Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

In the meantime, after removing his tank harness, the diver boosted himself out of the water as I continued to watch, then stood and waved broadly with both his arms toward the rear of the towtruck. At the sound of a noisy meshing of gears the cable grew taut, and then came the further sound of the truck’s engine laboring heavily, too heavily for me to pretend to ignore.

“They’ve hooked onto something,” I said, peering behind me.

Byron Davis, I saw, was on his feet, rubbing his hands together and looking distressed. “Poor Václav,” he said. “Poor Václav. I’ve had such awful visions...” His eyes roamed from me to Clive Macmillan to the glass-enclosed violin near where R. J. sat.

“Clive,” he said in a tone meant to be commanding but that sounded merely willful and shrill, “Clive — be very, very careful in what you say.”

“I intend to, Byron. I do intend to.”

“The car is breaking the water,” I reported. “And... now it’s... coming up on the land.”

There was a rush to join me at the windows on the parts of the sheriff and Clive Macmillan, but Byron Davis held back, and for that reason, no doubt, so did R. J.

The drama by the lake, meanwhile, played itself out in a scene of stark inevitability. As the wind whipped in gusts and the threatening sky seemed to grow yet darker and more ominous, the small, mud-encrusted vehicle, shedding water from every seam, rose onto the shore, slewing sideways, and came to a precarious halt on the slope, held in position by the towline.

Men approached from several directions, and one of them, after trying the driver’s door without success, applied a heavy crowbar to it near the handle. The door sprang open as we watched, releasing a small flood of water, and we knew from the way he shied hack, that the remains of Václav Hucek must be strapped inside on the seat.

“Clive,” said Byron Davis’s voice from behind us. “Please allow me to explain.”

“...at eight o’clock I reported my fears for Václav’s safety to your office, sheriff, and then sat here in this room with Clive, waiting and wondering and — and trying to find solace.” A look bordering on defiance passed briefly across his face. “I regarded Václav Hucek as my friend. I was weeping. And Clive was... holding me as I wept.

“When suddenly... when suddenly we heard a loud banging at one of the casements. A face peered in at us — and it was Václav’s face! He’d taken all that time to drive forty-five miles and then had climbed up the icy steps — such a stubborn, stubborn man — and had come for some reason of his own to the windows on the terrace instead of the door.

“We rushed, of course, to bring him in, and it was apparent to us immediately that he was not merely exhausted but suffering from some affliction. His face had a horrible cast to it, and he seemed almost to lurch as he walked. But rather than...” Davis passed a hand over his forehead and then stared away, as if he were in a trance. “Rather than allowing us to help him, he pulled himself into this room and... stood there, near that table. I can see him now, standing there, his face almost blood red and yet pallid somehow, standing there screaming at us, berating us for our... our presumed behavior. He called me a name which I refuse to repeat and will not tolerate, and I... I stepped forward and slapped him across the face. Involuntarily. Not hard — was it, Clive? — not hard, but he, Václav... his eyes rolled up, and he let out a horrible cry. Then he fell against the table and slipped to the floor.

“We tried to assist him. How we tried! Clive knows a great deal about CPR methods, and we labored, both together, pressing his chest, applying mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“But he was dead from the moment he fell. My friend Václav was dead.

“And in that moment I panicked. I had slapped him in senseless anger, and he had toppled like a felled tree. What we did then — Clive unwillingly but out of friendship — was the result of my panic, and I am solely at fault. But once done — once we sent Václav’s little car down the slope and into the water — there was no going back because — do you understand? — because no matter how much we wanted to, we could never bring him again among the living.

“And so — we waited instead for this inevitable day. I see him sometimes. Did I tell you that? Out of the corner of my eye, I see him, but then when I turn to look he isn’t there.” Davis drew a deep breath and made an effort to compose himself. “You will find, sheriff that Václav died of a seizure of some kind, I’m sure — a heart attack or a stroke. I am completely ashamed of my behavior — but I did not kill him.”

I had remained by the window, looking out from time to time at both the grim activities along the shore of the lake and also at the continued darkening of the troubled sky. But as Byron Davis came gradually to this emphatic conclusion to his revelations, I returned to the sofa and sat beside my husband. We exchanged a brief glance; then I ventured to speak.