Alfred Hitchcock - Alfred Hitchcock Presents - 16 Skeletons From My Closet

A tall gray haired man wearing a double breasted blue serge suit and carrying a black dispatch bag climbed hastily out of the cab. A perspiring uniformed police sergeant blocked his path.

"Sorry," he said. "Only cleared personnel here."

"Are you in charge?" the gray haired man asked.

"I'm in charge," the sergeant said unhappily. "I am because of a Secret Service guy who isn't here right now."

"I know," the gray haired man said apologetically. "Awfully sorry I'm late. Ran off the road on the way and bumped my driver a bit. I had to get a cab."

He took a worn leather folder from an inside coat pocket.

"Mr. Smith," the sergeant said thankfully, catching the name off the State Department identification card. "Boy, am I glad to see you."

The relief was visible. It communicated to the rest of the policemen. There was an audible sigh as they relaxed, all but the two security police from the premier's own country. They never relaxed. They had turned with the others when Smith arrived but they had remained tense, alert.

Smith and the sergeant walked past them, to the stage door. Inside, you could hear the premier's big voice speaking, then the comparative silence while the interpreter translated, and occasionally a polite spatter of applause.

The sergeant said, "I hope no one was hurt in the accident."

"No. Not really an accident," Smith said. He looked down the empty corridor that led to the stage. Two officers there. He turned and checked the restricted area — the lineup of the parade limousines, the posting of officers — all quickly and smoothly and professionally without really seeming to do it. "Actually, we only lost a tire and my driver ran off the side of the road. I pulled the car into a side road out of the way. Perhaps you could send a radio car after it when we get his nibs here safely off."

"Sure thing," the sergeant said. "Does everything look all right here?"

"Fine," Smith said. "You've done very well, scarcely need me at all. Although," he said, "don't you think it might be a good idea to post a man down there at the turn of the boulevard?"

"Where, sir?"

Smith grunted, found the dispatch case awkward and put it down by the rest of the luggage. He said, almost parenthetically to the two security police from the premier's country, "Keep an eye on it, will you?"

The security police looked at him, almost expressionless, arms folded. They did not say anything.

Smith turned back to the sergeant, pointing down the street.

"Lovely field of fire there, if one had had a mind. Of course no one does, but it would be an ugly incident."

"Yes sir," the sergeant said with conviction. "It wouldn't make me cry if someone blasted the guy, but they're not going to do it in my town."

"Just so," Smith said with his quiet smile. "And I have a little larger area to worry about. I can't allow it to be done in my country."

"Yeah," the sergeant said, nodding. He gave orders and a motorcycle roared.

Smith said, "Of course you've gone through this once, clearing the route to the airport and all."

"Yes sir," the sergeant said. "We made that dry run last week with one of your guys. The county guys are handling the airport, with the airlines police."

"I'm sure they'll do a fine job, too," Smith said. "But I wonder if perhaps we might run out there, a few minutes ahead of the official party. Just to look things over."

"Sure thing," the sergeant said. "And we'd better hurry. Sounds like they're winding things up in the auditorium."

"All right then," Smith said. "Let's go."

They took an unmarked squad car, with a patrolman driving. The parade route was as direct as possible. It would not be much of a parade. Previous parades the premier had made in other cities discouraged slow and extensive parades. It gave members of the premier's party too much time to read derisive slogans on curbside banners, and even to hear and understand some of the shouts from spectators. But this was his last parade and it would go very fast. There were few spectators waiting along the route. There was only one banner. It said, "Good-bye and Good Riddance."

Smith frowned. The sergeant said, "Think we ought to encourage the boys to take it down?"

"No," Smith said. "Free speech and all that. Besides, it's a good sign. When they're thinking up slogans they're not thinking up positions for a rifleman."

At the air terminal, they went on past the main gates and swung into a service drive guarded by two sheriff's deputies. The service drive made a long sweep over the flat approach skirts of the terminal, then came in between the two main wings of the terminal building. There were guards at the turn where they entered the terminal, and a barricade where they turned again to drive out on the apron of the aircraft loading area. Deputies lifted the barricade for them and the sergeant said to them out the window, "Another ten minutes."

They drove out on the apron, getting the sudden feeling of having the city disappear as they turned toward the vast expanse of signal-picketed landing area. The apron had been cleared of all aircraft but the premier's ship, which stood alone well out in the area, unfamiliar and ominous in the oncoming dusk.

They left the squad car in the angle of the buildings. Above them was the tower, its radar screens turning ceaselessly, and on either side the long wings of the terminal stretched out like peninsulas reaching out into a calm sea, the windows of the upper level behind the balconies growing brighter as twilight deepened.

Smith stood a moment, making the same quick inspection that he had at the auditorium, while the sergeant talked with the captain of deputies who was in charge of the county police detachment.

"Only one area we really need to go over," Smith said. He gestured. "The balcony up there, the part with the open view."

"Yes sir," the captain of deputies said. "The cars with the big guy and his people will swing right around there, and the balcony will look right up the gangplank."

"Well," Smith said smiling, "shall we take a walk up there?"

They went upstairs and walked along the promenade. There were not many people on it. At the end of the promenade, the three men stopped.

"Looks all right," the sergeant said.

"Yes," Smith said. "Except for the girl outside, you noticed her of course. I wonder," he said to the captain of deputies who obviously had not seen the girl at all, "if I might borrow a man for a few moments?"

The captain signaled and they met the new deputy when he came up the escalator. Then they walked the promenade again casually, and Smith went out on the balcony to lean on the railing close to the girl. She wore low heeled shoes, not quite shabby. You saw the shoes, and the golden earrings.

Smith did not look at her as he spoke, quietly.

"I beg your pardon, Miss. But we can't have any of that, you know. If you'd just step back of the glass now, and chat with that officer over there until the airplane leaves, there won't be any fuss about it."

She did not turn. The only sign that she had heard was the tightening of her hands on the big purse she carried.

"Come along now," Smith said, still quietly.

The girl began to weep, silently, but she went.

The sergeant said, "Maybe we'd just better have a look at that purse now."

"Please don't," Smith said.

"But," the sergeant objected, "she may have a weapon in there."

"I'm sure she has," Smith said, smiling. "And if we found it, we'd have to take her into custody. Then we'd have things in the newspapers, and a dreadful international uproar."

"Oh," the captain of deputies said, with sudden comprehension. He said to his officer, "Just stand close to her and look friendly. Don't let her get outside."

"Right," the deputy said. "It won't be bad duty."