Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

fingers, she spread a newspaper clipping on the bar. A drop of wa- ter seeped through it from below and grayed the face of a large square-jawed young man who was looking up at them out of the clip- ping. In big capitals William How- ard Brewster promised the State how much good he could accom- plish for it if elected to the State Senate next week. So that’s where I noticed the name, Cliff thought. Anne looked earnestly at him, tapping the paper. “You think he looks like God? He thinks he does. He thinks he is God.” “Does he know where you are now?” Cliff asked with some re- lief. He was beginning to feel he didn’t know how to handle this situation exactly, but it might be all right to call the man up and tell him where his wife was. Some- body ought to be looking after her, he thought. “He doesn’t know I’m alive,” she said wearily. “I wish I weren't.” “You don’t want to talk like that,” Cliff said. He stood up, push- ing back the stool. “Look, Anne, I think we ought to get moving. Now why don’t you—” She turned quickly, full of sud- den animation, blinking her eyes fast. “But you didn’t answer my question. Just let me tell you what happened and see what you think. It won’t take but a minute. I really want your opinion. Would you ever know to look at this man he’s just a cheap crook? Well, that’s what he is. He certainly cheated me. | worked like a dog for three years for William Howard Brewster. Like a dog. I put him through law school. I paid the bills while he studied. That was my _ invest- ment in the future. We were part- ners. Oh, sure.” She picked up her fresh glass and blew gently into the foam, making a little slanting tun- nel in it down to the beer. “He even made Phi Beta Kappa,” she said: in a marveling voice. “Oh, he’s smart. He used to say I ought to wear the key. I was the one who paid for it.” “Well, now he’s in the money, isn’t he?” Cliff said. “What’s wrong with that?” She laughed. “Not a thing,” she said, looking at him from the cor- ners of her eyes this time, a sly look. She had such an odd way, he thought, of using the edges of her eyes for looking at him. “Only I never saw a penny of it. And I] went along with everything he wanted, too. What else could I do? How could I stop him?” She put out a cold hand and seized his wrist with fingers hard and thin like bone. “Tell me,” she said, “what else I could have done?” “Maybe you shouldn’t keep thinking about these things,” he said uncomfortably, wondering if it would hurt her feelings for him to pull his wrist away. “Tell me!” she insisted. “I tried everything I knew. I even quit kicking when he brought other 6 ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE ~— 6 Comichooks.co