"Why else, in the Christmas story, do we find simple shepherds and rich kings worshipping together in the stable?"

"I don't think they actually-" began the Reverend Fortescue, but he was waved aside.

"To show that man is one, of one nature, in the eyes of G.o.d. This reconciliation of opposites is the one true heart of the Christmas message. That was the plan that, at every Christmastide, was acted upon by myself and my dear wife Alice, now no longer with us. Or indeed with anyone. Christmas Day we would spend quietly and simply, with just ourselves for company once the children had grown up and made their own lives. On Boxing Day we would invite a lot of people round to Herriton Hall, and in particular people with whom there had been some breech, with whom we needed to be reconciled." He paused, reaching for reserves in that treacle and mola.s.ses voice that had thrilled audiences up and down the country.

"That was what we did that memorable Christmas of 1936. Ten ... years ... ago."

There were many nods around the table, both from those who had heard the story before, and from those who were hearing it for the first time.

"Christmas Day was quiet-even, it must be confessed, a little dull," Sir Adrian resumed. "We listened to the new King's broadcast, and wondered at his conquest of his unfortunate speech impediment. It is always good to reflect on those who do not have one's own natural advantages. I confess the day was for me mainly notable for a sense of antic.i.p.ation. I thought with joy of the beautiful work of reconciliation that was to be undertaken on the next day. And of the other work ..."

There was a regrettable sn.i.g.g.e.r from one or two quarters of the table.

"Reconciliation has its limits," suggested Martin Lovejoy.

"Regrettably it does," acknowledged Sir Adrian, with a courteous bow in Martin's direction. "We are but human, after all. I could only hope that the Christian work of reconciliation in all cases but one would plead for me at the Judgement Seat against that one where ... Ah well, who knows? Does not the Bible speak of there being only one unforgivable sin?"

The three reverend gentlemen present all seemed to want to talk at once, which enabled Sir Adrian to sweep ahead with his story. "The first to arrive that Boxing morning was Angela Montfort, closely followed by Daniel West, the critic. Indeed, I think it probable that they in fact arrived together, because there was no sign of transport for Angela. West's reviews of her recent performances had made me wonder-so mindlessly enthusiastic were they-whether Something was Going On. Something usually was, with Angela, and the idea that the English critic is incorruptible is pure stardust. My quarrel with Angela, however, had nothing to do with s.e.x. It was her ludicrous and constant upstaging of me during the national tour of Private Lives, for which I had taken over the Coward role, and gave a performance which many thought-but, no matter. Old triumphs, old triumphs."

It was given a weary intonation worthy of Prospero's farewell to his Art.

"And West's offence?" asked Martin Lovejoy innocently. He was the most theatrically sophisticated of them, and he knew.

"A review in his provincial newspaper of my Malvolio," said Sir Adrian shortly, "which was hurtful in the extreme."

"Was that the one which spoke of your 'shrunken shanks'?" asked Peter Carbury, who was the only person present who read the Manchester Guardian.

"A deliberate effect of costuming!" said Sir Adrian fiercely. "A very clever design by my dear friend Binkie Mather. Typical of a critic's ignorance and malice that he could not see that."

He took a sip of port to restore his equanimity, and while he did so Peter winked at Martin and Martin winked at Peter.

"Angela gushed, of course," resumed Sir Adrian, "as I led her into the drawing-room. 'So wonderful to be back at dear old Herriton again'-that kind of thing. West looked around with a cynical expression on his face. He had been there before, when I had been under the illusion that he was one of the more perceptive of the up-and-coming critics, and I knew he coveted the house, with its magnificent views over the Suss.e.x Downs. I suspected that he found the idea of the gentleman actor rather ridiculous, but the idea of the gentleman critic not ridiculous at all. The gentleman's code allows dabbling. West had a large independent income, which is no guarantee of sound judgement. His cynical expression was a.s.sumed, but I was relentlessly courteous to them both, and it was while I was mixing them c.o.c.ktails that Alice-dear Alice-led in Frank Mandeville."

"Her lover," said Peter Carbury.

"My dear boy, do not show your provinciality and vulgarity," said Sir Adrian severely. "In the theatre we take such things in our stride. Let us say merely that in the past he had been her cavalier servente."

"Her what?" demanded Stephen Coates in an aggrieved voice. He had an oft-proclaimed and very British hatred of pretension.

"An Italian term," explained Sir Adrian kindly, "for a man who serves a lady as a sort of additional husband. There is a long tradition of such people in Italy."

"They are usually a lot younger," said Peter Carbury. "As in this case."

"Younger," conceded Sir Adrian. "Though hardly a lot younger. Frank Mandeville had been playing juvenile leads for so long he could have taken a Ph.D. in juvenility. Alice's ... patronage of him was short and long over, and when she led him in it was clear to me from the expression on her face that she was mystified as to what had once attracted her. When I saw his hair, slicked back with so much oil that it must have felt like being pleasured by a garage mechanic, I felt similarly mystified."

"It must have been a jolly party," commented Stephen Coates. Sir Adrian smiled at him, to signify to all that Stephen was not the sort of young man who could be expected to understand the ways of polite, still less theatrical, society.

"I must confess that when Frank bounced in Angela did say, 'What is this?' and looked suspiciously from Alice to me and back. But we had taken-I had taken-the precaution of inviting a number of local nonent.i.ties-the headmaster of a good school, an impoverished squire and his dreary wife, at least two vicars, and other such good people-and as they now began arriving they, so to speak, defused suspicion."

"Suspicion?" asked Mike, who had never heard the story before and was far from bright. Sir Adrian waved his hand with an airy grandness gained playing aristocrats of the old school.

"It was not until things were well under way that Richard Mallatrat and his wife arrived."

"The greatest Hamlet of his generation," put in Peter Carbury, with malicious intent.

"I cannot think of fainter praise," responded Sir Adrian loftily. "The art of Shakespearean acting is dead. If the newspapers are to be believed the Theatre today is dominated by young Olivier, who can no more speak the Bard than he can underplay a role."

"You and Mallatrat were rivals for the part, weren't you?" Carbury asked. Sir Adrian, after a pause, allowed the point.

"At the Old Vic. No money to speak of, but a great deal of prestige. I certainly wanted the part badly."

"To revive your career?" suggested the Reverend Sykes. He received a look of concentrated hatred.

"My career has never needed revival! To show the younger generation how it should be done! To set standards for people who had lost the true art of acting. Instead of which Mallatrat was given the role and had in it a showy success, lacking totally the quality of thought, which is essential to the role, and quite without too the music which ... another more experienced actor would have brought to it." He bent forward malevolently, eyes glinting. "And I was offered the role of Polonius."

"It's a good role," said the Reverend Fortescue, probably to rub salt in the wound. He was ignored.

"That was his malice, of course. He organized that, put the management up to it, then told the story to all his friends. I never played the Old Vic again. I had to disappoint my legion of fans, but there are some insults not to be brooked."

"You did try to get even through his wife, didn't you?" asked Martin Lovejoy, who was all too well informed in that sort of area.

"A mere newspaper story. Gloria Davere was not then his wife, though as good as, and she was not the trumpery Hollywood 'star' she has since become. Certainly we had-what is this new film called?-a brief encounter. I have told you the morality of the theatre is not the morality of Leamington Spa or Catford. We happened to meet on Crewe Station one Sat.u.r.day night, after theatre engagements elsewhere. I confess-sordid though it may sound-that for me it was no more than a means of pa.s.sing the time, stranded as we were by the vagaries of the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway. But the thought did occur to me that I would be teaching this gauche young thing more gracious ways-introducing her to the lovemaking of an earlier generation, when romance still reigned, and a lady was treated with chivalry and respect."

"I believe she told the News of the World it was like f.u.c.king Old Father Time," said Carbury to Martin Lovejoy, but so sotto was his voce that Sir Adrian was able to roll on regardless.

"She later, of course, talked, and spitefully, but the idea that our encounter had anything in it of revenge on my part is sheer moonshine. On her part, perhaps, in view of the talk she put around, but as to myself, I plead innocent of any such sordid emotion."

"So that was the cast-list a.s.sembled, was it?" asked the Reverend Sykes.

"Nearly, nearly," said Sir Adrian, with the unhurried stance of the habitual narrator, which in the case of this story he certainly was. "Thus far the party seemed to be going well. The attractions of Richard Mallatrat and his flashy wife to the nonent.i.ties was something I had antic.i.p.ated: they crowded around them, larding them with gushing compliments and expressions of admiration for this or that trumpery performance on stage or screen. Everyone, it seemed, had seen a Gloria Davere talkie or Richard Mallatrat as Hamlet, or Romeo, or Richard II. I knew it would be nauseating, and nauseating it was. Angela Montfort, for one, was immensely put out, with no knot of admirers to feed her self-love. She contented herself with swapping barbs with Frank Mandeville, who was of course enraged by the attention paid to Richard Mallatrat."

"Hardly a Shakespearean actor, though, this Frank Mandeville," commented Peter Carbury.

"Hardly an actor at all," amended Sir Adrian. "But logic does not come into theatrical feuds and jealousies. Mandeville playing Hamlet would hardly have pa.s.sed muster on a wet Tuesday in Bolton, but that did not stop him grinding his teeth at the popularity of Richard Mallatrat."

"He wasn't the only one," whispered Stephen Coates.

"And so it was time for a second round of drinks. I decided on that as I saw toiling up the drive the figure of my dear old dresser Jack Roden. My once-dear old dresser. I poured out a variety of drinks including some already-mixed c.o.c.ktails, two kinds of sherry, some gins and tonic, and two gla.s.ses of neat whisky. There was only one person in the room with the appalling taste to drink neat whisky before luncheon. Pouring two gla.s.ses gave that person a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Depending on how the tray was presented. With my back to the guests I dropped the hyoscine into one of the whisky gla.s.ses."

"Who was the whisky-drinker?" asked Roland, knowing the question would not be answered.

"The one with the worst taste," said Sir Adrian dismissively. "Then I went off to open the front door. Jack shuffled in, muttering something about the dreadful train and bus service you got over Christmas. He was a pathetic sight. The man who had been seduced away from me by Richard Mallatrat, and then dumped because he was not up to the contemporary demands of the job, could hardly any longer keep himself clean and neat, let alone anyone else. I threw the bottle of hyoscine as far as I could manage into the shrubbery, then ushered him with conspicuous kindness in to the drawing-room, solicitously introducing him to people he didn't know and people he did. 'But you two are old friends,' I remember saying when I led him up the scoundrel Mallatrat. Even that bounder had the grace to smile a mite queasily. Out of the corner of my eye I was pleased to see that some of the guests had already helped themselves from the tray."

"Why were you pleased?"

"It meant that others than myself had been up the tray. And it would obviously be theatrical people-the nonent.i.ties wouldn't dare."

"It doesn't sound the happiest of parties," commented Lovejoy.

"Doesn't it? Oh, but theatre people can relax anywhere, particularly if there are admirers present. Once some of the nonent.i.ties felt they should tear themselves away from the star duo of Mallatrat and Davere, then Angela got her share of attention, and Alice as hostess had her little knot-she had left the stage long before, of course, though she was still by nature a stage person. No, it was far from an unhappy party."

"Until the fatality," suggested the Reverend Fortescue.

"Until the fatality," agreed Sir Adrian. "Though even that ..."

"Did not dampen spirits?"

"Not entirely. Poison is slow, of course. You can have a quick, dramatic effect with cyanide-even I have acted on occasion in thrillers, and know that-but most of them take their time. People thought at first it was an upset tummy. Alice said she hoped that was all it was. She of course was not in on my plans. I've never found women entirely reliable, have you?"

He looked around the table. None of his listeners had found women entirely reliable.

"So it wasn't she who took the tray round?" asked Simon. "Was it one of your servants?"

"No, indeed. The servants had been set to preparing lunch, and that was all they did. As a gentleman I had an instinctive aversion to involving faithful retainers in ... a matter of this kind."

"I a.s.sume you didn't take it round yourself, though?"

"I did not. I tapped poor old Jack Roden on the shoulder-he was deep in rambling reminiscence with Daniel West (viewpoints from well away from the footlights)-and I asked him if he could help by taking round fresh drinks. That had always been my plan, though I confess that when I saw how doddering and uncertain he had become I very nearly changed it, fearing he would drop everything on the floor. But I placed the tray in his hands exactly as I wanted it, so that the poisoned whisky would be closest to hand when he got to the victim."

"And-to state the obvious-the victim took it," suggested the Reverend Fortescue.

"He took it. That was the signal for the toast. I cleared my throat and all fell silent. I flatter myself I know how to enforce silence. I had thought hard about the toast, and even today I think it rather beautiful. 'My friends,' I said. 'To friends old and new, to renewal and reconciliation, to the true spirit of Christmas.' There was much warm a.s.sent to my words, and gla.s.ses were raised. We all drank to Christmas, and the victim drank his down."

"He wasn't a sipper?" enquired Stephen.

"No. The victim was the sort who drank down and then had an interval before the next. I rather think myself that sipping is more social."

"How long was it before the effects were felt?"

"Oh, twenty minutes or more," said Sir Adrian, his face set in a reminiscent smile. "First just the look of queasiness, then some time later confessions of feeling ill. Alice was all solicitude. She took the victim to my study, plied him with gla.s.ses of water, nostrums from our medicine cupboard. He was sweating badly, and his vision was impaired. Finally she came in and suggested that I ring Dr. Cameron from the village. He was not happy at being fetched out on Boxing Day, particularly as he had not been invited to the party."

"Because he might have spotted what was wrong with him and saved him in time?"

"Precisely. Fortunately Dr. Cameron was the old-fashioned type of doctor, now rare, who went everywhere on foot. By the time he arrived, all Scottish tetchiness and wounded self-esteem, there was nothing to be done. Then it was questions, suspicions, and eventually demands that the police be called in. It made for an exciting if somewhat uneasy atmosphere-not a Boxing Day, I fancy, that anyone present will forget."

"And the police were quick to fix the blame, were they?" asked Mike. Sir Adrian sighed a Chekhovian sigh.

"Faster, I confess, than even I could have feared. The village bobby was an unknown quant.i.ty to me, being new to the district. I had counted on a thick-headed rural flatfoot of the usual kind, but even my first impression told me that he was unusually bright. He telephoned at once for a superior from Mordwick, the nearest town, but before he arrived with the usual team so familiar to us from detective fiction, the local man had established the main sequence of events, and could set out clearly for the investigating inspector's benefit all the relevant facts."

"But those facts would have left many people open to suspicion," suggested Peter Carbury.

"Oh, of course. Practically all the theatre people had been near the tray, except the victim, and all of them might be thought to bear malice to the victim. It was, alas, my wife Alice who narrowed things down so disastrously-quite inadvertently, of course." Sir Adrian was unaware that the foot of the Reverend Sykes touched the foot of the Reverend Fortescue at this point. They knew a thing or two about human nature, those clerics. And not just their own sins of the flesh. "Yes, Alice was apparently already on friendly terms with our new constable." The feet touched again. "And when she was chatting to him quite informally after a somewhat fraught lunch, she happened to mention at some point that she had been standing near the window and imagined she saw something flying through the air."

"The bottle?"

"The bottle. That did it. The grounds were searched, the bottle was found, and its content a.n.a.lysed. Then there could be no doubt."

"No doubt?" asked Mike, not the brightest person there.

"Because the hyoscine had been put in the second round of drinks, and the only person who had left the room to go to the door had been myself-to let in Jack Roden. Roden could not have done it because the bottle was empty and thrown away by the time he got into the drawing-room. It could only be me. I was arrested and charged, and Theatre was the poorer."

They all shook their heads, conscious they had reached the penultimate point in Sir Adrian's narrative.

"Come along all," said Archie by the door, on cue and jangling his keys. "Time you were making a move. We've got Christmas dinner to go to as well, you know."

"But tell us," said Mike who, apart from being stupid, hadn't heard the story before, "who the victim was."

Sir Adrian turned and surveyed them, standing around the table and the debris of their meal. He was now well into the run of this particular performance: there had been ten Christmases since a concerted chorus of Thespians had persuaded the new King not to celebrate his coronation with a theatrical knight on the scaffold. His head came forward and his stance came to resemble his long-ago performance as Richard III.

"You have to ask?" he rasped. "Who else could it be but the critic?" How he spat it out! "Who else could it be but the man who had libelled my legs?"

As he turned and led the shuffle back to the cells all eyes were fixed on the shrunken thighs and calves of one who had once been to tights what Betty Grable now was to silk stockings.

THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING.

Peter Lovesey.

ALL THE BOOKS PETER LOVESEY WROTE in the early part of his career were set in the past, including the Victorian-era adventures of Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray, who made their debut in Wobble to Death (1970) and went on to become the basis for a popular television series on the PBS Mystery! program. He later wrote a series featuring Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, better known as Bertie-later King Edward VII. His more recent novels, notably those featuring the irascible Bath detective Peter Diamond, have been set in contemporary times. "The Proof of the Pudding" was first published in A Cla.s.sic Christmas Crime, edited by Tim Heald (London, Pavilion, 1995).

The Proof of the Pudding.

PETER LOVESEY.

FRANK MORRIS STRODE INTO THE kitchen and slammed a cold, white turkey on the kitchen table. "Seventeen pounds plucked. Satisfied?"

His wife Wendy was at the sink, washing the last few breakfast bowls. Her shoulders had tensed. "What's that, Frank?"

"You're not even b.l.o.o.d.y looking, woman."

She took that as a command and wheeled around, rubbing her wet hands on the ap.r.o.n. "A turkey! That's a fine bird. It really is."

"Fine?" Frank erupted. "It's nineteen forty-six, for Christ's sake! It's a b.l.o.o.d.y miracle. Most of them round here will be sitting down to joints of pork and mutton-if they're lucky. I bring a b.l.o.o.d.y great turkey in on Christmas morning, and all you say is 'fine'?"

"I just wasn't prepared for it."

"You really get my goat, you do."

Wendy said tentatively, "Where did it come from, Frank?"

Her huge husband stepped towards her and for a moment she thought he would strike her. He lowered his face until it was inches from hers. Not even nine in the morning and she could smell sweet whisky on his breath. "I won it, didn't I?" he said, daring her to disbelieve. "A meat raffle in the Valiant Trooper last night."

Wendy nodded, pretending to be taken in. It didn't do to challenge Frank's statements. Black eyes and beatings had taught her well. She knew Frank's rule of fist had probably won him the turkey, too. Frank didn't lose at anything. If he could punch his way to another man's prize, then he considered it fair game.