Crimson Snow by Martin Edwards & Editor

Author:Martin Edwards & Editor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2016-11-04T04:00:00+00:00

Murder at Christmas

Christopher Bush

Christopher Bush, whose real name was Charlie Christmas Bush, was born on Christmas Day in Great Hockham, in Norfolk’s Brecklands. He was educated locally and read languages at King’s College, London, before becoming a school teacher. His first crime novel, The Plumley Inheritance, appeared in 1926, but three years passed before the publication of his second, The Perfect Murder Case. This early example of the ‘serial killer whodunit’, written long before the term ‘serial killer’ had been coined, received widespread critical acclaim, and from then on, Bush did not look back. Prolific as a mystery writer, he also produced novels of Breckland life under the name Michael Home.

Bush (1885–1973) continued to write about his detective, Ludovic Travers, until the late 1960s, and over the course of time, Travers evolved as a character, even if he did not age much. In his early days, he was a financial wizard working for an agency called the Durangos Conglomerate, and was presented as ‘a dilettante with economics as a passionate hobby’. Later, he became a more conventional private eye. In this entertaining story, he gives a first-hand account of a Yuletide puzzle.

***

I drove to Worbury on the afternoon before Christmas Eve. My wife had been called away to help nurse an aged and ailing aunt, and so I rang Bob Valence and asked if his invitation was still on for, say, the Christmas week-end. He wanted me to make it a week.

Worbury—which isn’t its real name—is a town of some 2,000 people, and Robert Valence is its Chief Constable. He and I have run up against each other a lot professionally, since I’m at odd moments what the Yard chooses to call an unofficial expert, and he seems to think he’s in my debt. In any case. I like him. He knows his job but makes no boasts, and he’s genuine all through.

I was looking forward to that holiday. There’s more futility than festivity alone in a London flat for Christmas, and, as I said, I liked Valence. He’s a bachelor, by the way, and has a very nice service flat within a few hundred yards of his headquarters.

I’d been told to bring my golf clubs. We should have played on the morning of Christmas Eve, but there’d been a burglary in Marshwell, a village nearby, and Valence was called there well before we were thinking of starting for golf. But to get to Marshwell one goes through Rendham, which is two miles from Worbury, and the golf-course is there. So our golf bags went in the car and the new plans were for an early lunch at the clubhouse and a quick getaway after it, and with the certainty of a comfortable finish before dusk and a possible fog. December was commonly open that year, and when you get sun in the day you’re almost bound to get fog at night.

That robbery at Marshwell Hall took up more of Valence’s time than we’d thought and it was getting on for one o’clock when we left.

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