Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998

With a choke in my chest and a lump in my throat. For two days there’d been no change in Mr. Hornton’s condition, which was both good and bad.

So for a moment I stood in the space between the house and the garage, looking up at first one, then the other. The sun was coming up, but there was an edge to the air of something cold and raw blowing in from the bay.

I glanced in its direction as a tree removal truck clattered down the road and took the garage key out of my pocket while thoughts cascaded through my head.

What I was about to do was a long shot, perhaps the longest I’d ever had the gall to walk up to the plate and try to hit, but it had occurred to me that there was one other way to look at things. And it was this: that the fall from the ladder had been an accident, an accident that had suddenly upset other plans...

No, not other plans, a transaction.

Wasn’t it possible that someone had been coming here that morning to purchase the painting?

Of course that didn’t explain the threatening message on the machine, but it had been left there earlier in the week. Mr. Hornton had even reused the tape, allowing a new message to be taped over part of it. If he had worried about the message, he hadn’t let on, hadn’t contacted the police or Jake.

So maybe he’d made a deal to sell it and decided not to show it after all. Why else was it on the easel?

And why had Mrs. Hunt needed to “confirm” the paintings for the exhibition unless Mr. Hornton had expressed some doubt about showing it?

An incredible long shot, full of holes, like this one: If that mysterious someone had come along after Mr. Hornton fell from the ladder, why hadn’t he gone into the house and called for help? Why had he bolted out the front door — as it now looked — when the lady and her dog showed up?

For precisely the same reason that person wanted to prevent the painting from going into the exhibit: it made the subjects known.

But known as what? As the two people in The Dreamers? Or as the two people in what also could have been called The Lovers?

“Lovers,” I said as I opened up the garage. In the thin, pale glare of a rising sun I went to the workbench and took down Mr. Hornton’s ledger. I took it over to the window — I didn’t want to risk turning on the lights in case Ed Andersen suddenly woke up; he was apt to come rushing in with his gun drawn. In the weak light I leafed through the last few weeks.

A couple of election signs coming up for the fall. Two boat-lettering jobs, both done and paid for. The Town Hall job, not paid for yet. But no mention of any offers for a painting, let alone its being sold.

I put the ledger back, looked up at the ceiling. So Mr. Hornton kept his commercial painting jobs in this ledger, but what if he had made a different kind of sale?

I grabbed the chain off the hook on the wall, pulled on it, and caught the stairs as they descended. Then I hurried up into the loft and searched until I found it — under the skylight brochures. A second ledger, for a different type of work. Work that had started simply as pleasure but had suddenly shown a profitable side.

For there on the first page of the book was last Tuesday’s date and the notation “The Dreamers, offer of $500.” This was followed by a name, Tony C., then two question marks and the notation “Will call back.”

“So this is where it was all along.” A voice from behind me.

I turned, startled and alarmed. A man probably in his late twenties was coming up the stairs, each step a slow, heavy thud. He had sharp, angular features, light brown hair tied back, and dark, bright eyes. Dressed in work clothes — bluejeans, dark brown shirt, camel-colored work-boots — he looked around the loft uncertainly, then tucked his hands into his belt and stared at me. He wasn’t a very big guy, but he was bigger than me. “That right, kid? This is where it was stowed?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking—” I started.

“The painting. The Dreamers,” he said. “Where is it?”

I took a step backward. “It got burned up.”

“No, it didn’t,” he said softly, removing one hand from under his belt and looking down at it. On his right hand was a row of bandages across the knuckles. He pulled out the other hand, the same thing: burn marks. “I was there, kid.” His eyes lifted to look at me.

“You started that fire,” I whispered.

“I was on call; I helped put it out,” he said. “So where is it?”

“You’re a call firefighter.” I felt like I had no breath. “But that’s not all you are.” I glanced out the small window facing east. The motion detectors had put the fights on; why hadn’t Ed Andersen noticed them? Was he still sleeping in the unmarked car, or...

“I never meant to hurt anyone, kid,” the man was saying. “But I’ve got a short temper. The old guy...” Was that a smattering of regret crossing his face, filling his eyes? “He should have told me where it was when I asked.”