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

by Linda Landrigan

  She gently but firmly refused. She also refused after books three, four, and five—all best sellers.

  Today, as he finished the chapter he was working on, he wondered if she would ever tell him why. Ellie could be very obstinate, he knew. If she didn’t want to give him a straight answer, she would make up something so bizarre and absurd that he would know to stop asking.

  “There was a clause in my parents’ will,” she said once. “If I marry before my fiftieth birthday, the house must be turned into an ostrich farm.”

  “And the courts accepted that?” he played along.

  “Absolutely. The trust funds would go to ostriches, and Mir would be very unhappy with you for putting an end to her healthy allowance.”

  “Your parents would have left Miriam a pauper?”

  “She thinks she’s a pauper on what I give her now.”

  “A pauper? On ten thousand dollars a month?”

  “Pin money for Mir. We grew up rich, remember?”

  “Hard to forget. Why not give it all to Miriam and live on my money instead?”

  She frowned. “I’d be dependent on you.”

  “So what? I was dependent on you when I first lived here.”

  “For about four months. And you had your own money, you just didn’t need any of it. Do you want to be married for more than four months?”

  “Of course.”

  “So now you see why we can’t be married at all.”

  He didn’t, but he resigned himself to the situation. She probably would never tell him why she wouldn’t marry him, or why she allowed Miriam, who often upset her, to come to the house on a regular basis to plead for more money.

  “WHERE’S HARRY?” Miriam demanded when Bill answered the doorbell.

  “On the phone,” Bill explained as he took her coat. “He’s placing ads for a cook and housekeeper.”

  “Not again,” Miriam said.

  “The last ones managed to stay on for about six weeks,” Bill said easily.

  Miriam turned her most charming smile upon him. She was gorgeous, Bill thought, not for the first time. A redhead with china blue eyes and a figure that didn’t need all that custom tailoring to show it off. What was she, he wondered? A walking ice sculpture, perhaps? But he discarded that image. After all, sooner or later, ice melted.

  “I don’t know why you stay with her, Bill,” Miriam purred, misreading his attention.

  Bill heard a door open in a hallway above them.

  “If you’re here for a favor,” he said in a low voice, “you’re not being very kind to your benefactor.”

  Miriam stood frowning, waiting until she heard the door close again. Still, she whispered when she said, “Even you must admit that she drives the entire household to distraction.”

  “Yes,” he said, thinking back to the night he met Ellie. “But distraction isn’t always such a bad place to go.”

  “She’s crazy,” Miriam said scornfully. “And a liar!”

  “She’s neither. What brings you by this afternoon?” They were halfway up the stairs now, and although Bill thought Ellie was probably past being injured by Miriam’s remarks, he didn’t know how much longer his own patience would last.

  Miriam pointed one perfectly shaped red fingernail at him. “How can you say she’s not a liar? She once told you Harry was her father.”

  “She knew I wouldn’t believe it. She never tells me any lie she thinks I might believe. Come on, she’s waiting.”

  Bill had heard Ellie cross into one of the upstairs staging rooms. This meant, he knew, that she had staged some clues for him, placed objects about the room intended to remind him of specific Hitchcock movies. It was an extension of the old game they played, and one of the reasons that housekeepers didn’t last long. The last one left after finding a mannequin, unclad except for Harry’s cap, sitting in the bathtub. (“The Trouble With Harry,” Bill had said, earning praise from Ellie even as they tried to revive the fainting housekeeper.)

  Ellie, knowing Miriam hated the game, always had one ready when her sister came to visit.

  Wearing a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, Ellie was sitting cross-legged on top of a large mahogany table, passing a needle and thread through colored miniature marshmallows to make a necklace. She smiled as she moved the needle through a green marshmallow.

  “How much this time?” she asked without looking up.

  “Ellie darling! So good to see you.”

  Ellie glanced at Bill. “Too many Bette Davis movies.” She chose a pink marshmallow next.

  “What on earth are you doing? And why are you wearing those horrid clothes?”

  “Shhh!” Ellie said, now reaching for a yellow marshmallow.

  Bill was looking around the room. As usual in a game, there were many oddball objects and antiques in the room. The trick was to find the clues among the objects. “How many altogether?”

  “Three,” Ellie answered.

  “Oh! This stupid game. I might have known,” Miriam grumbled.

  He saw the toy windmill first.

  “Foreign Correspondent,” he said.

  “One down, two to go,” Ellie laughed. “How much money this time, Mir?”

  “I didn’t come here to ask for money,” Miriam said, sitting down.

  Bill looked over at her in surprise, then went back to the game.

  Searching through the bric-a-brac that covered a low set of shelves, he soon found the next clue: three small plaster of Paris sculptures of hands and wrists. A man’s hand and a woman’s hand were handcuffed together; another male hand, missing part of its little finger, stood next to the handcuffed set. “The Thirty-Nine Steps.”

  “Bravo, Bill. Of course you came here for money, Mir. You always do.”

  “Not this time.”

  “What then?” Ellie asked, watching as Bill picked up a music box from a small dressing table.

  “I want to move back home.”

  Ellie stopped stringing marshmallows. Bill set the music box down.

  Don’t give in, Ellie, he prayed silently.

  “No,” Ellie said, and went back to work on her necklace. Bill’s sigh of relief was audible.

  “Ellie, please, I’m your sister.”

  “I’ll buy you a place to live.”

  “I want to live here.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s in the will. I can live here if I want to.”

  Ellie looked up. “We had an agreement.”

  Miriam glanced nervously toward Bill, then said, “It’s my home, too, you know. You’ve allowed a perfect stranger to live here. Well, I don’t deserve any less.”

  “Why do you want to come back, Mir? You haven’t lived here in years.”

  “I think it’s time we grew closer as sisters, that’s all.”

  Ellie only laughed at that. Bill was heartened by the laughter. Ellie was protective of Miriam, had a soft spot for her despite her abuses. But if that sister plea didn’t get through to her, maybe there was a chance …

  “Look, you’ve been living up here in grand style,” Miriam said petulantly, “and I just want to enjoy a bit of it myself.”

  Bill saw Ellie’s mood shifting, saw her glancing over at him. He felt awkwardness pulling ahead of his curiosity by a nose. He decided to leave this discussion to the sisters. It was Ellie’s house, after all. She could do as she liked. He started to edge out of the room, but Ellie said, “This concerns you, too, Bill. Don’t leave.”

  He wasn’t put off by what others might have taken to be a commanding tone. In seven years, he had never heard the word “please” come out of her mouth. Although he thought of few things as certain when it came to Ellie, one certainty was that she rarely asked anything of others. Knowing this, he treated any request as if there were an implied “please.”

  “This isn’t his house!” Miriam shouted.

  “Lower your voice. He is my guest and welcome here.”

  Bill turned away, forced himself to look again at the objects
on the dressing table.

  Ellie went on. “You spent all of your inheritance in less than two years, Mir. Grandfather knew you were like our parents.”

  Bill knew this part of the story. Their grandfather had raised the girls after their parents—wild, spoiled, and reckless, according to Ellie—were killed in a car wreck. While Miriam received a large inheritance, Ellie’s grandfather had left the house and most of his money to Ellie, thinking Miriam too much like his late daughter.

  “Don’t start speaking ill of the dead,” Miriam protested to Ellie.

  “All right, I won’t. But the fact remains …”

  “That you’ve made money and I’ve lost all of mine. Don’t rub it in, Ellie. Now I’ve even lost the condo.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? Then you understand why I want to live here.”

  “Not really. But this time I’ll keep the title so you can’t mortgage it endlessly.”

  “I want to live here. This is my home!”

  “Fine. Then you won’t get another dime from me.”

  Bill watched in the dressing table mirror as Miriam swallowed hard, then lifted her chin. “All right, if that’s what you want to do. My bags are in the car. Harry can pick up the rest of my things—”

  “No!” Ellie interrupted sharply, clenching her hands, smushing part of her marshmallow necklace. She shook her head, then said more calmly, “You won’t badger that man. I swear you won’t be allowed to live here if you do. I’ll sell this place first.”

  “All right, all right. I won’t cause trouble, Ellie. You’ll see. I’ll even bring my cook and housekeeper with me. That will save Harry a lot of work.”

  Bill was hardly paying attention by then. He was nettled. So nettled, he didn’t offer to help Miriam with her bags as she left the room. He kept his back to Ellie, pretending to be caught up in the game again.

  My guest. It was accurate enough, he supposed. Not “my lover.” Not “my friend.” Not “the man I want to spend my life with.” My guest. He picked up the music box again.

  “You’ve got a burr under your saddle, Bill. What is it?”

  He ignored her for a moment, lifting the lid of the music box. It played “The Merry Widow Waltz.”

  He heard Ellie sigh behind him. “I’m not happy about it, either,” she said, “but there’s nothing I can do. Perhaps having Miriam here won’t be so bad.”

  He closed the lid of the music box. “Shadow of a Doubt,” he said, and schooled his features into a smile before turning toward her. “Thank you for all the effort, Ellie. It’s always an amusing game.”

  She looked puzzled. He hadn’t fooled her, of course. Belatedly he realized that she must have watched him in the mirror. But if she could be obstinate, well, by damn, so could he. He excused himself and left the room.

  AS HE PAID the tab in a bar that evening, Bill had to acknowledge that the slight had escalated into silent warfare, and much of it was probably his fault. He had not yet managed to tell Ellie how she had given offense. In one moment, it seemed of so little importance that he was ashamed of himself for thinking about it at all. In the next moment, it seemed to stand as a perfect symbol for everything that was wrong between them. There were several drinks between moments. But in the end he had firmly resolved to talk to her, not to let one comment ruin all they had shared until then.

  Bill looked up to see a familiar figure coming toward him. Not the one he most wanted to see, but close enough. Harry had come to fetch him.

  “Did she send you for me, Harry?” Bill asked, allowing Harry to lead him outside.

  “No, sir.”

  “You came on your own?” he asked in surprise. Harry had never indicated approval of Bill, a lack Bill took to mean disapproval.

  “No, sir,” Harry replied, but Bill noticed that the old man actually seemed a little embarrassed to admit it. Harry gently guided him into the backseat of the Rolls.

  Bill waited until Harry got into the car. He felt as if he might be sick, but he fought it off. “Why’d you come after me?”

  “Miss Miriam suggested it. She has many suggestions, sir.”

  Bill signaled him to wait, opened the door, and spared the upholstery.

  Harry drove him home, windows down. But even during the long ride, Bill had sobered little. He made it into the house under his own steam and began the climb up the stairs. He swayed a bit as he reached for the bedroom doorknob, twisted it, and found it locked. He stared at it in his hand, as if somehow he were just doing it wrong, this simple act of opening a door.

  Harry came in then and, quietly coming up the stairs, asked in a whisper if Bill might need some assistance. Bill was hanging on to the knob, staring dumbly at the door. Harry tried the knob, then murmured, “It’s locked, sir. Perhaps …” but his voice broke off as they heard another door open.

  Miriam, clad in a nightgown that seemed to offer little difference from sleeping in the nude, smiled and called out, “Ellie left some things for you outside the bedroom off your office downstairs. I guess you’re in the doghouse tonight, Billy Boy.”

  “You seem happy to hear it,” Bill said, trying to stand up straight. Having this greedy woman in the household would sorely try him. Harry stepped aside as Miriam came closer. Miriam tried to put an arm around Bill, giggling when he clumsily pushed her hand from his waist. She stepped back.

  “Why do you two stay together?” she asked. “Ellie doesn’t seem interested. I could see why you tried to win her over at first, but now—well, why bother? You’ve got plenty of money. Most women would consider you quite a catch.”

  “For your information,” Bill said, his drunken state not obscuring her intentions, “I wouldn’t make any money without your sister. If I leave her, I can’t write. She’s my Muse.”

  Whatever reply Miriam might have made was lost when a loud crash sounded against the other side of the bedroom door.

  “Ellie! Are you all right?” Bill called frantically.

  “Go to hell!” came Ellie’s voice from the other side.

  Bill heard Miriam giggle behind him as she closed her bedroom door.

  “DON’T DO this, sir.”

  Bill was so taken aback by Harry’s plea that he stopped packing for a moment. But he shook his head and latched the suitcase.

  “Sorry, Harry. I can take the silent treatment, and finding out that she threw a portrait of me against the door that night. I can even take the blame for starting this. But I can’t stay here if she doesn’t trust me.”

  Until that afternoon Bill hadn’t heard a word from Ellie in three days. After that first morning, when Harry brought Bill’s clothes into the bedroom adjoining Bill’s office, Bill hadn’t tried to go back to the room he had shared with her. He had heard her move about in her office, just on the other side of the wall. Each day she had gone from her room to her office and back again, speaking only to Miriam or Harry. Miriam, suddenly the solicitous sister, would take meals to Ellie in her room. Bill tried to ignore it, told himself her temper would cool and he would be able to tell her just how much she meant to him, that she was much more to him than the means to an end. Until then he would keep his distance.

  But this morning she had ventured outside the house, asking Harry to take her for a ride. They had been gone for about an hour when Bill heard someone rustling papers in her office and went to investigate. Miriam was bent over some documents on Ellie’s desk, pen in hand.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, startling her.

  “None of your business.”

  He moved closer, and she snatched one of the pages off the desk and wadded it up in her hand.

  “Why are you in Ellie’s office?” he asked, glancing at a contract Ellie had signed, the document Miriam had been studying.

  “I said, none of your business.”

  He reached out and grabbed the hand with the paper in it. She clawed at his face, struggling furiously, but he caught both of her wrists and squeezed until she let the paper drop. He bent to
pick it up even as Miriam ran crying from the room.

  He sat down at the desk, ignoring the sting of the scratches. The contract was nothing unusual, he noted, as he smoothed the paper out. Ellie’s signature was on the scrap. But as he studied it closer, he realized it was almost Ellie’s signature.

  A tearful voice took his attention from the paper. “I caught him trying to forge your signature. I grabbed the paper he was practicing on, and he attacked me!”

  He looked up to see Ellie staring at him in disbelief. “Ellie …” he protested, standing up.

  “Did you do this to her?”

  She held out Miriam’s wrists.

  There were dark red marks on them.

  “Yes, but Ellie …”

  “I don’t want to hear it!”

  She led Miriam from the room, consoling her.

  AND SO HE left the house in the hills. He had no trouble finding a house to rent. He told himself he only rented one because he was too busy finishing his manuscript to do serious house hunting. Never mind that he was finished before his deadline. While waiting for his editor’s response, he began outlining another work, writing character sketches. He told himself this productivity was a sign that he was readjusting, living a new life.

  But he knew that wasn’t the truth. The truth was, he wrote because writing was all he had left. He felt closer to her when he wrote, even as he told himself he didn’t miss her. But that was the biggest lie of all.

  When his editor proclaimed the new manuscript Bill’s best work, Bill didn’t feel the sense of elation such praise might have once brought. Ellie wasn’t his link to writing after all. It wasn’t inspiration he missed; it was Ellie herself.

  HE FOUND HIMSELF on Westwood Boulevard at three in the morning, staring at the place where the gas station had been. It was gone, transformed into a parking lot. But as he stared, a gold Rolls-Royce pulled into the empty lot. For a moment, his heart leapt. But then he saw that Harry was driving. Alone.

  It wasn’t the first time he had seen Harry. Harry kept tabs on him, he knew. In the beginning, he thought she might have asked Harry to do so, then realized that Harry only appeared on his day off. Harry seldom spoke to him and never mentioned Ellie. But it seemed to Bill that Harry was looking older each time he encountered him.