Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 04/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  “Emergency telephone call for Ted Caswell!”

  Sam leaned back so he was mostly out of view from inside the room, but held the door ajar. Ted stood. The professor glanced at Ted and nodded.

  Halfway into the hallway, Ted spotted Sam.

  “What’s—”

  Sam held a finger to his lips and made a hurry-up-follow-me gesture. The next classroom was empty and the door was open. He walked in and waited for Ted to join him.

  “What’s the emergency, Sam? There’s no phone in here.”

  “Relax, Ted. There’s an emergency, but not on the telephone. You have any details on the shooting of the old janitor last night?”

  “You called me out of class to ask me that? What’s so urgent—”

  “I heard the cops have some sort of witness—”

  “How about waiting for the paper to come out on Monday?”

  “That’s five days away. It’ll be old news by then.”

  “We’re a weekly. Everything we publish is old news.”

  “Look, I heard the cops have a witness who claims he saw it happen. Who is it?”

  “Why not ask the cops?”

  “Do you think they’d tell me? I’m just another student. But I thought an outstanding, aspiring reporter like you would know somehow.”

  “What’s your interest?”

  “Well, it’s just that . . . the cops have arrested Luke Brandon.”

  “If you know that, what’s more to know?”

  “Whoever their witness is, he’s lying. Luke didn’t do it.”

  “You know something the cops don’t?”

  “Look, Luke’s just a friend. I don’t think he did it. Be a pal.”

  “Is there something going on here an outstanding, aspiring reporter ought to be aware of?”

  “No . . . I mean, I’m just trying to figure out why someone would accuse Luke, who is a guy who would think three or four times about swatting a fly.”

  “Yeah, su-u-u-re. Okay . . . cops put a lid on it. They aren’t saying. And there’s a state legislator who called our faculty advisor, who informed the editor this morning that we weren’t to print any details about the witness. Nor are we to waste any time looking for any details.”

  “Journalism 101.”

  “Exactly. So I called my uncle who works for the daily here in the city. He says their paper has had some pressure to keep the witness’s name out of print.”

  “Journalism 201.”

  “So, a couple of us, we just nosed around. Even if it’s only a weekly college tabloid, it is a newspaper and we who run it aspire to be real newsmen.”

  “I’m proud of you, Ted. You’ll go far.”

  “Well, their witness isn’t a he. They’ve got this student, Joyce Flinders . . . she’s walkin’ home from an evening at the library, it’s about nine forty-five, Duckworth is on the sidewalk across the street. About a block from the dorm, a car wheels around a corner, stops by Duckworth, shots ring out, Duckworth falls dead, the car roars off, and the Flinders dame, she says she saw it all.”

  “And, she describes Luke’s car?”

  “Yeah, an’ describes watchin’ Luke empty his gun into the old guy.”

  “If it comes to trial she’ll have to testify.”

  “The Flinders dame is not only the daughter of a state legislator, but her family is big money in this state. I think her pop probably figures by the time it comes to trial, Duckworth was so unimportant nobody’d be paying any attention, even the papers. Meanwhile, they’ll try to keep her name out of it as long as possible.”

  “Ask yourself this: What reason would Luke have for shooting the old guy?”

  “Heck, isn’t any real secret. Half the students on campus know Duckworth was the best source of good freelance booze in the county. Maybe he shorted Luke on a booze buy, or gave him the wrong stuff, I don’t know.”

  “Luke didn’t use the stuff, Ted. What other business could he have had with the old guy?”

  “Well, my uncle is pretty tight with one of the city cops. He says Luke isn’t talking. Not word one. If he’s innocent, you’d think he’d come up with at least some half-baked alibi. Wouldn’t you think?”

  * * *

  After Ted left, Sam sat trying to get his thoughts away from sleep and figure what he ought to do next. A few moments later, the class bell rang and the hallway was filled with students. Connie was one of them, and she noticed Sam through the open door. He was leaning back with his eyes closed. She walked into the room and sat next to him.

  “Catching up on your sleep?”

  Sam sat up and stifled a yawn.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “Deep thoughts?”

  “No. Actually I think I was sleeping.”

  “Sam, I didn’t know you had a class around here.”

  “I was, um, just in the neighborhood.”

  “So was I. I have a class in this very building.”

  “And you went to this one.”

  “Yes, and a strange thing happened. A few minutes after the class started, some fellow interrupted, yelling, ‘Emergency telephone call for Ted Caswell.’”

  “That would be a strange thing.”

  “Yes, it would be, and it was. Who’s Ted Caswell? I’ve seen him in the class, I mean I saw him get up and leave, but we’ve never been introduced.”

  “Looking for a new boyfriend?”

  Connie poked a finger in his chest.

  “I know it was you out there in the hall. What’s going on?”

  “He’s just a fellow who works on the campus newspaper. Do you know a girl named Joyce Flinders?”

  “You looking for another girlfriend?” Connie gave him a good hard look in the eye, then relaxed when he raised his hands in surrender.

  “Okay, I know her to speak to, but . . . know her? I know her well enough, I’ve never wanted to know more. And she has fast friends. I’ve heard she’s been carrying a torch for a fellow who works over at that Roadhouse.”

  “She claims to be a witness to the shooting last night. She says it was Luke who did it. Cops picked him up this morning.”

  “Luke? I’d rather believe the Statue of Liberty went for a stroll in Central Park.”

  “She says she was coming back from the library and saw it happen.”

  “Joyce Flinders? In the library? I doubt if she knows where the library is.”

  “That’s the story she’s telling the cops.”

  “Someone said her grades are close to failing. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was her folks’ influence . . . make that, um, money that was keeping her in school.”

  “That sort of thing goes on?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Sam. Last fall, the paper had an article about her father buying new curtains for the Millbank Theater.”

  Sam stood, feeling a little refreshed.

  “Thanks, Connie.” Sam leaned close and left a quick kiss on her cheek. “You’re the top! Gotta go.”

  “Wait!” Connie started to rise, but sat again after a few seconds. He was gone before she had gotten to the questions she really wanted to ask. Like how did Sam and his buddies get Millbank’s cannon onto the roof. She had already decided they were the ones who put it up there.

  Sam joined Jerry on a bench near the entrance of the Evangeline S. Millbank Student Cafeteria.

  “It’s Joyce Flinders,” Sam said.

  “Ah, Joyce Flinders,” Jerry said.

  “You know her?”

  “Never met her, but I know Luke dated her a couple times last year. Said later it should have been never. He thought she was only interested because his family comes from money. Slick lookin’ dame, no brains.”

  Sam snapped his fingers.

  “Didn’t she run for prom queen last winter?”

  “Yeah, but she lost when she couldn’t qualify in current events. She thought Mussolini was the chef at the Roadhouse.”

  Sam related his conversation with Ted, including the calls Joyce’s father had appa
rently made. He also recounted what Connie said about Joyce.

  “Well,” Jerry said, “we both know Joyce didn’t see anything of the kind.”

  “We really ought to be going in and telling the cops where Luke really was. Ted said the last he’d heard, Luke isn’t saying anything. Why isn’t he spilling it and laughing in their faces?”

  “Well, he took an oath, just like you and me.”

  “Or maybe he’s waiting for us to come in and get him sprung.”

  “Maybe, but let’s turn over a few more rocks first. If Joyce has been seeing somebody who works over at the Roadhouse, that’s a little suspicious right there, you ask me.”

  “Okay, I guess I could at least go look up Joyce Flinders. Tell her what I think.”

  “Just like that? Tell her what you think?”

  “It’s what those private dicks in those gangster movies would do. My father’s company made a couple of them last year. Warner Brothers has been cranking them out. They’re very popular.”

  “You’re not the hard-boiled type, Sam. Maybe offer her a screen test if she’ll change her story.”

  “That would be unethical, I think.” Sam looked at his watch. “The next class break is in twenty minutes. I’ll check the schedules and see if I can just happen to run into her. Do you know any of the girls over at the dorm?”

  “There’s a couple who’d still admit knowing me, I guess.”

  “Be nice to maybe pick up a little more on this Flinders girl.”

  “I could talk to ’em.”

  “The day’s growing older,” Sam said through a yawn.

  “We’d best shake a leg, then,” Jerry said, through a yawn of his own.

  * * *

  Sam spotted Joyce Flinders as she was coming out of what was known as the New Classroom building, built only twenty years before, in 1912, but officially unnamed as yet. He caught up to her as she was passing a large bronze statue of Jerusa S. Millbank, the first dean of women at the college, and the daughter of Augustus V. Millbank.

  “You’re Joyce Flinders, right?”

  She stopped to look at Sam.

  “Sorry to hear you had a sort of rough experience last night.”

  Joyce hesitated.

  “My name is Sam Kane, and—”

  Joyce squealed.

  “Oh! I’ve heard, well, all about you. You’re the one whose father owns that movie studio.” She pronounced the word movie as if it were twice as long as it was.

  “Well, he runs it.” Sam shrugged. He wanted to back up a step, but didn’t.

  Joyce turned on the smiles, moving closer, touching him on the arm. “Why haven’t we ever met before?”

  “Well, I guess—”

  “I imagine, if a girl wanted to get into the movies, you’d be a good person to know.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’ve never gotten anyone into pictures.”

  “But you could. You’d know what a girl would have to do.”

  He knew right away what this girl was getting at and did step back a bit.

  “Lately, I’ve been staying as far away from that business as possible. Um . . . must have been something, seeing Mr. Duckworth mowed down like that.”

  It took her a second to register the change of subject. Then she troweled on the despair.

  “Oh, it was terrifying. Just terrifying.”

  She reached out to touch him on the arm again. She left her hand there a few seconds longer this time.

  “I never want to see anything like it again.”

  “How did you happen to see it?”

  “I was walking from the library, you know, back to the dorm. A car . . . Luke’s car . . . came around the corner and it slowed down when it came up to mister Duckworth. The driver . . . Luke . . . just leaned out and shot him, six times, then sped off.”

  “Are you sure it was Luke’s car you saw?”

  “Well sure, it’s that flashy new car he has. No one else on campus has one like it. And he just shot the poor man down in cold blood.”

  Sam took a deep breath and tried to put on the same hard-boiled manner he had seen on the screen.

  “Look, kid, Luke wasn’t there.”

  “Of course he was . . . how other could I see him?”

  “Listen, Luke has an alibi, and you didn’t see him at all, and pretty soon the cops are going to be wondering why you’re saying such things about him.”

  “Why, no such thing! I saw him—”

  “He wasn’t there. I think you know it. Why are you doing this to Luke?”

  “I’m not talking to you anymore.”

  She walked away quickly. Very quickly.

  Sam walked into the drugstore across the street from the main campus entrance. There was a good afternoon crowd. He passed a large, professionally painted show-card advertising a new item: The Cannon Sundae. Someone, he thought, had moved pretty quickly to get it up there and on the menu. He paused for a few seconds to watch the soda jerk finish a couple of them. It was a sundae dish piled high with three large scoops of ice cream with a thick peppermint stick laid across the top and a couple of big gingerbread cookies stuck into the sides for the wheels. Sam started a smile but it quickly turned into one of reproach at the way things had turned out.

  He turned away from the counter and continued to a back booth where he found Jerry with an empty sundae dish, sucking on a peppermint stick. When he saw Sam, he smiled and removed it from his mouth, flicking the end of it with his little finger, as if knocking the ash off a good cigar.

  Sam slid into a seat. Jerry spoke first.

  “How did it go with the Flinders dame?”

  “For seeing someone gunned down right in front of her last night, she seemed awfully cheery.”

  “I take it she’s not budging. Did you offer her a screen test?”

  “I had the feeling it wouldn’t have taken much more than a promise of one and she’d have thrown herself at me.”

  “And you didn’t let her do it?”

  “It didn’t seem the right thing to do.”

  Jerry looked at Sam for a moment, with an expression that said it might have been the right thing to do.

  “Well, we know she’s lying,” Jerry finally said.

  “She got plenty upset when I told her she was lying.”

  “Came right out with it, huh?”

  “I tried to play it a little tough. It didn’t work.”

  “Sam, ol’ pal, I don’t think you handled that very well. Is it too late to offer her a screen test in exchange for changing her story?”

  “I don’t think that would work now.”

  Jerry shrugged.

  “I, on the other hand, have had a modest success.”

  “You’ve learned something from your old girlfriends?”

  “A few of them, amazingly enough, are still on speaking terms. The night of the shooting, a couple of them saw Joyce Flinders being picked up around seven o’clock by someone in a maroon breezer. The top was up, so they didn’t see who it was. But they pretty well described a maroon Buick coupe with a tan canvas top. Remarkably similar to a car I’ve seen a couple of times parked in the rear parking lot over at the Roadhouse.”

  “It might be interesting to know who drives the breezer.”

  “I was thinking the same. Especially since one of the girls—her current flame was hanging around when we spoke, and he said, on rare occasions, he’s been a customer of Duckworth. He said he went over to do a little business with him one evening a week ago, saw a maroon breezer drive off. He also said Duckworth seemed a little preoccupied as they transacted their business.”

  “Do you think it was really that maroon car Joyce saw?

  “Be interesting to know, all right.”

  “Maybe I could go over there and look around. If it’s there, I could ask who the owner might be. It would be good to ask Duckworth’s neighbors about it too. Maybe someone else has seen that car there.”

  “Cops ought to be doing all that.”

&nb
sp; “You call on his neighbors. I’ll pay a visit to the Roadhouse, check on the car.”

  “You ever been there, Sam?”

  “No. I just know where it is.”

  “Stay away from the hard-boiled stuff over there.”

  The Roadhouse was set back from the highway, in an area that had been carved out of a surrounding woodland. It was as attractive and well cared for as a country estate and, except for the parking areas that surrounded the low rambling building, looked as if that’s what it was.

  A small gatehouse stood at the end of the lane, and an attendant stepped to its door and quickly waved Sam through without stopping.

  It was the slow time of the afternoon, between the lunch crowd and the early dinner crowd. Sam had his choice of about half the parking spots in the lot. He chose one that gave him a good view of the part of the lot that wrapped itself around one side of the building. From there, he had a glimpse of a sharp-looking Buick convertible coupe parked in the rear of the lot. It was the right color. He walked back to the attendant at the gate.

  “That maroon coupe back there, the Buick,” Sam said. “Nice car.”

  The attendant came out but didn’t glance at the nice car. And he didn’t speak.

  “Kind of unusual. I don’t think it got that color from the factory.”

  Again, the attendant didn’t speak.

  “Actually, I’ve seen it around, and if I knew who owned it, I’d ask if he might be willing to sell it.”

  The attendant finally spoke.

  “This here ain’t no used-car lot. You here for a meal, or to buy cars?”

  He tossed his head in the direction of the front entrance and walked back inside his little domain.

  Sam shrugged and walked to the entrance. Once he was inside and out of sight, the attendant crossed the lot to Sam’s car. He opened the driver’s door and reached for the little holder that was wrapped around the steering column. He examined the document inside and scribbled a note in a small notebook. Finished, he returned to his post where he picked up a telephone handset and pushed a button.

  A few seconds later, he said, “Lemme talk t’ Bert.”