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

She had been wearing a light blue dress. It had been blown away. There was a kind of yellow tint to the part of her that was not bloodied or blackened. It was the same on the soft skin of her inner thighs as it was on that part of her face that had been left intact. Her shoes had been torn from her feet. Her feet pointed backward.

The big, heavy, expensive automobile that had been the very best in strength, beauty, and durability was now only twisted hot metal mingled with the once yearning flesh of a young and quick woman.

Reluctantly, John Randolph gave back before the heat of the flames that soon formed Henrietta Smetana’s unexpected funeral pyre...

Randolph knew he could never erase that scene from his mind. He stood now at the bar of the old Alhambra Hotel, just around the corner from the explosion site. The bar was drab and dingy and empty in this early evening. He held bourbon and branch. His hand shook. The odor of burning flesh seemed forever seared into his nostrils.

Beside him stood Vincente Gomez, chief of the Santo Tomas Police Department. Compared with big Randolph, he was a small, comic-opera figure in a fancy uniform.

He said, “This is a better place to talk than back there on that terrible dark street. The cries of the injured are distressing. You are lucky not to have been hurt.”

The liquor was doing its work on Randolph, loosening the tightness in his chest and stomach. Henrietta’s vibrant kiss had still been tingling on his lips when she had died. In shocked daze he had done what he could to help the stunned and bleeding residents of the street until more competent medical help had arrived. Now reaction was making him weak.

“I was with Henrietta, right here. I couldn’t have put a bomb in her car.”

“You might have kept her busy while someone else did the job.”

A year ago, Randolph had been stationed at the United States Customs House across the border from this tired Mexican village. From then, he knew that Gomez’ improbable uniforms covered a shrewd investigator and a very tough man.

“She was a lovely woman, Vincente,” he said. “Why would I want to kill her?”

Gomez nodded. “Why? Shall we start at the beginning?”

“I saw her the first day I arrived at the Project — Los Alamos. She was the wife of the most important scientist there: Baruch Smetana. Randolph finished his drink. She was very much interested in the Mexican border. Particularly Santo Tomas. That gave us something in common.”

Gomez said wryly, “You were seen embracing beside the car just before the explosion. Was that the atmosphere of romantic old Mexico, or an affair of long-standing?”

Stolidly, Randolph said, “She was never allowed to go anywhere without Smetana. He watched her all the time. He looks like a big fat toad with glasses. He is nothing but a big brain, with the rest of him completely out of touch with the world. He has no human feelings. He looks like the monsters he creates, and he used to beat Henrietta until she really hated him.”

Dryly, Gomez suggested, “A young, beautiful woman forced to live with a man like that. A perfect set-up for an eager young man. Why was she here?”

“Smetana and Henrietta left the Project on the same day I did. Everybody thought they were going to New York. But she was the first person I saw when I checked in at the La Osa guest ranch.”

“You didn’t know she had already been on the border for a week? You didn’t come to Santo Tomas to meet her?”

“I came to renew old acquaintances. Yours, for example.”

“I only brought you bad luck, John.”

He meant, Randolph knew, that although theirs had been a profitable association for Gomez, it had gotten Randolph into trouble. A year or so ago, acting upon information furnished by Gomez, Randolph had seized several thousand dollars worth of Swiss watch movements. Gomez had spent the informer’s fees to which he was entitled on himself and Randolph right here in the Alhambra’a tap room. The staid Bureau of Customs, learning about that, considered Randolph’s participation highly irregular. While they were debating what to do about it, Randolph quit. Subsequently, he went to work in the Security Division at Los Almos, instructing the guards in target-shooting.

Randolph said, “For some reason, she wanted me to meet her here at the Alhambra. It was her idea that we drive around in her car and talk afterward. Not mine.”

“But you were walking away from her car when the bomb went off. Why?”

“I was going to drive my car back to the Custom House and get it off your dark streets. She was going to pick me up there.”

“Why hadn’t you both come over in her car, or yours?”

“She said she had an errand to run and might be delayed.”

Gomez sucked the last drop of beer from his glass. “So here was the golden opportunity? Clandestine romance?”

“She seemed — well, excited.”

“And you think meeting you excited her?” Gomez shook his head slowly.

“Who else?”