Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet Part 7

The door slid open upon a drowsy, empty lobby, the lobby typical of a second-cla.s.s hotel, hopelessly dreary in the long night hours. The clerk was behind the desk reading a newspaper. As the salesman walked toward the desk he was wondering what he ought to say, and how, whether or not to be serious about it or to perhaps treat it light-heartedly. He did not want to be an alarmist. Perhaps a disturbance from that room was not an unusual thing and the clerk would laugh and acknowledge it. Perhaps that was why no one else had come down to report it. He began to feel foolish. He would have kept going and have contrived a purchase at the cigarette machine had the clerk not looked up and put down his paper.

"Yes, Mr. Warren?" the clerk asked.

Mr. Warren stopped at the desk, looking down at the clerk. The clerk stood up, smiling a thin, competent, professional smile.

"It seems," Mr. Warren said, "it seems there was a rather heated argument in the room adjoining mine."

"Really?"

Encouraged, Mr. Warren went on. "Yes. A man and woman were arguing ... about something. It was rather a bitter argument. The man struck her ... I believe. It sounded like a terrible struggle. And then it stopped. On what note I don't know. But I heard nothing further. I felt that I ought to ... report it, just to be safe."

The clerk was looking at the register.

"Which room?" his bent head asked.

"The one to my right."

"Let's see. You're 10 C. That would be 10 E."

"Yes," Mr. Warren said, hugely gratified by the clerk's interest. "10 E is the one."

"Well, there's a Mr. Malcolm registered there. Alone."

"Alone?"

The clerk looked up at Mr. Warren with pale, unsympathetic eyes. "Yes," he said.

"But that's impossible. I mean ... I heard..."

"Perhaps you heard someone's radio playing," the clerk said.

"No, it was not a radio," Mr. Warren said with indignation. "I had been dozing and I heard quite distinctly..."

"Dozing?" the clerk said suggestively.

"I was not dreaming. I was fully awake when I heard it."

"I see," the clerk said. He turned over his wrist and glanced at his watch. "Well, it's quite late. I would hate to call anyone now, unless you insisted."

He had put it squarely up to Mr. Warren, clamped the responsibility upon his shoulders. It was a challenge. He could insist or he could back down and walk back across the lobby with the clerk staring condescendingly at him. He felt his resolution being drained, depleted. It made him angry. He leaned both hands on the desk.

"Yes," he said, his voice suddenly firm. "I think we ought to check into it."

Without a further word the clerk lifted the house phone and dialed a number. There was a rather long wait before the ringing - Mr. Warren could hear it - was broken. A man's voice, terse, annoyed, answered.

"Mr. Malcolm?" the clerk asked. "This is the desk. Sorry to disturb you at this hour. Your neighbor, Mr. Warren, has come downstairs to report a disturbance in your room. Has there been any trouble?"

Mr. Warren could not distinguish the exact words, but there was an indignant disclaiming in the man's voice. The clerk nodded, eyeing Mr. Warren with cool, superior satisfaction. Mr. Warren flushed.

"I see. Thank you, Mr. Malcolm. So sorry to have bothered you." The clerk put the phone down and stared at Mr. Warren. "He's been asleep since ten o'clock," the clerk said, a gratuitous innuendo in both his manner and voice.

"That's impossible," Mr. Warren said. "I..." He was going to describe how intently he had been listening, but felt that such an admission would be embarra.s.sing. "All right," he said quietly. "Perhaps I was mistaken. Sorry to have troubled you. Good night." He turned and walked away, feeling the clerk's eyes on his back as he moved to the self-service elevator.

He went back to his room and sat down again. Could he have been mistaken. They had been telling him at the office that he was getting old, slowing down. They had wanted to take him off his route and give it to a younger man. Despite a decrease in his volume of sales, he had insisted he was as good a man as he ever was. But he was getting old, tiring easily. He knew that as you got older, your senses began playing tricks on you. Had he been hearing things? The idea made him dizzy, gave him a headache. But then he told himself, sternly, to stop that kind of thinking. It was ridiculous. He was only fifty-seven. Was that so old?

That whole mode of thinking angered him. He could have been ninety-nine, he told himself, and doddering and senile, but still he had heard those voices and the sound of that scuffle and there was no sense in trying to deny it to himself. Mr. Malcolm had lied. And if he had lied then he had a d.a.m.n good reason for lying.

He would call the police. Mr. Warren decided that, closing his fist. The police would not be as easily put off as the clerk. They would not take Mr. Malcolm's word, but would go up to the room and have a look for themselves. Buoyed by this new idea he went to the phone. But then he hesitated. The phone suddenly turned lethal. Yes, if he insisted, the police would come. They would knock on Mr. Malcolm's door and search the room, on the complaint of Mr. Warren. And what if they found nothing? Then it would not pa.s.s so easily. Mr. Malcolm could raise a considerable protest if he chose, and probably would. People in hotels, Mr. Warren knew from wide experience, were unusually touchy. Irritation bubbled close to the surface. The hotel could be sued and the police would have to make a report. And in the center of it all would be Fred Warren. A report would surely be sent to the home office and what would they think then? It would serve to further affirm their suspicions. Fred Warren was beginning to hear murders in the middle of the night.

Wearily, dejectedly, he sat down again, staring at the floor.

He was sitting like that when he heard a soft tapping at his door. Coming alert, suspicious, he rose and went to the door, pondering it gravely for a moment before he spoke.

"Yes?" he asked.

A man's voice whispered, "Mr. Warren?"

"Yes."

"May I speak to you? It's quite important."

The man's tense whispering bespoke of some urgency. Intrigued, Mr. Warren opened the door. Standing before him was a rather tall, youngish man, wearing a light blue bathrobe over pajamas. An urgent note was in his face.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Why?"

"It's about..." and the man finished the sentence with a surrept.i.tious nod toward the next room.

Now Mr. Warren welcomed him in and closed the door quietly. The visitor fidgeted, clasping and unclasping his hands.

"This is most irregular," he said. "I'm awfully sorry to bother you at this hour. But I was wondering if you had heard what went on next door. I a.s.sumed you did, being so close - the way you are."

"Indeed I did," Mr. Warren said. He offered his hand. "Fred Warren," he said.

Timidly, the man accepted. "John Burke," he said. "Well, I called the clerk and he told me in effect to go back to sleep, that I had had a nightmare, that there was only a single person in that room and that I couldn't possibly have..."

"Told me the same thing," Mr. Warren eagerly told his new ally. "I went down there and made him call up. He said," Mr. Warren indicated the next room contemptuously with his thumb, "that I was crazy."

"Well, we can't both be crazy," Mr. Burke said stoutly.

"Of course not. How about the others?"

"Others?"

"Aren't there other people on the floor who might have heard? Maybe they're too afraid to..."

"Most of the other rooms are unoccupied. There's an old lady at the other end of the hall and she's near deaf. I met her in the elevator this morning and she can't hear a nickel's worth."

"I see," Mr. Warren said. "What do you propose we do?"

"Well, that was what I had come to ask you."

"I..." Mr. Warren said and stopped. The other was leaving the decision to him. He was the captain - the older, wiser man. He felt suddenly the terrific responsibility and became determined not to s.h.i.+rk it. "Well, we've got to do something," he said firmly, taking the helm. "We can't just stand by and let ... and let whatever went on in there be ignored."

"I agree," Mr. Burke said.

"I was going to call the police, but I thought twice on that. There's always the chance, the very, very small chance, that we could have been mistaken. Then it would be very embarra.s.sing."

"I quite agree," Mr. Burke said.

"Not that I think we are mistaken, mind you. But I think we might be able to handle it without calling the police."

"Good."

"Did you try the keyhole?" Mr. Warren asked. It sounded foolish. But it was a suggestion.

"No."

"Let's give it a try then."

Quietly, they stepped out into the hall. There, while Mr. Burke, in bathrobe and pajamas and overlarge bedroom slippers, stood guard, Mr. Warren, with weary cracking bones, got down on one knee and squinted into the keyhole. He got up. He took Mr. Burke's arm and guided him back into the room, closing the door.

"Well?" Mr. Burke asked anxiously.

"It's pitch dark," Mr. Warren said.

"Oh," Mr. Burke said with disappointment.

Mr. Warren looked at him. "But we can't just ignore it," he said. "We have a certain duty."

"I agree."

"Maybe we can insist the clerk open the door for us. Why should we just take that man's word? After all -"

"It could lead to a libel suit," Mr. Burke said.

"Yes," Mr. Warren said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. And that would get back to the home office too. Mr. Burke watched him, waiting for some leaders.h.i.+p.

"If only we could have a look into that room," he said.

"There's no way," Mr. Warren said.

"There is a way," Mr. Burke said in a small, timorous contradiction.

"How?"

"From the ledge."

"The ledge?"

"There's a ledge that runs around the building."

"How wide is it?"

"It's wide enough. The window cleaners use it."

"But they have belts," Mr. Warren said.

"No," Mr. Burke said. "Balance. It's dangerous, of course..."

"It would give us a peep into that room," Mr. Warren said.

"At least then we would know how to proceed. We'd know if there were one or two in there."

Mr. Warren went to the window and opened it. He looked out at the ledge. It seemed wide enough. He looked at the next window. It was about eight feet away. Then he looked down. It was too dark to see the courtyard. The dark was a mighty, bottomless shaft.

"Maybe you shouldn't," Mr. Burke said nervously. "You've certainly shown a lot of courage already."

Mr. Warren turned around and looked at him. A young man, but nervous and looking up to him. The home office could learn a lot from him.

"It's the only way," he said. "That man next door is too c.o.c.ksure. We've got to see that he gets what he deserves. Why, you didn't hear that poor woman crying like I did."

Mr. Burke nodded dutifully.

"You stand by the door," Mr. Warren ordered, "and keep an ear c.o.c.ked. I'll get out there and have a look."

"Will you be able to tell, in the dark?"

"I'll be able to tell," Mr. Warren said. "I've got extremely good night vision."

"And a lot of courage," Mr. Burke said.

That was the last word. Now lions couldn't keep Mr. Warren from leaping right out onto the ledge.

He pushed the window up as high as it would go and then, holding onto the window jamb, put one foot up on the sill, then the other, and in a shaky crouch stepped out onto the ledge. The night immediately surrounded him with a swarm of dark winds that whistled and swept and darted past him. He pressed his back against the cold brick wall and spread his arms for balance and began to edge along, keeping his head against the wall, his jaw jutting up as though trying to stay out of water.

Each small step was like an eternity. A terrific vanity excited him. He couldn't wait to get back into the room - not because he was afraid, but because he wanted to look back upon his achievement and talk of it to Mr. Burke. The window, a few feet away, loomed like a wondrous prize. Suddenly he didn't even care if there were two people in there or not, whether a dead woman lay there or not. He breathed the wild dark winds and it exhilarated him.

And a moment later it made no difference who was in that room, because he didn't get to the window. From behind he heard Burke hissing. Slowly, carefully, he turned his head and saw his ally's face poking out the window, turned toward him, one hand up to his throat pinching shut his bathrobe, the other gesturing excitedly to him to return.

So he started back, moving the same way, except that his head was turned in the other direction now.

As he neared the little platform of light under his window, Burke looked up at him and said, "I think I've found what you're looking for."

At his window now, shakily trying to ascertain his footing, Mr. Warren had a quick glimpse in. He saw, lying across his bed, the body of a woman looking quite disheveled and dead. And it was only that quick glimpse that he had of the room's interior, because he immediately saw Burke's hands, palms upturned, rus.h.i.+ng up at him from out of Burke's diabolically gleeful face, the hands landing with an astonis.h.i.+ng thrust in his mid-section, and then the window and the light were performing a sharp loop, rus.h.i.+ng from his vision into a swarm of plunging, depthless blackness...