The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XIX

"You know," Ben said, "I am honestly really glad that you said that. I was starting to suspect that you might have been covering up some sort of conspiracy, but that really puts my mind to rest."

"Ben," said Hugh.

"Not now, Hugh. You see, I was stabbed a few times today, so my mind isn't working quite perfectly, and I guess because of that I'd actually managed to convince myself that something was going on."

"Ben."

"Shhh. As I was saying, I had suspicions up the wall, and I wasn't far off making some sort of statement about it. Nothing too forward, perhaps just a subtle circumulocutious query on a monogrammed card to be mailed back at your convenience, but I definitely would have -"

"He's telling us he masterminded a conspiracy."

"What? No he isn't, he's saying exactly the opposite."

"Yeah, but he's saying it so precisely that he's actually suggesting the opposite."

"What do you mean? I specify the things I'm not doing all the time."
"And people tend to avoid you."
"I put people at ease! Nobody ever thinks I'm poisoning their drinks or hiding razors in their food after I offer it to them!"

"People switch their dishes with you as soon as you're out of the room!"
"If it helps," Hogart said helpfully, "I am hiding something."
"So by your logic, he clearly isn't hiding anything," Ben said, waving an irritated arm at the mayoral mystery sitting opposite them.

"That time, I'm pretty sure he was being straightforward," Hugh responded, his patience truly awe-inspiring.

"Make up your mind!" Ben retorted in turn.

"If I were in a position where I was unable to say anything without fear of immediate stabbing," Hogart interjected, choosing his words carefully, "I would certainly wish you to stop with this babble and attend to the significant gaps in my conversation."

"It's lucky that's not an issue, then," Ben said, followed shortly by "Oh, you mean-"

"I also am glad," Hugh responded, hand clenched firmly betwixt Ben's moving lips, "that no such difficulty besets us. After all, how could any potentially-listening relatives possibly hear us?"

"Indeed," Hogart replied. "There are certainly no secret passages behind yon suspicious painting of flowers, two of which have centers about the same distance apart as that between a person's eyes."

Ben took the initiative for once and poked several holes in the painting, provoking several "Oof"s before one protracted "Aaagh" and a certain degree of what can only be described as "Clumsily-staggering-away noises".

"So, gossip!" he said, returning to the table. "Why's your son a nut and how can we get out of this ridiculous scenario for once and for all?"

"Well," Hogart replied, "My idiot son Stephven, the waste of flesh who hired you, was somehow able to become the sole inheritor of my partner in ownership of Die Olige Dame, one Lawrence P. Klausmeyer. Apparently Larry had a weird sense of humour when it came to selecting inheritors, or Stephven was particularly pleasing at one of the club's stop-ins, or something, I don't care."

"Understood," Hugh replied, yawn stifled.

"Anyway, my son became my partner and within weeks brought the company almost to ruins."
"What? How did he do that?" Ben asked, mentally scanning his calendar for things which might have led the agency to their similar plight.

"By following the rules, of course!" He started by kicking out all of the people he could find who didn't have German as their first language! Do you know how many people speak native German in Frankston? We were just lucky he's not bright enough to recognise a fake German either, or we would never be able to get people into those chains. Most nights we wouldn't even be able to assemble a flesh pyramid, the way he wanted to run things."
"I had one of those," Ben said. "Quite a mouthful. I'd had my fill before even sitting down."
"Different pyramid," Hugh said hurriedly. "How did this lead to everyone being stabbed?"

"Well," Hogart continued, "I needed to find something relating to the will that I could use to cheat my son out of his inheritance as soon as possible. Lawrence had made the thing air-tight, as far as I could see, so I asked Freeman to take a look and see if he could work anything out. He was on day-release at the time, you see, and the doctors didn't expect him back for a few hours."

"But he didn't find anything?" Ben prodded.

"He found something, just not anything that would let us undo Larry's will. No, he looked through a couple of other legal papers I had lying around and saw that if Stephven were to die or be incarcerated, the power of attorney would be held by Freeman, basically giving him power over the whole estate."

"And then what?"
"Freeman decided to stab him. He's a bright kid, but startlingly unimaginative. At that age when boys only have one thing on their mind, you know?"

"Girls?" Hugh asked.

"Homicide," Hogart replied.

"You totally stole that line," Ben muttered into his teacup.

"Anyway, Hillary and I managed to talk him out of it. It would be much better for everyone involved if Stephven was just sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit for our personal gain. I'm sure you understand."

"All too well," Ben said.

Hugh gave him a look, despite having thought much the same thing.

"We had it all set up," Hogart reminisced. "Hillary had spiked his tea, I had conspired with a couple of the evicted members to get some suspicious letters planted on his person to suggest that he was consorting with the right sort of people to indicate a little sexual harassment as well as a touch of unlawful discrimination, and Freeman was going to plant some of the knives he'd stabbed people with on his sleeping body just to seal the deal."

"What happened?" Hugh asked.

"Hmm. Let's see. Freeman was in there with a few knives and a helpless sleeping person lying there. What do you think happened?"

"Okay, stupid question. What happened next?"

"We tried to hide the evidence of the crime. Of course Freeman had decided to record the whole thing before stabbing his brother and then dropped part of the page, and we didn't get all of the knives before you two showed up, ut we did a good job."

"Why did you cover for him?" Ben asked, deciding to wander over to a convenient couch and flop himself artlessly upon it.

"Firstly, he's my son, and that's what you're meant to do, isn't it? Secondly, of course, have you met him? He has a way of pointing out to you exactly what you should do if you don't want to get stabbed."

"Ahh," Hugh nodded. "He means 'pointing' as in 'gesturing with a knife'."

"Ahh," Ben nodded sagely.

"Anyway, Stephven of course wakes up, and not being able to put two and two together and get the same result the sixth time over, he was at a loss as to who could have stabbed him. So he does the first thing anyone with more adventurousness than brains would and asks the first private detectives he sees in the phone book to work it out for him."

"We're in the phone book?" Hugh asked.

"We're first in the phone book?" Ben asked, possibly even more confused.

"You see, the thing about Stephven is, he's an idiot," Hogart continued affectionately. "he opened the Yellow Pages to a random page and called the first people he found a number for, which as far as I can tell was the cabbage department of the Safeway stock-purchasing division. They moved out months ago, and you happened to take their office, as I'm sure you know."

"You know," Hugh said, "that explains so much of the smell."

"So we should probably go and tell Stephven that his blue-eyed baby brother did it?" Ben asked, edging as subtly as he could towards the door, evading the notice of absolutely nobody.

"Well, there is one other problem," Hogart said, gesturing in Ben's general direction.

"What?" Ben asked, looking around himself. It took a few moments until he turned enough to see Freeman standing behind him, knife in hand and red bloodshot veins in eye. "Oh! Hi!"

"Hello," Freeman said. "You realise of course that now I can't possibly let you go."

"Oh, sure you can," Ben said. "What are we going to do, get ourselves into some sort of position where the police would take our word for anything and then tell them?"

"What you're going to do," Freeman replied, raising his knife, "is die."

All in all, most of the people present had to admit, it was a pretty good line.

"Oh, there's one thing you should know before you do this," Ben said, gesturing behind Freeman.

Freeman took a little while to turn as well, which was all to the good, because by the time he'd realised nothing was there and turned back to face the duo, they had long since scarpered out the other door, leaving nought but a terrified mayor, a mostly consumed pot of tea and a few half-eaten biscuits to meet his wrath.

"And, aside from an entertaining interval where Ben tried to fly a helicopter without knowing how they worked and I almost strangled him with the tube from his own IV, that's more or less everything we've been up to," Hugh told Stephven, back in the office.

"And that whole part where you ate those dubious mushrooms after we crashlanded and I had to give you a piggyback home while you ranted about how many zebra finches had been found guilty of plotting against you during your regime as fairy queen," Ben added.

"Now it all makes sense!" Stephven cried, leaping out of his chair and pacing the room excitedly. "Of course it was Freeman! Why didn't I think of him myself?"

"Maybe the blood loss?" Ben suggested. "It makes you think some weird stuff. Y'know, I thought your father, may he rest in peace, was up to something because not enough oxygen was getting to my brain?"

"May he rest in peace," Stephven echoed. "Yes, this is exactly the answer I was looking for! And now, with my father's legacy as well as Larry's in my keeping, I can finally give Freeman the punishment he deserves!"

"Which is...?" Hugh nudged.

"A slap on the wrist and a token contribution to society," Stephven said dismissively. "I'm sure just knowing that stabbing people is frowned upon will be enough to bring him into line."

"Speaking of contributions," Ben suggested, would you like to become our first paying customer?"
"He means our first one this month," Hugh added hurriedly.

"Ahhh, of course," Stephven said. "So that's fifty a day for the last..."

"Four years," Ben interjected, stepping up to accept the money.

"Sounds right," Stephven said. "Here you go!"

Were silence the opposite of sound rather than its absence, Hugh's stunned lack of speech would have broken several peacekeeping ordnances a state over.

"What will you do now?" Ben asked, accepting the money gracefully.

"Oh, I have enormous plans for Die Olige Dame," Stephven announced, smiling broadly. "We're going to dispense with all the disturbing kinky stuff and replace the whole thing with a themed stageshow, like at Hunchbax or what have you. Still authentic native Germans only, of course. I've hired an authentic German to translate what they're saying for me, so it should be even easier to weed them out! The club will become even more profitable!"

Stephven chose this moment to make his exit from the office, trailing grim portents behind him like a lingering fart.

"Well, that was unexpectedly fortunate," Hugh said to Ben, as the latter counted their earnings. "I'm amazed you convinced him to pay us for four years instead of a few weeks!"

"Not really," Ben said. "I guess he can't count, either. But hey, it's enough to pay rent and food for the month."

"You know what that means," Hugh said, grinning. And for once, Ben did.

"Merry Christmas, Ben!"

"Merry Christmas, Hugh!"

"Might I say you cooked this turkey wonderfully?"

"Oh, thank you. Try the potatoes, by the way, I cooked them according to an old family recipe."
"What's your secret?"
"I put them in an oven."

"Uh... huh."

"What did you do to get this crackling so crispy, by the way?"

"Well, when I put the ham in the oven, I... bwurgh."

"Bwurgh?"

"What did you use to stuff this turkey, out of curiosity?"

"Well, I didn't want to waste the money we had a second time, so..."

"What did I just put in my mouth with this meat?"
"... mince pies and chocolate coins."

A long pause.

"...It's delicious."

"Really?"

"Sure. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas!"

"And a happy new year."

"God bless us, every-"

"Don't push it."

THE END

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVIII

Hugh Hamilton

"On second thought, never mind," said Hugh.
Hogart shrugged and filled his mouth with biscuit.
"Hang on, let's hear him out," said Ben. "It may tie up a couple of the loose threads."
"What loose threads? We know who the killer was."
"Yes, but do we know the motive?"
"The motive of the guy who's stabbed us six times in the past half-hour?"
"Prec-I-see-your-point-ly."
"So you'll be leaving? Splendid." Hogart rose from his seat.
"I guess so," said Hugh. "Ben?"
"Do you have any more of those Christmas tree biscuits?"
"No," said Hogart forcefully. "Those were the l—"
"Who wants biscuits?"
Deirdre was standing in the doorway with a baking tray.
"See?" said Hogart, trying to usher the pair from their seats. "We've only those ghastly pine tree biscuits left. Best head off while it's still night."
"What are you talking about, dear?"
"We've kept these busy gentlemen from their social lives and girlfriends."
"Hey, that's actually true!" said Hugh.
"Since when?"
"Since always."
Ben gave him a familiar look.
"No?"
"No."
Hugh frowned.
"I suppose seeing you all the time doesn't really count as a social life."
Ben smiled and shook his head.
"And I suppose you don't really count as a girlfriend either."
"I would hope not. And don't emphasise 'really' like that."
"Well, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure," sweated Hogart, now simply pointing at the doorway.
"Except for the whole stabbing business, it kind of has," agreed Ben.
"It was certainly one of our odder days."
"That it was."
Hogart closed his eyes. Then he opened them again. They were still there.
"I must admit, I'm rather disappointed there wasn't some sort of overarching conspiracy at the bottom of all this," said Hugh.
Hogart chuckled nervously.
"It certainly had all the right ingredients," said Ben. "Santa Claus, a stabbing, a carrot..."
"An inheritance."
Hugh and Ben turned. Hogart had his hand over his mouth. His eyes were bulging fearfully.
"What was that?" said Ben.
Hogart swallowed. "Just a really peculiar cough I've developed."
"It sounded like you said 'an inheritance'."
"That's the peculiar part."
"You should get that checked out."
"I intend to."
"You know, I think these pine tree biscuits are almost exactly as good as the Christmas tree ones," chewed Ben, no longer caring about that particular thread.
Deirdre smiled. "Oh love, they're not—"
"Deirdre, don't you have some ironing to attend to?"
"No, I did that two days ago."
"What about the clothes I wore yesterday?"
"You're wearing them again today."
"Excuse me." Hogart pushed off his red suspenders, stepped out of the legs and threw the whole at Deirdre.
"Fine," said Deirdre. "Fine."
"I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now," said the pilot.
"Thank you," snapped Hogart. "That's exactly the sort of comment I pay you 15.51 dollars an hour for."
"Well, I think this is about as amusing as this is bound to get. Shall we make tracks, Hugh?"
"I didn't even know you played."
"Come on, you," said Ben, finally standing. He turned to Hogart. "Thanks for the biscuits, cocoa and wound-patching."
"Pleasure," seethed Hogart. "I'm sure you can show yourselves out. You'll find the front door in the front door frame."
"Can I leave my list with you, or what?"
"Hugh."
"Coming."
"Oh, and by the way," said Hogart.
"Mm?" said both.
"That whole conspiracy thing — way off."
"OK," said Hugh.
"This really couldn't be less of a conspiracy if it tried."
"OK."
"I mean, it's not as if the late Die Ölige Dame majority-share co-owner left his share to my idiot son Stephven or anything, or that your arranged association with Freeman's compulsive stabbing was intended to throw you off the scent."
"OK."
Ben and Hugh stopped.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVII

As cocoa applied its healing properties to the inside of Hugh's abdomen, as well as Ben's less discontinuous - and hence less interesting - stomach lining, revealing both astounding sloppiness on the part of Deirdre and remarkable genius on the part of the unnamed, unseen chef of the establishment when it came to selecting ingredients, they bathed for a moment in the secure knowledge that nobody wanted them dead after all, before going about their business.

Unfortunately, Freeman chose that very moment to stab them.

A quick stop-and-stitch later, they emerged once again and sat facing their abductor-in-chief.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said the very same. "So good of you to come on such short notice."

"We would have come if you'd just asked," Hugh said, grouchily rubbing his arm.

"Yes, I apologise for my assistant's, shall we say..."

And then Freeman stabbed them.

"I'm getting sick of this," Ben said a short while later, spiking his cocoa with a dash of the saline flowing from the IV behind him to the needle in his wrist.

"Sorry about that," their host replied. "As I was saying, Freeman here has been less than subtle in his requests."

"Not to worry," Hugh said, barely noticeable in his slide away from Freeman's side of the table. "It's just a trio of flesh wounds, really."

"Only a couple of ruptured organs," Ben said, rubbing his kidney. "Water under the bridge!"

"Ah." The man sitting across from them took a moment to try and work out whether there was as much sarcasm in these statements as he felt there should be.

A moment during which Freeman stabbed them.

"Okay," the host called, "he's gone now!"

"You promise?" answered Hugh.

"I've locked him in the kitchen! You're totally safe, I promise!"

Hesitantly, the detective duo made their way into the parlour, on the lookout for anything remotely stabbish-looking or Freemanesque. Seeing little enough to increase their confidence, they stood upright as though they had never been afraid at all and strode as boldly to the table as people who had been stabbed so many times could.

"I'd better introduce myself," their host began. "My name is Hogart Schotologeny."

"Ahh," Hugh said, nodding understandingly. He followed up on this shortly with "what?"

"You see, I am the mayor of this village and the father of Freeman, Hillary and Stephven."

"Not Shelly?" asked Ben, making an effort to keep up.

"Shelly's a half-sister on their mother's side."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be. Freeman takes after her."

"So, could you possibly see your way clear to explaining what the hell actually happened today?" Hugh asked, feeling understandably irritable from the myriad mistreatments he had suffered.

"Well, let's see. It all started with these two people named Joshua and Mary, and they couldn't find an inn."

"Let's start this story yesterday," Ben suggested helpfully.

"Freeman stabbed Stephven and he hired you to work out who did it."

"Right, that's all we needed to know. Thanks for your time," Ben said, scribbling Freeman's name into a fairly bloodstain-free notebook and secreting it upon his blue-robed person before standing to leave.
"Hang on," Hugh interrupted. "Let's start a little further back than that. I wasn't Keith'd, Freeman'd and Ben'd all day for anything less than a good story."

"Ben'd?"
"Shut up, Ben."

"Um. Okay?"

"Well," Hogart said thoughtfully, "I guess you could trace the events of the last couple of days to the evening before when I ousted that uncouth orgier from Die Ölige Dame, this bar I have a share in, when I had a thought that it might be time to train my son in the ways of the business world."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XVI

Hugh Hamilton

'Here' turned out to a be the outskirts of a snow-capped little village, quaintly decorated in seasonal colours. Ben and Hugh were no longer sure they weren't dead. Hearing a distant choir, the latter turned to the former.
"Did I ever tell you—"
"Don't," said Ben. "I know."
 A few moments later, they were beckoned from the helicopter's blood-spattered interior by Freeman and his much-discussed firearm. Delirious, Ben strapped on an invisible parachute and dove into the snow. Hugh, meanwhile, fell into the snow with no apparent effort.
"You take the little one," said Freeman, gathering up Ben and draping him over his shoulder.
"But... he's bleeding," said the pilot.
"And?"
"These pilot digs don't just buy themselves."
"Well, unless you'd care to join him, you'll do as I say."
The pilot spent a moment trying to word something about surgical thread before relenting. Having secured the bodies to their persons, Freeman and the pilot trudged off through the fire-glow merriment, eventually reaching the heart of the village.
"Can we rest a moment?" asked the pilot, stooping suddenly.
Freeman stopped halfway into a blink. "Why?"
"He's heavy."
"Heavy? He's all of three pounds."
"Kilos."
"What?"
"Three kilos."
"My good man, three pounds does not equal three kilos. You think the metric system was a linguistic phenomenon?"
"No, I—" The pilot stopped. "Let's go."
After doing just that, Freeman and the pilot arrived at a cosy little house at the end of the village. Freeman knocked. They waited. Finally the front door swung open, revealing an overweight man in a beard.
"I've brought the detectives as requested, sir," said Freeman, dipping his head subserviently.
The man surveyed the bloodied bodies, adjusting one of his red suspenders as he did so.
"Jesus Christ."
"I've brought the detectives as requested, Jesus Christ."
"Why are they bleeding everywhere?"
"Why are they bleeding?" said Freeman.
"Yes."
"I stabbed them."
"You stabbed them."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Orders."
"Whose orders?"
"Er, your orders."
"Did I order you to stab them?"
"In a way."
"In which way, exactly?"
"In an indirect kind of way. It was more of a look you gave me."
"A look?"
"Yes, and based upon that, I took the initiative and—"
"Stabbed them."
"Yes."
"Did it ever occur to you they might have come willingly? Say if you said, Hey guys, the person at the bottom of this whole mystery would like a word with you, if you'd care to step into this helicopter?"
"No. They're a fiendish pair." Freeman glared at both in turn.
"I would so have done that," said Hugh, suddenly regaining consciousness.
"Me too," said Ben.
"You see?" said the man. "And now we have to waste my dear trained-nurse wife's time patching them up. Dear?"
A round, homely woman appeared in the doorway.
"Can you take care of these two bleeding gentlemen for me?"
"A'ight."
In a formidable display, the woman put Hugh over one shoulder and Ben over the other, not so much as grunting as she carried them down the hall.
"I really appreciate this, Mrs...?" said Hugh, now bedded.
"Oh, we'll have none of that formality here. Just call me Deir."
"That sounds awfully inappropriate."
"You can stick with Deirdre if you'd prefer. Just none of this 'Mrs' business."
"Deirdre Business," said Hugh. "That's a cool name."
"What?"
"Forgive my friend," said Ben, chiming in from the adjacent bed. "He gets funny around stunningly beautiful women."
"Will you quit doing that?"
Deirdre chuckled. "I'll get you two patched up, shall I?"

Half an hour later, Ben and Hugh emerged in matching blue dressing gowns.
"Who said you could wear my dressing gowns?" barked the man, seated around an inviting wooden table with Freeman and the pilot.
Hugh gulped. "Deirdre — Mrs Business."
"Well, then she shouldn't have gotten pregnant."
"Um..."
"I know, I know. I may hold some old-fashioned views about women, but at least I'm not one."
"I..."
"Now I suppose you're wondering why I dragged you all this way."
"Kinda."
"Well, then I shall tell you. But first — cocoa."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XV

Ben Hansen

After a few minutes of becoming used to the twin distractions of his recent stabbing and his recent kidnapping, not to mention a generous amount of sedative force-fed to him after he'd screamed and thrashed a little too long and too violently for anyone to appreciate, Ben felt calm enough to take in his surroundings. First, the Hugh next to him, hunched over in a slowly expanding pool of his own blood. He seemed to be holding most of it in and it seemed unlikely that he of all people would die, so Ben paid him no further heed for the moment. Item of interest the second consisted of Freeman and the pilot, sitting up front. Freeman turned to check on the two in the back every few seconds and was holding something Ben hadn't seen before but presumed to be a gun by its general gunnish shape and the gunlike respect that Freeman was offering to it. Ben decided to follow suit. The pilot was particularly bland, considering. Ben envied his leg-space. Item three, Ben. Ben knew Ben pretty well, and aside from the stab wound in his thigh (outer, thank cripes), there didn't seem to be a lot going on there, so Ben decided to pass Ben over for the most part. Fourth and finally, lots of blue outside of the helicopter. Better, Ben supposed, than lots of brown or what have you, but still not very encouraging for the whole "escape" idea.

Ben tried to formulate a plan, but found his attempts to think slowed by the throbbing pain in his leg and the continuous "whup whup whup whup" reverberating in his ears.

"Could you stop that?" Ben asked Hugh.

"Stop the whupping, whup whup whup?"

"Yeah. It's incredibly distracting."

"Whup whup whup whup. I read somewhere that it helps to take your mind off when you've got an ache, and I thought it might help here, whup whup whup whup."

"Really?"

"Yup!"

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Knock it off, you two," Freeman advised.

"Or what, you'll stab us again?" Hugh challenged, clearly not having noticed from his vantage point the gunlike gun that Freeman was waving in a gunnerly manner.

"No, I'll shoot you through the head and you'll die." Freeman obligingly held it up.

"Okay then."

"There's parachutes under here," Ben mentioned to his continuing companion sotto vocce. "Well, parachute."

"Great! We're saved!"

"I'll just stick it on and get help!"
"What?"

"I'll jump out the door here, and -"

"You're just going to abandon me?"

"I'm not abandoning you. Look, you've still got some friends to hang out with."

"Our stabber and our kidnapper?"

"How many other guys have you had inside of you?"

"Aren't you scared of heights, anyway?"

"Yeah, but I've been stabbed in the leg."
"What?"

"If you jump out and pull the cord, your intestines and stuff will keep going. It'll be impressive to look at, but not so useful for getting help."

"As opposed to you, who'll just keep sliding up to the door and keep going 'on the count of three, for real this time' until we land and get executed by whoever set all this up."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"Whup whup whup whup."

"I mean it, you two," Freeman advised.

"You could push me out," Ben continued a moment later.

"With this stomach?"

"Better than me pushing you out and holding onto your bowel until you get back."

"Look, I could pull the straps across like this and keep everything inside."

"Or I could go and just rely on this newfangled 'skin' thing I picked up somewhere."

"Right, up until it explodes because you panicked halfway down and forgot to pull the cord."

"Look, just give me the parachute."

"No, you give me the -"

"Let me take -"

"And now it's gone out the window."

"Yeah. Thanks for that."

"That was completely your fault."

"I won't dignify that with a response."

"Good, because I wouldn't deign to hear it."

"Now what?"

"Hope that this place we're going to has a good surgeon handy?"

"Oh, great, we're wandering into the volcanic lair of an evil mastermind and hoping he has a doctor who'll stitch us together without throwing an extra arm on for the hell of it."

"Are there even volcanoes in Victoria?"

"The point is, we're rooted."

"I don't think it's that bad. Knowing our history it'll just be Schmid wanting to invite us to a soiree."

"What sort of a soiree do you think Schmid would have?"

"...We're rooted."

"We're rooted."

"Goodbye, Hugh."

"Goodbye, Ben."

"We're here," Freeman added.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XIV

Hugh Hamilton

"...I heard a familiar stabbing noise. Judging from the squelch, I guessed it was coming from my brother's person."
"So you know what your brother being stabbed sounds like. Interesting," said Hugh.
"Very interesting," added Ben, helpfully.
"Not my brother; my brother's person. You know, his helper. You would have met him in the course of your investigations, I'm sure."
"Um, well, not exactly," admitted Hugh.
"And they call you the world's greatest detectives."
"No, I'm pretty sure that's Batman," said Ben.
"Oh?" Shelly paused. "What do they call you, then?"
"I'm not sure 'they' know us, actually."
"There was that piece in The Chronicle," said Hugh. "Well, photo."
"Oh yes — 'Sinister Gay Cyclists Mutilate Prize-Winning Terrier'," said Ben. "Wonderful publicity."
"We rode into a dog carcass," clarified Hugh. "Ben was steering."
"And whose idea was it to get about on a bicycle built for two?"
"May I continue?" said Shelly. "I tend not to enjoy banter."
"Very well," said Hugh.
"As I was saying, I recognised the sound of something sharp entering Schwab's abdomen."
"Schwab?" said Ben.
"My brother's helper."
"So you know what Schwab being stabbed sounds like. Interesting," said Hugh.
"Very—"
"When you hear something enough, you become somewhat familiar with it."
"Oh?" said Grace, feeling slightly left out.
"Yes, he's quite the pin cushion."
"Why's that?" said one of the three.
"It's his job," shrugged Shelly. "We call him a helper, but really he's just there to stop my brother stabbing people. And the most effective method he's come up with of doing that is to be the one getting stabbed the majority of the time."
"So your brother is... not entirely... That is to say, he's—" ventured Hugh.
"Retarded?" offered Shelly. "No. He just likes stabbing people."
"He seemed comically benign to me," said Ben.
"Really?" Shelly was puzzled. "Even with the villainous moustache?"
"Unless it was as subtle as his hiccupping, I don't recall a moustache," said Ben.
Shelly squinted at the middle distance. "Hang on, you don't mean Stephven?"
"Stephven?"
"Small, navy-blue jacket?"
"Sounds about right."
"That's my other brother."
"Other brother?" said Hugh. "I think I have a headache."
At this point Grace was bored enough to once again retire upwards.
"Why didn't you mention him earlier?" asked Ben.
"I assumed you meant Freeman."
"Interesting," said Ben, nodding. A moment passed. "And by that I mean, Why?" he added.
"Stephven's so comically benign I tend not to associate him with acts of violence, even as victim."
"F'nough," said Ben.
"Don't do that," said Hugh.
"Anyway, I wandered into Freeman's room, only to discover..."
"Ouch," said Hugh, in response to the knife that had just entered him.
A tall, slim, evil-looking man with an appropriate moustache was standing nearby, his fingers splayed after releasing the knife.
"Freeman!" said Shelly. "Where's Schwab?"
"Recuperating," said Freeman, evilly. "Now if you don't mind, I have some detectives to kidnap. Good day."
"Good day," said Shelly, unfazed.
"Do I get a say in this?" said Ben, more unfazed than he should have been.
Freeman responded by withdrawing the protuberance from Hugh's stomach and slipping it into Ben's thigh.
"Are we in too deep?" asked Hugh, hopefully. "Do we know too much?"
"Given you have yet to meet the true villain, I'd say no," said Freeman. "But orders are orders."
Bleeding profusely, Ben and Hugh entirely failed to resist being bundled into a helicopter and flown off.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XIII

Ben Hansen

"As in, your mum did it?" asked Hugh, anticipating a possible ending to one of the longest days in his life in the near future.

"As in, mum's the word."

"Yes! And - what?"

"It's a secret, you doofus."

"So you DO know something!" Ben cried, reaching the uptake at his own speed.

"But I'm not telling you, you see," replied Shelly.

"Ahh," Ben said, for want of anything useful.

"In that case we'll just have to arrest you," challenged Hugh.

"What on earth for?" Shelly asked, calling his bluff.

"For witholding information from the police and conspiracy to commit murder."

"Are you police agents?"

"Well, not as such," Hugh admitted, a mild blush rising.

"Then I haven't witheld information from any. And since when were people legally required to answer everything anyway?"

"We could arrest you for tampering with a crime scene?" Ben offered.

"Tampering wi - When did I tamper with a crime scene?"

"Just a few hours ago," Ben offered triumphantly, "when you hid this half of a message in a bloody couch!"
Were they on the same side of this argument, Hugh and Shelly would have exchanged looks. As it was, each of them had to make do exchanging looks with themselves, leaving them with looks of similar condition to when they began.

"I live there too," Shelly explained, slowly enough for Ben to follow along. "I left that note there before there was a stabbing, and hence a crime scene."

"Ah," said Ben, and he stood back looking satisfied.

"What about copyright infringement?" Hugh asked after a moment, feeling desperate.

"What?"

"Well," Hugh said, a note of confidence sneaking into his voice and stealing all the towels, "We have written evidence here that indicates you've been working for some time on downloading one of the more commercially viable sitcoms. I think that counts as -"

And then Shelly snatched the note out of his hand and, looking triumphant, tore it to pieces.

"And NOW you're tampering with evidence," Ben snarled. "As soon as our boys piece this paper together, we'll have you on ice."

"On ice?" Shelly queried.

"It means imprisoned. Were it up to me, I'd be all about having you under a paper cocktail umbrella, but federal law keeps a lot of fun things out of the equation."

Somehow, this actually served to worry Shelly. "Why, you conniving little-"

"Slander!" Hugh cried with glee.

"I never -" Shelly began.

"Perjury!" Hugh exclaimed.

"Look, if I tell you people what I know, will you go away?" Shelly asked.

"Bingo!" Ben declared happily.

"Okay. You see, at the house last night -"

"Yahtzee!"

"He means go on," Hugh advised the grouchy greengrocer, kicking ben in the foot.

"You sunk my battleship!"

"As I said, it started at the house last night," said Shelly as she'd said. "I had just got home, when..."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XII

Hugh Hamilton

"You know, it might have been an idea to look at this before," said Hugh, wincing slightly. He handed the note to Ben.
"'Dear diary. Today I think I'll murder my bro--,'" read Ben. "Well, I guess we got the relevant half."
"Yup."
"Does this mean we have to have to go back to whatshername's?"
"Yup."
And they did. Hillary spent the first twenty seconds of their re-acquaintance visualising suicide.
"May we--"
"No," said Hillary.
"That sounds like guilt to me. What do you say, Hugh?"
"Cuff her."
"Jesus."
"Close," said Ben. "But there's two of us."
Hillary neglected to breathe.
"Can you explain this note?" said Hugh, perfecting legal righteousness for the first time.
Hillary blinked. "I can, actually. Looks like the unmistakable melodramatic scrawl of my younger sister."
"Sister?" said Hugh.
"Yes, you've heard of them?"
"Girl siblings?"
"Well done."
"So you weren't the one who wrote this note?"
"I believe my sister is presently at the greengrocers on Speight Street. Good day," said Hillary, rejoined curtly by the door.

Occupying no more than a metre and a half of footpath, the greengrocers compensated by rising steeply towards the second floor, the produce only degrees away from toppling to the ground. Standing at street level by the register, Ben and Hugh were mildly surprised to find a familiar figure.
"Grace!"
"Ben?" said Grace. "And... Drew?"
"You remember us," smiled Ben.
"Well, I haven't yet succeeded at forgetting. What can I do for ya?"
"Drew?"
"Yes, Drew, she remembers us," said Ben, nudging his increasingly significant other. "Now what can you tell us about this note?"
"What note would that be?" said Grace.
Hugh had not brandished the note as normal.
"Drew," said Ben sternly. "The note."
Suppressing a wail, Hugh fished once more into his pockets and, after more attempts than usual, came up with the note.
"Nothing," said Grace.
"Are there any people working here who might have written it?"
"I have a Klaus and a Shelly, if that's any help to you."
"The one who isn't Klaus, please."
"Shelly!"
A few moments passed before a small, youngish woman half-fell to the footpath. Her apron bore the residue of a recent fruit massacre.
"Yes?" There was apprehension in her voice.
"Mind entertaining these two a bit?" said Grace. "Just look pretty and keep your sentences short and they shouldn't bother you too much."
Shelly shrugged.
"Good. I'll be smoking out back," said Grace, lifting her dress and bounding up the dangerous incline.
"Shelby, is it?" said Hugh, wanting to do to somebody else what Grace had done to him.
"Shelly," said Shelly.
"Sorry, I know. I didn't mean... I knew exactly what your name was. Must have come out wrong," said Hugh, blushing horribly.
Ben smiled oilily. "Excuse my friend Drew. He gets funny around stunningly beautiful women."
Shelly vomited quietly onto her apron.
"Shelly," said Hugh, trying to recover face. "Shelly. We... Shelly."
"The note," interrupted Ben.
"Of course, of course. What can you tell us about this small piece of Shelly?"
Shelly glanced at the bloodied note.
"So that's where that got to." Shelly reached into one of her pockets and retrieved a similarly sized piece of paper. "Here's the other half."
Ben slapped Hugh's approaching hand and took the other half of the note.
"'--adband. Two megabytes more and I would have had every second of Three Guys, Three Girls and a Trendy Apartment,'" he read.
"I tend to write smaller once I reach the right side of a page. And fuck you, it's a comfort show," said Shelly. "Now why on earth do you have that?"
"Do you have another brother called Adband, by any chance?" said Hugh.
"What?"
"What he means is, do you have any idea who would want to stab your brother?" said Ben.
Grace appeared suddenly with a tray of biscuits.
"Hey Drew, I was rifling through some of our ancillary stock and I remembered how much you liked Iced Vo Vos at Christmas time."
"Mince pies," mumbled Hugh, taking a biscuit nonetheless.
"Ooh, lovely," said Shelly, helping herself to one also. "Oh, and about that stabbing thing."
"Yes?" said Ben.
"Mum."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter XI

Ben Hansen

And so they shall'd. Should. Did.
Schmid's location, given to them only in the form of a street address, was not what either Ben or Hugh were expecting. Ben had predicted a sprawling Victorian-style house with disintegrating paint on the outer walls and rust covering its awnings, while Hugh was searching for a run-down apartment with bits of plaster falling off, as might befit a mobster hiding from the police.Neither of them had expected anything resembling an abandoned funfair, the sort of decrepit collection of torn tents and dangerous, useless rides that a supervillain would take for their base.

It wasn't one, of course, so Ben and Hugh could happily say they weren't as wrong as they could have been, but certainly neither of them expected this.
"In hindsight, I could probably have led you here from memory," said their faux-German companion conversationally. "I carried half his stuff here when we helped him move."

Hugh shuddered deeply, for reasons best left undescribed, as the three of them looked at Schmid's new home.

"Is there a door we knock on, or...?"

"A door wouldn't really make a lot of sense here," the large, overly familiar guide responded.

"Should we at least say something before we barge on in?" Ben asked, unlatching the gate.

"I think he's heard us anyway."

"Come in, come in!" said the Schmidlike man who had appeared from behind some of the furniture dotted about the random patch of woodland to which the duo's Aryan adviser had led them. "Keith, you didn't tell me you were bringing friends!"

"Well, I'm very friendly with this short fellow here," Keith or whatever his name was said, gesturing to Hugh with a broad sweep of his bulky hand, "but this fey one over here is totally available."

Both of the relevant detectives blanched slightly and tried to shuffle backwards as quickly and as unobtrusively as they could. Neither of them did very well, Hugh erring on the side of caution and being within arm's reach of Keith as the hand continued to move and held him firmly yet worryingly intimately around the shoulders, and Ben erring on the side of panic and taking several large steps closer while staring at Schmid and stammering.

Schmid winked. Keith grinned. Hugh froze. Ben grimaced.

"It's been forever since you last brought me anything so pretty," Schmid said delightedly, kissing Keith lightly on the cheeks. Ben and Hugh twisted around to stare at each other out of eyeshot, frantically mouthing and gesticulating wildly, trying to work out between themselves what less pretty things than Ben had been getting handed over before this point. They abruptly ceased their motions just before the two Aryans parted.

"Sorry," said Ben, "This conversation is not at all going as I had expected. Can we start over?"

"God yes," Hugh said.

"What do you mean?" Schmid asked.

"You see," said the fey one, "The short fellow and I are detectives examining a murder."

"Battery," Hugh corrected.

"The murder of a battery."

"The stabbing of a human."

"Point being, we found this letter written by you in a carrot on the crime scene and we had hoped to ask you if you could tell us what it was about?"

"You didn't think to ask the greengrocer?" Schmid asked.

"What greengrocer?" Hugh returned, a sensation of deja vu coming over him once again.

"The greengrocer who should be keeping this carrot a lot closer to his heart," Schmid said. "This is a love letter, but Klaus must have sold it, the klutz."

"Klaus?" Hugh asked, taking over the conversation while Ben devoted his time to smirking arrogantly.

"The greengrocer! He is part of our little collective. We get together sometimes and, how did you put it, Keith?"

"Conspire," the large conspirator said lewdly.

"We conspire, yes, in a manner which the administration of Die ölige Dame cannot bill for. Our conspiracies didn't help much, though - they still caught us and kicked me out. Keith's lot here are just lucky they didn't check out the backgrounds of the people involved as well. I thought Keith had brought you over for an impromptu meeting."

"Ahh," Ben and Hugh said, neither as comfortable with this conversation as they felt that they as liberally minded people should be.

"This note just features a few sweet nothings, a few comments about brotherly love and so forth, and meeting details, sorry. This has naught to do with your crime."

"Dammit!" Ben said, feeling like the case had been going for years too long as it was.

"What about the "die erben" bit?" Hugh asked, unwilling to let something that had taken up such a large part of the day go so easily.

"Well, you see, Klaus's father and I -"

"Thank you very much for your time," Hugh interjected hurriedly, taking Ben by the forearm and pulling him towards the gate with haste, "but we have to look into another note now."

"The greengrocer!" Ben crowed as they left.

"The fey one?" Hugh replied, pulling the half of a note he'd pulled from the bloodstained couch out of his bloodstained pocket.

"Fair enough," Ben said, changing his state to cowed at once.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter X

Hugh Hamilton

"Nor," he continued, "are we Austrian."
"That's a pity," said Ben. "I've always been partial to Austrians. So what are you then, Swiss?"
"No."
"Hungarian?"
"No."
"Swiss?"
"We're locals."
"Explains the suddenly familiar accent."
"And the conspiracy thing?" asked a redundant-feeling Hugh.
The bearded man shifted his gaze about the room then leaned in conspiratorially.
"This club," he began, "this club within a club, I should say, is an exclusive club."
Ben nodded, as he had ceased paying attention.
"In fact, in recent years it has become so exclusive that anyone who does not speak German as a first language is denied membership outright, regardless of fluency or cultural affiliation."
"Interesting," lied Hugh.
"Naturally, this didn't sit right with us Europhile/lecher locals."
"Naturally," lied Hugh.
"And thus we formulated a plan."
"Oh yes?" said one of the group, forgetting who he was.
"We pretended German was our first language."
The man searched for eavesdropping first-languagers, then, satisfied, exhaled.
Ben twitched. "And?"
"And what?"
"What about the conspiracy-containing note?"
"Ah, well, truth be told, we can't actually read it. You might say it's more conspiracy-revealing than conspiracy-containing."
"You can't read German?"
"Not exactly. In fact, not even imprecisely. You might even say we can't read German."
"Right," said Fred Ben. "So even though the entire basis of your plan was pretending German was your first language, you can't actually speak German?"
"Oh, no no no," said the man, something unpleasant dripping off his beard. "We can speak German. We have no problem speaking German. It's the understanding part we have trouble with, the whole business of knowing what all the funny words mean."
"And somehow you haven't been found out until now?" said Hugh.
"You'd be surprised what you can do with a handful of stock German phrases. You know, guten tag, es abzunehmen, that sort of thing. No one seems to be the wiser."
"You can't tell us anything about the note?" said Ben, a little pathetically.
"Not unless you'd like to know who wrote it."
"What!?" said Hugh and Ben.
"I'd recognise that handwriting anywhere, light permitting."
"Whose is it?" said Hugh and Ben.
"Why it's old Schmid's."
"Wyatt Auschmitzer?"
"Schmid. Lovely chap. I'll introduce you."
"Great! Where is he?" Ben rubbed his hands and started scoping the room for people who looked like they might be called Schmid.
"Oh, I'm afraid he was expelled from the club some time back. Excessive contact. It's a dreadful shame. He was on his third warning."
"Where is he now?" asked Ben.
"Search me."
"You don't know?"
"No, I mean Search me. He tattooed a forwarding address somewhere on my body — I can't recall where."
"Find it!" screamed Ben, suddenly and rudely.
"We might need to pop into the change room and have a look. They're a little queer about voluntary nudity out here."
"Ben would be delighted to," said Hugh.
"Allow his companion to do the honours," continued Ben. "Off you go, Hugh."
"Shotgun!"
"Oh, are we naming firearms now? Revolver!"
Hugh paused for a moment, then the spirit of the season caught him.
"Merry Christmas, Ben," he said, tenderly, lovingly, and leading the hygieneless man into the change room.
Fourteen minutes later, Hugh emerged, looking as if he had sworn off food and sex for life.
"How'd it go?" asked Ben, grinning.
Silent, Hugh retrieved a scrawled-on receipt from his pocket and handed it to Ben, who read it.
"Shall we?" said Ben.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter IX

Ben Hansen

"Gutentag," offered the foremost of the hairy krauts, beaming through his beard as though he'd just learned the true meaning of Christmas.
"Suspicious men are talking at us!" Hugh whispered anxiously.
"Bonjeur," Ben replied, bringing his customary grasp of foreign languages into play. "Come stai?"
The suspicious men went into a huddle, from which Ben and Hugh could originally make out such comments as "was ist das?" and "die dumkopf spreche der kauderwelsch". Eventually, the one who spoke earlier, clearly one of the less inept of the group socially, disentangled himself from his sweaty comrades and said "Traurig?"
"He said hello," Hugh cut in before Ben could try again. "Ahh! Good day, sir! Come, sit, sit, please, sit."
Which is how Hugh and Ben found themselves at lunch with a group of sweaty, suspicious Germans, the latter group peering through their beards at the intrepid duo in hasty, guarded glances when they thought that the latter pair weren't watching. All in all, Ben and Hugh did not feel that they had been welcomed as openly as they would have preferred.
"So," said the spokesman of the group, "what is it that we can be doing for you fine young specimens?"
"Argh," Hugh quietly answered. "I mean, we have a note."
"Are you to be finished with this pyramid of flesh?" asked another of the collective, nudging Ben gently in his ribs.
"Oh god yes."
"Then shall I eat of it! Prost!"
"What sort of note do you have?"
"This one here. Careful, it smells like carrot."
"Mein gott, daf iff goot flefshhhh."
"Oh my god." Ben inched slightly away from the rapturous man next to him. The other noticed not, face stuffed full of a mass which was either delighful or disgusting depending on who you asked.
"Let me read that."
The German skimmed over the contents of the message in his greasy mitts for a few moments while his sausage-loving compatriot made various wet, sucking noises, Ben grew slightly more pale and Hugh grew rapidly more impatient. At last, he sat back a contented look upon his face.
"Nein," the bearded gentleman said, a superior smirk upon his face.
"What?"
"I refuse to tell you what it says. It has a thing in it that is... incriminating, I think is the word?"
"Yes! That's why we want to know what it says!" rebutted Hugh, his voice starting to rise.
"Learn German, then."
Hugh drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Okay," he said. "Ben?"
"Yeah?" Ben asked, several inches further from the sausage man than when Hugh last looked.
"Interrogation technique number six."
"Righto!"
The Germans had no time to react as Ben threw himself from the table and started rolling on the floor, looking for all the world as if he'd just been presented with a stocking full of agony.
"Aaaagh!" he cried, uncreatively but believably.
"Why would you do that?" Hugh shouted, as the Germans slowly became aware that they were rapidly becoming the centre of attention.
"I'm a haemophiliac!" Ben shrieked.
"Just tell us what we want, and we'll stop this," Hugh whispered to the now-pale beard sitting beside him.
"Why would you do that with a fork?" Ben wailed. The waitress gave a filthy look towards the table, though who it was aimed at none could be sure.
"Okay, okay!" the bearded man said, panic increasing in his voice as the accent decreased. "We'll tell you everything!" We're not really German and the letter holds a conspiracy!"

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter VIII

Hugh Hamilton

 “There, you see?” Ben knelt down and retrieved the plot-filled portion of the carrot. “When in doubt, throw a tantrum.”
“That’s achingly unfair,” said Hugh, who would have been the first to act were he at all prepared for the sight of a note-concealing carrot.
“Isn’t it?”
Preparing for the reveal, Ben lingeringly cracked his knuckles, spilling the carrot as he did so. It broke a further time on the concrete. Before Ben could gangle downwards, Hugh retrieved the relevant piece and hurriedly unfurled the note.
“‘Dear Ben’,” he began.
“Give me that.” Ben snatched the note. “‘Die erben.’”
“That makes less sense to me.”
“That’s German for you.”
“What else is on there?”
Ben scanned the page. “‘Gerchwister.’”
“Right.”
“And I think that says ‘auf den Kopf stellen.’”
“You understand it?”
“No, but check out the exclusive club letterhead.”
Hugh peered at the aesthetic red logo at the top of the page. He had never seen a more impressively rendered umlaut. “Which helpfully includes an address.”
“‘Die ölige Dame’ it is!”

Contrary to the fancy letterhead, but entirely appropriate to its name, ‘Die ölige Dame’ turned out to be a dankly lit strip joint populated by Austrian ex pats. Never being at their best in front of naked women, Hugh and Ben shuffled inside with an awkwardness that attracted every gaze in the place. An overproportioned waitress appeared in front of them, brandishing a menu.
“I’ll have that one,” Ben said, placing his finger at random.
“The note,” murmured Hugh.
“What? Oh yes.” Ben turned back to the waitress. “And what can you tell us about this?”
Playfully curling a red lock, the waitress studied the note.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Thanks anyway,” said Hugh. “Is that a dye?”
“Of course.”
“Oh.” Hugh blinked. “See, I don’t know where to go from here.”
“You could try that huddle of suspicious men in the back.”
“Oh?”
“They actually speak German.”
All of a sudden the music changed and the strippers, previously dispersed evenly throughout the room, gathered on the main stage. A handful got down on all fours while the rest made abortive attempts to scale them.
“Good God,” said Ben, as another tumbled to the stage.
“You ordered the Flesh Pyramid, didn’t you?” said the waitress.
“I was hoping it would be some sort of disgusting sausage dish.”
“That’s included.”
“Suspicious men! Suspicious men!” urged Hugh.
“Excuse us,” said Ben, taking his companion by his little hand.

The suspicious men, all of whom looked as though they had never known grooming, beamed as they approached.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter VII

Ben Hansen

"To the greengrocer!" Ben declared, finger pointed upward in an uncharacteristically focused pose.
"The greengrocer?"
"The greengrocer!"
"What greengrocer?"
"Oh. Um, yes. Good point. Maybe we should ask."
"Why are we asking about green groceries, exactly? And who?"
Ben deflated slightly at Hugh's logical enquiries. "Well, see while you were in the colour-blind bathroom -"
"Teal."
"In the teal-blind bathroom, Hillary and I had a tete-a-tete regarding the only piece of evidence in the room."
"Oh, the bloodstained couch?"
"Okay, one of the only two pieces of evidence in the room."
"Oh, the chair."
"One of the only four pieces of evidence in the room," Ben said, beginning to sweat.
"Let's see, there was the chair, the couch, the knife she kicked out of the room while she was going to mix us our drinks..."
"Totally saw that coming."
"...And the half of a note I found under one of the couch's cushions," Hugh said, pulling it fastidiously from one of his many layers' pockets.
"Okay, so there was a pile of evidence I didn't see."
"Must have been too colourful for you."
"Whatever. Point is, I found this carrot!" Ben brandished his one success of the encounter with a defensive fervour.
"Yes, that's definitely a carrot."
"Hence we should speak with our good ladyfriend's greengrocer at the nearest opportunity!"
"What about?"
"Well, about this carrot that was at the crime scene."
"What would we ask about it?"
"'Why was this carrot at the crime scene?'"
"Why would the greengrocer know or care?"
"Well, it's suspicious."
"No, it's a carrot."
"Oh, fine. FINE."
"Fine?"
"Have it your way. It's not suspicious. It's barely even a vegetable."
"Oh, it's very vegetable, really," Hugh offered, trying to cheer Ben up.
Ben was uncheered. "I don't know what I was thinking. Of course she wanted to pick it up! It was just a carrot on the carpet! What's remotely interesting about that?"
"Actually, that-"
"It's not even shaped like a penis! It's the dullest carrot I've ever seen!" Ben shouted, throwing the carrot to the ground.
Where the top broke off, revealing a cavity carefully cut into the carrot's center with a piece of paper tucked into it.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter VI

Hugh Hamilton

Despite the clarity of the sentence, spoken without the slightest ambiguity, Hugh did not immediately catch on. He had got as far as realising it had something to do with the couch, the couch that earlier he had noticed had been rather sloppily decorated with reddish-brown splatters, seemingly applied at random. But what the couch had to do with anything was beyond him. He nodded, in case anyone thought he hadn’t worked it out yet. A moment later he had. Rather than leap up and dry retch like a madman, Hugh kept face by deciding instead to turn calmly to his left and reveal his findings to his colleague. Theoretically, this was a sound course of action, but in practice it fell down for two very simply reasons. First, Ben had already understood the rather straightforward implication of Hillary’s sentence and any further elucidation would have been redundant. Second, he was no longer on the couch.
“So it happened way over there?” said Ben, as if Hugh alone had suffered the faux pas.
“Well, that’s where he sleeps,” said Hillary.
Ben nodded, surreptitiously feeling his clothes for traces of blood.
“Anywhere else?” asked Ben.
“Yes. There.”
“Here?”
“Well, that’s where he sits.”
“Interesting,” said Ben, choking slightly. “What about that bookshelf behind you?”
“What bookshelf?” She turned.
Ben quickly sprang up from his chair and dashed to the opposite corner.
“No, I’m sorry, that’s just a wall, isn’t it?”
She sighed. “Happen a lot, does it?”
“It comes and goes,” said Ben, shrugging. “Sad, really. I never heard the end of it in school.” He shook his head slowly. “The names I got called...”
“Names?”
“Yeah. Stuff like...” Ben stopped, wondering why he had pursued the thought. “Like... er, ‘Bad Eyes’.”
“Bad eyes?”
“Yes. Admittedly not one of their best efforts, but for the sensitive young giant of above average intelligence that I was, it was like a lash across my back. Had I mentioned I was an aspiring librarian?” Ben again wondered why he was still following this line.
“Another time, perhaps,” grimaced Hilary. “Are you two going to be much longer?”
“I’m afraid that’s as tall as he gets,” quipped Ben. “But that doesn’t stop him living a full and happy life.”
Hugh was too busy absorbing the fact he was sitting on a couch of dried blood to voice protest.
“Um, I couldn’t wash my hands somewhere, could I?” he said finally.
“There’s a bathroom just down there,” replied Hillary, pointing.
Ben gave Hugh a conspiratorial glance which proved to be entirely lost on him.
“Give you a chance to see what a wonderful bathroom they have here,” said Ben, after Hugh had blatantly mouthed ‘What?’ for the fourth time.
“I...” Hugh began, and ended.
“When have you seen my bathroom?” asked Hillary in what would have been a distrustful tone if Hugh and Ben’s behaviour had not already rendered suspicion irrelevant. As it stood, she was merely curious.
“Oh, er, I had a go while you were fixing our drinks.”
“Then what colour is it?”
Ben shrugged. “Colour-blind.”
She gave up.
“Can I go now?” asked Hugh.
“Go,” said Ben.
As he went, Hillary, still absently cleaning, stooped to fish something off the floor.
“Hold it,” said Ben.
“Holding it,” said Hillary.
“What is that?”
“Carrot,” said Hillary, at this point weary enough to omit the necessary article.
“A carrot to you, perhaps, but to us, it’s evidence.”
“Well, to me it’s still a carrot and it’s on my floor.”
“Yes. Or rather, it was. May I ask why you’re in such a hurry to keep it from my colleague and I?”
“Because carrots shouldn’t be kept on one’s floor.”
“‘Shouldn’t’? Interesting choice of word.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope, in the spirit of integrity, that you have no problem co-operating when I ask you to place that carrot in this transparent evidence bag.”
“That’s an opaque paper bag.”
“Apples and oranges, Mrs Schotolollybag.”
“Not paper bags and carrots?”
“Unclasp your hand, Mrs Schotol—”
“All right, all right.”
“Over the bag.”
“Very well.”
“Thank you. This could be the key to the whole case.”
“What could?” Hugh had returned from the bathroom.
“Not now, little one. We must away.”
“We’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God,” said Hillary.
“Can’t I finish my tonic water?”
“I’ll get you a Solo™ on the way.”
“But it’s Christmas!”
“All right, I’ll get you a tonic water then. Jesus”
“Righto.”
“Hurry, won’t you,” sneered Hillary.
Ben had the grace to be slightly offended. “Why is it the cute ones are always so cruel?”
“I think it’s because we—”
“Hugh.”
“All right, all right. Let’s get out of here.”
"Do," was Hillary's parting remark.

It was still searingly hot when they emerged from the doorway.
“Where to?” asked the little one, sensibly.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter V

Ben Hansen

Several minutes passed, the dynamic duo sitting awkwardly while their bemused hostess made their drinks in a distant kitchen.
"So," Ben said, his blatantly false smile gracing Hugh from beneath half-lidded eyes momentarily before he continued to glance about the room. Hugh wondered why he seemed so eager to take everything in, sometimes. Was he hypervigilant, always on the alert for a hypothetical attack that may arise at any moment? Or was he just looking for valuables?
Hugh pondered this for a while, before concluding that Ben was just desirous of some real food and searching for anything that could be laid claim to before their hostess returned. He pondered his own place in the affair, wondering if there was anything in the vicinity he should be taking in. Nothing leapt to mind.
It dawned on him that Ben was looking at him strangely. The stain had long since faded into irrelevance, Hugh was sure, and he hadn't done anything worthy of note.
He cast his mind back over recent events and, finally concluding that Ben actually expected a reply to his own non-committal statement, considered the various alternatives before hazarding the response which seemed most apt.
"...So," he said. Ben smiled, seemingly satisfied, and sat back, arms stretching across the couch's (and Hugh's) back. Ben pulled a chocolate coin from his pocket, and after offering a half to Hugh (politely declined), unwrapped it, cramming the slightly melted brown mass into his own mouth.
They were uncomfortably close.
"You know, Hugh..."
"Yes, Ben?"
"We're all alone in here..."
"Yep."
"Nobody would ever know if we -"
And their hostess, thankfully, chose that moment to appear. She unceremoniously plonked a coffee, a tea, some Milo and a glass of tonic water before the one, and some Milo before the other.
"We're fresh out of fanta, sorry," she said, a twitch of her lips suggesting that if she had any love, affection or passing interest in the two she'd have smiled.
"Never mind, those eyes are sweet enough," Ben stammered. Hugh pinched the bridge of his nose, a frown placed upon his chin.
"Anyway," their hostess forestalled, "Let's get started. Who are you two?"
"I'm Hugh and my partner here is Ben," Ben said.
Hugh stared.
Ben winked.
Hugh wondered if it would be too overt a gesture to bury his head in his hands.
"My brother hired you to find his murderer?" their hostess replied.
"Murderer?" Hugh muttered. "I barely know 'er."
"I could get to know 'er," Ben snidely interjected, a wink directed at the hostess.
"And your name?" Hugh put in before the hostess had a chance to digest this.
"You - Oh, my name is Hillary Schotologeny."
"A very erudite sounding name, ma'am."
"Oh, not at all. It's gibberish."
"Ah. Anyway, your brother turned up on our doorstep a short while ago -"
"Without a hiccup," Ben added.
"Sans hiccup - to hire us, that is me and him -" here Hugh paused to jab his thumb vindictively towards his gangly companion - "to investigate his murder."
"Which isn't a murder."
"So we're investigating his assault."
"Battery."
"Whatever it is."
"Murder."
"Yes," Hillary nodded, "He's not the brightest of rocks in the garden, our Neville. It really gets quite infuriating at times. If somebody hadn't beat me to it, I might've stabbed him myself before long."
Ben tried to jot this down in a notepad surreptitiously and succeeded only in loud rustles that attracted the looks of Hugh and Hillary both. He put the notepad away once again, a mild blush rising.
"Can we see the crime scene?" he asked, seeking to divert their attention.
"Can I get some lemon juice and sugar in this?" Hugh asked, proffering the tonic water he'd been offered.
"See the crime scene?" Hillary asked, picking Hugh's glass up and moving back towards the kitchen. "You're sitting in it, boys."

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter IV

Hugh Hamilton

Feeling the heat sans insulation, the shorter man began to question the prudence of his choice of wears, a near-blind get-up of heavy vests and thick suspender pants, while the larger groaned in a kitsch T-shirt whose pop culture credentials had long since cracked and faded in the wash. A whinge or two later, the two indivisibles panted their way to the crumpled address.

An unassumingly dressed woman frowned at the remainder-bin humans on her doorstep. Beneath the frown, her nose sloped like a model precipice, casting a shadow above her lip that was fortunately more Chaplin than Hitler. Ben was instantly attracted.
“Hi,” he said, forgetting to follow with an explanation. The ensuing silence, whose catalyst Ben entirely failed to comprehend, was made all the more awkward by his affecting some sort of hey-maybe-we-could-get-something-going demeanour, capped off with a slow and agonisingly deliberate nod, like that of a lunatic observing a wall not yet decorated with faeces. Noting the similarity, the unnamed made a point of omitting Ben from her field of vision, even if that meant focusing on the midget in the pants.
“You’re that guy’s sister, right?” said the pants, realising they had once again failed to discover a client’s name.
“Which guy?”
“Um...” He looked at Ben.
“That guy who lives here,” said Ben, finding himself again. “That guy whose sister you are.”
She resumed her frown. “You mean my brother?”
Hugh clicked his fingers unnecessarily. “That’s it. Your brother.”
“Then yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes I am my brother’s sister.”
“Splendid,” said Hugh. “May we come in?”
“What for?”
“Once we ditch the little guy, who knows?” Ben’s remark came out even worse than it reads.
“What?”
“What?”
(The latter, more aggressive variation was Hugh’s.)
“We’re here to investigate your brother’s unfortunate stabbing,” persisted Hugh, pretending Ben didn't happen.
“Slash murder.”
“Yes; we’re here to investigate your brother’s slash murder.”
“He actually found someone? Crikey.” Almost rudely, she began scratching one of her thighs. “How is the little bleeder doing?”
“I don’t know, but hopefully he’s doing it in a hospital somewhere,” quipped Hugh. “May we come in?”
“Hmm. Do you have a warrant?”
“I have a warrant.”
“Good enough.”

Despite the difference in height, the sunken couch had them both sitting knees-to-chin.
“Tea? Coffee?” asked the nose, picking up strewn books to find her seat.
“Um... One of each, please,” said Hugh.
“OK... And you?”
Ben pondered this for almost a minute.
“Milo,” he said finally, extending the final vowel as if entranced by its cadence, or mildly retarded.
“Very well.”
“Wait, I didn’t know we could do that,” said Hugh. “Can I have a Milo too? And maybe a smidgen of tonic water if you’ve got it.”
“I—”
“Speaking of which, you wouldn’t happen to have any Fanta, would you?” said Ben.
She threw a book into the corner irritably, though not without purpose. “Look, can we just get this out of the way first?”
“We could probably get it out of the way better with some drinks in us. It’s awfully hot out there.”
Ben turned Hugh’s adjective a few times in his head, trying to form something suggestive, but rejected the idea.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter III

Ben Hansen

"Well, I guess we'd better get on with this murder investigation, then," Ben sighed, taking a sip of his nog-coffee. Discovering that the taste of egg nog only made the coffee taste that little more foul, he spat it out, throwing his mug at the wall in the most apt demonstration of his disgust that leapt to mind.
In one of those bizarre twists of chance that no self-respecting author would put in a book - the sort that can only occur in real life - the mug bounced, ricocheting off the lamp to land with near-perfect accuracy on Hugh's crotch, followed a moment later by the foul goo that had so recently occupied its ceramic shell. To his credit, the smaller man only flailed a very little in panic.
"Guess so," Hugh responded, picking the mug gingerly from himself and placing it on the desk. "And I was looking forward to a Christmas where we couldn't eat so very much..."
"I do have one tiny question, though," Ben said, lifting himself wearily from the chair in which he reclined."
"Mm?"
"How can we investigate a murder when the victim's not dead?"
"About the same way we investigate stabbings, I guess."
"But we don't investigate stabbings."
"No? Why not? Seems like a lucrative niche for us to fill."
"Yeah, but if we meet a stabber we might get stabbed."
"Ah. Right." Hugh lifted his nog-sogged crotch from his chair and, pausing only to grab a handful of paper towels, followed his oversized counterpart out the door.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter II

Hugh Hamilton

A few indistinguishable moments later, someone bothered to exhaust some energy.
"Ben?"
"Mm?"
"Did you happen to acquire any mince pies while you were squandering our livelihood on candy canes and chocolate coins?"
Ben withdrew a no-longer-striped candy cane.
"On the off-chance that you're not setting up that 'Mint Spy' joke you stole from the Goon Show, I'll say No," he said, licking his lips unselfconsciously and removing the gold lining from another chocolate coin. "Hence the lack of mince pies."
"Cracker-arse," scowled Hugh, for he had his heart set on sinking his teeth into one of those delicious seasonal pastries. "I really felt like one of those."
"Cracker-arse? Will you quit watching that video?"
"See? It shocks you. It shocks you. There's still these words."
"Hugh, I mean it. I'm not going through this again."
"Shut up. Fifty years ago you would have been upside—"
"I will hit you," said Ben, raising an arm. "In fact—"
"Ouch."
Hugh aimed a sulky brow at Ben, who responded with one of those brief smiles that operate independently of the eyes, and a dull while passed.
Some time later, this:
"Want an egg-nog coffee?" asked Hugh absently.
"I seem to recall that experiment failing rather spectacularly the last time you tried it," said Ben, not looking up.
"Still, want one?"
"Hmm... Yes."
As Hugh rose, so did their prospects.
"I'll get it," said Ben.
A minute or two later, Hugh observed that Ben hadn't actually moved from his seat and answered the door himself.
"H'llo," said the door's revelation.
"...," nodded Hugh. "Do come in."
The man did, seating himself afterwards.
"Candy cane?" offered Ben as the small man brushed a few imaginary specks of dust off his navy-blue jacket.
"Thanks, I don't."
"Coin?"
The man blinked incredulously.
"Um, all right," he said, taking the chocolate coin from Ben's palm and putting it in his wallet. "Thanks."
If it weren't for the fact that they were perfectly happy with their own, Hugh and Ben would have exchanged glances.
"Er, anyway," persisted Ben. "What's this unusual hiccup of yours?"
"Sorry?"
"Where 'hiccup' equals 'case'."
"Oh, well, it's a stabbing, you see."
"Murder, I hear."
"Yes — murder most, er, murderous."
"How do you know it's murder?" asked Hugh, who had failed to on the phone.
"Well, one can never be sure, of course, but I'm fairly certain this didn't happen by accident," said the man, unbuttoning his jacket. There was a small knife jutting out of his stomach. "The amount of force required to slide the knife that far in seems to indicate a third party — but I could be wrong."
"You're the victim?" said Hugh, goggling his eyes comically for the occasion.
"Yes. Didn't I make that clear over the phone?"
"Well, when you said someone was murdered, I foolishly assumed you were referring to someone other than yourself."
"You live and learn," smiled the man.
"Speaking of living," said Ben, "how come you are?"
"I don't think I quite follow."
"Well, usually when someone is murdered they die in the process, hence the being murdered," explained Ben dryly.
"Is that so? I guess my sister was right after all. Still, whatever this is, I'd be rather grateful if you could find out how it happened."
"Well, yes," said Ben. "But shouldn't you be in hospital or something?"
"In hospital? Whatever for?"
"That." Ben pointed.
"This?"
"Yes — it seems to be draining your blood."
"Oh, I know. It goes on for hours. Makes for quite the spectacle."
"But aren't you in some sort of pain?"
"Pain? I don't know. Should I be?"
"Yes," said Ben, poking the knife.
"Ouch."
"See?"
"I guess that explains it," said the man, accompanied on piano by a thoughtful nod.
"Explains what?" asked Ben, poking the knife again for no reason.
"My stomach pains."
Ben sighed.
"Look, just get to a hospital sometime, all right?"
"All right — if you think it will help."
"It may just prevent your death."
"Really? That would be nice of it. Maybe I'll even pop along to one now." The man re-buttoned his coat and smiled amiably at one of the walls.
"When exactly did this happen, by the way?" asked Hugh, for the sake of his presence.
"You know, I'm not exactly sure. It was just there when I woke up this morning."
"Have you told the police?"
"The who?"
"Nothing," interjected Ben hurriedly. "You're going to pay us, right?"
"Of course. That's what I'm supposed to do, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Ben and Hugh in unison.
"Good. Well, I'd best be getting along to one of those hospital places, then." The man stood up and brushed some more imaginary dust off his jacket. "Here's the address of my house — my sister will let you in. Cheerio."
And so he left.
"You bastard," said Ben. "He wasn't strangely hiccuping at all."
"Subtle, wasn't it?" grinned Hugh.

The Case Before Christmas: Chapter I

Ben Hansen

Hugh was in his usual chair, staring at the fan which blew ridiculously hot air into his face and wondering why he'd bothered to turn it on, when an extremely sweaty and hate-consumed Ben stormed in with several bags.
"You bastard," he said to Hugh as he dumped the bags unceremoniously next to the fridge.
"What? It was your turn to do the shopping."
"You bastard."
"I gave you some money and everything.
"You made me go into a supermarket in December. In December."
"Carols?"
"Exactly. You bastard."
"Seriously, what is it with you and Christmas carols? many people enjoy them."
"Many people never worked part time in a supermarket. You bastard."
"How much longer are you going to call me a bastard?"
"Nah, pretty much done." Ben scowled as he began to pull things from the bag. "So since it's Christmas, certain... steps have been taken. We're living off egg nog instead of milk."
"What? But I hate egg nog."
"So do I, but it's replaced the milk."
"That's stupid. And not even true."
"Yes. Also, we're going to have to take whatever sustenance we can from chocolate coins and candy canes."
"You're joking, right?"
Ben chose to answer by emptying a bag filled with nothing but candy canes and chocolate coins in front of Hugh.
"So we're not eating anything real for the better part of a month because you thought it'd be funny to buy lots of Christmassy stuff and see how I react."
"Um, yeah. Pretty much."
"And you spent all the food money on chocolate and egg nog."
"Well, not entirely." Ben picked up one bag which seemed to be bulging with slightly larger things than the others. He deposited the contents on top of the pile of confectionary before Hugh. "On Christmas Eve, we'll be enjoying this ham... and this, get out here you bastard, pudding."
"Oh joy," Hugh said with little to no sincerity in his voice.
"But I don't like pudding so you'll get that to yourself," Ben added, the fact that he'd just ruined their meals for the month beginning to sink in.
"Oh joy," Hugh said with, if anything, less sincerity than before.
"Maybe we could take this stuff back and get some real stuff?" Ben suggested.
"No, too late for that. It's ours now, and we'll have to live with that."
"...Sorry, Hugh. But it's your fault for sending me into the Carols." Ben shuddered to drive home his point, following up after a moment with "you bastard".
"Never mind, we have a case. Some strangely hiccuping man called while you were out."
"Strangely hiccuping?"
"Yes, it was quite the unique characteristic. Anyways, he wants us to look into a murder."
"A murder?"
"Yep."
"Our specialty."
"We have a specialty?"
"Screwing up. But you may have noticed that we screw up a lot more murder cases than any other sort."
"...Interesting point. Anyway. Apparently this guy employs a guy who was found strangled to death with, of all things, tinsel."
"That's a holiday-themed lie, isn't it?"
"Of course."
"You bastard. So what is the case?"
"Oh, hiccuping guy wants us to check out a stabbing, he'll be by in a bit to tell us about the case."
"Oh joy" Ben said with every bit as much sincerity as his colleague.