by George Baxt
“I remember her.” She blew a smoke ring that settled briefly over Hitchcock’s head like an uneasy halo. “She had a companion who looked like a frightened bird. Have you come all the way here to chide me for the indelicacy of my prediction?”
“Not at all. I’m on my way to Harborshire, but when I saw the circus, it brought back pleasant childhood memories, so I decided to stop off and visit. Have we met before?”
“I don’t think so. Perhaps.” She shrugged. “Perhaps in another world, another life. In one of my incarnations I was an Egyptian princess.”
“How many incarnations have you had? All that the traffic can bear, I suppose?”
The mocking smile was back. “Perhaps you saw me in Munich many years ago.”
“How did you know I was in Munich? It’s not printed on either of my palms.”
“Mr. Hitchcock, sparring verbally can be so wearying. We met in Munich one night; you and your wife were with Fritz Lang and his wife Thea. I was with Hans Albers, the actor. It was a very brief introduction. I was a mere child then and looked very pale and very washed out.”
“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Rosie Wagner, would it?”
“I hope not. It’s such an ordinary name. No, my name is really Lavinia. My friends call me Lola. I was with Albers because I was hoping he would help me with a movie career. But since I wasn’t easily seducible… then… nothing much came of that night except a much-needed meal. I’m sure you don’t remember me at all.”
“I met so many people in Munich, they become one large blur when I try to think back. But you’re quite memorable now.”
“What else would you like to know about the future?”
“I’d like to know the identity of a two-headed spy. “
“So would a lot of people.”
“Who do you work for?”
Her eyes widened with mock astonishment. “But I work right here for the Pechter Circus. Where they go, I pitch my tepee.”
“How long have you been with the circus?” His arms were folded, and he no longer found her glamorous.
“Not very long. Does it matter?”
“I understand you’ve lost your knife thrower.”
“I haven’t lost anyone. But yes, the knife thrower is missing.”
“He’s dead.”
“So? You also have mystical powers?”
“No, I have facts, received from Scotland Yard. Nicholas Haver was stabbed to death in the basement of the church in King’s Cross, shortly after he tried to kill me.”
‘Tm sorry to hear this about Nicholas. He had a marvelous act.”
“You can tell his agent he is no longer available.”
“You’ve already told his wife.” She was lighting another cigarette.
Hitchcock scratched his chin. “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to shock you.”
“I’m not shocked,” she said matter-of-factly, “I read his palm before he went to London. I warned him not to go. His insurance is in order.”
“How very cold-blooded you are.”
“Mr. Hitchcock,” she said softly, after exhaling two slipstreams of smoke from her nostrils, “only the cold-blooded survive, and I am a survivor.” Gracefully, she arose and walked to the beaded curtain. She swept the curtain aside and turned to Hitchcock, making a tableau of sinister beauty he would not soon forget. “Let me tell you this. My predictions have been ninety percent accurate. Be very careful, Mr. Hitchcock. Be very very careful.” She moved, and the curtain dropped behind her. Hitchcock hurried out of the tepee.
“Be very very careful of what?” demanded Nancy Adair, with whom Hitchcock almost collided.
“You’ve been eavesdropping,” he accused, very displeased.
“I was doing no such thing. I was tired of waiting for you and I came to get you and I overheard. It’s getting late. We should be moving on.”
“Hello,” came a piping little boy’s voice.
Hitchcock looked behind him. He saw a small boy, or what appeared to be a small boy, dressed in a white shift that fell to his thighs, revealing bare knees and feet. On each shoulder was pasted a wing, and on his back Hitchcock could see a shaft of arrows. In his right hand, the boy held a bow.
“Hello. Where did you come from?”
“Over there. “ He pointed in the general direction of the tents. “My name is Cupid.”
“Ah! That explains your costume!” He turned on Nancy Adair. “Will you please stop tugging at my sleeve!” He returned his attention to Cupid. “And how are things going in the romance department?”
“Not so good today. I haven’t shot anyone yet. Have you seen the freaks?”
Hitchcock studied Cupid’s face. Was he a small boy or was he a small man who looked like a small boy? he wondered. “No, I haven’t seen the freaks.” The circus orchestra was blasting away, and the attendance seemed to have increased a bit since Hitchcock’s session in the tepee.
“You can’t go to the circus without seeing the freaks. There’s no extra charge.” He took Hitchcock’s hand and held it in an iron grip. “Come with me. I’ll show you the freaks. They’re my friends.”
Nancy Adair’s voice reached an unnatural pitch. “Let’s get out of here! There’s no time to see freaks or anything else!”
Cupid tightened his grip. “We seem to have no choice,” said Hitchcock. “You can wait here if you like.” She chose to follow them.
Herbert, eating a frankfurter and roll, munched slowly and thoughtfully. Instinctively, he patted his hidden holster. When the three disappeared into the freak tent, Herbert turned his attention briefly to the blackfaced musicians. Then he looked at his wristwatch. The performance in the main tent was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes. He hoped Hitchcock wasn’t planning to catch it. There were just a few hours of daylight left. He didn’t like driving at night. The frankfurter tasted awful. He flipped it into a trash can and returned his attention to the freak tent.
Inside the tent, Cupid said to Hitchcock, as Nancy Adair glowered at him, “Look!” He now released his grip on Hitchcock’s hand and was making an expansive gesture to include all the strange specimens on display. “Aren’t they wonderful?”
“Indeed they are,” agreed Hitchcock, as his eyes traveled from the pinheaded girl to the bearded lady to the India rubber man, whose body was twisted in a figure eight. Then he studied Alberta, the half-man-half-woman, the woman half winking at him and the man half poking the woman half while growling out of the masculine side of the mouth. A roustabout in a bellowing roar announced the show in the main tent would begin in fifteen minutes, and the tent began to empty of its sparse audience.
“Hitchcock,” urged Nancy Adair, “we’ve seen enough. Let’s go.”
“You haven’t met my mother!” piped Cupid. “Come!” He held Hitchcock’s hand again in his viselike grip and tugged him forward. “Momma! Momma! Meet my new friend!”
The Siamese twins stepped forward in unison. They were joined at the side. The sign over their stage read
HELGA AND LISLTHE SIAMESE TWINS.
Helga shouted to Cupid, “Stop pulling that man like that! Behave yourself!”
Hitchcock’s jaw dropped, and Nancy Adair gasped. Hitchcock found his voice. “So this is your mother.”
“Yes, I’m his mother,” said Helga, one hand on her one hip, “and it wasn’t easy. This is my sister, Lisl.” Lisl didn’t seem any too friendly and did not acknowledge Hitchcock’s greeting. “Lisl is in a very bad mood. She’s just heard some very bad news. A good friend of ours was murdered.” Slowly, the Siamese twins were descending the stairs from the stage. “I believe you know about this, yes?” Her accent was strong and Germanic, and Hitchcock had the sinking feeling that when and if the others spoke, they too would favor him with a Teutonic lilt.
“If you mean Nicholas Haver, yes; I told Madame Lavinia. “
“Let’s get out of here,” hissed Nancy Adair in his ear. “We’re alone with them. I don’t like it in here. These p
eople are dangerous.” They were backing away toward the tent flap. Cupid tried to grab Hitchcock’s hand again, but Hitchcock pushed it away.
From the left, an ugly voice said, “You were responsible for his death.” It was the bearded lady who spoke. Hitchcock suspected the bearded lady was a bearded man, but this was no time to try to prove his theory right.
“I was not,” said Hitchcock, trying to mask the rising panic. They were almost at the exit, and Hitchcock hurried Nancy toward it. He half expected to see Cupid drawing an arrow at them but instead saw the freaks had stopped in their tracks, no longer following them with menace.
In the entrance stood the roustabout who was dressed as an American Indian. He shouted at Cupid and the freaks, “Get back, you sons of bitches, are you out of your minds? Get back! You! Frieda!” He was shouting at the Bearded Lady, who, Hitchcock now saw, was holding a weapon that looked like a truncheon. “Don’t make any trouble, Frieda.” Perhaps, thought Hitchcock, Frieda was a “she” after all, but from the way she held the weapon, definitely not a lady. “Go put your beard up in curlers! The rest of you get to your tents. Go on. You, you little bastard”—the roustabout was addressing Cupid, who bravely was standing his ground— “go get ready for the Wild West Show.” Hitchcock could see the orchestra as he charged out of the freak tent with a firm grip on Nancy Adair’s hand.
“What’s been happening? What’s been going on? What happened with you and Madame Lavinia?” Nancy Adair was babbling away, her tongue running amok. They were passing the bandstand, and Hitchcock suddenly stood frozen, staring ahead at one of the musicians. “Now what? Now what’s wrong?”
“That man, that man playing the saxophone! That musician with the tic under his left eye! He abducted my wife! That’s him! Police! Get the police!”
“Hitchcock, control yourself!” shouted Nancy.
But Hitchcock had lost all control of himself. People had come running, and the man with the tic was trying to shove his way off the bandstand. “Stop that man!” shouted Hitchcock. “Stop that man!”
An arrow came whizzing past Hitchcock’s ear and imbedded itself in Blinky’s chest. He dropped the saxophone and for a moment, he was astonished and disoriented. His black makeup was mixing with perspiration and smearing. His tic was going wild like a semaphore in distress. Then he began flailing his arms as he began to fall backward against the set of trap drums. People were shouting and screaming and running in all directions. Roustabouts were hurrying from all corners of the circus ground.
Hitchcock was behaving like a madman, and Nancy Adair slapped his face. “You fat fool!” she screamed at him. “We’ve got to get out of here before the police come! Hurry! This way!” She pulled him by the hand as they ran, half stumbling, jostling their way through the crowd that was gathering, running past a man with dark glasses and a black cap on his head who had reached for his gun but with relief shoved it back in the holster when he caught sight of Hitchcock and Nancy Adair tearing toward their car. Herbert ran to his and got behind the wheel as Nancy steered her car in high gear back to the road.
“That was him/’ sobbed Hitchcock, “that was him. The man who kidnapped Alma! That was him!”
“Control yourself, for God’s sake! He’s dead now probably. That arrow looked as though it went straight into his heart.”
Hitchcock wiped his wet face with his handkerchief. “That arrow! Do you suppose that child killed him? But why? Why would they want to kill one of their own?”
Nancy said quietly, hands tight on the steering wheel, eyes glued to the road ahead of her, “Perhaps he wasn’t one of their own.” She waited while the thought sank in, and then she added, “And you gave him away.”
Fifteen
Hitchcock stared at the palms of his hands as they sped along the road to Harborshire. Perhaps he wasn’t one of them and I gave him away. But if he wasn’t one of them, what was he doing with those thugs that attacked me and abducted Alma? And of all things, to be playing a saxophone in blackface. His sudden outburst of laughter took Nancy Adair by surprise and unnerved her. Was he losing his reason, she wondered, and if he was, how would she deal with it?
“What’s wrong with you?” she shouted. “What is it?”
“I’m a bloody fool, that’s what it is. The man with the tic. The blackface. The musician. It was in my last film, Young And Innocent, except in that one the man with the tic played the drums! Is it possible that life can be imitating art?”
“Coincidence, that’s all.”
“Contrivance, I prefer to think, but will God forgive me if I’ve been the cause of an innocent man’s death?” But he couldn’t erase the memory of the man struggling with Alma.
“I’m going to try and reach Harborshire by nightfall. Let’s not stop for any unnecessary reasons.”
“I’m not hungry, if that’s what you’re getting at. I should be, but I’m not. I’ve no appetite at all.” He stared at the palms of his hands again. “Madame Lavinia. She set the freaks against us. She’s Nicholas Haver’s widow. Remember? The imitation Lemuel Peach, the vicar. She said we met in Munich back in 1925, but I don’t recall that at all. I thought at first she meant she was Rosie Wagner, but she wasn’t. Rosie was an unkneaded lump of dough, as plain and as unappetizing as an unbaked biscuit. Lavinia was something else. You have the strangest expression. Regrets, Miss Adair, regrets?”
She was staring with alarm at the rearview mirror. “What’s happening?” asked Hitchcock.
“I’m not sure. There’s a lorry gaining on us. I haven’t noticed it before.”
“Well, move over and let him pass! Isn’t that the courtesy of the road?”
“I don’t think this lorry driver is interested in courtesy. I think he’s only interested in us.”
With an effort, Hitchcock twisted in his seat and looked out the rear window. A large red lorry was gaining on them. As it swerved, he could read the lettering on the side, PECHTER CIRCUS.
“It’s a circus lorry! And I can see the man at the wheel. It’s him! The one dressed as an Indian! What the hell’s he trying to do? Let him pass, damn it, let him pass!”
“He doesn’t want to pass! He wants to run us off the road!”
In the black sedan, Herbert was voicing a string of oaths. He had courteously let the red lorry pass him until he read the name of the circus and then realized Hitchcock and the woman were in trouble. But it didn’t make sense. No one should want Hitchcock dead. But perhaps the woman. Nancy Adair. His foot on the accelerator had it pushed to the limit, but the lorry was obviously equipped with a sophisticated engine. He cursed again louder.
Nancy struggled to keep control of the steering wheel while Hitchcock waved a fist at the lorry driver. The lorry kept hitting the back of their car, the only surcease occurring when he was forced to pull in behind them to avoid colliding with cars coming from the opposite direction.
“Try pulling into a driveway!” cried Hitchcock. “There’s one coming up ahead! Do you see it?”
“Yes, yes, I see it!” The car jarred violently as they were again hit from behind.
She swerved sharply into the driveway. It was overgrown with weeds and foliage, badly rutted; driver and passenger were jolted and bounced as though they had landed in a cement mixer. A few feet ahead of them was what looked like an abandoned granary, a now sorry-looking wooden edifice with its doors hanging from rusty hinges. The lorry shot past the driveway; possibly the maniac at the wheel had missed seeing Nancy’s maneuver, which had taken place around a curve in the road that briefly obscured his vision.
“Look out!” shouted Hitchcock as Nancy, having difficulty in decelerating the speed of the car, crashed past the worm-eaten doors into the building. A rope hoist hung from beams overhead, once used to raise the grain to the storage bins above. Bearing down on the brakes, Nancy finally brought the car to a halt under the hoist. Both turned to look out the back window and with relief saw no sign of the circus lorry.
And then the ground began to give way be
neath the car.
“We’re sinking into a pit!” cried Nancy as she wrenched open her door and flung herself out of the car. Clumsily, Hitchcock groped for his door handle. The car dropped farther into the pit.
“I’m trapped!” cried Hitchcock.
“I’ll get help!” shouted Nancy and ran out to the road.
Hitchcock sat quietly, beads of perspiration trickling down his brow. If he sat still, he cautioned himself, if he tried not to move, perhaps the car would settle where it was. And if it didn’t settle, how far down would it plunge? he wondered. How deep were the pits in granaries? Deep. Very deep. The car moaned, and the floor groaned, and Hitchcock felt the car slipping slowly farther into the abyss beneath him. Our father who art in heaven…
Herbert saw Nancy come running out of the driveway. He also saw what she didn’t see. The circus lorry had reversed and was heading backward. The door opened and the roustabout in his Indian suit jumped down and chased after Nancy. Herbert slowed down. The roustabout caught Nancy around the waist and rudely lifted her off her feet, carrying the screaming, struggling woman back to the lorry. Herbert didn’t seem in the least bit interested in rushing to her rescue. Once Nancy had been shoved into the front seat of the lorry, the roustabout got in, and with an agonizing grinding of gears, the lorry went tearing away. Herbert steered into the driveway and parked while sizing up Hitchcock’s predicament.
Nigel Pack had come home for a change of clothing. It looked as if another all-night session was ahead of him with the firm. There’d be no rest for the weary until the Hitchcock case was satisfactorily resolved. He had tried phoning Violet to tell her he’d be home, but there was no reply. Out shopping again, probably, decided Nigel, and what for now? She’d sent a birthday gift to her father earlier in the week, and they’d had another of their knockdown drag-outs earlier that morning about her profligate spending of money on un- necessaries. He thought that problem had been settled then.
After slamming the front door shut behind him he shouted, “Violet!” followed by a louder “Violet?” He went to their bedroom. Her closet door was open. Immediately he realized her overnight bag was gone. The stupid bitch! I distinctly forbade her going to her parents’ to celebrate her father’s birthday. The stupid, willful bitch! He crossed to his own closet and flung open the door and then began undressing.