The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (8 page)

“All
right, you’re cocky. I already know that.” His eyes were pinning me. “You must
have gone through that wastebasket, every item, when you went to Bottweill’s office
ostensibly to look for Santa Claus, and you hadn’t just forgotten it. You don’t
forget things. So you have deliberately left it out. I want to know why, and I
want to know what you took from that wastebasket and what you did with it.”

I
grinned at him. “I am also damned because I thought I knew how thorough they
are and apparently I didn’t. I wouldn’t have supposed they went so far as to
dust the contents of a wastebasket when there was nothing to connect them, but I
see I was wrong, and I hate to be wrong.” I shrugged. “Well, we learn something
new every day.” I screwed the statement around to position, signed it at the
bottom of the last page, slid it across to him, and folded the carbon copy and
put it in my pocket.

“I’ll
write it in if you insist,” I told him, “but I doubt if it’s worth the trouble.
Santa Claus had run, Kiernan was calling the police, and I guess I was a little
rattled. I must have looked around for something that might give me a line on
Santa Claus, and my eye lit on the wastebasket, and I went through it. I haven’t
mentioned it because it wasn’t very bright, and I like people to think I’m
bright, especially cops. There’s your why. As for what I took, the answer is
nothing. I dumped the wastebasket, put everything back in, and took nothing. Do
you want me to write that in?”

“No.
I want to discuss it I know you
are
bright.
And you weren’t rattled. You don’t rattle. I want to know the real reason you
went through the wastebasket, what you were after, whether you got it and what
you did with it.”

It
cost me more than an hour, twenty minutes of which were spent in the office of
the District Attorney himself, with Farrell and another assistant present. At
one point it looked as if they were going to hold me as a material witness, but
that takes a warrant, the Christmas weekend had started, and there was nothing
to show that I had monkeyed with anything that could be evidence, so finally
they shooed me out, after I had handwritten an insert in my statement. It was
too bad keeping such important public servants sitting there while I copied the
insert on my carbon, but I like to do things right.

By
the time I got home it was ten minutes past four, and of course Wolfe wasn’t in
the office, since his afternoon session up in the plant rooms is from four to
six. There was no note on my desk from him, so apparently there were still no
instructions, but there was information on it. My desk ashtray, which is mostly
for decoration since I seldom smoke—a gift not to Wolfe but to me, from a
former client—is a jade bowl six inches across. It was there in its place, and
in it were three stubs from Pharaoh cigarettes.

Saul
Panzer smokes Pharaohs, Egyptians. I suppose a few other people do too, but the
chance that one of them had been sitting at my desk while I was gone was too
slim to bother with. And not only had Saul been there, but Wolfe wanted me to
know it, since one of the eight million things he will not tolerate in the
office is ashtrays with remains. He will actually walk clear to the bathroom
himself to empty one.

So
steps were being taken, after all. What steps? Saul, a free lance and the best
operative anywhere around, asks and gets sixty bucks a day, and is worth twice
that. Wolfe had not called him in for any routine errand, and of course the
idea that he had undertaken to sell him on doubling for Santa Claus never
entered my head. Framing someone for murder, even a woman who might be guilty,
was not in his bag of tricks. I got at the house phone and buzzed the plant
rooms, and after a wait had Wolfe’s voice in my ear.

“Yes,
Fritz?”

“Not
Fritz. Me. I’m back. Nothing urgent to report. They found my prints on stuff in
the wastebasket, but I escaped without loss of blood. Is it all right for me to
empty my ashtray?”

“Yes.
Please do so.”

“Then
what do I do?”

“I’ll
tell you at six o’clock. Possibly earlier.”

He
hung up. I went to the safe and looked in the cash drawer to see if Saul had
been supplied with generous funds, but the cash was as I had last seen it and
there was no entry in the book. I emptied the ashtray. I went to the kitchen,
where I found Fritz pouring a mixture into a bowl of fresh pork tenderloin, and
said I hoped Saul had enjoyed his lunch, and Fritz said he hadn’t stayed for
lunch. So steps must have been begun right after I left in the morning. I went
back to the office, read over the carbon copy of my statement before filing it,
and passed the time by thinking up eight different steps that Saul might have
been assigned, but none of them struck me as promising. A little after five the
phone rang and I answered. It was Saul. He said he was glad to know I was back
home safe, and I said I was too.

“Just
a message for Mr. Wolfe,” he said. ‘Tell him everything is set, no snags.”

“That’s
all?”

“Right.
I’ll be seeing you.”

I
cradled the receiver, sat a moment to consider whether to go up to the plant
rooms or use the house phone, decided the latter would do, and pulled it to me
and pushed the button. When Wolfe’s voice came it was peevish; he hates to be
disturbed up there.

“Yes?”

“Saul
called and said to tell you everything is set, no snags. Congratulations. Am I
in the way?”

“Oddly
enough, no. Have chairs in place for visitors; ten should be enough. Four or
five will come shortly after six o’clock; I hope not more. Others will come
later.”

“Refreshments?”

“Liquids,
of course. Nothing else.”

“Anything
else for me?”

“No.”

He
was gone. Before going to the front room for chairs, and to the kitchen for
supplies, I took time out to ask myself whether I had the slightest notion what
kind of charade he was cooking up this time. I hadn’t.

VII

It
was four. They all arrived between six-fifteen and six-twenty—first Mrs. Perry
Porter Jerome and her son Leo, then Cherry Quon, and last Emil Hatch. Mrs.
Jerome copped the red leather chair, but I moved her, mink and all, to one of
the yellow ones when Cherry came. I was willing to concede that Cherry might be
headed for a very different kind of chair, wired for power, but even so I
thought she rated that background and Mrs. Jerome didn’t. By six-thirty, when I
left them to cross the hall to the dining room, not a word had passed among
them.

In
the dining room Wolfe had just finished a bottle of beer. “Okay,” I told him, “it’s
six-thirty-one. Only four. Kiernan and Margot Dickey haven’t shown.”

“Satisfactory.”
He arose. “Have they demanded information?”

“Two
of them have, Hatch and Mrs. Jerome. I told them it will come from you, as
instructed. That was easy, since I have none.”

He
headed for the office, and I followed. Though they didn’t know, except Cherry,
that he had poured champagne for them the day before, introductions weren’t
necessary because they had all met him during the tapestry hunt. After circling
around Cherry in the red leather chair, he stood behind his desk to ask them
how they did, then sat.

“I
don’t thank you for coming,” he said, “because you came in your own interest,
not mine. I sent—”

“I
came,” Hatch cut in, sourer than ever, “to find out what you’re up to.”

“You
will,” Wolfe assured him. “I sent each of you an identical message, saying that
Mr. Goodwin has certain information which he feels he must give the police not
later than tonight, but I have persuaded him to let me discuss it with you first.
Before I—”

“I
didn’t know others would be here,” Mrs. Jerome blurted, glaring at Cherry.

“Neither
did I,” Hatch said, glaring at Mrs. Jerome.

Wolfe
ignored it. “The message I sent Miss Quon was somewhat different, but that need
not concern you. Before I tell you what Mr. Goodwin’s information is, I need a
few facts from you. For instance, I understand that any of you—including Miss
Dickey and Mr. Kiernan, who will probably join us later—could have found an
opportunity to put the poison in the bottle. Do any of you challenge that?”

Cherry,
Mrs. Jerome, and Leo all spoke at once. Hatch merely looked sour.

Wolfe
showed them a palm. “If you please. I point no finger of accusation at any of
you. I merely say that none of you, including Miss Dickey and Mr. Kiernan, can
prove that you had no opportunity. Can you?”

“Nuts.”
Leo Jerome was disgusted. “It was that guy playing Santa Claus. Of course it
was. I was with Bottweill and my mother all the time, first in the workshop and
then in his office. I can prove
that.
”

“But
Bottweill is dead,” Wolfe reminded him, “and your mother is your mother. Did
you go up to the office a little before them, or did your mother go up a little
before you and Bottweill did? Is there acceptable proof that you didn’t? The
others have the same problem. Miss Quon?”

There
was no danger of Cherry’s spoiling it. Wolfe had told me what he had told her on
the phone: that he had made a plan which he thought she would find
satisfactory, and if she came at a quarter past six she would see it work. She
had kept her eyes fixed on him ever since he entered. Now she chirped, “If you
mean I can’t prove I wasn’t in the office alone yesterday, no, I can’t.”

“Mr.
Hatch?”

“I
didn’t come here to prove anything. I told you what I came for. What
information has Goodwin got?”

“We’ll
get to that. A few more facts first. Mrs. Jerome, when did you learn that
Bottweill had decided to marry Miss Quon?”

Leo
shouted, “No!” but his mother was too busy staring at Wolfe to hear him. “What?”
she croaked. Then she found her voice. “Kurt marry
her?
That little strumpet?”

Cherry
didn’t move a muscle, her eyes still on Wolfe.

“This
is wonderful!” Leo said. “This is marvelous!”

“Not
so damn wonderful,” Emil Hatch declared. “I get the idea, Wolfe. Goodwin hasn’t
got any information, and neither have you. Why you wanted to get us together
and start us clawing at each other, I don’t see that, I don’t know why you’re
interested, but maybe I’ll find out if I give you a hand. This crowd has
produced as fine a collection of venom as you could find. Maybe we all put
poison in the bottle and that’s why it was such a big dose. If it’s true that
Kurt had decided to marry Cherry, and Al Kiernan knew it, that would have done
it. Al would have killed a hundred Kurts if it would get him Cherry. If Mrs.
Jerome knew it, I would think she would have gone for Cherry instead of Kurt,
but maybe she figured there would soon be another one and she might as well
settle it for good. As for Leo, I think he rather liked Kurt, but what can you
expect? Kurt was milking mamma of the pile Leo hoped to get some day, and I
suspect that the pile is not all it’s supposed to be. Actually—”

He
stopped, and I left my chair. Leo was on his way up, obviously with the
intention of plugging the creative artist. I moved to head him off, and at the
same instant I gave him a shove and his mother jerked at his coattail. That not
only halted him but nearly upset him, and with my other hand I steered him back
onto his chair and then stood beside him.

Hatch
inquired, “Shall I go on?”

“By
all means,” Wolfe said.

“Actually,
though, Cherry would seem to be the most likely. She has the best brain of the
lot and by far the strongest will. But I understand that while she says Kurt
was going to marry her, Margot claims that he was going to marry
her.
Of course that complicates it, and anyway Margot would be my
second choice. Margot has more than her share of the kind of pride that is only
skin deep and therefore can’t stand a scratch. If Kurt did decide to marry
Cherry and told Margot so, he was even a bigger imbecile than I thought he was.
Which brings us to me. I am in a class by myself. I despise all of them. If I
had decided to take to poison I would have put it in the champagne as well as
the Pernod, and I would have drunk vodka, which I prefer—and by the way, on
that table is a bottle with the Korbeloff vodka label. I haven’t had a taste of
Korbeloff for fifteen years. Is it real?”

“It
is. Archie?”

Serving
liquid refreshment to a group of invited guests can be a pleasant chore, but it
wasn’t that time. When I asked Mrs. Jerome to name it she only glowered at me,
but by the time I had filled Cherry’s order for scotch and soda, and supplied
Hatch with a liberal dose of Korbeloff, no dilution, and Leo had said he would
take bourbon and water, his mother muttered that she would have that too. As I
was pouring the bourbon I wondered where we would go from there. It looked as
if the time had come for Wolfe to pass on the information which I felt I must
give the police without delay, which made it difficult because I didn’t have
any. That had been fine for a bait to get them there, but what now? I suppose
Wolfe would have held them somehow, but he didn’t have to. He had rung for
beer, and Fritz had brought it and was putting the tray on his desk when the
doorbell rang. I handed Leo his bourbon and water and went to the hall. Out on
the stoop, with his big round face nearly touching the glass, was Inspector
Cramer of Homicide.