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

I have for some time, since the success of my television show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents...”, twiddled with the thought of doing a fast-paced, modern suspense magazine containing all new stories — stories that I like and feel the public will like. But, the twiddling went on — and on; I never quite “got to it.” Then one evening I was sitting at home minding my own business... when the telephone rang. The caller inquired if I might be interested in sponsoring a magazine to be entitled ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE.

Well now, suspense is my business and I replied that I might be interested — the culmination of such a project contingent upon the experience of the publishers in the mystery-fiction field. As we talked I learned that the call emanated from the office of the publishers of MANHUNT, America’s best selling crime-fiction magazine. We got together and...

Here it is... ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, to entertain, titillate and surprise you. We hope you have a shuddering good time!

I wish to make it clear at once that I agree completely that the amusement park is a place to have fun. With this bit of illuminating brilliance recorded, I hasten to add that none of the three people you are about to meet at this amusement park is destined to have much fun. As a matter of fact, one of them is slated for personal acquaintanceship with rigor mortis.

He saw a pink-striped arm with a pointing hand shoot past his face. A woman’s breathless voice said, “Oh, look at that girl! What’s she going to do?”

There wasn’t any doubt what the girl was going to do. The amusement pier had a fence all around it, to stand between the deep blue sea and the people with devils after them, people who wanted to do what this girl was trying. She had hung her big straw hat, with the straw horse and rider on the side of it, over a fence post. Over that she’d hung her big, dirty embroidered handbag. Now she had one toe stuck through the wire mesh and she was trying to get her other knee over the top of the fence. She wore no stockings and her legs were pale and very thin.

Cliff heard himself say foolishly, “That girl’s going to get hurt.” He made it to the fence in three jumps. He stuck his own toe in the mesh and got up high enough to take her by the elbow.

“Lady,” he said, “you want to fall off the pier? Come on down.”

She looked at him over her shoulder, the darkness blurring her face so that he could only guess she was young. Not much older than me, he thought, and pulled downward on the bony elbow. “Lady—”

“I’m not a lady,” she told him in a fierce whisper. “Let go, will you? Let go!”

“You don’t want to do this,” he said, trying to throw persuasion into his voice. “There’s a lot of cold water down there. Look.” A wave crashed over and hissed up the beach below them in the dark. “People are watching. Come on down.”

“Who wants to live?” she demanded, tugging.

Cliff looked down at the beach and suddenly found himself laughing a little. “You do,” he said. She swiveled her head around again and stared, her eyes and mouth dark splotches in the shadowy face.

Cliff laughed again. He let go the elbow. “Okay, go ahead. Jump.”

She hung there, looking down at him and breathing noisily through her open mouth.

Cliff said, “Go on, what’s keeping you? I just looked down. Did you? It’s only about five feet to the sand, and the tide’s out. You couldn’t even sprain an ankle.”

She teetered a moment on the swaying wire and then crooked up one arm and hid her face against it. Cliff said pityingly, “Come on down.”

“Help me,” she said.

She was like a bundle of dry twigs under the summer dress she wore. He had never seen a girl so thin. The little knot of loiterers who had slowed to watch moved on again, losing interest. Even the pink-striped woman had disappeared. The show was over and nobody had been much interested, anyhow.

Cliff said, “That’s better. You didn’t really want to drown yourself. Come along and I’ll buy you some popcorn.”

“I hate popcorn,” the girl said. “I need a drink.”

Cliff pushed a hand in his pocket and turned the coins over with his fingertips. “I could buy you a beer.”

They sat with their elbows on the moist bar and their heels hooked over the stool rungs, feeling through bar and stool the deep drag and suck and crash of the dark Pacific under the floor. Outside all the noises of the midway on Saturday night went round and round.

“Now what was all this about?” Cliff folded his arms on the bar as he had often seen his father do. He felt quite adult. “You weren’t really serious. I could tell that. What were you up to?”

“I was serious.” She drank thirstily and then looked at him out of the tops of her eyes. They were large and dark, and even in this dimness he could see how blood-shot they were. She had a scratch along her jaw, and her face was both puffed and thin. She wasn’t as young as he’d thought. Not nearly as young. Her name was Anne.

“I just thought I’d rather die than live, that’s all,” she said. “I feel like somebody who died of old age a long time ago. Everything that was important to me died. I ought to carry a little tombstone around with me that says HERE LIES—” She paused and gave him that look from the tops of her eyes again. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“You’re too nice a girl to talk that way.” Cliff felt flattered at the confidences, but not at all sure just what was expected of him. He played it safe.

She gazed in silence at him. Then she dug into the big dirty handbag and brought out a pint bottle. She turned her head so the hatbrim hid her, and he heard the bottle gurgle. “I’m not so nice,” she said, wiping her mouth. “The only thing is, it takes courage to kill yourself. I’ll have to work up to it. But I will. It’s the only way I can get back at him.”

“Back at who?” Cliff asked. He felt awkward, but he wanted her to go on talking. Partly because it was exciting to hear about, partly because he had in a way, he supposed, saved her life, and that gave him a responsible feeling toward her. Get her talking, he thought, and maybe the whole thing will pass over. He said, “There’s as good fish in the sea, you know. Why worry? You’re young and pretty—” He heard his voice falter a little on that, but he went on heartily. “—young and pretty, and you ought to take better care of yourself.”

“Am I?” She touched the scratch on her cheek. “Really?”

He was glad the mirror was dim. “Sure you are.”

She thought it over briefly and then tipped the pint bottle to her mouth again. Coughing, she said, “I’d offer you some, but there’s hardly any left, and anyway, you’re a little young for boilermakers.”

“I’m not that young,” Cliff said. “I don’t mix my drinks, anyhow. You know what they say, ‘Whiskey, beer — never fear. Beer, whiskey — mighty risky.’ You’ll be sick as a dog tomorrow if you don’t stop.”

“Who cares?” She dropped the bottle in the bag and took another long, thirsty pull at the beer. Under a white moustache of foam, she said with enormous self-pity, “I’m sick enough now. I feel terrible. If you hadn’t butted in, I’d be dead and out of it. Don’t you understand? I’ve got to get even somehow. When I heard he’d got into town yesterday, I figured my chance had really come. I’ve tried to get even before, but it never quite works, somehow. It never quite works.” She wiped off the foam with an unsteady finger.