A Christmas Case Read online

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know what games Rufus plays these days when he’s away from London. Oh, look!’

  And as the diminutive Mrs Dulcie Fairbanks stepped aside, a doll’s house became visible. But this was no ordinary doll’s house. It was huge: three stories high, linked by a curving, opulent wooden staircase; the intricately worked rooms displayed under a terracotta-tiled roof bearing a cluster of chimneys like a red crown.

  ‘My goodness! Did you ever see such a thing, sir?’

  Even from here, across the room, the doll’s house was the stuff of childhood dreams, the sort of showpiece which the very best shops in the centre of London would use as their Christmas window display to lure children in with.

  Without stepping closer Posie could have sworn absolutely that the doll’s house was wallpapered throughout in a fashionable Liberty flowered paper; that it had a better selection of crockery and cutlery in its cupboards than she had in her own Bloomsbury apartment; that it had a perfect, porcelain family to occupy it, and probably miniature, enviable cut-glass chandeliers hanging in every room.

  ‘I say!’ Posie breathed. And as if by magic, Major Fairbanks pressed a button, and there was a slight crackle, and quite suddenly, the chandeliers in the doll’s house lit up.

  Everyone gasped in sheer unfeigned disbelief, turning away from their private conversations, struck dumb by the sight of this manufactured perfection.

  ‘Electricity!’ bellowed Major Fairbanks proudly, as if he had invented the stuff. ‘Have you ever seen the like before?’

  ‘Only in the window of Gamages!’ Rufus beamed. And then Major Fairbanks was announcing that Rufus was completely correct: for the doll’s house was from Gamages on High Holborn in London. They’d had it delivered to Yorkshire just this morning, as a present for the Cardigeon twins, Trixie and Bunny.

  But Lovelace was shaking his head warily, and Posie saw his unease.

  ‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ he muttered. ‘And I didn’t like it then. I knew there were things about this evening which reminded me of the past. It’s odd how I’m here, surrounded by my present and my future, but the past keeps cropping up. Or memories of the past, anyway. Everything feels familiar, and yet not so. And now this wretched show-off doll’s house. How gaudy. A damned cheek of the fella, too! It’s for the hosts to decide when to open or think about presents! Not for a guest to usurp the whole event and decide it’s an open stage to show off how much he can afford to spend on little girls who aren’t even his own…’

  ‘Relax, sir. It’s just a toy.’ Posie stole a glance at Richard Lovelace, whose dear, freckly face was more lined now than she had ever known it, tiredness etched across every pore, whose ruddy red hair had turned silver overnight only one month previously. Whom she was worried about almost as much as Dolly, although wild horses wouldn’t have dragged that truth out of her as long as she lived.

  Lovelace bit his lip. ‘I know. Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself.’

  Everyone stared for a few minutes at this new showpiece, and Rufus and Dolly were murmuring dutiful thanks, until a fierce crackling sound erupted, with a smell of sudden burning, and the lights in the doll’s house went out.

  ‘Blast! Short-circuited! I’ll check it later.’ The Major fished under the tree again, producing a dusty-looking wooden box. He presented it to Rufus with something like a wink and a nudge.

  ‘A Christmas case! In fact, a case of Margaux 1893. A little present and a thank you for all your hospitality. For all of this.’

  Posie groaned as Rufus beamed. As well he might: even Posie – who was no connoisseur – knew that Margaux 1893 was one of the costliest wines in the world just now, with only a few cases having survived the chaos of the war intact.

  ‘They must be seriously rich. Or keen on impressing. Or wanting something,’ muttered Lovelace in an undertone. ‘I’d not be able to afford even a half-sip of that wine or be able to afford that toy for Phyllis if I saved up for ten years straight. I hope to goodness Phyllis doesn’t get used to it tomorrow in that nursery and demand one for herself. Scotland Yard doesn’t pay very well, although I’d not swap the job for the world.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. The lights have already blown. That house is all a show. Fairbanks is all a show. I’ll bet that by tomorrow evening the paper and carpets will be peeling and the dog will have chewed all those dolls to pieces. The little girls will leave it disregarded in the corner and be back to pushing their old teddy bears around in their prams again. Don’t you think so, sir?’

  And Lovelace laughed, and the spell being broken, and the clock striking nine o’clock, and the wind and snow whipping faster than ever in the darkness outside the big mullioned windows, Rufus called his guests together.

  ‘Order! Order!’ he joked, as if he was in the House of Lords, where he went once a week at least. ‘We’ll leave for church in about an hour. But we’ve got time for a story or two first. Settle yourselves down.’

  ‘What sort of story, your Grace?’ asked Andromeda Keene coquettishly, her head on one side like a curious robin seeking a morsel of food.

  ‘A mystery.’ Rufus nodded, refilling glasses.

  And both Posie and the Inspector groaned inwardly.

  It was to be a busman’s holiday after all.

  ****

  Two

  ‘What sort of a mystery?’ echoed the Cabaret star.

  ‘A personal one. Each of us can offer one. We’ll get to know each other better, won’t we? There is a mystery at the heart of each one of us which smoulders on: keeps us questioning. Come on! We’ve got the best of London’s talent gathered in this room, performers and murder-mystery solvers… Between us we must have a good yarn to tell, or two. Doesn’t have to be long, just something which has made an impact on you. Stayed with you… You know…’

  From the looks of horror or wry detachment which met him, Posie wouldn’t have blamed Rufus for losing heart and suggesting a game of Monopoly instead.

  But he ploughed on. ‘I’ll start,’ he said, struggling out of his armchair and standing with his back to the fire, hands behind his back, for all the world as if he were about to start a speech on one of his pet passions in the House.

  ‘This is a ghost story,’ he said, nodding around with a sort of glee which didn’t altogether fit a ghost story’s usual sombre cadence. ‘It is Christmas Eve, after all, and I’ll bet I can give M.R. James a run for his money.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘It was winter, 1917. In fact, it was almost Christmas time. The day before Christmas Eve. We’d just given the Germans a beating at Verdun, when I’d got the orders to get my men over the top and to press on ahead…’

  Posie turned away, as much as she could, sitting down. She tried not to roll her eyes in disbelief or to look bored. It helped that she was nearest to the window and she watched the fat flakes falling and gathering on the ancient stone-carved windowsills.

  It wasn’t that she was impolite.

  But Christmas 1917 was something she chose to remember very rarely. A time of loss, like now. A time of devastation, in more ways than one.

  And mysteries.

  Well, there were plenty of mysteries abounding from that time.

  Why was it that certain men had been killed? Why was it that certain men had disappeared, often on purpose, frequently under cover of war as an excuse, stepping away from their previous lives and creating something fresh? But at the same time leaving holes in other people’s lives which amounted to much worse than simply a lifelong mystery…

  Mysteries.

  It was a word which Posie wanted to spit out and spit upon.

  Most mysteries from 1917 were not flippant, or kind. Or amusing. Not the stuff of fire-side storytelling. The amount of so-called ‘mysteries’ Posie had heard when poor souls of women – mothers and sisters and fiancées and wives – had come through her door at the Grape Street Bureau, asking her to investigate the disappearance of a loved one, were simply too many to count. It was all futile.r />
  For those men were all dead. Or as good as.

  All swallowed up by the dirt and fields of Flanders and all lying in a heap now at the newly finished Tyne Cot Memorial, across the sea from the land which had raised them as suckling babes. Away from those queues of futile women forever.

  Snap out of it, Posie said to herself sharply.

  Stop dwelling on the past.

  She noted vaguely that the Inspector had bowed out of the room, and she felt his absence like a sudden pain. Dolly had fallen asleep, legs tucked up beneath her, slight as a child.

  Posie tuned quickly into Rufus’ story again, but, as expected, it was the usual.

  ‘And I swear to goodness it was Perkins! My own Sapper! I nearly cursed but it wouldn’t have done in front of my men. The trench was flooding all around us and Perkins just passed me another jerry-can and said, “It will be all right, sir, we’ll get this trench cleared in a jiffy if we all muck in.”’

  Ah yes. Perkins.

  Posie had heard this story countless times. Both from Rufus himself and similar versions of it, from other men who had been in the trenches. Trusty Perkins, who had been there for Rufus in his hour of need.

  Despite the fact that Perkins had died from a bullet through the brain the day before.

  And despite the fact that Rufus had, the day before, in a bond of honour and respect, helped the stretcher-bearers to carry Sapper Perkins away to the waiting ambulance, to be carried off to a grave elsewhere. And yet there he was, the next day, intact and punctual, keen to help out.

  Posie sighed. It wasn’t that she was sceptical of such stories. Goodness knew, she had once had a run-in with a ghost herself. And she still couldn’t explain that. But those poor soldiers in the trenches, and Rufus especially, could be forgiven for summoning up helpful colleagues in a time of need, much as others looked for weeping Madonnas or angels of mercy.

  Such stories could be explained. Couldn’t they?

  Those soldiers had been existing on a toxic diet of days without sleep, with very little food and drink. They were on edge due to the immediate prospect of dying in the line of duty, and had gathered a grisly collection of recent horrific experiences: the smells, sounds and sights of war, gruesome enough to provide a lifetime of terror for the hardiest of men. Posie knew that horror first-hand: she had been out there herself, as an ambulance driver on the Western Front, and there were days and nights when it all came back, when she got up in the middle of the night and paced about the Bloomsbury flat until the soft grey light of dawn replaced those almost-real night-time terrors.

  Added to this heady mix, Rufus had probably already come to rely, by 1917, on alcohol. Perhaps on the day he saw the dead Perkins he had had one ration of rum too many?

  Who knew?

  But she wasn’t about to take his mystery away from him now. Posie listened in for the punch line. Here it came.

  ‘But he was already six feet under! Dead as a doornail!’

  Amid the gasps, Posie looked away with a half-smile. She saw the Inspector come through the doorway, closing the huge oak edifice behind him slowly, a scowl on his face. He got back to his seat, a hard-backed leather club-chair.

  ‘Did I miss much?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. I think we are on to the next turn now.’

  Rufus had sat down and indicated towards Mr Levin Smythe, who stood and sheepishly looked around, shrugging.

  ‘I must confess, without my hands, and without my piano, there is no mystery to me whatsoever. As such, I must remain a man of mystery to you all tonight, and pass up on our host’s kind offer.’

  ‘Sensible fella,’ muttered Lovelace, staring at the pianist keenly. ‘It doesn’t do to give too much of yourself away. Especially when your past is full of secrets.’

  Posie narrowed her eyes, wondering what on earth Lovelace could mean. But ignoring the logic of moving in a clockwise direction, on the other side of the circle, Major Fairbanks had caused a disturbance, for he was already up on his feet, nodding at Rufus, sending those icy looks at the pianist and the Cabaret star again.

  ‘I must concur with the musicians among us, my dear ladies and gentlemen.’

  Posie raised her eyebrows. The way the Major had addressed the couple was loaded: as if he were speaking to a pair of buskers under Blackfriars Bridge, not world-class performers. It was despicable. But stealing a glance at the pianist, Posie saw he was absent-mindedly fretting away at the knee of his trousers with his left hand, as if practising a piece of music. It seemed very likely he hadn’t noticed the jibe, and very likely he wasn’t really listening much at all. Andromeda Keene also just looked serene, unruffled.

  The Major continued:

  ‘I have no stories for you. And there is no mystery about me, heavens no!’ He chuckled throatily. ‘Save for the very real mystery of why on earth my dear wife here consented to marry dreary old me at all! Dulcie here is a relation of the Maharajahs of Udaraj. I managed to convince her to leave India as my wife, but quite honestly, she could have married a Prince. And I doubt Dulcie will want to tell us anything either tonight, will you, my dear?’

  Everyone except Dolly and Mr Smythe were looking at Dulcie with eyes afresh, not quite sure what to say. The Major was sitting down, patting his wife’s knee, as she stared away, embarrassed. She shook her head meekly, limpid black eyes cast down.

  ‘My husband is right. I too am no storyteller.’

  ‘I told you!’ the Inspector hissed. ‘Wrong side of the tracks, this girl. What’s not to say she’s the illegitimate daughter of this Maharajah chappie and he was looking to marry her off into money? In which case old Fairbanks here must be seriously rich. Richer than I thought.’

  Rufus turned to the Cabaret star hopefully, gesturing an invitation, looking as if he would be refused. Andromeda Keene seemed to think, frowning distractedly in the direction of Dulcie Fairbanks, and then she rose. She nodded impishly and stood lightly, hopping from foot to foot, in front of the roaring fire. For a strange second Posie had the feeling she was watching a show, a bizarre sort of spectacle in which a life-size Pierrot doll had taken centre stage.

  Andromeda flashed her wide dark eyes around the circle of people, licked her red-lipsticked mouth as if in pursuit of a dare, and flicked out a small glittering silver harmonica from one of her big pockets.

  ‘I said I wouldn’t sing or act here,’ Andromeda rasped huskily in a flat Midlands accent. ‘But a girl can change her mind, can’t she? Especially where a mystery is involved. And there is a mystery in this song. It’s called “I Once Had a True Love”.’

  She brought the harmonica to her lips, closed her eyes and into the hushed atmosphere of the red parlour, a few haunting bars of a melody played out. It sounded vaguely familiar and everyone obviously thought so, for frowns were much in evidence, trying to place the song.

  Posie had heard the tune before. At a music-hall performance she had attended a few months before, probably at the Holborn Empire. And years before, too, when a female singer had entertained the troops out in France.

  An Irish harmony, Posie was sure. A tune as heart-rending as any. Enough to bring tears to the hardiest soldier’s eyes; thinking of his love, a long way off.

  And then Andromeda lifted the harmonica away, and sang in a thick accent which spoke of the green lush grass of Galway, the grey stone houses and the crashing waves ravaging the jagged coast of Donegal. The accent was eerily accurate, as if someone else had stepped into the room and begun to sing:

  I once had a sweet-heart, I loved him so well.

  I loved him far better than my tongue could tell…

  I dreamed last night that my true love came in,

  So softly he came that his feet made no din.

  He stepped up to me and this he did say:

  ‘It will not be long, love, till our wedding day…

  When dew falls on meadow and moths fill the night,

  When glow of the greesagh on hearth throws half-light,

  I’ll slip from
the casement and we’ll run away

  And it will not be long, love, till our wedding day.’

  According to promise at midnight I rose,

  But all that I found was his discarded clothes,

  The sheets they lay empty, ’twas plain for to see

  And out of the window with another went he.

  When Andromeda had finished there was a silence. A pleasant but expectant silence. The sort of reception you get when you’ve been delivered a first-class act but are unsure if there will be an ovation.

  Would there be any explanation forthcoming?

  It seemed there would not be, for the star put her harmonica away and sat down, obviously satisfied with her own performance. Everybody clapped cheerily.

  There was a sudden knock at the parlour door. Manders, the Cardigeons’ ever-faithful elderly Butler, popped his head around the door, indicating towards Inspector Lovelace. He genuflected slightly:

  ‘Telephone, sir.’

  ‘Excuse me. This should only take a few minutes.’

  Lovelace checked his watch, looked mildly surprised, and nodded and followed the manservant out. The grandfather clock in the great stone hallway could be heard striking the quarter hour. Into the small silence which followed, Rufus tried to gather confidences. He lapped about with more drink, partook of some more himself and then indicated towards Posie.

  ‘I suppose we will have to wait for the Inspector to return for a proper Scotland Yard yarn,’ he said, annoyingly smug. ‘But can you give us a starter? A mystery from the Grape Street Bureau archives, perhaps?’

  Posie sat further back in her armchair, gathering the big cricket jumper all around her. It had belonged to Rufus actually, when he could fit into it, and Dolly had handed it over earlier in the evening when Posie had confessed she was frozen to the bone. Posie didn’t stand up: she didn’t look at the Fairbanks, sitting on her left near the tree with its doll’s house centrepiece; she didn’t glance at the odd music stars who sat preening and giggling together, as if sharing a private joke, over on her right; she didn’t even look for long at Dolly, so fast asleep now that she was curled right up into the chair, with her face hidden beneath the blankets.