Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

I'm lighting out of here, fast.” “Tr is well. As your best friend of the moment may I make a sug- gestion? Get into some very simple occupation—something akin, say, to stealing from blind men or rob- bing very small newsboys. For any- thing better, you lack the men- tality.” Mitch thanked him politely. Then he made a suggestion, a com- pletely impossible one involving va- rious 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, good- bye, 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 stay- ing. at a second-rate hotel—a place where the guests’ backgrounds and misdoings were discreetly ignored —he occupied a parlor suite. He THE CELLINI CHALICE was in the parlor, now, on the eve- ning 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 sudden- ness with which his luck had turned from god-awful to grand. A week ago he had had noth- ing, 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 hun- dred dollars for each day he’d put in with Doc Krug. | Not bad, he mused comfortably. Not bad for a guy with no edu- cation, 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 thought- fully. Perhaps he should make an- other 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 +9 EOMICLOOOKS5(EO)