Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 03/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Uncle Hector’s eyes opened and he watched me intently for perhaps three minutes. Then he slipped quietly out of bed and tiptoed over to a bureau. He opened a drawer and removed a Finnish-style hunting knife.

  I tensed a bit, but he crept past me to the door and disappeared into the hall.

  I rose and followed him.

  As he threaded through the halls, he looked back frequently, but I kept myself confined to the darkness of the high ceiling.

  He paused before a door, slowly turned the knob, and crept inside. I silently swooped into the room myself.

  The room was very much like the one he had left. It too was graced by a canopy bed and upon it lay Uncle Custis, gently snoring.

  Hector approached the bed and raised the dagger high into the air.

  I quickly sprang forward, grasped his wrist, and removed the knife from his grip. He was startled at my appearance and action, but he made no exclamation. He merely closed his eyes for a moment.

  On the bed, Uncle Custis continued his snoring without interruption.

  I moved to one of the windows and pushed aside the drape for a moment. It was still raining heavily and the lightning periodically fractured the dark sky. Exhilarating.

  I let the drapes fall back into position, motioned to Hector, and we went back into the hall.

  On our way back to his room, Uncle Hector glanced at the ceiling now and then. “You know, I could have sworn I caught just a glimpse of something flying up there a little while ago.”

  Once inside his room, I said, “Aha, the old bedroom-switch ploy.”

  He portrayed innocence. “What old bedroom-switch ploy?”

  “When I first came into this room and searched it, I should have seen something, but it was not there. If it had been there, I would certainly have noticed it immediately. It took me a bit of time to realize it was not there, but once I did, I suspected that there was mischief afoot and that you were probably at the root of it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Olivia came to me because someone took a shot at you through your bedroom window.” I pointed in the direction of the windows. “Neither one of those has a bullet hole in it.”

  He thought fiercely and then smiled. “I forgot to mention that the window was open at the time.”

  “Good try,” I acknowledged. “But then how do you explain the fact that one of the windows in the room Custis now occupies does have a bullet hole in it?”

  He resumed thinking, but I cut the effort short. “You faked that attempt on your life and this evening you probably told Custis that his regular guest room was being painted, or something of the sort, and he should take your bedroom instead.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you intended to murder Custis and make it appear as though the crime had occurred by accident. Someone in the house, thinking that you still occupied your bed, sneaked into the room, and in the darkness mistook Uncle Custis for you, and stabbed him to death.”

  Hector evaded my eyes and said nothing.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why were you trying to murder Custis?”

  He finally sighed. “Money, of course.”

  “But you’ve got millions.”

  “I had millions. Good solid investments in Angola, Lebanon, Bangladesh . . .” he shrugged. “Today I am almost dead broke.”

  Now his eyes met mine. “You have seen and talked to the people who inhabit this house?”

  I nodded.

  “Then you know that they have all been severely wounded by the world we live in. If they had to return to it, they would break completely. And I really couldn’t allow that to happen. So I decided that the only way I could get enough money to keep this household going was to kill Custis. Basically he’s a mean bastard anyway and wouldn’t be missed by anyone. And we really are cousins, you know. Custis has no visible heirs other than me, so if he should die, I would certainly get first crack at his estate. You don’t suppose you could let me have the knife again so I could finish . . .”

  “No,” I said firmly.

  And yet I could sympathize with Uncle Hector. He had a duty and a responsibility to the members of the household.

  Hector needed and deserved help. I sighed. All right. I would do the job for him. Not tonight or in this house, of course. But some evening a week or two from now when Custis walked a city street I would leap upon him, snap his neck, and remove his wallet. The crime would be put down in the police records as a fatal mugging.

  I put my hand on Hector’s shoulder. “I absolutely insist that you put the idea of murdering Custis completely out of your mind. I have the strongest premonition that your fortune will change dramatically within a week or two.”

  Hector seemed ready to wait. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little relieved that I didn’t go through with it tonight.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was that time again.

  I went to the window and pulled aside the drapes. Still raining. A bad night for fliers. I turned to Hector. “You don’t suppose that Janos could drive me back to the city?”

  “Of course. His room is on the third floor, right next to the bust of Edgar Allan Poe.”

  I went up to the floor and woke Janos with my request.

  He yawned and consulted his alarm clock. “I’m sorry, your highness, but in wet weather like this, water condenses in the distributor of our Volkswagen. By the time I got everything apart and wiped dry and put together and the engine perhaps started, we would never be able to make it to the city in time. And the minibus is the only vehicle we have.”

  Damn, I thought, that leaves me no alternative but getting wet. If I leave right now I might have time for a hot footbath when I get to my apartment.

  “Why don’t you stay here?” Janos said. “There’s a nice roomy place in the cellar. I could fix up an army cot. I am certain that nobody would disturb you down there.”

  We carried what we needed downstairs to a large chamber in the cellar. Janos unfolded the cot and put a mattress on top of it. “Your tobacco pouch, sir?”

  I handed it to him. “It isn’t necessary to sprinkle the stuff all over the mattress anymore, Janos. I discovered that simply putting the full pouch under the pillow will suffice. I suppose it is the spirit of the thing rather than the letter that counts.”

  Janos finished putting on the sheets, the pillowcases, and the blankets. “Have a nice sleep, sir.”

  When he was gone, I slipped into the pajamas and lay down. Really a most spacious chamber. Beautiful vaulting at the doorway. The aroma of damp, stagnant air. I could almost imagine what the place would look like if I brought in a few choice items of furnishings from my apartment.

  I sighed. But it was not to be. This was a strange household, but it was really expecting too much of its occupants to accept me.

  I thought I heard a noise in the passageway outside.

  I put on my slippers and hid in the shadows near the archway.

  Olivia passed by outside. She wore a dressing gown, slippers, and from the turbanlike creation on her head, I guessed that she had her hair in curlers.

  She opened a door at the end of a passageway.

  I saw a room elegant with draped antique spiderwebs and in the center of it, on a marble pedestal, stood a magnificent, comfortable-looking sarcoph—

  Olivia entered the room and closed the door behind her. After a few moments, I distinctly heard the creak of a lid rising. And then lowering.

  I smiled and went back to my cot.

  I don’t care what tradition demands, I always sleep on my left side.

  Previous Article DEPARTMENT

  DEPARTMENT

  The Lineup

  JOHN C. BOLAND’s short stories have been collected in 30 Years in the Pulps (Perfect Crime Books, 2009). BLAKE CROUCH is the author of Snowbound (St. Martin’s Press). His short fiction has also appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies. Booked & Printed columnist...

  BOOKE
D & PRINTED

  ROBERT C. HAHN

  Despite the fall of the Iron Curtain, espionage novelists still find fertile material in the tensions between Russia and the West, with Middle Eastern conflicts providing new vistas. Old pros like John le Carré, who’s been setting the standard for fifty years, and Brian Freemantle, now in his...

  MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  © 2010, by Mark F. Russell When the Other Shoe Drops We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the...

  THE STORY THAT WON

  © 2010, by Mark F. Russell The September Mysterious Photograph contest was won by Cindy G. Brewer of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Honorable mentions go to Patrick Ziegler of Phoenix, Arizona; Kent Ostby of...

  Top of DEPARTMENT

  MYSTERY CLASSIC INFORMATION

  Next Article

  DEPARTMENT

  The Lineup

  JOHN C. BOLAND’s short stories have been collected in 30 Years in the Pulps (Perfect Crime Books, 2009).

  BLAKE CROUCH is the author of Snowbound (St. Martin’s Press). His short fiction has also appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies.

  Booked & Printed columnist ROBERT C. HAHN reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and the New York Post, among other places.

  This issue marks R. T. LAWTON’s Holiday Burglars’ fourth appearance in AHMM—and the author’s twenty-second story for the magazine.

  STEVE LINDLEY has completed a second Kubiak novel, after 2006’s Kubiak’s Daughter, and is seeking a publisher.

  JACK RITCHIE had published more than a hundred stories in AHMM beginining with magazine’s very first issues, until his death in 1983; a number of his AHMM stories have been adapted for television and film.

  Wisconsinite STEVE RITCHIE writes short stories infrequently, but has recently discovered a knack for writing radio scripts.

  “Catchphrase” is NEIL SCHOFIELD’s thirteenth story for AHMM. He lives in France.

  ANN WOODWARD is the author of The Exile Way, a mystery novel set in ancient Japan and featuring Lady Aoi.

  Next Article

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  DEPARTMENT

  BOOKED & PRINTED

  ROBERT C. HAHN

  Despite the fall of the Iron Curtain, espionage novelists still find fertile material in the tensions between Russia and the West, with Middle Eastern conflicts providing new vistas. Old pros like John le Carré, who’s been setting the standard for fifty years, and Brian Freemantle, now in his fourteenth outing, are still producing quality, exciting reads. But there is more than enough material for newcomers to the genre, and in this vein, relative newcomer Jon Stock makes an impressive American debut.

  John le Carré introduced one of the fictional icons of espionage, George Smiley, in his 1961 debut Call for the Dead. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1984, and he is still producing work of the highest quality.

  In OUR KIND OF TRAITOR (Viking, $27.95) Peregrine “Perry” Makepiece, a rising but unsatisfied young academic teaching at Oxford University, and Gail Perkins, his barrister girlfriend, are on vacation in Antigua when a club tennis pro introduces them to “Dima,” a large Russian man who challenges Perry to a tennis match after watching him play.

  Within ten days they are back in England, where they find themselves “invited” to sign a declaration under the Official Secrets Act and being debriefed by a couple introduced as Luke and Yvonne about the strange tennis match between Dima and Perry, which was watched by an audience made up of Dima’s family and bodyguards. Further contacts with Dima and family follow; Gail and Perry are even invited to Three Chimneys, the property Dima has acquired in Antigua. There, in a scene choreographed in secrecy, Dima’s wife, Tamara, gives the couple a note in which Dima seeks asylum for his entire family in exchange for information “very urgent, very critical” for Great Britain that is to be negotiated with Perry and Gail acting as intermediaries.

  Le Carré masterfully weaves the many strands of his story tighter and tighter until all the participants seem caught in the same net. Perry and Gail are alternately eager to play the unusual roles assigned to them and fearful and reluctant to continue. Dima, or Dmitri Vladimirovich Krasnov, is a key figure in laundering Russian crime funds, yet he’s been marked for replacement and elimination. Hector Meredith of the British Secret Service, boss of Luke and Yvonne and the man responsible for preserving secrecy until arrangements can be made to evaluate Dima’s critical information and to devise a plan to move them to England, has to deal with contrary elements inside his own agency as well as security.

  The information Dima possesses is indeed critical, and the staggering sums of money and the links forged by it mean that virtually no one can be trusted and no one is really safe. Even so, Meredith, with the help his small staff and amateurs Perry and Gail, tries to pull off a miracle.

  Charlie Muffin, the veteran MI5 agent who first appeared in Brian Freemantle 1977’s Charlie Muffin, has earned quite a reputation within and without his own organization. Even his boss, Director Aubrey Smith, tells him: “I’ve read your file, know your history: Charlie Muffin, the maverick loner bucking all authority and opinions other than his own.” But that doesn’t keep Smith from dispatching Charlie to Moscow when a one-armed murdered man is left inside the grounds of the British Embassy, the setup for Freemantle’s novel, RED STAR RISING (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne, $25.99).

  Charlie’s specific mission is to make sure that the discovery doesn’t somehow turn into an embarrassing or difficult situation. Given that Charlie speaks Russian and has previously been stationed in Moscow, it is a logical assignment. But Charlie finds the embassy staff eager to leave the investigation up to the Russians and the Russians eager to dismiss the killing as a simple gangland execution.

  Identifying the victim, a man left virtually faceless and with the fingers of his one hand destroyed by acid, seems nearly impossible without help from a witness or informer. Russian pathologist Sergei Pavel maintains that the victim was murdered elsewhere and dumped afterward on embassy ground, making it a Russian investigation. Charlie suggests that the victim was killed on embassy grounds (i.e. British soil), making it a British investigation and suggesting that until a definitive ruling is made it should be a joint investigation.

  Thus begins a labyrinthine journey that will test all of Charlie’s tradecraft and may provide an ignominious end to his long career. In addition to the poor Embassy security, there are also leaks that make it impossible for Charlie to trust anyone—including the Moscow-based MI5 or MI6 personnel. In addition, interdepartmental rivalry between Aubrey Smith and deputy director Jeffery Smale make the risks of his investigation almost overwhelming. All the offers of help Charlie gets come with strings attached, whether it’s from MI6 resident David Halliday or the embassy’s Paula-Jane Venables, or the CIA’s Bill Bundy or even the FSB’s Mikhail Guzov and in every case the only one looking out for Charlie is Charlie.

  It is an intricate dance that Charlie performs but when he finally gets a clue to the victim’s identity it leads to a discovery that will change international relations—if he can survive long enough to figure out what the ultimate game is and if he can succeed in bringing the proof to London.

  A foreign correspondent for the London Daily Mail, Freemantle has outdone himself in this brilliantly plotted thriller.

  MI6 operative Daniel Marchant, the hero of Jon Stock’s novel, DEAD SPY RUNNING (St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne, $25.99), is a more action-oriented espionage agent than George Smiley or Charlie Muffin. As the son of the late, disgraced MI6 director Stephen Marchant, Daniel has been tainted by the association. When the novel opens he is currently suspended from his duities, and with his girlfriend Leila and thirty-five thousand others, he is running in the London Marathon.

  In spite of all the security measures in force during the marathon, it is Marchant who spots the suicid
e bomber/runner and is able after a thrilling confrontation to prevent a bloody disaster and save the life U.S. Ambassador Turner Munroe. But instead of a medal after his heroics Marchant finds himself under suspicion for colluding with the terrorists.

  To escape being interrogated by the CIA, Marchant travels through Europe to India, where he’d lived as a child when his father was stationed there; he’s seeking suspected Indian terrorist Salim Dhar, whom he believes holds the key to what his father was doing in India, and to his own troubles. But as he looks for Dhar, the American president is planning to visit India, and the CIA wants to remove Marchant as a potential threat.

  Like le Carré and Freemantle, Stock’s world of spy agencies is one filled with betrayals and double-dealings. Stock’s world features “a new generation of spies, Arabists who had joined after the Cold War and grown up with al Qaeda. They had learnt their trade in Kandahar rather than Berlin, cutting their teeth in Pakistani training camps rather than Moscow parks, wearing turbans rather than trenchcoats.”

  Jon Stock is a journalist with the London Daily Telegraph who’s served time as a correspondent in Delhi, so he knows his territory. Dead Spy Running not only inaugurates a new and exciting series, it will soon be made into a movie by Warner Bros.

  Copyright © 2010 Robert C. Hahn

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  DEPARTMENT

  MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  © 2010, by Mark F. Russell

  When the Other Shoe Drops

  We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will be printed in a future issue. Reply to AHMM, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, New York 10007-2352. Please label your entry “March Contest,” and be sure your name and address are written on the story you submit. If you would like your story returned, please include an SASE.