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

Walking around the east side of the house to the back, he was surprised to find that it had an enormous lower level built into the side of the hill. A rock garden, ten or twelve feet wide, ran along behind the house, and beyond that the land fell sharply away to the level of the highway. The slope was covered by an almost impenetrable growth of trees and underbrush. Auburn could hear the traffic down on Route 5, but he couldn’t see it.

He completed his circuit of Neldrick’s house and grounds, reflecting that there must be plenty of money in headshrinking, even for a blind man. He went on to the next property.

The house here was in the greatest imaginable contrast to Neldrick’s — a modernistic creation of rough-sawn wooden beams stained alternately red and gray with sweeping decks on several levels daringly cantilevered out over nothing. The doorbell was answered by an elderly man with a face like a bulldog and the build of a professional wrestler. His head was shaved, and like many men below average height he held himself stiffly erect.

Auburn showed identification and announced his errand in general terms.

“Come on in here,” said the man, gesturing with a hand in which he held a small tool. Auburn followed him into a circular, skylighted living room decorated with antique pottery and figurines. The blue-gray haze of cigarette smoke swirling in the air would have taken the edge off an axe. The man picked up a cigarette from an ashtray and put down his tool, which Auburn realized was a latchhook. A half-finished hooked rug with an abstract geometric design was stretched on a frame in the corner.

A stout woman with short-bobbed iron-gray hair and a pasty complexion devoid of makeup sat staring with dead-fish eyes at a television screen on which a row of gibbering idiots was being put through their paces by a talk-show host. On his second glance, Auburn saw that she was strapped into her chair with a broad band of canvas.

“My wife has a form of Alzheimer’s disease,” said the man. “She can’t talk.”

“I’m sorry to intrude on you,” said Auburn, “but we’re trying to find out what happened here behind your house last night.”

“Sit down.”

“Thanks, I won’t be here that long. Does anybody live here besides you and your wife?”

The man fidgeted nervously with his cigarette and actually dropped it on the expensive-looking Oriental rug under his feet, but snatched it up before it could damage the fabric. “No, sir, just Lambie and I.”

“And your name, sir?” He had already entered the address on a file card.

“Karl Roetherl.” He spelled it.

The name was somehow familiar, but Auburn couldn’t place it. “Your occupation?”

“Retired,” was the abrupt reply, and Auburn left it at that.

“Early this morning, Mr. Roetherl, a man was found dead near the back of your property, just this side of the fence along Route 5. We think he was killed — murdered. Did you see or hear anything unusual around here last night?”

“Unusual? No. Who was he?”

“We think his name is Lee Brendel. Does that name mean anything to you?”

“No, sir.” A series of animal cries drew him to his wife’s side, where he spoke soothing words and adjusted the cushions behind her.

“Did you have anyone here at the house yesterday — repairmen, salesmen...?”

“Nobody. A nurse comes in most days to help me with Lambie, but she wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Did you notice any activity at your neighbors’ places yesterday or last night? Strange cars?”

Roetherl snuffed out his cigarette and lighted another before replying. “I don’t know about strange. This guy over here—” he jerked a massive thumb in the direction of Neldrick’s house “—has a steady stream of visitors. All women.”

“Did you notice anybody there yesterday?”

“Oh yes. Woman in a red sports car came around four o’clock. Pulled right into his garage, as usual.”

“You’ve seen her there before?”

“Many times.”

“Did you see her leave?”

“Wasn’t watching particularly. I noticed her coming because our kitchen window looks right down on his driveway.”

“This wouldn’t be Mr. Neldrick’s sister, who I understand—”

“No, we know Beth.”

“Did you happen to notice any cars or trucks parked out on the street yesterday?”

“No, sir.”

Before leaving the Roetherls’, Auburn walked out on an upper deck that overhung the slope to the rear. The roar of midmorning traffic on the highway was particularly evident here. Auburn almost thought he could smell exhaust fumes. But try as he might, he couldn’t catch a glimpse of the road or the fence down below, and it was obvious that Brendel’s body couldn’t conceivably have fallen or been thrown from up here to the place where it was found.

The last house on Roseland Court was a sprawling mansion of dark red brick with high-pitched slate roofs and numerous chimneys. Auburn’s ring was eventually answered by a woman who had palpably been asleep three minutes earlier. Her eyelids were swollen, her hair looked like a rat’s nest, and she had the befuddled air of someone who has just walked into a wall.