In a flat, matter-of-fact voice too low to be heard by the driver, she said, “If you reach for your gun, Willie, I will have to put a bullet through Eddie’s head, then shoot you. Eddie, set the safety, then very carefully hand your gun to me.”
Eddie did as directed, very carefully. Diane relayed his automatic to Sergeant Copeland, leaned over to lift the revolver from Willie the Parrot’s pocket and handed that to him also. The sergeant placed his own gun against the back of the driver’s head. “Pull over, Jim,” he ordered. “Then pass your gun back, butt first.”
Jim did as directed.
Neither Sergeant Copeland nor I made any attempt to solve the mystery of how Diane happened to be carrying a gun until all three bank robbers were thoroughly under control. The sergeant cuffed Willie the Parrot’s hands behind him, tied Smooth Eddie’s behind him with his necktie, and used Willie’s necktie on Jim, because the younger brother wasn’t wearing any. When they were all loaded into the back of the ambulance and we three were standing behind it, the detective finally looked at Diane.
“I didn’t know nurses carried guns, Miss Wharton,” he said. “Particularly on planes, where it happens to be a federal offense.”
“I’m not a nurse,” she said. “I’m a policewoman. And, as you know, the airlines encourage police officers to carry their guns on flights as an added precaution against hijackers.”
“A policewoman?” I said. “You’re a cop?”
“Yes,” she said in an oddly defensive tone. “Do you mind?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s always an advantage for a confidential investigator to have a friend on the force, and I can’t think of a nicer friend to have.”
“You may not feel that way when you learn what I did to you,” she said ruefully.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you later. We’d better get our prisoners down to police headquarters now.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Copeland said. “This is all very interesting, but let’s get moving. Can you drive this thing, Shelton?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Then take the wheel and I’ll ride guard in back. You can sit up front with him, if you want, Miss Wharton.”
She took the offer. We rode in silence for some minutes before I finally said, “What was it you did to me?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and when she did her tone was both apologetic and slightly apprehensive. “You’re going to be mad at me. I put you on a little about your deductive talent.”
“Oh? How?”
“I didn’t exactly lie, but I gave you the impression that some of your deductions were correct by not saying anything, when actually they weren’t.”
“I see. Which ones?”
“Well, I wasn’t vacationing in L.A. I was taking a summer course in criminalistics at U.C.L.A. I did spend some weekends at the beach, which is how I got my tan, but I got my nose sunburned playing tennis. Incidentally, I attended Fredonia State College, not the University of Buffalo.”
I looked sidewise in surprise. “Then why are you wearing a U. of B. ring, if I may inquire?”
“It isn’t mine,” she said, taking it off to show me the string wound around its underside to make it fit because it was too large for her. “Around here, girls wear boys’ class rings on their engagement fingers as a symbol of going steady.”
“It isn’t on your engagement finger.”
“No,” she said, replacing it on her right hand. “But it was when I left for the West Coast. He doesn’t yet know I’m not still wearing it there.”
“Oh, so your fiancé wasn’t in Los Angeles after all. You broke the engagement by long distance.”
“Not an engagement,” she corrected. “Just going steady. I had been considering ending it all summer. It started going sour even before I left for summer school, and a couple of weeks ago I decided to break it off as soon as I got back home. But I hadn’t run into anyone else out there who particularly interested me, so there wasn’t much point in removing the ring.”
“Then why did you?” I asked.
“I saw you admiring me when we were standing in line at the loading gate. I rather suspected you would like to sit beside me, and I thought seeing the ring might discourage you so I switched it to my right hand while we were waiting in line.” Her revelation that she had been laughing at me on the plane all the time I was posturing as a deductive genius hadn’t made me angry at her, as she had expected, but it had considerably deflated my ego. Her statement that some of my deductions had been incorrect was more than kind. Actually, the only thing I had gotten right was that she was from Buffalo.
Now my ego suddenly inflated again, though, with her confession that she had been as instantly attracted to me as I was to her, and her contrition at having put me on sounded sincere enough to merit forgiveness.
Perhaps I was a total flop at the art of deduction, but it looked as though I might have a promising future in the art of seduction.
The Clock Is Cuckoo
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May 1969.
The first phone call came just before eleven o’clock on a bleak Monday night in February. When the phone rang Martha Pruett was already in her nightgown, sitting before the dying embers in the fireplace in a robe and with Ho Chi Minh on her lap, sipping her nightly glass of hot milk.
Ho Chi Minh made a strong protest in Siamese when she ejected him from his bed by standing up. He followed her into the bedroom, still complaining, when she went to answer the phone. Martha sat on the edge of the bed and set her glass on the bedside table. The cat made a final comment and rubbed himself against her leg.
“Hello,” Martha said into the phone, as she stroked Ho Chi Minh.
A pleasantly husky feminine voice said hesitantly, “I saw this number in the personal column in the newspaper.”
Martha Pruett had expected it to be one of those calls, because none of her friends would phone this late. The classified ad the caller referred to appeared daily and read: SUICIDE prevention. 24 hour service. Confidential, free. 648-2444. The number wasn’t Martha’s. It was merely an exchange number from which incoming calls were automatically relayed to the home number of whatever volunteer happened to be on duty.
Martha said in a friendly voice, “You have reached Suicide Prevention. May I help you?”
There was a period of silence before the woman said, “I’m not sure why I called. I’m not — I mean I’m not really planning to kill myself. I just feel so blue, I wanted to talk to somebody.”
The caller was one of those rare ones who didn’t like to admit to suicidal impulses, Martha decided. Most potential suicides had no such restraint. The old saw about people who threatened suicide never committing it had been proved wrong long ago. Many suicides had histories of repeatedly threatening to take their own lives before they actually got around to doing it.
There were cases where suicides gave no previous warning, though. The very fact that this woman had phoned the Suicide Prevention number indicated that the thought must have at least occurred to her.
Martha said, “That’s why I’m here, to talk to people. What are you blue about?”
“Oh, different things,” the caller said vaguely. There was another pause, then, “You don’t trace calls or anything like that, do you?”
“Of course not,” Martha said easily. “People would stop calling us if we did. We like to know who our callers are, but we don’t insist on it. If you wish to remain anonymous, that’s up to you. However, if you tell me your name, it will remain in strict confidence. You don’t have to worry that I will do anything such as sending the police to haul you off to a hospital. I am here solely to help you and I won’t contact anyone at all on your behalf without your permission.”