Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

Jeffrey White grinned slowly and yet there was pain in his eyes. “Don’t you talk about my mother that way,” he said. And he laughed. They all laughed, and then they walked out, slowly, through her open door.

They called her all the time after that. She knew who it was; the phone would ring and she would answer and say “Hello? hello?” and then a louder “Hello?” and then she would hear the click on the other end, and that low, dismal buzz. For a while she tried not answering the phone, but as she sat in her darkness and the phone sang out louder and more insistent, it was almost a relief to answer it and hear the silence beyond.

In school they noticed that she looked tired. They said she was getting old. Her eyes were rimmed and her mouth was lined and weary. She sat on the chair that she had never sat upon, for in her 32 years she had stood behind the desk and had scoffed at those who sat. “It’s good exercise,” she had said. Now she said nothing. Now the lines deepened.

The boys did not come to school any longer. Somebody told her that they had quit. She sighed. She felt tired and lost.

Once they called at 4 o’clock in the morning. She had the call traced to a phone booth in an all-night restaurant and the proprietor said that there had been some kids in but they had left. He was sorry, he said. He didn’t want any trouble, he said. If he saw them again, he’d get a cop.

She did not call the police. Although, she was frightened, she was a New England Yankee, and she was self-sufficient. She told herself just that, every time the phone rang and she frantically called “Hello?” into the receiver. She told herself that, every time her fingers reached, involuntarily for the phone, to call for help, for company. She was a New England Yankee, and self-sufficient.

One night in February, they called again. There was an ice storm. It was wildly ravaging the city, and Miss Riley sat alone in her kitchenette, drinking coffee. She tapped on the table with her fingertips. She drummed out a marching song that she had learned in school many years ago. Then her phone rang.

She let it ring twice and then she moved to answer it. She knew what it would be; yet something made her reach for the phone. She whispered into it in a cracked voice that she did not recognize as her own, “Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.” At the other end she heard a door slam. Then nothing. She clicked the receiver and silence greeted her heavily. They had left the receiver off the hook, and now her phone was useless to her. She stood holding it in her hand, then quietly replaced it.

She went into the kitchen. She thought of going downstairs to the janitor, and she almost did, but then she sat down at the table, and after a while she dropped her head into her hands and let the storm whirl around her...

There was no school because all the teachers went to the funeral. Somebody told somebody that the three boys were down in the park. A group went to see them.

“What have they got on ’em?” asked one. “What can they do to ’em?”

“Not a thing,” said a tall boy. “Her heart gave out. What does anybody care why?”

Somebody frowned. Somebody shrugged.

Three boys came by. They did not smile. They walked in the sunlight with their heads up, looking defiantly about them, but Henry Voking’s eyes were red-rimmed. They walked close to each other by the crowd of boys.

The three boys moved slowly down the street and the watchers waited silently until they were gone. One turned to the others.

“Well?” he said.

A Man Like His Daddy by Brian O’Sullivan

The second contributor to our Children’s Hour is a nine-year-old Irish boy. Apparently he had read the first Children s Hour, in our July 1954 issue, and found the challenge irresistible. In the letter accompanying his story, young Brian O’Sullivan wrote: “Dear Ellery Queen, The storeys in your Childrens hour were marvellous and I thinly your magazine is the best in the world.” Now, none of your blarney, lad — but what editor could resist so grand an opening sentence?