Борден Дил: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

When it was finished, the extra earth scattered, the Joshua tree branches dragged back and forth over the spot, the woman said, “Go on back to the car. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

He went and sat quiet, watching her. She stood there motionless, looking down, for perhaps five minutes. The wind in the Joshuas made a strange rattling and whistling sound that was as lonely a noise as he thought he would ever hear again.

They drove back to the city together in silence.

“Where shall I drop you?” she asked as they came off the freeway.

“The Greyhound Bus Station is where I’m headed.”

She pulled over to the curb on a cross street a little way from the station and sat there looking at him in the reflection of the street light. Her face was more like Anne’s than ever, looking thin and drawn now as it had not when he had seen her earlier that evening.

“She told you about herself,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but he nodded. “All right. Now listen to me and pay very close attention. You and I committed a crime tonight. It wasn’t our doing that she died. It was somebody else’s doing. I’ve had to make the best of it. In a way it’s lucky for you. The publicity would have been bad, and besides—” She looked down at the wheel and her hand clenched on it, and she smiled a thin smile. “And besides, I saw the answer to an old problem. But it was a crime we did. You and I are in it together. No matter what happens, no matter what you ever read or hear about this, no matter if they find her body or not — you’ll be safe only as long as you never say a word to anyone. Do you understand that?”

Cliff nodded, his eyes not moving from hers.

“Don’t ever think you can blackmail me,” she went on. “The gun has your prints on it, and I’ve got the gun. We must both keep still as long as we live.”

He thought about it, his hand on the door, ready to get out. He said, “Yes, I understand — most of it. But I wish you’d tell me what it was you dropped into the — in with her.”

She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back, but he was surprised to find how close he had drawn to her in the sharing of this terrible, this shattering thing. Since that moment when he stood above Anne’s body and looked up at the stars, he had known how alone he was. The knowledge had sunk in and it would be with him always, because it was the truth. But this was the kind of closeness two people can share even in their solitude. She was not a stranger any more. He almost knew before she spoke what she would say.

“Something that belongs to him,” she said, not needing to speak the name. “His Phi Beta Kappa key, with his initials and school and date. If anybody ever finds it, he’s finished. He had more of a motive than anybody alive. He pulled the trigger, really, in a way.” Her smile grew tight and thin. “So now,” she said, “ he moves into second place. From tonight on I have the last word. What happened to Anne will never happen to me. I think she’d have liked that.”

Cliff thought of Anne, lying there among the clasping roots. He nodded. “I think so too.” He felt much better now, much solider, somehow, inside. Much surer of himself. In quite a firm voice, without any awkwardness in it, he said, “Well, goodnight. Goodnight, Mrs. Brewster.”

“Goodnight,” she said, and watched him walk away, his heels ringing solidly on the pavement of the early morning street.

While I should never suggest that you or I assume the role of a Mr. Pruyn, it was with a sigh of regret, I admit, that I concluded my association with the main character in this remarkable off-beater. I think you will feel quite as I do about this murderous little man, and the police, when you have finished with him. Or, rather, when he has finished with you...

Before she could scream, his hand had closed over her mouth. Grinning, he drove a knee into her stomach and stepped quickly back, letting her spill writhing to the floor at his feet. He watched her gasp for breath.

Like a fish out of water, he thought, like a damn fish out of water.

He took off his blue service cap and wiped sweat from the leather band. Hot. Damned hot. He looked down at the girl. She was rolling, bumping the furniture, fighting to breathe. She wouldn’t be able to scream until she got her breath back, and by then...

He moved across the small living room to a chair and opened a black leather toolbag he had placed there. He hesitated, looked back at her.

“For you,” he said, smiling over his shoulder. “Just for you.”

He slowly withdrew a long-bladed hunting knife from the bag and held it up for her to see.

She emitted small gasping sounds; her eyes bugged and her mouth opened and closed, chopping at air.

You’re not beautiful anyway, he thought, moving toward her with the knife. Pretty, but not beautiful. Beautiful women shouldn’t die. Too rare. Sad to see beauty die. But, you...

He stood above her, looking down. Face all red and puffy. No lipstick. Not even pretty now. No prize package when she’d opened the door. If she’d been beautiful he would have gone on, told her he’d made a mistake, and gone on to the next apartment. But, she was nothing. Hair in pin curls. Apron. Nothing.

He knelt, caught her arm and pulled her to him. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “This will be quick.”

He did not stop smiling.

“A Mr. Pruyn out front, sir. Says he’s here about the Sloane case.”

“Send him on in,” said Lieutenant Norman Bendix. He sighed and leaned back wearily in his swivel chair.

Hell, he thought, another one. My four-year-old kid could come in here and give me better stories. Stabbed her to death with my fountain pen, Daddy. Nuts!

Fifteen years with the force and he’d talked to dozens of Dopey Joes who “confessed” to unsolved murders they’d read about in the papers with Ben Franklin’s kisser on it. Oh, once he’d struck oil. Guy turned out to be telling the truth. All the facts checked out. Freak. Murderers are not likely to come in and tell the police all about how they did it. Usually it’s a guy with a souped-up imagination and a few drinks too many under his belt. This Sloane case was a prime example. Five “confessions” already. Five duds.

Marcia Sloane. 27. Housewife. Dead in her apartment. Broad daylight. Her throat cut. No motives. No clues. Husband at work. Nobody saw anybody. Score to date: 0.

Bendix swore. Damn the papers! Rags. Splash gore all over the front page. All the gory details. Except, thought Bendix, the little ones, the ones that count. At least they didn’t get those. Like the fact that the Sloane girl had exactly twenty-one cuts on her body below the throat; like the fact that her stomach bore a large bruise. She’d been kicked, and kicked hard, before her death. Little details — that only the killer would know. So, what happens? So a half-dozen addled pin-heads rush in to “confess” and I’m the boy that has to listen. Mr. Ears. Well, Norm kid, somebody’s got to listen. Part of the daily grind.

Lieutenant Norman Bendix shook out a cigarette, lit it, and watched the office door open.

“Here he is, Lieutenant.”

Bendix leaned forward across the desk, folding his hands. The cigarette jerked with his words. “Come in, Mr. Pruyn, come in.”

A small man stood uneasily before the desk, bald, smiling nervously, twisting a gray felt hat.

About thirty-one or so, guessed Bendix. Probably a recluse. Lives alone in a small apartment. No hobbies. Broods a lot. They don’t have to say a word. I can spot one a mile away.