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

The second story of the house was just as blatantly unmodernized and grubby as the first. An indefinable smell, suggesting dirt and decay, seemed to rise from the mud-colored carpet and emanate from the papered walls. A dark, narrow hall ran straight from the front stairs to the back stairs with two bedrooms on each side and a bathroom sandwiched between those on the left. Frank Strode’s room was at the rear, behind the bath.

Auburn noted the findings Stamaty had reported and retrieved the fragment of clock crystal from under the bed, observing that there was no dust on its upper surface. Bland said he was sure Strode had an alarm clock with a crystal like that, but he couldn’t remember how recently he’d seen it on the nightstand.

There was no sign of a green quilt in the room.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve got other things to do,” said Auburn. “I’ll just look a little further on my own, thanks.”

Although Boyd Bland almost certainly had nothing else to do, he accepted his dismissal demurely and vanished down the back stairs.

The oblique position of the heavy steel bedstead seemed to accentuate the awkward smallness of the room. Originally it must have been a hospital bed, and several screw-clamp fittings remained attached to the frame. Auburn stood for a few moments in the middle of Frank Strode’s room, trying to get a feel for the personality of its late occupant by surveying the things he’d treasured and used to adorn this bleak little chamber.

On a corner shelf stood a very old plaster Mickey Mouse figurine that might have been of some value as an antique if it hadn’t been smashed to bits at some time or other and put together again with glue that had oozed out of the joints and turned canary yellow on hardening. An Art Deco ashtray on the nightstand, with most of the electroplating scorched off, contained about two packs’ worth of cigarette butts. The reek of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air like a fog and permeated everything in the room. In a dresser drawer Auburn found stacks of baseball cards and a collection of miniature liquor bottles, all of them empty.

Something had happened in that room last night — something fatal to Frank Strode. And by no stretch of the imagination could it have been an accident.

He made a lightning search, more intent on thoroughness than on putting things back as he’d found them. Everything in the room was cheap, shabby, damaged, or worn out, and not a single article of real worth was to be found. None of the keys in the keyfold fitted the lock of the empty dresser drawer.

It was about four thirty when Auburn widened the sphere of his search. Stepping softly, he had a quick look around Gardner’s stuffy and book-cluttered room, hazarded a glance into the closet, and got out again. Across the hall in Boyd Bland’s room everything was in hopeless disorder. Magazines, cardboard boxes, paper bags, empty soft drink cans, and articles of clothing were strewn everywhere as in the aftermath of a cyclone. Although a thorough search was obviously impracticable, Auburn satisfied himself that the green quilt wasn’t there.

His next stop was the bathroom, where the plumbing was antiquated and the enormous medicine cabinet stuffed with the makings of a pharmaceutical museum. Auburn saw packages and brand names that he remembered from his childhood but hadn’t seen since. An assortment of patent medicines and a cache of old prescription bottles filled three shelves. He started to investigate these but then resolutely shut the cabinet door and left the bathroom.

On his way to the back stairs he took a quick look into the last bedroom, which by default must have been Drebbel’s. Here the decor was spartan, the geometric order of things almost painful. A drawing board stood in the corner, and on a small table in front of the window were ranged tools, mechanical parts, and scraps of hardware. Auburn’s hand was on the closet doorknob when the tenant of the room walked in.

“Anything I can help you with?” asked Drebbel with a brittle pugnacity that Auburn would have sworn was nine-tenths bluff.

“Police officer, sir,” said Auburn, hauling out his badge.

“I know who you are,” said Drebbel. “Go ahead. No skeletons in there.” A smile played fitfully over his rubbery cheeks. Auburn took note of the gold pen and pencil set in his shirt pocket, the blanched burn scar on his neck, the knobby, sinewy hands, the deformed left little finger.

“I’m just having a quick look over the house.”

“So I heard. Something fishy about Strode’s death?” The thick lenses of Drebbel’s glasses magnified his eyes grotesquely, creating the illusion of exaggerated alertness, if not morbid curiosity.

“In a way, yes. Got a minute?”

“Certainly. Just wanted to take off my tie before dinner.” He proceeded to do so, hanging it with elaborate care on a rack on the inside of the closet door and incidentally giving Auburn a clear view of the interior of the closet. “I’m John Drebbel, by the way.”