Murder Most Merry (52 page)

Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my companion’s knee. “For God’s sake, have mercy!” he shrieked. “Think of my father! of my mother! It would break their hearts. I never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I’ll swear it on a Bible. Oh, don’t bring it into court! For Christ’s sake, don’t!”

“Get back into your chair!” said Holmes sternly. “It is very well to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing.”

“I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the charge against him will break down.”

“Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies your only hope of safety.”

Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. “I will tell you it just as it happened, sir,” said he. “When Horner had been arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister’s house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective: and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went into the back yard and smoked a pipe, and wondered what it would be best to do.

“I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the best detective that ever lived.

“My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds—a fine big one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and, prying its bill open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and fluttered off among the others.

‘Whatever were you doing with that bird. Jem?’ says she.

‘Well.‘ said I, ‘you said you’d give me one for Christmas, and I was feeling which was the fattest.’

‘Oh,‘ says she, ‘we’ve set yours aside for you—Jem’s bird, we call it. It’s the big white one over yonder. There’s twenty-six of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen for the market.‘

‘Thank you, Maggie, ‘ says I; ‘but if it is all the same to you, I’d rather have that one I was handling just now.‘

‘The other is a good three pound heavier, ‘ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly for you.‘

‘Never mind. I’ll have the other, and I’ll take it now,‘ said I.

‘Oh. just as you like. ‘ said she, a little huffed. ‘Which is it you want,

then?’

‘That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the flock.‘

‘Oh. very well. Kill it and take it with you.‘

“Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, rushed back to my sister’s, and hurried into the back yard. There was not a bird to be seen there.

‘Where are they all, Maggie?’ I cried.

‘Gone to the dealer’s, Jem.‘

‘Which dealer’s?’

‘Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.‘

‘But was there another with a barred tail?’ I asked, ‘the same as the one I chose?’

‘Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never tell them apart.‘

“Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they had gone. You heard him yourselves tonight. Well, he has always answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!” He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands.

There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing, and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s finger-tips upon the edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door.

“Get out!” said he.

“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”

“No more words. Get out!”

And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.

“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to jail now, and you make him a jail-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin another investigation, in which, also, a bird will be the chief feature.”

THE EMBEZZLER’S CHRISTMAS PRESENT – Ennis Duling

Entire mornings could pass at the First National Bank without anyone speaking to Herb Cubbey about anything that wasn’t business. Checks were cashed, and money was entered in personal accounts at the window where Herb worked. Customers were rewarded with a nod and a barely audible thank you. At the end of the day his records were always in perfect order.

Twenty-five-year-old Sue Rigney, who worked two windows away, thought that Herb moved around the bank as if he were a frightened herbivore (she liked the pun) in a jungle of meateaters. He might have blended into a paneled wall, his brown bow tie and the pattern of his remaining hair serving as protective coloration. Like a mouse at the cat’s water dish, he poured water for tea, allowed it to steep weakly, and then darted away, leaving only the spore of the tea bag. Sue noticed that he used a tea bag more than once.

Sue had heard the other tellers and the secretaries discussing Herb’s personal life. He spent his evenings at home with his widowed mother, and that was the sum of his life. Probably he kept a goldfish, watched the same television shows each week, and made his mother breakfast in bed on Sundays.

The secretaries made occasional jokes about Herb’s saintly mother, but he was such little game that they usually found other targets such as the newly appointed assistant manager, Edward Bridgewright. who at thirty-three was exactly Herb’s age. In fact, they had both entered the bank’s employ at the same time, and while Herb remained at his original position. Bridgewright had risen to better things.

One morning before opening, a group of secretaries and tellers gathered near the coffee machine and talked about the Christmas presents they were giving their boyfriends and husbands. When Herb appeared, Sue, who at the moment had no boyfriend and wanted to keep the fact a secret, said, “What are you giving your mother for Christmas, Herb?”

Herb squeezed his tea bag between two spoons. “I really shouldn’t say.”

“Aw, come on, Herb,” Dot Levin said. After twenty years at the bank, she liked to play mother to the younger employees. “Your mother is such a wonderful woman.” Sue wished she hadn’t said anything.

“I know I shouldn’t tell you this,” Herb said, “but I’m giving her ten thousand dollars.” The water in his cup had turned a light amber. “Merry Christmas to you all.” He looked down at his cup as he balanced it in retreat.

“Did he say ten thousand?” Dot asked.

“Where would the little man get that kind of money?” said Jan Washington, a strikingly beautiful black woman.

At that moment Mr. Bridgewright stepped out of the elevator and marched toward the conversation. “Girls, girls, girls, this is no time to stand around and talk. Back to work!”

“This is my break time, Mr. Bridgewright,” Sue said.

He gave her one of his sincere smiles, the type she always saw before he asked her for a date.

“And Herb Cubbey has lots of money,” Paula Kimble said.

“No, he doesn’t. Work!”

Sue slipped away with the rest of them.

In the parking lot after closing. Herb’s money was again the topic of conversation. “Maybe the man lied,” Jan suggested.

“No!” Sue insisted. She thought that Herb deserved his privacy as much as anyone. She hated it when the others started to pry into her life.

“Herbert has never told a lie since he was born,” Paula said. “He’s afraid his mommy might slap his hand.”

“Then he inherited it,” Sue said.

John Franks from the trust department said, “I drove him home two years ago during the bus strike. He lives over in Bultman Village. You know those little bungalows built back in the Roaring Twenties. They looked better then, I imagine. He asked me in, and the old lady served me tea and biscuits. She looked like she was posing for a painting with her knitting. She kept telling me how hard it was to make ends meet and how her husband had been a wonderful man but didn’t have a head for money. No, Herb didn’t have any money then.”

“A rich uncle,” Sue said.

“A man like that with no idea in the world of how to spend money would be lucky enough to have an uncle leave him a bundle,” Dot said.

“Worry not, ladies,” John said. “I see Herb coming now. I’ll just ask him.”

As Herb walked by, he touched his hat. John said, “Sorry to hear about your relative dying like that, Mr. Cubbey. Your uncle, wasn’t it?”

Herb glanced down. “You must be mistaken, Mr. Franks. My family has excellent health, except for my father, of course, and that was years ago. Good night all.”

John watched him until he was out of sight and then he said. “He’s a sly one. If he inherited the money, he’s not telling.”

“He seems to be a very private sort of person,” Sue said.

“He has responsibilities,” Jan said.

“He’s not shy; he’s just a Scrooge,” Paula said.

“Goes home and counts it at night,” Jan agreed. “Won’t let anyone get any use out of it except his mother and what’s she need with the cash?”

“Maybe he just saved that much and decided to give it to his mother,” Sue suggested.

The next morning John steered Sue into Mr. Bridgewright’s office. “Ed, I just want you to know how poorly trained your employee is,” he said grinning.

“What?” Mr. Bridgewright gave his supervisor’s frown.

“I was trying to explain to Susie here that Herb Cubbey could no more save up enough money to give his mom ten thousand dollars than I could convince the trust department to play the ponies. Now I don’t want you giving away any state secrets, but let us put down a round figure for Herb’s salary.” He switched on a calculator and pushed Sue in front. “Look about right, Ed? Now let’s subtract food and clothing for two, house maintenance, and taxes. We can multiply the small remainder by fifty-two weeks in a year. He could save that much, but the canary would have to go hungry. Women just don’t have a head for money. That’s one of the things that’s so charming about them.”