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

Very practical, these child stars. Well, some child stars. I could not see this one growing up to be like Sissy, who had enchanted audiences with her dimples and her curls in a good dozen movies with lots of tap dancing, just a couple of years too early for her to be any challenge to Shirley Temple. (Maybe I can reveal some back-stage secrets without putting Hedda’s nose out of joint. The curls and dimples were real; the tap dancing was phony. They got another girl in for the closeups of the feet. I don’t know what genius decided to make tap dancing movies before sound came in, anyhow.)

Technically speaking, for that matter, I had been a child star myself. After several years of background bits (if your church group rents King of Kings, I can tell you where to find me way in the back, but don’t blink), I was awarded my first starring role at fourteen. We did not mention to the studio that I was fourteen because they had estimated three years older than that. Talkies were still so new that they were desperate for people who could sing. My parents said I could, and it took the studio seven “Sister Annette” shorts to learn different.

Mrs. Marr’s bed was big enough for the two of us, and it was no real problem to decide, but I let Sissy figure it all out. This gave her something else to think about. The Child Star showed us where we could put our things, but since Mrs. Marr’s things were still in those places, we left ours in the suitcases. Except for one flannel nightgown apiece, which we put on. The Child Star donned a similar garment, and we all settled in for the night.

I was unsettled some hours later by a shrill scream. Sissy does not scream in her sleep, so I knew who it had to be. I turned on the little bedside light and found The Child Star sitting up in bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s all right,” I told her. “I ought to know better than to be sleeping at two A.M. anyhow. Are you all right?”

The Child Star sighed. “I’m afraid I’ll have to change.”

I knew the drill; I had little sisters. Get the blankets off before they’re soaked through, toss the sheets into a separate pile, and so forth. While I was doing this, I thought The Child Star was fetching another nightgown. Instead she brought me a long-handled bath brush.

“I don’t think we’d better run a bath at this hour,” I told her, checking the pillowcases.

Grave eyes studied me. “Look,” I said. “In the morning...”

“This isn’t a bathing brush,” she informed me. She set it on the bed and then placed her hands palms down on the mattress, presenting to me the most appalling collections of welts and bruises.

I got the idea. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “We don’t want to wake up Sissy.”

An entire Panzer division couldn’t wake up Sissy. But The Child Star didn’t know that. So she shrugged and went off in search of a nightgown, leaving the brush in case I changed my mind, adults being unpredictable.

“Are there clean sheets?” I asked her when she returned.

The Child Star shook her head. “Not until morning.”

“You’d better bunk with us, then,” I said, doing my best to make this sound pleasant. “We’ll...”

There was a rap at the door. I looked around for a robe, snatched up one of Mrs. Marr’s, and went to see who it was.

It was nobody. But nobody had left us a message. A piece of paper with a skull and cross-bones above the word “Beware” had been tacked to the door.

“Isn’t this a lovely breakfast?” cried Sissy, carrying the tray back to the table.

“Oh yes.”

It was one of the least positive affirmatives I’d ever heard. But perhaps The Child Star was not large enough to have Sissy’s kind of appetite. And maybe she’d never had to go short, either.

The breakfast tray and supplies had been brought to our door by our loyal conductor and by Bevis Flint. George had charged off again, growling something about having work to do and if he’d known he’d be escorted he’d’ve let the so-and-so carry it all. But Bevis was inclined to stay and chat.

“I just wondered if you, um, needed an extra spoon,” he said.

I had counted them on the way in, to be sure they hadn’t sent the usual two-person breakfast. “No, you brought three spoons.”

“Or, um, an extra knife,” he went on, sort of twisting his head to one side.

“No,” I told him, keeping my eyes on his face. “We have three knives.”

“Or maybe an extra fork.”

Behind me, an equally useful conversation was going on. “Knock knock,” said Sissy.

The Child Star responded with “Who’s there?” on cue.

“Elephant.”

“Elephant who?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been introduced to an elephant. So Buster climbs out on the castle roof...”