All That Glitters

Audrey was three days into her new job and still elated about gaining her position at Fayburns, the world-famous West End department store.Glamour and glitz were returning to the big stores, which were starting to lavish attention on their window displays as they had before the war.As a recent arts school graduate, Audrey was well qualified to fill the new role of window dresser and display co-ordinator.Having said that, beginning her job in the run-up to Christmas felt like jumping in at the deep end.She’d been charged with creating a series of extravagant tableaux, in the three windows facing the street, on the theme of the wonderful old poem, “The Night Before Christmas”.The scenes were intended to dazzle passers-by and encourage them to enter the store.Fortunately, she could call upon the services of Fayburns’s handyman, Sid, whenever she needed them.Sid wasn’t much older than Audrey and could turn his hand to a range of work.They’d spent lots of time together over the three days and were getting on famously.He’d helped her put together the scene in the children’s bedroom, where visions of sugarplums danced over their heads as they lay in bed, as in the poem.It had taken ages to suspend hundreds of sweets from a cotton-wool cloud representing the children’s dream.Products from the toy department were stacked on the floor. There were so many, it was a wonder Santa had any toys left to deliver!In the next window, the parents lay asleep in their own bed, next to a sign saying it could be found on special offer in the thirdfloor furnishing department.Other luxury goods on display included silk pyjamas, dressing gowns, top-quality bedding and beauty products.Behind the fake windows that Sid had built at the back, Audrey had painted a moonlit scene of snowy hills and villages.She was finishing off the central and most elaborate tableaux depicting the cosy living-room awaiting the arrival of Father Christmas.Sid had installed a large fireplace in its centre, which had a high mantle shelf with stockings, and a fake fire twinkling in its grate.On one side was a leather armchair, and on the other was an impressive sevenfeet-tall tree bedecked with shiny baubles, tinsel and fairy lights.Garlands of greenery festooned the walls and products for sale were on conspicuous display.It was four o’clock and dark outside: the perfect time to admire the finished scenes, which would remain illuminated until the wee small hours.“I’m stepping out to look from the pavement,” Audrey told Sid, who was packing up his tools for the day.“Good idea,” he replied.“Make sure you’re satisfied.When I padlock the door, it’s too late to change a thing. It stays locked till the January sales – orders from on high.”He wasn’t joking.The window displays were boxed off from the rest of the ground floor, with the single access door hidden behind Sid’s fireplace.Enjoy a superb festive short story (Illustration: Mandy Dixon)The padlock on this door was part of the store’s security system, in addition to burglar alarms on all the outer doors and windows.If a robber did decide to smash their way in, at least they’d be slowed down from accessing the rest of the store.Late afternoon shoppers were out in force and Audrey noticed several stop to admire the new displays.Mothers held up children, their faces shining with excitement as they pointed at the Christmas tree.Perfectly satisfied that she’d finished, she knocked on the window and gave Sid a thumbs-up.At that moment, the central part of the fireplace slid aside and in came Mrs Pendragon, the ground floor supervisor.Sid’s face fell as the woman had a look round before launching into some or other complaint.She was clearly very displeased about something. Poor Sid!Although Audrey was terrified of Mrs Pendragon, she couldn’t let him face the music alone, so she raced back inside to find out what was wrong.It was some relief to discover that the fault did not lie with the displays, but she was sorry to hear Sid being told off so harshly.“I’ve warned you before.”Mrs Pendragon wagged her finger. “You’re encouraging the brute to hang about the area.”“It’s the middle of winter,”Sid argued. “All I do is take him a flask of coffee and sandwich at lunchtime. He’s an old soldier, you know.”“That’s as maybe, but we don’t want him putting off customers,” Mrs Pendragon shot back. “I’ve rung Sergeant Jonas at Beadle Street police station. He’s sending a constable to move him on.“If he returns, he’ll be charged with vagrancy. You’re to leave him alone, Sidney, and that’s an order. Otherwise you’ll be looking for a new position yourself.”Casting a stern look at Audrey for good measure, Mrs Pendragon exited through the fireplace.“Someone must have seen me at lunchtime,” Sid said miserably. “She’s talking about Harvey, the homeless bloke in the alley opposite.”“I’ve noticed him,” Audrey replied. “He seems to keep himself to himself.”“He’s harmless. Just down on his luck, poor old chap.When I leave work I stop off for a chat and pick up the empty flask, but he’ll be gone once the copper’s had a word.”When Audrey left at the end of the day and crossed the road to the bus stop, she noticed the familiar hunched figure in the shadows of the alley.Harvey hadn’t been moved on yet, the way Mrs Pendragon had hoped.Although she felt too nervous to approach alone, Audrey took thruppence from her purse and, glancing round to make sure she wasn’t being observed, threw it so it landed with a dull, chinking sound on the pavement.“Thank you, miss,” a hoarse voice muttered.She pulled her coat tighter around herself to keep out the driving wind, then turned and hurried on.The next morning when Audrey turned up for work,the atmosphere was like the aftermath of a catastrophe.Mrs Pendragon looked dreadfully pale and anxious and was speaking to someone Audrey assumed was Sergeant Jonas.The rest of the staff were dotted around in small groups, talking quietly.Audrey went up to Sid.“What’s going on?” she asked.“Someone’s pinched the emerald necklace. You know, the one in pride of place in the cabinet over in the jewellery department.”Audrey gasped. Of course she knew which necklace he meant.Regarded as the most valuable item in any West End store, customers would come into Fayburns simply to gaze at its ostentatious grandeur, modelled on a head-and-shoulders mannequin in its own display case.Everyone assumed it would be bought by royalty or a famous film star.“No-one can work out when or how it was taken,”Sid went on. “There’s no sign of a break-in and the alarms didn’t go off last night.”“It’s locked in the safe at the end of the day, isn’t it?”Audrey asked.“It’s supposed to be. But the police are still in there questioning my mate, Tony.”He nodded at the closed door of the manager’s office.“It was his job to lock everything in the safe. He swears he did just that.”“They don’t think he stole it, do they?” she asked.With that, the door opened and a horrible silence fell.There were nudges and stares as the young man they’d just been speaking about appeared, flanked by a pair of police constables.Tony wasn’t in handcuffs, but was clearly being escorted off the premises.His mouth hung open as though he were in shock.On his way past, he looked at Sid and shook his head.“I don’t believe it,” Sid whispered to Audrey.“Tony’s no thief.”“If they don’t find any evidence, they’ll have to let him go.” Audrey was trying to find something consoling to say but, right at that moment, it didn’t look good for Sid’s friend.The weather had turned even colder, although it was no match for the chilly atmosphere within the store that day.Everyone agreed it was best to keep out of Mrs Pendragon’s way.She seemed exhausted by the terrible event, which had only made her temper worse.There was going to be an announcement in the later edition of that day’s London newspaper, offering a £200 reward for information leading to the necklace’s recovery.Audrey’s next job was to start work on the Christmas grotto on the lower ground floor, where she and Sid kept a low profile.At lunchtime, they sat inside the partly constructed grotto to eat their sandwiches.“I didn’t dare collect my flask from Harvey yesterday,” Sid admitted miserably. “And this is the time I usually take him something to eat. But he must have gone by now.

“Between him and poor Tony, this is turning into a rotten day.”“He was still in the alley when I passed by after work,” Audrey told him.“With everything else going on, I doubt anyone’s given him a second thought since.”“I suppose that’s true,” Sid mused. “I wish I could take him something. I know there’s a limit to how much you can help someone like that, but I hate to think of him going hungry.”Audrey felt the same way and was quick to embrace her next idea.“Let’s leave work together later,” she said quietly. “It’ll be dark so no-one will see what we’re up to. If we each save Harvey a sandwich, I’ll give them to him and collect your flask at the same time.“You can keep a look-out in the street and cough if anyone from the store approaches.”“Are you sure Audrey?” Sid asked. “I don’t want you getting in trouble. You heard the old dragon threaten me with the sack yesterday.”Audrey chuckled. It was such an obvious nickname for the fearsome supervisor.“I won’t get in trouble as long as we’re careful,” she said with a grin.After work, they stepped out into what was commonly known as “a proper peasouper”: that thick mixture of smoke and fog that London was famous for.Even though there seemed little chance of being spotted, Audrey insisted that Sid wait on thepavement while she ventured into the alley.“Evening Harvey.” She tried to remain unruffled when the pile of blankets and newspapers stirred.“You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Sid’s. He’s sorry he can’t come himself.“He’s asking if he can have his flask back. Also, I’ve brought you some food.”She was close enough to see Harvey blink up at her and flash a partly toothed smile.He held out the flask, which she took, exchanging it for the sandwiches in a paper bag.“Thank you,” he replied.“I’ve seen you before. Over in yon shop window, putting up decorations with young Sid.”“That’s right,” she said.“Though I must say, it’s a bit early in the month to see Santa coming out of that fireplace,” he said through a mouthful of sandwich.“Sorry?”“Father Christmas.”Harvey opened his eyes wide. “I was awake when all the lights went off at one a.m. this morning.“Straight after, the fellow appeared. I could see him, even with it being so dark. He crept over to the tree, fussed about a bit, then left the way he came.”“Are you certain that’s what you saw?” Audrey’s pulse quickened.“One hundred percent. I hadn’t been drinking.”She fetched Sid and got Harvey to repeat his story.Leaving the old man to finish his supper, they walked across the street to Fayburns’s window display and studied the tree.Amidst the fairy lights there was a green glow, high up in its branches.Sid turned to her.“The police station’s not far.”“You read my mind.”Audrey nodded. “We should pay our own visit to Sergeant Jonas.”They didn’t have long to come up with a plan. Sergeant Jonas rang the store manager, who had a cast-iron alibi for the previous evening and could be trusted.Later, when it grew dark, they turned off the lights in the display window, went in and found the emerald necklace hidden amongst the baubles and tinsel in the upper branches of the tree.Now they were certain the theft had been an inside job.Someone had remained in the store overnight and had stolen the necklace, but hadn’t been able to make off with it because of the door and window alarms.Instead, and knowing full well that the place would be searched the next morning, they’d hidden the necklace in plain sight, amidst the glowing baubles of the tree, secured by the padlock on the door behind the fireplace.This exonerated Tony, who didn’t have a key to the padlock.The next day, it was announced that, as a result of the police investigation, a fault had developed in the burglar alarm system, which would take until the next day to fix.Instead, there would be half-hourly police patrols past the front of Fayburns from when it closed that evening to when it opened again the next morning.One thing was certain.Whoever had stolen the necklace was still waiting to retrieve it from the window and remove it safely from the store.As long as they timed it right between police patrols, this would surely seem like their best opportunity of doing so.Audrey was trying not to look at a certain person as the announcement was made.Only a few people had access to the padlock key and her suspect was amongst them.Sergeant Jonas said he would come and talk to the staff at the end of the day, allowing Audrey to slip away unnoticed to prepare for the night to come.In “The Night Before Christmas”, there was a reference to the mother lying in bed with an old fashioned kerchief on her head.Now Audrey lay in place of the original dummy, beneath the bedclothes in her own window display.It was unsettling having a dummy husband lying next to her, but the hardest job would be to keep still all evening while the lights were on, and not fall asleep when they went out.At one a.m., they did just that, and suddenly the boxed-in room felt colder than ever.Audrey wished she could fetch the blankets stacked on a nearby ottoman and throw them over herself, but it was out of the question.No-one knew where the thief was hiding in the store, waiting for their chance to emerge, so Sid and the police also had to remain hidden.That’s why it was important for someone to be on hand to witness what the thief did when they got into the display room, so Audrey had volunteered for this role.As the minutes went by, every sound, every tiny tap and creak, made her want to jump out of her skin.Instead, she gritted her teeth and lay perfectly still, numb with cold, waiting to see if her suspicion was correct.Some 30 minutes after the lights had gone out, the plywood front of the fireplace slid to one side along the piece of track Sid had installed on the floor.Audrey held her breath, worried that whomever was about to come in would hear her heart hammering.Peeping through half closed eyes, she saw a head and shoulders emerge, followed by the rest of Father Christmas dressed in a long, hooded cloak and white beard.Without any hesitation, he made for the tree, stood on tiptoes and prodded about in its upper branches.Unable to find what he was looking for, he began to panic.He threw the blankets off the ottoman, dragged it over to the tree and climbed on to get a better look.With that, Audrey slid her hand out of bed, grasped the small bell that had been on the floor and rang it.The lights came on and, with a scream, Father Christmas fell into the tree, sending it crashing to the ground.Before he could free himself from the tangle of branches and fairy lights, Sergeant Jonas, a police constable and Sid had entered the room.Sergeant Jonas removed the hood and glasses to reveal none other than Mrs Pendragon.“The necklace is in our safe down at the station,” the sergeant explained. “I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey all the way from the North Pole this evening.”“She’d have been perfectly happy letting Tony take the blame.” Sid tutted and shook his head.“She’s admitted the necklace was going to fund her early retirement,”Sergeant Jonas said. “But as it’s a first offence, the judge may show some leniency.“But what about the two hundred pounds reward put up by the store?”“That’ll go to Harvey,” Sid said delightedly. “After all, he gave us the information that led to the necklace’s return.”“Harvey’s the reason I suspected her,” Audrey explained. “She was desperate for him to be moved on because she didn’t want him to see her hiding the necklace in the tree.“She assumed he’d gone, but she should have checked.”“Well, two hundred pounds will change the old fellow’s life,” Sid said. “What a Christmas present!”