The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (42 page)

There was another heavy silence.

The girl got to her feet, with a sort of
bouncing motion which was as suggestive as it was vaguely familiar. It was as
though she were about to run. She stood there, a trifle crouched, in her prim
brown dress, so oddly narrow at the waist after an old-fashioned pattern; and
in the play of light on her face Rodney Hunter fancied that its prettiness was
only a shell.

“The same thing happened afterwards, on some
Christmas Eves,” she explained. “They played Blind Man’s Bluff over again. That
is why people who live here do not care to risk it nowadays. It happens at a
quarter past seven—”

Hunter stared at the curtains. “But it was a
quarter past seven when we got here!” he said. “It must now be—”

“Oh, yes,” said the girl, and her eyes brimmed
over. “You see, I told you you had nothing to fear; it was all over then. But
that is not why I thank you. I begged you to stay, and you did. You have listened
to me, as no one else would. And now I have told it at last, and now I think
both of us can sleep.”

Not a fold stirred or altered in the dark
curtains that closed the window bay; yet, as though a blurred lens had come
into focus, they now seemed innocent and devoid of harm. You could have put a
Christmas tree there. Rodney Hunter, with Muriel following his gaze, walked
across and threw back the curtains. He saw a quiet window seat covered with
chintz, and the rising moon beyond the window. When he turned round, the girl
in the old-fashioned dress was not there. But the front doors were open again,
for he could feel a current of air blowing through the house.

With his arm round Muriel, who was white-faced,
he went out into the hall. They did not look long at the scorched and beaded
stains at the foot of the paneling, for even the scars of fire seemed gentle
now. Instead, they stood in the doorway looking out, while the house threw its
great blaze of light across the frosty Weald. It was a welcoming light. Over
the rise of a hill, black dots trudging in the frost showed that Jack Bannister’s
party was returning; and they could hear the sound of voices carrying far. They
heard one of the party carelessly singing a Christmas carol for glory and joy,
and the laughter of children coming home.

THE THIRTEENTH DAY
OF CHRISTMAS

by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is perhaps best
known in the mystery field for his
Black Widowers
stories. He has to date compiled three volumes
of these mystery puzzles:
Tales of the Black Widowers, More Tales of the Black
Widowers
and
Casebook of the Black
Widowers.
He
has also to his credit two full-length mystery novels:
A Whiff of Death
and
(my favorite)
Murder at the A.B.A.

This was one year when we were glad Christmas
Day was over.

It had been a grim Christmas Eve, and I was
just as glad I don’t stay awake listening for sleigh bells any more. After all,
I’m about ready to get out of junior high. —But then, I kind of stayed awake
listening for bombs.

We stayed up till midnight of Christmas
Day,
though, up till the last minute of it, Mom and I. Then Dad called and said, “Okay,
it’s over. Nothing’s happened. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Mom and I danced around for a while as though
Santa Claus had just come, and then, after about an hour, Dad came home and I
went to bed and slept fine.

You see, it’s special in our house. Dad’s a
detective on the force, and these days, with terrorists and bombings, it can
get pretty hairy. So when, on December twentieth, warnings reached headquarters
that there would be a Christmas Day bombing at the Soviet offices in the United
Nations, it had to be taken seriously.

The entire force was put on the alert and the
F.B.I. came in too. The Soviets had their own security, I guess, but none of it
satisfied Dad.

The day before Christmas he said, “If someone
is crazy enough to want to plant a bomb and if he’s not too worried about
getting caught afterwards, he’s likely to be able to do it no matter what
precautions we take.”

Mom said, “I suppose there’s no way of knowing
who it is.”

Dad shook his head. “Letters from newspapers
pasted on paper. No fingerprints; only smudges. Common stuff we can’t trace,
and he said it would be the only warning, so we won’t get anything else to work
on. What can we do?”

Mom said, “Well, it must be someone who doesn’t
like the Russians, I guess.”

Dad said, “That doesn’t narrow it much. Of
course, the Soviets say it’s a Zionist threat, and we’ve got to keep an eye on
the Jewish Defense League.”

I said, “Gee, Dad, that doesn’t make much
sense. The Jewish people wouldn’t pick Christmas Day to do it, would they? It
doesn’t mean anything to them, and it doesn’t mean anything to the Soviet
Union, either. They’re officially atheist.”

Dad said, “You can’t reason that out to the
Russians. Now, why don’t you turn in, because tomorrow may be a bad day all
round, Christmas or not.”

Then he left, and he was out all Christmas Day,
and it was pretty rotten. We didn’t even open any presents, just sat listening
to the radio, which was timed to an all-day news station.

Then at midnight, when Dad called and said
nothing had happened, we breathed again, but I still forgot to open my
presents.

That didn’t come till the morning of the
twenty-sixth. We made
that
day Christmas. Dad had
a day off, and Mom baked the turkey a day late. It wasn’t till after dinner
that we talked about it again.

Mom said, “I suppose the person, whoever it
was, couldn’t find any way of planting the bomb once the Department drew the
security strings tight.”

Dad smiled, as though he appreciated Mom’s
loyalty. He said, “I don’t think you can make security that tight, but what’s
the difference? There was no bomb. Maybe it was a bluff. After all, it did
disrupt the city a bit and it gave the Soviet people at the United Nations some
sleepless nights, I bet. That might have been almost as good for the bomber as
letting the bomb go off.”

I said, “If he couldn’t do it on Christmas Day,
maybe he’ll do it another time. Maybe he just said Christmas to get everyone
keyed up, and then, after they relax, he’ll—”

Dad gave me one of his little pushes on the
side of my head. “You’re a cheerful one, Larry. No, I don’t think so. Real
bombers value the sense of power. When they say something is going to happen at
a certain time, it’s got to be that time or it’s no fun for them.”

I was still suspicious, but the days passed and
there was no bombing, and the Department gradually got back to normal. The F.B.I.
left, and even the Soviet people seemed to forget about it, according to Dad.

On January second the Christmas-New Year’s
vacation was over and I went back to school, and we started rehearsing our
Christmas pageant. We didn’t call it that, of course, because we’re not
supposed to have religious celebrations at school, what with the separation of
church and state. We just made an elaborate show out of the song, “The Twelve
Days of Christmas,” which doesn’t have any religion to it—just presents.

There were twelve of us kids, each one singing
a particular line every time it came up and then coming in all together on the “partridge
in a pear tree.” I was number five, singing “Five gold rings” because I was
still a boy soprano and I could hit that high note pretty nicely, if I do say
so myself.

Some kids didn’t know why Christmas had twelve
days, but I explained that on the twelfth day after Christmas, which was
January sixth, the Three Wise Men arrived with gifts for the Christ child.
Naturally, it was on January sixth that we put on the show in the auditorium,
with as many parents there as wanted to come.

Dad got a few hours off and was sitting in the
audience with Mom. I could see him getting set to hear his son’s clear high
note for the last time because next year my voice changes or I know the reason
why.

Did you ever get an idea in the middle of a
stage show and have to continue, no matter what?

We were only on the second day, with its “two
turtledoves,” when I thought, “Oh, my, it’s the
thirteenth
day of Christmas.” The whole world was shaking
around me and I couldn’t do a thing but stay on the stage and sing about five
gold rings.

I didn’t think they’d ever get to those “twelve
drummers drumming.” It was like having itching powder on instead of underwear—I
couldn’t stand still. Then, when the last note was out, while they were still
applauding, I broke away, went jumping down the steps from the platform and up
the aisle, calling, “Dad!”

He looked startled, but I grabbed him, and I
think I was babbling so fast that he could hardly understand.

I said, “Dad, Christmas isn’t the same day
everywhere. It could be one of the Soviet’s own people. They’re officially
atheist, but maybe one of them is religious and he wants to place the bomb for
that reason. Only he would be a member of the
Russian
Orthodox Church. They don’t go by our
calendar.”

“What?” said Dad, looking as though he didn’t
understand a word I was saying.

“It’s
so,
Dad. I read about it. The
Russian Orthodox Church is still on the Julian Calendar, which the West gave up
for the Gregorian Calendar centuries ago. The Julian Calendar is thirteen days
behind ours. The Russian Orthodox Christmas is on
their
December twenty-fifth, which is
our
January seventh. It’s
tomorrow.”

He didn’t believe me, just like that. He looked
it up in the almanac, then he called up someone in the Department who was
Russian Orthodox.

He was able to get the Department moving again.
They talked to the Soviets, and once the Soviets stopped talking about Zionists
and looked at themselves, they got the man. I don’t know what they did with
him, but there was no bombing on the thirteenth day of Christmas, either.

The Department wanted to give me a new bicycle
for Christmas, but I turned it down. I told them I was just doing my duty.

COLLECTIONS OF TALES FROM THE MASTERS OF MYSTERY. HORROR
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