The Santa Klaus Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

grandfather’s look of disapproval and stopped grabbing at the parcels to say, “I expect he met the sleigh in the drive and brought this one along so that I’d get it quickly.”
    Enid is a great deal too clever to be a really nice child.
    â€œNow, children! Don’t forget your manners! Let me see these things. There’s something I particularly want,” said Father, still playing his benevolent role with rather an effort. He looked around and caught sight of Patricia, who had now decided to descend.
    â€œPatricia! I really think the children should be better disciplined.”
    â€œWell, really; at Christmas time; children ought to be excited—” Patricia began and then, with relief, caught sight of her Nanny who had come to collect the children for a walk.
    Father was rummaging in the pile of parcels without success, grumbling to himself loudly, so that no one could ignore the fact that he was in distress.
    â€œMust be a good-sized box! Can’t have come! Confound those people! Thoroughly unreliable! What business is coming to, I don’t know! Plenty of notice and they can’t even carry out a simple order punctually! Well, I might have known! Quite useless to arrange anything that depends on modern shopkeepers doing their job with reasonable efficiency! All my arrangements ruined! Doesn’t matter to them , of course.”
    The benevolent grandfather had given place to the embittered man who has vainly tried to be a philanthropist but is foiled by the inefficiency of everyone else.
    Patricia, who has the mistaken idea that it’s a good thing to sympathize with Father in this mood, sniffed, “Christmas posts are so unreliable! These temporary postmen are often most dishonest; they’ll steal whole bags of stuff to avoid the trouble of delivering it! The working class has no sense of responsibility nowadays.”
    I kept my mouth shut, for the sake of peace, though I longed to argue with her.
    Dittie, aroused from the Times by all this fuss, remarked with her usual tactlessness, “It’s no good talking as if someone had waylaid your parcel out of spite! It’s not here, and that’s that! Considering how awful some people’s handwriting is, it’s a marvel that so many things do arrive! Clare Mapperleigh has twins, I see.” She sank back into the Times .
    Hilda came to the rescue. “If it’s something you particularly want, Father, is there anything we can do about it?” she inquired. “Send a telegram, perhaps?”
    â€œI don’t care!” Father declared, obviously untruthfully. “I wasn’t thinking of myself! It’s others who will be disappointed. I wash my hands of the whole affair.”
    This meant that he had worked himself into the belief that the non-arrival of his parcel was really due to the wickedness of his enemies, but he wasn’t going to let them get the better of him.
    â€œPerhaps it would be better to telephone,” Hilda continued calmly.
    â€œQuite right, Hilda!” Father agreed. “They don’t charge you for the number of words on the telephone! Ha! Not that I’m a man of many words myself, but they shall know what I think of them. Miss Portisham shall put a trunk call through.”
    He fussed away into his study, where the Portent was dutifully awaiting his orders. Hilda and I had already received instructions from him to secure any Christmas parcels which arrived for the children, and we now began to collect these and took them into the study to stow them in a cupboard.
    Miss Portisham was saying: “I think a trunk call, Sir Osmond, would be safer. Even the telegraph wires may be a little uncertain at this season. I will put the call through and I shall be very firm. The box must be despatched by passenger train, and Bingham shall meet the train and bring the box straight here.”
    â€œYes, yes!” Father agreed. “I rather think