The Elf Service, Episode 13

In which Maddie Sharp brings Irving Jefferson down to earth

All over the city children post letters to Santa Claus and they go undelivered and unanswered. Until Irving Jefferson founds the Elf Service, that is. The Elf Service is the story of charity, journalism and mayhem, the extraordinary story of an extraordinary young man, his extraordinary plan to make Christmas happen for the children of his city and all the extraordinary ways in which that plan goes extraordinarily wrong.

Irving Jefferson was becoming a hard man to find.

The first place Maddie tried was the headquarters of the Elf Service, but he wasn’t there.

The cellar of The Metropolitan was packed with ladies in hats and newsies scurrying in between them, like mice through a flower bed, but the tall black bloom of Jefferson’s hair wasn’t among them. The long table down the centre of the room where the requests were processed was busy, though. 

Letter went from gloved hand to gloved hand down one side and up to a desk on the dias where Miss Saltadora passed out notes to a stream of grubby newsies who returned them, considerably more crumpled and stained to the other side of the table where down they processed down again and out once more, rewritten in copperplate, carefully addressed and stamped, off to the great and good of the city.

Miss Saltadora spoke over her shoulder at Maddie in a constant babble like the fluttering of the paper through her hands, apparently entirely undistracted from her appointed task by talking. They had had to take on more volunteers to deal with all the new volunteers, apparently, but Jefferson was off doing more publicity she thought, possibly at the luncheon for the Friends of Truncated Military Men at the Banquet Hall.

But Jefferson wasn’t at the Banquet Hall, either.

Neither was the luncheon, it was in a smaller meeting room off to one side, where a number of portly gentlemen had been wedged into the small gap left between a large dining table and the walls. At the head of the table a tall man in a narrow military jacket was giving a speech. The lunch had been hearty and the speech had been dreary and several of the fat men jerked awake with loud grunts as Maddie opened the door.

The room stared at her in silence. None of them was Jefferson. He had been there, said the military man who had been speaking, but he had had a pressing engagement at City Hall. She had heard the man’s voice all too clearly through the door but he now seemed slightly taken aback by having a lady present at their lunch and kept his eyes down, mumbling through his expansive grey moustache.

But Jefferson wasn’t at City Hall, either.

They thought he might have meant the Council offices in the New Town. But if he had, he hadn’t got there yet. He was due to be there later, they said, to talk about this Santa Building idea, but he hadn’t been yet. Had she tried The Metropolitan?

Which was where he was, it turned out, just not in the cellar.

He was up in Felix Savoir’s official offices on the first floor, where the watery winter sun streamed through high windows perfectly illuminating a scale model of The Santa Building, sitting in the middle of an occasional table in the centre of the room.

Jefferson was circling it warily, like a house cat that had found an injured bird and didn’t quite know what to do next.

“Ah, Miss Sharp,” he said, gleefully, as she was shown in, “How delightful. You missed the unveiling. Of my building.”

“Oh, I read all about it,” said Maddie, approaching the model, “You know how to make wishes come true, don’t you?”

“Completely what this building is for,” said Jefferson, standing behind it as if posing for a photograph, “The granting of wishes and the fulfillment of dreams.”

“Sounds profitable,” said Maddie, “How are you paying for all this?”

“Ah, well, it would be offices, mostly,” said Jefferson, “A plethora of investors are interested. Mr Savoir - of the hotel, you know - he’s been immensely helpful. It was he that helped me see what a building could be, you know, like his hotel.”

“Oh, I’ve heard his ideas about what his hotel means,” said Maddie, “A symbol of hope, apparently. I suspect it means more something in the line of profit and loss, myself.”

“Oh no, so much more,” said Jefferson, “A building is a symbol, you see, a concrete symbol. Its very presence tells us that it is important, don’t you think? A block of real estate, of stone, of people? Important. So what it represents is made important. Whether that’s art in a museum or religion in a church, whether that’s work or manufacture or… charity.”

“So this represents charity, does it?” said Maddie, squinting at it. There appeared to be a tiny carving of Father Christmas sitting on a heap of presents over the door.

“Of course!” Jefferson leant down next to her, “Everyday people pass by and they see Santa sitting up there and they think of Christmas, they think of kindness and giving and generosity. And it’s not just Santa, look!”

He reached over and carefully teased open the tiny front doors. He was evidently beside himself with delight at the minute care with which his model had been made.

“Inside, a mural, depicting winter gift giving from around the world,” he stood back to let her look. She peered through the miniscule opening. There appeared to be some tiny figures scampering up the side of a monumental staircase.

“The whole world in a building, a place of wonder for children and an inspiration for grown ups. We’ll have charities and toy manufacturers, publishers and decorators. Anything to do with Christmas. A season in a building! That’s what it represents.”

“Gullibility,” said Maddie, “That’s what it represents.”

“What?” Jefferson stood back.

“Gullibility,” said Maddie, “Credulity. Naïveté. Look it up, it is in the dictionary, despite what you might have been told.”

“Well, obviously, we are still at the planning stages, seeking out investment,” said Jefferson, alarmed, “But I assure you that the Santa Building is very much a serious proposition.”

“Oh, I don’t mean your investor’s gullibility, or the press, or Mr Felix Savoir,” said Maddie, “If there’s one thing that man isn’t, it's naïve. No, I mean yours.”

“Mine?”

“And not just over this building, which is probably part of some convoluted scheme of Savoir’s, no, I mean your precious Service.”

“The Elf Service?” said Jefferson, determined to give it its proper name.

“I speak of the gullibility of Elves, yes,” said Maddie, “And more specifically of the chief Elf himself. You, chum, have been taken for a ride. And not just any ride, either. An open topped, out in public ride, with the press following behind like panting hounds at the heels of the hart. I regret to inform you that there is a conman at the heart of the Service.”

Jefferson backed away from the model, as if trying to distance himself from it.

“You have, as ever, a colourful turn of phrase, Miss Sharp,” he said, “But I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever it is that has happened.”

“There is,” said Maddie, “The explanation is that you have been taken for a ride. The child Midge is no McNulty and McNulty is no father. He is a conman and she is an orphan. An orphan onto whom he has battened in order to con the Service for everything he can get.”

“McNulty?” was all Jefferson could manage.

“The thing to ask yourself whenever something appears to be too good to be true,” said Maddie, “Is in what way it might not be true and in what way it might not be good. The family reunion was very much not true: not a reunion and not a family and you have put a conman on every front page in the city and this is not good.”

Jefferson sighed and stared at the model of his building like it was crumbling away before his eyes.

“The reasonable explanation, Miss Sharp,” he said, shaking his head, “Is that there are bad people in this city, in this world. This is everything this building, this Service, would stand against and they would spoil even that. Wherever there is generosity and gift giving, there are those who would take advantage and take what they should not.”

“Not to add insult to injury,” said Maddie, “But that’s precisely what Councillor Krimble said.”

“Krimble!” Jefferson snapped to attention, “He knows about this?”

“The ghastly McNulty has confessed to him,” said Maddie, “Why he chose Krimble’s round shoulder to weep on, I couldn’t guess, but it was he who told me.”

“Krimble,” Jefferson shook his head again and turned from the model as if he couldn’t bear to look at it any more.

“What’s truly bad about this, Miss Sharp,” he said with his back to her, “Is that it drives out the good. Because one person takes for themselves, other people will not be given to.” He turned round, advancing back on his model, “If there is selfishness, is there to be no selflessness? If there is deceit is there to be no truth? If there is theft is there to be no giving?

“You know what I think, Miss Sharp? I don’t think the villain here is the poor McNulty. There, does that surprise you?”

Maddie said nothing but raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“You’ve seen him, Miss Sharp, a wretched individual, why, I am tempted to be as sorry for him as I am angry with him,” Jefferson was getting into his stride now, back up on his metaphorical stage, “He has led a life of crime with few options to do otherwise, what else does he know. Perhaps I was too trusting to believe his story, but that, Miss Sharp, is my job. The Service is meant to be trusting, well-meaning, generous, its what we’re for.

“No, shall I tell you who the real villain is here, Miss Sharp?”

“I suspect I already know,” said Maddie, “And I suspect you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Councillor Krimble is the villain here, Miss Sharp,” said Jefferson, ignoring her, “Why? Because he stands against all those things. He stands against trust, he stands against kindness and he stands against generosity. He does not trust the charities and questions their every decision, he does not think well of the public and suspects their every want, he does not like giving and wants proof of need.

“The Service stands for everything he stands against. We do not do what we do because the recipients should get, we do it because we should give.”

Jefferson straightened his back dramatically, standing behind the model of the Santa Building with a finger upraised in admonition and Maddie couldn’t resist applauding sarcastically, her slow clapping echoing round the large room.

“You should write that down,” she said, “You’ll need it for the press conference.”

“You’re right, of course,” Jefferson sagged a little, “You must write your story and I must defend myself. Still, that man Krimble infuriates me.”

“He’s a pill,” Maddie agreed, “But sadly he’s the pill that oversees charities in this town.”

“And everyone of them he resents,” said Jefferson, “I’m not the amateur he says I am, you know, I’m involved in a number of charitable endeavours, and every one of them Krimble has tried to shut down.”

Maddie, her interest piqued, said nothing.

“The Benevolent Fund for the Home for Weathered Seamen,” said Jefferson, “The Friends of Truncated Military Men, The Society for the Support of Distressed Gentlewomen, all of them have been persecuted by him, and many others. He’ll be rewarded for trying to stop us and we’ll be punished for trying to help. It’s not the McNultys of this city who are the enemies of charity, it's Krimble.”

“And you’re involved in these charities, are you?” said Maddie.

“Well,” said Jefferson, “Only in a small way, you know, we all help each other out where we can. It’s a community,” He produced the word with flourish, “A little family.”

“Well, families,” said Maddie, “As we know, aren’t always as they appear.”