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?
Brian s father is a mystery-story writer (DON’T HANG ME TOO HIGH and SOMEONE WALKED OVER MY GRAVE, among others) — so the son comes by it naturally. His mother does the typing for her author-men — that is, when she has spare time which (to quote from Brian’s first letter) “she hasent much of becase she has 3 children to look after.”
Mr. O’Sullivan was seventeen when he had his first story published, so he has warned Master O’Sullivan not to let his nine-year-old family record go to his head!
While it was a “real thrill” for young Brian to have his story accepted, he went on to state: “I must say I am looking forward to receiving the money.” But the lad had good reasons for thinking in terms of cash: he wanted to get a doll’s house and dolls furniture for sister Barbara — “her heart is set on them and she’s had a hard time this year, with chicken pox, measles, and getting her tonsils out”; and some toy lorries for brother Jim — “he’s 2½ — we call him the Red-Headed Terror — he’s impossible”; and an electric train set for the author himself; and a wire recorder for Daddy — “but I think have to wait until I write a few more stories!” And gifts for Mammy — “including a new typewriter ribbon!”
And now, Brian O’Sullivan’s story...
We live in a very nice place called Clondalkin, in County Dublin. My favorite friend is Michael Maher who lives near us. He was not always my favorite friend. I am nine and he is only seven and he was always hanging around the gang I played with. We used to tell him he was too young and to run home to his mama.
Then his mama went to the hospital for an operation and she never came back. My mama gave Michael his meals, sent him off to school, and looked after him during the day while his daddy was working. His daddy was a policeman and Michael said he wanted to be a man like his daddy when he grew up. He wanted to direct traffic and arrest burglars and bring them to jail.
His mama was a very nice lady. I heard my daddy say one day that she was almost as pretty as my own mama. My mama slapped him with a dishcloth and said: “Plámás won’t get you anywhere.”
When Michael’s mama went to the hospital and didn’t come back, Mr. Maher got very sick. He used to come home late from work and stagger from side to side up our path to get Michael to bring him home to bed. He looked very sick and never laughed any more like he used to. My daddy always said: “Take it easy, Tom.”
And Mr. Maher said: “What do you know about it?”
My daddy said: “Think of the kid, Tom.”
Mr. Maher looked very angry and said: “If he’s a nuisance, I’ll take him away.”
My daddy said: “I didn’t mean that.”
Michael used to ask us why his mama wasn’t coming back. My mama used to look at my daddy but they did not seem to know what to say. Then one day Michael stopped asking and he never asked again. He said his daddy was sending him to a boarding school in September. He didn’t want to go.
One day after tea at our house Michael and I met the gang and we played games in his back garden. The gang wanted to play rocket ships but Michael wanted to play cowboys and Indians. So we played cowboys and Indians. We were tired of playing rocket ships, anyway.
Michael threw a rope over a branch of a tree and tied a noose round his neck. Then he sat on his rocking horse and said: “I must be the good man and you must be the rustlers. Brian is the bad man who pretends I am the king of the rustlers and they’re going to lynch me. The bad man slaps my horse to make it run away but it won’t budge. I seen it in the cinema. They put the good man on another horse but just then his pal comes along.”
I didn’t want to play.
I said it was a dangerous game. Michael might get choked and die.
One of the gang named Liam said: “My daddy read in the papers about kids getting strangled putting ropes round their necks and doing cowboy tricks.”
Michael said: “That’s silly! I saw my daddy doing it in the bedroom after tea.”
Clayton Rawson
Author’s Solution to
Merlini and the Lie Detector
SYNOPSIS: Script writer Don Sutton reported the murder of TV producer Carl Todd in the latter’s 44th Street apartment. On the scene of the crime the police found Sutton and actress Helen Lowe. The victim’s smashed wrist watch indicated he had been killed at 6:01 p.m. during a summer thunderstorm that stopped abruptly at 6:05 p.m. Both suspects claimed to have arrived ten to twelve minutes after the rain had stopped, and each said the other was already there with the body.
Merlini suggested using an impromptu he detector to discover which suspect was the liar and, therefore, the murderer. He started the motor of Miss Lowe’s car, and then Sutton’s. Looking at the windshield of Sutton’s car, Inspector Gavigan, said, “We make the arrest now.”
SOLUTION: Merlini turned in his seat to face Helen Lowe and Don Sutton. “My impromptu he detector is a mechanical gadget found on all cars. When I started the motor of Miss Lowe’s car, the radio she had neglected to turn off when she parked began to operate. When I turned the ignition key in Sutton’s car, something similar but much more significant happened — the windshield wipers began working.
“If Sutton, as he claims, was twenty blocks uptown at 60th Street when the rain stopped, he’d have turned the wipers off a moment or so later. They wouldn’t have sprung into action just now when I started the motor. The fact that they did means they were still turned on when he parked here — and that means he arrived before the rain stopped. He lied when he said he got here after the storm and after Todd was killed.”