Роберт Артур - Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

“Well, that takes care of that,” Marion said when Jinny had gone. “She’s mixed in some of the most deadly kind of mushrooms with edible ones that look a lot like it. What is the name of that mushroom, that terribly poisonous one? No matter, there’s quite enough to kill her. And she picked them herself and showed them to Mr. Downey, next door. We’ll be in the clear — quite in the clear.”

At last, Marion thought, her education was coming to some use. Which might still not be the case, if it weren’t for that course she’d taken in botany.

The Farringtons were a rather attractive family, but like most of us, they sometimes got into an ugly humor. They were in one now as they sat in the fusty parlor. They were so upset that they could have killed someone.

The clock said eleven at night. The evening had gone badly. Marion had cooked a tasty dinner with wild rice and duckling, including a special side dish of mushrooms just for Jinny. There weren’t enough to go around, she had said firmly. Jinny had picked them and Jinny should have them. And she wished she didn’t have to include the edible ones, but the one portion would have been too skimpy without them.

Jinny had wriggled with joy at the idea of eating something she had actually garnered from Nature all by herself. Half a dozen times she started on them, meanwhile keeping up a lively chatter about her year at college. Each time, as they waited in frozen expectancy, she had stopped to tell them of some other funny incident of school life. But she, finally, put the dish firmly before her and started eating. She had eaten at least three of the mushrooms, from her side dish of fatal and non-fatal types, when the phone rang. As bouncy as a small boy, Jinny leaped up to answer it. And the dish of mushrooms had fallen to the floor and scattered across the rug.

Jinny was painfully embarrassed, but there had been nothing to do save throw the mushrooms in the garbage can. As for the phone call, it had only been from their tiresome neighbor, Mr. Downey, inviting them to tea the following afternoon.

They had waited hopefully for Nature to take its course, if the three mushrooms Jinny had eaten were of the fatal type. But Jinny had gone up to bed quite healthy and now the Farringtons were under the annoying necessity of figuring out some other way to dispose of her. It was really very thoughtless of the girl to put them to so much trouble.

“It will have to be a fall from the cliff,” Marion said. “I told Mr. Downey we couldn’t come to tea because we were going on a picnic. Very well, we will go on a picnic. Jinny will see a very special flower she wants to pick, clinging dangerously to the side of the cliff. She will start down for it and slip and— Well, we just weren’t close enough to catch her.”

She spoke very convincingly. It almost sounded as if Jinny were already lying broken and lifeless on the cruel rocks, and as a consequence, they all felt much better. Then suddenly a piercing scream from the bedroom above them made them look up. Again came the scream — and again, a tremolo of horror that made the cut glass chandelier tinkle timorously.

Hope sprang in Marion’s eyes.

“The mushrooms!” she exclaimed.

“Dash it!” Bert said. “She’ll wake the whole neighborhood. Can’t she die quietly?”

Screams from above continued to indicate that she couldn’t.

“Amanita virosa!” Marion exclaimed, with awe. “Why that’s the name I couldn’t think of. It... it just came to me. No mushroom is deadlier.”

There was another scream.

“We’ll have to go up,” Marion told them. “Mr. Downey is sure to have heard her by now. Come on, Dick.”

She and Dick ran up the stairs and flung open Jinny’s door. Jinny was sitting up in bed, her hands pressed to her mouth, trying to stifle another scream.

“Jinny!” Marion hurried to her. “What is it? Do you feel bad?”

Jinny shook her head, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

“No pain?” Marion was eager, rather than solicitous.

“It was — another nightmare. The... the worst of all.”

They heard a window go up. A voice called, “Hello! Anything wrong over there?”

“That you, Mr. Downey?” Dick stepped to Jinny’s window. “Jinny had another nightmare, that’s all. She’s all right now.”

“Oh,” Mr. Downey said. “Oh.”

The window went down again. Dick came back and sat on the side of the bed, holding Jinny’s soft hand in his.

“Tell us about it, Jinny,” he urged. “That’s the best way to get over it.”

Jinny’s breathing was more normal now. She flushed delicately, and tried to pull the sheet up around her.

“It was — so real,” she said. “I was in a great, dark room, in some strange old house all tumbling down and full of shadows. And the shadows suddenly came to life and started creeping toward me. There was a terribly high ceiling and down from the darkness came a rope. It had a noose in the end of it. And the shadows all pushed me toward the noose and I knew they wanted me to put it around my neck, and they pushed closer and closer until I couldn’t breathe. Then all of a sudden the noose twisted itself right around my throat and... and—”

She gasped and began to tremble. Marion produced a pill and a glass of water.

“Take this. Jinny,” she said. “Get some sleep. It was just a dream, that’s all.”

“Yes, of course,” Jinny whispered. “Just a... dream. Thank you, Marion.”

She took the pill, drank, lay back on the pillow. Dick gave her hand a little squeeze.

“See you in the morning, Jinny.”

He went out softly. And Marion and Bert followed him on tiptoe, like loving parents leaving the side of their sleeping child.

It was a perfect summer morning. The horoscope in the daily paper said Today is a good day for carrying out projects you have been putting off. Bert, who always read the horoscopes, showed it to Marion.

“Yes, we’ve waited too long,” Marion said, and frowned. “We’ll finish this thing up today. Jinny’s nightmare last night has given us just the opportunity we need.” She reached for the phone.

“Hello,” she said to the operator. “I want to make a long distance call to Boston. Person to person to Dr. M. J. Brewer. He’s a famous psychiatrist. I don’t know his address, but I’m sure you’ll be able to locate him. It’s very important... Yes, call me back.”

She hung up and turned to Bert.

“I already phoned Dr. Barnes,” she said. “Told him about Jinny’s nightmares and said I was dreadfully worried. He suggested Brewer. I’ll make an appointment with Brewer and explain all about Jinny’s fits of depression and the time she took too many sleeping pills—”

“When was that?” Bert asked.

“Don’t be tiresome, Bert. The thing is, the child is melancholy, subject to depression, thinks of suicide. After all the buildup I gave the call, the operator is sure to listen in and spread the story. So will Mrs. Graves and Miss Bernham, on the party line — I heard their receivers picked up. Jinny is over now, apologizing to Mr. Downey for waking him up last night. By evening, the whole town will know about Jinny’s dream, her suicidal tendencies, instability, everything. Then this afternoon, for the picnic, we’ll go to Black Point. You know the old house in the woods there?”

“Yes,” Bert nodded. “What about it?”

“Why, it will be the most natural thing in the world— Oh, there’s the phone... Hello? Dr. Brewer?... Dr. Brewer, it’s urgent that I make an appointment with you for as soon as possible. You see—”

The Farringtons were a rather attractive family, especially on an occasion such as this, all of them off to a picnic

Marion had packed a hamper with food, and Bert had packed a smaller hamper with wine and other drinks. Dick drove the car far out on the lonely cliffs to the region known as Black Point. The evergreens grew tall with cathedral-like shade and quiet beneath them. Dick helped Jinny tenderly over the rough spots. His fingers caressed her bare arms as he helped her sit down on the edge of the rocky cliff, in the sunshine, the Atlantic combers crashing on the rocks far below. Sea gulls screamed; there was a smell of salt spray in the air. Jinny breathed deeply.