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

Everyone cheered except Laszlo. He got a hand clamped around her unmarked arm, snatched up her coat, and said, “Oh, but we’ll get much nicer pictures with you driving. You’ll get to wear a nice hat. Wouldn’t Baby Eloise look great in an engineer’s hat, folks?”

Everyone cheered some more, and the crowd moved up the platform a ways. I was moving with it until the Nazi-smasher slipped from my coat. The thing refused to be picked up while I had my gloves on. By the time I had the gloves off, and the Allies’ new secret weapon stowed where it would be harder to lose, the parade had moved on considerably.

Before I could join it, a voice demanded, “What did she say? Is she going to wave from the caboose?”

I glanced back and started forward. “Um, no, George. She’s going to drive the engine.”

He reached up and took hold of my sleeve. “I know I heard her say something about the caboose.”

I threw both arms into the air. “And she knows what she’s doing, too. They’d do better with the caboose, and there’d be room for all of us. They’re probably going to have her drive for a few feet, and then they’ll have to back up so we can all board the train. We may all wind up on the caboose after all. But you know what Laszlo’s like.”

“Got pictures of Washington and Lincoln in the caboose,” he noted. “FDR, too. Mayor and like that could get their picture taken with her under those, once I got some bunting tacked up.”

The wind was hitting me full, now that the crowd wasn’t there to protect me. “That’s a good idea, George. If the weather’s going to be like this the whole trip, that’ll be the only way to get decent pictures. But let me tell Laszlo. He won’t like the idea if it comes from you.”

“You’re all alike,” George snarled. “Come on and see what’s there.”

I had been in the caboose before, of course, but not without the mass of fellow performers, technicians, and publicity pushers. It was a mess, of course, after we’d kicked through it, but I could see George’s plan at once.

“Right next to a good old American potbellied stove, too,” I said as he repaired some of the bunting we’d knocked down on the way out and straightened the display of presidents. “You’d have to move that box of kindling so nobody trips, though, and...”

Next to the box of wood sat a stack of envelopes, the top one addressed to Baby Eloise. “What are those?”

He glanced back. “Ah, we use those to start the fire. You won’t miss ’em. Since we have to douse the fire every time you lot comes through, so nobody burns their valuable bodies, you might as well help us get it started again. Toss some in now, if you know anything about how to do that.”

“We know how to start fires in California, George,” I told him. “Nobody better.” I reached down for a handful. What I really wanted to know was whether these were prop letters or real ones, which could make George the studio spy.

They were real, but it didn’t matter so very much. I touched the top letter and little springs shot away. A rope skittered up through the pile and caught around my wrist. I jerked back, putting a foot up on a foot of the stove for leverage. But while that foot was off the floor, a second loop came across the floor. George flipped the rope and pulled it tight on my ankle.

“Ha!” he said, and the ankle went up in the air.

I couldn’t see him, not with my coat and skirt over my head. But I knew his teeth were clenched as he said, “I saw that mark on her arm, you witch. You’re all alike.”

“George, what is this?” I hollered. I’ve been in some serials, and suddenly having that potbellied stove so close didn’t seem so friendly.

He hauled on the rope and I tipped up enough so the piccolo in my pocket whacked me in the ear. “That rope, unh, on your wrist goes down to the ties. When we get up steam, we’ll see what’s stronger; you or these knots.”

His boots were just barely in view. I wondered if The Child Star could get this thing started before he had that rope secured, or if they were just trying the hat on her.

“You planned this together?” I panted. “You and Eloise, so she’d be the one who got to... umf!”

I sloped down toward the floor because he had to come forward to kick me. “Don’t you say a word against her!” he ordered. “Fair enough, though, to let her do it. You’re the guys who beat her up so she makes your money.”

The boots moved back and I tipped up some more. George went on talking. I didn’t interrupt him.

“I heard her scream last night,” he told me. “I thought I wouldn’t hear that any more once the old bat was dead. But you’re worse. You hurt her right in the middle of the crowd. You’re movie people; you don’t care what other people think. You don’t remember there are real people.”

He hauled on the rope some more. “But there are lots of us who love Baby Eloise. We’re real. I’ve read the letters as they come in. I know.”

“You’ve been reading the mail that...”