Silent Nights by Martin Edwards

army with odds and ends and himself with a fortune and a barony.
    In no newspaper, illustrated or otherwise, do the names of John and Angela Willett appear. Their marriage at a small registrar’s office had excited no public comment, although he was a BA of Cambridge and she was the grand-niece of Peter Elmer, the shipping magnate, who had acknowledged his relationship by dictating to her a very polite letter wishing her every happiness.
    They lived in one furnished room in Pimlico, this good-looking couple, and they had the use of the kitchen. He was confident that he would one day be a great engineer. She also believed in miracles.
    Three days before Christmas they sat down calmly to consider the problem of the great annual festival and how it might best be spent. Jack Willett scratched his cheek and did a lightning calculation.
    â€œReally, we ought not to spend an unnecessary penny,” he said dolefully. “We may be a week in Montreal before I start work, and we shall need a little money for the voyage.”
    ***
    They were leaving on Boxing Day for Canada; their berths had been taken. In Montreal a job was awaiting Jack in the office of an old college friend: and although twenty-five dollars’ per did not exactly represent luxury, it was a start.
    Angela looked at him thoughtfully.
    â€œI am quite sure Uncle Peter is going to do something awfully nice for us,” she said stoutly.
    Jack’s hollow laugh was not encouraging.
    There was a tap at the door, and the unpleasant but smiling face of Joe the Runner appeared. He occupied an attic bedroom, and was a source of worry to his landlady. Once he had been in the newspaper business, running evening editions, and the name stuck to him. He had long ceased to be associated with the Press, save as a subject for its crime reporters, but this the Willetts did not know.
    â€œJust thought I’d pop in and see you before I went, miss,” he said. “I’m going off into the country to do a bit of work for a gentleman. About that dollar, miss, that you lent me last week.”
    Angela looked uncomfortable.
    â€œOh, please don’t mention it,” she said hastily.
    â€œI haven’t forgotten it,” said Joe, nodding solemnly. “The minute I come back, I’ll bring it to you.” And with a large and sinister grin he vanished.
    â€œI lent him the money because he couldn’t pay his rent,” said Angela penitently, but her husband waved her extravagance away.
    â€œLet’s talk about Christmas dinner. What about sausages…!”
    â€œIf Uncle Peter—” she began.
    â€œLet’s talk about sausages,” said Jack gently.
    ***
    Foodstuffs were also the topic of conversation between Lord Carfane and Prince Riminoff as they sat at lunch at the Ritz-Carlton. Lord Carfane emphasized his remarks with a very long cigar.
    â€œI always keep up the old English custom of distributing food to the poor,” he said. “Every family on my estate on Christmas Eve has a turkey from my farm. All my workers,” he corrected himself carefully, “except old Timmins. Old Timmins has been very rude to me, and I have had to sack him. All the tenants assemble in the great hall…But you’ll see that for yourself, Prince.”
    Prince Riminoff nodded gravely and tugged at his short beard. That beard had taken Harry the Valet five months to grow, and it was so creditable a production that he had passed Chief Inspector Malling in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton and had not been recognized.
    Very skilfully he switched the conversation into more profitable channels.
    â€œI do hope, my dear Lord Carfane, that you have not betrayed my identity to your guests?”
    Ferdie smiled.
    â€œI am not quite a fool,” he said, and meant it.
    â€œA great deal of the jewellery that I am disposing of, and of which you have seen specimens, is not mine. I think I have made that clear. I am acting for