Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense

by Linda Landrigan

  Momentarily cowed, the two women sank back onto their chairs.

  “Now then, sir,” Sawyer continued, looking at Norman, “how do you plead?”

  “Guilty … your Honor … sir,” mumbled Norman. “But I would like to offer an explanation of why it happened.”

  Sawyer conferred with the guard in a hushed voice. “The court will deign to hear you out,” he said finally.

  “Well, it was the first day of our vacation. A half day, really, because I’d had my classes at the college all morning. There’s, well, a letdown at the end of the school year, your Honor. You know how it is. I felt the need of a pick-me-up and … well, I guess I picked myself up too far.”

  “You are aware, neighbor, that under the present laws of this state I could revoke your license.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “In addition, I could sentence you to up to sixty days in gaol and a whacking good fine?”

  “Please, your Honor, it’s our vacation. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  “However,” Sawyer went on, “this court is inclined to be lenient. You seem to have enough troubles of your own without my adding to them unnecessarily.” The withering glance he directed at Betty and Vera could have etched glass.

  “Therefore, in keeping with the … eh … changed character of our village during this month, I sentence you to one day of confinement in the stocks.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir.”

  “The stocks. You know.” Sawyer was suddenly like a child with a new toy. He swiveled about in his chair, extending hands and feet outward rigidly. “We have the stocks out there on the green, but so far nobody’s been in them. It would add a great deal to the realism of our annual celebration. Otherwise …” Sawyer’s bushy eyebrows drooped across his eyes like half-drawn blinds, “… the full extent of the law.”

  “No!” cried Betty. “I forbid it. Sitting out there with your hands and feet clamped in those boards. I’d be embarrassed to—”

  “Betty, shut up!” roared Norman. “This way, we’ll only be a day behind schedule.” He turned back to Sawyer. “Okay, I’ll go along with your sentence. Purely in the interest of historical accuracy, of course.”

  “Not fair.” Vera again. “You could have fined him ten dollars or so, and we could have been out of this madhouse by now.”

  The guard took Norman by the arm and led him toward the door. Behind him, Vera and Betty were both expostulating with Justice Sawyer. As he left, Vera’s inevitable rejoinder rang out in the small room: “A pox on you, Sawyer! And on all your brood, too!”

  The three boards that made up the stocks were fitted into slotted timbers set deep in the clay soil. As Norman sat down on the hard wooden bench, the guard slid the two top planks upward, leaving a gap of about nine inches. Norman extended his legs and laid his ankles in the two worn semicircles cut into the wood. The guard lowered the center board, pinning the ankles in place.

  “Now the wrists, neighbor.”

  Norman had to stretch forward, like an oarsman at the beginning of his stroke. The top section was lowered, clamping his wrists securely. From his pocket the guard took a pair of padlocks, clicking them into hasps at the top of the stocks.

  Finally he stepped back. “There we are, sir. How do you feel?”

  “Completely ridiculous,” replied Norman. “Absolutely helpless. And slightly uncomfortable.”

  “The discomfort will get worse, I’m afraid. Still, it’s not like it used to be. In the old days the townspeople would sometimes throw offal at a man in the stocks. I don’t think any of the present villagers would try that.”

  “I imagine Justice Sawyer would be delighted if they would,” said Norman. “Just to make things completely authentic. Say, how long have I got to stay in this thing?”

  “Just until sundown. And I feel you should know, you’ve made Justice Sawyer very happy. He’s always wanted to sentence someone to the stocks. For realism, you know. But none of the local people would agree to it.”

  “Speaking of realism, those padlocks are modern. In colonial days, wooden pins were used to hold the boards in place.”

  “Thank you. I’ll mention that to Justice Sawyer. He’s interested in keeping everything as accurate as possible. Oh, there is one other thing. I hope you won’t mind.”

  From his pocket the guard drew a large sheet of foolscap paper and unfolded it. On it was printed in ornate letters a single word: DRUNKARD. The guard set it in place on the far side of the stocks.

  “Thumbtacks,” chided Norman. “No fair.”

  “Yes, I’ll have to find some other way.”

  The guard strode off.

  Norman sighed and wriggled unseen fingers. He glanced up at the sun and estimated it to be about ten o’clock—and the sun wouldn’t set until nearly eight. It was going to be a long day, he decided. He hoped that not too many of the townspeople would laugh at him.

  Within the hour there was a decided crick in Norman’s back, and the sun was beating down fiercely on his bare head. A single bead of sweat dribbled down to his chin and hung there. At the same time, his nose began to itch.

  A second hour passed. Norman made ineffectual passes at his shoulder with his nose, but the itching spot was just out of reach. He’d often spoken about the stocks to his classes, but until now he’d never realized the exquisite torture of actually being confined in them.

  About him, the village had stirred to life. A clanging was coming from the blacksmith shop, and a girl passed by with a yoke on her shoulders from which hung two water buckets. Seeing Norman in the stocks, she tittered gleefully and then offered him a drink. At his request, she even scratched his nose. He accepted gratefully, too thirsty to be embarrassed at his helpless condition.

  It was shortly after one o’clock, and fiery lances of pain were darting up Norman’s back when he heard the voice behind him. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Maybe this’ll make you feel better.”

  Then hands started kneading at the aching muscles. Norman wriggled under the pressure of the fingers, moaning his pleasure at the wonderful relief.

  The massage stopped, and the man walked around the stocks to face Norman. He was dressed much like the others but wore a belted greatcoat, odd for such a warm day. On the opposite side of the village green, two young men were carrying a huge timber at least ten feet long in the direction of the church.

  “I’m Reverend Dabney,” said the man. “Thomas Dabney. Hope I made you feel better. That’s my job, and there’s my factory.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the church.

  “Oh, yes. You are truly a lifesaver, Mr. Dabney. When I get out of here, I’m going to buy you the biggest drink—”

  “Better not. I understand that’s what started this whole thing. Besides, the grog they serve at the inn tastes like dishwater. I can’t wait until this month is over and I can mix myself a decent cocktail.”

  “You mean you can’t even—”

  Dabney shook his head. “‘The colonial ways are our ways,’ as Jonathan Sawyer’s fond of saying. That’s how we live for a month out of each year.”

  “But isn’t it kind of silly to carry it too far?”

  “No, I think it’s worthwhile to live as our ancestors did and accept their values. And I must say, it ups attendance at church when the law says everybody has to attend.”

  “But to go to such extremes seems …”

  “You mean the stocks? It seems to me that Sawyer could have been a lot harsher. Sixty days in jail would about ruin your vacation, wouldn’t it? And I daresay when you get out of there you’ll think twice about drinking and driving at the same time.”

  “I only meant that—”

  “Look, if a thing like this colonial business is worth doing, it’s worth going all the way. The clothing and these stocks are only a small part of it. It’s the traditions that count. Living exactly as our forebears did for a full month makes us appreciate the other eleven months even more. But you’ve got to do it right, everything just as it wa
s. It’s a little like climbing a mountain. What challenge would there be to that if the climber knew he had a safety net under him all the time? The experience has got to be totally real to have any meaning.”

  “I must say, you do try hard. I pointed out a few errors to the guard, and he acted as if I were proclaiming Holy Writ.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. Justice Sawyer will have them corrected by next year, never fear. Maybe you’d like to come back and visit us then, and see the improvement.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand up in a year when I get released from this thing.”

  Dabney chuckled and turned to watch three men pass by. They had crude racks on their backs, piled high with pieces of firewood.

  They greeted Dabney cheerfully and paid no attention at all to Norman.

  Then, from behind Norman, there came a sound like a stifled scream of pain and outrage. Vainly he turned his head. Finally he caught sight of a figure running toward him, a woman in a bright pink dress of modern styling—Betty.

  Yet not the Betty he knew. The figure seemed to be grasping and clawing at something on her head and at the same time emitting strange, muffled groans and cries.

  She rounded the stocks and looked grotesquely down at Norman. Her head was encased in a tight cage of rigid flat strips of iron. To the base of these strips was riveted a metal collar, now closed and padlocked securely around her neck, making it impossible to remove the apparatus. From one of the strips that ran down across her lips, a knobby tang of metal extended deep into her mouth, preventing coherent speech. With bloodied hands, Betty Kaner tore in vain at the thing that caged her skull.

  “Gunhh … Og … Hurrr … Og …”

  “That’s a brank!” Norman yanked to free his hands but only succeeded in rubbing his wrists raw in the stocks.

  Dabney nodded. “Gossip’s bridle, they called it in the colonies. I understand Justice Sawyer warned her several times about shouting out in his courtroom before having it put on her.”

  “But it—it’s inhuman.”

  “Fiddlesticks. If she’d just calm down, she’d be fine. She can breathe well enough. It’s just talking that’s impossible. And she has the run of the town. It’s not as if she’d been shut up somewhere.”

  “But that—that thing on her head!”

  “Og hurrr! Og hurrr!”

  “Of course it hurts,” said Dabney. “Stop pulling at it, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Dabney, can’t you see she’s almost out of her mind with fright and shock?”

  “All the better for you, old man. I guarantee when that comes off, she won’t be nearly the shrew she was when it was put on.”

  With a moan of pure misery, Betty sank onto the dusty earth, wrapping her arms tightly about Norman’s extended leg in pleading.

  “Dabney, I’ve had enough of this. To blazes with our vacation. I intend to see the authorities about these … these outrages.”

  “Nonsense. Look at it this way. Think of the added value to your history classes. Now you can speak to them from firsthand experience about colonial punishments.” Dabney rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You know, that brank’s been in our museum for about two hundred years. I didn’t think we’d ever actually get to use it.”

  “It’s monstrous!”

  “No, Mr. Kaner, it’s not. It’s simply the way we were, more than two hundred years ago. Oh, we’re not perfect in our re-creation of the past. But we’re getting there.”

  Dabney turned to look across the village green, where a group of villagers were heading for the church, uttering loud shouts.

  “I must go,” he said. “I have other business.”

  “How can you see two fellow humans being tortured and then tell me you have other business? Don’t you find that odd for a man in your line of work?”

  “Not torture, Mr. Kaner. Punishment. Punishment for acts against the general welfare of the commonwealth. Punishment that is just. The punishment of our forefathers.”

  Something nakedly evil gleamed behind Dabney’s eyes, like a snake lying in wait.

  “It may interest you to know,” he said, “that just before noon our local physician visited the Sawyer household. The justice had begun feeling poorly, as did his wife and both sons.”

  “So?”

  “Measles. The doctor said he’d never before seen the disease take a whole family so suddenly.”

  “What’s that got to do with my wife and me?”

  “Not you, Mr. Kaner. And not your wife.”

  “Then who …”

  “Think on it, Mr. Kaner. Think on it.”

  Dabney shouted at the crowd of villagers and then trotted off to join them.

  Madness; the whole village was mad with their lust for historic accuracy. Betty looked up at him, her eyes pleading behind the iron cage. A slight moan came from her throat.

  Moments later, from the churchyard behind the maple trees, a faint cheering came to their ears. A pall of black, greasy smoke streaked the blue sky, and then, hanging in the air like a palpable thing, was heard a single shrill scream, torn from the throat of someone tortured beyond endurance.

  Norman knew then who had screamed, and in his mind the same voice came to him, snapping harshly at a little fat man in a black robe and an oversized wig: “A pox on you, Sawyer! And on all your brood, too!”

  Measles!

  Even as his stomach heaved at the thought of what was happening up there on the hill, a single irrelevant thought came to Norman’s mind—another historical error.

  In the colonies, hanging or pressing to death with great rocks were the punishments.

  In the entire history of New England, there was not a single recorded case of a witch being executed by burning.

  LAWRENCE BLOCK

  A CANDLE FOR THE BAG LADY

  November 1977

  LAWRENCE BLOCK is one of the most honored writers in mystery, and with good reason. A winner of multiple Edgar awards, he has been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Block writes in a wide variety of styles, from espionage thrillers to hard-boileds to humorous caper stories, but among his most popular creations is the alcoholic ex-cop turned unofficial private eye Matthew Scudder. Here is a tale from the early days of Scudder’s career.

  He was a thin young man in a blue pinstripe suit. His shirt was white with a button-down collar. His glasses had oval lenses in a brown tortoiseshell frame. His hair was a dark brown, short but not severely so, neatly combed, parted on the right. I saw him come in and watched him ask a question at the bar. Billie was working afternoons that week. I watched as he nodded at the young man, then swung his sleepy eyes over in my direction. I lowered my own eyes and looked at a cup of coffee laced with bourbon while the fellow walked over to my table.

  “Matthew Scudder?” I looked up at him, nodded. “I’m Aaron Creighton. I looked for you at your hotel. The fellow on the desk told me I might find you here.”

  Here was Armstrong’s, a Ninth Avenue saloon around the corner from my Fifty-seventh Street hotel. The lunch crowd was gone except for a couple of stragglers in front whose voices were starting to thicken with alcohol. The streets outside were full of May sunshine. The winter had been cold and deep and long. I couldn’t recall a more welcome spring.

  “I called you a couple of times last week, Mr. Scudder. I guess you didn’t get my messages.”

  I’d gotten two of them and ignored them, not knowing who he was or what he wanted and unwilling to spend a dime for the answer. But I went along with the fiction. “It’s a cheap hotel,” I said, “They’re not always too good about messages.”

  “I can imagine. Uh—is there someplace we can talk?”

  “How about right here?”

  He looked around. I don’t suppose he was used to conducting his business in bars, but he evidently decided it would be all right to make an exception. He set his briefcase on the floor and seated himself across the table from me. Angela, the new day-shift waitress, hurried over to ge
t his order. He glanced at my cup and said he’d have coffee, too.

  “I’m an attorney,” he said. My first thought was that he didn’t look like a lawyer, but then I realized he probably dealt with civil cases. My experience as a cop had given me a lot of experience with criminal lawyers. The breed runs to several types, none of them his.

  I waited for him to tell me why he wanted to hire me. But he crossed me up.

  “I’m handling an estate,” he said, and paused, and gave what seemed a calculated if well-intentioned smile. “It’s my pleasant duty to tell you you’ve come into a small legacy, Mr. Scudder.”

  “Someone’s left me money?”

  “Twelve hundred dollars.”

  Who could have died? I’d lost touch long since with any of my relatives. My parents went years ago, and we’d never been close with the rest of the family.

  I said, “Who—?”

  “Mary Alice Redfield.”

  I repeated the name aloud. It was not entirely unfamiliar, but I had no idea who Mary Alice Redfield might be. I looked at Aaron Creighton. I couldn’t make out his eyes behind the glasses but there was a smile’s ghost on his thin lips, as if my reaction was not unexpected.

  “She’s dead?”

  “Almost three months ago.”

  “I didn’t know her.”

  “She knew you. You probably did know her, Mr. Scudder. Perhaps you didn’t know her by name.” His smile deepened. Angela had brought his coffee. He stirred milk and sugar into it, took a careful sip, nodded his approval. “Miss Redfield was murdered.” He said this as if he’d had practice uttering a phrase that did not come naturally to him. “She was killed quite brutally in late February for no apparent reason, another innocent victim of street crime.”

  “She lived in New York?”

  “Oh, yes. In this neighborhood.”

  “And she was killed around here?”

  “On West Fifty-fifth Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Her body was found in an alleyway. She’d been stabbed repeatedly and strangled with the scarf she had been wearing.”