Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

The battered deck hit the table, followed by two immense rolls of greenbacks. He slid a fifty from one of these, lit it from Jim’s cigarette, and then lit his own coffin nail. The money was from Props, for display purposes when we gave our little presentation on how much more valuable a stack of war bonds was. This did not make the poker played with it any less cutthroat.

The money slid back and forth while they swapped cards and we cleared away our gravy and dealt out the mail. News both profound and obscure passed between our tables, names like Rommel and Marshall mixed with Buster Wiles, Fred McEvoy, and Betty Hansen.

Bevis came back. Velvet went to chat for a minute and stayed to play some cards, though I didn’t notice that she was betting any money. Edwin got up at least once, to fetch a bottle from his private stock. Actually, I think everybody left the car at least once; maybe it was the gravy. Laszlo went out and came back six or seven times; he liked to move around to show that his supervision was required at every second.

I wasn’t really taking notes, being busy composing a fan letter to myself from a kid in Omaha. It didn’t seem important until The Child Star poked her head into the car, lifted an eyebrow, and announced, in a voice as flat as the landscape outside, “Mother hasn’t had much to drink yet, but I can’t wake her up.”

We did carry a doctor. He was insurance for the studio; kept any of us from going out before the public sniffling or sneezing, or, more likely, suffering hangovers or indigestion. Sissy ran to fetch him. The Child Star waited quietly, without much interest, at the door between the club car and her private boudoir.

The rest of us went back to our own business. Mrs. Marr, we all knew very well by now, was something of a heavy tippler. She tended to get louder as the night went on, rather than quieter, but we thought God might be on our side tonight, if He had any attention to spare from the front lines. Dr. Stone grumbled his way through our car; he had obviously been doing well at pinochle when interrupted.

“I,” said Edwin Lorenzo, “am going to sing a song.” He drained his glass and refilled it from the bottle in his vest pocket.

“Is it clean?” inquired Olivia as the door thumped shut behind Dr. Stone, with Baby Eloise following along.

“Nobody I know thinks so,” he said. He straightened his shoulders and thumped his chest a little to prepare it for exertion.

Dr. Stone came back and bent over Laszlo. Laszlo tossed his cards down and went out with him. He didn’t like Mrs. Marr any more than the rest of us. “If she’s tom up another carpet...” he muttered.

If he got into a fight with Mrs. Marr, it was a fifty-fifty proposition which one would be walking home. Mrs. Marr was mother to a star, but Laszlo was somebody’s nephew. When no shouting came from the private car, we settled back to listen to Edwin Lorenzo’s recital and pretended to blush.

He had finished his first song and was starting in on “King Caractacus” when Laszlo came back. After a whispered conversation with Jim, the two of them started for The Child Star’s car. Laszlo, though, paused at our table.

“Better have you, too.” He pointed to me and to Sissy. “You and, um, you.”

I looked to Velvet and Olivia, exchanged shrugs with them, and got up to follow.

It was a very nice car, with actual beds instead of bunks and curtains at the windows. Mrs. Marr was sprawled in a big horsehair armchair, a half-empty bottle on a low table beside her. I didn’t see a glass.

Sissy missed something else. “Where’s Baby Eloise?” she demanded.

“We sent her into the next car,” said Dr. Stone, jerking his head in that direction. “She doesn’t know yet.”

“Is Mrs. Marr really that sick?” I asked.

“Officially,” said Laszlo, “Yes.”

“Unofficially?” asked Jim.

“She’s dead,” said Dr. Stone.

We all took two giant steps back from the chair without saying, “Captain, may I?”

“Food poisoning,” growled Laszlo. “You’d think, in this weather, they could keep the food...”

Dr. Stone sat down on the nearer bed. “That can be the official story, if you like. It was less accidental poisoning, though. Somebody slipped a bottle of rubbing alcohol into her. Know where she got her liquor?”

“I wonder if she deals with the same place as Lorenzo,” mused Jim, always interested in these practical matters.

Laszlo leaned in, his hands flat on one arm of the chair. “You couldn’t have made a mistake?”

“Not after working Hollywood all through Prohibition, no.” Dr. Stone jerked a thumb at the bottle. “And unless some of the old bootleggers are back in business, to get around rationing, we can’t blame them this time. It must have been deliberate. She had plenty of drinking alcohol, too much for her to try this instead.”

Sissy’s lower lip slid out a little. “Poor Baby Eloise. What’s she going to do without her mother? You know, if it weren’t for mothers, we wouldn’t be here at all. And then who would we talk to?”

“Is The Child Star going to have to go home?” I asked.