The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack Page 4

  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.”

  Again there was a pause. Then the woman said suddenly, “You sound like a nice person. Who are you?”

  This was a question Martha frequently had to parry. Volunteers were instructed never to reveal their identities to callers in order to avoid the possibility of emotionally disturbed persons attempting to make personal contact. Indiscriminate passing out your name to emotionally unbalanced people wouldn’t be wise in any event, but it would have been particularly foolish for a sixty-year-old spinster who weighed less than a hundred pounds and lived alone except for a Siamese cat.

  She said, “I’m just one of numerous volunteer workers who devote their time to this work. It’s more important who you are.”

  “Don’t you have a name?” the caller asked.

  “Oh, yes. It’s Martha.”

  That much was permissible when a caller became insistent; but further insistence would be met with the polite but firm explanation that workers were not allowed to give their last names. Fortunately this caller didn’t push it any farther.

  “My name is Janet,” she volunteered.

  Martha contemplated probing for the last name, then decided going after it too quickly just might dampen their growing rapport. Instead she said, “Glad to know you, Janet. You sound fairly young. Are you somewhere in your twenties?”

  “Oh no. I’m thirty-two.”

  “Well, from the viewpoint of my age, that’s still fairly young. Are you married?”

  “Yes. For nearly ten years.”

  “Is your husband home now?” Martha asked casually. It was standard procedure to attempt to learn just who, if anyone, was in the house with a caller.

  The woman said, “He bowls on Mondays and doesn’t get home until after midnight.”

  “I see. Do you have any children?”

  “No. I had a couple of miscarriages.” There was no regret in the voice. It was just a statement of fact.

  “Then you’re all alone at home now?” Martha asked.

  “Yes.”

  Martha allowed a few seconds of silence to build before saying gently, “Do you want to tell me your last name now, Janet?”

  There was an equal period of silence before the husky voice asked with reluctance, “Do I have to?”

  Suspecting the woman was on the verge of hanging up, Martha said instantly, “Of course not.” She allowed another few seconds to pass, then asked, “What does yo
ur husband do?”

  “He’s a professional man.” A subtle change in tone told Martha’s practiced ear that the woman was suddenly becoming cagey about giving answers which might reveal her identity. Martha immediately switched tack.

  “Was it some trouble with your husband which made you call this number, Janet?” she asked.

  “Oh, no. Fred’s a wonderful husband. It was just things in general.” Martha made a mental note that the husband’s name was Fred. There immediately followed another bit of inadvertent information. In the background Martha heard, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” followed by eleven rather sharp chimes and then another, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!”

  Background noises often gave clues to the location from which a call came. Sounds from outdoors, such as traffic noises or railroad trains, were more helpful than in-door noises, but a cuckoo clock which also had chimes was rare enough to identify a house or apartment if, through other clues, you could narrow the location to a specific neighborhood. Martha was in the habit of mentally filing every scrap of information she could glean from a caller.

  She said, “What sort of things are bothering you, Janet?”

  “They don’t seem as important now as when I decided to call you. I’m beginning to feel a lot better just from talking to you. Could I phone you again if I start to feel blue?”

  “You won’t necessarily get me, but someone is available around the clock.”

  “Oh.” The husky voice sounded disappointed. “When are you on duty? I want to talk to you.”

  “Just Mondays and Wednesdays, from eight in the evening until eight the following morning.”

  “Well, maybe I can arrange only to get blue on Monday and Wednesday evenings,” the woman said with a nervous and rather forlorn attempt at humor. “Thanks for talking to me, Martha.”

  “I was glad to,” Martha said. “You’re sure you’ll be all right now?”

  “I’ll be all right,” the woman assured her. “You’ve been a big help. Thanks again.” She hung up.

  Martha discovered her hot milk had cooled too much while she was on the phone. She poured it into Ho Chi Minh’s bowl and went to bed.

  The second call came just at midnight the following Wednesday. Martha had been in bed for an hour and was awakened from a sound sleep by the phone.

  When she switched on her bedside lamp and put the receiver to her ear, she heard the sharp chimes of the clock in the background tolling midnight. She waited until the final, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” before saying, “Hello.”

  “Martha?” the husky feminine voice said uncertainly.

  “Yes, Janet.”

  “Oh, you recognized my voice,” the woman said with mild surprise. “I thought maybe with all the calls you must get, you wouldn’t remember me.”

  “I remember you,” Martha said. “Are you feeling blue again?”

  “Awfully blue.” There was a muffled sob and the voice seemed to disintegrate. “I—I lied to you Monday, Martha.”

  “Oh? About what?”

  “When I said I wasn’t thinking about killing myself. I think about it all the time. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Is your husband there tonight, Janet?”

  “No, he’s out of town at the National Den—” She broke off and appended, “I’m all alone.” National Den. Some kind of fraternal order Martha wondered. The Cub Scouts had dens, she recalled. Perhaps her husband was on the National Council of the Cub Scouts. She must remember that.

  She said, “Do you have a friend who lives nearby who might be willing to come over and stay with you for a time, Janet?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell any of my friends what is wrong with me,” the woman said in a horrified voice.

  “What is wrong with you?” Martha inquired.

  After a period of dead silence, the woman whispered, “I haven’t told another soul, Martha. What’s wrong with me is that I know I’m going mad.”

  “What makes you think that, Janet?”

  “I don’t just think it. I know it. I love my husband, but periodically I get this horrible urge to kill him.” Her tone sank to one of despair. “Last Sunday night it went so far that I crept out of bed and went to the kitchen for a butcher knife. I was heading back for our bedroom with the knife in my hand, meaning to stab Fred in his sleep, when I came to my senses. It was that incident which made me call you the next night.”

  Martha’s heart began to pound. This was her first contact with a caller who seemed to suffer from more than acute neurosis. This woman obviously was psychotic and would have to be handled with extreme care.

  Until she retired on a small inheritance the previous year, Martha Pruett had been a social worker. Her training had given her just enough of a smattering of psychiatry to make her know she was totally unequipped to psychoanalyze anyone, particularly over a telephone. She knew there was no point in attempting to talk a psychotic out of homicidal impulses. The only sensible plan of attack was to attempt to talk her caller into submitting to immediate treatment.

  She said, “You haven’t told anyone at all about these impulses, Janet?”

  “Just you,” the woman said in a broken voice.

  “Your husband doesn’t even suspect you have such thoughts?”

  “He knows I love him,” Janet said in despair. “That’s why, when I’m normal, I want to kill myself. Better that I should die than kill the man I love.”

  “Now, there is no necessity for either,” Martha said in firm voice. “You phoned me for advice, I assume. Are you prepared to take it?”

  “What is it?” the woman whispered.

  “You seem to be quite aware that you are mentally ill, and all the psychologists say this is the first big step toward cure. It’s the mentally disturbed person who is convinced there is really nothing wrong with him who is in real psychiatric trouble.”

  “Don’t suggest that I see my family doctor,” the woman said wearily. “He happens to be my brother-in-law, and I couldn’t possibly tell him what I have told you.”

  “It isn’t necessary for either your family doctor or your husband to know you have sought treatment, Janet. You will find numerous psychiatrists listed in the yellow pages of the phone book. Or, if you prefer, I’ll recommend one.”

  There was a considerable period of silence before the husky voice said hesitantly, “He wouldn’t tell my husband?”

  “You must know that doctors have a code of ethics which makes everything a patient tells them a matter of confidence, Janet. I’m not saying that whatever psychiatrist you pick may not try to talk you into confiding in your husband, but I will guarantee that he won’t tattle on you.”

  The woman’s tone became hopeful. “You think this one you offered to recommend might help me?”

  “I’m sure he could.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Dr. Albert Manners, in the Medical Exchange Building. I have never had a doctor-patient relationship with him but I know him quite well because he was on the board of directors of a social agency I once worked for, and I know he has a fine reputation. Do you have a pencil and paper there?”

  “I can remember that all right. Dr. Albert Manners in the Medical Exchange Building.”

  “Will you call him first thing in the morning?” Martha asked.

  “I will. I promise I will. Oh, thank you, Martha.”

  “When do you expect your husband home?” Martha asked, but she was speaking into a dead phone. The woman had hung up.

  Martha had to get up and heat herself some milk before she could go back to sleep, because she wasn’t at all satisfied with her performance. She should have wormed the woman’s last name out of her. Now, if she killed her husband or herself, Martha would have it on her conscience that she might have averted the tragedy if she had been efficient enough to find out who the caller was and warn her husband.

 
The third and last call came at a few minutes to nine p.m. the following Monday. When Martha answered the phone, she at first failed to recognize the thick voice which said, nearly incomprehensibly, “‘Stoo late. Couldn’t wait tomorrow. ’S too late.”

  Then she recognized the husky undertone in the thick voice. She said sharply, “Janet?”

  “Yeah,” the voice said. “‘Lo, Martha.”

  “Have you taken something?” Martha demanded.

  “‘Stoo late. Couldn’t wait tomorrow.”

  “Wait for what, Janet?”

  “‘Pointment. ’Pointment Dr. Manners. Would’ve killed him tonight when came home from bowling. Better this way.”

  “Janet!” Martha said loudly. “What have you taken?”

  “You tell Fred did it for him?” the voice said with increased thickness. “Tell ’im love ’im?”

  “Where can I reach him, Janet?” Martha asked desperately. “Where is he bowling?”

  “Elks Men’s League. Tell ’im—tell ’im—” The voice trailed off into a somewhat portentous silence.

  In the background there sounded, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” then nine sharp chimes and again, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!”

  “Janet!” Martha called, but there was no answer.

  She tried several more times to rouse the woman, without success. The line remained open, however, because Martha could hear no dial tone. Even if she hung up, the connection wouldn’t be broken, Martha knew, because the caller had to hang up in order to sever a connection. Martha had no idea of the electronic reason for this phenomenon, but she had occasionally in the past received calls where the caller for some reason had failed to hang up, and it had been necessary to go out to another phone to call the phone company before she could make any outgoing calls.

  It therefore should be perfectly safe to click the bar up and down in the hope of rousing an operator, she reasoned. She attempted it, and the second time she depressed the bar and released it again, she was horrified to hear a dial tone. So much for her vaunted knowledge of how phones worked, she thought with dismay. Now she had destroyed all possibility of having the call traced.