Free The Twelve Crimes of Christmas by Martin H. Greenberg et al (Ed) Page B

them to
come here for a conference at six-fifteen. I told them that Mr. Goodwin had
information which he intended to give the police, which was not true, and that I
thought it best to discuss it first with them.”
    “I
told you so,” Hatch muttered.
    Wolfe
ignored him too. “Mr. Panzer’s second errand, or series of errands, was the
delivery of some messages. He had written them in longhand, at my dictation
here this morning, on plain sheets of paper, and had addressed plain envelopes.
They were identical and ran as follows:
    “When I was there yesterday putting on my
costume I saw you through a crack in the door and I saw what you did. Do you
want me to tell the cops? Be at Grand Central information booth upper level at
6:30 today. I’ll come up to you and say ‘Saint Nick.’ ”
    “By
God,” Cramer said, “you admit it.”
    Wolfe
nodded. “I proclaim it. The messages were signed ‘Santa Claus.’ Mr. Panzer
accompanied the messenger who took them to the persons I have named, and made
sure they were delivered. They were not so much shots at random as they may
appear. If one of those people had killed Bottweill it was extremely likely
that the poison had been put in the bottle while the vagabond was donning the
Santa Claus costume; Miss Quon had told me, as no doubt she has told you, that
Bottweill invariably took a drink of Pernod when he returned from lunch; and,
since the appearance of Santa Claus at the party had been a surprise to all of
them, and none of them knew who he was, it was highly probable that the
murderer would believe he had been observed and would be irresistibly impelled
to meet the writer of the message. So it was a reasonable assumption that one
of the shots would reach its target. The question was, which one?”
    Wolfe
stopped to pour beer. He did pour it, but I suspected that what he really
stopped for was to offer an opening for comment or protest. No one had any, not
even Cramer. They all just sat and gazed at him. I was thinking that he had
neatly skipped one detail: that the message from Santa Claus had not gone to
Cherry Quon. She knew too much about him.
    Wolfe
put the bottle down and turned to go on to Cramer. “There was the possibility,
of course, that more than one of them would go to you with the message, but
even if you decided, because it had been sent to more than one, that it was
some hoax, you would want to know who perpetrated it, and you would send one of
them to the rendezvous under surveillance. Any one or more, excepting the
murderer, might go to you, or none might; and surely only the murderer would go
to the rendezvous without first consulting you. So if one of those six people
was guilty, and if it had been possible for Santa Claus to observe him,
disclosure seemed next to certain. Saul, you may now report. What happened? You
were in the vicinity of the information booth shortly before six-thirty?”
    Necks
were twisted for a view of Saul Panzer. He nodded. “Yes, sir. At six-twenty.
Within three minutes I had recognized three Homicide men scattered around in
different spots. I don’t know if they recognized me or not. At six twenty-eight
I saw Alfred Kiernan walk up near the booth and stand there, about ten feet
away from it. I was just about to go and speak to him when I saw Margot Dickey coming
up from the Forty-second Street side. She approached to within thirty feet of
the booth and stood looking around. Following your instructions in case more
than one of them appeared and Miss Dickey was one of them, I went to her and
said, ‘Saint Nick.’ She said, ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ I said, ‘Excuse
me, I’ll be right back,’ and went over to Alfred Kiernan and said to him, ‘Saint
Nick.’ As soon as I said that he raised a hand to his ear, and then here they
came, the three I had recognized and two more, and then Inspector Cramer and
Sergeant Stebbins. I was afraid Miss Dickey would run, and she did start to,
but they had seen me speak to