, would you remove what’s left of your tie? Thank you.

“I am sorry about your tie, Lord Kirkbride,” he pattered as Jamie fiddled with the knot and whipped the stub from around his collar. “But a little prestidigitation and it should be as good as the day it hung at Gorringes. Lady Kirkbride, I wonder if you might show everyone what you have with you.”

Jane displayed the soft red velvet bag trimmed with green, a legacy of his days as the Great Krimboni, which Tom had bid her fetch earlier. It was about the dimensions of
Hello!
magazine.

“Lady Kirkbride, is there anything in the bag?”

Jane opened it at one end and peered in. “Nothing,” she said and without prompting turned it towards the others, the opening displayed like a wide dark mouth. “Absolutely empty.”

“Now, Lord Kirkbride,” Tom continued, “if you place your skinny end of the tie into the bag, and Lady Kirkbride, if you will take this portion—” Tom waved the tie’s fat end in the air before handing it to Jane. “—and place it, too, into the bag … thank you.”

Tom blew into the bag and gave it a shake. “Does anyone have a magic word they’d care to use? Anyone? Lord Fairhaven?”

Hector scowled and said tonelessly, “Abracadabra.”

“No one can accuse you of originality, Hector,” Lucinda laughed.

“
Abracadabra
will do nicely,” Tom cut in, continuing the patter as much to alleviate his growing anxiety as to distract
the audience. “It has a venerable history in magic, its origins thought to be in Aramaic, which some scholars believe was the everyday language of Jesus. During the Great Plague, Londoners posted it on their doorways to ward off illness.”

“And did it?” Hector glowered over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Well, not really.”

“Then I can’t imagine it will be very efficacious here.”

“Hector, darling, don’t be disagreeable.” Marguerite smiled wanly at Tom. “Carry on. You’re doing splendidly. Such fun.”

Tom smiled back with equally feeble wattage. “Yes, anyway …” He forced his cheeks into a wider performance smile. “Abracadabra!

“Now, Lord Kirkbride, all you need do is reach into the bag and you’ll find your tie as good as the day it was woven.” He held the bag towards Jamie, but in a swift movement withdrew it. “Would you like me to reach into the bag for you?”

As Jamie looked on with genuine perplexity, Tom answered for him. “No? Then please do reach into the bag.”

With the grimace of someone about to perform a tonsillectomy on a crocodile, Jamie slid one slim hand gingerly into the velvet opening. He paused, a look of faint relief on his face, then pulled his hand back slowly, the thin end of the tie appearing first pressed between his thumb and forefinger.

“Brilliant!” he exclaimed with unnecessary good grace when he’d finished the manoeuvre, holding up the fully restored tie to a smattering of applause. “How did you do that?”

“It’s magic,” Tom replied.

“It isn’t,” Bliss countered.

“An illusion, of course.” Marguerite tapped her chin thoughtfully, adding with a quicksilver smile, “But cleverly done.”

“Yes, of course, an illusion. Allow me another. Lord Kirkbride, please place the restored tie into the bag. Thank you.”

Tom repeated the actions of before, declined to seek a magic word from the fractious assembled, and had Jamie place his hand in the bag once again. His Lordship pulled out, one following the other, two parts of a striped tie.