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

Clay gazed speculatively at the scantily-clad woman. She was very attractive.

“Hurry!” she urged him. “Every minute you are here, there is danger. You could be killed.”

Clay did not reply. He thrust a hand into the pocket of his khaki shorts, drew out a package of cigarettes, and offered her one, which was nervously refused. Then he lit a cigarette for himself. He gazed at her speculatively.

“Pity. Such an exotic place, such a beautiful woman. One should take advantage of life’s opportunities, don’t you think?”

The attractive, redhaired woman flushed and drew the red kimono tighter around herself. However, to Clay, she did not seem especially displeased. It had been his experience that women are more apt to be displeased with the man who does not make a pass at them then with the one who does.

“Don’t be a fool, Eric. Your boat leaves in two hours.”

“I’ll make the boat in plenty of time.” He wondered which boat it was that left in two hours. He seized her by the waist.

“No! Please don’t! Klaas would kill you — and me — if he dreamed you laid a finger on me.” The girl’s eyes were blue and very wide open. She spoke with genuine terror, her voice rising to a squeal.

Clay wondered who Klaas was, but he smiled knowingly. “You can’t very well put up much of a fuss then, can you? And then there’s the police. You wouldn’t want to attract their attention, would you?”

Without waiting for her to answer, Clay drew her toward him, but she turned away. Perhaps she feared that every moment was dangerous and only wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible. On the other hand, it might have been masculine vanity but he felt that she did not object nearly as much as she pretended. Her blue eyes were shining, and Clay imagined she was not at all displeased to think herself femininely irresistible. Nevertheless, she led him up a crumbling back stairway and let him out into the black, deserted street.

Clay turned toward the railroad station, but had gone only three blocks when he came upon a crowd of people clustered about the Zeedjik Canal. Searchlights from police boats stabbed fingers of white light through the black night. They were dragging the canal for something. Lost in the crowd, he waited. A few minutes later, the grappling hooks pulled the body of a man to the surface. Heavy weights were tied to a metal chain looped about the bare knees. Foul, oozing mud covered the face and eyes. A gasp of horror swept the crowd. The corpse’s throat had been hideously slashed so that the head was barely attached. Clay Felton noticed something else. The corpse had light blond hair, wore khaki shorts, leather sandals, and a sport shirt, and looked like an American college student.

His first impulse was to hide. It might be dangerous even to walk the few blocks to the railroad station. Instinctively, he headed into the darkness toward a bridge. In Europe, the poorest of the poor sleep under bridges — and they are seldom bothered. Running into the darkness, he found a deserted area, and then clambered under the supports of one of the innumerable bridges that dot Amsterdam.

Presently, for he had not eaten and was famished, he tore the cellophane from one of the wooden shoes filled with chocolates. Biting into the candy carefully, he cracked the chocolate off, and a sparkling, gleaming diamond was in his hand. In the two wooden shoes there were twenty-four diamonds.

Clay Felton sat hunched up in the musty dampness under the bridge and did the hardest thinking of his life. The idea of being a thief had never seriously occurred to him before. Now, however, he was in possession of a fortune. The gleaming diamonds, which he carefully placed in his money belt, made him feel like a walking branch of Tiffany’s. If he could get the diamonds safely into the United States, he would be rich. If he could not, he was dead. It was that simple. The murder of the man dragged out of the canal was proof that diamond smuggling was a deadly business. Not only the smuggling ring but also the police would be combing Amsterdam for the murderer.

Clay had no way to prove his innocence. No alibi. He did not know a soul in Amsterdam. No one could vouch for his whereabouts at the probable time of the murder.

What was worse, the smugglers could realize their mistake.

So it all boiled down to a place to hide.

Where could he hide? Hole up in a cheap hotel for three days? No. Cheap hotels would be the first place they would look. Gradually, the outline of a bold plan formed in Clay’s mind. Thinking hard, he went over it and over it and over it again in his mind. Then, bone-weary, he was gradually overcome by sleep. There was nothing he could do until morning anyway, and he needed the rest.