Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 81: what you’re looking at

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

was unwrapping. Mitch measured the distance between them. He edged sidewise cautiously, every muscle tensed, braced for immedi- ate action. The last wrapping fell from the cup. Mitch didn’t need to be told it was a fake. He yelled un-nerv- ingly, swung his stiffened right arm with all his fear-inspired strength. It struck Duke’s shoul- ders like a club, knocking him off balance, pitching him forward across the table. He bowled into Doc. Doc shot over backwards in his chair and Duke landed on top of him. Mitch ran; hell, he was already - running. There was an ominous ker-chung as he hurled himself to- ward the hall—the sound of Duke’s silenced gun. There was another as he clawed open the door, cleared the porch and the steps with one flying leap. Duck- ing and darting, he fled through the trees toward the street. Racing against the bullets that were cer- tain to follow the first two. Duke would be on his feet by now. He’d be lunging out the door, plunging through the trees in hot pursuit. He’d never swallow this, the rooking he thought he’d been handed. | Kuh-lunk! A baseball bat seemed to crash into Mitch’s forehead. His racing feet shot from under him, and his body literally soared into the air. He came down flat on his back, THE CELLINI CHALICE all the wind knocked out of him, paralyzed with shock. He was conscious but he couldn’t © -move. In the dim moonlight, he | looked dazedly upward... The ~ thick branch of a tree. That was | what had hit him, or rather what he had hit. At the rate he’d been moving, it was a wonder that it hadn’t knocked his head off. . Drearily, he almost wished that it had. Anything was better than to be like this. To lie here helplessly, waiting for a guy to kill you. What was holding Duke up, anyway? Why the hell didn’t he get it over with? The minutes dragged by. Mitch’s head began to clear, and a little breath came back into his body..* He rolled his eyes, squinted- through the foliage toward the house. He stopped breathing for a. moment, straining his ears to lis- ten. There was nothing to hear. No sound. A guy couldn’t move in this timber without at least a little racket, but there wasn’t so much. “as a cracking twig. Obviously, Duke hadn’t followed him, wasn’t looking for him. It didn’t make sense... Didn't it, though! : He’d been conned. Not Duke... Duke had taken him, and blown him off. Given him the hard scare to keep him running. It was the old. double-switch, the reverse play. You let the sucker talk you into a deal you’d set up yourself. When Fa be Comicbooks; co