Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

Friday arrived, but much to Eric’s disappointment it did not bring the long-awaited glimpse of Leda’s gentleman friend. It was past three in the morning when Leda herself came down to the lobby dressed in white satin and pearls as if on her way to a ball in some far grander hotel, yet she might have been trailing widow’s weeds from the dismal air with which she made her unsteady progress across the lobby.

“My friend is late, darling. I don’t suppose he left a message...”

“No, sorry. Maybe the weather held him up.” It still amused Eric that what Minnesota would consider a moderate snowfall could paralyze New York.

“Darling, he only has to come across town.”

“Have you tried to call him?”

“Don’t be droll, darling. That’s quite against the rules. We agreed years ago to play by very strict rules. Well, if you don’t have rules it can be risky — for a man in Mr. Swann’s position, I mean.” Eric caught a strong aroma of brandy as Leda sighed deeply. “I’ll tell you a secret, darling, now that we’re such friends. I told you Mr. Swann is a V.I.P., remember? That means Very Important Producer. Or did you already guess, you’re such a smart boy. You’d know him if I told you his real name. Swann is a nom de theatre. One of his little amusements. Remember your mythology? How Jupiter visited Leda in the guise of a swan? My friend was an actor once. It amuses him to come to me by night, disguised. I mean, darling, he wears this adorable false beard and mustache and dark glasses and looks like a Russian spy or Mafia don. He said in the beginning it was to protect his public image. Frankly, darling, I think he still misses the greasepaint. Once an actor... It was all such fun.” Her smile dimmed, another sigh. “It doesn’t seem to amuse him the way it once did.” She glanced worriedly at the clock over the desk. “Where on earth can he be? I don’t know what I’d do if he ever — no, I do know what I’d do. I’ve squirreled away more than enough of those little nuggets of slumber to do it with. Don’t look at me like that, darling, it’ll never happen. He would never be that cruel.”

Eric didn’t doubt the genuineness of her distress, yet there was something in all this verbal extravagance of despair that left him with the uncomfortable feeling that she might at any moment lapse into her southern accent, betray by some too familiar gesture that she was acting out one of those scenes from a Williams play. Presently, in fact, as if suddenly finding the role too demanding, she flashed Eric a smile of self-reproach. “You’re an angel, darling, letting me cry on your shoulder. I’m sure there’s some perfectly good reason for his absence. He’ll probably send me roses in the morning. He used to send me flowers, now and again. I think I’ll go up now. I suddenly feel quite exhausted.”

“You’ll be all right?” This mood of tragic resignation worried Eric, and what she’d said about the “nuggets of slumber.”

A brave smile now, a faint ghost of laughter. “Funny, isn’t it? When things couldn’t possibly be more wrong one is always asked if one is all right. Sweet dreams, darling.”

The implications of Mr. Swann’s behavior proved ominous. Eric found a note from Leda awaiting him when he arrived at the hotel the following night. E., darling, please knock on my door when you have a minute. Something terrible has happened.

At the very deadest hour of the night Eric slipped away from the desk and went up to Room 351, which he found in an even wilder state of disarray. Clothing was draped across the bed and chairs, and Leda, looking more like a harassed charwoman than a faded actress, knelt beside the trunk of memories, its contents strewn across the floor as she packed books into the emptied trunk.

“Bless you for coming, darling. I have an enormous favor to beg of you.”

“Leda! What on earth has happened?”

She struggled somewhat tipsily to her feet and wiped the dust from her hands. “The play is over, darling. Curtain’s down.” She crossed to the dressing table and waved a letter at him. “From him. Goodbye and good luck and fond regards. Finished. Ended. Best for both of us, he says.” She seemed to have second thoughts about handing him the letter. “No. Don’t read it. It’s too craven. Too shaming. He’s told his wife everything and she’s forgiven him. I’m still in a daze. He’s coming here tomorrow night, a final visit, the Big Kiss-Off. And to propose a settlement. His very words. Can you believe it? Oh, God, I should have seen it coming. After I read it, I couldn’t bear to be alone. I made a date for lunch with my old friend Angela Fordyce. I told you about her. We used to be so close in the old days, but you know, I couldn’t tell her a thing. I just couldn’t. You’re the only one who knows. You and his wife, may she rot in hell.”