The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

A Putting Away of Toys

Originally published Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, April 1974.

My friends at Columbia University always thought it a little weird that my mother was a nightclub entertainer while my father was a psychiatrist, but actually she would never have developed her act if he hadn’t been a psychiatrist. He taught her hypnotism before they broke up, you see. I doubt that he would have if he had suspected the eventual use she would make of it, because even after the divorce it must have been an embarrassment for a shrink with his exclusive clientele, who routinely used hypnosis on his own celebrity-patients, to have an ex-wife whose nightclub act involved putting people under hypnosis to make them quack like ducks and hop like frogs.

He never mentioned being embarrassed, at least to me. I never heard him say anything critical about Mother except the rather mild objection that she tried to keep me tied too close to her apron strings.

I grew up listening to a steady stream of complaints about Dad, though. Although the divorce had been Mother’s idea and neither ever remarried, she never quite forgave him for his failure as a husband. One of her favorite themes was that she couldn’t understand how a man who lost his own wife through total lack of understanding could charge such exorbitant fees to advise others on how to deal with their interpersonal relationships.

Except for Mother’s complaints to me, their post-divorce relationship was amiable enough because she never mentioned his shortcomings to Dad himself. She was pleasant enough to him when he picked me up on weekends, and when they sometimes discussed such things as my schoolwork or what summer camp I should attend, they sounded quite friendly.

I can’t recall her ever saying anything nice about him to me, however.

It was years after the breakup before Mother started her nightclub act. I was only two at the time of the divorce, and Mother didn’t go into show business until I was a freshman at Columbia.

At least she didn’t go into professional show business until then. As long as I can remember, her act was part of the annual Amateur Variety Show for Charity at the Los Angeles Music Center, she was the star of the annual children’s party at the Beverly Hills Country Club, and she performed at most of the private parties she attended. She really had professional stature for years before she finally turned pro.

She claimed it was her friends’ urgings to which she finally gave in. Certainly it wasn’t the money, because Grandfather left her something like four million dollars, she received additional income as administratrix of the million-dollar trust fund left to me, and Dad had been paying her a phenomenal amount of child support until I reached eighteen.

I suspect her real reason was simply that it gave her an excuse to spend a lot of time within visiting distance of me. Uprooting herself from Beverly Hills to follow me to the East Coast would have been hard to explain to her friends, or even to me, but show business gave her a legitimate excuse to be anywhere in the country her bookings took her.

Coincidentally, they seemed always to take her within no more than an hour’s flight from New York City, so that she got to see me often. Although Las Vegas and Los Angeles were top markets for nightclub acts, she never seemed to have bookings there. I rather suspect that all of her bookings would have been in New York City if she could have arranged it but, by its very nature, a hypnotism act has to be short run, so she had to branch out from there.

Also coincidentally, she never seemed to have bookings when I was home in Beverly Hills during Easter, Christmas or summer vacations.

Another thing that makes me feel I was the real motive for her going into show business was the fuss she raised about my going to Columbia instead of to UCLA. She couldn’t understand why I insisted on traveling clear across the country when there was a perfectly good school near home. The fact that New York City was the center of the legitimate theater, and my interest was in eventually writing, directing and producing plays, didn’t strike her as a reasonable argument. Why couldn’t I study medicine and psychology and become a psychiatrist like my father? Or if I insisted on a show business career, why couldn’t I settle for film-making, in which UCLA had an excellent course?

Dad resolved the argument by becoming stern with her. The only times I can recall him being stern with Mother were occasions when they disagreed about what was best for me. Dad rather witheringly told her she was behaving like a Philip Wylie mom, and if she didn’t soon cut the umbilical cord, people would start laughing behind her back. She gave in then, because she would rather have died than have discovered that people were laughing at her.

Despite being such a high-priced solver of emotional problems, Dad never quite understood the relationship between Mother and me. I was never in much danger of becoming a mama’s boy. I think I was about eight when I first became aware of her mommish desire to devour me. Most boys would either have given in or rebelled. I couldn’t rebel because I sincerely loved Mother and couldn’t possibly have done anything to hurt her feelings, but I couldn’t give in either. So I worked out my own adroit method to avoid being devoured. It required considerable acting talent, and may be the origin of my interest in the theater.

I’d say, “Yes, ma’am,” when Mother cautioned me against going near the ocean, but I could hang ten on a surfboard by the time I was twelve. Fortunately Dad always gave me a lot of extra spending money that Mother never knew about, so obtaining equipment was no problem. I kept my surfboards, wet suits and, later on, scuba-diving equipment, at the homes of various friends. They were conditioned never to mention in Mother’s presence any activity we had engaged in that Mother might consider either dangerous or ungentlemanly. Insofar as I was concerned, the umbilical cord had been cut long before Dad mentioned the matter.

Apparently Mother wasn’t aware of it, though. She continued to watch over me protectively all the time I was at Columbia U.

There was the matter of my two previous engagements before Ellen, for instance. Mother hired the Flynn Detective Agency to investigate both girls.

I have to admit that in each case the investigation prevented me from making a disastrous mistake. The news that Mary Jane Potter had undergone three abortions before graduating from high school nearly destroyed me at the time but, as Mother pointed out, it was certainly better to find out how promiscuous she was before marriage than to catch her in bed with one of my friends afterward; and hearing the tape of Susan Harmon bragging to her roommate how she had hooked the richest jerk in college was hardly good for my ego, but it was better than ending up with that calculating little wench.

In my senior year, when I found Ellen Whittier, I couldn’t stand the thought of another investigation. I knew it would be impossible to convince Mother that none was necessary in this case so, after brooding about it for a while, I finally decided the only honest thing to do was warn Ellen of what was coming, even at the risk of having her indignantly break off our engagement. I made it clear to Ellen that I heartily disapproved of Mother’s investigations, but was helpless to stop them. I also made it clear that I was quite fond of Mother despite her over-protectiveness and that I hoped Ellen eventually would learn to love her too. I said I realized that might be difficult in view of what her initial impression of Mother must be.

Ellen surprised me by laughing.

“I think the whole thing is charming,” she said. “She’s merely trying to watch over her little boy.”

“But you certainly must resent the thought of being investigated,” I said.

She shrugged. “My life is an open book. The only emotion your mother is likely to experience while reading the report is boredom.” Then she had a sudden thought which brought a delighted grin to her face. “Let’s beat her to the punch. You hire the agency to investigate me and hand her the report at the same time you tell her we’re going to be married.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I’m not going to insult you by hiring a detective agency to investigate your suitability as a wife.”

“I’m going to be investigated in any event,” she pointed out. “I should think the fee would be a lot lower if I cooperate. Besides, even though I won’t see it, I am already contemplating with enjoyment the surprised look that is bound to appear on your mother’s face when you hand her the report.”

Against my better judgment Ellen eventually talked me into accepting her suggestion. We went together to the New York City office of the Flynn Detective Agency, where we explained to a man named Morrison what we wanted.

When we finished, Morrison said, “Now let me understand this, Mr. Loudan. You want to forestall your mother’s engaging us to do an investigation in depth by having us make a cursory investigation that will turn up nothing derogatory about the young lady?”

“Wrong,” Ellen told him. “He wants the same sort of investigation you would have made for his mother. Anything derogatory you learn is to be included in the report. If it will help, I will list all of my bad habits before you start.”

After examining her curiously, Morrison said in a polite tone, “That won’t be necessary, Miss Whittier. We prefer to come to our own conclusions about our subjects’ habits.”

In due course I received a thick report. Mother had shown me only the pertinent parts of previous reports, and I hadn’t realized how’ comprehensive they were. Every phase of Ellen’s life from birth on was covered. Scores of people who knew her, ranging from relatives and close friends to mere acquaintances, had been interviewed.

Her choice of boyfriends prior to me had been impeccable, I noted. The investigators had unearthed only three regular ones. The earliest, when she was fourteen, had been an Eagle Scout. The second, a summer romance when she was seventeen, had been the son of a New England senator. During her first two years at Columbia she had gone with a philosophy student who had since transferred to a Presbyterian seminary, where he was studying for the ministry.

According to the report, she was in excellent physical health except for an occasional touch of insomnia. The note about her insomnia impressed me with the Flynn Detective Agency’s thoroughness, because until then I had been unaware of it.

The only blemishes the investigators had been able to uncover on an otherwise spotless record were that Ellen had once played hooky in the sixth grade and that at seventeen she had been arrested for speeding.

When Ellen read the report, her main reaction, like mine, was awe at its thoroughness. “They even dug up my criminal record,” she said. “Do you think your mother will decide it makes me ineligible?”

“She couldn’t without being hypocritical,” I told her. “I have often heard Mother relate with relish how she and a high-school girlfriend alternately cut English class for a whole term by answering roll calls for each other. And at last count she had fourteen speeding tickets.”

Mother was currently playing the Town Casino in Buffalo, and was staying at the Statler Hotel there. The weekend after receiving the report, Ellen and I flew to Buffalo together. I phoned to let Mother know I was coming, but didn’t mention that I was bringing a girl.

We checked into adjoining rooms at the Statler about six p.m. on Saturday. As Mother had an eight p.m. dinner show, I knew she would be resting up for it in her suite. As soon as we were settled, I went to see her alone.

Mother, as always, was delighted to see me. She gave me a hug and a smack on the cheek, then laughed and ran to the bathroom for some facial tissue to wipe the lipstick off my cheek.

“You’re looking wonderful, Francis,” she said as she rubbed away. “You’ve certainly grown into a handsome young man.”

“Thank you, Mother,” I said. “You’re looking wonderful, as usual, too.”

I wasn’t just offering flattery. Mother was an extraordinarily attractive woman in a regal sort of way.

Bunching the tissue into a ball and tossing it into a wastebasket, Mother waved me to a chair and gracefully sank into another. “Sit down and tell me everything you’ve been doing, dear. Are you keeping your grades up? Whatever is that you’re carrying?” She referred to the thick manila envelope under my right arm.

“My grades are fine,” I said. “It’s a report from the Flynn Detective Agency on a girl named Ellen Whittier — the girl I’m going to marry.”

Mother’s eyebrows peaked in mild astonishment. “You had her investigated?”

“I thought I would save you the trouble.”

I removed the report from its envelope, walked over and laid it in her lap. She glanced down at it, then looked up at me with a bemused expression.

“Do I sense a touch of belligerence in your tone, dear?”

“Not at all. Mother. It’s simply that I knew you would have her investigated, and decided to expedite matters. Ellen knows about it. As a matter of fact, it was her suggestion.”

“How quaint,” Mother said somewhat dryly. “You mean you explained to her that I would have her investigated if you didn’t?”

“Well, yes. Yes, I told her.”

“That must have given her a fine impression of me.”

“It seemed to amuse her more than offend her. Actually she has no impression of you as yet. She is reserving opinion until she meets you.”

“Decent of her,” Mother remarked in the same dry tone.

“Incidentally, that is not a whitewash report designed to discourage you from having one of your own made. We stipulated to the agency representative that absolutely nothing be left out.”

“I see. Will you get my purse from the bedroom, dear? The black one on the dresser. It has my reading glasses in it.”

I got the purse, Mother put on her glasses and began to read the report. I took a chair opposite her.

“Twenty years old, I see,” Mother commented. “Just right for you. I think it’s nice for a man to be at least a year older.”

As this comment seemed to require no reply, I remained silent.

A moment later she said, “Oh, she’s that Whittier family. The congressman’s daughter. You didn’t mention she was from down our way.”

“She isn’t, exactly. Her father is a cattleman as well as a congressman, you know, and the ranch is in the mountains up near the Los Padres National Forest. Ellen says you get to it by a narrow unpaved road called Sulphur Mountain Road, which is up somewhere around Ojai. And Ojai must be close to a hundred miles from Beverly Hills.”

Mother read on. Her next remark was, “She can hardly be a fortune hunter, like that Harmon girl. Hugh Whittier must be quite well off.”

“His assets are listed on the next page, Mother. They total around fourteen million.”

“How nice. I note that the family is also Presbyterian.”

“I thought that would please you.”

She continued to read, making no further comments until she had finished the report. Then she laid it on an end table next to her chair, replaced her reading glasses in her purse and gave me a warm smile.

“She sounds like an eminently suitable young lady, dear. When do you plan the wedding?”

“This June, after graduation. Ellen still has another year of school, but that will be no problem, because we plan to live in New York City. I hope to have a stage manager’s job by next fall.”

Mother raised her eyebrows. “I thought you planned to produce and direct your own plays, dear.”

“I do, eventually. I want to accumulate some experience first.”

“I see. When do I get to meet Ellen?”

“Right now, if you wish,” I said. “I brought her along.”

Mother looked pleasantly surprised. “How nice. Where did you leave her?”

“We have adjoining rooms on the sixth floor.”

Glancing at her watch, Mother said, “I like to get to the club about a half hour before show time, but I can spare about fifteen minutes.”

Mother’s suite was on the fourth floor. We went upstairs to the sixth and I knocked on Ellen’s door. It opened immediately.

For a brief moment the two women regarded each other with the estimating, calculating expressions common to potential in-laws on first meeting. Then both smiled warmly, I made introductions, and Ellen invited us in.

As I closed the door behind us, Mother said, “You’re quite pretty, Ellen. I’m glad, because I’ve always hoped for handsome grandchildren.”

“Thank you,” Ellen said. “Will you sit down?”

“I haven’t time, because I have an eight o’clock show and I like to get to the club a half hour early. I just stopped by long enough to meet you and welcome you into the family.”

“Well, thank you again.”

“I understand Francis explained to you my habit of having his fiancées investigated. I won’t apologize for it, because you wouldn’t be the lucky girl to get him if it were not for that habit. He would already be unhappily married.”

Ellen’s eyes twinkled. “I know about both previous engagements. No apology is necessary, Mrs. Loudan. I am in your debt.”

“Please call me Miriam,” Mother said.

“All right, Miriam,” Ellen agreed.

When Mother left a few moments later and I had closed the door behind her, I said to Ellen, “Well, what do you think?”

“I rather like her,” Ellen told me. “I got the impression she approves of me.”

“What mother wouldn’t?” I asked, going over to kiss her on the nose.

We decided to catch Mother’s early show. I phoned her suite, caught her before she left for the Town Casino, and also arranged to have a late dinner with her after the show.

Mother had a ringside table reserved for us when we arrived at the nightclub. I could tell by the way Ellen squeezed my hand that she was deeply impressed by Mother’s entrance. I was impressed myself. Mother possessed such remarkable stage presence that she established instant rapport with her audiences. Tonight, before ever opening her mouth, she drew enthusiastic applause merely by throwing the audience a welcoming smile.

I think a good part of her appeal was that she had none of the brittle professionalism common to nightclub performers. Instead, she gave the impression of being a relaxed, aristocratic but gracious hostess who was performing for her invited guests only because she loved to entertain.

As usual, Mother picked six volunteers from the audience, put them into hypnotic trances, then ordered them to do various ridiculous things, such as bark like dogs, quack like ducks and honk like geese. One couple, informed by her that they were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, did a waltz creditable enough to draw heavy applause after they had admitted being only average dancers. She told another pair they were in a snowstorm, and the manner in which they huddled together, shivering and blinking imaginary snowflakes from their eyes, made the audience howl.

After the show, during dinner, Mother asked Ellen if she had yet informed her parents of our engagement.

“No, Ellen said. “I plan to tell them over Easter vacation. That’s only two weeks off.”

When Mother learned that Ellen and I would be flying from New York to Los Angeles together, she seemed delighted.

“I’ll be back home even before you two get there,” Mother said. “My engagement here ends next Saturday, and I’ve informed my agent I don’t want another booking until after Easter. Can you spend some time with us, Ellen?”

“Not until the last couple of days of Easter vacation, I’m afraid,” Ellen said apologetically. “Francis and I won’t be arriving in Los Angeles until about noon Saturday, and of course I want to get to the ranch before Easter. I plan to rent a car at the airport and drive straight there. Dad and Mom are returning to Washington a couple of days before I have to fly back, though, so I can visit you then.”

Mother gave me a worried look. “You’re not planning to spend your vacation at the ranch too, are you, dear?”

“Just one day,” I assured her. “I’ll spend Easter with you, then drive up on Monday to meet Ellen s parents, and return the next day.”

“Oh,” she said in a relieved tone.

I said to Ellen, “Why do you have to leave for the ranch directly from the airport? It can’t be much more than about an hour and a half drive, so you would get there early in the evening even if you stayed over for dinner. I would like you to meet Dad.”

“Oh, yes,” Mother said with an air of resignation. “You must meet Francis’ dear father.”

“I want to,” Ellen said. “I suppose I could wait over a few hours.”

Two weeks later Ellen and I landed at Los Angeles International Airport at ten minutes before noon. Since Ellen had arranged to have a rental car waiting for her, there was no one at the airport to meet us. There was a message awaiting us at the call desk, however. It was from Mother; we were to meet her and my father for lunch at the Beverly Hilton Hotel at twelve-thirty.

That didn’t give us a great deal of leeway, as the airport is a considerable distance from Beverly Hills. Nevertheless we managed to arrive a few minutes early.

Exactly at twelve-thirty the two of them came in together. I could tell by Ellen’s expression that she was impressed by Dad the moment she saw him moving across the lobby toward us. He was as handsome a man as Mother was a woman, and just as aristocratic-looking. Tall and lean and as erect as a career soldier, he had the man-of-distinction’s gray at the temples, yet gave an instant impression of warmth and friendliness. Mother always said it was a false front designed to conceal from his hundred-dollar-an-hour patients that he was as neurotic as they were, but I always felt that he was warm and friendly.

Dad didn’t wait for introductions. Smiling broadly, he said, “Hi, future daughter,” took Ellen by the shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. At the same moment Mother planted a kiss on my cheek.

Looking flustered but pleased, Ellen said, “Hi, future father.” Then Dad was thrusting his hand at me and saying, “Good to see you, son.”

“Good to see you too, Dad,” I said sincerely.

We had the smorgasbord lunch in the Starlight Room. Dad was obviously delighted with my choice of a wife, and Ellen was equally delighted with him. They had little time to get acquainted, though, because Dad had to eat and run to make a one-thirty group therapy session at the local Veterans Administration Hospital, where he donated his time on Saturdays. Mother had invited him to dinner, however, so Ellen would see him again before she left.

Mother had driven to the hotel in her little roadster. After lunch Ellen and I followed her home in the rented car.

Our house was only a few blocks from the Beverly Hilton. We still lived in the mansion my maternal grandfather had built when he was head of one of Hollywood’s major studios. To friends who asked Mother why she continued to hang onto such a huge place, particularly since in recent years she was away so much of the time, she defensively pointed out that modern tract houses were jerry-built and that she hated apartment living. This was no real answer to the question, of course, but Mother seemed to regard it as adequate.

I think Ellen was more nonplussed than impressed by the three stories and twenty-four rooms, particularly when she learned that the only servants were a cleaning woman who came in twice a week when we were in residence and a handyman who took care of the gardening. I explained that Mother hung onto it because she had grown up there and she had a tendency to resist change.

Mother had a roast with potatoes and carrots all ready to cook, so the only meal preparation she had to do after we got home was to turn on the oven. The three of us spent the afternoon just sitting in the oversized front room before the empty fireplace, talking.

Ordinarily, I imagine prospective mothers-in-law ask lots of polite questions about the backgrounds of prospective daughters-in-law, but the Flynn Detective Agency had made that unnecessary in this case. The conversation remained largely impersonal except for one question on Mother’s part. She was curious about the mention of insomnia that had appeared in the agency’s report.

“It’s nothing serious,” Ellen told her. “It’s what our family doctor calls ‘situational insomnia.’ That is, I only suffer it from some immediate cause, such as the night Francis asked me to marry him. I couldn’t sleep a wink.”

“That’s understandable,” Mother said. “I couldn’t sleep the night I got the news either.”

“Then I always have trouble when there is a change in environment. I won’t be able to sleep tonight, and when I get back to school I’ll be awake all the first night too.” She laughed softly.

Mother started to say something, but stopped as a thought occurred to her, and looked at Ellen thoughtfully. “I can make you sleep tonight, dear. By post-hypnotic suggestion. It’s more effective than a sleeping pill.”

“Really?” Ellen said, interested. “How does it work?”

“While you are in a hypnotic trance I will tell you that at such-and-such a time tonight you will fall asleep. When I wake you, you will have no recollection of the order, but your subconscious will. Tonight you will fall asleep at the precise time I ordered you to. A word of caution, though: you must be in bed, prepared to go to sleep, at least fifteen minutes beforehand, because you will fall asleep when the time comes, no matter what you are doing — even taking a shower.”

“Eleven p.m. would be a safe time,” Ellen said. “That’s my normal bedtime, and I know there is no party or anything scheduled at the ranch tonight that might keep me up later.”

“All right,” Mother said. “Want me to do it?”

“I’d love it. I didn’t get much sleep last night either, anticipating the trip.”

Mother went to get the star sapphire pendant she always uses in her act, dangled it in front of Ellen’s face and told her to concentrate on it. Ellen proved to be an easy subject, and within minutes was in a deep hypnotic trance. Mother gave her the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at exactly eleven that night, then clapped her hands and woke her.

“Now I have implanted an order in your subconscious to go to sleep exactly at eleven,” Mother told her. “Please remember that you must be in bed at that time. If for some reason you haven’t reached home by that time — because of engine trouble, for instance — you will have to rent a motel room and get to bed. Understand?”

“I understand,” Ellen said.

At five o’clock Mother told me to go make a pitcher of martinis and put them in the freezer, as she had told Dad to be there at five-fifteen. She wanted to serve dinner no later than six, she said, so that Ellen could he on the road by seven.

Dad arrived on time, and Mother managed to get dinner on the table at a quarter to six. We finished in sufficient time for Ellen to help clear the table, which she insisted on doing. It was only five of seven when I walked out to the car with Ellen.

When I leaned in the window to kiss her good-bye, she said, “You have the ranch phone number, in case something happens that you can’t drive up Monday?”

“I have it, but nothing will happen.”

“I hope you like my parents as much as I like yours.”

“I’m sure I will.”

“Do you love me?”

“I’m nuts about you.”

“Then I’ll see you Monday,” she said, smiling at me and shifting into drive.

When I got back inside I found Dad seated in what had been his favorite chair in the front room, smoking his pipe. Mother said they were going to have a second cup of coffee, and asked if I wanted one too. When I said yes, she asked me to pour brandy for all of us while she was getting the coffee.

It was perhaps fifteen minutes later, as we were finishing our brandy and coffee, that Dad remarked contentedly, “Ellen seems like a fine girl, son. You’re very lucky.”

“She’s faultless,” I said. “Except for situational insomnia.”

“And how do you know that?” he asked with raised brows.

I grinned at him. “Not the way your evil mind is surmising. It’s only an occasional thing, anyway. She’ll sleep tonight because Mother put her under and gave her the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at eleven.”

Dad gave Mother a quizzical glance, reached for his nearly empty brandy glass, then suddenly stiffened. His gaze shot at Mother. “Just exactly how did you phrase your posthypnotic order, Miriam?”

She looked surprised at his tone. “Why, I just told her to fall asleep at exactly eleven tonight.” Coming to his feet, Dad asked in a flat tone, “Haven’t you ever heard of circadian rhythm?”

For a moment I missed the urgency in his voice. With amiable fatuousness I said, Circadian rhythm: the inner clock that tells, us when we need to sleep and when we need to awake. Physiology II, in my junior year.”

Ignoring me, Dad said to Mother, “Didn’t it occur to you that when she woke up this morning, she was on the East Coast? Her body may not adjust for days. She’ll go to sleep when it’s eleven p.m. in New York, which is roughly forty minutes from now.”

It registered on me then that his calm tone concealed a desperation approaching panic. I looked at Mother and saw that she was staring at him with enormous eyes. All at once I became almost dizzy with fear for Ellen. In forty minutes she would still be traveling on the freeway at high speed. If in her eagerness to get home she exceeded the speed limit by ten miles an hour, she might even be on Sulphur Mountain Road, which she had described as a narrow, winding road with sheer drop-offs at some points.

In either event she couldn’t possibly get home by eight p.m.

Dad swung toward me. “What route did she take?” he asked quietly.

I gave my head a helpless shake. “We didn’t discuss it. The San Diego Freeway, I imagine. That would be closer than driving clear over to catch the Hollywood Freeway. She might have taken the Coast Highway, though.”

Dad looked at Mother. “Did she mention to you which route she was taking?”

Mother numbly shook her head. Dad strode to the phone, dialed the operator and crisply told her to get him the highway patrol. After a short wait he said in the same crisp tone, “This is Dr. Philip Loudan. I am a local psychiatrist. With whom am I speaking, did you say?”

After a pause he resumed, “A young lady named Ellen Whittier is at this moment en route from Beverly Hills to a ranch on Sulphur Mountain Road, which comes off Route thirty-three this side of Ojai. Do you know where that is, Sergeant?”

After another pause, he said, “Right, beyond Casitas Springs. She left here about five of seven and we believe she is traveling on the San Diego Freeway, although we aren’t sure. I haven’t time to explain how and why this happened, but she was placed under hypnosis just before she left and was given the posthypnotic order to fall asleep at eight p.m. She will fall asleep at precisely that time, and if she isn’t stopped first, the probability is that she will be driving at high speed at the time.”

There was a short silence, then, “Yes, I am quite sure. I haven’t time to give a lecture on hypnotism over the phone, so I am afraid you will just have to take it on faith.”

He listened again, then said, “I don’t know, hut my son is here and he can tell you. Just a moment.”

Handing the phone to me, he said, “The man’s name is Sergeant Johnson. He wants a description of Ellen’s car.”

I said into the phone, “This is Francis Loudan, Sergeant. The car is a brand-new blue-and-white two-door Ford sedan. It’s a rental car and I don’t know the license number.”

“That’s all right,” a pleasant voice said in my ear. “We’ll just stop every car headed that way that answers the description. You reasonably certain she took the San Diego Freeway?”

“No, she could have taken the Coast Highway. But the freeway is faster, because you don’t have to slow down for all those towns. I don’t think she would have picked the Hollywood Freeway, because we’re in the far west end of Beverly Hills.”

“Seems unlikely,” the sergeant agreed. “I wouldn’t rule out the Coast Highway, though. Be a lot of holiday traffic tonight, and she may have figured it would be faster in the long run than the freeway. It would be if the freeway gets really jammed.”

“Well, can you check both routes?”

“We’ll check all three, just in case she took the Hollywood Freeway for some reason. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you back as soon as there’s news.”

I gave him the number.

After I hung up, I started pacing the room. Mother and Dad sat silently watching me for a time, then Mother went to make more coffee. Dad relit his pipe.

At five of eight I stopped pacing to stare at the phone. At eight I gave a little shudder and went over to the bar to pour myself another shot of brandy. I had a third brandy at eight-fifteen and a fourth at eight-thirty.

The phone rang at a quarter to nine. I caught it in the middle of the first ring.

“Sergeant Johnson here,” the pleasant voice said. “This the doctor or the son?”

“Francis,” I said. “The son. “Well, we found her, and you can stop worrying. Just in the nick of time, though.”

I let out a relieved sigh. Cupping my hand over the phone, I said, “She’s all right.” Then into the phone I said, “Where was she?”

“On the Coast Highway, just pulling into Oxnard. There’s no road divider there, so she could have crashed head-on into somebody if she had fallen asleep driving. It’s blind luck we caught her at the exact moment we did, because it was almost eight when a patrol car pulled her over. The officer was just asking her if she was Ellen Whittier when she fell sound asleep.”

I felt my stomach constrict at the closeness of it. “Where is she?” I asked.

“At St. John’s Hospital in Oxnard.”

“In the hospital!” I said sharply. “I thought you said she was all right.”

“She’s just asleep. Nobody knew whether or not it would be dangerous to wake her, because hypnotism can be pretty tricky stuff. So they just put her in the hospital and let her sleep. Her car is at the Oxnard Police Station.”

“Oh,” I said. “Have her parents been informed?”

“We don’t know who her parents are.”

They wouldn’t, I realized, because all their information about Ellen had come from Dad and me. I said, “I’ll take care of it, then. Thanks a lot, Sergeant.”

“Just a minute,” he said. “I want to talk to your father.”

It developed that what he wanted from Dad was an explanation of just how Ellen’s predicament had come about. Dad gave a detailed account of what had happened. When he hung up, he said with a grin that apparently Sergeant Johnson wanted to make sure it hadn’t been some kind of exotic murder attempt.

I phoned Ellen’s parents to let them know she wouldn’t be there that night. They knew who I was, because Ellen had written about me, even though they were not yet aware that we planned to marry. It took a considerable amount of explaining to convince Ellen’s father that she was unhurt, even though she was in a hospital, but I finally got across to him what had happened. Then I let him talk to Dad, who elaborated on my explanation.

Apparently in answer to a question by Congressman Whittier as to whether Dad thought he and his wife should drive to the hospital, Dad said, “It would be pretty pointless. She’ll wake up as soon as her body has had its normal requirement of sleep. If that is eight hours, she’ll be rising about four in the morning. She has her own car, so she can just drive on. If I were you, I would just sit tight until she arrives, instead of making a useless twenty or thirty-mile trip.”

When he hung up, I said, “Useless or not, I’m driving up to Oxnard.”

Dad regarded me curiously. “Why?”

“So that I can explain to her what happened as soon as she wakes up. I feel responsible for letting Mother hypnotize her.”

A trifle dryly Dad said, “Why don’t you just phone St. John’s Hospital and leave a message asking Ellen to call back as soon as she awakens?”

I felt myself redden slightly. That easy alternative hadn’t even occurred to me. I took the suggestion.

When I hung up after leaving the message, Mother said, “You shouldn’t feel responsibility for what happened, Francis. It was my error. The factor of circadian rhythm should have occurred to me.”

“Yes, I think it should have,” Dad agreed. “We covered it when I taught you hypnotism.”

“That was over twenty years ago,” she protested with a frown. Then she passed a hand over her eyes. “The excitement has me exhausted. Please go home, Philip, because I want to go to bed.”

As soon as Dad left, we both went to bed. Although it was only about ten p.m. in Beverly Hills, according to my circadian rhythm it was one in the morning.

Ellen’s call came at four a.m. local time. As I put the phone to my ear, I heard a click and knew that Mother had lifted her bedside extension phone too.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hi,” Ellen’s voice said in my ear. “You must still be up, you answered so fast.”

“It’s a bedside phone. Are you all right?”

“Just fine. Pretty weird, wasn’t it? The nurses here told me what happened, but I don’t quite understand why it happened.”

“Your body is still on East Coast time. Eleven o’clock there is only eight here.”

“Oh,” she said. “I would never have thought of that.”

“We didn’t either. Mother and I, I mean. Dad did, though, the moment we mentioned it to him. That’s why we set the cops on you. I nearly had heart failure waiting for news. We didn’t even know which route you had taken.”

Ellen said in a surprised voice, “Your mother knew. I told her while we were scraping dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.

I let several seconds tick by in silence before I said, “She must have forgotten. I think she’s listening in. Did you, Mother?”

Several more seconds passed before Mother said apologetically, “I don’t remember it, Ellen. I have an unfortunate habit of sometimes not listening because I’m thinking of something else. Probably I was plotting how to get Francis to take me to church in the morning.”

I am sure Ellen noticed nothing unusual about Mother’s voice, but I could detect the slightest change of inflection in it, and I knew that beneath her forced naturalness she was quaking with terror. She could detect the slightest change of inflection in my voice too, you see.

When Ellen rang off a few moments later, I got up, put on my robe and went down the hall to Mother’s room. When I knocked, she called for me to come in.

She had expected me, because she was seated on the edge of her bed with a robe over her nightgown. Halting in the doorway, I gazed at her steadily. She turned a brittle smile in my direction, but her gaze went past me to the door pushed back against the wall.

I said quietly, “I would hate to lose either my mother or the woman I love. But if I had lost the one, I would have lost both.” Her smile became even more brittle as she concentrated on the door with increased intensity.

“I love you, Mother,” I said. “But in a different way I love Ellen just as much. A man shouldn’t be forced to choose between the two types of love.”

The fixed smile faded and her eyes misted. “Yes, a man,” she said, nearly inaudibly. “No longer a boy.” Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at me. “May I have another chance?”

“I told you I love you.”

She nodded. “Thank you, dear. You are very understanding.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Good night.” Actually I was more understanding than she imagined. I could easily have killed her simply by telling her she had lost my love. I am quite sure I would have found her dead in the morning.