Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet Part 3

I took the net and drove out of town on a country road for a few miles until I spotted a honeysuckle vine blooming on a stone wall that bordered the road in one place. I pulled up on the shoulder, put on an old pair of work gloves I kept in the car's glove compartment, climbed out and lifted the hood of my car as though I was having engine trouble. I waited until there wasn't another car in sight in either direction on the road. Then, with the b.u.t.terfly net in my hands, I jumped across the little ditch between the berm of the road and the wall. I made one pa.s.s with the net over the honeysuckle vine. That's all I needed. That one scoop netted me six lively honeybees.

Carefully, I shook them out of the net into an old one-pound candy box I'd swiped from the dump in another town, threw a handful of honeysuckle leaves and blossoms in on top of them and clapped on the lid. I cut a few slits in the box for air, wrapped it loosely in a piece of porous brown wrapping paper, tied it with string and addressed the package to Wilkins. I didn't put any return address on it. The whole operation didn't take ten minutes.

I slapped enough stamps from my wallet on the light package to carry it first cla.s.s mail, and on my way back through the village, I dropped it into the curbside mail box outside the village post office. I didn't even have to get out of my car. I just reached over and flicked the package into the chute and was rolling again almost before I'd stopped.

That was Wednesday. It was Friday afternoon when I got home from my trip. I parked the Galaxie and climbed out, stretching the kinks out of my muscles after my long drive. I started for the entrance to the apartment house and only then noticed that something unusual was happening.

A police ambulance stood in the driveway, motor running and back doors open. A cop was kicking moodily at a rear tire. He was obviously the driver, waiting for his buddies to bring him a pa.s.senger. I nodded to him and went into the apartment and pushed the b.u.t.ton for the automatic elevator.

Nothing happened for a minute, but when the elevator finally dropped down to the lobby, the door was pushed open and a couple of cops came out carrying a stretcher. Somebody was lying on the stretcher, but I couldn't see who because a sheet covered him all up, even his face. A fussy little guy with a black bag got out of the elevator after the stretcher, a doctor I supposed. I stood back while they maneuvered the stretcher through the door and out to the ambulance. Then I took the elevator up to my floor.

Doris was waiting for me at the door of our apartment. Her eyes were big; she looked scared. But she looked so wonderful to me that I didn't think of anything else for a second except her.

"Hi, baby," I said, folding her into my arms before we even had the door shut.

"Hi, traveler," she said, kissing me. She called me traveler sometimes because of my job. "I'm glad you're home, dear."

"Me too." It was the understatement of the week. I sniffed. "Spare ribs?"

She nodded, thinking of something else.

"Good," I said, and threw my hat at the closet shelf. She kept her arm around my waist as we went toward the kitchen together. It was our routine. My first act when I got home from my trips was to mix a martini for us.

I said, "As I was coming in downstairs, they carried somebody out of here on a stretcher. Who's sick?"

She got down the gin and vermouth for me. "Not sick," she said in a shocked voice. "Dead, Jim. It was Mr. Wilkins, the fellow who lives - lived - across the hall from us."

"No!" I said. "What happened to him?"

"They don't know for sure." Doris pa.s.sed me a tray of ice cubes. Her hand trembled. "He just died."

"What a lousy break. Nice, quiet neighbor, too." I started to measure out the gin into the pitcher. I looked up and caught her eyes on me, and she seemed pretty close to tears. "Why, baby!" I said, turning to put my arms around her. "You're upset. You can't let a neighbor's death get to you like this. That's the way these things happen sometimes, that's all."

"B-but I'm the one who missed him," she explained haltingly. She shivered in my arms. "It j-just occurred to me this afternoon after lunch that I hadn't seen Mr. Wilkins in the hall or elevator the last day or-or two" - she cut her eyes at me to see how I took this explanation - "and when I went out on the landing, past his apartment door, I didn't hear his typewriter tapping, either. You know how the typewriter was always going. You could hear it through the door."

"Sure," I said.

"I went across the hall and rang his bell. Several t-times. When he didn't answer, I thought at first he was out. But then I remembered that he hardly ever went anywhere, especially in summer" - she didn't explain how she was so sure of a peculiar fact like that - "so I called the building superintendent and asked if Mr. Wilkins was away. He said not that he knew of. So I told him I was worried, and asked him if he didn't think he'd better investigate."

"I see. And the Super went in and found him."

"Yes. He used his pa.s.skey. I went in with him. And we found poor Mr. Wilkins lying on his sofa in the living room and not b-breathing at all!"

"Just like that, eh? Boy, that's the way to go. In your sleep."

"But he wasn't lying straight and flat, Jim. Not like sleep. More like he fell on the sofa when he was dying. His eyes were wide open and looked terrified, somehow." She hugged me tightly. "It was h-horrible!"

"Sure, baby. I wish you hadn't seen him like that. A man knows he's dying, he gets that scared look in his eyes. I saw it in the service. It's natural."

"The superintendent called the police emergency squad. And the police doctor came and they took Mr. Wilkins away just now."

"What'd the doctor say? Heart attack, I suppose."

"He didn't know," Doris said. "He couldn't tell for sure without one of those - you know - examinations after you're dead."

"Autopsy," I said. She nodded miserably. My heart was hammering with excitement. I was afraid she'd notice it. "I'm going to look at Wilkins' apartment, Doris. I guess I'm morbid. I want to see where you found him, poor fellow. Want to come?"

"I certainly don't!" Doris said. "I've had all I want of that dreadful place today!"

"Pour out the drinks," I said. "I'll be back in a minute."

I went across the hall to Wilkins' door. I intended fiddling with the lock, using the key to my own apartment. But I was pleasantly surprised to find the door open. I looked at the sofa where they'd found Wilkins' body. But my eyes didn't linger there a second. They went right on past to the end table beyond, where my candy box lay in the midst of its discarded wrappings, its lid fallen off the table onto the floor.

I grinned, picturing vividly what had happened when those imprisoned bees, innocently released by Wilkins as he opened his mail, had come boiling out of the box. It couldn't have taken long after he panicked and began shooing and striking at them as he almost surely did, because when you're allergic to bee-venom the way Wilkins was, one good dose of multiple bee-stings will collapse your circulatory system and stop your breathing so quick you wouldn't believe it.

I found them in the kitchen.

Wilkins had a row of African violets blooming in pots on the kitchen window sill, and the bees were buzzing drowsily against the screen over the open window behind the violets, anxious to get out into the warm August air again.

n.o.body will ever figure this one out, I told myself. I allowed myself a wise smile as I opened the screen behind the violets and watched the little yellow murderers stream gladly through to freedom.

I went back to Doris and my martini. I took her into my lap as we drank. I thought how nice it would be to have her all to myself again. What a doll! I looked at her fondly. So maybe she was inclined to take up with other men when I was away. Out of sheer boredom only. Just to dilute her loneliness. Nothing else.

Suddenly it occurred to me that there was one good way to put a stop to that: quit this crummy selling routine that kept me on the road half the time.

I put down my empty martini gla.s.s and turned her face to me and kissed her. I kissed her good. I said, "Baby, I've decided to quit my job."

"You what?" She was thunderstruck.

"Yeah. I want to be home more, Doris. With you. I get so lonesome on the road."

"I get lonesome, too, Jim," she murmured contritely into my shoulder.

"Sure you do, honey. And you know what? I've thought of a job that would let me stay right here with you all the time."

She raised her head. "What?"

"Writing detective stories. Like poor old Wilkins across the hall. I think I'd like to try my hand at that." I kissed her again. "I have an idea I might be pretty good at murder."

Her arms tightened around me. "Darling, I'd love having you home with me," she said, "but you've never written a story in your life!"

"You've got to start sometime," I said.

So this is the first one.

Did you like it?

There's more to being a butler than the ability to stand stiffly erect. One must also be able to look down one's nose, while keeping one's ears open and one's mouth shut. Understandably, butlers are a vanishing race.

THE BUTLER WHO DIDN'T DO IT.

BY CRAIG RICE.

"Please, Malone," the beautiful brunette said, in a pa.s.sionate tone. "You've got to help me!"

John J. Malone flicked his cigar inaccurately toward the ashtray on his desk and closed his eyes. When he opened them again the woman was still there, seated across the desk. He sighed. "What do you want me to help you do?" he said. The choice of words, he reflected, was just a little unfortunate, but it really didn't matter. He knew he would have to take the job, whatever it was. So long as it wasn't anything definitely illegal. And he wasn't sure that would stop him, either, he reflected. The bank balance was at its lowest ebb in years. Mentally, Malone ticked off a list of people he owed money to: the telephone company, the electric company, Maggie, Joe the Angel, Ken, Judge Touralchuck (an unfortunate poker game)...

It seemed endless.

"It's my husband," the woman said. "The police think I murdered him."

Malone sighed again. "Why?" he said. "For that matter, who's your husband? And who are you?" He thought of adding: "And why did you have to pick me, of all people?" but decided against it. He needed the money, he reminded himself. And the woman, was beautiful.

Malone felt a resurgence of gallantry in his breast. He flicked cigar ash off his vest and waited quietly.

"Oh," the woman said. There was a little silence. "I'm Marjorie Dohr," she said.

Malone blinked, and said nothing at all.

The woman spelled her last name. "My husband's James Dohr. I mean ... he was James Dohr. Before he -" Her lips tightened. Then she put her head down on Malone's desk and began to sob.

"Please," Malone said, patting the head ineffectually. "Please. Stop. I -"

After a few seconds she looked up, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and murmured: "I'm sorry. But it was all so sudden ... James was - dead, and then there were the police, and I -"

"Ah," Malone said. "Tell me about the police."

Mrs. Dohr dabbed at her eyes again. "You - will help me?" she asked.

"I'll try," Malone said. "Did you kill your husband?"

Mrs. Dohr stared. "Of course not," she said. "I told you -"

"I just wanted to make sure," Malone said defensively. "But the police think you did."

She nodded. "That's right," she said. "You see, James didn't feel well, so he stayed home. I went to the movies. And when I got back, he was - he was lying there, right in the living room, with that knife in his back, and I - I was going to call the police."

"But you didn't?" Malone asked gently.

"No," she said. "They came in - just a few seconds after I got home. And they accused me of murdering James. For his - money."

"Money?" Malone said hopefully.

"That's right," Mrs. Dohr said. "When old Gerald Deane died, he left James five thousand dollars. And the police thought I killed James for that."

"Very silly of them," Malone murmured. "Your husband was related to Gerald Deane?" He remembered the aircraft magnate. Five thousand dollars seemed a small sum to leave to a relative, even a distant one, if your estate was the size of Deane's, but people did funny things.

"Oh, no," Mrs. Dohr said. "They weren't related at all, not at all."

"Ah," Malone said. "Just good friends."

Mrs. Dohr shook her head. "Not exactly," she said. "You see - maybe I should have explained before. My husband is - was - a butler. He worked for old Mr. Deane, and then he worked for his son Ronald. He was working for Ronald until he - until he died."

"A butler," Malone said.

"That's right," she said. "Malone - you will help me, won't you? You don't think I killed my husband, do you? Please say you'll help me!"

Malone sighed. "I'll help you," he said obediently. "And I don't think you killed your husband. As a matter of fact, I'm sure you didn't," he added in a burst of confidence.

"You mean - you can prove I didn't kill James?" Mrs. Dohr said. "Then who did?"

Malone coughed gently and took a puff on his cigar. "Before we answer that," he said, in what he hoped was a confident tone, "we'll have to have a few more facts."

An hour later, armed with facts about James Dohr, Gerald Deane, his surviving wife Phyllis and his son and daughter-in-law, Ronald and Wendy, Malone set off for Joe the Angel's Bar. It would be, he told himself, a nice place to collect his thoughts and make up his mind on his first move.

But the atmosphere wasn't quite as friendly as he remembered it from other days. Joe was brooding about Malone's bar bill, and he made it fairly obvious. Malone had a few drinks for old times' sake, but his heart wasn't really in it. And, beyond deciding that his first place of inquiry would be the Deane household, he did no thinking worth mentioning.

The Deanes were, he told himself, his prime suspects, almost entirely because they were his only suspects. James Dohr seemed to have been a saint on earth, Malone reflected; according to his tearful widow, he had had absolutely no enemies. Even his friends had liked him. And this narrowed the field of suspicion considerably.

Mrs. Dohr had a motive for murder, Malone knew. And her story of the movies was pretty vague, and could be shot full of holes by a six-year-old child. Not only that, he told himself, but hers was the only motive around.

Nevertheless, he believed her story. She had been tearful and beautiful, and she had sounded sincere. Besides, Malone thought, she was his client.

That meant finding somebody else who had a motive. And who else was there?

Well, Malone considered, a butler is in a position to discover all kinds of things about the household he works for. That was a point worth considering. It pointed the first finger of suspicion squarely at a dead man, Gerald Deane, but there was always his widow, and the rest of his family. Possibly there was even another butler.

Malone drained his gla.s.s and got up. With a friendly wave to Joe, a wave that was meant to impart great confidence about the paying of Malone's bar bill, the little lawyer went to the door, pushed it open, and started looking for a cab.

The Deane estate was a large house set in the middle of a larger area of grounds. Malone drove up the winding drive to the front door of the marble palace, got out, tipped the cabbie and walked up the steps.

The door was solid mahogany. Malone took hold of the knocker and used it. The door swung open.

A tall red-headed man grinned at him. "Now who are you?" he said. "You can't possibly be the new butler. You don't look like a butler. You look like a - like a - " He posed thoughtfully in the doorway for a few moments, "Like a bootlegger," he said at last. "An old-fashioned, slightly under-the-weather bootlegger." He stepped aside and called into an entranceway at the left of the door: "Aren't I right, Wendy?"

A woman's voice floated back: "Certainly you're right. If you say so, you're right. How far would I get if I argued with you? You're always right."

Malone sighed. "Excuse me," he said.

"Ah," the red-haired man said. He looked scarcely old enough to remember Prohibition, Malone thought. "I'm afraid you're out of date," the red-haired one said. "We haven't taken any bathtub hooch in this house for years."