Murder Most Merry (23 page)

It always seemed more like Christmas with snow in the air, even if there were only fat white flakes that melted as they hit the sidewalk. Walking briskly along Fifth Avenue at noon on Christmas Eve, Nick Velvet was aware of the last-minute crowds clutching red-and-green shopping bags that must have delighted the merchants. When he turned in at the building on the corner of Fifty-fourth Street, he wasn’t surprised to see that the pre-Christmas festivities had spread even here, within the confines of one of Manhattan’s most exclusive private clubs.

The slender, sour-faced man behind the desk inside the door eyed Nick for an instant and asked, “Are you looking for the Dellon-Simpson Christmas party?”

“Mr. Charles Simpson,” Nick confirmed. “I have an appointment with him here.”

The guardian of the door consulted his list. “You’d be Mr. Velvet?”

“That’s right.”

“You’ll find Mr. Simpson in the library, straight ahead. He’s expecting you.”

Nick crossed the marble floor, past a curving staircase that led up to a surprisingly noisy party, and entered the library through tall oak doors that shut out virtually all sound. Inside was a club-room from a hundred years ago, complete with an elderly member dozing in front of the fireplace.

“Mr. Velvet?” a voice asked, and Nick turned and saw a figure rising from the shadow of an oversized wing chair.

“That’s correct. You’d be Charles Simpson?”

“I would be.” By the flickering firelight. Nick could make out a tall man with a noble face and furry white sideburns. He looked to be a vigorous sixty or so and his handshake was a grip of steel. “Thank you for coming.”

“I’m keeping you from your firm’s Christmas party.”

“Nonsense. Business before pleasure, even on Christmas Eve. I want you to steal something for me, Mr. Velvet.”

“That’s my business. You understand the conditions? Nothing of value, and my fee—”

“I was told in advance. But it must be done tonight. Is that a problem?”

“No. What’s the object?”

Simpson’s face crinkled into a tight-lipped smile. “A Christmas stocking. I want you to steal the Christmas stocking hanging from the fireplace at my granddaughter’s. Any time after midnight.”

“Does it contain something valuable?”

“The gift inside will be valueless, but I want that, too.”

“Where does she live?”

“With her mother in a duplex apartment on upper Fifth Avenue.” He produced a piece of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the address. I warn you, the building has tight security.”

“I’ll get in.”

“Phone me at this number if you’re successful.” He walked Nick to the lobby, and as Nick started for the door he said, “Oh, and Mr. Velvet—”

Nick turned. “Yes?”

“Merry Christmas.”

After explaining on the phone to Gloria why he wouldn’t be home until well after midnight, Nick journeyed up Fifth Avenue to the address he’d been given. It proved to be a fine old building with a doorman, and a security guard seated behind a bank of television monitors. There would be a TV camera in each of the elevators, at the service entrance, and probably in the stairwell.

Nick walked around the block and thought about it. The most likely way to gain access to the building would be to pose as a delivery man. He could rent a uniform, buy a poinsettia, and walk right past the doorman as if he were delivering it to one of the apartments. It wouldn’t work after midnight, of course. He’d have to gain access to the building much earlier and find a hiding place out of range of the TV cameras.

Surprisingly—or not—as Nick again approached the front of the building, a florist’s van pulled up in front of the building. A young man got out, walked quickly around to the rear, and opened the doors. He brought out a huge poinsettia that almost hid his face and walked into the lobby with it. Nick stopped on the sidewalk to light a cigarette and pause as if in thought.

The doorman immediately took the plant from the young man, checked the address tag, and sent him on his way. He picked up the house phone and presently one of the building employees appeared to complete the plant’s delivery. Through it all, the security man never left his post behind the TV monitors.

Nick sighed and strolled away. A delivery wouldn’t gain him access to the apartment, not even on Christmas Eve. It would have to be something else. He glanced again at the note he carried in his pocket: Florence Beaufeld, it read. Apt. 501.

The name was not Simpson, he’d noticed at once. If the child was his granddaughter, that meant the mother she lived with was probably Charles Simpson’s daughter, separated, widowed, or divorced. Nick wondered why Simpson couldn’t go to the apartment himself on Christmas Day and perform his own stocking theft.

Nick wasn’t paid to think too much about the motives of his clients— that had gotten him into trouble enough in the past—but he did feel he should know whether Florence was the mother’s or the daughter’s name. The phonebook showed only one Beaufeld at that address: Beaufeld. F. It seemed likely that Florence was the child’s mother, Florence Simpson Beaufeld.

None of which would help him gain entrance to the apartment after midnight. He crossed Fifth Avenue and tried to get a better view of the building from Central Park. Assuming Apartment 501 was on the fifth floor, it had to face either the side street or the park. The other two sides of the building abutted adjoining buildings on Fifth Avenue and the side street. But the top stories of all three buildings were set back, so there was no access between them across the rooftops. No one could have reached the top of any of the buildings except Santa Claus.

The more Nick thought about it, the more convinced he became that it would have to be Santa Claus.

At eleven-thirty that night, he approached the front door of the building. The padding of the Santa Claus suit was warm and uncomfortable, smelling faintly of scented powder, and the bag of fancily wrapped gifts he’d slung over his shoulder weighed more than he’d expected. The doorman saw him coming and held open the portals for him. That was the first good sign. Santa was expected.

“Ho ho ho!” Nick thundered in the heartiest voice he could manage.

The doorman smiled good-naturedly. “Got a gift for me. Santa?”

“Ho ho ho!” Nick took out one of the gifts he’d bought to fill the top of the sack. “Right here, sonny!”

The doorman smiled and accepted the slim flat box. “Looks like a necktie to me. Thanks a lot. Santa. Which party do you want, the Brewsters or the Trevensons?”

“Brewsters,” Nick decided.

“Seventeenth floor.”

Nick glanced toward the security guard and saw him looking through the early edition of the following morning’s
Times
. He entered the nearest elevator and pressed the button for seventeen. As soon as the door closed and the elevator started to rise, he hit the fifth-floor button, too. The TV camera might spot him getting off at the wrong floor, but it was less of a risk than being seen running down the stairwell with his bag of tricks.

The corridor on the fifth floor was silent and deserted, lit only by an indirect glow from unseen fixtures near the ceiling. There were only three doors, so he knew 501 was going to be a large apartment. He glanced at his watch and saw that it wasn’t yet midnight. Then he listened at the door of 501. Hearing nothing, he reached deep into his bag and extracted a leather case of lock picks. It took him just forty-five seconds to unlock the door. He was mildly surprised that the chain lock wasn’t latched, but the reason quickly became obvious. The woman of the house, Florence Beaufeld, was preparing to go out.

By the glow of a twelve-foot Christmas tree standing near the spiral staircase in the duplex, he saw a handsome brown-haired woman of around forty adjusting a glistening earring. It was her hair, done in an unusual style that evoked the idea of a layered helmet, that caught his attention. She finished adjusting the earring, straightened the neckline of her red-velvet dress, and picked up a sequined purse.

Nick slipped into the dining area, taking shelter in the shadows behind a china cabinet, as the woman stepped to the foot of the staircase and called out, “I’m going up to the Brewsters’ party, Michelle. Go to bed now, it’s almost midnight. And don’t peek at your gifts!” There was a mumbled reply from upstairs as Mrs. Beaufeld let herself out of the apartment.

Nick waited, sweating in his Santa suit, until he heard a grandfather clock chime midnight. Then he left his hiding place and moved silently across the carpeted floor toward the lighted Christmas tree. A fireplace was beyond the tree, along an inside wall, and above it was an oil portrait of Florence Beaufeld seated with a protective arm around a lovely young girl about eight years old. Below it, taped to the mantel, was a single red Christmas stocking, bulging with an unseen gift.

Carefully setting down the bag, Nick moved to the mantel. He reached out and took the stocking in his hand, carefully pulling the tape away from the wood. As he did, he heard the slightest of sounds behind him and turned to see a young woman in a short nightgown and bare legs standing at the foot of the staircase, a tiny automatic held firmly in her right hand.

“Get your hand off my stocking. Santa.” she said, “or I’ll send you back to the North Pole in a wooden box...”

Nick did as he was told. “Come now.” he said gruffly, “you don’t want to point that thing at Santa.”

She motioned slightly with the pistol. “Take off the hat and beard. I like to see who I’m talking to.”

He tossed the red hat on the floor and pulled the sticky beard away from his skin.

“Satisfied now?” he asked in his normal voice.

“Say, you’re not bad-looking. Who are you?”

“Do you mind if I take off this coat and padding before we talk? It’s really quite uncomfortable.”

“Sure, but don’t try anything. I’ve seen all the movies.” She watched him while he dropped the coat on the floor with the rest and then pulled the padding from his pants. He’d worn jeans and a black turtleneck under the Santa suit in case he had to shed it to make his escape. With the padding out, the red pants fell by themselves and he stepped out of them.

“Now, what was your question?”

“Who are you?”

She spoke with an educated, private-school voice, even when her words were tough and gritty. Nick guessed Michelle Beaufeld was now in her late teens.

“I’m a friend of your grandfather,” he told her.

“Charles Simpson?” The truth seemed to dawn on her. “Oh. no!” She started to laugh. “He wanted you to steal the gift!”

“Well, the stocking the gift is in.”

She shook her head. “Santa Claus, the thief! Won’t that make a story for the papers? Grandpa Tries To Steal Child’s Christmas Gift, “

“You’re no child,” Nick pointed out. “Why don’t you put away that gun? I’m not going to hurt you.”

She motioned toward the Santa Claus outfit on the floor. “Put your pants back on.”

“They’re too big for me without the padding.”

“That’s the idea. If you try to rush me. they’ll trip you up.”

When he’d done as she ordered, she sat in an easy chair and carefully set the pistol down on an end table by her side. “Now we can talk,” she said. “I know Grandpa wouldn’t send anyone to harm me, but I can understand his wanting to get his hands on that gift. Let’s have a look at it—toss the stocking over here. No funny business now!”

Nick did as he was told, convinced now that she wouldn’t think of shooting him any more than he’d think of harming her. The stocking landed on the chair by her side and she picked it up, withdrawing the gift in its holiday wrapping. As she worked at unwrapping it, she reminded Nick of her mother adjusting the earring earlier. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and pouting lips, and was well on her way to becoming a great beauty. Putting aside the wrapping, she held up a little plastic pig for Nick to see. It was a gift more suitable for a child of five or six. “There we go! I’ll put it with the others.”

“What others?”

“Didn’t Grandpa tell you? They’re gifts from my father. He sends one every Christmas.”

“Does he know how old you are?”

“Of course he does. They have a special meaning.”

“Oh?”

“
That’s
what Grandpa’s dying to find out—what their special meaning

is.”

“Do
you
know?” he asked.

“Well—not yet,” she admitted. “It’s about something I’m supposed to get when I’m eighteen.”

“How old are you now?”

“Seventeen. My birthday’s next month.”

“Does your father ever come to see you?”

She shook her head. “Not since I was twelve. The only time I hear from him is at Christmas, and then it’s just the gift in the stocking. There hasn’t been a note since the first time.”

“How does he deliver them? I know you don’t believe in Santa Claus.”

That brought a genuine smile. “I don’t know. I suppose Mother must put them there, although she’s always denied it.”

“What does your grandfather have to do with any of this?”

Her face showed exasperation, then uncertainty. “Why am I telling you my family history when I should be calling the police?”