Crime at Christmas

B. Kitchin

Description

A Christmas party in Hampstead is rudely interrupted by a violent death. Can the murderer be one of the relatives and intimate friends celebrating the festive season in the great house? The stockbroker sleuth Malcolm Warren investigates, in this brilliantly witty mystery from this classic crime writer. First published in 1934, the second in the Malcolm Warren series sees our some-time detective unravel the mystery behind two gruesome deaths in a mere twenty-four hours. A master of suspense and surprise, Kitchin sets the festive scene by conjuring up the most vivid of characters and presents us with a likeable narrator to guide us through.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Traditional
• Detective
• Mystery
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456636340
• Langue: English

Extrait

Crime at Christmas
by C. H. B. Kitchin
Subjects: Fiction -- Detective / Mystery

First published in 1934
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Crime at Christmas




C. H. B. KITCHIN

TO
KENNETH RITCHIE

I. PRIDE
Afternoon—December 24th
At twenty minutes to four on Christmas Eve, I mademy way through a circle of roisterers who danced andsang and pelted one another under the big domeof the Stock Exchange, to the public telephone room,where I asked for the number of my mostimportant client. This client was so importantthat he was worth all my other clients puttogether.
“Is that Hampstead o-nine-one? This is Mr.Warren speaking. Will you tell Mr. Quisberg thatI am on the telephone?”
During the pause which followed, I put my jobbing-bookin a convenient position, and gave a turn to myEversharp.
“Well?”
It was the well-known voice, as usual abrupt,nervous and excited.
“There has been hardly any change since I lastspoke to you. The price is, of course, tending towiden, as people don’t want to increase commitmentsbefore the holidays.”
“Could you buy d em at forty shillings?”
His pronunciation of “th” was not quite “d,”but nearer “d” than “z.”
“No, I could sell them at forty and a pennyhalfpenny.”
“If I pay over forty shillings, you charge mesixpence commission?”
“Yes.”
“Instead of d e fourpence halfpenny d at I havealways paid?”
“That’s because you’ve never bought them atover forty shillings before.”
“But you prefer I should buy d em over fortyshillings?”
“Of course we do,” I said pertly. It was, I think,my pertness which enabled me to keep his business,for he was always running after different brokers andplaying them off one against the other.
“Driffield told me he could get d em at d irty-nineand nine.”
“When?”
“Just before lunch.”
“So could I, then. Can Driffield do that now?”
“No.”
Some little grunts told me that he was thinking. Iheld my pencil poised.
“I want to buy ten d ousand. What will you haveto pay?”
“I can’t possibly say offhand. It will probably bevery difficult if not impossible to deal in such a number.I think I can promise you one thousand atforty and tenpence halfpenny.”
“One d ousand! I want ten. Buy me as many asyou can d en, up to forty and tenpence halfpenny.No, forty-one and d ree. No, forty-two shillings, ifyou must give it. I want d e shares. Run along nowand deal, and ring me up.”
I repeated the order in my professional voice.
“Buy up to ten thousand Harrington Cobalts upto forty-two shillings. Thank you so much.”
He gave a grunt and rang off.
My firm’s two dealers whom I consulted hurriedlyas to our best tactics, were all excitement. What awindfall, what a Christmas present! As I walkeddown Old Broad Street to the office I felt exhilarated.My firm was a small one, but we had alreadygained prestige as big dealers in Harringtons. Iforesaw the day when the leading jobbers wouldtremble at my approach and say nervously to oneanother: “Look out, here come Heavens andSlicer. What are they up to now?”
Largely by good luck we were able to complete thetransaction by about ten minutes past four, and Irang up Mr. Quisberg again.
“Good, good, very good,” he said. “Now I wanteight hundred for Dr. Green.”
“Dr. Green?” I asked, elated at the thought of anew client.
“Dr. Martin Green. I will be responsible for him.Get him eight hundred as cheap as you can, andsend d e contract note to me. No, you needn’t ringup again. I’m very busy. You’ll meet Dr. Green atdinner to-night and can tell him what you’ve done.I shan’t be d ere, I’m afraid. I have to be at d eCarlton at seven-thirty to meet G——. D is is, ofcourse, confidential.”
My answering “Oh” was full of admiration.G—— is a name of such magnitude in financialcircles that I dare not even write it in full.
“And buy yourself as many as you can,” he saidwith a sudden kindness in his voice which made someamends for his many exasperating qualities.
I bought three hundred at forty-two and nine, andmy partner, Jack Slicer, did the same.
“Now we’re for it,” he said, as we were having ourtea. “What does old Q. know, do you suppose?”
“What the shares are going to be taken over at, Iimagine,” I said guardedly.
It was no secret that the Universal CanadianMining Corporation, of which G—— was president,was eager to buy the Harrington Cobalt Company,though there were very contradictory views of thepurchase price.
“In spite of that denial in the papers?”
“Oh, that means nothing.”
“Well,” he said, “we should have had a prettylean account without you. As it is, it must be arecord.”
I glowed with pride—an ominous pride that wentbefore a fall.
As soon as I had signed the contracts and theremaining letters and given the usual seasonalgreetings to everyone in sight, I locked up my deskand went to my flat near Berkeley Square. I was tospend Christmas with my client and his wife—hiswife, especially—and had little time in which towash, change from my City serge into somethingcleaner, and pack. The Quisbergs, except when theywere giving a formal party, dined at half past seven,and I had promised to arrive about a quarter to.It was actually about twenty minutes to seven whenI left my flat in a taxi, and began the well-knowndrive along Mount Street, northward up Park Street,Gloucester Place, Wellington Street, Finchley Road,Fitzjohn’s Avenue to the summit of the heath by thepond and flagstaff at the top of Heath Street, thendown the West Heath Road to Lyon Avenue, inwhich the second house on the right, BeresfordLodge, was my destination.
I had met Mrs. Quisberg about eleven monthsbefore, when dining with some of my grandestacquaintances. One’s social judgments of people—ifone must make them—are largely based upon themedium of one’s introduction. But I think as soonas I saw Mrs. Quisberg, I realized that she did notbelong to the world in which we were both, for themoment, moving. There were about her an effusivenessand an eagerness to please which I could notassociate with my other fellow-guests. We werepartners at bridge. She played badly but withenthusiasm, and when I was lucky enough to make aredoubled little slam, she could hardly contain herjoy.
“I do hope you will come and see me sometime,”she said, as we were beginning to say good-bye.“I’m sure you’re a rising junior at the Bar, aren’tyou?”
“No, I’m on the Stock Exchange.”
“The Stock Exchange! My husband will lovethat. You must come and meet him. And you willhave music in common, too. I heard you talking solearnedly about Wagner to Lady Geraldine Richingsduring dinner. I’m afraid I don’t know one notefrom another—quite a barbarian—but we canalways play bridge, can’t we?”
She spoke with a slight Irish accent which gavepoint to her flattest remarks. She was good-lookingin a mature way, and might have passed for forty-twoor three. Her dress was elaborate, but gave animpression of slovenliness, as if she could not troubleto be really tidy even in the houses of the great. Icaught a glimpse of a slightly soiled shoulder-strapwhich had won my sympathy by slipping from itsniche of brocade. As she drove away in a splendidRolls-Royce, I felt that she was one with whom onecould take liberties and be forgiven. I resolved toaccept the invitation when it came.
It was not long in coming and I paid my first of along series of visits to Beresford Lodge on a dullSunday in February. By the early summer I foundmyself going there more often than to any otherhouse in London, and barely a week passed without ameeting between myself and one of the Quisbergfamily. There was nothing romantic, I hasten to say,in my friendship with Mrs. Quisberg. She liked me,and even showed me a sentimental fondness, but soshe did to everyone she liked. She was, as they say, adevoted wife and an indulgent mother.
Mr. Quisberg was her third husband. There werefive children, all by his two predecessors. The eldestson, Clarence James, was about twenty-four and didnot live at home. I think he was Mrs. Quisberg’s onedisappointment. He had never taken kindly to herremarriages and had wayward and artistic tasteswhich perplexed the rest of the family. On leavingCambridge he refused to go into any business, andbegan to paint. After many quarrels and reconciliations,he was given a small income by his stepfather,and established himself in a cottage in the old part ofHampstead. He had become greatly entangled witha coterie in Bloomsbury, and I had actually met himat a party in that district—where I myself had asomewhat doubtful footing—a few months before Imet his mother. When, afterwards, he learnt that Iwas a friend of his parents, and a Stock Exchangefriend at that, he took a dislike to me. It is my fate,in Bloomsbury, to be thought a Philistine, while inother circles I am regarded as a dilettante with tookeen an æsthetic sense to be a responsible person.
The second child, a daughter named AmabelThurston, was, like the remaining children, issue ofMrs. Quisberg’s second marriage. She was justtwenty, very pretty in a peroxide fashion, andformidably self-assured. She was engaged to, andvery much in love with, a stalwart ex-tea-planternamed Leonard Dixon, for whom I could not entertainany affection. I have often noticed that whereverI go, I seem destined to have as one of my associates aman who gives me a sense of awkwardness andphysical inferiority. In the old days, my tormentorhad been my cousin, Bob Carvel, [A] and when thecatastrophe in which we were both involved put meon a different footing with him, his place was takenby an ex-naval half-commission man in my office.Hardly had I laid my successful plans for ridd