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

If looks could kill, it would have been all holiday with me. Since I didn’t drop, she snarled. “They’ll be giving my parts to just anybody next, anybody who’s handy, just to keep me out. I’m going to be eased away from the spotlight. That’s why they put me in Five Star with that B-movie director. This is just the next stage. Laszlo and Lorenzo are in on it together: they’d get rid of Mrs. Marr and then push you two into the spotlight so there won’t be room for me.”

She tossed her head again. “At least it took two of you to replace me. I’ll have to remember that when I’m playing the heroine’s grandmother.”

I doubted that her recent decline was caused by any studio plots, but I also doubted that saying so was going to get me I anywhere. Sympathy was more the line to take.

“Why, I had no idea!” I rolled my hands together to signify mental anguish. “I surely wouldn’t want to be a part of that.”

She sneered.

“Honest,” I said. “Laszlo doesn’t have the brains for anything like that. It’s sure to come out, and then it’ll look as if I was in on it from the start. But if you could prove everything you know, and go to the police with it...”

“The studio would toss me out on my can, and I’d never even play the heroine’s grandmother,” she told me.

“No, no,” I said. “If you can get good, solid proof — the way you did in A Fine Funeral, they’ll cut off Laszlo completely. They’ve been wanting to get rid of him forever. Think how grateful they’ll be!”

It would have taken a better actress than I am to make her buy this, but it did switch her train of thought to another track. “Maybe I could. And if I can prove T. K. and J. W. and the others were in on it, maybe the whole studio goes bust and I’ll get out of my contract. After all that publicity, all the big studios will want me.”

I had my doubts, but I didn’t let those show. “I just know you can do it! And if you need any help, remember I’m right behind you to give you a boost.”

My dialogue needed work. Her head snapped around. “You mean like in Wagons to the Ivy League?” She snatched up something and hurled it.

I ducked in time, but the crash surprised me. I had expected a pillow or, at worst, her breakfast. But I stepped backward over broken glass, and the neck of a bottle. There was nothing on it to show it was one of Lorenzo’s, but I couldn’t help wondering whether that had been in Velvet’s bunk or Jewell had brought it along to kill the taste of breakfast.

I kept moving backward before she could find something else to toss. But would either of them have done any favors for The Child Star, collecting Lorenzo’s bottles and refilling them? It was possible. Velvet anyhow, and probably Jewell, had done more difficult and time-consuming favors for directors in return for a career move. Even for assistant directors.

The platform bounced more than usual when I stepped back onto it. So did I.

I had just a second to see the stack of mail I’d stepped on. Letters slid left and right, off the train, and I was about to follow them. I grabbed at the door, but it shut before I could get a grip. The mailbag that had been emptied was hanging just inside the little windbreak that kept most of the snow off the platform. I took hold of that. It started to tear as my feet swung off the platform.

Screaming for help was actually my second idea. My first was that things like this wouldn’t happen if Mammoth Titan had gotten us a real train instead of issuing us one from the props of the Westerns Unit. MGM could afford trains built in the twentieth century. Why couldn’t we?

Since my screams wouldn’t have been heard over the rattling of the train (I’m known in the trade as a good screamer, but not that good), it was a break for me that Jim was hunting for me. He came out the door, recognized that I was about to become a casualty, and got hold of my shoulders. These were not padded, so he left imprints, but I didn’t scold him for that.

He scolded me, dragging me into the external corridor of The Child Star’s car. “Haven’t I warned you guys about trying to get across that in your heels? I told T. K. this would happen if he didn’t get a decent train.”

“I’m not wearing heels for things like walking until the war’s over,” I told him, slapping a hand on the window. “That was somebody else’s fault.”

“Someone tried to make you fall?” he demanded. He pressed his face against the window, pushing me aside. When he came back, his eyes were shining.

“You know what this means?” he demanded. “If we can’t get them for murder, maybe we can have them picked up for mistreating the U.S. mail.”

“Was this trip really necessary?” I muttered. “Look, bright eyes, that stuff isn’t U.S. mail. It was never mailed. It’s as much a prop as the money.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well... I don’t suppose you know who did it?”

“Only who didn’t,” I said. “It was put there after I went through to talk to Jewell, and she never came out here the whole time.”