The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (4 page)

His
eyes flashed around. “There are times,” he said, “when love takes over. There
are times—”

“Wait
a minute,” Alfred Kiernan cut in. “You enjoy it too. You don’t like this stuff.”

“I
can stand a sip, Al.”

“But
you won’t enjoy it. Wait.” Kiernan put his glass on the bar and marched to the
door on the left and on out. In five seconds he was back, with a bottle in his
hand, and as he rejoined us and asked Santa Claus for a glass I saw the Pernod
label. He pulled the cork, which had been pulled before, filled the glass
halfway, and held it out to Bottweill. “There,” he said. “That will make it
unanimous.”

“Thanks,
Al.” Bottweill took it. “My secret public vice.” He raised the glass. “I
repeat, there are times when love takes over. (Santa Claus, where is yours? But
I suppose you can’t drink through that mask.) There are times when all the
little demons disappear down their ratholes, and ugliness itself takes on the
shape of beauty; when the darkest corner is touched by light; when the coldest
heart feels the glow of warmth; when the trumpet call of good will and good
cheer drowns out all the Babel of mean little noise. This is such a time. Merry
Christmas! Merry merry merry!”

I
was ready to touch glasses, but both the angel and the boss steered theirs to
their lips, so I and the others followed suit. I thought Bottweill’s eloquence
deserved more than a sip, so I took a healthy gulp, and from the corner of my
eye I saw that he was doing likewise with the Pernod. As I lowered the glass my
eyes went to Mrs. Jerome, as she spoke.

“That
was lovely,” she declared. “Simply lovely. I must write it down and have it
printed. That part about the trumpet call—
Kurt!
What is it?
Kurt!”

He
had dropped the glass and was clutching his throat with both hands. As I moved
he turned loose of his throat, thrust his arms out, and let out a yell. I think
he yelled
“Merry!”
but I wasn’t really listening. Others started for him too, but my reflexes were
better trained for emergencies than any of theirs, so I got him first. As I got
my arms around him he started choking and gurgling, and a spasm went over him
from head to foot that nearly loosened my grip. They were making noises, but no
screams, and someone was clawing at my arm. As I was telling them to get back
and give me room, he was suddenly a dead weight, and I almost went down with
him and might have if Kiernan hadn’t grabbed his arm.

I
called, “Get a doctor!” and Cherry ran to a table where there was a gold-leaf
phone. Kiernan and I let Bottweill down on the rug. He was out, breathing fast
and hard, but as I was straightening his head his breathing slowed down and
foam showed on his lips. Mrs. Jerome was commanding us, “Do something, do
something!”

There
was nothing to do, and I knew it. While I was holding onto him I had got a
whiff of his breath, and now, kneeling, I leaned over to get my nose an inch
from his, and I knew that smell, and it takes a big dose to hit that quick and
hard. Kiernan was loosening Bottweill’s tie and collar. Cherry Quon called to
us that she had tried a doctor and couldn’t get him and was trying another.
Margot was squatting at Bottweill’s feet, taking his shoes off, and I could
have told her she might as well let him die with his boots on but didn’t. I had
two fingers on his wrist and my other hand inside his shirt, and could feel him
going.

When
I could feel nothing I abandoned the chest and wrist, took his hand, which was
a fist, straightened the middle finger, and pressed its nail with my thumbtip
until it was white. When I removed my thumb the nail stayed white. Dropping the
hand, I yanked a little cluster of fibers from the rug, told Kiernan not to
move, placed the fibers against Bottweill’s nostrils, fastened my eyes on them,
and held my breath for thirty seconds. The fibers didn’t move.

I
stood up and spoke. “His heart has stopped and he’s not breathing. If a doctor
came within three minutes and washed out his stomach with chemicals he wouldn’t
have with him, there might be one chance in a thousand. As it is—”

“Can’t
you
do
something?” Mrs. Jerome squawked.

“Not
for him, no. I’m not an officer of the law, but I’m a licensed detective, and I’m
supposed to know how to act in these circumstances, and I’ll get it if I don’t
follow the rules. Of course—”

“Do something!”
Mrs. Jerome squawked.

Kiernan’s
voice came from behind me. “He’s dead.”

I
didn’t turn to ask what test he had used. “Of course,” I told them, “his drink
was poisoned. Until the police come no one will touch anything, especially the
bottle of Pernod, and no one will leave this room. You will—”

I
stopped dead. Then I demanded, “Where is Santa Claus?”

Their
heads turned to look at the bar. No bartender. On the chance that it had been
too much for him, I pushed between Leo Jerome and Emil Hatch to step to the end
of the bar, but he wasn’t on the floor either.

I
wheeled. “Did anyone see him go?”

They
hadn’t. Hatch said, “He didn’t take the elevator. I’m sure he didn’t. He must have—”
He started off.

I
blocked him. “You stay here. I’ll take a look. Kiernan, phone the police.
Spring seven-three-one-hundred.”

I
made for the door on the left and passed through, pulling it shut as I went,
and was in Bottweill’s office, which I had seen before. It was one-fourth the
size of the studio, and much more subdued, but was by no means squalid. I
crossed to the far end, saw through the glass panel that Bottweill’s private
elevator wasn’t there, and pressed the button. A clank and a whirr came from
inside the shaft, and it was coming. When it was up and had jolted to a stop I
opened the door, and there on the floor was Santa Claus, but only the outside
of him. He had molted. Jacket, breeches, mask, wig…I didn’t check to see if it
was all there, because I had another errand and not much time for it.

Propping
the elevator door open with a chair, I went and circled around Bottweill’s big
gold-leaf desk to his gold-leaf wastebasket. It was one-third full. Bending, I
started to paw, decided that was inefficient, picked it up and dumped it, and
began tossing things back in one by one. Some of the items were torn pieces of
paper, but none of them came from a marriage license. When I had finished I
stayed down a moment, squatting, wondering if I had hurried too much and
possibly missed it, and I might have gone through it again if I hadn’t heard a
faint noise from the studio that sounded like the elevator door opening. I went
to the door to the studio and opened it, and as I crossed the sill two
uniformed cops were deciding whether to give their first glance to the dead or
the living.

III

Three
hours later we were seated, more or less in a group, and my old friend and foe,
Sergeant Purley Stebbins of Homicide, stood surveying us, his square jaw
jutting and his big burly frame erect.

He
spoke. “Mr. Kiernan and Mr. Hatch will be taken to the District Attorney’s
office for further questioning. The rest of you can go for the present, but you
will keep yourselves available at the addresses you have given. Before you go I
want to ask you again, here together, about the man who was here as Santa
Claus. You have all claimed you know nothing about him. Do you still claim
that?”

It
was twenty minutes to seven. Some two dozen city employees—medical examiner,
photographer, fingerprinters, meat-basket bearers, the whole kaboodle—had
finished the on-the-scene routine, including private interviews with the
eyewitnesses. I had made the highest score, having had sessions with Stebbins,
a precinct man, and Inspector Cramer, who had departed around five o’clock to
organize the hunt for Santa Claus.

“I’m
not objecting,” Kiernan told Stebbins, “to going to the District Attorney’s
office. I’m not objecting to anything. But we’ve told you all we can, I know I
have. It seems to me your job is to find him.”

“Do
you mean to say,” Mrs. Jerome demanded, “that no one knows anything at all
about him?”

“So
they say,” Purley told her. “No one even knew there was going to be a Santa
Claus, so they say. He was brought to this room by Bottweill, about a quarter
to three, from his office. The idea is that Bottweill himself had arranged for
him, and he came up in the private elevator and put on the costume in Bottweill’s
office. You may as well know there is some corroboration of that. We have found
out where the costume came from—Burleson’s, on Forty-sixth Street. Bottweill
phoned them yesterday afternoon and ordered it sent here, marked personal. Miss
Quon admits receiving the package and taking it to Bottweill in his office.”

For
a cop, you never just state a fact, or report it or declare it or say it. You
admit it.

“We
are also,” Purley admitted, “covering agencies which might have supplied a man
to act Santa Claus, but that’s a big order. If Bottweill got a man through an
agency there’s no telling what he got. If it was a man with a record, when he
saw trouble coming he beat it. With everybody’s attention on Bottweill, he
sneaked out, got his clothes, whatever he had taken off, in Bottweill’s office,
and went down in the elevator he had come up in. He shed the costume on the way
down and after he was down, and left it in the elevator. If that was it, if he
was just a man Bottweill hired, he wouldn’t have had any reason to kill him—and
besides, he wouldn’t have known that Bottweill’s only drink was Pernod, and he
wouldn’t have known where the poison was.”

“Also,”
Emil Hatch said, sourer than ever, “if he was just hired for the job he was a
damn fool to sneak out. He might have known he’d be found. So he wasn’t just
hired. He was someone who knew Bottweill, and knew about the Pernod and the
poison, and had some good reason for wanting to kill him. You’re wasting your
time on the agencies.”

Stebbins
lifted his heavy broad shoulders and dropped them. “We waste most of our time,
Mr. Hatch. Maybe he was too scared to think. I just want you to understand that
if we find him and that’s how Bottweill got him, it’s going to be hard to
believe that he put poison in that bottle, but somebody did. I want you to
understand that so you’ll understand why you are all to be available at the
addresses you have given. Don’t make any mistake about that.”

“Do
you mean,” Mrs. Jerome demanded, “that we are under suspicion? That
I
and
my son
are under suspicion?”

Purley
opened his mouth and shut it again. With that kind he always had trouble with
his impulses. He wanted to say, “You’re goddam right you are.” He did say, “I
mean we’re going to find that Santa Claus, and when we do we’ll see. If we can’t
see him for it we’ll have to look further, and we’ll expect all of you to help
us. I’m taking it for granted you’ll all want to help. Don’t you want to, Mrs.
Jerome?”

“I
would help if I could, but I know nothing about it. I only know that my very
dear friend is dead, and I don’t intend to be abused and threatened. What about
the poison?”

“You
know about it. You have been questioned about it.”

“I
know I have, but what about it?”

“It
must have been apparent from the questions. The medical examiner thinks it was
cyanide and expects the autopsy to verify it. Emil Hatch uses potassium cyanide
in his work with metals and plating, and there is a large jar of it on a
cupboard shelf in the workshop one floor below, and there is a stair from
Bottweill’s office to the workroom. Anyone who knew that, and who also knew
that Bottweill kept a case of Pernod in a cabinet in his office and an open
bottle of it in a drawer of his desk, couldn’t have asked for a better setup.
Four of you have admitted knowing both of those things. Three of you—Mrs.
Jerome, Leo Jerome, and Archie Goodwin—admit they knew about the Pernod but
deny they knew about the potassium cyanide. That will—”

“That’s
not true! She did know about it!”

Mrs.
Perry Porter Jerome’s hand shot out across her son’s knees and slapped Cherry Quon’s
cheek or mouth or both. Her son grabbed her arm. Alfred Kiernan sprang to his
feet, and for a second I thought he was going to sock Mrs. Jerome, and he did
too, and possibly he would have if Margot Dickey hadn’t jerked at his coattail.
Cherry put her hand to her face but, except for that, didn’t move.

“Sit
down,” Stebbins told Kiernan. “Take it easy. Miss Quon, you say Mrs. Jerome
knew about the potassium cyanide?”

“Of
course she did.” Cherry’s chirp was pitched lower than normal, but it was still
a chirp. “In the workshop one day I heard Mr. Hatch telling her how he used it
and how careful he had to be.”

“Mr.
Hatch? Do you verify—”

“Nonsense,”
Mrs. Jerome snapped. “What if he did? Perhaps he did. I had forgotten all about
it. I told you I won’t tolerate this abuse!”

Purley
eyed her. “Look here, Mrs. Jerome. When we find that Santa Claus, if it was
someone who knew Bottweill and had a motive, that may settle it. If not, it won’t
help anyone to talk about abuse, and that includes you. So far as
I
know now, only one of you has told us a
lie. You. That’s on the record. I’m telling you, and all of you, lies only make
it harder for you, but sometimes they make it easier for us. I’ll leave it at
that for now. Mr. Kiernan and Mr. Hatch, these men”—he aimed a thumb over his
shoulder at two dicks standing back of him—“will take you downtown. The rest of
you can go, but remember what I said. Goodwin, I want to see you.”