Alfred Hitchcock’s A Hangman’s Dozen

Let the Sucker Beware Charles Einstein

I, if memory serves me right, have never purchased a bridge from anyone. But then I have never felt that possessing a bridge is essential to the good life. And now let me present Mr. Holland and his confrère Arch, who might conceivably try to sell you something of consequence, like the Mississippi River, its bridges and tributaries.

Well, we were riding this boat from Liverpool when Arch, my old buddy with whom I grew up together on the sidewalks of New York, brought up the matter of O. Henry.

“The trouble with you,” Arch said to me, “is you’re not up on your reading. You think all suckers have to come from some place else. Fifty years ago O. Henry knew better.”

“Quote me some O. Henry,” I said.

“Quote,” Arch said. “ ‘In the west a sucker is born every minute; but in New York they appear in chunks of roe. They lie down on the floor and scream and kick when you are the least bit slow about taking money from them.’ ”

“That was fifty years ago,” I said.

“Exactly,” Arch said. “People like you forget that the old ways were frequently the best ways. I think we should bear this in mind this trip. Instead of prowling the main salon for little old ladies from Nebraska and Toledo, I suggest we hunt up a live New Yorker.”

“New Yorkers are up on all the latest things,” I said. “I personally cannot imagine selling uranium stock to a fellow New Yorker, or offering our popular air-coach funeral service. Can you?”

“No,” Arch said, “but I think maybe we ought to try some of the older techniques. As I said to you only recently, the old ways are frequently the best ways. I got to thinking about this because of that uncle of yours who used to conduct that small but well-attended game of three-card monte on top of an unfolded newspaper on the subway platform at Seventh Avenue and Fourteenth Street.”

“You mean my uncle Herbert Holland,” I said. “I always thought his technique a little crude. He thought he could escape the police merely by switching from the uptown to the downtown sides of the subway.

“It was his name I was thinking about, not his technique,” Arch said. “For the remainder of this voyage, I suggest that you adopt your uncle’s name. You will be Mr. Holland. Tonight we are going to have a small game of cards with a gentleman I met on this boat. He is Worthington T. Jones, chairman of the board of several New York banks, and he seems friendly. The idea is to let Mr. Jones win some money at cards and remember at all tunes that your name is Holland. Leave the rest to me.”

Even after a lifetime in this particular trade, there are certain people whose money you dislike to take. Thus it was with Mr. Worthington T. Jones, who was a sociable, lonely old fellow with a crinkly face and a kind smile for all. He was so grateful to have somebody to play cards with that he nearly burst out crying.

“Money isn’t everything, boys,” he said, drawing one card to fill an inside straight. “Here I am worth several millions negotiable, and what good does it do?”

“Well,” Arch said to him, “don’t knock money. Ain’t that right, Mr. Holland?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Mr. Holland here is a member of the Holland Tunnel Hollands,” Arch said. “A fine old New York family. In June 1958, when the 30-year public bonded indebtedness is paid off, Mr. Holland here will become owner of the tunnel outright.”

“You don’t say?” Mr. Jones said to me.

“Yes,” I said. “I can hardly wait.”

“Permit me,” Mr. Jones said to me, “as a banker with considerable experience, to offer you a suggestion. You should set up a corporation and peddle stock. Consider the tax benefits.”

“This,” Arch said to Mr. Jones, “is precisely what Mr. Holland has in mind. However, there are other members of the Holland family to consider.”

“Well,” Mr. Jones said, and exhibited fives full over treys, “of course if he has relatives to consider...”

“However,” Arch said hastily, “the decision is his to make. Right, Mr. Holland?”

“Right,” I said. “I can hardly wait till June 1958. There is a lot of revenue from a thing like a tunnel.”

“If Mr. Holland could make a quick sale,” Arch said to Mr. Jones, “I would be willing to bet he would do it. Of course, it would have to be done quietly so as not to alert the rest of the family.”

“You don’t say?” Mr. Jones said. “How many vehicles a year use the tunnel, might I inquire?”

“Including westbound and eastbound tubes, some 60 million,” Arch said. “After salaries and upkeep that is quite a bit left over.”

“You’d be asking quite a fancy figure if you were to sell,” Mr. Jones said to me. “Or so I’d imagine. Did you have a price in mind?”

“It would be a distress sale,” Arch said hastily. “Remember, the tunnel doesn’t start paying off until June 1958, and Mr. Holland here can use a little ready scratch.”

“Well, boys, it’s my bedtime,” Mr. Jones said, and reached for his winnings. “It certainly has been fascinating talking to you two boys.” And he smiled and nodded and got up and went his way.

“Saints-at-large,” I said to Arch, “are you really going to sell him the Holland Tunnel?”

“He’s panting for it,” Arch said. “Does a hundred thousand sound like a fair score?”

“You were right about that part where I could use the money,” I said. “Meanwhile, what is the next step?”

“One or two more losing evenings at cards should do it,” Arch said. “And in between times I shall visit the ship’s printing office and have the necessary documents brought into being.”

We met Mr. Tones for a few hands again the following evening. The conversation concerned everything except the Holland Tunnel, and I wondered how Arch was going to bring the subject up. But he was just biding his time. The opening came when the waiter brought a round of drinks. Arch left a bountiful tip on the tray.

“I always say,” he said, “better to overtip than undertip.” And he kicked me under the table.

“Not me,” I said. “Personally, I believe waste not, want not.”

“I agree with Mr. Holland here,” Mr. Jones said to Arch. “I like to count my pennies.”

“Well,” Arch said, “it just so happens I have a small article here which might please you, sir.” He took out a little embossed card. “Mr. Holland’s signature is on it, and we’d like you to have it with our compliments. It entitles you to ride through the Holland Tunnel for nothing.”

“You don’t say?” Mr. Tones said, and laid down three eights and accepted the card. “Well, this certainly is wonderful. I don’t know how to thank you boys.”

“Mr. Holland,” Arch said to me. “So long as we find ourselves talking about the tunnel, why don’t you run down to the stateroom and bring up those ownership papers? I’m sure Mr. Jones here would like to see what they look like.”

I went down to the stateroom and got the papers Arch had had printed up. When I got back, the two of them were talking about something else entirely.

Arch took the papers and casually handed them over to the other man. “Look these over at your leisure, Mr. Tones,” he said. “We’ve got another night on ship board yet.”

“Well, thank you,” Mr. Jones said. “So long as we’ve reached this point, I might as well warn you boys, not a word about this to anyone. We don’t want it to get back to the Holland family in New York.”

“Heavens no,” Arch said.

At the card table the following evening, our last night at sea, the matter of the tunnel came up at once.

“Boys,” Mr. Jones said, “I’ve been thinking over your proposition. Your business adviser here drives a hard bargain, Mr. Holland, but I’ve decided the terms are acceptable.”

“Well, sir,” Arch said to him, “I trust you brought your checkbook with you and you won’t be sorry. If Mr. Holland here didn’t need the money, you could never have scored like this. I believe you’ll make that hundred thousand back in the first month’s operation.”

“I’m counting on it,” Mr. Jones said. “I have the check all written out. As soon as I’ve seen the property, the money is yours.”

“Seen the property?” Arch said.

“Why, yes,” Mr. Jones said. “Soon as we get to New York in the morning, I hope you boys won’t mind driving through the tunnel with me, just so I can look it over. It’s a standard practice of mine in all real estate deals.”

“Why, certainly,” Arch said. “We can conclude our deal at the New Jersey end of the tunnel if you like. Meanwhile, should we have a hand or two of poker?”

“My pleasure,” Mr. Jones said. “I certainly hope your luck changes, boys. You’ve been holding miserable cards.”

Later, back in the stateroom, Arch started to beat himself on the right side of the head with the palm of his hand. “Come on,” he said to me. “Think. Put your brain to work.”

I said, “What’s the nature of the problem?”

“We’ve got to go through that tunnel for nothing,” Arch said. “He’s got that card I gave him, so we’ve got to make it work.”

We doped it out finally on a timetable basis. Arch cabled ahead to have two rented cars waiting for us at the dock in New York. I had to figure out some excuse to get away, ahead of Arch and Mr. Tones, so I could take the first car. Everything had to be right.

It was agreed that we both would use the farthest right-hand toll booth at the tunnel entrance on Canal Street. When I got there in my car, I handed a dollar bill to the collector. He tried to hand me back fifty cents, but I wouldn’t take it.

“What’s this?” he said.

“Look,” I said, “there’s going to be a car come along in a couple of minutes with a nut inside. He’s going to show you a card and tell you he owns the tunnel. Don’t charge him anything. Just salute him and let the car go through. The extra half dollar I’m giving you now will pay for that car. Understand?”

“Sure,” the toll booth guy said doubtfully. “You say he owns the tunnel?”

“He thinks he does. We’re taking him to an asylum in Jersey. I’m going ahead now to cement the necessary arrangements.”

“He ain’t going to do something crazy, is he? Like stop the car in the middle of the tunnel?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “There’ll be a gent with him doing the driving. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“I shouldn’t, huh?” the toll booth guy said.

I waited and waited in the hotel room without any sign of Arch. After a while it occurred to me that it had been my money we’d lost at poker, playing with Mr. Jones on the boat, and Mr. Jones’ check for the tunnel had been made out to Arch, as it had to be since I’d been using the assumed name of Holland, and that maybe Arch just wasn’t going to show up at all.

But then I figured no, Arch was too honest to do a thing like that. And sure enough, finally there was a knock on the door and Arch was standing there. He had a big grin on his face.

“Well?” I said.

“Worked fine,” he said. “We rode free.”

“Where’s the money?”

Arch set down his briefcase. “No money. He got a good look at the place and decided it just wasn’t his kind of tunnel.”

“It wasn’t his kind of... Wait a minute! We lost five thousand dollars playing cards with him and went to all this trouble with the printing and the toll booth and now...”

Arch held up his hand. “He realized all that. He’s a splendid citizen, this Mr. Jones. Comes from an old distinguished New York family. All kinds of tradition and honors and so forth. Said he felt he should do something for us.” Arch opened the briefcase. “And so, my friend, in exchange for just five thousand dollars more, we...”

“You gave him another five thousand?”

“Please,” Arch said. “Look what we wound up with.”

He handed over a batch of documents.

No doubt about it, he is a fine and upstanding character, this Mr. Jones, from an old and honored New York family.

Arch and me, we own Jones Beach.