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

Sissy had been trying to explain the story of Buster Kitten, another one of her children’s books, all morning. Sissy gets a little tangled when it comes to plots: hers generally involve small animals that beg for wieners and table scraps at the back door and then ride off on horses to defeat giants. The Child Star had listened gravely through all this because she had been taught to listen to adults and because she had noticed Sissy had rather muscular arms.

Bevis also had muscle, both physical and box office, but not so much that I felt compelled to go through breakfast inventory with him. “If we need anything,” I said, “I’ll give you a call.” I closed the door on the foot he kept trying to slip in.

I had just reached the breakfast on the table when that same door was knocked upon. Mrs. Marr would have thrown something, but I have no children to sell the studio so I answered it.

“Hi,” said Jim, carrying a much smaller breakfast. He was followed into the room by Olivia and Velvet, whose eyes turned rounder than usual at the sight of what was being served to those of us in the private cars.

The Child Star rose with her bowl of cereal and moved to a side table without being asked. Sissy, perhaps to her dismay, followed. But The Child Star’s face registered no complaint.

“I know what happened,” Jim whispered, taking Sissy’s seat.

Olivia pulled up my chair. “Richard Hannay here has it all figured out.”

Sissy and The Child Star had taken their breakfasts with them, so mine was the only one left to prey on. I hauled up a chair without any ceremony. Jim interpreted this as a sign of intense desire to learn what he’d deduced.

“Mrs. Marr,” he said in even lower tones, “was murdered by Nazi spies.”

I spread imitation butter on my toast. “You don’t mean to say so.”

He nodded. “We have a chance to expose their fiendish plot and become heroes. You could be another Mata Hari.”

Velvet choked on the thought. “Yes.” I said. “Shot her, didn’t they?”

“I’ve already found their code book.” He reached into a pocket and brought out a little black rectangle. “It’s filled with mysterious references to their agents. Look here. ‘Joshua Red 324. Nathaniel Blue 918’.”

Velvet reared and snatched the book from his hands. “That’s mine! Those are telephone numbers!”

“Definitely not a matter for the FBI,” Olivia agreed. “The Health Department, maybe.”

“Oh well,” said Jim, reaching for a cup of brown hot water. “I... what’s this?”

It was too late, that’s what it was. “Oh, just a crank note,” I said. “It was tacked to the door. It’s nothing.” I tried to pry it from his hands.

But his eyes were gleaming. “That proves it,” he said. “At least one of the people on this train is a spy and killed Mrs. Marr and wants to keep us from investigating it. I saw just this kind of note used in The Spy Express. We’ll have to investigate them.”

“There are better than forty people on this train,” Olivia noted.

“We’ll check the movie people,” Jim decided, reaching for the plate of toast. “The train people could have had a wreck or something, but the movie people would’ve had to do it this way. It won’t be hard. Didn’t you see Singapore Harbor? We just have to look for someone with a swastika in his suitcase.”

“Mrs. Marr.”

We hadn’t seen Sissy wander over to the table to get the salt. “She had a swatsticka,” the budding author went on. “She used it to swat poor Eloise.”

Then she went away. Jim went on, “Or maybe a missing finger or a secret radio transmitter in disguise.”

“What’s a secret radio transmitter in disguise going to look like?” Velvet asked him.

“Actually, Sissy’s got the right idea,” said Olivia. “If this has anything to do with spies, then Mrs. Marr was the Nazi, and the murderer was one of our boys.”

Jim’s chin went up. “Our boys don’t murder people.”

“Spies or no spies,” I said, “somebody did kill Mrs. Marr. It might be useful to know who.”

Velvet scooped up the last of the imitation butter. “She wouldn’t have let just anybody into her precious private car.”

“Did she have to? Anybody could have slipped her the bottle, even in fun, not knowing the wood alcohol would kill her.”

Jim raised a finger to indicate a point. “And the bad bottle was not one of hers. We checked. It was probably from Lorenzo’s stock.”

“Well, he didn’t do it,” said Olivia. “It would take his mind off the cards.”

“But he might have done it,” Jim said, “under orders from Germany. Or somebody else could’ve taken a bottle he was throwing away and reused it.”

“Maybe it was spies,” said Olivia, wiping her lips. “I mean, why would anybody else kill Mrs. Marr? Except that she needed it, but so do lots of people. Why start with her?”

“Lorenzo and deChante have been in the business a long time,” said Velvet. “They’d have just the type of mind that would resent Mrs. Marr’s getting the private car.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow at that but said, “Bevis was coming back this way a lot. Maybe he did it as a favor to one of them.”