A Hitch at the Fairmont

by Nick Bertozzi

  We are, of course, investigating all claims with the intent of authenticating the identity of the true heir. We look forward to receiving from you the required birth records as well as anything else you may be able to provide to establish the legitimacy of your claim.

  Specifically, the legal papers establishing the trust bore a wax seal, as was more common in those days, bearing a numeric code. The trust stipulates that provision of these numbers is required as the “final proof” of the identity of the heir. We are informing all claimants of the seal’s existence, in the hope that one will be able to provide the “final proof” and thus settle this matter expeditiously.

  Yours,

  Abelard Everett Poppelwaite

  Poppelwaite, Jones, and Whitaker

  Attorneys at Law

  “And you think I am the heir?” Jack asked. He was afraid to stand up. The floor was moving in waves, the hotel swaying. He’d never keep to his feet.

  “So it would seem,” the director said.

  “Or it could just be another scheme by Aunt Edith,” Jack said. “She was always asking me about numbers and codes, but I didn’t know what she meant. Hey! Do you suppose whoever kidnapped my aunt is one of these ‘claimants’?”

  The pair sat side by side, each regarding the other, as if by locking eyes they could unlock the answer to this question.

  “The true ransom note did say ‘the numbers better be right,’ ” Hitchcock said.

  “And this letter asks for a numeric code,” Jack finished. “Whoever kidnapped Aunt Edith knew about this. They think Aunt Edith really has this code.”

  “In which case you may well be the real heir,” said Hitchcock.

  Jack jumped at a crashing sound. Muffin, who was staggering around the top of the dresser, had bumped into his food bowl and sent it plunging to the floor. Muffin pitched off the edge of the dresser and into the underwear drawer, where he curled up and emitted soft little sighing sounds.

  “What’s the matter with the weasel?” Hitchcock asked.

  “Chinchilla,” Jack said. “I don’t know.” He poked Muffin with his finger and gave him a gentle shake. Muffin did not respond at all.

  “That’s strange. I can’t wake him.”

  Hitchcock stood beside Jack. He gave the drawer a sharp kick. Then another. Muffin rocked with the motion of the drawer but otherwise didn’t respond.

  “The rodent’s been drugged,” Hitchcock said.

  “But why would someone drug a chinchilla?” Jack asked.

  Hitchcock picked up the half-eaten chocolate from the dresser and held it out in answer. “Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity.”

  “AUNT EDITH’S CHOCOLATES WERE DRUGGED?” Jack said. “So that’s how they got her out of here without her making a fuss.”

  “Though it doesn’t explain how they moved her,” Hitchcock said, “it does narrow our lists of suspects.”

  Jack nodded. “Because only someone who had access to the chocolates—”

  “Could have drugged them,” Hitchcock finished. “Now who falls into that category?”

  “Just me,” Jack said, “and Opal, I guess.”

  “Then she is at the top of the list of people to suspect,” said Hitchcock.

  “No,” said Jack. Opal was the sweetest person he had met since coming to this city. She could never do something to hurt Jack. “Besides, she was with me at the time Aunt Edith was kidnapped.”

  “Then she is at the top of the list of people to consult,” Hitchcock said.

  • • •

  Opal was standing on a step stool reaching for something on a shelf when they got to Blum’s. She teetered back and forth like a pink beach ball on a trained seal’s nose.

  “Hey, Opal,” Jack said.

  “Be right down, sugar,” she answered. She brought down a stack of boxes and peered around them at Jack. But before she spoke, she caught sight of Hitchcock’s belly. “Oh!” she said, her voice swooping up at the end. She quickly set the boxes behind her. “You’re all better.” She looked at her reflection in the chrome of the malt mixer and fluffed up her hair. But when she turned back, she saw Hitchcock. “Oh,” she said again, flat this time. “I thought you were someone else.”

  Jack got right to the point. “Opal, who made up all those anniversary chocolate boxes?”

  “Ugh!” she said. She pointed to the stack of boxes behind her. “This here is the last lot, and I don’t want to think about them. It’s a ton of work for just little old me. I’ve been sweating like a hen at the Fox County fair.”

  “You can’t be doing it all yourself,” Jack said. He hoped she wasn’t.

  “I’m manufacturing,” Opal said. “Charlie the bellhop is distribution. Why all the questions?”

  Jack filled her in on all they knew about the kidnapping of his aunt and the drugged chocolates.

  “You don’t suppose Charlie drugged them?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t see how,” Opal said. She took one of the empty boxes and wrapped it in the gold paper used for the anniversary boxes. Then she took an oval seal that read “Blum’s” and moistened its back with a damp sponge. She pressed this on the box where the folds of gold paper came together. “Once this dries, there’s no way to open the box without tearing the seal. Was your seal torn?”

  “No,” Jack said.

  Hitchcock turned the box over in his hands. He shook it. He pulled at the folds in the paper. “Perhaps they steamed the seal off.”

  “That would melt the chocolates, hon. Ruin ’em,” Opal said. “These aren’t those waxy rocks you can get over at See’s. These are delicate.”

  “Look, if you didn’t and he couldn’t, then who drugged the chocolates?” Jack said, frustrated.

  “Who else had access to them?” Hitchcock asked.

  “No one,” Opal said, and Jack’s hopes dropped like a brick in a rain barrel. “Except for the examples.”

  “The examples?” Jack asked.

  “That’s right,” Opal said. “Mr. Sinclair demanded to inspect the first ten boxes. I didn’t seal those, of course.” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “You don’t think he—Well, it must have been him.”

  “Did you watch him inspect them?”

  “Sugar, with Ruby and Pearl gone on their honeymoons, I’ve been run off my feet around here. Inspecting his inspection wasn’t on my agenda. Oh!” Her eyebrows popped. “If he drugged a guest, he’s sure to get fired.”

  “At the very least,” said Hitchcock.

  “Well, I want in on that,” Opal said. She reached into the glass case and pulled out three chocolates. She slid one to Jack and the other to the director. “These here are Catch-a-Crook Caramels.”

  She held hers up, and Jack touched his to it. After a moment Hitchcock did too.

  “To the sharpest kind of justice,” Opal said. “Now. How do we catch him?”

  • • •

  This was the topic of discussion when Jack and Hitchcock returned to his suite. Various plans were proposed and rejected. Once, Hitchcock smiled and started to speak, then shook his head. “No. Wouldn’t work,” he said.

  “What wouldn’t work?” Jack asked.

  Hitchcock paced in front of the window, explaining.

  “I once read a story where a police detective tricks a man into confessing murder by hiring an actress to play the ghost of the murdered woman. He sets the mood, makes the light fall on the actress just right, so she looks like the victim. He even gets a dog to play the part of the old woman’s pet. Finally the murderer cracks and admits to the crime. But you see why it can’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “We presume your aunt isn’t dead.”

  “Oh. Right,” Jack said, disappointed. Each proposal was a line running parallel to his mother. They brought him no closer to her. Then he brightened. “But who said she has to be! What would Sinclair think if he thought he saw my aunt in the lobby? I mean, he wouldn’t think she was a ghost. But what would he think?”

  “Hm
. . . Yes, I see. That she’d escaped,” Hitchcock said. “Of course.”

  “And then he’d go check, wouldn’t he? I mean, if he wasn’t sure if it was her but it seemed like it might be? He’d go to where he was keeping her to check.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Hitchcock, “I see what you mean.”

  Jack retrieved the pad for storyboards. He drew out rectangles as he had seen the director do. “I’m sure we can come up with a way,” he said. He bent down and picked up the sleeping Muffin. “See? We’ve already filled the role of the pet.”

  “We’ll need some help, though,” Hitchcock said. “This will be a complicated scene if it is to be convincing. Sinclair must see what we want him to see, but not with his full attention. We’ll need to provide distractions. People in the crowd to make sure he goes where we want him and so forth. Extras, if you will.”

  Jack looked up from the pad. “Subsurface Shakespeare,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Subsurface Shakespeare was my mother’s old acting troupe in LA. I’m sure they’d do anything they could to help. And they are great actors.” Jack let out a sigh. “But they’re in the middle of a production. Wild West Hamlet. They couldn’t leave that to come up here.”

  Hitchcock picked up the phone. “Do you have their number? Perhaps I can convince them.”

  While Hitchcock spoke quietly on the phone, Jack closed his eyes. He envisioned the lobby, then drew out the storyboards for their upcoming deception. The susurration of pencil gliding on paper was like music: the strings of long arcing curves, the brass of strong straight lines, the percussive beats of crosshatching, and the reedy softness of shading—a symphony for finding his mother.

  Hitchcock hung up.

  “I spoke with a gentleman named George. Once I’d convinced him who I was, he seemed quite eager to help. He said they’d ‘make mad the guilty and appall the free, confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,’ ” Hitchcock said.

  “Does that mean they’ll come?” Jack asked.

  “I believe so. But he could provide no actress of your aunt’s . . . dimensions, shall we say. We must find an actress to play the pivotal part. And on such short notice.”

  “You must know lots of actresses,” Jack said.

  “None without agents. In other words, none who will work for free,” said Hitchcock, “and in any case it is considered bad form to audition your actresses in a hotel.”

  “What would she need to be like?” Jack asked.

  “Well, she wouldn’t need to speak, certainly,” Hitchcock said, still pacing in front of the window, squinting as the streetlights blinked on outside. “We could cast her in shadow, or just give glimpses of her. So she really just needs to be able to gesture and follow direction. And, of course, she’ll need to be the right size and shape for the costume—a duplicate of the clothing your aunt wore when she went missing.”

  The director’s silhouette filled the window as he paced in front of it.

  “Does the actress need to be a she?” Jack asked.

  “No, I suppose not,” Hitchcock answered.

  Jack made a square with his hands and held it at arm’s length. He peered through it at the rotund shadow Hitchcock cast.

  “Then I think we have our man,” Jack said. “We just need his costume.”

  RANSOHOFF’S WOMEN’S SPECIALTY SHOP occupied a multistory building on Post Street, just off Union Square. A flock of pigeons tapped a Morse code of hunger along the sidewalk with their beaks, searching for seeds and scraps to eat. A fight broke out when one uncovered a dead mouse that had gotten stuck in the sewer grate, each bird’s head piston-ing back and forth as it ran to hop into the fray. Soon the dead rodent and its discoverer disappeared beneath a frenzy of gray wings, pink talons, and beady red eyes. When the birds separated, there was nothing of the mouse to be seen.

  More graceful, more dignified, yet just as insistent on getting what they wanted, a flock of women surrounded a salesman inside the department store, vying for his attention and voicing their individual demands all at once. To Jack’s surprise the man cordially and patiently answered each request. Ransohoff’s catered to a select clientele who expected nothing less.

  “Are you quite sure this is where she got it?” Hitchcock asked.

  “This was the store the bill came from,” Jack said.

  “Ah, Mr. Hitchcock. It is Mr. Hitchcock, isn’t it? What an honor to have you in our store,” the salesman greeted them.

  “Thank you,” said Hitchcock. “My godson and I would like to do some shopping and thought your charming store looked like just the place.”

  “You do realize, sir, that this is a ladies’ garment store?”

  “That’s just it, you see,” said Hitchcock. “The boy would like to buy a dressing gown for his aunt. Naturally we thought to come here. You see, we’d like to avoid the commotion my presence might cause, and you have a reputation for superior service.”

  “Yes, of course, sir. We maintain several private parlors for our more noteworthy clients. I’m sure one of them would suit your needs.” He flipped the switch of a small intercom on the counter and bowed forward to speak into it. “Mrs. Brown, two gentlemen for the Gardenia Room.”

  A voice came through in answer. The intercom made it high and chirpy, like a staccato teakettle. “Shall I come down to escort them up?”

  Hitchcock gave a little shake of the head.

  “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Brown. They’ll meet you at the top of the stairs.” He indicated the way with a wave of his hand. “If I can be of any more assistance, please let me know. Otherwise, our Mrs. Brown will take care of you.”

  “Our” Mrs. Brown wore gray—a stylish women’s suit with a tailored skirt and a jacket with turned-up cuffs over a cream silk blouse. In her heels she was the height of fashion at under five feet.

  “Right this way,” she said. It wasn’t the intercom that had rendered her voice so high and chirpy after all. It came naturally to Mrs. Brown. She guided them through the hallway, which let off on either side to parlors where women sat watching models posing in stylish dresses and shoes. Mrs. Brown came to a room where she held back a velvet curtain.

  “The boy would like to buy a white dressing gown for his aunt,” Hitchcock said.

  Mrs. Brown smiled and indicated that they should take a seat on the sofa that stood against the wall. “I’ll be back in a moment with a few selections,” she said, ducking back through the curtain.

  The room was painted the palest shade of blue, like a robin’s egg dusted with pearl. In the center of the room was an ornate table with a crystal bowl of white gardenias. Hitchcock got up and sniffed the gardenias, then selected one to slip into the buttonhole of his lapel.

  Mrs. Brown returned. “It will be just a moment,” she said. She seemed about to say more to the director, but stopped herself.

  “Yes?” Hitchcock prompted.

  “Well, sir, I was just wondering . . . Are you that man from the television? Alfred Hitchcock?”

  “Why, yes, madam, I am.”

  “Oh, I just love your show. I watch it whenever I can, though my husband always tells me I shouldn’t pay attention to any of the silly things on it. He says I should stick to cooking and cleaning and selling dresses.” She paused. “You must know a lot about murder and the like.”

  “Only as much as any good American citizen would do.”

  “Oh, Mr. Hitchcock,” she said, blushing.

  “I excelled on the shooting, bludgeoning, and strangulation portions of my naturalization exam.”

  “Oh, honestly,” she said, laughing. Then she fell quiet and struck a very charming pose, with her finger to her chin. “You know, I read a story once about a woman who did in her husband by whacking him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. Then she cooked it up and fed it to the police when they came to investigate, so they could never find the murder weapon.”

  “Yes. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ by Roald Dahl,” said Hitchcock. “
I am familiar with it. We plan to film it for my show.”

  “How marvelous.” She hesitated a bit. Then, “It’s just that, I wonder if a frozen lasagna would work as well?”

  “I suppose—”

  “Because my husband likes Italian, you see.”

  “My dear woman,” Hitchcock said, “I am sure any frozen entree would work, provided it were of sufficient weight and could be gripped and swung.”

  “Oh, good.” Mrs. Brown clasped her hands together with a sharp clap.

  “And also provided the wielder of such a weapon had sufficient nerve and was prepared to spend her life behind bars, as she would no doubt be caught.”

  Mrs. Brown’s smile faded. “Perhaps I should see what is keeping the models.”

  In a short while a parade of young women came in one by one, each wearing a white dressing gown that trailed on the floor behind her.

  “No, no! They’re none of them right!” Jack said after the sixth one.

  “The little gentleman certainly seems to know what he wants,” said Mrs. Brown.

  “Jeez. Look—this one had sort of a ruffly collar and a square neckline.”

  “I liked the second one,” Hitchcock said.

  “No, that’s not it,” Jack said. “It wouldn’t suit you—I mean my aunt.”

  “Oh! I think I know the one you want,” said Mrs. Brown. “A very popular design. Let me check.” She went out and returned briefly with a file full of papers and another model.

  “That’s the one,” said Jack.

  “Fine.” She looked at her file. “We just received a shipment. What size were you looking for?”

  Jack dragged Hitchcock to his feet. He circled around Hitchcock with his arms spread out, surrounding the director’s shoulders, then waist, then hips, enclosing him in parentheses. “About this size,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. We don’t stock ladies’ plus sizes—or extra plus. We’ll have to special-order it.”

  “But we need it by this afternoon,” Jack said.

  “Well . . .” She consulted her file again. “We do have one rather large one, but I’m afraid it was special-ordered by another customer. A Sarah Thompson.”