Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

Dick took away the stool. Bert lowered Jinny and then let go of her. Jinny hung there, her small hands clutching at the rope in an attempt to support her weight, but the hemp cut deeper and deeper into her throat. Slowly, her body turned about, throwing crazy shadows on the wall as a final shaft of sunlight broke into the room and as her breath choked in her throat.

“All right, put the stool back.”

But it was not a Farrington who spoke. It was Mr. Downey, who stood in the doorway with a shotgun in his hand. Beside him was Sheriff Lamb, a large, silent man who seldom spoke, but whose expression now conveyed displeasure.

“Put it back, I said!”

Little Mr. Downey’s voice sounded like a trap snapping shut. Bert put the stool back beneath Jinny’s feet. Jinny stood very straight and with steady fingers loosened the noose. Then she stepped down.

“For a frightened moment,” she said, “I almost thought you weren’t coming, Mr. Downey.” She no longer sounded like a child.

“Oh, we were there,” Mr. Downey said. “Right on the dot, just like you said. But what took us a little longer, we were listening at the window and we had to come around to the door so you wouldn’t be between them and us.”

Jinny looked coldly at the three Farringtons, who were like grotesque shadows frozen in the act of trying to move.

“You killed Alice,” she said. “I knew all along you must have killed Alice. I loved her, but she was dull and plain and nobody would marry her, I knew, except for her money. So I promised myself I’d get you somehow. Since you’d killed her in a foreign country, the only way I could get you was by making you try to kill me — before witnesses.

“It was risky. Sure it was. But I studied psychology in college and Mr. Downey is a cracker-jack private detective, and I thought I could do it, one way or another. I pretended to have dreams so you’d think I was a real nervous kid. Last night when you were willing to let me eat poisonous mushrooms, I knew I’d better do something. So I tried putting this hanging idea into your heads. I didn’t want you to try to drown me or push me off a cliff — I might not have been able to stop you if you’d done that. Well, it worked out as I hoped it would. You were so gullible, so easy to lead around. You should have seen your faces when I spilled that dish of mushrooms on the floor. Of course the ones I’d eaten were the harmless ones.”

But she did not laugh at the memory. She only turned to Mr. Downey and Chief Lamb.

“Take them away, please,” she said.

The Farringtons went, followed by the two men with shotguns. Last of all came Jinny Wells. Behind her the noose, stirred by the air currents, twisted and curled.

As was mentioned earlier, the Farringtons were a rather attractive family, if you don’t mind overlooking a few bad habits.

But Jinny Wells was one individual who apparently did.

Finger Man by Jack Ritchie

He said that I could call him Fred.

Now, as I drove through the flat desert country, we listened to the local newscaster announce:

“Hannibal Coggins, mass murderer of the 1960’s, escaped from the state prison farm early this afternoon. He disappeared shortly after the noon roll call. Coggins is considered to be extremely dangerous.”

I turned down the volume of the car radio slightly. “They didn’t give a description of Coggins.”

Fred nodded. “I suppose because it might do more harm than good. People would get all excited and turn in dozens of innocent citizens. It’s probably enough that the police know what he looks like.”

“I remember the case,” I said. “Coggins went on a shooting spree and killed eleven people.”

“Twelve,” Fred said. “One afternoon he got into an argument with his neighbor about a property line and in due course he shot him. Then, feeling that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, he strolled about the neighborhood shooting people he disliked. He got twelve, including a dentist and a used-car salesman.”

“Obviously he wasn’t hanged.”

“No. The governor at that time apparently had strong feelings about capital punishment. He commuted the sentence.”

The radio began playing country western music.

“How far is it to the nearest gas station?” Fred asked.

I glanced at the map on the seat beside me. “About five miles more to Everettville. Where did you say you ran out of gas? I didn’t see your car.”

“It happened on one of those little side roads. Had to walk more than two miles before I got to the highway.”

When I picked up Fred, he had been standing at the side of the road carrying a two gallon gasoline can and waving an entreating thumb. Ordinarily I might have passed him by, but he wore a business suit and in this desert country where the traffic is sparse one hesitates to pass people in distress miles and miles from the nearest habitation.

“What line of work are you in?” I asked.