Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962

Dear Readers:

As you know, I was born and raised in England... where the national sport is cricket. During the years I have spent in the United States, I have transferred my allegiance, and affections to your national sport, baseball.

I must admit to some confusion about home bases, however, for I find it difficult to follow the Major League shifts; the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore; and the Boston Braves to Milwaukee; not to mention the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles, and the Giants to San Francisco! The Senators have deserted Washington for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Los Angeles has welcomed The Angels, and the National League started the 1962 season with the new Mets, who have taken over the Giants’ old home base on Coogans Bluff, while the Colts have settled in Texas. To add to my confusion, there are all those minor leagues, semi-pros, for the most part, Little Leagues, Pony Leagues, Midget Leagues, not to mention the sand-lot ball played on vacant lots.

One big question which bothers me, I put to you, dear readers, for answer. As I understand it, baseballs are covered with horsehide. I so seldom see a horse nowadays, that I wonder WHERE OH WHERE does the horsehide come from, to cover all those baseballs?

Alfred Hitchcock

Bertillon’s Odds by Talmage Powell

By some diabolical scheme of higher mathematical calculation, the odds against a certain variation are said to be two billion against one! Don’t wager on it, is my advice.

* * *

Dear Marshall:

Enjoyed the visit. Glad your trip coincided with my vacation. But you should have stayed over another day. Pete Gonzales pulled a 146-pound tarpon out of the Gulf where we spent that last day fishing. Anyway, your faith in the location, barely out of sight of the Coast Guard light on Panama Key, was justified.

The Langborn murder broke the day after I reported back to work. Knowing that your interest in police work has been more than academic since your days as a crime reporter (and as comfort when you think of that 146-pounder) I’m going to tell you about the Langborn case. Because one detail in it is unique, and I don’t use the word lightly. Nothing like it has ever turned up in the history of police work and I doubt that it will ever happen again.

The Langborn of whom I speak was the crotchety old cuss, Carson Langborn. Just in case the name isn’t familiar to you, he was a West Virginia coal mine operator who retired and came here about six years ago. A cantankerous citizen, he was forever pestering the city manager. Too many street lights were wasting electricity, or there was too much horn-blowing on our downtown streets. Nothing was done in City Hall without his vociferous opposition. His disposition was as gloomy as the damp burrows he caused to be made in the earth.

He was married six times, and even the best of his wives was unable to stay with him. The sixth, a Mary Scorbin, died of a sudden illness, making a dramatic escape from his tyranny.

All of his marriages were childless, although Mary Scorbin Langborn had a son by a previous marriage. His name was Gary. He was a good-looking youth, dark, slender, rangy, with a suggestion of whip-like strength in his sinews.

Conditioned by twenty years of police work, my instincts didn’t react favorably to Gary. There was a brooding in his face, a coldness in his eyes. He struck me as having more sneering contempt than conscience for the unimportant non-enities comprising the remainder of the human race.

I recognized the material groundlessness of my aversion to the twenty-year-old Gary, and I determined not to let it color my actions. As a police officer, it was my job to remain objective and impartial.

The old man and Gary were living alone on the Langborn estate prior to the murder. Gary discovered the body, called us, and was waiting quietly and unemotionally when we arrived.

A squad car, radioed out, was the first to reach the Langborn home. Following the two uniformed cruiser men were Marty Sims and myself in a black sedan assigned to the detective division. Close on our exhaust fumes were Rynold from the lab and Doc Jenkins, elected coroner just this year.

The house was an ugly, sterile, two-story wooden structure reminiscent of a large Georgia or South Carolina farm. The dormer windows stared bleakly at us. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Langborn had added lightning rods at the ends of the gable.

On the long front porch, leaning idly against a wooden post, stood Gary Scorbin. He took his cigarette from his lips and flicked it in the yard.

“The old man’s in there.”