B
OXING Day, know am ice; rond sur- faces like glass un- der a cold fog. In the North Oxford home of the University Professor of English Language and Literature, at three minutes past six-in the evening, the front door bell rang.
affable
It was the Professor him- self a tall, lean, person in his early forties who answered the bell. On the doorstep he found a neatly-dressed greying man with a red tip to his and woebegone eyes.
nose
"I can't get back," said this apparition, "I really can't get back to London tonight. The rods are impassable and such
trains as there are are running hours late Could you possibly let me have a bed
"My dear Humbleby," said the Professor, whose Gervase Fen, "yuti must come hi.
name
خواه تان
THE CHINA MAIL," SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1953.
ON
CRIME CHRISTMAS EVE
By Edmund Crispin
"Wüburn strolls back to the house alone, leaving Sir Charles presently Sir Charles, and Sir Lucas talking shop. And having Sir Lucas
Into the pavilion, retraces his steps like- wise, arriving at the house just in time to hear the alarm bell ringing."
scen
"Alarm bell!?"
"People had watched for the belt installed in the pavilion for ghost before, and there was a them to ring.
The author of this Christ- mas Eva detective story, a 32-year-old bachelor,
como
outstanding among postwar British detec- tive authors. He bo- a bost - selling detective writer with the publication in 1944 of the "Case of the Gilded Fly," Planiit, organist, conduc- tor, composer, his_hob. blos, ho says, are "cats, Shakespeare, Wagner and Stroots opérok, swim- ming, idleness and excosilre smoking."
"That objection's based, of course, on your assumption that he was struck before he ever entered the pavilion."
wrote the name on the outside "I expect he did just that-- of the window, I mean."
"But the people who read it were on the inside.
Inside a bank, for instance, haven't you noticed how the bank's
-nothing he could have used to crawl across, nothing he could have swung himself from,
"It's a long, bare box, that's all; and the distance from the door to the circular room (in which, by the way, the dust on the floor was all messed up by momo the rescue party) is miles too far for anyone to have jumped it.
ever
"The name Otto," Fen inter- posed, "is a palindrome. It
forwards. What's more, the
"Nor was the weapon the sort reads the same. backwards na. of thing that could possibly have been red from
a bow or a capital letters used it are blow-pipe, or any nonsense of symmetrical. Write 1 on the that sort; nor was it sharp outside of a window and it with enough of beary enough to have look exactly the same from the penetrated as deep as it did if
Inside"
had been thrown.
"Ghosts apart, what is the ex- planation? Can you see dns?"
"This bell sounded, then, at Just about the moment
when the ghost was scheduled to ap- peilr, and a whole purty of people, including: Sir Charles, Jane
Welsh
and
Wilburn, hastened to the rescue.
"Now, the pavilion is quite small. There's just one etrcalar
both very amly
to it, having two windows room
nuled up};
fought, and presently a wallop inle you get
this room by way of a longisti, narrow hall from Sir Charles sent Otto clean
"Well?" ine perimeter through the tell-tale window and projecting from of the circle, the one and only Sir Charles scrambled after him, dene being at hall.
"Yes," said Fen, with annoy ing promptness. "I can. Answer tell you how Otto worked it." me just one question, and 11
good hravens,
bleby was sobered, thought of that,
noted
you." Hum- "I never
And the fact that the name was on the out side Charles, after his assertion that would be fatal to Sir he'd seen Sir Lucas enter the pavilion unharmed. that the "contriving" Wilfun
in the fight was Sir "The name on the window," Charles's, not Otto's; ho'd
realise dreamily. "Was it that the name must be on the written in capital letters?"
outside-Sir Lucas having sald "Yes," said Humbleby. "But-" that the writing of it was the vory first thing he did and he'd "Wait," Fen was on his feet. ree the need to destroy the win- "Wait while I make a telephone dow
before call." And this Humbleby per
anyone. could
unlit cheroot until his host re- force did, gnawing fretfully at an turned.
And certainly you can have p... being at the outer end of and they went un lighting out- said Fen
bed. What are you doing in this part of the world, anyway?"?
Ghos Inspector Humbichy of New Scotland Yard divested himself of his coat and hat. "Seasonable but not convenient." He followed -Fen Into the drawing routi
where a huge fre was burning.
hunting. Detective
Fen
WAN
nlready
whisky. "Sit down
rumfortable,'
pouring and be
be-
matter of interest, du you
he and,
A
lieve in ghosts?"
The evidence
Krists"
Humbleby
for polter- answered out his hands to the blaze, "seems very
as be stretched
convincing to me, Other sorts ghosts I'm not su sure abolit-
ul
thought after what happened at Rydalis two days ago—”
Rydulls?"
"of Sir
"Rydalls" sald Humbleby. The residence," he elucidated Inboriously,
Charles Moberley, the architeet. It's about fifteen miles from here, Abingdon way."
Yes.
I remember 11 now.
Restoration.
"I dare say. Old, in any case. And there are big grountis, with an eighteenth century pavilion about a quarter of a mile away from the house, in a park. That's where it happened the murder, I mean.'
Fen stared, "Sir
Charles Moberley has been murdered?"
"No, no, no. Not him. other architect, another knight- Sir Luens Welch. There's been quite a large house-party going on there, with Sir Lucas and his daughter Jane among the guests, and it was on Christmas Eve, you see, that Sir Lucas decided he wanted to, investigate the local ghost."
An-
"This is all clear enough to you, no doubt, but..”
-
"Do listen. The ghost is posed to haunt this pavilion Tre mentioned, where a murder was committed about a hundred and fifty years ago. Well, it seenis that Sir Lucas 15 was credulous about such things, And Onl Christmas Eve he -arranged to keep vigll alone
there."
"And was murdered, and you don't know who did it,"
"Oh yes, I do. Sir Luens didn't die at once, you see: he And time to write up his murderer's name in the grime of the window-pane, and the
gentleman concerned,. a young German named Otto Morike, is now safely under, prrest.
But what
I can't decide is how he got into and out of the pavilion." "A locked-room mystery.”
Carrying glasses, Fen joined hìn by the hearth. "Begin," he suggested, "At the beginning,
"Very wöll." Settling back in his chair, Humbichy sipped his whisky gratefully, “There, then, is this Christmas house-party. at Rydalls. Host, Sir Charles Moberley, the eminent architect. "Among the quests, Sir Ludas. Welsh, te equally eminent architect; his daughter Jahoj Otto Marike, a young German of uncertain antecedents; and a CID man not Metropolitan. Sussex County called James Wilburti. His importance is that evidenco ho provides is quite certainly reliable-there · hai to be a point, d'appul in these affairs, and ho's it, so you mustn't exhaust * yourself doubting his Word about anything" "I" won't," Fen
the
"I'll believe him
promised.
"Good. At dinner on Christ- mas Eve, then, the conversation inevitably turnus to tid subjeetjos Hydalls
arranges
ghost, and
towards
to the scene of the crime.
the
"Sir Lucas was lylog o floor beneath one of the windows,
Jane
says
WAF
a room,
quite close to the bell-push; and "Jane being three years under an old stiletto, later discovered the age of consent, the killing of
Asacris.
"Stop, a bit," said Humbleby.
and later
Humbleby, nodded. "I've been
Elde, rampling the glass to on arrival, the rescue party smithereens, until Wilburn and "On
the door shut but not company fuined in and put a locked; and when they opened it, stop to it. and shone their torches Inside, "Incidentally. Wilburn
investigate closely, they saw a single set of foot- that Oral prints in the dust on the hall window looked contrived to him
Lucas have entered the pavilion going through. the
"Walt, though: couldn't Sir tour, leading to the entrance to deliberate attempt to destroy the circular room,
evidence; though of course, so
as Sir Charles said, "Acting
on inclinet or train- many people saw the name writ- got locked rooms on the brain
"You," said Fen kindly, "have emerged again, and...." ing er bath, Wilburn
kept his ten here that it remains per-
"One set of footprints," Fen crowd clear of these footprints, feelly good evidence in spile of got into and out of that circular Not three."
....The explanation of how Otto pointed out, "on the hall floor. ruf so it was that they came having been destroyed." joined now by Otto Marike who,
room is simple; he didn't get "Motive?" Fen asked. according to his
into or out of it at all." subsequent slatemyni, had
"Good enough, been taking u
Humbleby gaped.. "But Sir solitary stroll in the grounds wanting to marry Otto, and her Lucos can't have been imifed father didn't approve-partly on before he entered the circular the grounds that Otto was
a fool about this. But what wan Sir Charles said-" Germain, and partly because he "Ah, yes. Sir
Sir Charles's motivethe motive Charles saw Sir Lucas didn't know about?” thought the boy wanted Jane's him prospective inheritance than Jane herself.
rather And in--or so lic
"Belchester," sald Fen. "Belchester Cathedral As you know, it was bombed in the war, and a new one's to be built, to have been stolen from the Sir Luess had, from Otto's point house, had been stuck into him of view, a double advantage. It "I see what you're getting at, Dean, who's an acquaintance of "Well, I've just rung up the under the left shoulder-blade made Jane rich and removed the but there are serious objections mine, to ask about the choice of (no damning Ongerprints on it, obstacle to the marriage.
to it." But by the way; or on anything else
architect, and he says that it "Such as?" point," in the vicinity).
Humbleby leaned forward
whe a foss-up "Well, for one thing, Sir Lucas Charles's design and Sir Lucas's,
between Sir carnestly. "Here is the point: named his murderer."
and that Sir Lucas's won. "Wilburn bent over him to
The two men murderer who struck at
were notified ork who was responsible.. And
chimney too narrow to admit a him from behind....Oh! I've ne by post, and it seems likely that a queer smile crossed Sir Lucas's baby; and in the dust on the hall doubt Sir Lucas acted in good Sir Charles's notification arrived face, and he was just able to floor only one set of footprints, faith: Otto, you see, would be on the morning of Christmas whisper-here Humbleby pro made unquestionably by Sir the only member of the house- Eve. Sir Lucas's was sent to his duced and consulted a notebook Lucas himself.
party whom Six Lucas-knew to home, and evea forwarded it to whisper Wrote -on the window. Very first thing I did.
have a motive,
can't, in the rush of Christmas postal traffic, have reached him It before he died.
"In actual fact, Sir Charles at Rydalls before he was killed. They all heard him, and they If you're thinking that Ole had one, too-as I've just dis- "So only Sir Charles knew; all looked. There was bright might have walked in and out covered; but Sir Lacas wasn't and since with Sir Lakas dead mumifight outside--none of this on top of those, prints, as that aware of that. Next objection?" Sir Charlee's design would have snow and foul weather had page-boy did welth King "The name on the window. been accepted...." started then, remember-and the, Wenceslas, letters traced-on-the
then you're wrong. If, as Siṛ Lucas said, his first Fen shrugged. "Was it the grimy Ollo's feet are much-too-large,-action-was-to-denounce-his al money, I-wonder?— Or was window-pane stood out clearly, for one thing, and the prints tacker, then he'd surely, since just another blow to his pro- Otte
hadn't been disturbed, for on- he was capable of entering the fessional pride? Well, well. "Well, it seems that then Otlo other.
pavilion after being knifed, Let's have another drink before stark led edging away, and Sir "But then, how on earth did have been capable of writing the you telephone. In the hang- Charts, who's FO hefty, man, he manage it? There's no name on the outside of the man's shed it will all come to made a grab at him, and they furniture in that hall whalever window, which would be nearest, the same thing."
"Sir Lucas was still alive, and just ennscious,
here's the
windows nailed shut; no
secret
doors emphatically none; "A
The
PICK OF THE PRESENTS...
THE PICK OF
THE PORTABLES
Likas
the
and
watch there.
Tho
EQUIPMENT
place
of trial by Sie Charles
and", "by, Wilburn--ne
whord actualis
The
pavilion.
HERME
by
It-
A merry Christmas
San Miguel Brewery Hongkong Ltd.
and a jolly
good beer