Роберт Колби - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 17, No. 4, April 1972

Dear Reader:

I am sorry — but not very — if the stories within should interfere with your spring cleaning. After all, it may be to your advantage to keep up with the best of the new in matters that are not swept under the rug, but are brought out for close inspection.

A number of charming (in their own way) personages are dealt with in a straightforward manner herein. Captain Leopold cleans up his share in A Melee of Diamonds by Edward D. Hoch, and so it goes, to Jack Ritchie’s novelette, Let Your Fingers Do the Walking, in which an efficient private investigator ultimately finds a limit to Ma Bell.

You will observe no dust on these stories. Every one is new, as you always expect and invariably get between these covers. Speaking of covers, if you wish to pull the bedding over your head at some point within, remember it is wiser to remain alert to your surroundings.

Good reading.

Alfred Hitchcock

When things start making sense, it may be time to retrace one’s steps.

The man with the silver-headed cane turned into Union Street just after nine o’clock, walking briskly through the scattering of evening shoppers and salesclerks hurrying home after a long day. It was a clear April evening, cool enough for the topcoat the man wore, but still a relief at the end of a long winter. He glanced into occasional shop windows as he walked, but did not pause until he’d reached the corner of Union and Madison. There, he seemed to hesitate for a moment at the windows of the Midtown Diamond Exchange. He glanced quickly to each side, as if making certain there was no one near, and then smashed the nearest window with his silver-headed cane.

The high-pitched ringing of the alarm mingled with the sound of breaking glass, as the man reached quickly into the window. A few pedestrians froze in their places, but as the man turned to make his escape a uniformed policeman suddenly appeared around the corner. “Hold it right there!” he barked, reaching for his holstered revolver.

The man turned, startled at the voice so close, and swung his cane at the officer. Then, as the policeman moved in, he swung again, catching the side of the head just beneath the cap. The officer staggered and went down, and the man with the cane rounded the corner running.

“Stop him!” a shirt-sleeved man shouted from the doorway of the Diamond Exchange. “We’ve been robbed!”

The police officer, dazed and bleeding, tried to get to his knees and then fell back to the sidewalk, but a young man in paint-stained slacks and a zippered jacket detached himself from the frozen onlookers and started after the fleeing robber. He was a fast runner, and he overtook the man with the cane halfway down the block. They tumbled together into a pile of discarded boxes, rolling on the pavement, as the man tried to bring his cane up for another blow.

He shook free somehow, losing the cane but regaining his feet, and headed for an alleyway. A police car, attracted by the alarm, screeched to a halt in the street, and two officers jumped out with drawn guns. “Stop or we’ll shoot!” the nearest officer commanded, and fired his pistol into the air in warning.

The sound of the shot echoed along the street, and the running man skidded to a halt at the entrance to the alleyway. He turned and raised his hands above his head. “All right,” he said. “I’m not armed. Don’t shoot.”

The officer kept his pistol out until the second cop had snapped on the handcuffs.

“Damn it!” Captain Leopold exploded, staring at the paper cup full of light brown coffee that Lieutenant Fletcher had just set before him. “Is that the best you can get out of the machine?”

“Something’s wrong with it, Captain. We’ve sent for a serviceman.”

Leopold grumbled and tried to drink the stuff. One swallow was all he could stomach. The men in the department had given him a coffee percolator of his very own when he’d assumed command of the combined Homicide and Violent Crimes squad, but on this particular morning, with his coffee can empty, he’d been forced to return to the temperamental vending machine in the hall.

“Get me a cola instead, will you, Fletcher?” he said at last, pouring the coffee down the sink in one corner of his office. When the lieutenant came back, he asked, “What’s this about Phil Begler being in the hospital?”

Fletcher nodded in confirmation. “There’s a report on your desk. Phil came upon a guy stealing a handful of diamonds from the window of the Midtown Diamond Exchange. The guy whacked him on the head with a cane and started running. They caught him, but Phil’s in the hospital with a concussion.”

“I should go see him,” Leopold decided. “Phil’s a good guy.”

“They identified the fellow that stole the diamonds and hit him as Rudy Hoffman, from New York. He’s got a long record of smash-and-grab jobs.”

Leopold nodded. “Maybe Phil Begler’s concussion will be enough to put him away for good.”

Fletcher nodded. “Hope so, Captain, but there is one little problem with the case.”

“What’s that?” Leopold asked.

“Well, they caught Hoffman only a half-block from the scene, after a young fellow chased and tackled him, and fought with him till a patrol car arrived. Hoffman got $58,000 worth of diamonds out of that window, and he was in sight of at least one person every instant until they arrested him.”

“So?”

“The diamonds weren’t on him, Captain. No trace of them.”

“He dropped them in the street.”

“They searched. They searched the street, they searched him, they even searched the patrol car he was in after his arrest. No diamonds.”

Leopold was vaguely irritated that such a simple matter should disrupt the morning’s routine. “Haven’t they questioned him about it?”

“He’s not talking, Captain.”

“All right,” he said with a sigh. “Bring him down. I’ll have to show you guys how it’s done.”

Rudy Hoffman was a gray-haired man in his early forties. The years in prison, Leopold noted, had left him with pale complexion and shifty, uncertain eyes. He licked his lips often as he spoke, nervously glancing from Leopold to Fletcher and then back again.

“I don’t know anything,” he said. “I’m not talking without a lawyer. You can’t even question me without a lawyer. I know my rights!”

Leopold sat down opposite him. “It’s not just a little smash-and-grab this time, Rudy. That cop you hit might die. You could go up for the rest of your life.”

“He’s just got a concussion. I heard the guards talkin’.”

“Still, we’ve got you on assault with a deadly weapon. With your record, that’s enough. We don’t even need the felony charge. So you see, you’re not really protecting yourself by clamming up about the diamonds. Even if we don’t find them, we’ve still got you nailed.”

Rudy Hoffman merely smiled and looked sleepy. “Those diamonds are where you’ll never find them, cop. That much I promise you.”

Leopold glared at him for a moment, thinking of Phil Begler in a hospital bed. “We’ll see about that,” he said, and stood up. “Come on, Fletcher, we’re keeping him from his beauty sleep.”

Back in Leopold’s office, Fletcher said, “See what I mean, Captain? He’s a hard one.”

Leopold was grim. “I’ll find those damned diamonds and stuff them down his throat. Tell me everything that happened from the instant he broke the window.”