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

I used to be, thought Tony dismally as he entered the house. It seemed deserted. He went into the den, looked out back through one of the high windows. The car was gone. (“Trying to raise money for the dog pound.” No, it was the library this time.) And old nibnose and her sneaky cat were sitting out under a big tree in the back yard. (“Ten to one they’re raking me over the coals.” It was a safe bet.)

But he had time to hide the accident policies. Harold had had hundreds of books; there were shelves from floor to ceiling around most of the room. Tony picked a shelf in a far corner, put the policies in Volume 3, Phoebe-Tanager, of Birds of North America.

Now came the tough part, the perfect crime, but he hadn’t the slightest idea how to pull it off. Then Bunny begged him to watch the sunset with her from the little balcony on the second floor.

It was a wooden affair about eight feet square, reached via a glass door from the hallway. It had been added by Grandfather Ainsworth when his wife said she’d like to have a place from which to watch sunsets.

The balcony had a wrought-iron grating about forty-eight inches high to keep onlookers from falling onto the rock garden thirty feet below — a real rock garden, huge rocks having been brought down from the mountains. Seasonal flowers flourished among them.

Harold and Bunny had watched hundreds of sunsets, never tiring of the gorgeous displays. Bunny, calling the balcony “my wee widow’s walk” had continued watching after poor Harold’s tragic fall into the quarry. Now she had someone to watch with her again.

She took Tony by the arm, steered him out onto the balcony, just as a mammoth sun was setting behind the faroff hills.

“There, darling,” she said, excitedly, “didn’t I tell you? Isn’t it magnificent, simply magnificent?”

It was indeed, the sky around the huge red ball ablaze in a dozen dazzling shades. Tony didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But it wasn’t the brilliant display. It was Bunny. She was standing in the southwest corner, leaning slightly over the railing, looking toward the northwest (the sun sets north of west in the height of summer). The top railing had moved, barely moved, but it had moved enough to cause Tony’s heart to skip a beat.

“For God’s sake, Bunny,” he almost shouted as he lurched forward, grabbed her, pulled her back. “You could have gone over. Geez, you almost gave me heart failure.”

“But there’s no danger, darling,” Bunny told him, her voice joyful. “Why, I’ve been doing this for years. The grating is firmly attached.” (Oh how he must love me; oh how lucky I am to have found such a wonderful, wonderful man!)

“There’s always the first time,” he told her. “Now come on, let’s go, the show’s over.” What if that thing had broken loose and she had gone over onto the rocks? Who would they blame? Me, the new husband. (“You say your wife leaned against the railing, Mr. Gregory, and it gave way? And you were on the balcony with her? Hmm, I’m afraid your story doesn’t hold water. Book him, sergeant.”). Sure, it’s got to be an accident but one that leaves me in the clear.

Late that night Bunny cuddled close, cooing in her sleep, Tony thought of the balcony. Maybe I can work something out. I’ll check that grating tomorrow.

Which he did. After breakfast he closeted himself in the den, telling Bunny he had to do some figuring. He waited until she had been picked up by one of her Mends (the humane society meeting, a new facility was becoming more urgent) and until the two maids, old nibnose, and the cat were in the kitchen having coffee and milk (milk for Midnight). Then he hurried upstairs, carefully opened the sliding glass door, went onto the balcony.

He hit the top railing a smart blow with his open hand. It moved a good inch or two. His heart beating fast, he knelt down, inspected the long bolts that anchored the balcony to the house. There were four, one on each end of the top railing, one on each end of the bottom railing. They were rusty, a lot of the original metal gone.

That’s thing’s a deathtrap, he told himself as he closed the glass door. Those bolts are nothing but slivers. Geez, what a mess. I have to keep Bunny from bumping that grating too hard while I try to come up with an accident happening to her with me nowhere around. Maybe I could be down below and yell up to her, tell her to look down and tell me what those yellow flowers were called. That balcony’s my only hope. Think, man, think, there has to be a way of using it.

For the rest of the day he wracked his brain trying to think of some scheme with the balcony as the main weapon. He got nowhere. He simply couldn’t come up with anything better than the yellow flowers idea, and the more he thought about it, the more hopeless it looked.