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

"I'm quite positive. Our membership is limited, rather exclusive, and I'm acquainted with all members. That's why I'm convinced that none of them could be involved."

"Even exclusive people can commit murder, Mr. Iverson. Possibly even exclusive people you happen to be acquainted with. Never mind, though. Thanks for coming down."

Marcus turned away abruptly, and there was in his movement an implication of disdain that made Iverson flush and Sergeant Fuller curse softly under his breath. Aware that he had been dismissed, the manager went back across the course toward the Club House, only the roof of which was visible beyond the rise. Marcus went over and picked up the brown worsted jacket from the grass where he had dropped it after exploring the pockets.

"I wonder where the coroner is," he said.

"He'll be along," Fuller said.

"Well, I won't wait for him. You stay here and find out what he's got to say. Nothing much, I suspect. Because he never does."

Sergeant Fuller was curious about Marcus's plans, but he was damned if he would give him the satisfaction of knowing it. He watched Marcus go off toward the Club House, where they'd left their car in the parking lot, and he cursed again under his breath, Marcus for what he was, and the coroner for not coming.

In the car, unaware that he had been cursed, or even that he had given cause for cursing, Marcus checked Alexander Gray's driver's license for an address. The street and number rang a faint bell, and he sat quietly for a minute, concentrating, trying to fit the location properly into a kind of mental map of the city. If his mental cartography was correct, which it was, Gray had lived not more than a mile from the entrance to this club. Probably somewhat less. Marcus looked at his watch and saw that it was two minutes after nine o'clock. Starting the car, he drove down a macadam drive and slipped into the traffic of a busy suburban street. He swung off after a while and was soon parked at the curb in front of a buff brick apartment building which displayed in large chrome numbers above the double front doors the address on the license.

Inside on the ground floor, he found the apartment of the building superintendent, who turned out to be, when he had opened his door in response to Marcus's ring, a wispy little man with wispy gray hair and pince-nez clipped to the bridge of a surprisingly bold nose. Marcus introduced himself and received an introduction. The superintendent's name was Mr. Everett Price.

"Is there an Alexander Gray living in the building?" Marcus asked.

"Yes." Mr. Price removed the pince-nez, which were, of course attached to a black ribbon, and held them by the spring clip in his right hand. "He's in three-o-six. He shares the apartment with Mr. Rufus Fleming."

"Oh? Have Mr. Gray and Mr. Fleming shared the apartment long?"

"About two years, I think. Yes, two years this summer. Perfect gentlemen, both of them. Quiet and good-mannered. There is, in fact, something old-fashioned in their manners. Rather courtly, you know. It isn't often, nowadays, that you find that quality in younger men."

"I agree. It's rare. Do you know if Mr. Fleming is in at the moment?"

"No, I don't. It's possible, however, this being Saturday. Mr. Fleming doesn't work on Saturday."

"I wish I didn't. I believe I'll just go up and speak with Mr. Fleming, if you don't mind."

Mr. Price looked confused. He scrubbed the lenses of the pince-nez with a clean white handkerchief and clipped them to his big nose again, peering at Marcus as if he had decided that some revision of his first judgment of him had become necessary.

"Excuse me," he said. "I thought you wanted to see Mr. Gray."

"I didn't say that," Marcus said. "I only asked if Mr. Gray lived here."

"Yes. So you did. I made an assumption, I suppose. In any event, it's quite likely that both gentlemen are in this morning."

"I wonder if you would come up with me. Just in case neither of them is."

Now Mr. Price looked startled. Possibly he had suddenly gathered from Marcus's tone that Marcus was certainly going up in spite of anything, although willing to make a nice pretense of asking permission, and that the superintendent was damn well coming up with him, whether he was agreeable or not.

"What on earth for?" Mr. Price said.

"So that you can let me into the apartment, if that is necessary."

"Oh, I couldn't do that without authorization from the tenants. It's unthinkable."

"Is it? I don't believe so. You can try thinking about it on the way up. You may change your mind."

"I'm reasonably certain that either Mr. Fleming or Mr. Gray will be in on a Saturday morning."

"Mr. Fleming, maybe. Not Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray will never be in again. He's dead. He has, it seems, been murdered."

The pince-nez popped off Mr. Price's nose and jerked and swung at the end of their ribbon. Marcus had a bleak vision of a trap sprung, a body hanging.

"What did you say?"

Marcus didn't bother to repeat himself. He merely waited for the information to soak in and become tenable.

"This is dreadful," Mr. Price said.

"So it is."

"Why would anyone murder Mr. Gray? He was such a pleasant man."

"Pleasant people are sometimes murdered. Usually by unpleasant people."

"When did it happen? Where?"

"Never mind that now. You'll know soon enough. Everyone will. Now I would like to go upstairs and see Mr. Fleming if he's in, or look through the apartment if he's not."

"Yes," said Mr. Price. "Yes, of course."

They went up three floors and rang the bell of three-o-six. Mr. Fleming was either not in or not answering. The former was true, as Marcus learned immediately after Mr. Price had opened the door for him. The apartment consisted of a living room, a large bedroom with two beds, a bath and a small kitchen. No one was there. The beds were made and the kitchen was clean and the living room was orderly. Mr. Gray and Mr. Fleming had been tidy housekeepers. Mr. Fleming, so far as Marcus knew, still was.

"Did Fleming spend the night here?" he asked.

"I don't know. He was here early, as Mr. Gray was, but he may have gone out again and not returned."

"All right. Thanks. I won't need you any longer. And don't worry about the apartment. I'll leave it in good order."

Mr. Price didn't look convinced, but he left. Marcus went into the bedroom and began to prowl. He opened drawers and looked into closets, but all he achieved was confirmation of the judgment he had already made — that Mr. Gray and Mr. Fleming were clean and orderly enough to please the most fastidious woman. In the living room, after poking into places and scanning the titles of books that struck him as being intolerably dull on the whole, he stopped before the mantel of a dummy fireplace to look at a picture. A photograph of a young woman. Inscribed. He took it down and read the inscription: For Rufe and Alex with all my love, Sandy. The double inscription implied a Platonic meaning at variance, it seemed to Marcus, with the totality of love. He scratched his head and examined Sandy's face.

It was a lovely face. A wistful face. Shaped like a small, lean heart. Big eyes with sadness in them. Tenderness in them. Passion in them? Passion, at least, in the soft lips set in the merest of smiles. In spite of the suggested passion, however, there was — Marcus groped for the word — a kind of mysticism. He was falling, in an instant, half in love.

Putting the photograph back on the mantel, he turned away. Then he turned back. On the mantel, placed squarely below a reproduction of Daumier's Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that hung on the wall above, was a sizable leather case. He removed the case and opened it. Inside, nested in plush, was a matched pair of.22 caliber target pistols. Both clean. Both lately oiled. Beautifully cared for. The purloined letter still makes its point, he thought. In his attention to drawers and closets, he had nearly overlooked the case in plain sight. Not, so far as he could see at the moment, that it would have made any particular difference if he had. Nevertheless, he appropriated the case and took it with him when he left. That was after he had returned once more to the bathroom and stood for a few minutes with an abstracted air before the open medicine cabinet above the lavatory.