Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Miss Evangeline went to the elevator and up to Room 190. She knocked firmly on the door, her mouth grim; but she remembered to smile sweetly as the door opened a crack.

“Who’re you?” Polly Loring asked, peering out into the dimly lighted hall.

“My dear, I was on the mall this afternoon when the Emory baby was kidnapped. Don’t you remember me? I helped you—”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, I remember you now. But listen, I got a splitting headache, you know?”

“I saw the man who took the boy.”

Polly flung open the door she had been closing in Miss Evangeline’s face. “You saw him?”

Miss Evangeline drew an index finger across her upper lip. “He had a rather sickly-looking mustache. He wore tan slacks and a checkered sweater. He looked like vanilla ice cream, his face, I mean, so pale.”

Polly sputtered something Miss Evangeline didn’t quite catch. “May I come in, dear? I’d like to talk to you a moment, if I may.”

Polly reluctantly stepped aside as Miss Evangeline pushed open the door and stepped into the shabby room. She promptly sat down and told Polly she was frightened nearly out of her wits. She told her about the flying saucer and about the Mulberry Mall Monster. “Now this,” she said. “I’m afraid for my life savings,” she added significantly.

“Your life savings,” Polly repeated.

“All fifty thousand dollars,” Miss Evangeline said, shocked at the enormity of the lie she had uttered. “Perhaps I really should put it in a bank—”

“You keep it at home?”

“Don’t trust banks. Never did.”

Polly’s eyes grew wider.

“Well, the reason I came,” Miss Evangeline said, getting down to business, “was that I wanted to ask you if perchance you had recognized the man who kidnapped Sonny, as a result of my description of him. If you have any idea who he is, it would make matters so much simpler for the police. I’m afraid they would never listen to me, but if you went to them and identified the—”

“No,” Polly said, shaking her head. “I got no idea who he is.”

“Well,” said Miss Evangeline, “that is a pity. I’d best be going, then.”

She was almost out in the hall when she heard the dog bark from inside Polly’s room. Polly was trying to shut the door, but Miss Evangeline held her ground. “Your... your poodle?” she prompted, opening the trap.

Polly nodded. “Yeah, I keep her shut in the bathroom. She’s messy. She was a gift from a guy I know.”

“Well, you take care of yourself, dear. You’ve had a terrible shock. Here.” Miss Evangeline extracted a bottle of aspirin from her knitting bag. “Take two of these and draw the shades and lie down with a cool cloth on your head. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”

She went out into the hall and, satisfied with her performance, walked to the elevator. Well, she guessed she knew where Mitzi was now. But where was Sonny Emory? In the bathroom, too? She had no time to speculate further. She had to hurry home. She was expecting guests later in the evening.

At eleven o’clock that night, Miss Evangeline darkened her house, put a wool shawl over her shoulders, and stepped out onto the porch. She shut the door, locked it, walked to her Packard, got in, and drove off into the night.

She parked the Packard just a block away and walked back behind the hedges growing on the lawns of the houses across from her own. The night was cool, but she found her shawl sufficient for it.

At eleven thirty, the guests she had been expecting arrived. They slid like shadows up the lawn and onto the porch, where they tried the front door and found it locked. The man opened a window. The girl climbed inside, and he followed her.

Miss Evangeline quickly crossed the street, and went around to the side of her house. She pulled up the slanting cellar doors and descended the steps into the furnace room. She could hear them moving noisily about upstairs. Inept, she thought. She hoped their ineptness would not cause harm to the Emory baby — or to Mitzi. Well, she would simply do what she had to do, pray a little, and hope for the very best.

She quietly mounted the steps that led to her kitchen and opened the door cautiously. They were still in the living room. She could see the beams of their flashlights flitting along the floors and up the walls.

“I looked upstairs,” Polly whispered. “She’s not in the house. Look, Jack. There it is!”

He swore softly, staring at the wall safe. “We’ll have to tear down the wall to get at the loot.”

Miss Evangeline stifled a gasp. She hoped they wouldn’t do that. The repair bill would be staggering. She’d never be able to afford it. She listened, peeping uneasily around the corner of the kitchen cabinets.

Polly was shining the beam of her flashlight on the wall safe. The man was fumbling hopelessly with the dial.

“Jack, look out!” Polly screeched in sudden alarm. “The wall’s caving in!”

Miss Evangeline clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggle that almost escaped her lips.