Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989
Editor’s Notes
by Cathleen Jordan
Welcome to our New Special Winter Double Issue, which takes the place of the Mid-December issue of previous years. It’s a collection of stories numerous enough, we hope, to take you through a number of those “long winter nights” mentioned on the cover, a combination of new and vintage tales.
We’re pleased, by the way, to welcome four authors to our pages for the first time. Geoffrey Hitchcock, whose delightful tale, “What’s Afoot?” opens the issue, hails from New Zealand. Now retired and able to devote more time to writing, he says, “I’ve worked at being an electrical engineer, a fruit farmer, and a scientist. And a sort of soldier.” Herb Henson, author of “Paquette’s Birthday,” is also familiar with the engineering game, and is also a soldier; he’s a technical writer for an electronics engineering firm and is a retired Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, was a Green Beret, and served in the Marine Corps. “I have,” he says, “a special affection for the Far East and the Pacific islands where I have spent a significant part of my life.” It shows, we think, in his charming treatment of Paquette’s friends and neighbors.
Both Mr. Henson’s and Ed Poole’s stories are their first published stories — rather remarkable, we think. Mr. Poole, author of “A Day at the Lake,” is a denizen of Louisiana and a computer systems programmer, his first job in that field being with the U.S. Navy. (Is there something about the military that creates writers? Hmmm.) And C. J. Hursch, author of “A Meaningful Relationship,” has a Ph.D. in psychology, is a former private investigator, writes novels and short stories, writes also on a variety of nonfiction subjects including computer books, and collects fossilized sharks’ teeth.
We’re glad to have all of them with us, and will pursue the military angle. (We’ve noticed a computer angle, too.) We’ll let you know...
Finally, we especially want to thank Carol Inouye for her delightful illustrations for this special issue. It’s unusual for us to assign all the art in one issue to one artist, but Carol rose to the occasion and then some. We hope you enjoy them as much as we have.
Cathleen Jordan, Editor
What’s Afoot?
by Geoffrey Hitchcock
Percy paused in his work of digging up his old strawberry patch and leaned on his spade. An idea for a poem was coming into his mind. “The glory that was Greece gives way to Rome; the glory of the strawberries gives way to lowly spuds” — but before he could develop the theme, his wife came into the garden and at the same time he noticed something.
“Come over here,” he said. “I’ve just noticed that standing here you can see straight down Tauhou Street.”
“So you can!”
“There must be fifty houses in that street, and I don’t know a single person living in any of them. That’s terrible.”
But Pauli didn’t see anything terrible about it; as far as she could see it was perfectly normal. Why, they hardly knew their next door neighbors in Tihoi Street, so how could they be expected to know people in Tauhou Street, even if they did walk along it nearly every day.
“But don’t you see,” Percy persisted, “if we can’t be interested in our neighbors — find out what they think, what makes them tick — how can we expect nations to understand nations? What hope of peace?”
“Would you like to have smoko now, dear?” said Pauli.
Percy sighed and followed her into the house. A new poem was forming in his mind and he reached for his pencil and paper and wrote it down.
Pauli came in with the tea tray.
“Listen to the poem I’m writing,” said Percy, and proceeded to read it to her while she poured out. “What do you think?”
“Why do you always rhyme so much?” she complained.
“I can’t help it — not when I’m in a good mood.”
“You must always be in a good mood.”
“I am, mostly — is that bad?”
“I suppose not, but you’ll never get a poem in the Listener.”
“Who knows? Who cares? Who dares to send the Listener a rhyme? A poem that makes sense first time? These scones are good.”
And with that he addressed himself to the business at hand while his mind went off on its own track and his automatic defense system took over.
Pauli’s fault was that she never stopped talking and Percy had remained happy and sane simply by not listening while his own thoughts kept him entertained. His automatic mechanism dropped in an occasional “Yes, dear,” or “No, dear,” or “Fancy that” about every thirty seconds.
So Pauli chatted away and Percy worked on the problem of the sinister occupant of Number Twenty-four. Perhaps there was a Russian spy sending Listener poems to Moscow because he was convinced they were in code.
“Mrs. Jones’s cousin’s daughter, you know, the one who married the commercial traveler, had twins last week — that’s four girls she’s got now. More tea?”
“Yes, dear.” Or perhaps there was a white slaver who planned to kidnap Mrs. Jones’s four daughters and send them to a house of delight in Buenos Aires.
“The Stevensons’ holiday bach was broken into and two thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry was stolen. Would you believe anybody could leave so much jewelry in a bach? And a television.”