by George Baxt
“I want a story.”
“I gave you the interview.”
“It was charming. I know there’s a better story. Ever since the murder at your cottage, I knew something hot was coming to a boil.”
“Why didn’t you sell that information to the newspapers?”
“Because I thought they’d already gotten it from their informants at Scotland Yard.” Hitchcock look quizzical. “Don’t be naive, Mr. Hitchcock. The newspapers have spies, well-paid informants, all over the place. Everyone’s for sale. Everyone has a price.”
“How cynical.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, right?”
“I’m not a fool, Miss Adair. I may be slightly bewildered at the moment, and at a disadvantage, but I realize you’ve been trailing me for several days, ever since you started badgering my secretary and my wife to set up the interview. You were outside the studio yesterday waiting for me to come out, and when I did, you followed me to the cottage. You almost ran us off the road.”
“In truth, that was quite foolish of me. I thought by forcing your car to stop, I could get my interview then.”
“That was rather a desperate and dangerous measure. You might have killed all of us.” Hans Meyer. My God, Hitchcock thought suddenly, Hans Meyer. He never came to the flat. Instead, those brutes appeared.
“I could see your chauffeur was quite expert at the wheel. I wasn’t worried.”
“How did you know where to find me tonight?”
She was lighting a cigarette. It was French, and the odor was unpleasant. Hitchcock rolled down his window and then couldn’t decide which was worse, the smoke or the fog.
“It began after the interview. When I left your house, there was a man at the opposite side of the street standing near the phone kiosk. I’d seen him there when I arrived for the interview. It was quite obvious you were under police surveillance.”
“Yes. I recently gathered that.”
“So my instincts told me there was a better story to be had. Tonight, I drove by your house to see if the surveillance was a twenty-four-hour vigil. I saw you come chasing out of your building and rush to the kiosk. But you didn’t use the phone—”
“The wires were cut.”
“Ah! Then you went tearing down the street and I lost you in the fog for a while. You’re terribly quick on your feet, Mr. Hitchcock,” she said, gracefully not adding, for a man his size.
“I’m always quick when prodded. Then you found me again.”
“That’s right. You were coming out of another kiosk and disappeared into the tube.”
Hitchcock wished she’d be done with the damned cigarette. He also wished he were carrying a portable lie detector. “You must be prescient to have located me several hours later in King’s Cross/”
She smiled. “Not at all. When I was looking at that manuscript on your kitchen table, I did manage to scan most of the first page before you took it away from me. It said Orwell’s church in King’s Cross. I knew that particular line traveled to King’s Cross, so I drove to King’s Cross. I knew I’d be there ahead of you, so I stopped for a sandwich. When I got to the church, I saw you being admitted to the basement. Then, when you came tearing out of there, I rolled down my window and shouted at you, but you didn’t hear me. You seemed to be in a panic.”
“I’d had a bread knife thrown at me.”
“In church?”
“Oh, yes, stands to reason. There’s so much blood and gore in the Bible, right?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never read it.”
“Oh, you should. Some of it’s quite racy.”
“Well, anyway. I kept after you. I saw you accosted by that woman.”
“She was a whore. I disapprove of whores.”
“And then I thought you’d go back into the tube, which I must say made my heart sink. I hadn’t the vaguest idea where I could pick up your trail again.” She stubbed out her cigarette in the dashboard ashtray. “But my luck held. You went past the tube, and I followed you to the fish-and-chips shop.”
“Why didn’t you join me there?”
“Frankly, I wasn’t quite sure how to explain my presence.”
“But you are now.”
“Rescuing you from the buskers made it easy.”
Hitchcock looked perplexed and then said, “Well, I suppose your being there was quite fortuitous, and I thank you. But here is where we part company.”
She grabbed his wrist as he started to open the door at his side. She had a very strong grip. “Mr. Hitchcock, you need me.”
Hitchcock bristled with indignation. “I need you to let go of my wrist, young woman.”
“Mr. Hitchcock. I know why you’re running. I, too, know someone at Scotland Yard. I know your wife has been abducted. I know a policeman was murdered in your flat, and I know you are the Yard’s number-one suspect.”
“With your sublime talents, Miss Adair, you should soon be ruling the world.”
She smiled. “Just a small portion. I’m not greedy.” She removed her hand from his wrist. “I phoned my friend while I was having my sandwich. He pleaded with me if I knew where you were to tell him so he could capture you and win a citation. But I protected you.”
“What a good story. All that’s missing is some heavy breathing. “
“You need me, Mr. Hitchcock. You’re a celebrity on the run. A very fat celebrity. Alone, you are easily identified. With me, you are a heavy-set man traveling with a younger blonde companion. Think it over, Mr. Hitchcock. By tomorrow morning, there’ll be a hue and cry. You are now involved in two murders and your wife’s abduction. This fog won’t cover the city forever. Once it lifts, it narrows your chances of escaping detection. You’ll soon be recognized. You need me.”
Hitchcock did some heavy thinking. She was lighting another cigarette, and he resisted the urge to tear it from her mouth and fling it out the window. Miss Adair, he now realized, was most certainly a formidable woman. As an opponent, she was a serious threat. As an ally, she might indeed be quite useful. “In my films,” said Hitchcock, “the young woman accompanying the man on the run is usually an unwilling accomplice, marking time until a chance to escape and grass to the police. You’re not unwilling, but I’m sure if I say no, you’d tell the police about me, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no.” There was something continental now to the lilt in her voice, and for the first time since meeting her, Hitchcock studied her face. Even in the darkness of the car, because she had prudently not turned on the inside light when they parked, he could see a hardness in her face. She wore too much makeup, especially the mascara on her eyelashes and the heavy application of rouge and lipstick. She was probably at least five years younger then he we was and about ten years shrewder. “Well, Mr. Hitchcock?”
“Miss Adair, I realize I am in what is best described as a tight spot. And for a man my size, as you have eloquently emphasized, it’s an uncomfortable squeeze. Yes, I can use an ally, and I shall confer that dubious honor on you.” His voice deepened. “But I warn you, should you at any time betray me, I will involve you as my accomplice. I will show you no mercy. “
“Mr. Hitchcock, the fact that I’m here, and not turning you in to the police, already brands me a criminal.” She gunned the motor. “Where to, Mr. Hitchcock?”
“A village called Medwin. It’s somewhere beyond Brighton, but farther inland. I assume you have a map of England?”
“There’s one in the dashboard compartment.” She pulled away from the curb. “It’s late. We should think of somewhere to spend the night.”
Hitchcock blushed, but in the darkness, she couldn’t see this. “I’m not in the least bit tired.”
“You will be.” She laughed. “Don’t worry. I know you won’t make any improper advances.”
“But what about you?”
“Mr. Hitchcock, I assure you, you’re not my type. Now then”—she was peering ahead through the windshield— “somewhere along here there’s a ring road that get
s us on the road to Brighton. Ah, there it is.” They drove in silence for a while. “A penny for them, Mr. Hitchcock.”
“Oh, to you they’d be worth a great deal more.”
“You are thinking about your wife?”
“I always think about Alma. Now more than ever, but somehow, I think the police will find her and find her unharmed. I think she’s been taken in case a trade is necessary. “
“A trade? What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Hitchcock for Mr. Hitchcock. Don’t be so obtuse, Miss Adair. I know you’re a very clever schemer. You know from the opening paragraphs of the scenario that I’m on a trail that’s to lead me to a master spy, a spy ring, blood and thunder and all that.”
“Then this will be even more exciting than I expected.”
“And it will also be terribly dangerous, I should think. My life in jeopardy, and all that.”
“And now mine too!” chimed in Nancy Adair lustily, adding a hearty “Ha-ha!”
“What an odd target for levity.” said Hitchcock, “the prospect of a violent death. I should like to examine that further when I get the opportunity. You know this isn’t a lard devised by some of my writers, though God knows those ninnies would be hard put to come up with an adventure like this one. We’re in John Buchan territory now, and that’s a very tricky terrain. There have been two men murdered, and there’s definitely a link to the two murders in Munich back in ’25.”
“Ah? There were earlier murders?” Hitchcock told her. “Well, that’s another kettle of fish, isn’t it?”
“Not too late to back out, Miss Adair.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, but I think you are.”
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel and they drove in silence for a while. Then she said cheerfully, “I offered you a penny.”
“Well, since we’re attached to each other now and it will be necessary from time to time to share my thoughts with you, I’ve been thinking about the man who was with me yesterday on the drive from the studio to my cottage.”
“Oh, him. Who was he? From the brief glimpses I got of him, he seemed very attractive.”
“He’s an actor named Hans Meyer. A refugee from the Nazis. It was he I was expecting earlier this evening, and instead those thugs appeared, knocking me out and taking Alma. I was wondering what had become of him.”
“Perhaps he arrived when you were knocked out, panicked, and fled.”
“No, he rang our bell just a few minutes before we were attacked. We spoke on the intercom. I buzzed him in.”
“Then that is how the attackers got into your building. As he entered, they overpowered him, knocked him out, and then went about their business. They obviously knew what they were doing.”
“The Scotland Yard man on watch had to have seen them.”
“Weeelll,” she said, drawing out the word as an intimation of Hitchcock’s apparent naivete, “if I spotted him so easily this afternoon, then they certainly must have known he was there and knocked him out. An easy matter creeping up on him in this fog and coshing him.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “I said you were very clever. Well, then, after that he must have regained consciousness and come up to the flat to see what had happened…”
“And in a panic, you thinking he was one of the attackers returning to finish you off, you stabbed him in the back with the bread knife.”
“Oh, not at all.” Hitchcock was obviously annoyed. “Just because I complimented your prescience and your cleverness is no reason to jump to conclusions. I was knocked out by those men, and it still hurts, damn the eyes of whoever hit me. Yes, I had the knife, I’d run into the kitchen for it and I was still clutching it when I was hit, but I assure you, young woman, as I have assured my solicitor and Detective Superintendent Jennings of Scotland Yard, when I awakened with the blade of the knife all bloodied, it was quite obvious someone else had stabbed the detective and then placed the knife back in my hand. It’s a very old ploy; Edgar Wallace used to do it to death in his overheated thrillers.”
“You’ve spoken to your solicitor and to Jennings at Scotland Yard?”
“You saw me using the kiosk the first time. Did you think I was dialing for the correct time?”
“Your solicitor is quite understandable, but Scotland Yard? They could have traced the call and caught you.”
“But they didn’t, did they?” Hitchcock felt delightfully smug. “I know how the coppers operate; I direct thrillers. I knew they’d try to trace me. I just spoke at greater acceleration than usual, and bob’s your uncle, here I am, and where are we?”
“Hopefully on the road to Brighton. Keep your eyes peeled for a bed and breakfast. There are dozens along the route to Brighton.”
“They’ll be terribly suspicious our checking in at this hour of the night and without luggage.”
“No, they won’t. They’ll think we’re wise getting out of this fog and away from the lorries on the road. And anyway, I’m getting drowsy. There! Up ahead on the right! What does that sign say?”
Hitchcock strained to read it and finally managed. “It’s a funeral home. Perhaps we should stop and put them in touch with Scotland Yard.”
“That’s funny.” She didn’t laugh. “You’re not so tense anymore. You’re beginning to trust me.”
“You’re right. I’m not so tense anymore.” He settled into silence and dwelt on Hans Meyer. After a while, he began to link the actor to a line from Hamlet, about there being something rotten in Denmark.
After his frustrating chat with Hitchcock, Jennings cursed himself, Scotland Yard, and the damn fool of an engineer who finally located the kiosk from which Hitchcock had called but had long since abandoned. Jennings immediately set about orchestrating an invasion of the basement at the church in King’s Cross. He assigned Dowerty and three other men to masquerade as bums seeking food and shelter. He gave them Hitchcock’s description of Lemuel Peach, complete with polka-dot bow tie, and shortly before midnight, the four men arrived at the solid wooden door to the basement of the church. Dowerty tugged at the bellpull and waited impatiently.‘
“Try the doorknob,” one of his men whispered from behind him. Dowerty tried the doorknob and they went in.
‘There’s nobody here,” whispered one of the men.
“Then why are you whispering?” snapped Dowerty. “Have a look through there.” He directed one man to a door beyond the table on which rested the tea urns and the loaves of bread. Dowerty felt an urn, and it was cold. “Strange,” he said, “nobody here at this hour. No poor unfortunates turning up to doss down?” He looked at the cots. “Hello? Who’s that then on the cot under the window?”
The detective who had gone through the door beyond the table reported there were stairs leading upstairs to the church. But Dowerty was transfixed by the man lying face down on the cot with a bread knife protruding from his back. He lifted the head gently. “Mr. Lemuel Peach, I presume,” he said, after recognizing the polka-dot bow tie. “Mr. Jennings isn’t going to like this one bit.”
The house offering bed and breakfast which Hitchcock and Nancy Adair selected was on the road just outside Brighton. Hitchcock fretted like a peevish rooster about rousing the innkeeper at his hour, but Nancy overrode his fears. “Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked as they pulled into the driveway and parked.
“Of course I do. What do you need it for?”
“Keep it over your face and pretend difficulty breathing. I’ll do the talking.” He followed her up the wooden stairs of the porch, and she twisted the bell on the door. The porch boards creaked under their weight, and Hitchcock had the feeling the building was so fragile, one wrong move and it would come tumbling down around their heads. “Come on, come on,” urged Nancy impatiently as she twisted the bell on the door again.
“Coming! Coming!” They heard the voice coming faintly from inside the house, a voice, Hitchcock imagined, as fragile as the structure they were trying to enter. The door opened and a woman’s head
came poking out, wearing a nightcap. “Oh,” said the fragile voice breathlessly, “people!” Nancy Adair smothered the woman with charm. “I’m so sorry to disturb you at this hour, but we’ve gotten lost in the fog and it seemed too dangerous to continue, and my husband suffers so from asthma and this fog is wreaking hell with him.” Hitchcock expected the little lady to burst into tears, but all she did was dart her eyes back and forth from the blonde to Hitchcock and back again. “I do hope you have a room for us.”
“Oh, I do indeed, ecksherly.” Hitchcock decided she meant “actually,” and with that pronunciation sized her up as belonging to that race of British gentlewomen who, having fallen upon hard times, swallow their pride and go into business as hoteliers on a small scale. “Come in! Come in! It’s truly awful out.” Hitchcock prayed it wouldn’t be truly awful in. “I have a very nice room on this floor behind the staircase. It’s a guinea including breakfast, which is served promptly at eight A.M. Um… if you would just register here.” She indicated a ledger on the front desk. Nancy found a pen alongside the ledger and signed in. Hitchcock, handkerchief over his face, making ugly noises as he gasped for breath, looked over Nancy’s shoulder. She had signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. Jennings. Cheeky little devil, he thought, and not without humor. “I’m Miss Farquhar.” She turned a sympathetic face to Hitchcock. “You poor soul. How you’re suffering. I could prepare a steam inhalator for you. It would be no trouble at all. I’ve got one in the kitchen. My father suffered from asthma, so I know the agony you’re going through. It killed him, asthma did, and it was a terrible death. He was a long time dying.” She was a long time leading them to their room.
She unlocked the door, pushed it open, and clicked the switch. The room, Hitchcock could see with an inner sigh of relief, contained two single beds. “How nice,” said Nancy Adair. “Isn’t it nice, darling? And there are two beds, too.” She said to Miss Farquhar, “When he has one of these attacks, it’s best he sleep alone. Isn’t it, darling?” Hitchcock sat on a chair and wheezed painfully.
“Oh, dear, I could do that inhalator for you in no time.” Miss Farquhar seemed overdetermined to be a ministering angel.
