The big book of Christmas mysteries.

by Otto Penzler.

For Bradford Morrow.

An original and wonderful writer, a wise and valued friend.

Introduction.

BY OTTO PENZLER.

IT IS NO GREAT profundity to exclaim that Christmas is the happiest time of the year for all but the most churlish, those who claim they can't wait for the season to be over because they hate the forced (to them) cheerfulness, the religious aspects of the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ (though, of course, there is no biblical or other evidence to suggest that Jesus was born on December 25), or the cra.s.s commercialism of the whole thing.

These curmudgeons will like this book.

While most of us are busy shopping for gifts for those we love, or decorating a home and putting up a Christmas tree and hanging mistletoe, and generally enjoying the extra warmth of h.e.l.los from friends and shopkeepers, these unsympathetic souls will find solace in the fact that crime, violence, and even murder continue to flourish at what should be a time of peace, joy, and love.

Mystery fiction set during the Christmas season has been with us for a long time, and it is astonishing how many authors have turned their pens and wicked thoughts to this time of year. Perhaps this is because violence seems so out of character, so inappropriate, for this time of year that it takes on extra weight. Think of how often terrible events have been recounted with the sad or angry exclamation, "and at Christmastime!"

It is impossible to think of Christmas stories without first and immediately turning to Charles d.i.c.kens, who wrote A Christmas Carol, the greatest of all Christmas tales. It enjoyed enormous popularity when it was written in 1843 and it has remained in our hearts ever since, not only as a book but as beloved motion pictures, filmed again and again for each generation to appreciate anew (though none are as good as the version that stars Alastair Sim). It added a word to the English language, as everyone knows what it means to be a "Scrooge," and it changed a holiday tradition. When Ebenezer Scrooge asked a street urchin to fetch the biggest turkey in the window of the poulterer, all of England reconsidered the standard Christmas treat, which had been a roast goose.

As a pure ghost story, A Christmas Carol doesn't appear in this collection of crime and mystery tales and, besides, it is readily available in a mult.i.tude of editions. Many of the stories in this anthology, on the other hand, are not readily available and, in fact, are almost impossible to find anywhere else. There is a cliche about anthologies (and cliches become cliches because they are true) that compares them to a good party, where you see old friends and meet new ones.

Mystery readers will probably be somewhat familiar with the stories by Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ellery Queen, even if they haven't read them in a while. But few will have read the more obscure stories by Edgar Wallace, Norvell Page, Mary Roberts Rinehart, or Ethel Lina White.

The variety of subjects and styles may be surprising, ranging from truly chilling to heartwarming to hilarious to puzzling. This is no accident, of course, since genuinely talented authors have their own voices and, like snowflakes, no two are alike (though, to be fair, no one has ever proven that this is true of snowflakes, nor are they likely to do so anytime soon).

Christmas has, for good reasons, been a season for a greater amount of reading than most other times of the year. In times long past, when families and friends gathered, entertainment was more limited than it is nowadays. Wealthier families had musical instruments, and it was common for young ladies especially to enhance their list of accomplishments by playing a pianoforte, harpsichord, or other music-making device. But a group-friendly entertainment that cut across most socioeconomic strata was reading aloud from a book, and there was no better time than when the seemingly endless workday was shuttled aside for a while.

Today, books remain one of the most popular gift items at Christmas, as do electronic readers, so the valued tradition of books and reading remains an integral part of the season. There are tales between these covers that would make especially worthy read-aloud pleasures for groups of neighbors, family, and friends to enjoy together. Go ahead, gather everyone near the Christmas tree, hand out some sweets and the appropriate liquid refreshment, find a comfortable chair, and read aloud Ed McBain's "And All Through the House" or Josephine Bell's "The Carol Singers." It may not be better than watching A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life on television, but it will be the kind of evening that will be talked about with fond memories for years to come.

And, if anyone fails to fully appreciate the joys of this gentle, old-fashioned activity, why, then, you can just beat them to death.

-OTTO PENZLER.

Christmas 2012.

New York.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING.

Agatha Christie.

IT SEEMS FITTING, SOMEHOW, that the "Mistress of Mystery," the "Queen of Crime," set numerous stories in the cozy world of Christmas. The great talent that Dame Agatha brought to her detective stories was the element of surprise, and what could be more surprising than killing someone at what is meant to be the most peaceful, love-filled time of the year? This splendid story was such a favorite of the author that she used it as the t.i.tle story of her collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and a Selection of Entrees (London, Collins, 1960).

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding.

AGATHA CHRISTIE.

I.

"I REGRET EXCEEDINGLY--" SAID M. Hercule Poirot.

He was interrupted. Not rudely interrupted. The interruption was suave, dexterous, persuasive rather than contradictory.

"Please don't refuse offhand, M. Poirot. There are grave issues of State. Your cooperation will be appreciated in the highest quarters."

"You are too kind," Hercule Poirot waved a hand, "but I really cannot undertake to do as you ask. At this season of the year--"

Again Mr. Jesmond interrupted. "Christmas time," he said, persuasively. "An old-fashioned Christmas in the English countryside."

Hercule Poirot shivered. The thought of the English countryside at this season of the year did not attract him.

"A good old-fashioned Christmas!" Mr. Jesmond stressed it.

"Me-I am not an Englishman," said Hercule Poirot. "In my country, Christmas, it is for the children. The New Year, that is what we celebrate."

"Ah," said Mr. Jesmond, "but Christmas in England is a great inst.i.tution and I a.s.sure you at Kings Lacey you would see it at its best. It's a wonderful old house, you know. Why, one wing of it dates from the fourteenth century."

Again Poirot shivered. The thought of a fourteenth-century English manor house filled him with apprehension. He had suffered too often in the historic country houses of England. He looked round appreciatively at his comfortable modern flat with its radiators and the latest patent devices for excluding any kind of draught.

"In the winter," he said firmly, "I do not leave London."

"I don't think you quite appreciate, M. Poirot, what a very serious matter this is." Mr. Jesmond glanced at his companion and then back at Poirot.

Poirot's second visitor had up to now said nothing but a polite and formal "How do you do." He sat now, gazing down at his well-polished shoes, with an air of the utmost dejection on his coffee-coloured face. He was a young man, not more than twenty-three, and he was clearly in a state of complete misery.

"Yes, yes," said Hercule Poirot. "Of course the matter is serious. I do appreciate that. His Highness has my heartfelt sympathy."

"The position is one of the utmost delicacy," said Mr. Jesmond.

Poirot transferred his gaze from the young man to his older companion. If one wanted to sum up Mr. Jesmond in a word, the word would have been discretion. Everything about Mr. Jesmond was discreet. His well-cut but inconspicuous clothes, his pleasant, well-bred voice which rarely soared out of an agreeable monotone, his light-brown hair just thinning a little at the temples, his pale serious face. It seemed to Hercule Poirot that he had known not one Mr. Jesmond but a dozen Mr. Jesmonds in his time, all using sooner or later the same phrase-"a position of the utmost delicacy."

"The police," said Hercule Poirot, "can be very discreet, you know."

Mr. Jesmond shook his head firmly.

"Not the police," he said. "To recover the-er-what we want to recover will almost inevitably involve taking proceedings in the law courts and we know so little. We suspect, but we do not know."

"You have my sympathy," said Hercule Poirot again.

If he imagined that his sympathy was going to mean anything to his two visitors, he was wrong. They did not want sympathy, they wanted practical help. Mr. Jesmond began once more to talk about the delights of an English Christmas.

"It's dying out, you know," he said, "the real old-fashioned type of Christmas. People spend it at hotels nowadays. But an English Christmas with all the family gathered round, the children and their stockings, the Christmas tree, the turkey and plum pudding, the crackers. The snowman outside the window--"

In the interests of exact.i.tude, Hercule Poirot intervened.

"To make a snow-man one has to have the snow," he remarked severely. "And one cannot have snow to order, even for an English Christmas."

"I was talking to a friend of mine in the meteorological office only today," said Mr. Jesmond, "and he tells me that it is highly probable there will be snow this Christmas."

It was the wrong thing to have said. Hercule Poirot shuddered more forcefully than ever.

"Snow in the country!" he said. "That would be still more abominable. A large, cold, stone manor house."

"Not at all," said Mr. Jesmond. "Things have changed very much in the last ten years or so. Oil-fired central heating."

"They have oil-fired central heating at Kings Lacey?" asked Poirot. For the first time he seemed to waver.

Mr. Jesmond seized his opportunity. "Yes, indeed," he said, "and a splendid hot water system. Radiators in every bedroom. I a.s.sure you, my dear M. Poirot, Kings Lacey is comfort itself in the winter time. You might even find the house too warm."

"That is most unlikely," said Hercule Poirot.

With practised dexterity Mr. Jesmond shifted his ground a little.

"You can appreciate the terrible dilemma we are in," he said, in a confidential manner.

Hercule Poirot nodded. The problem was, indeed, not a happy one. A young potentate-to-be, the only son of the ruler of a rich and important native state, had arrived in London a few weeks ago. His country had been pa.s.sing through a period of restlessness and discontent. Though loyal to the father whose way of life had remained persistently Eastern, popular opinion was somewhat dubious of the younger generation. His follies had been Western ones and as such looked upon with disapproval.

Recently, however, his betrothal had been announced. He was to marry a cousin of the same blood, a young woman who, though educated at Cambridge, was careful to display no Western influences in her own country. The wedding day was announced and the young prince had made a journey to England, bringing with him some of the famous jewels of his house to be reset in appropriate modern settings by Cartier. These had included a very famous ruby which had been removed from its c.u.mbersome old-fashioned necklace and had been given a new look by the famous jewellers. So far so good, but after this came the snag. It was not to be supposed that a young man possessed of much wealth and convivial tastes should not commit a few follies of the pleasanter type. As to that there would have been no censure. Young princes were supposed to amuse themselves in this fashion. For the prince to take the girlfriend of the moment for a walk down Bond Street and bestow upon her an emerald bracelet or a diamond clip as a reward for the pleasure she had afforded him would have been regarded as quite natural and suitable, corresponding in fact to the Cadillac cars which his father invariably presented to his favourite dancing girl of the moment.

But the prince had been far more indiscreet than that. Flattered by the lady's interest, he had displayed to her the famous ruby in its new setting, and had finally been so unwise as to accede to her request to be allowed to wear it-just for one evening!

The sequel was short and sad. The lady had retired from their supper-table to powder her nose. Time pa.s.sed. She did not return. She had left the establishment by another door and since then had disappeared into s.p.a.ce. The important and distressing thing was that the ruby in its new setting had disappeared with her.

These were the facts that could not possibly be made public without the most dire consequences. The ruby was something more than a ruby, it was a historical possession of great significance, and the circ.u.mstances of its disappearance were such that any undue publicity about them might result in the most serious political consequences.

Mr. Jesmond was not the man to put these facts into simple language. He wrapped them up, as it were, in a great deal of verbiage. Who exactly Mr. Jesmond was, Hercule Poirot did not know. He had met other Mr. Jesmonds in the course of his career. Whether he was connected with the Home Office, the Foreign Office, or some more discreet branch of public service was not specified. He was acting in the interests of the Commonwealth. The ruby must be recovered.

M. Poirot, so Mr. Jesmond delicately insisted, was the man to recover it.

"Perhaps-yes," Hercule Poirot admitted, "but you can tell me so little. Suggestion-suspicion-all that is not very much to go upon."

"Come now, M. Poirot, surely it is not beyond your powers. Ah, come now."

"I do not always succeed."

But this was mock modesty. It was clear enough from Poirot's tone that for him to undertake a mission was almost synonymous with succeeding in it.

"His Highness is very young," Mr. Jesmond said. "It will be sad if his whole life is to be blighted for a mere youthful indiscretion."

Poirot looked kindly at the downcast young man. "It is the time for follies, when one is young," he said encouragingly, "and for the ordinary young man it does not matter so much. The good papa, he pays up; the family lawyer, he helps to disentangle the inconvenience; the young man, he learns by experience and all ends for the best. In a position such as yours, it is hard indeed. Your approaching marriage--"

"That is it. That is it exactly." For the first time words poured from the young man. "You see she is very, very serious. She takes life very seriously. She has acquired at Cambridge many very serious ideas. There is to be education in my country. There are to be schools. There are to be many things. All in the name of progress, you understand, of democracy. It will not be, she says, like it was in my father's time. Naturally she knows that I will have diversions in London, but not the scandal. No! It is the scandal that matters. You see it is very, very famous, this ruby. There is a long trail behind it, a history. Much bloodshed-many deaths!"

"Deaths," said Hercule Poirot thoughtfully. He looked at Mr. Jesmond. "One hopes," he said, "it will not come to that?"

Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it.

"No, no, indeed," he said, sounding rather prim. "There is no question, I am sure, of anything of that kind."

"You cannot be sure," said Hercule Poirot. "Whoever has the ruby now, there may be others who want to gain possession of it, and who will not stick at a trifle, my friend."

"I really don't think," said Mr. Jesmond, sounding more prim than ever, "that we need enter into speculations of that kind. Quite unprofitable."

"Me," said Hercule Poirot, suddenly becoming very foreign, "me, I explore all the avenues, like the politicians."

Mr. Jesmond looked at him doubtfully. Pulling himself together, he said, "Well, I can take it that is settled, M. Poirot? You will go to Kings Lacey?"

"And how do I explain myself there?" asked Hercule Poirot.

Mr. Jesmond smiled with confidence.

"That, I think, can be arranged very easily," he said. "I can a.s.sure you that it will all seem quite natural. You will find the Laceys most charming. Delightful people."

"And you do not deceive me about the oil-fired central heating?"

"No, no, indeed." Mr. Jesmond sounded quite pained. "I a.s.sure you you will find every comfort."

"Tout confort moderne," murmured Poirot to himself, reminiscently. "Eh bien," he said, "I accept."

II.

The temperature in the long drawing-room at Kings Lacey was a comfortable sixty-eight as Hercule Poirot sat talking to Mrs. Lacey by one of the big mullioned windows. Mrs. Lacey was engaged in needlework. She was not doing pet.i.t point or embroidering flowers upon silk. Instead, she appeared to be engaged in the prosaic task of hemming dishcloths. As she sewed she talked in a soft reflective voice that Poirot found very charming.

"I hope you will enjoy our Christmas party here, M. Poirot. It's only the family, you know. My granddaughter and a grandson and a friend of his and Bridget who's my great-niece, and Diana who's a cousin and David Welwyn who is a very old friend. Just a family party. But Edwina Morecombe said that that's what you really wanted to see. An old-fashioned Christmas. Nothing could be more old-fashioned than we are! My husband, you know, absolutely lives in the past. He likes everything to be just as it was when he was a boy of twelve years old, and used to come here for his holidays." She smiled to herself. "All the same old things, the Christmas tree and the stockings hung up and the oyster soup and the turkey-two turkeys, one boiled and one roast-and the plum pudding with the ring and the bachelor's b.u.t.ton and all the rest of it in it. We can't have sixpences nowadays because they're not pure silver any more. But all the old desserts, the Elvas plums and Carlsbad plums and almonds and raisins, and crystallised fruit and ginger. Dear me, I sound like a catalogue from Fortnum and Mason!"

"You arouse my gastronomic juices, madame."