Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

“Why, the name Giftwrap added to Santa’s list, of course.”

Jingle looked from Mrs. Claus to the feathers to Santa’s worktable to Gumdrop’s desk, blinking blankly. Mrs. Claus took mercy on him and explained.

“There were ink stains on the box Gumdrop was in, and on Giftwrap’s sleeves, as well. And if you’ll look at the table there...”

Jingle followed Mrs. Claus’s gaze. A black smudge marred one corner of Santa’s worktable.

“Southerners aren’t accustomed to quill pens and ink bottles anymore,” Mrs. Claus said, using the term Santa’s elves favored for describing anyone who didn’t live at the North Pole. “So Giftwrap made a bit of a mess. And I can only think of one thing he might have been trying to do with a pen at Santa’s worktable. Poor, unfortunate Gumdrop saw what he was up to when he came back for his jacket. And... well, Giftwrap couldn’t have that.”

“Oh,” Jingle said. “I see. Then Giftwrap had to make sure Gumdrop’s body wasn’t found until after Santa took off.”

“That’s right. Yet he wanted the body to be found eventually. That message on the card — it must have some special significance.”

Jingle shook his head, bewildered and disgusted. “Sending a spy into the workshop, killing an elf, all just to get some kid on the Nice list. It’s beyond naughty. It’s nuts.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps this isn’t about a child.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, maybe someone wants to make sure Santa goes down a certain chimney tonight.”

Jingle gaped at her, amazed that a woman who’d devoted her life to making children happy and hanging out with elves would have such a natural affinity for the workings of devious minds.

“You think it could be a trap?” he said.

Mrs. Claus shrugged. “You know how those toy company people feel about Santa. And the religious fundamentalists. And the Elf Liberation Front. And the Ayatollah. He still hasn’t forgiven us for all those lumps of coal he received as a child. And—”

The longer the list grew, the wider Jingle’s eyes became. “I never realized Mr. C had made so many enemies.”

Mrs. Claus’s lips pulled into a small smile, sad but proud. “The good ones always do, dear,” she said.

“Well, if it’s a trap, we’ve got to warn Santa right away!”

Mrs. Claus sighed. “I wish we could. But you know as well as I do how hard that would be.”

Santa always took the fastest reindeer, naturally, so catching him by following his delivery route would be next to impossible. On top of that, he didn’t really have a set delivery route. If children were still awake inside a house when he landed on the roof, he had to move on and come back later. As a result, the longer the evening wore on, the more he ended up criss-crossing the globe, perhaps alternating a drop-off in Kenya with a stop in Kentucky. That always increased the odds that he’d get lost somewhere in between. Santa would never, ever, under any circumstances, stop to ask for directions, and as a result he could end up hovering confused over Antarctica or looking for Evansville, Indiana, in the Amazon rainforest.

“Plus,” Jingle said after they’d both ruminated on all this for a quiet moment, “maybe he’s already been captured or...” Jingle gulped. “Or whatever. He’s been gone over an hour now.”

Mrs. Claus grew pale, and an expression came to her face Jingle had never seen there before, a frown. But it only lasted a second.

“Now don’t you worry, Jingle,” she said, the rosy glow returning to her round cheeks. “Santa’s going to be just fine. In fact, I think I know how we can help him. You run and find Ribbons and Bows. I want to meet them in their office.”

Jingle straightened up and saluted. “Yes, ma’am!” And off he went.

He found Ribbons and Bows downing glogg shots at a hastily organized wake for Gumdrop. They were gruff, gnarled old elves who ran Request Processing with two little iron fists.

“Frank! Hank!” Jingle called out to them. Only the Clauses could get away with calling them “Ribbons” and “Bows.” Anyone else who tried it got a punch in the nose. “Mrs. C needs you! Quick!”

They both threw back one more shot, then staggered off after Jingle. When they got to Request Processing, Mrs. Claus was already there sorting through the files on Frank’s desk — an offense that would have gotten any elf another sock in the schnoz. But while Frank and Hank were too devoted to the Clauses to openly show their displeasure, Frank couldn’t resist the urge to take the files out of Mrs. Claus’s hands and begin fussing with the papers on his desk, spreading them around until they were in exactly the same state of disarray he’d left them in earlier that evening.

“What does the Missus need now, hey?” he asked. “You just sit back and let us dig it out for you.”

“Thank you, Ribbons.”

Frank’s left eye twitched ever so slightly.

“We think a name was added to the Nice list at the last minute. But if someone wanted to lure Santa to a certain home—”

“They’d have to tell him what to bring, eh?” Hank finished for her.

“Exactly.”

“So you’d be lookin’ for requests that arrived today, hey?” Frank said.