Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 124: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

me while the white hat. and I- were getting ready to tangle. I. still remember the lumps I took, too. And now Jake and his right-hand man were wearing the same “too bad, sucker” expression. 4, Maggie was waiting when I rolled the big job up to the curb and went up to her apartment. She was ready for travel, her long gold- en hair set off by a ribbon the color of Kelly’s tie on March 17th. She’d passed up slacks in favor of something cool and low-cut. Her luggage wasn’t in sight and there was a hint of hesitation in the smile of greeting on her face. Stacked on the little coffee table in front of the sofa, exactly where I'd left it, was the bundle of twen- ties weighted down by the small mound of silver dollars. I nodded. “Pretty generous tip for the maid, isn’t it?” . “Matt, I—You don’t have to be bothered with me on your trip back to L. A.” she said, her eyes not meeting mine. “Bothered! I’ve been looking forward all—” “Matt—” She came toward me, those deep blue eyes slowly search- ing my face and when she stood next to me I put my arms around her and she leaned back. “Matt, I want to tell you how I feel about us.” Her hands left my shoulders and very gently their palms were 122 ' She became all business. placed over my eyes, her inter-— laced fingers resting on the bridge of my nose. The heels of her hands were cool along the side of my face and she had my vision completely blocked. “You’ve got to take the money, Matt. Any other way would spoil things, would change me from a girl who happened to like a guy, into a money-grabbing little cheat. Will you take it, Matt?” “Sure. And now—” “Wait. There’s something else. I don’t want you to think you have to take me to Los Angeles. If I felt you thought you had to just because of—of last night, I'd feel awful. I mean that would make me something else I don’t want to be, and—” I stopped the flow of words ex- actly like any other guy with half an ounce of sense would. It wound up in a first-class clinch. When we broke, the smile on her face was strictly what the gent had in mind when he composed the song about “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” “All right now?” I asked. “Shall we gor” “Sure, Matt. There’s an overnight bag and a suitcase in the kitchen.” Maggie picked up her little leath- er-bound portable radio and her purse and we went down the hall. With all the space behind the seat, there wasn’t any point in letting her baggage bounce around back in the van. I boosted the pair back ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE CORMICGLOOKS. ECO