Free The Finishing Stroke by Ellery Queen

you’ll have to take this seriously. People don’t usually go to such elaborate lengths for the sake of a joke. Or, if it’s a joke, its point is alarmingly obscure.’
    No one said anything. They were gripped in a sort of helplessness, not knowing whether to laugh or be nervous.
    Ellery tapped the white card. The only modus operandi I can suggest is to study this parody with an eye to its differences from the original. By the way, the spacing out of the words “ox”, “house”, “camel” in the typing on the card I think we can construe as an effort at emphasis – to call particular attention to the nature of the gifts.
    â€˜Now as to the differences from the carol. They begin at once. In its first line the carol speaks of the first day of Christmas. In the card’s first line day becomes night.
    â€˜The second line shows variation, too. The carol says, “ My true love sent to me.” The message says, “ Your true love sends to you ” – particularizing John. In the third line the partridge in the pear tree becomes for some unfathomable reason a “sandal-wood ox”, and then the rhymester proceeds to throw in gratis two items that aren’t in the original at all, even numerically – the “unfinished house” and the “grey and white camel”.’ Ellery said suddenly, ‘I suppose all this sounds pretty silly, but nothing I can say about it is quite so silly-sounding as what it says in and of itself. Still, someone went to the trouble of gathering or making these things, packing them, writing out the verse, wrapping the whole production as a Christmas gift, and then skulking about in some hideaway in this convenient maze of a house until he found the chance to slip downstairs unobserved and deposit the box under the tree. With fifteen of us – we twelve and the three in help – moving unpredictably about down here, that safari to the tree was extremely risky if he wanted to remain unseen, or at least unseen in the cat-and-mouse role he’s playing. No, the absurdities are on the surface only … What’s this?’
    He had absently turned the white card over. Now he was frowning at some markings on the back.
    They crowded about him, becoming a sort of panicky little mob. Even Mrs. Brown, for all her rapport with the spirit world, had developed a greenish pallor underneath her rouge.
    The markings were in pencil:

    â€˜There’s the word “ox”,’ Freeman murmured, ‘clear as a publisher’s conscience. But I’m damned if I can make sense out of the rest of it – I beg your pardon, Mr. Gardiner.’
    â€˜It’s quite all right, Mr. Freeman,’ the old clergyman said, waving his episcopal fingers. ‘I’m probably more familiar with damnation than anyone here. You know, this is most fascinating.’
    â€˜Those two doodads at the bottom,’ Dr. Dark said intently. ‘Like two humps. The two humps of the camel!’
    â€˜And that central drawing,’ Mr. Gardiner muttered. ‘It strikes me, Mr. Queen, that may well represent the little house with the missing window downstairs and the peak of the roof.’
    Ellery nodded. ‘Yes, these markings undoubtedly refer to the three gifts in the box – the camel only begun, as if the pencil-user was either interrupted or for some other reason didn’t get to complete the drawing.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t contribute anything more. Except the prediction that there will be further “gifts” of this sort, perhaps a box of them for each of the twelve nights of Christmas. And that would add another twelve to the series of twelve-things taking shape. Twelve gifts, John, to you.’
    â€˜And nuts to him, wherever he is,’ John said. ‘I’m fed up with this foolishness. Anyone feel like a hike into town?’
    Apparently no one did except