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

“Greb, maybe the police were right. In theorizing that the killer was just after the money in the strongbox. A transient, maybe, who’d heard Smallwood bragging. And when he got the money he skipped town. Probably, he’s a thousand miles away now and never even saw your story.”

“I guess so. There go the cops. I guess they couldn’t keep the guard on Sally forever.” Greb turned and flashed me a rueful grin. He mopped his brow. “Well, it was a long shot. You can’t win ’em all. I’m sorry for the inconvenience I’ve caused. Next time I’ll mind my own business.”

“Don’t apologize.”

He walked over and patted Sally’s head. Sally smiled up at him. “And Sally, here, is the bravest little girl I’ve ever met. Wasn’t scared a bit.”

“Thanks, Mister Greb. You’re nice, and good company too.”

“See you in the papers.”

Greb left us. I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk. When I returned to the living room Sally had turned the television set off. She was standing in front of a mirror in the hall, patting her hair.

“They’re all gone, aren’t they,” she said.

“Yes. All the policemen have been reassigned.”

“I liked having them around. That rookie patrolman with the Italian name. He was cute.” She reached for the doorknob.

I looked up. “Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Now, Sally, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. Remember...”

“Aw, it’s no fun here when the policemen and Mister Greb aren’t around. I’m going to see if I can find Ziggy. He got probation yesterday.”

“Ziggy! Why, that boy...”

She turned and fixed me with an unblinking stare. “Look. Nothing’s changed. It’s still like you said that day. You’re going to take care of me, and never give me orders. And I won’t tell them how you killed my stepmother when she wanted money from you. And killed my father when he walked in... and where you hid the axe!”

The Sweater by Richard O. Lewis

What with all the current hue and cry, bath pro and con bomb shelters, it almost seems as though one is as safe without as within.

* * *

The slight, steady clicking of the knitting needles grew ever louder. The noise of them began crashing against the walls of the tiny room and bouncing back again in nerve-wracking echoes.

“Strange,” thought Halsey, eyeing their silvery speed, “how complete silence elsewhere can magnify a little sound like that into proportions that can fairly drive you nuts!”

His eyes traveled slowly upwards from his wife’s busy fingers to her pointed face, her mousy hair, and onto the wall of the little room just above and beyond her head. The calendar hanging there showed the month of May, and the dates from the Third through the Sixteenth had been crossed out by heavy strokes from a black crayon.

From behind his magazine, Halsey looked at the needles again. “The last night!” he promised himself for the sixth time in as many minutes. “After nine o’clock in the morning, they’ll be silent for good.”

His exultation was cut short by a sudden stab of anxiety: had he kept accurate count of the days? Had he by any chance crossed out a date and, later in the day, another one?

No. That couldn’t have happened. He had taken ample precaution, had made a ritual of crossing off the days. At six o’clock each night — and only at six o’clock — he had walked to the wall, picked up the crayon, and marked an X across the date. That way, there was no chance of a mistake.

But no sooner had the first wave of uneasiness subsided than a new one swept in, to cause tiny dribbles of cold sweat to trickle down over his ribs from his armpits. Maybe she had crossed off an extra day! She could have done it; several times, through sheer boredom, he had taken afternoon naps! But, no; there would be no reason for her to do so — nothing for her to gain! Yet...

“That would be an ironic twist,” he mused, making light of the thought. “That way she would have me with her forever!”

He closed his eyes tightly against both her and her clanking needles. The old bat! Knitting him a sweater! A sweater he wouldn’t be caught dead in! Her, with a hundred grand in her own right, knitting sweaters! Cooking those hideous boiled dinners! Keeping him grinding his heart out as a clerk in her cousin’s stupid brokerage office! And never a night out to have any fun!

Well, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning, it would all be different. He’d kick that silly sweater to pieces, eat T-bones, quit that insipid job, and visit a few night spots — with Gertie, of course.

The very thought of red-haired, full-lipped, full-bosomed Gertie of the brokerage office spun him away as usual into a pleasing reverie. Now, if he had been cooped up here for fourteen days — nights — with Gertie... Well, he wouldn’t have taken any afternoon naps through sheer boredom.