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

“Oh, yes. We talked to Miss Beaujean before she left the hotel. Browning’s wife had reported he never arrived at his home in Greenwich. She gave us the name of a lady here at the Kerbridge whom she’d only recently learned her husband had been in the habit of visiting. Miss Beaujean told us all about... er, ‘Mr. Swann.’ We’d just like you to confirm Miss Beaujean’s statement that the gentleman left the hotel at around two in the morning, and that he was alone.”

“That’s right, I found a cab for him.”

“We’ve talked to the cabby. He said the gentleman was carrying an overnight bag. You saw him arrive that night? Was he carrying any luggage?”

“When he arrived? No. Didn’t Miss Beaujean explain—”

“Miss Beaujean’s statement was somewhat — ambiguous.”

The other detective made a rude noise. “What’d I tell you? The guy disappears. His lady friend leaves town. Add it up, Charlie.” Eric opened his mouth, then shut it, amused that Leda must have given the impression she and “Mr. Swann” were running away together. Or... good Lord, could it be true? Could Leda’s entire performance as the betrayed lover have been an act? Eric felt rather hurt that she might deliberately have hoodwinked him as well.

The story hit the news next morning. POLICE PROBE DISAPPEARANCE OF BROADWAY PRODUCER. Leda’s name was not mentioned, yet there was no speculation about possible foul play.

It was a month later when Eric landed a small role in an off-Broadway play. The role of his mother was played by Angela Fordyce. Eric ventured to mention to her one day at rehearsal that he’d known Leda Beaujean and asked if Angela had heard from her.

“Not a word,” she said. “But I’m not surprised. Leda and I hadn’t been close for years, not since she holed up in the Kerbridge and turned into a recluse. Odd, you know, she invited me to lunch before she left town. I had the feeling she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t bring herself to talk about it. Strange woman, Leda. A trifle mad, I always thought. Funny thing, she later called me and asked me to do her a favor. Said she was moving and asked me to hold her books for her. I hadn’t the room, actually, but she was so insistent I agreed.”

“She’s never told you where to send the trunk?”

“No trunk. They were sent over in packing cases.”

Eric said nothing but continued to puzzle over this apparently pointless fib Leda had told him. If he’d been entrusted with her “memories” and Angela with her books, what had she shipped away in the trunk? He clearly remembered her packing it with books. It was all very odd.

The enigma nagged at his mind until finally, thinking impossible thoughts, he called Jerry Burrows, his daytime counterpart at the Kerbridge. Eric asked him if he recalled the day Leda moved out of the hotel. Burrows grinned. “Oh, sure. She gave me a bottle of Napoleon brandy for being ‘such an angel.’ ”

“Recall when you first saw her that day?”

Burrows wrinkled his brow. “Lemme see. Yeah, when she came in about eight that morning.”

“She’d gone out early?”

“No. She said she’d spent the night with a friend.”

Eric felt a tiny ripple of disquiet as he asked casually, “She wasn’t carrying an overnight bag, by any chance?”

“Yeah. Matter of fact, she was. Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” A picture was coming into focus. “Mr. Swann” stepping out of a taxi at Grand Central in the wee hours. Disappearing into a restroom. Moments later a woman slips out carrying that same overnight bag. Crazy. Eric laughed at the bizarre workings of his imagination. Even if the idea were not preposterous, how could she have done it? Brandy and “nuggets of slumber”? But how utterly absurd. Leda as a murderess? He tried to shake the idea from his head. But what was it she’d said, with that funny little smile? “I rather think I’d make a fairly credible Lady Macbeth. Don’t you, darling?”

This time he laughed out loud, telling himself he’d worked at that mortuary too long. As for the fib about the books, there had to be another explanation.

Undercover by Alec Ross

“The child is a liar, pure and simple,” said Mrs. Lansdale to the tall, elegant man standing at her desk. “No matter what assignment he is given, he fails to do it and then comes up with some fantastic story about why he was unable to do the work. His grade so far is an unequivocal F. There is no way he can salvage his record for the semester. He will not be promoted to the next grade.”

Robert Burton listened to the words the fourth grade teacher was saying, but his mind wasn’t really on the situation of his son’s academic failure. It was not that he didn’t care about Charley. A man’s son is, after all, a man’s son. But fourth grade? Failure to do homework? Not an important enough issue to waste time on. The child was going through a stage or a phase or whatever. He would grow out of it in time. There were more important things for immediate consideration.