Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956
- Автор: Дил Борден, Томпсон Джим
- Год: 1956
- Язык: английский
- Год: H.S.D. Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956». Краткое содержание книги:
“I... I did not say it was worthless. Taking a second look at it, I can see that it contains silver. Almost... well, two or three dollars’ worth.”
“How much?” Mitch cupped a hand to his ear. “I don’t hear so well, Doc?”
“Five dollars. Well, ten then. Little silver it has, but the design is nice, indeed quite interesting.”
“Little silver it has,” Mitch nodded mockingly. “But gold, Doc, of gold it has much. A good half-pound I’d say of about eighteen karat.”
“Nonsense! It is no better than a thick silver-plate. Perhaps only a fill.”
“Well, let’s see,” Mitch said; his hand reached for a rubber-corked bottle. “Let’s just—”
“Imbecile!” Doc jerked the bottle out of reach, his face turning white. “Fool! Better you should have acid on your head than on this... this—”
His voice died foolishly. His eyes wavered under Mitch’s knowing gaze, and he heaved a sigh of surrender. “All right,” he said. “Beneath this shamefully tarnished exterior, is a very good grade of gold.”
“Go on.”
“It is antique, very old. Truly a work of art. In all my years in the business, I have seen nothing quite so fine.”
“It kind of got me, too,” Mitch confessed, a little wonderingly. “But go on, Doc. The business.”
Doc Krug spread his fat hands. “I will tell you the truth, Mitch. An object such as this is above price. It is as valuable as one’s sense of beauty is great. I might say it was worth fifteen hundred dollars. Or two thousand. Or even twenty-five hundred. And I would be correct in each case. Do you follow me? If one can wait and look long enough, find exactly the right buyer...”
“I can’t,” said Mitch. “Make me an offer.”
“One thousand dollars.”
Mitch concealed a start. It was a much better deal than he had hoped for. Gratified as he was, however, he automatically refused. “Come on, Doc. You can do better than that.”
“No. I am not absolutely positive that I can resell it for even a thousand. Because it is a work of great beauty, I am willing to gamble. But a thousand is my limit.”
“All right,” Mitch said. “I guess I’ll just keep it then. Try for a deal some place else.”
“You are wise to do so,” Doc nodded. “Yes, and I would even prefer that you do it. I am not a gambling man. For me to have a thousand dollars tied up indefinitely, perhaps for years—”
“It’s a deal for a grand,” Mitch said hastily.
Krug gave him a thousand dollars, twenty crisp fifties. Mitch turned over his buy-slip on the cup, a receipt signed by Peggy Turner and transferring title to the cup for “one dollar and other valuable considerations.”
“And now,” Doc said, “I assume that this will end our association. You will be leaving town.”
“The first thing in the morning,” Mitch agreed. “All I came here for was a stake. Now that I’ve got it. I’m lighting out of here, fast.”
“It is well. As your best friend of the moment may I make a suggestion? Get into some very simple occupation — something akin, say, to stealing from blind men or robbing very small newsboys. For anything better, you lack the mentality.”
Mitch thanked him politely. Then he made a suggestion, a completely impossible one involving various parts of Doc’s anatomy.
“Scum!” Doc hissed. “Hoodlum! Stupid oaf! So easily I cheated you on the cup. Why, in time, I will resell it for—”
“In time,” Mitch nodded, “and maybe. It’s starting to stick in your craw already, isn’t it? Well, goodbye, you fat, bald-headed old...” He loosed a hair-curling string of epithets at Krug. Then, he left.
And Doc Krug looked after him, not angrily but pleased, a wolfish smile on his face.
3.
Mitch Allison was as lowdown as they come, but his front was strictly high-class. He was capable of courtly manners and language. He ate, drank and wore nothing but the best. So, while he was staying at a second-rate hotel — a place where the guests’ backgrounds and misdoings were discreetly ignored — he occupied a parlor suite. He was in the parlor, now, on the evening of his sale of the cup.
He had eaten elegantly, as the plates on the linen-clothed table testified. In a bucket at the side of his chair, there was a large bottle of imported champagne, and in his hand a crystal goblet of the sparkling liquid. He studied it fondly, marveling at the suddenness with which his luck had turned from god-awful to grand.
A week ago he had had nothing, as next-to-nothing as a hustler can have and keep going. Now he had a thousand bucks, or call it nine hundred after he squared with the hotel. Almost two hundred dollars for each day he’d put in with Doc Krug.
Not bad, he mused comfortably. Not bad for a guy with no education, no family; nothing but a head on his shoulders, and the guts to kick back twice as hard as he got kicked!
He could take a stateroom all the way to New York, and still arrive there with a very tidy sum. It wouldn’t be as much as he’d like to have, enough to really live it up while he was trying to latch onto something. But—
Mitch Allison frowned thoughtfully. Perhaps he should make another last whirl at Los Angeles. It had seemed wise, a week ago, to get out and stay out of L.A. With three people threatening to kill him — his wife, Bette, among them — it had seemed very wise. But his nerves had been a little bad at the time, so maybe he’d considered too hastily.
After all, people had been threatening to kill him for years, without, obviously, carrying the project through. And the sucker you’d trimmed was always the best sucker to trim again. He’d be wanting to get even with you. He’d think that he was wise to all your tricks, and that he would take you this time.
So? Los Angeles or New York? Or, rather, Los Angeles then New York, instead of New York period.
Mitch turned the matter over in his mind... There was a soft knock on the bedroom door. He didn’t answer it, naturally. He knew no one in San Diego but Doc, and Doc most certainly would not be paying him a call.
Picking up the phone, he spoke softly to the room clerk. The clerk’s reply was similarly soft. “None of the employees, Mr. Allison. Someone must have slipped past me. Want the house dick?”
“No, I’ll handle it,” Mitch decided.
He replaced the receiver, came lithely to his feet. He tiptoed out of the parlor and into the bedroom, listened unbreathing at the door.
There was another knock. Mitch frowned, hesitating, and then he grinned. Entering the bathroom, he turned the shower on full blast. He let out a brief, muted bellow, as of a man singing in his bath; then cautiously, noiselessly, he unlocked the bedroom door and returned to the parlor.
If things worked out as he expected them to...
They did work out that way, after a few more knocks. The bedroom door opened slowly. It closed again softly. And there in his room, looking frightened but angry and determined, stood the red-haired girl, Peggy Turner.
Mitch scowled. Only Doc knew his address. Had Doc sicked her on him, told her she’d been cheated, just to make trouble for him?
Well, he’d have to do something nice for Doc, too. Yes, he’d do something very nice for him. Meanwhile, first things first.
Mitch took a roll of adhesive tape from his pocket; a very handy item, he’d found, and nothing that the cops could kick about in case you were searched. He ripped off a piece of it, laid it flat in his palm and moved back softly into the bedroom.
The girl was at the baggage rack, rummaging through his suitcase. As she straightened, Mitch’s hand swooped in front of her face, slapping the tape across her mouth.
She gasped and kicked backward. Mitch bumped her head against the wall, jerked and whirled her, and sent her sprawling on the bed. Before she could rise, he was on it with her. Holding her against him, his arms locked around hers.