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

Our home was brick outside, plaster and linoleum and plastic inside. Not much likelihood of a good flash fire. The commuter trains had their derailments and so on from time to time, but the accidents were almost invariably minor and never on Ladies’ Day.

Finally, I had to admit to myself that it was up to me. If Janice were to make way for Karen’s and my happiness, it would have to be at my instigation.

This conviction grew in me, becoming stronger and stronger until at last I dared broach the subject to Karen. She was, at first, shocked and appalled at my suggestion. But I talked to her, reasoning with her, explaining why it would never be possible for us to wed while Janice still lived, and slowly she too accepted the inevitability of it.

Once decided, the only questions left to answer were when and how. I had four types of murder from which to choose: murder made to look like an accident, murder made to look like suicide, murder made to look like natural death, and murder made to look like murder.

I ruled out accident at once. I had daydreamed for months of possible accidents for Janice, and had finally come to realize that they were all unlikely. If they were unlikely to me, who passionately desired that Janice should have an accident, how much more unlikely would they surely be to the police?

As for suicide, there were far too many of Janice’s suburban friends who would be delighted to volunteer the information that Janice was happy as a lark — and about as bright — and that she had absolutely no reason in the world to want to kill herself.

As for natural causes, I knew far too little about medicine to want to try to outwit a coroner at his own game.

Which left murder. Murder made to look like murder. And I planned accordingly.

My opportunity came on a Wednesday late in May. On the Thursday and Friday of that week, there was to be an important meeting in Chicago, concerning a new ad campaign for one of our most important accounts, and I was scheduled to attend. All I had to do was arrange for Karen to accompany me, an easy matter to justify, and then my plan went into action.

Here was the plan: I had two tickets on the three p.m. train Wednesday for Chicago, due to arrive in that city at eight-forty the following morning. Karen was to take this train, carrying both tickets. We would leave the ad agency together at noon, ostensibly headed for Grand Central, lunch and the train. But while Karen went to Grand Central, I would hurry uptown, to the 125th Street station, where there was a twelve fifty-five train for my portion of Connecticut. I would arrive at my station at two-ten, wearing false mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, and the kind of hat and topcoat I never wear. Our mortgaged paradise was a good twenty blocks from the station. I would walk this distance, shoot Janice with the .32 revolver I had picked up second-hand on the lower East Side two weeks before, ransack the house, take the five-oh-two back to the city, go to a movie, take the twelve forty-five plane for Chicago, arriving at three-forty a.m., and be at the railroad station when Karen’s train arrived at eight-forty. We would immediately turn in our return trip tickets, claiming we had decided to go back to New York by plane. This would necessitate my filling out and signing a railroad company form. It was foolproof. And, after a decent period of mourning, I would marry Karen and live happily and solvently ever after.

The day arrived. I told Janice I would see her on the following Monday, and I brought my suitcase with me to the office. Karen and I left at twelve, and I headed immediately uptown, stopping off only to buy a hat and topcoat. I checked my suitcase in a locker at the 125th Street station, and in the men’s room on the train, donned the horn-rimmed glasses and the mustache.

At two-fifteen, I was stepping from the train at my station, which was virtually deserted at this time of day. I saw no one I knew in the twenty block walk to the house. I let myself in the front door with my key, the pistol an unaccustomed weight in my pocket.

Janice was seated in the living room, on the unpaid for new sofa, reading a slick women’s magazine and being instructed, no doubt, in some new way to spend my hard-earned money.

At first, she didn’t recognize me. Then I removed the hat and glasses, and she exclaimed, “Why, Freddie! I thought you were going to Chicago!”

“And so I am,” I told her. I redonned hat and mustache, and moved forward to close the picture window drapes.

She said, “Whatever are you doing with that mustache? You look terrible with a mustache.”

I turned to face her and withdrew the pistol from my pocket. “Walk out to the kitchen, Janice,” I said. I planned to make it look as though the burglar had come in the back way, Janice had heard him and gone to investigate, and he had shot her.

She blinked at the gun, then stared wide-eyed at my face. “Freddie, what on earth—”

“Walk out to the kitchen, Janice,” I repeated.

“Freddie,” she said petulantly, “if this is your idea of a joke—”

“I’m not joking, Janice,” I said fiercely.

All at once, her eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands together childishly, as she always did when charging something we couldn’t afford. “You old dear!” she cried.

“You did buy me that new washer-dryer after all!” And she leaped to her feet and virtually ran out to the kitchen, her high heels going clack-clack on the linoleum. Even then, in the last moments of her life, all she could think of was that she was going to add yet another possession to the mound of goodies she had already bled from me.

I followed her to the kitchen, where she turned, puzzled, to say, “There isn’t any washer-dryer—”

I shot from the hip. Naturally, I missed, and the bullet perforated a dirty pot on the stove. I abandoned cowboy style forthwith, aimed more carefully, and the second shot cut her down in mid-scream.

Three seconds of silence. And they were followed by the sudden brrrinnnng of the front doorbell, the clapper of which was on the kitchen wall three feet from my head.

I froze, not knowing what to do. My first thought was to stay frozen and wait for whoever it was to go away. But then I remembered the little foreign car, sitting in the driveway, advertising Janice’s presence at home. If there were no answer, the visitor might get alarmed, might call for help from the neighbors or the police, and I would never manage to get away on foot.

So I had to go to the door. With the horn-rimmed glasses and the mustache, and a voice disguised by making it hoarser and deeper than usual, I should be able to avoid recognition. I would say I was the family doctor, that Janice was sick in bed and could see no one.

The bell rang again while I was still thinking this through, and the second ringing unfroze me. Putting the gun back in my pocket, I hurried through the living room and stopped at the front door. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and eased the door open an inch. Peering through this opening, I saw what was obviously a door-to-door salesman. He carried a tan briefcase. He wore a slender gray suit, a white shirt, a blue tie and a smile containing sixty-four gleaming teeth. He said, “Good afternoon, sir. Is the lady of the house at home?”

“She’s sick,” I said remembering to be hoarse.

“Well, sir,” he bubbled, “perhaps I could talk to you for just a moment or two, if you have the time.”

“Not interested,” I told him. “Sorry.”

“Oh, but I’m sure you will be interested, sir. My company has something of interest to every parent—”

“I am not a parent.”

“Oh.” His smile faltered, but came back with redoubled fury. “But my company isn’t of interest only to parents, of course. Briefly, I represent the Encyclopedia Universicana, and I’m not actually a salesman. We are making a preliminary campaign in this area—”