Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 6, June 1999

“No, but I sleep very soundly.”

“Were you and Mr. Strode particularly good friends?”

Gardner looked into a remote corner of the parlor and cleared his throat. “Not particularly good, no. But of course we had practically nothing in common. I’m a literary type, if you will. Started out teaching high school English, but now I do all the technical writing and advertising copy for Gromacki’s — the furniture factory, you know, up in the next block. In fact all of us here in the house work there.

“Strode was one of those poor devils that have had littleness thrust upon them, if you follow me. A good deal of native shrewdness, but lazy. Dropped out of high school because he thought it was smart to make cigarette money by working as a stock boy in a grocery warehouse while his Mends were still bisecting triangles and analyzing Paradise Lost. Sort of slid into the gutter and stayed there. A miser and a confirmed bachelor.”

“How did he get along with the other boarders?”

Gardner passed his hand over his forehead like a silent movie actor signaling discreet reflection. “Let me give you a clue, sir. We walk to work in all weathers, the lot of us. But only Frank and Boyd Bland walked together. Bland’s a blue-collar worker at the factory, the sort of chap who never quite adjusts to life outside the womb.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “I suspect he may have been a drinker at one time. I understand he came from a good family but got himself into some kind of trouble early on in life — disinherited, I don’t know... But Strode was always friendly with Bland — I think because Bland was plainly his inferior. Drebbel and I incurred Strode’s contempt because we were educated, cultivated, successful...”

Auburn had a little difficulty reconciling the notion of success with his present surroundings. “I think you said Mr. Drebbel also works at the factory?”

“Correct, sir. Hans is an engineer — still works full-time at seventy-two. Sort of a know-it-all. Devious, manipulative, but nothing very impressive in the brain department. He’s been working on some kind of pneumatic stapling gun for seven or eight years and still hasn’t got it right.”

“And what about your landlady? How did she and Mr. Strode get along?”

“Mrs. Helm? Oh, she mothers us all in her rough-and-tumble way. Basically a decent soul even if her grammar does grate on the refined ear like a rusty hinge.”

“Does she have any family of her own?”

“Not that I know of. She’s been widowed for years.” The mantel clock struck four. “Here’s Bland already.”

A squat little dumpling-faced man probably not much over fifty drifted aimlessly into the room and, discovering Auburn’s presence, gazed at him with the timid, panicky manner of a cornered mouse. Gardner made introductions.

“Sit down, Mr. Bland,” said Auburn. “I hear you and Mr. Strode were pretty good Mends.”

“Yes. I miss old Frank already.” Bland swallowed hard, and Auburn thought he was going to cry. His flabby, spade-shaped hands looked like the ineffectual flippers of some clumsy mud dwelling creature. “We looked out for each other, Frank and I. But he said he might be moving out pretty soon.” Hugh Gardner made a surreptitious exit into the hall, and a moment later they heard him going up the back stairs.

“I understand you work at the furniture factory, too, Mr. Bland. What sort of work do you do there?”

“I’m in dunnage and pack-out. Frank was trying to get me a better job in receiving; now I guess I’m probably stuck where I am.”

“How did Strode get along with the other two boarders — Gardner and Drebbel?”

Bland scrutinized the palm of his left hand as if he were looking for a splinter. “Not very well. They had a lot of arguments.”

“What about?”

“Different things. Frank just got promoted at the factory. Personnel director. He said there was stuff in the records that made the other guys look bad. Said he might get them fired if they didn’t get off his back.”

Auburn made a mental note to get a look at those records as soon as possible. “What were they on his back about?”

“Different things. They used to gang up on him, make fun of him because he never went to college, things like that.”

“I’m just going over a few details about Mr. Strode’s death. Do you remember the last time you saw him alive?”

“Last night, late. I checked on him around eleven thirty to see if he needed anything before I went to bed.”

“And was he all right?”

“Said he felt cold and weak. I pulled his quilt up around his shoulders.”

“What kind of a quilt?”

“A green comforter. Frank used to wear it around the house like a bathrobe.”

“Let’s go upstairs and see if we can find it.”