Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 50, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2005

Shakily, Simon stood up. “I guess the way you came in was so weird I forgot to.” He faced her, slowly beginning to realize that he had nothing to fear from this spook except the possibility of being thrown out. She returned his look with an icy stare and said, “I once had a little stableboy who was a Negro.”

“Figures.”

“He was also a thief.”

Simon shrugged. “Maybe he thought that if he belonged to you, then what you had belonged to him.”

“He didn’t belong to me!” The light around her flared. “He was a servant, not a slave. Good heavens, how old do you think I am?”

Simon said in his tour guide voice, “She was born in 1895 in New York City of Irish immigrant parents. Self trained, she became secretary to the millionaire banker Everett Fox-Nugent and married his son, Everett Jr., in 1915, et cetera, et cetera. I probably know everything about you there is to know.” He looked longingly at his easel.

“Then you know that I left strict provisions in my will regarding this museum. Visitors may be allowed to dry sketch but no liquid paints are permitted in any of the galleries.” She pointed indignantly at his paints, then gasped. “The shepherdess! Where is it? That is one of the most valuable—”

“—items in the collection.” Simon was getting impatient. “Executed in 1710 by Henri Duvivier, blah, blah, blah, and there it is safe and sound. Look, lady, I’m not hurting anything, so just listen to me for a minute, will you?”

She glared at him but was silent. Simon went on in the most polite voice he could muster. “My name is Simon Judson and I’m an artist; that is, I want to be one. I took a job here as a tour guide because I love this stuff. I go to the Ringling School of Art and our assignment over the Christmas vacation is to make a copy of a famous Nativity. That Van Zeller,” his eyes went to it lovingly, “is one of my favorite paintings.”

“There are postcards of it in the gift shop.”

“I don’t want to copy any dumb postcard!” He bit his lip, not wanting to sound rude. “I want to sit here with it, just Van Zeller and me.”

“Oh, you are to be given special privileges, are you?” she said sarcastically. “You are to be allowed to splash your paints—”

“I’m not splashing!” Simon was getting mad. “I’m being real careful and I only have three nights. The day after Christmas they’re starting to make more storage space in the basement and the door I stole a key to will be boarded up so when...”

“You stole a key?”

Oops — wrong word. “I mean, I borrowed it to have a copy made. I’m not a thief like that poor little stableboy of yours.” He couldn’t help adding, “And I’ll bet he was just taking some food home to his family.”

“On the contrary, he stole something very precious to me.”

“Then you should be glad all I want to do is paint.” Simon was beginning to feel desperate. “Please let me stay — please, lady!”

“Stop calling me lady. It’s ignorant. My name is Mrs. Fox-Nugent.”

Simon grinned at her. “Your name is Dorothea. One heck of a pretty name, I must admit.”

She stood still and her milky face under all that dark hair changed slightly. Had he gotten to her with his little compliment? She said, looking at his paints, “Certainly this idea of yours is ingenious.”

“It was my girl’s idea.” Simon took this as the go-ahead and sat down, picking up his brush. “She’s the ingenious one.”

“Also the mistaken one.” Dorothea’s surrounding light flared. “The rules of this museum must not be violated.”

“Who’s violating? I just wanted—”

“I don’t know who you think you are, other than a common housebreaker, but you will leave this museum immediately.”

Simon sat seething, then he stood up and said, “I’ll tell you who I think I am. I’m an unlucky guy who had a good thing going till you came along and blew it.” He collapsed his easel with an angry snap. “How the heck did you swing this, anyway? I thought people died and stayed dead.”

“There are certain outrages,” she was moving along the wall looking at the painting, “that one may be allowed to return and rectify.”

“Well, consider yourself rectified.” Frustrated and angry, Simon began setting the room to rights. “You can go back to your heavenly rest and feel good. Maybe I’ll get a job at Burger King. They might even let me come back after hours and paint the Whoppers — or would that be violating the place?” He walked to the door. “So long, Dorothea, and thanks for nothing.”

But she was gone. Simon shrugged and went back down the hall to his locker. He stashed his gear, then retraced his steps to the basement. As he beamed his light on the door, Dorothea’s voice said, “I am dismayed.”

It made him jump. She was hovering near the elevator.

He said, “Will you kindly stop following me? I said I was going, didn’t I?”

“Dismayed!”

“Why?”

“The security here is deplorable. If you were able—”

“Relax.” Simon opened the door. “With a gimmick like you, who needs security?”