'Bloody Christmas'; Competition Entry-Piece

[Shangas]

A couple of members have asked me to share this with the forum. This is my little murder-mystery I wrote as an entry-piece for a local writing competition. Enjoy. Critique, comments, questions etc, all welcome.

Bloody Christmas​

December, 1933​

Snow is soft and white and beautiful. Snow is romantic and alluring; fun, enchanting and mesmerising. Snow is bullshit. Believe me. I know. I'm standing in it right now. It's cold and wet and when it melts it runs down the back of your shirt and freezes you and goes all over the damn place except where it should go: on the ground. I look around me and take in my surroundings. I'm standing at the docks in Southampton, England. I have a hat, a three-piece suit, a steamer-trunk, two suitcases and an empty whiskey flask. Terrific. I turn around to look up at the big, block letters on the bow of the ship that's just hauled me across the Pond for the last week. The R.M.S. Aquitania. A fine ship and all in all, a comfortable crossing, but I was still glad to get off of her. A man in a blue uniform approaches me. What on earth can he want?

"Mr. Richard Haines?"
"Yes".
"A gentleman is waiting for you at the station, sir".
"I'm not expecting anyone to meet me".
"He seemed to think not, sir. He gave me his card, sir".
I took the card that the porter gave me and had a look at it.

Sir James Holloway
M.D., FRCP., FRCS., FRS., etc​

“Oh,” I said.
“Do you know the gentleman, sir?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t expecting him”. I pause. “Oh alright. Take me to him”.

The porter grabs the trolley containing my luggage and pushes it ahead of him as he strides towards the station nearby. I follow him to a platform where a long row of carriages is waiting for its means of motion – which appears to be temporarily absent – but which doesn’t seem to stop people from wanting to get onboard, even though the train doesn’t look like it’s in any hurry to be anywhere else anytime soon. The man stops in front of a compartment with all the blinds pulled down. He opens it and ushers me inside before handing me my suitcases. Then, the man slams the door shut and I hear him walk away. I straighten up properly inside the compartment and turn around. Sitting in a corner of one of the seats wearing an expensive, dark suit and smoking a cigar long enough to go punting with, and with the electric light reflecting off of his gold-rimmed monocle, was...

“Hello old chap!”

I groan and collapse into a seat. The man merely smiles.

“A fine way to greet an old college chum, wot?”

I sigh and throw off my hat. I suddenly realise what a real nightmare that last night at sea was. I’d barely slept at all and now I feel like I could sleep for an eternity and then some.

My name is Richard Haines. I was a cop. Around the time of prohibition I gave up being a cop. It was getting dangerous and deadly and I have a fetish for staying alive. I decided on a career-change. Not too much of a career-change though. Just a little one. Still in New York, but I went from being a public cop to being a private cop; a gumshoe, a shamus, a private detective. At least now, I could decide the kind of danger I’d be getting myself into, and set my own payment and rewards in the event that I managed to get out of it. I’m six foot three inches tall, about two hundred pounds. I’ve got dark brown hair and brown eyes, a solid build and a rather quiet and rough disposition. At least it seems that way compared to Mr. Newpenny here.

Sitting diagonally opposite to me in the railroad compartment that now begins to move is Dr. James Holloway. Or Sir James Holloway, as it now appears to be. Whatever his title, James is an old friend. We knew each other at university when I was studying law and he was studying medicine and both of us were studying girls. The only difference there was that he passed on girls and I failed on it. As I look at James now it occurs to me that not much has changed about him. Okay the hair is a bit thinner, but it’s still the same light blond tint, still immaculately brushed back, tight and perfect, held down with enough Brilliantine to groom a mammoth, and he’s still got the same tall, thin build: six feet of it, with pale skin and cold blue eyes. He’s a nice guy really, if a bit creepy. I wonder how his patients feel whenever they go and see him. It occurs to me now, that he looks something like Fred Astaire. On the other hand I feel like Humphrey Bogart.

“So when did it happen?”

Overjoyed, it seemed, that one of his best friends had finally decided to say something, James pulled out his silver cigar-case and opened it, presenting me with its contents by way of celebration. A present from a doctor to a patient who had finally done him the common courtesy of following his orders and who was now experiencing the benefits of his wisdom. Or something like that. He flipped open a cigarette-lighter and lit the cigar I’d selected from his case. I took a good drag while he replied.

“When did what happen?”

“Sir James Holloway,” I say slowly, emphasis on ‘Sir’, “Have you upgraded from collecting stamps to collecting aristocratic titles?”

James chuckles.

“Two months ago. Heart-failure”.

“I’m sorry for your loss”.

“Oh it’s no great loss. He had a good run. And he left me a sizable bit of dosh and a fancy title. I shouldn’t feel too upset. Would you?”

“I suppose not”.

“Well there you are”.

We passed new time by talking of old time, as the train sped north towards London, black smoke and white steam mixing and mingling in the air to swirl past our windows in a weird, grey enigmatic dance that looked like ink poured into a glass of milk.

Eventually we fall asleep. Our slumber interrupted at last by our compartment door being wrenched open by a porter. We stagger out of the carriage into the brightness of the station and the porter, aided by another, loads my luggage onto a waiting trolley. I push it sleepily through the station with James following. We emerge into the streets of London and James pulls a small metal object from his pocket. He puts it to his mouth. The cab-call whistle echoes over the street and a blue and black Austin taxi pulls up. The cab-driver hauls my luggage onto the storage-platform next to his seat and is about to open the door when he looks at his two, zombie-like fares, who are so tired they look like they’d keel over at any minute. James fumbles in his pocket for his wallet and peels some banknotes from within its leather sides and thrusts them into the cab-driver’s hands. We tumble into the cab like a pair of circus-clowns and James gives the cab-driver his address in Grosvenor Square. He groans and yawns. I don’t blame him. It’s been a hell of a day.

***​

 

[Shangas]

“So am I still going out for dinner with your family on the twenty-fourth?”

It was breakfast the next day and I sat at a table that was far too large for two men to dine at alone, waited on by the host’s valet. James sat opposite me in his dressing-gown, blood red. Fitting for a doctor.

“I’m afraid not, Richard,” he said. “That particular event has been cancelled. Marion’s taken Colin up to see her side of the family. We won’t be dining together at Christmas. In fact I received an invitation for two from an old friend to attend his Christmas house-party”.

“Well you can’t go. If Lady Holloway isn’t here”.

“Lady Holloway is not going. She can’t stand my friend’s wife. That’s the reason she’s gone up to see her parents and taken the lad with her. You are the other person who’s coming to dinner”.

I felt a bit of toast catch in my throat. I coughed and gulped down a cup of coffee to wash it down on its way.

“I’m coming?” I asked.
“That’s what I said”.
“Oh no. I can’t come. I won’t come!”
“You must!”
“James I don’t know these people!”
“Even more reason that you should! It’ll be good for you!”

‘Just like James’, I thought. Once a doctor, always a doctor. He starts prescribing you aspirin for colds and sodium bicarbonate for upset stomachs, but soon he’s prescribing everything else in your life, including your Christmas celebrations. To say I was nervous as hell was an understatement.

“I didn’t bring my Black Tie”, I said quickly.
“It’s White”.
“I didn’t bring that either!”
“No matter. You can borrow my father’s White Tie. It’s in my closet upstairs”.
“Well...”
“You’ll be fine, Richard! I already told my friend about you. He’s very interested”.
“Interested’? James I’m a detective, not a lion at the Zoo!”
“I told him all about you. He thinks a detective could add a bit of spice to the dinner table!”
“Yeah? Tracking down grounds for divorce, finding stolen objects of no importance that belong to little old ladies and finding out where Mr. Enders’ wife goes on Saturdays. That’ll be a swell conversation...”
“Oh relax, Richard! And also, we leave tomorrow afternoon”.

The next afternoon we’d packed our suitcases and were at the station boarding the train to Essex. It was freezing cold and snow was beginning to fall. James wrapped a white scarf around his neck, a souvenir, he’d said, from his RFC days, and wore a pair of black leather gloves, one of which was wrapped around the ball-head of a long black ebony walking-stick.

“So who is it that I’ll be meeting?” I ask as the train speeds off out of the station.
“They are the Earl and Countess of Clavering,” James explains to me. “Lord and Lady Clavering. Stewart and Evelyn Montrose. Very nice people. Well, very nice except that Lady Clavering and Lady Holloway don’t get along, hence the latter’s absence from our Christmas party,” he said.

“So what do I call them?” I asked.

“Lord and Lady Clavering will do fine,” James said. “You look so worried, Richard! You needn’t be! They shan’t bite your head off!”

“Well you’re the only member of the British Peerage that I know of,” I said.
“A baronetcy is hardly a member of the peerage old chap. These people I’ll be introducing you to, they’ll be the real aristocrats, you just mark my words, Old Ricky-boy. You’ll see”.

“How do you know them?”
“Lord Clavering and I were at school together at Eton. I also happen to be his family doctor”.
“So it’s that kind of friendship, huh”.
“Yes Richard. That kind of friendship”.

By the time the train pulled into the station at Clavering, it was late afternoon. I climbed out of the carriage and James climbed out after me. Now I wish I was more of a dandy like James and brought a walking-stick. The station platform was slick with ice and it was very slippery. James strode confidently ahead, swinging his cane and striking the pavement, breaking up the ice every few feet and then striding off forward again. On the other hand, I felt like a duck on a polished marble floor, sliding all over the place with nothing to grab hold of! When we were finally clear of the station, I caught a glimpse of the village.

If you opened up Oxford and looked under ‘Quaint Little English Village’, you would see a picture of Clavering. Not a pencil-sketch or a pen-and-ink drawing. Not even a photograph. You’d be looking at a cute little Beatrix-Potteresque illustration with fat little bunny-rabbits all over the place, coming in and out of the cottages and hopping up and down the roads and in and out of gates and gardens.

“It’s quite a place,” I said.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? You should see it in the summertime”.

A taxi-cab near the station beeped its horn and we made our way over to it. We climbed in with our suitcases and James gave the cabbie a few bank-notes.

“Claverin’ Hall then, gentlemen?” the cab-driver asked.
“Yes if you please,” said James.

The cab-driver nodded. It seemed like he’d been driving people to the Hall all day, from what I could tell. And if so, he’d probably need a new set of tires before very long, the drive to the Hall was a considerable one, as I soon found out, although the drive was nothing compared to the destination.

Clavering Hall was massive. A monstrosity of stone and glass that towered over everything! To look at it was to not look at it, for it was far too big to take in with just the one initial glance. James explained that the house was built in the Georgian era. It had six huge floors – Two servants’ levels down below, three floors above plus attic-space in the roof. I couldn’t imagine why a place as huge as this would need an attic, but I didn’t bother to ask. The grounds were covered in crisp white layers of snow and ice and the gritty driveway crunched under the wheels of the taxicab, sounding like the hundreds of scratches and pops and hisses that come from a phonograph which continues to run despite the record having reached the end of its revolutions.

The taxicab pulled up outside the house, or rather, it pulled up before it, like a slave cowering before a feudal overlord, and spat us out at the house’s feet, before scurrying off like a rat into the snow-covered countryside.

“Welcome to Clavering Hall!” said James, chuckling. The doors opened and a tall, well-groomed butler approached us.

 

[Shangas]

“Sir. James Holloway?”
“Ah, Cammings! Good to see you again old chap. This is my friend Mr. Haines. We are expected”.
“Indeed you are. If you’d follow me, gentlemen. The footmen will see to your luggage. His Lordship and her Ladyship are in the drawing room”.
“Thank you”.

I sized up this fellow Cammings very carefully. He was tall, perhaps fifty, with dark grey hair and a thin face. He looked at me in a way that made me feel like I should’ve stayed on the train, and then led us towards the Drawing Room.

“Sir James Holloway,” said the butler, opening the doors, “...and...Mr. Richard Haines,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought. Apparently this fellow liked rattling off titles, but that mine was not fancy enough to merit passage past his vocal chords. I sighed. James squeezed my hand.

“Never mind Cammings,” He whispered, “You’ll do fine...Stewart old boy!”

A tall, brown-haired man who was having as much luck lighting his pipe as an Eskimo making an igloo in the Sahara Desert, eventually gave up his hopeless efforts and came over to greet us.

“Stewart, this is the fellow I was telling you about,” said James, “This is Mr. Richard Haines. Richard, my friend Stewart Montrose”.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Lord Clavering,” I said.
“It’s very nice to meet you too,” said Montrose. “You’d best go introduce yourself to the wife, old boy. She’s been hounding me for information ever since I told her a detective was coming to dinner. She’s frightfully into all those sorts of things. If we had Agatha Christie here, she’d never let her leave!”

As if on cue, a glamorous lady with light brown hair done up in curls, came gliding towards me as if she was sliding over the floor on rollerskates. She held out a hand to me and thinking that I might as well do something, I bent and kissed it.

“Lady Clavering”.
“You are Mr. Haines, of course,” she said.
“That’s right”.
“Very nice to see you!” she said, in a way that made me think that she’d been rehearsing that all week. “But you and James must be tired from the journey! Dinner will be in an hour. Perhaps you should go up and get dressed?”

“Good idea!” said Lord Clavering, “I’ll show you the way. Are you interested in history, Mr. Haines? This house is full of it”.
“Yes, I’m interested in history”, I said. “It is kind of important, after all”.
“Excellent!” said Lord Clavering, “Follow me!”

The house was enormous. As we wandered through the residential labyrinth, Lord Clavering pointed out rooms that seemed to have no purpose at all except to make the house bigger. Some were rather interesting, others, I struggled to find a reason for. We went past the the billiard-room, the parlour and the music room on the ground floor, along with the West Drawing Room, not to be confused of course, with the East Drawing Room, which we’d just left.

On the second floor was his study, the library, his little museum, the dying room and several guest-rooms, which were steadily being occupied for the long stay between Christmas and New Year, for which we’d been invited. The museum which we passed housed his collection of antique firearms. Racks and cases and cabinets filled the room and every manner of powder-propelled killing-machine was available for all comers to see.

“My grandfather and father were the real keen ones,” said Lord Clavering, “Big hunters they were. They’d use this house mostly for the shooting and hunting, but when I inherited I decided I wanted a nice, quiet place in the country. I keep the collection here for their sake. I add to it occasionally but I never had the same passion and knowledge of firearms as they did”.

I nodded, “It’s a fine collection,” I said. “Any recent additions?”

“This one,” he said, pointing to a musket, “It’s an early flintlock I think. One of my friends gave it to me. You’ll see him tonight. He’s taken quite an interest in this stuff”.

I thanked Lord Clavering for the tour of his museum and then we returned to our wander through the house towards the guestrooms.

A door opened on the second floor and a man with sharply combed-back black hair and a long, thin face emerged.

“Did I hear the voice of another American?”

“Mr. Haines, this is Dr. Martins, he’s an antiques-dealer who’s come to our delightful country for a bit of digging and poking and snooping around. I invited him to dinner because I thought he would provide some lively conversation. Dr. Martins, Mr. Haines here is a friend of a friend of mine. He’s visiting from New York”.

I shook Martins’ hand. He seemed like a cold, busy sort of person. Rather sharp and to-the-point, it seemed.

“Do you know him well?” I asked Lord Clavering.
“Hardly at all. Ah, here’s someone!”

A door opened and a man of medium height and well past middle-age stepped out, apparently adjusting his bowtie. He looked like the studious type who spent more time with his nose in a book than in anywhere else.

“Mr. Haines this is Professor Calstairs. Professor Edward Calstairs, Mr. Richard Haines. Calstairs is an old friend of my father’s, and a good friend of mine”.

The old man smiled at me. “Very nice to meet you Mr. Haines”.
“Nice to meet you, Professor. What is it that you’re a professor of?”
“Military history!” said the man with a strong dash of pride, “Are you interested?”
“I dabble”.
“Oh good!” said the man. I could tell almost at once that he was going to try and chat me up during dinner.

One by one, I was introduced to the other guests. There was Mrs. Calstairs, Lord and Lady Wanborough, a viscount and viscountess, then there was Mr. Davis, a columnist for the London Times newspaper, apparently another friend of the Montrose family.

“It seems like a fairly small turn-out,” I said.
“Yes well the wife said that we should keep it to close friends and family,” Lord Clavering explained, “Didn’t want any nosey newcomers barging in. But of course, Lady Holloway would never show up at any party that my wife would be playing hostess at, so when James said that you were on the next ship over, I insisted he bring you along!”

“I don’t know what you’re expecting, Lord Clavering, but whatever I can bring to your dinner-table, I hope it contributes something,” I said. He smiled. “Good! This is your bedroom, next to James’s”.

***​

“I feel like a penguin”.
“You look fine!”

I sighed. And I stared. Then I sighed again. It was little wonder why I never invested in a tuxedo.

I was standing in my bedroom dressed in James’s father’s old White Tie ensemble of the old school: White dress-shirt, shirt-studs, collar-studs, cufflinks. White bowtie. White waistcoat. Tailcoat and trousers. I feel so weird. It’s a hell of a long way up the clothing-scale from my usual black, brown, grey or blue suits that I usually wear and I feel unnaturally clean.

“It’s your father’s White Tie, I hope you’re right,” I say. James just gives me a confidence-wilting smile and gestures that we should make our inaugural appearance downstairs.

***​

 

[Shangas]

The dining room at Clavering Hall – if you could in all consciousness call it a ‘room’ – was an enormous chamber that held sideboards and buffet tables and a single large formal dining table set in the centre of the room. We all strolled in, one after the other like cattle being displayed at a county fair.

“Please, sit where you will, ladies and gentlemen,” said Lady Clavering, “Christmas is no time for formality”.

Taking Lady Clavering’s words to heart, I sat down almost at random, finding myself seated between James on my right and Professor Calstairs on my left. So, I thought, I was in for a night of historical discussions, stamp-collecting and the latest news from the world of medicine. I turned my attention to Lady Clavering who was just sitting down at one end of the table while her husband occupied the other end. She was dressed in a red and black evening dress that showed off all her body without showing off all her body, but which left little to the imagination. She had more curves than a snake and I was sure I’d be getting seasick if I looked at her for any longer.

Discussion during dinner was quiet but certainly interesting. Professor Calstairs was a historian, archaeologist and college professor. He was also an old friend of the Montrose family, it seemed. He’d known both the current Lord’s father and grandfather and was more than a casual acquaintance of the current lord of the manor. From what I gathered, Calstairs had been colleagues with both Lord Clavering’s father and grandfather back in the “good old days” when he was still young enough to be going out and doing archaeology in the field.

“What do you think of that new fellah?” I asked Calstairs. I’d noticed him staring at Dr. Martins for quite a while during dinner.

All that Calstairs would say was that Martins was new on the archaeological and historical scene in England. He was some American import who it seemed, was determined to make his mark. He’d found a few nice things, but in Calstair’s mind, nothing worth writing home about. The old man sure seemed pretty opinionated.

“That Professor Calstairs is quite a character,” I said to James, turning to my other dinner partner. James nodded.

“He’s a good sort, but he can be rather fixed in his views. Richard, this is my friend Brian Davis. I think you’ve already met?”

“Briefly,” I said. “Good evening Mr. Davis”.
“Mr. Haines,” said Davis. He had a slick, greasy voice that somehow fitted his appearance, to say nothing of his occupation.

“I understand that you are a private detective, Mr. Haines. You must have lots of fascinating stories,” Davis said, almost as if begging me to start divulging them to him right there at dinner. James appeared to hold up a cautionary hand.

“Richard, I must warn you that before you say another word, Mr. Davis here is a reporter for the popular press. I would strongly advise that you that during your stay here, you do not mention to him anything that you wouldn’t wish to have disseminated over the telegraph wires and broadcast to the world at large within the next twenty-four hours”.

Brian scowled at James.

“I am a commentator of London high society!” he said firmly.
“You run a bloody gossip-column,” said James, “Now Brian, let’s not be pretending it’s something which it isn’t, hey old chap?”

Brian grumbled and went back to his soup.

“You’ll have to excuse him. He’ll print anything you tell him if you give him a half-chance,” said James, “But other than the fact that he couldn’t keep a secret safe if his life depended on it, he’s not a bad sort, really”.

I stared at Mr. Davis’s hair. He must’ve used a half-bottle of Macassar oil to slick it down. I wondered if his ethics were just as slick, greasy and oily as his hair. From what James had just said, it seemed so.

“So what kinds of history are you interested in, professor?” I asked, quickly turning back to Professor Edward Calstairs on my other side.
“Most kinds of history, really,” he said, “But military history is my favourite; battles, weapons, firearms, swords, anything of that sort. The Montrose family has been a collector of antique weapons for several generations now”.
“It sounds very interesting,” I said.
“Oh it is, it is!” the old man cried out, as if he was relieved to find someone who was going to share his interest with him throughout dinner, “Very much so! Why, I’m sure Lord Clavering has shown you his ‘gun room’?”

I nodded. He had indeed shown me his museum; the chamber filled with glass cases which in turn were filled with rows upon rows of firearms of every kind, from muskets to shotguns, duelling pistols to the latest automatic weapons. It was certainly an impressive collection.

Around eight o’clock, dinner melted into supper and coffee and we all migrated from the dining-room to the East Drawing Room for late drinks, sandwiches and cake. I spent some time amusing the assembled ladies with piano-music and by regaling them with some of the details of my more interesting cases while some of the men stood around and smoked and chattered or played cards. It was a quiet evening. If it was any quieter, you could hear the blizzard blowing around outside the windows.

The relative tranquillity of this scene was broken by an interruption of electrical flow – in layman’s terms – a power-outage. The entire room was plunged into darkness save for the flames that came from the fireplace and some candles that Lady Clavering had insisted, be lit and placed around the room. Coming to the rescue of their tizzying aristocratic masters was the staff of Clavering Hall. Cammings the butler and a few of the footmen entered carrying oil-lamps and candles, driving away the demons of gloom and darkness.

Deciding that the blackout had given everyone a welcome interruption from the Christmas celebrations, Lady Clavering suggested that we all retire to our chambers for a few minutes and change into more comfortable clothes before reconvening for a continuation of festivities. I for one, was glad for an excuse to get away from the gaggle of tittering women and agreed with an enthusiasm that might almost have passed for rudeness.

***​

 

[Shangas]

“You don’t mind if I keep this, do you?”

I was changing out of the White Tie, slowly laying out all the elements of the whole setup on my bed when I asked the question. Somehow, I never had a need for White Tie unless I was around James, and consequently never owned a set of my own.

“Burn it if you like!” James called from next door, “I’ve no use for it! It was my father’s. It doesn’t even fit me”.

“Thanks,” I said. I tugged on some more comfortable clothes and then threw a dressing-gown around my person. Everyone had retired to their rooms to relax and change after dinner. With the lights out and having to do everything by the light of candles or oil-fired lamps, people seemed to be taking their time. I was about to ask James a question of no real importance when a scream echoed through the house! I grabbed my oil lamp and ran out of the room with James hot on my heels. Another scream reverberated through the house and I ran from room to room looking in at every door until I reached the library. I slid to a stop and then slowly looked in.

Lying on the floor at the far end of the room, in a mess of red and black was Lady Clavering. Near her on a large, old-fashioned desk was a burning oil-lamp. As I bent over the body, I realised she was still breathing. She must’ve fainted. As I slapped her gently on the face to try and revive her, I saw the reason why she’d fainted.

A few feet from the desk, slumped against the wall and below a broken window, was the body of the late Professor Calstairs. He was very dead. Lady Clavering must have come in and found the body and fainted at the sight. Lord Clavering entered the room and gasped in horror. With my help, we revived his wife and he helped her from the room. Cammings the butler helpfully informed me that it would be impossible to connect the police until the power had been restored and agreed to assemble all the guests in the East Drawing Room while I had a look around, with James’s help.

James added his own oil lamp to the one already on the desk and then turned up the wicks on both so that we might have some more light. My eyes roamed everywhere, taking in the body, the bloodied shirtfront, the broken window and the off-centre position of the desk, which I had only noticed when the lights had been turned up, the book lying open on the desk…everything that seemed worth taking in, and anything else that probably wasn’t, but which I should probably take in anyway.

“What do we do?” James asked, looking at me for some sort of direction or instruction.
“Well if you can, I’d like it if you could examine the body,” I said, “And don’t touch anything else”.

James nodded and knelt down next to the body. He looked at the bloodstain and then shifted the body in his arms and checked the limbs before looking at the corpse’s back.

“He hasn’t been dead long”, James said, “Rigor mortis hasn’t started. The body’s still fairly warm. He seems to have died from a single puncture-wound that entered through the back and exited through the chest, intercepting the heart on the way, judging by the bloodstaining”.

“Death would have been instant?” I ask.
“Most likely. Or would’ve followed very soon after,” James says. “The body also appears to have bruises on it. Here at the wrists, the back and around the sides of the torso”.

“What would that suggest?”
“A struggle, I should think”.
“Yes. Let’s see what else we can find out from the room, since its occupant seems to have told us everything that he can”.

I got up and examined the window behind the professor’s corpse. The glass was broken, but from the inside. There was hardly any glass on the carpet and yet there was a considerable amount missing from the pane.

“Do you think he was shot?” James asks, looking up from the ground.

“I think he was stabbed. If he was shot, he’d have to be facing the window. If death was automatic, would he turn around and face the desk before conveniently dropping dead? And if he was shot from outside, how would the shooter know to hit this window? There’s a blizzard outside. Even if he had a rifle and was a crack shot, he couldn’t have hit a man through the darkness and the snow! And he’d have to be pretty close to the house to make a shot like this. And if he was, we would’ve heard it. And even if he was, where’s the bullet?”

I gestured towards the area in front of the desk. There was no bullet lying anywhere and there was also no impact point where a bullet might have hit something, either in the library or in the hall outside.

“Calstairs was stabbed alright, James. I don’t think there’s a doubt about that. By whom and why, I’m not sure yet. Let’s keep looking”.

James got up and picked up his medical bag which he’d brought with him. He was about to put it on the desk when I made a wild gesture with my hands.

“James don’t touch ANYTHING. Don’t place anything anywhere. Leave your case on the floor. Let’s have a look at this desk...”

Picking up my lamp, I bent over it and started looking at the area around the base of the desk. I narrowed my eyes and bend down to take a closer look at the floor.

“You know, I think we can agree on this. Calstairs sure put up a fight”, I said.

“Why do you say that?” James asked, looking at nothing in particular.

 

[Shangas]

“Move the desk”, I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Move the desk!”

James stared at the desk, and then, grabbing it, he tried to push it. Although it was a valiant effort to be sure, the desk hardly budged at all.

“It’s not easy, is it?” I ask. “Now one man can’t move this desk, even a strong guy like you. And I know you’ve got strong arms, James. All that rowing at school, I bet. But imagine this: Two men fighting...”

I grab James, “And they both fall against the desk…” I pushed James back against the desk, “On his own, one man wouldn’t do anything. But the combined weight and force of two men might cause the desk to move. As you can see here,” I said, and pointed to the carpet.

The original outline of the desk’s base was clearly set into it, although it was clear that it had been moved, due to the fact that the impression in the carpet didn’t match the position of the desk-base.

“Judging by the distance moved, about two or three inches, on a heavy desk like this, that would indicate a pretty heavy impact,” I conclude. James nods, slowly following my reasoning.

“Also,” I say, “The professor was reading something. He was interrupted. He saw the man coming in and an argument ensued. Sitting here with his back to the window and the desk in clear line of the library doors, he could hardly fail to notice another person entering the room”.
“How do you know he was reading?” James asked.

“Well look at the desktop. There’s some liquid here”, I said. I bent down and sniffed it, “Smells like kerosene. There was a lamp here. He obviously needed a strong source of light for something. With such an old man, that would suggest reading. And this is a library after all. It’s unlikely he was sitting here darning his socks!”

James nodded. “So,” he said, “the professor is reading something. Someone comes in and interrupts him. An argument ensued. Why did nobody hear it?”
“I don’t know. This is a big house. I only heard Lady Clavering because she was screaming at the top of her lungs. Maybe this was an argument that Calstairs and his attacker didn’t want others to hear?”
“Alright,” said James, “They fight. Calstairs is thrown against the desk, resulting in the bruises. The desk moves...”

“Both men fall against the desk,” I correct. “Only that amount of force would move the desk this far as well as knock over a heavy glass oil-lamp. How else does kerosene spill onto the desk-leather?”

“Alright. Then the killer takes out a knife,” James continues, “And he stabs Calstairs when their fight brings them over here by the window. He breaks the window to give us a blind to throw us off. Then what?”

“He would have to hide the weapon,” I say. “And change his clothes. A puncture-wound like this would produce a lot of blood, wouldn’t it?”

“Straight through the heart. I imagine it would be gushing out,” James said. “The body would go limp and fall here by the window. The killer would have a few minutes to hide the weapon and then make a break for it. Only he can’t escape the house because of the snow. So he’s here somewhere. And he’s had to change his clothes...”

“His?” I ask “Why not a girl?”

“The angle of the knife-wound,” James says, “It’s from the top going down through the heart and out the front. It’s very steep. The killer had to be the same height, or taller than Calstairs. A shorter person would stab straight in or in an upwards motion”.

I nod at my friend’s apparent reasoning. “So where is the knife?” I ask, “Would he take it with him? No. He would have to hide it. Somewhere nearby. Maybe here in the library?”

“And risk discovery in hiding the weapon?”
“Would you take a knife you’d just stabbed someone with and put it in your own bedroom where it would undoubtedly be found by anyone determined to get his hands on it?”
“Well, no”.
“Precisely. It doesn’t make sense. And where things don’t make sense, we have to make sense of them”.

“If he did hide it here, where would he have done it?” James asks.
“Well he’s got little time,” I say. “He’d pick a hiding-place near at hand. He wouldn’t want to waste time”.

I start looking around the desk. No. Too obvious. Pot-plants by the windows? No. Again too obvious. In addition, the soil didn’t look like it had been disturbed. I turn my attention to the bookcases, but only those near-at-hand.

“James, give me a hand here,” I ask as I start looking through the books.
“What am I looking for?” He asked.
“Anything out of the ordinary”.

We start fumbling through the books, row by row, shelf by shelf. I reach the bottom and turn to James. He’s almost finished.

“Are you done?”
“Nearly. I’m not finding anything”.
“Let me look”.

I quickly scan each row, one after the other. Then I stop at about eye-level.

“James! Look at this”.

Almost appropriately, given the victim’s occupation, I’m staring at an Encyclopedia of Weaponry History, volumes one to ten. Only there’s something wrong here.

“Would you say this Lord Clavering friend of yours is a tidy sort of fellah?”
“He is meticulous when the fancy strikes him”.
“Well either it didn’t strike him this time, or our killer has been here. Look at this”.

I start counting out the volumes. They’re all marked in Roman numerals. I, II, III, IV, VI, V, VII, VIII, XI, X.

“What’s wrong with that?” James asked.

“One, two, three four, six, five, seven, eight, nine, ten. One of these is out of place”.

“Stewart might have been careless”.

“He might. But why don’t these books line up properly? These books here are flush against the back of the bookcase. Why do these books,” I indicated volumes one to seven, “stick out a good half-inch when all books of the same size don’t?”

I started taking the books off the shelf and handing them to James. I lifted the lamp and reached in carefully, unsure of exactly what I would find. Then I grasp it carefully by the hilt and pull it out.

“Well hello,” I said, holding it up carefully. James put the books down and looked at the knife.

“It’s a stiletto,” he said. “Such a long, thin knife with a circular cross-section of the blade would certainly produce a wound such as that”, he pointed to the corpse which was still slumped against the wall, dark red blood staining the crisp, white frontage of its dress-shirt.

“The blade looks shiny. It’s probably been wiped clean”.

“And what about the handle?”
“I can’t tell in this light. The killer might have forgotten to wipe it down in his panic. I don’t know. But what we need to figure out now is which volume the professor was so interested in”.

“How do you know he went for these books?” James asks, pointing to the assembled encyclopedia on the desk.

“Did you notice anything about the other books that we checked?”
“Not really. What?”
“They’re all dusty as hell! They haven’t been touched in months. Perhaps even years! These books don’t have so much dust on them. Obviously someone’s used them recently. And not just to hide a knife”.

“So which one did he use?”

I start opening the books one by one. Finally, I find a volume that falls open easily.

“I think it’s this one”.

 

[Shangas]

Vol. VII​

Allowing the pages to fall open to the positions in which they’d last been turned, I put down the lamp and bent over the pages.

“Firearms, History of,” I say, reading the first thing that came into my sight, “Now why would old Calstairs be interested in this stuff?”
“He’s a history professor”.
“Yes but why the history of firearms specifically? He must know all about them, mustn’t he?”
“He’s an old man, Richard. He’s probably forgotten”.
“That’s possible. He’s looking at the development of firearms. He’s even marked some of the passages here in pencil. Does he have a pencil on his person?”

James examined the coat pockets and pulled out a handsome silver mechanical pencil. I examined the blunted tip and looked at the wide pencil-strokes made on the page.

“He’s outlined the history of gunsmithing,” I say as James gets to his feet again. “Why?”

“I was talking to Stewart at dinner,” James proffers, “Apparently Calstairs has carte blanch to do whatever he likes on Montrose land as far as archaeological digs are concerned, so long as he doesn’t damage the soil too much. Perhaps he found an old pistol?”

“But why verify it? He would know all about them, he’s a military historian! He’s studied them for decades, he wouldn’t need to verify something he found in a book,” I stopped and then a thought came to me. There was more than one person here who liked digging around, “Unless it wasn’t him who found something”.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s more than one history-person in this house. What about that American? Dr. Martins? Calstairs told me himself that Martins had found some interesting things during his dealings. Perhaps he found something. He didn’t know what it was so Calstairs looks it up for him?”
“And Martins kills him? Why?”

“No,” I say. “Martins wants to make his name as an antiques dealer and historian. He also wants funding from our friend Montrose. Perhaps he finds something and passes it off as something it isn’t, purely to get the money?”

“And Calstairs is suspicious and goes to double-check,” James says.

“Right, but let’s not jump to conclusions too fast, huh?” I said, “There’s a lot of people in this house who could have killed the professor for reasons we haven’t figured out yet”.

“Who?” James asked.

I pondered this question. It’s always the short, simple ones that are the hardest to find answers for. The long questions are easy because there’s all kinds of answers you can give. Short ones have only one answer and all kinds of options.

Was it Dr. Martins, the sour antiques dealer who wanted to commit a fraud of some sort? Was it that journalist Davis, who feared a discovery of some kind might destroy a big story? Was it Lord Clavering who feared that a prized artefact he was hoping to sell was a fake? What was it that Calstairs had found out? Why was he killed for it and who by? Those were three questions that would be swirling around in my brain for the next few hours. I needed to gather things together. I reached for the one device that was to be found in all homes of this size and which would help me solve the most urgent of all matters as fast as possible: The servants’ bell.

The library doors opened and Cammings the butler entered.

“You rang, Mr. Haines?” he asked.
“I did. Where are Lord and Lady Clavering?”
“In the drawing room with all their guests, sir”.
“I want you to see to it, Cammings, that nobody leaves that room. We’ve got an investigation to conduct here and I don’t want any unnecessary inconvenience. Could you ask Lord Clavering to come upstairs, please?”
“Certainly, sir”.

***​

 

[Shangas]

“I’m dreadfully sorry about all this, James…”
“It’s alright, Stewart! Nobody could’ve foreseen this! Richard and I will find out what happened, of that you can be sure. Now please, sit down!”
Hesitantly, Lord Clavering followed James’s advice and sat down on one of the chairs in his library, glad that, from where he sat, the large antique partners’ desk near the far windows hid the body of Professor Calstairs. He wasn’t sure if he could stomach looking at a corpse during Christmas. We were seated at another of the large, antique desks that were to be found in the room.

“Tell me, Lord Clavering,” I said. “Can you think of any reason why someone in this house might wish to kill Professor Calstairs?”

I hated asking these questions. They were routine, boring, stupid and clichéd, and they almost always got the same routine, boring, stupid, clichéd answers, but they had to be asked, and always in the same overdelicate and impersonal way which I detested. It suggested a lack of sympathy perhaps, when sympathy was most wanting, but which for the sake of professionalism, couldn’t be provided. Sometimes my job is a pain in the ass.

“I don’t think so,” said Lord Clavering, “I’ve known Professor Calstairs my whole life! My father invested a lot of money in his excavations and research and in return, the professor helped my father with his firearms collection. He helped me with it as well! You could say it’s something of a family passion. I don’t know as much about guns as my father did, but I can appreciate a nice rifle or a pistol when I see one”.

“Would you say that Professor Calstairs was a preeminent expert in his field of…” I paused.

“Military history,” Lord Clavering finished, “Yes indeed. He’s published quite a few books. He’s retired from teaching history on account of his age, you understand, but he’s still very much in demand as a consultant”.

“What can you tell me about the other guests at tonight’s party?” I asked.

“Well, I invited Professor Calstairs and his wife out of habit. They’ve been friends of my family for years, as I’m sure you know by now. I invited James because we go back to school days. I invited you because I…”

“You needed a space-filler,” I finished off, “I understand. What about the others?”

“Well, I invited Dr. Martins because he was a newcomer to our community. He’s been here less than a year and it only seemed right to include him in our Christmas celebrations”.

“And the reporter?” I asked.

“Brian?” James asked, looking up from where he was re-examining the corpse, “He’s another one of our old school-friends”.

“Mr. Davis has always been a bit of a nosey-parker,” said Lord Clavering, “But he’s a good chap on a whole. I don’t imagine he would do anything like this”.

“What you imagine and what actually is, can be two different things, Lord Clavering,” I said flatly. “What about Lord and Lady Wanborough?”

“Friends of the wife’s,” said Lord Clavering, “Cheston, Lord Wanborough, that is, he has some sort of family business. Furniture-making, I believe”.

“After the lights went out, where did you go?” I asked.
“I went to my room,” said Lord Clavering, “To change into something more appropriate. You can ask my valet. I would hardly murder an old family friend, Mr. Haines, and certainly not within the bounds of my own estate!”

“I’m sure you would not,” I said in a rising, slightly mocking tone. What people certainly would or would not do didn’t always meet with certainty in this business. “Thank you Lord Clavering, I think that’ll be all for now,” I said. I’d been writing the whole time that we’d been speaking and now I pointedly capped my fountain pen to signal the end of the interview. Lord Clavering nodded and got to his feet.

“Cammings, would you ask Lord Wanborough to come in?” I asked.

“Yes sir,” he said, and headed downstairs, following his master. A few minutes later and a man in his late forties with black hair and brown eyes and a scar on his face came in, looking fidgety and worried.

“Lord Wanborough,” I said. “Sit down, please”.
“Thank you,” said Wanborough. In those two words I could pick up the almost stereotypical crusty, upperclass British accent that one associates with big moustaches, uniforms and officers in the British Army. I looked at his scar. How did he get that? Barbed wire during the War? A German bayonet? Or maybe Lady Wanborough hit him in the face with an Old Fashioned glass during a drunken night out with friends?

“How well did you know Professor Calstairs?”
“Fairly well. I’d gotten interested in all this antiquey stuff after I met Stewart, um, Lord Clavering. I funded some of Calstairs’ work and I was getting keen on that American chap. I’ve been investing in some of his archaeological digs and explorations. I think I might get in on this stuff. Martins has made a few finds which seem to be pretty interesting”.

“Were you in the army, Lord Wanborough?” I looked at his scar.
“What? Oh,” he said. His hand went to his face, “The Great War,” he said. “Barbed wire. Nasty stuff”.

I nodded and returned to my questions.

“Where were you this evening when the lights went out?” I asked.

“Having a nice, hot bath,” said Lord Wanborough flatly. When I looked at him again, he sighed.
“It was cold! I wanted to have a good soak in some hot water before I headed back downstairs again! It’s not a crime, is it?”
“I suppose not, Lord Wanborough. Thank you for your time”.

Next came the reporter, Brian Davis. Had he known Professor Calstairs? Only as an acquaintance. Where was that that evening? In his room, reading. What book? Something by J.M. Barrie. How long had he known Dr. Holloway and Lord Clavering? Ever since school. What did he write about for the Times? He was a reporter of society news (“a gossip-reporter, you mean”, James interrupted).

After Davis came Dr. William Martins. He didn’t have the kindly, aristocratic bearing of Lord Clavering, the crisp military snap of Lord Wanborough or the greasy, almost cockney-like slide of Davis. An ordinary, level, average American accent that didn’t have a tint of anything regional about it; the kind of accent I haven’t heard in over a week. Just hearing him speak brought me back to my days on the NYPD and Prohibition.

Yes. Like Professor Calstairs, Dr. Martins was interested in military history, weapons, militaria and the archaeology of old battlefields, castles, forts and so-forth. Yes, Lord Clavering and the Viscount Wanborough did fund his research, exploration and excavation in return for interesting little historical titbits to add to their collections. Unlike Professor Calstairs who focused on history and archaeology, he was also an antiques dealer and collector. He sold Lord Clavering rare firearms and military antiques, with the earnings going towards his work. He did the same for Lord Wanborough who had become interested in his work and who was eager to get into antiques and history. Since Martins was really only a novice in the field of military antiques, he appreciated the participation of anyone else who shared his interests.

Once the last person had been interviewed, I turned to James, who had by now covered the body in an old, white bedsheet to hide it from the gaze of others.

“What do we do now?” he asked me.
“Somewhere in all this there’s a motive for murder,” I said, “I’m not sure why but there’s a motive there somewhere and it’s to cover something up”.

“Another crime?”

“I don’t know about a crime. If it’s a crime you don’t kill someone where everyone else can see you do it. A killing like this is on the spur of the moment. The killer has to kill the professor now, even at the risk of being found out. What would make someone so desperate?”

“Perhaps it’s the cliché?” James suggested, “Nothing to lose?”

“That’s a possibility. Let’s take that as being true. What did they have and what did they stand to lose? Lord Clavering?”

“He’s comfortably off. Nothing there that I can see. Happily married, doing very well for himself. He collects and sells rare antiques and so-forth. Doesn’t know as much as his father, I don’t think, but he makes a tidy living on it, I think”.

 

[Shangas]

“What about Lord Wanborough?”

“I know Wanborough fairly well. He’s a patient of mine”.

“How’s that?”

“Lord and Lady Wanborough are friends of Lady Clavering’s. Lady Clavering is my wife’s sister, remember?”

I laughed at this rather roundabout relationship. “I forgot. What do you think?”

“Why would he kill Calstairs? He’s got his own company. He’s independently wealthy. He was buying antiques and funding research and I see no motive there”.

“What about your reporter friend?”
“Brian? Oh no. No, he’s a snoop but he’s not a murderer”.
“He’s a gossip-columnist isn’t he?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Do we agree that this is an opportunistic, spur-of-the-moment murder done in panic?”
“I would think so. Why else would they kill the professor when the chances of being found out were so high?”
“Right. So there has to be a strong motive. Scandal is a strong motive. And what’s society without scandals? We’re talking about the British aristocracy here, James. Lords, ladies, knights, earls, dukes, barons, the landed gentry, persons of title and wealth and position…”
“Now Richard!”

I guess I forgot how sensitive James tended to be about his position in society. I was forever ribbing him about it when we were in college.

“Brian couldn’t have done it”.
“He could have. He might have had motive in scandal of some kind”.
“He wouldn’t have had the testicular fortitude to carry it out!”
“What?”
“He’s a wimp! And if anything there would be much more to be gained by offing him!”

I laughed at this. It seemed so strange to listen to someone like James, so prim and proper and ‘public school’ perfect, talking about something as base and mean as murder.

“Martins then?” I asked.
“Possibly. Look Richard I don’t know why you’re asking me. I’m a doctor, not a police constable”.
“Yeah but you’re always a good sounding-board. What do you suggest we do?”
“Start searching rooms. Isn’t that what they do in all those Hollywood detective films?”

I chuckled, “Yeah I guess so. Come on”.

The house was still pitch black. Finding our way through it with the light of oil-lamps was a daunting prospect. Portraits of people long dead and rotting in the ground, remained fresh and perfect in canvas and paint and they leered down unpleasantly at us from their lofty perches. Stewart Montrose, Earl of Clavering, sure had some creepy ancestors.

With the aid of Cammings the butler, we started searching all the guestrooms. Collar-boxes, cufflinks, pressed evening-wear, powder-compacts, drawers of clothing, suitcases. Searching is frustrating when you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for.

“What are you hoping to find, Richard?” James asked as we entered Lord and Lady Wanborough’s bedroom.

“Bloodstains, bandages, anything that might be incriminating,” I said. I looked around the room to see neatly stacked trunks and opened the closet to reveal all his clothes hung in an orderly fashion of a man who took care of his wardrobe. I headed into the bathroom and looked around; toilet with a cistern-lid that didn’t fit properly, sink, bath, vanity-shelf and cabinet, towel-rack with three towels and floor-mats, nothing out of order, everything neat and tidy. I examined the sink and the vanity cabinet. It contained the usual things: Brylcreem, toothpaste, toothbrushes, hairbrushes in a neat leather case, a cutthroat razor and a stick of shaving-soap, hair-curlers and a pair of nail-clippers. I opened a small container to see what was inside when I knocked a shaving brush into the bathtub next to the sink. I put the box down and bent over to pick up the brush. I paused.

The bathtub was a standard, rectangular bath, shallow at the far end and deeper at the end closest to the faucets. I bent down and felt the bottom and sides of the tub, shining my oil lamp around the darkened cavity of cleanliness, before satisfying myself about a point and straightening up again. When I came out of the bathroom, I saw James poking through the almost empty laundry-hamper next to the door. He looked at me and shrugged. Socks, underwear and a towel; the usual things. I stepped out of the room where the butler was sitting on a bench in the corridor, waiting for James and I to re-emerge from our current chamber of investigation.

“Cammings, when we came here you didn’t give me a key,” I said to the butler who was standing in the hall.

“Key, sir?” the butler asked.

“For our bedrooms?” I said, “Don’t guests in this house have the right to lock their doors?”
“They do sir, but it’s up to them if they wish to lock their doors”.
“You would hold all the keys though, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes sir”.
“You’d know which doors are locked and which aren’t, don’t you?”
“Yes sir”.
“How many of the guest bedrooms have locks?”
“All of them, sir”.
“And how many of those rooms are locked?”

The butler paused, “None at the moment, sir”.

“Thank you, Cammings, that’s all I wanted to know,” I said, “Come on James”.

“What was all that about?”

“If the butler holds all the keys and nobody’s locked their doors then that means that the murderer could be interrupted at any time after he’d killed the professor and returned to his bedroom. That would make him panic. He would want to remove any incriminating clothes, weapons or other contraband as fast as he could. When people panic they can overlook the most stupidly simple of all things. Their stumbling block is our lookout point to see what it was they missed”.

We kept searching. In the meantime, I kept running things through my head. I reached Brian Davis’s room and headed inside. One look around the room screamed out ‘journalist’ the moment I closed the door. The Sheaffer fountain pen, a bottle of ink, the Remington portable typewriter, the desk-blotter and the sheets of typed up copy. I bent over and read what he was typing and smirked. Apparently the press doesn’t take a break, but then, neither does high society, and when one follows the other, they’re bound to have to play by the same rules.

James and I started searching. The bathroom was messy and full of all kinds of things, including a nearly empty bottle of Macassar oil and another one that was empty. Did this guy drink the stuff? How much product could a man possibly put in his hair? Then I found something stuffed into an old clothes valet near the door. I opened one of the drawers used for storing cufflinks and other similar things and pulled out a white handkerchief covered in blood. I held it up for James to look at.

“Used by the killer to wipe down the knife-blade?” he asked.
“Possibly. Or to clean his hands”.

James nodded in agreement. I folded the handkerchief neatly and put it into a pocket of my suit and continued with our search. So far we had two suggestive pieces of evidence: A bath that hadn’t been used and a bloody handkerchief. As yet, what they suggested was still unclear. That Lord Wanborough was really thrifty with his water and preferred strip-washes? Or that Davis was clumsy and caught his finger in the typebars of his machine and which the carriage then ripped off from his hand when he stupidly pushed it back to start a new line on his report?

There was nothing of interest in Lord Clavering’s room except the signs of a wealthy man: An extensive wardrobe, a dressing-table loaded with accessories and a family portrait hanging over the fireplace. I headed into the earl’s study nearby and started looking at his desk. I picked up the chequebook that was lying on the blotter-pad and opened it. I flipped through the pages of leftover counterfoils until I found one dated a few weeks ago. I whistled at the amount. I fanned through the rest of the book to check for any other interesting titbits and then turned to James.

“Have a look at this”.

I handed him the chequebook. “According to this, he paid a hundred pounds to Brian Davis just a few weeks ago”.

James frowned. He put the chequebook in his coat pocket and we left the room. There was only a small pool of suspects. I was trying to assure myself that this case couldn’t be that hard to solve. We left Lord Clavering’s study with the chequebook and headed to the room of our last suspect, the archaeologist and antiques dealer, Dr. Martins.

 

[Shangas]

Martins’ room was possibly the blandest of all the rooms we’d seen. Lord Clavering’s room showed a happy and successful man, Davis’s room showed a man married to his work, Lord Wanborough’s room showed a man who took care of himself and to whom appearance was everything. Dr. Martins’ room was almost hospital-like in its sterility of possessions indicative of personality and habits. We searched and rummaged and poked around to no avail. I sat down at the dressing-table/desk and reached out for a stack of newspapers. I frowned when I looked at them. There seemed to be a lot of them: The Times, the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph, all big name newspapers. I needed to clear my head. I opened one and flipped through it, looking for something interesting. Suddenly realising that I was reading news I’d already read, I closed the paper and checked the date. In the half-light offered by the oil-lamps, I hardly noticed how old the papers were and hadn’t bothered checking the dates. Some of these were nearly three months old.

Anything out of the ordinary should always be noted in a criminal investigation.

“James,” I said, “Come have a look at these”. I held out the Times for him to look at.

“Work that fantastic medical brain of yours, what does this paper tell you?”

“American Government plans to repeal Prohibition,” James read.

“Thank God, but that’s not what I meant. What’s strange about this paper?”

James kept reading. “Well it’s out of date, it was printed in November”.

“Strange for someone to carry around outdated newspapers for so long, isn’t it?”

“Well maybe they had some sort of important news in it that Martins was interested in?”

“Right. What news?”

“I don’t know. Historical, maybe?”

I flipped through the papers and pointed to the ‘Business’ sections where Martins had circled certain articles.

“Look at this,” I said, pointing to one article, then opening another paper and pointing to another article. Then another. And Another. James whistled.

“Somebody is in serious trouble,” James said.

I nodded.

“I think we know who our murderer is,” I said. “Make sure everyone’s in the drawing-room. I need to satisfy myself about just one point, and then I’ll be right with you,” I said, and jogged off down the corridor.

 

[Shangas]

“Everyone’s assembled in the drawing room, Richard,” James said as I came back downstairs with a towel and a bag under my arm. I nodded. James opened the doors to the drawing room and we headed inside, where everyone was sitting around the coffee table, the room illuminated by the fireplace and the candles on top of it.

“You know, this has been quite a Christmas,” I said as I faced everyone. “I came here to spend time with one of my old college friends and see London in winter and maybe do some shopping. Buy some new clothes and take some photos. Instead I get invited to the country house of someone I’ve never met and get thrown into one heck of a crazy party. Lady Clavering dinner was amazing; you have to tell that to your cook. Lord Clavering, your house is fascinating. It’s full of all kinds of things that I have never seen before and some things that I hoped I wouldn’t”.

I paused.

“Tonight, one of your guests was murdered, Lord Clavering, an old family friend who knew you and your father and grandfather, someone who benefited a great deal from all your funding and investments in his research and excavations over the years. Professor Calstairs. He was found stabbed to death in the library. A single knife-wound through the heart from the back; some Christmas present for me, huh?”

Nobody spoke.

“Whoever killed Calstairs did it at the spur of the moment to hide something; something shameful and shocking. Why else would he risk being discovered? Why else would he do it in a house where he might be sure to be found out? But who was it that killed him?”

I had to try and make the killer sweat. Drawing things out and making them fidget always seemed to work the best.
“Was it you, Mr. Davis, with your ear and eye glued against every keyhole in the West End for juicy gossip? Perhaps Professor Calstairs knew something and you killed him because of it? We found a bloody handkerchief in your clothes valet.”

“I…” Davis began, “I write…perfectly…respectable social…” he began. “It was planted there!” he blurted out.

“Of course it was. The guests in this house aren’t given the keys to their rooms until they go to bed. You’re a workaholic, Davis. Your old buddy Lord Clavering paid you a fat cheque. What was that for? To invite you here for Christmas and ask you to write up a wonderful article about the party you had here for your local paper? Improve the good Lord Clavering’s social standing in the neighbourhood? Sure it was. Friends help friends out. It’s what they do. Typewriters are awful, noisy things, aren’t they? You were so busy typing on that machine of yours that you didn’t hear the door open. You didn’t hear someone sliding the drawer of your valet open and slipping the handkerchief inside before slinking off. No. You didn’t kill Calstairs. But anybody could’ve slipped into your room with your back turned and your mind on other things, and planted evidence there.

I was now pacing up and down the drawing room.

“Was it you, Lord Clavering? As lord of the manor you can go wherever you like in your own house without raising suspicions. And even if the doors were locked, you’d have a master key to unlock them Was it you, who for your own reasons wanted Calstairs out of the way? No. You’re a smart guy. You’d hardly invite me to dinner here and then knife someone in your own house, would you?”

I turned to face my fellow American.

“Or maybe it was you, Martins? Maybe you killed Calstairs because you had a ruse going on, a little game. You thought you could pull the wool over the eyes of our limey friends. But perhaps old Calstairs got wise to your schemes and found something out? So you killed him to silence him”.

“Now wait a minute!” said Martins, standing up.

“Cool it, hotshot. It wasn’t you. But you did find out a secret, didn’t you? You were reading about it in the papers. You’re an antiques dealer but you’re new to this variation of the game. Military antiques. You suddenly realised you hadn’t read the rules and you’d made a mistake. But you found someone who had read the rules and found out what your mistake was, a man who realised he might take advantage of this mistake and make a lot of money to support his failing business which has been going under ever since the Crash of ’29. You killed Professor Calstairs…”

I turned to the last suspect on my list.

“…Cheston Wanborough,” I said, and turned towards him, “The good Viscount Wanborough”.

“What!?” the man shouted.

“Martins wanted funding for his research and his antiques deals. You gave it to him. He found something that he thought was worth a lot of money. He sold it to you and you bought it because you thought you’d be able to sell it, make a profit on it and use those profits to fund your failing furniture business that’s been in your family for generations! That’s what Martins read in the papers!”

“That’s right!” said Martins, “I wasn’t gonna sell stuff to people who couldn’t afford it!”

“But Martins is a newcomer to this game,” I continued, “He found something and thought it was something it wasn’t. He sold it to you thinking it was something it wasn’t. You just blew a fortune on a piece of junk! How are you gonna get that fortune back? Perhaps sell it to another person who might be interested. Someone rich who could afford to have it? Someone like your old school-friend whose family collects military antiques but who has no real interest in them himself. He wouldn’t notice the difference. So you tried to sell it to the Earl of Clavering. Only Lord Clavering is a smart guy. He took the gun and showed it to his old friend Calstairs who agreed to look it up for him in the encyclopaedia. You had a fortune balanced on that gun and Calstairs was about to blow the whole thing open that you were going to sell Lord Clavering a modern reproduction musket, not a valuable antique. You killed him to keep him from spilling the beans about your scheme to get that cash you needed to stop your family business from going under!”

“Absolute rot!” said Lord Wanborough. “You can’t even prove it”.

“When we all went to our rooms, you slinked off to the library. You caught Calstairs verifying his facts. You argued with him and fought. You threw him against the desk and then you picked up the stiletto paper-knife. You stabbed him in the back and let the body drop by the window. You broke it to make it seem like the professor had been shot from the outside by some stranger. You panicked. You wiped down the knife with your handkerchief, put it behind the books and replaced them all. In the half-light from the blackout you left them all in a mess. You went back to your room, probably hiding your bloody shirtsleeve from your wife in the sleeve of your jacket. You went into the bathroom where you had a ‘bath’. It wasn’t a bath. You just turned on the faucet and splashed water around to make it look like a bath. You let the water run and washed the blood off your hands. Then you took your shirt off. But you couldn’t risk your wife seeing it. You bunched it up and you hid it in the only other place in the bathroom that was available”.

“And where’s that?” He scoffed.

“The toilet cistern; once you’d put your shirt in there and changed, you realised you might need to fool your wife. You took one of the spare towels from the rack and wrapped it up along with your socks and undershirt and other clothes that would have to be laundered. In the dimness from the lamps, she wouldn’t notice the switch and later on, you would be able to dispose of the shirt better while you hoped the handkerchief you planted in Mr. Davis’s bedroom would steer my investigation in another direction”.

“Preposterous!” Lord Wanborough blurted out.

I put the towel on the coffee table and unfolded it to show the shirt that I’d pulled out of the cistern, the cuffs still pink with the blood-stains that the water had not completely removed.

“That could be anyone’s shirt,” said Lord Wanborough, examining it, “It’s not got a nametag on it. And besides, you haven’t proved that the gun I supposedly gave to Stewart is a forgery or a fake or isn’t what it claims to be, in the least”.

“I don’t have to,” I said, “Professor Calstairs had already done that when you killed him and you’ve done that by your own admission. Why would you have killed him if you didn’t have any reason to fear being caught out by fraudulently selling someone an item which it wasn’t, and for such a huge price. Two thousand pounds sterling”.

“Stewart you didn’t!” said Lady Clavering.

“No Lady Clavering, he didn’t,” I said. “In case you stumbled across your husband’s chequebook, Lady Clavering, he’d actually filled out the cheque for the purchase at the back of the book where you wouldn’t find it. I stumbled across it by accident when I was looking through it. I thought it best to keep my mouth shut about such a big amount of money until the very end”.

I held up Lord Clavering’s chequebook and opened the back page where the cheque, unsigned and still attached to its counterfoil, was clearly visible. Lord Clavering got up and ripped the cheque out and then tore it in half.

 

[Shangas]

“Mr. Haines,” he paused, then continued, “Richard. I’ll have to invite you around to Christmas next year as well,” he said, “Just in case. You solved a murder, revealed a fraud and undoubtedly saved my marriage all in the space of an evening”.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

“What should we do with him then, Stewart?” James asked, looking at Wanborough, who seemed to be shocked into catatonia about the exposure of his scheme.

“I understand these old English country houses have extensive cellars,” I said, “He might enjoy a close inspection of one of yours, Lord Clavering, until we can contact the police in the morning”.

“A fine idea,” said Stewart. “Brian old boy, I invited you here for dinner and for a bit of publicity in the papers. I daresay you could find your start as a crime reporter. This will certainly be the scoop of your career”.

Taking Wanborough in hand and leaving his wife to be consoled by Lady Clavering, James and I take him downstairs to the cellars, gently nudge him into the most convenient and suitable one that we can find, close the door and turn the key. As we head back upstairs, I can hear the Westminster chimes of a longcase clock somewhere in the distance. I pull my pocketwatch out of my waistcoat, pop the cover open and glance at the time.

“Merry Christmas, James”.

The End

 

[rue]

Well done Shangas! I had no idea who the murderer was until the end. It was well thought out and well written. Thank you for letting me read it. I think you'll have a great chance at winning

 

[Shangas]

Hi Rue,

Thanks for reading it. Glad you liked it.

 

[Stray Cat]

I've finished it!
(I'd finish earlier, but my mom wanted kitchen ceiling painted.. today!)

Let's start..
First off.. LOVE the beginning.. the irony is a best way to start.
And, giving him a "Humphrey Bogart" look immediately got me.

We went past the the billiard-room, the parlour and the music room on the ground floor, along with the West Drawing Room, not to be confused of course, with the East Drawing Room, which we’d just left.

..made me laugh.. this gives amazing inside info on the main character (at least it did to me)..

It’s always the short, simple ones that are the hardest to find answers for. The long questions are easy because there’s all kinds of answers you can give. Short ones have only one answer and all kinds of options.

Yes, they do.
I like how you've put it all together.

“Preposterous!”

..hehehe! lol
Every villain's last resort...

All in all: it has drama, it has suspense, it has the smell of "dear-old-Agatha" spice.. I LOVED IT!!

I wish you get the prize!

 

[Shangas]

Glad you liked the intro. When I originally wrote this story, it was a lot shorter and I didn't have time to put in physical descriptions, so I thought the best thing to do was to give rough approximations of which famous actors of the day, my characters would have most closely represented.

The thing about the questions is something I gleamed from my own personal experience and which I added into the story. I always find the short, simple questions hard to answer because there's only ONE answer. Really long questions can be answered a myriad of ways.

Thanks for the reassurances of my flagging confidence. If you have any other pointers or critiques, please post them!

 

[Stray Cat]

No, no other pointers or critiques.. I loved it!
(and this is spoken by a girl who digs through piles of books in order to find a decent thing to read)

It has exactly everything a good story has to have, AND it's not like Poirot "Oh, I know who the killer is, but the Reader can never figure it out, because dear old Agatha left out most important clues, and ONLY Poirot saw them". And, he's little fat guy. I prefer the "Humphrey Bogart" guy any day!

Keep writing!

 

[rue]

I have to agree... I couldn't find anything to criticize. It really was great. I think you should write another one with the main character