AHMM, June 2012
Page 15
The two constables came in, goggled.
“Don't! Don't!” Jimmy pleaded. “That's the one thing I can't stand! I'll talk—but don't humiliate me in front of all these people!”
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Clip uprighted him again, dropped the strop. “I had a hunch that would get you,” he said softly. “Cigarette, fellow. No need for play-acting now any more.” He was genial once more, a man talking to his equal.
The diminutive figure sat there, puffing away, his lacerated self-respect returning little by little. “That's why I did it. I couldn't stand it any more. You don't know what it means to go through life like I am—”
“I've been around,” Clip murmured understandingly.
“We both worked in a circus, she on the trapeze, and me—for what I am. I fell in love with her, like a fool. Then when we lost our jobs, she thought up this lousy shakedown racket of hers, with me as her shill, dressed up like a kid. She picked guys with money, led them on, and then I wrote them blackmail letters and frightened them out of their wits, pretending to be her racketeer sweetheart out gunning for them. I didn't want to, I'd always earned an honest living until I met her, but I was crazy for her, I couldn't stand the thought of not being near her.
“She was always laughing at me. She forgot that we have feelings, too. And I was jealous of each one that came along, even though she was just playing them for suckers. I'd brought the brick up to the room myself yesterday afternoon, as part of the kid act. Then, when he phoned her late last night, it looked like what I'd been dreading—the real thing, and not a racket any more. So I said, if I can't have you, nobody can—”
“Sign,” said the sheriff.
The handcuffs wouldn't fit; he could have slipped his whole hand through them with ease. Clip shook his head at them quietly. “He'll be all right. Just get a pair of long pants for him before you take him out of here—and treat him like an equal.”
The midget flashed him a look of wan gratitude. “You have been around!” he murmured. “There's something awfully different about you from most dicks.”
“You'd be surprised!” Clip smiled to himself.
“I'll drive you down to Doc's,” said the sheriff. “Better get a couple of stitches taken in that neck of yours.”
On the way over in the car, he asked: “Of course, you're Griswold, so I'm not surprised. But how did you spot him so quickly?”
“In a million ways at once. He had the sweater looped around his neck to hide his Adam's apple, but I saw it fluctuate just the same when he licked the sugar off the gum. There were nicotine-stains between two of his fingers. He dirtied up the lower half of his face purposely, of course, to hide the fact that he needed a shave. He jumped back when I tried to touch his face, and he wouldn't use the woman's bathroom, only this one up here—because his razor was hidden in it somewhere. The cold-cream streaks on the mirror were too thin to be made by anything but an adult's pinky, and a man would only use his index-finger for that. Covering up a keyhole by draping a towel over the knob is too smart an idea for a seven-year-old. I crawled out on the ledge and when I took a hinge in the bathroom-window, sure enough he was standing up on a chair lathering away—”
“Well, Ins— I mean Clarence, we're certainly going to give you full credit for this!”
“Suppose you take credit for it yourself, and just leave me out of it altogether.” And when the doctor had finished stitching the gash for him, “Will it leave a scar?” he wanted to know.
“Apt to, but a little grafting later on can take care of that easily enough. Don't tell me a man like you is vain about your looks!”
“No-o,” drawled Clip, “but it don't pay for me to be too easily identifiable—in my line of work.”
It was five to seven when he took leave of Haskell, in back of the station, and a train from New York most probably bringing the real Griswold could already be heard approaching in the distance. The one bound the other way was in, and waiting.
“You just stay here where you are,” said Clip, “and wait for me, I'll be back in no time!”
“Then you're not taking this train—?”
“Just hold this for me!” He thrust the badge at him. “Give it to me when I come back.” And as he loped off through the station, he called back something that sounded like: “You won't know me at all. I'll look so different!”
Copyright © 2012 Cornell Woolrich
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Originally published in Dective Fiction Weekly, November 14, 1936. Reprinted by permission from the author's estate and the agent for the estate, Renaissance Literary & Talent.
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Department: THE STORY THAT WON
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Copyright (C) 2012 Ke Wang/Shutterstock.com
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The December Mysterious Photograph contest was won by Janel Gradowski of Freeland, Michigan. Honorable mentions go to R. W. Morris of Strathmore, Alberta, Canada; C. Christine Campbell of Dryden, New York; Denise Zajkowski of Round Lake Beach, Illinois; Steven Kuehn of Mahomet, Illinois; Andrew Paterson of London, Ontario, Canada; Stuart R. Brynien of Brooklyn, New York; Bethany Linder of York, South Carolina; and Josh Zeller of Morrow, Ohio.
SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
JANEL GRADOWSKI
“It's going to take forever to check all of these.” Two hundred clay soldiers stood in front of Detective Glynn. The statues were priceless antiques and the museum curator had hinted dire consequences would result if any of them were damaged. “Hope you didn't have any plans for the evening.”
Sergeant Mumford shook his head as he slowly walked between the warriors. At a distance they looked like carbon copies. Up close he could see they cluthed an assortment of weapons and had slightly different facial expressions.
“The diamonds are stashed in one of these guys. Sounds like a hole was drilled in the bottom. We're going to have to lay them all down, one at a time.” Glynn gulped down the rest of his coffee. “Might as well get started.”
Mumford stopped in front of a soldier. He moved to the next statue, studying its face. A loud grunt echoed through the cavernous room. A museum worker struggled to position one of the clay figures on its back. Glynn examined its base and shook his head.
“Try this one next.” After the soldier was prone Mumford stooped to study it. There was a faintly discolored circle on the sole of the left foot. He tapped it. The thin patch crumbled. Even in the dim light the gems sparkled inside the hollow statue.
“How did you know they were in that one?”
Mumford handed the plasic bag, worth millions, to Glynn. “He's the only one smiling.”
Copyright © 2012 Ke Wang /
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Department: COMING IN JULY 2012
MARLEY'S RESCUE by John C. Borland
TIGHTENING OF THE BOND by T. R. Lawson
DEATH OF THE RANGE by Elaine Menge
And the 2011 Black Orchid Novella Award Winner
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Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (ISSN:0002-5224), Vol. 57, No. 6, June 2012. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. Annual subscription $55.90 in the U.S.A. and possessions, $65.90 elsewhere, payable in advance in U.S. funds (GST included in Canada). Subscription orders and correspondence regarding subscriptions should be sent to 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Or, to subscribe, call 1-800-220-7443. Editorial Offices: 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007-2352. Executive Offices: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. © 2012 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. The stories in this magazine are all fictitious, and any resemblance between the characters in them and actual persons is completely coincidental. Reproduction or use, in any manner, of editorial or pictorial content without express written permission is prohibited. Submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. POSTMASTER: Send changes to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to: Quad/Graphics Joncas, 4380 Garand, Saint-Laurent, Quebec H4R 2A3. GST #R123054108.
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