Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 7, No. 9, September 1962
Dear Readers:
As you know, I was born and raised in England... where the national sport is cricket. During the years I have spent in the United States, I have transferred my allegiance, and affections to your national sport, baseball.
I must admit to some confusion about home bases, however, for I find it difficult to follow the Major League shifts; the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore; and the Boston Braves to Milwaukee; not to mention the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles, and the Giants to San Francisco! The Senators have deserted Washington for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Los Angeles has welcomed The Angels, and the National League started the 1962 season with the new Mets, who have taken over the Giants’ old home base on Coogans Bluff, while the Colts have settled in Texas. To add to my confusion, there are all those minor leagues, semi-pros, for the most part, Little Leagues, Pony Leagues, Midget Leagues, not to mention the sand-lot ball played on vacant lots.
One big question which bothers me, I put to you, dear readers, for answer. As I understand it, baseballs are covered with horsehide. I so seldom see a horse nowadays, that I wonder WHERE OH WHERE does the horsehide come from, to cover all those baseballs?
Alfred Hitchcock
Bertillon’s Odds
by Talmage Powell
By some diabolical scheme of higher mathematical calculation, the odds against a certain variation are said to be two billion against one! Don’t wager on it, is my advice.
Dear Marshalclass="underline"
Enjoyed the visit. Glad your trip coincided with my vacation. But you should have stayed over another day. Pete Gonzales pulled a 146-pound tarpon out of the Gulf where we spent that last day fishing. Anyway, your faith in the location, barely out of sight of the Coast Guard light on Panama Key, was justified.
The Langborn murder broke the day after I reported back to work. Knowing that your interest in police work has been more than academic since your days as a crime reporter (and as comfort when you think of that 146-pounder) I’m going to tell you about the Langborn case. Because one detail in it is unique, and I don’t use the word lightly. Nothing like it has ever turned up in the history of police work and I doubt that it will ever happen again.
The Langborn of whom I speak was the crotchety old cuss, Carson Langborn. Just in case the name isn’t familiar to you, he was a West Virginia coal mine operator who retired and came here about six years ago. A cantankerous citizen, he was forever pestering the city manager. Too many street lights were wasting electricity, or there was too much horn-blowing on our downtown streets. Nothing was done in City Hall without his vociferous opposition. His disposition was as gloomy as the damp burrows he caused to be made in the earth.
He was married six times, and even the best of his wives was unable to stay with him. The sixth, a Mary Scorbin, died of a sudden illness, making a dramatic escape from his tyranny.
All of his marriages were childless, although Mary Scorbin Langborn had a son by a previous marriage. His name was Gary. He was a good-looking youth, dark, slender, rangy, with a suggestion of whip-like strength in his sinews.
Conditioned by twenty years of police work, my instincts didn’t react favorably to Gary. There was a brooding in his face, a coldness in his eyes. He struck me as having more sneering contempt than conscience for the unimportant non-enities comprising the remainder of the human race.
I recognized the material groundlessness of my aversion to the twenty-year-old Gary, and I determined not to let it color my actions. As a police officer, it was my job to remain objective and impartial.
The old man and Gary were living alone on the Langborn estate prior to the murder. Gary discovered the body, called us, and was waiting quietly and unemotionally when we arrived.
A squad car, radioed out, was the first to reach the Langborn home. Following the two uniformed cruiser men were Marty Sims and myself in a black sedan assigned to the detective division. Close on our exhaust fumes were Rynold from the lab and Doc Jenkins, elected coroner just this year.
The house was an ugly, sterile, two-story wooden structure reminiscent of a large Georgia or South Carolina farm. The dormer windows stared bleakly at us. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Langborn had added lightning rods at the ends of the gable.
On the long front porch, leaning idly against a wooden post, stood Gary Scorbin. He took his cigarette from his lips and flicked it in the yard.
“The old man’s in there.”
Gary followed as Marty and I went inside. Langborn had seemingly transported his parlor from a much earlier West Virginia home. The furnishings were heavy and dark, out of keeping with our sunny clime.
“This way,” Gary said in the manner of an impersonal guide.
Langborn had met his end in a room off the parlor. I suppose it was his study. There was a desk, leather couch and chairs, bookcase, a low chest — and a wall safe. I saw the safe before I saw Langborn. The safe had been ripped open.
“He kept three or four thousand in there,” Gary said. “I warned him.”
As I moved deeper in the room, I saw Langborn. The desk had obscured him. An old, dried-up hank of bones in his clothes, he lay as if he had pitched face forward. The side of his cheek touched the carpet. All the gray, brown-blotched skin of his face had collapsed against his skull. A single bullet had entered the back of his head. It remained in his brain.
The room remained very quiet as Rynold and Doc Jenkins came in. The two uniformed officers remained on guard, one at the door of the room, one on the porch.
Rynold marked the position of the cadaver (a very apt word, in its connotations, for this particular corpse) and started taking pictures. Doc chewed on his cigar and went to one knee beside the corpse.
As you know, there are few outward dramatics at such a scene. On the surface, it’s a cut-and-dried job. Details are recorded, in brains and on paper. Each man knows his job and wastes few motions. The inner meaning of the scene depends on a man’s individual reaction to death. There is no better reminder that you are mortal, and there is violence in the world.
“Been dead three, four hours is my preliminary estimate,” Doc said. “No doubt the bullet killed him.”
Marty had searched for the gun. “No murder weapon in here.”
Rynold went over the empty safe for fingerprints. I motioned Gary Scorbin to the parlor. He obeyed quickly enough, but he was able to impart in his action a suggestion of insolence.
“Is everything in there just as you found it?”
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
“You touch anything?”
He shrugged. “The old man. I half turned him, saw he was dead, let him fall back. Started to look in the safe, but didn’t touch it. Thought you’d want to look for fingerprints.”
“Any servants here?”
“Nope, just the old skinflint. Woman comes in three times a week to clean. Today wasn’t one of her days.”
“Better fill me in on your movements today.”
Again he shrugged. I was to learn that he used the gesture habitually. He managed to make it irritating. “I got up. The old man hit the deck couple hours before, about eight. We squabbled, as usual. I told, him to go to hell and went down the beach.”
“Spend the whole day there?”
“The afternoon,” he said.
“See anyone you know?”
That shrug. “Why should I? I didn’t know he was going to get bumped off. I got no alibi, if that’s what you mean. I guess people saw me here and there.”
“I suggest you turn a couple of them up.”