Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 10, October 1960

Destruction is Always Arranged by Gilbert Ralston

If you have something illegal to do, you had best do it yourself. The fob will then be done to your horrendous satisfaction. You will also save time — though you may, conceivably, also find yourself serving it.

Archer entered the little shop, the ting of the door chime almost covered by the ticking of the clocks lining the shelves upon the walls. The room was small and softly dark, only the hands of the seated man at the high bench at the end of the room appeared to be illuminated by the light from a gooseneck lamp. He crossed the room, waiting patiently while the spatulate fingers of the workman maneuvered a tiny cog into the jeweled bed of a clockwork mechanism, after which the piece was placed precisely in the center of a square of cloth. Then one of the brightly illumined hands moved to the edge of the bench to touch a switch, flooding the room with light.

Shrugging the loupe out of his eye, the fat man stared at him impassively, his bulbous eyes wetly intent. “May I be of service?” he said, the words precise, the tone musical, touched faintly with accent.

“Daggett sent me,” Archer said.

The fat man sat unmoving, not a muscle indicating that he had heard.

“He said to give you this.” Archer reached into the pocket of his jacket, placing a torn piece of pasteboard on the bench.

The man reached into a drawer, then neatly fitted the torn half of Archer’s card into a matching half, laying the two pieces on the bench without comment. After a moment’s examination he heaved his blocky figure off the stool to cross to the door of the shop, which he closed and locked, turning again to face the younger man. “You may call me Jaeger,” he said. “Come.” He led the way through a door set in the back wall, to a richly furnished living room, sumptuous leather pieces harmonizing with a muted Oriental rug. “Be seated, Mr. Archer.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes.” Jaeger was dialing the telephone, turning his gaze once again to his visitor, holding the stare unblinkingly while he awaited a response. “Describe Archer,” he said into the receiver, his eyes flicking over Archer’s body as he received the information. “Hold out your right hand, Mr. Archer. I wish to see your ring.”

“You’re very careful,” Archer said, holding out his hand.

“Very,” Jaeger replied, cradling the phone. “Do you like music?” He indicated the neat rows of phonograph records near the console across the room.

“Yes.”

“It is the only reality,” Jaeger said, crossing to the wall. “Schubert?”

Archer nodded.

The swelling strains of the Second Symphony filled the room.

“I will turn it low. Then we can talk.” Jaeger sat, folding himself into one of the leather chairs. “No unnecessary details, Mr. Archer, and no names. The address, the layout of the building, what you want done, and when. Nothing more.” Unconsciously his right hand beat time to the music as Archer took some papers from his pocket.

“Here’s a drawing of the interior of the house. A photo of the outside.”

“Expertly done,” Jaeger said, his lips pursing a little as he studied the blueprint.

“I am an architect.”

Jaeger fixed him with a steady gaze. “I know,” he said.

“The address of the house is on that envelope. Here are the keys.”

“Neighbors?”

“None nearby. The house rests on a cliff overlooking the ocean on a seven-acre plot.”

“It is tenanted?”

“Not at present.”

“Why don’t you sell it?”

“My father left it to me when he died a year ago. The restrictions of the will do not permit a sale.”

“But you may collect insurance?”

“Yes.”

“A stone house. Slate roof. Awkward. You wish a total loss?”

“Yes. A total loss.”

“Do you have gas in the house?”

Archer nodded.

“Show me where the gas line is.”

Archer pointed to a closet leading off the living room. “It comes in here at the back of this closet, branches off to the kitchen at the back, another branch of the pipe through the wall to the fireplace in the living room.”

“There is a cellar?” Jaeger asked.

“No. The house is on a concrete slab.”

“The interior walls?”

“Brick or stone, for the most part.”

Jaeger looked up at him. “It’s not an easy problem. We shall have to blow it up.”

“Yes,” Archer said.

“To blow it up is easy. To simulate an undetectable gas explosion is an art.”

“That’s why I am here.”

“My service is expensive, Mr. Archer.”

“How expensive?”

“Five thousand dollars... in advance.”

“Twenty-five hundred now and twenty-five hundred more when the job is done.”

Jaeger made a little deprecating gesture with his hands. “All. Now,” he said. “In cash.”

“How will you do it?” Archer asked.

“First the money.” Jaeger crossed to the phonograph. “Delius?” he asked politely.

Archer reached for the envelope in his jacket pocket, opened it, and tossed it on the coffee table beside the chair.

“Listen to this,” Jaeger said. “It soars to the skies.” He counted the money methodically, placing the bills in little piles in front of him, a thousand dollars to a pile. “This is music, too,” he said.

“Now tell me how you will do it.”

“It is necessary that I tell you. I shall need your help.”

“My help?”

“You must prepare the house according to my instructions. Also, there are some supplies that I will need. You will buy them, thus making yourself accessory before the fact.” The thick lips twisted into a smile. “My insurance policy.”

“I didn’t agree to that.”

“Your money is on the table. Take it and go.”

Archer hesitated. “What would you want me to do?”

“You will close the house up tightly, leaving the furniture and personal effects intact.”

“What else?”

“You will discreetly purchase a case of dynamite and an ordinary automobile storage battery, leaving them on the closet floor.”

“Dynamite?”

“You are an architect. You will know where to buy it or where to have it bought.”

Archer studied the bland face before him. “I’ll do it, Jaeger.”

“I’ll be there Thursday night at eleven-thirty.”

“Does it take long?”

“Only long enough to attach a small device to the gas pipes in the closet.”

“When will it happen?”

“At twelve o’clock the following day. Exactly.”

“Do you wish to inspect the house?”

“That will not be necessary. I have your excellent plans. Every moment I am there is dangerous for me — and you. I enter — devote ten minutes to the work — then go.”

“What should I do?”

“Stay in town. Conduct yourself normally. After you have prepared the house.”

“Will you need tools?”

“Nothing. A roll of tape. I’ll bring it.”

Archer rose to leave. “It is all arranged, then?”

“All arranged, Mr. Archer.”

The swirling strains of Debussy sang around him as he left the shop.

Two days later, at exactly eleven-thirty, Jaeger puffed his way up the graveled drive to the darkened house, carefully placing his feet on the hardened edge of the roadway, stopping now and then to obliterate the occasional footprint left in a softer spot. Slowly and patiently he made his way, the sound of the surf on the strand beneath the cliff covering the crunch of his approach.

The house, low and massive, was held in a hand of protecting rock at the top of the cliff, only the seaward side exposed to the pressure of the wind. Jaeger stepped onto the concrete lintel of the doorway, stopping to stab the light of his flashlight over the shuttered windows, grunting his approval when he found them carefully closed. Fumbling in his pocket with his gloved hand, he found the key and opened the door, pausing for a moment, after closing the door behind him, to feel the silence of the interior. Quickly he oriented himself, the beam of his light moving across the landward wall of the living room with the great stone fireplace set in its center, the bookshelves, a few pieces of heavy furniture, the beams of the massive roof leading to the seaward side of the room, whose picture windows were shuttered. There were no other windows in the room, those on the seaward side, at their highest point, were furnished with transoms for ventilation. The door to the closet in the farther wall was opened, rows of liquor bottles just visible in its dark maw.

Swiftly he crossed to it, his light exposing an opened cardboard box on the floor of the closet. Sticks of dynamite were in the box and a storage battery close beside it. From his pocket he took the timing mechanism, a coil of wire, two blasting caps. Removing his gloves, he took a penknife from another pocket and cut into one of the sticks of dynamite, placing the caps delicately, taping the armed stick of explosive to a bundle of the others, fastening the whole to a gas pipe on the floor.

With infinite care he wired the assembly, leaving one pole of the timer unattached while he rechecked the circuit. He glanced at his watch again, set the timer, then dropped to his knees before the door to make the last connection. Satisfied, he then turned to the door with his handkerchief, wiping the inside edge free of possible fingerprints, closing it carefully and rubbing the outer surface clean, the closing of the latch making a soft dick in the silent room.

His hands gloved again, he crossed to the foyer, a sigh of regret escaping him as his light flashed across a large collection of records, on shelves beside a closet. He turned to twist the knob of the front door, surprised to find that it continued to revolve in his hand. Annoyed, he fished in his pocket for the key, trying to insert it in the keyhole above the knob, cursing softly when it refused to enter. He tried the door again, giving it a closer scrutiny, damning for all time the makers of the lock, leaning his weight against the knob, his final wrench pulling it off in his hand. The spot was bare where the knob had left it, nothing behind k except the steel sheathing of the door, two small holes showing where the knob had been attached. He used the screwdriver blade of his knife to unscrew the lock plate. That too was false, the door behind it innocent of space for a key to enter, only the outside keyhole functional.

For a moment he stood there, the pieces of the lock held in his hands, then he tossed them aside and crossed the floor to the kitchen door, only to find it locked solid in its frame. Slowly he flipped the light around, bringing it to rest on the closet door. He walked to it, holding his hand in the air for a moment before he touched the knob, knowing that it too would turn without resistance.

Archer, he thought, angrily, bitterly. Archer...

He returned to the foyer, to the wall switch and flooded the room with light, planted his big bulk in the chair near the window to collect his thoughts, unhurried in his analysis of the problem. Jaeger was a professional, adjustable to change, able to think without emotion. For a moment he put aside the “Why?” of the effort to trap him, beginning a systematic search of the room. The fire irons had been removed from their hooks beside the mantelpiece, the grate and logs removed as well, the marks of the grate legs still visible on the fireplace floor. He tested the wall around the fireplace, turning his attention elsewhere when he realized that it was solid stone, the rough rocks composing it seated solidly in cement. The wall nearest the door was equally solid, the bookcases set into the cement and stone with wooden braces bolted to the walls. He made a mental note of the bolts, realizing that almost every sizable piece of metal had been removed from the room.

A stone box, he thought. Steel doors. The floor placed over a concrete slab, only the plastered ceiling vulnerable, perhaps the shuttered windows. He tried the crank which opened the shutters to the sea, another which controlled the high transoms. Jerking the crank handles out of their sockets, he examined them, to find them neatly cut, the end which engaged the turning mechanisms carefully removed. The window glass was shatterproof, embedded in the metal sills, a heavy grille evident between the glass and the shutters, bolted anchors holding the grille to the stone casements.

Turning again, he ticked off the list of furniture in the room: the massive desk, two leather easy chairs, a solid sideboard against the wall, three straight chairs, a sofa, an upright piano in the corner, the drapes, a small coffee table with a marble top, various pieces of ceramic bric-a-brac. There were no lamps. His eyes moved to the plastered ceiling, examining it inch by inch, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he saw that it could be reached from the floor at its lowest point, which was along the fireplace wall.

There was little in the room to use for tools, except for the shortened shutter handles, or perhaps the ceramic pieces whose broken shards might be used to pry or scrape. He glanced at his watch again. Ten and a half hours left. First, the door to the closet — one hour. If that effort failed, thirty minutes each for the others. Two and a half hours total. There would be eight hours left. One hour spent against each of the other three walls, five hours remaining for the ceiling.

The closet door frame was fitted with a metal flange designed to cover the cracks of the four edges of the door, the hinges of the door were internal, the hinge pins impossible to reach from the living room. With the screwdriver blade of his knife, Jaeger tried turning back the edge of the metal rim near the lock area of the door. Patiently he worked around the flange, scraping off the grained paint deep enough to know that the tools he had were ineffectual, that the flange spring steel was too strong to turn, and that the door was of heavy metal.

He stood back a little from the door, suddenly heaving his great bulk at it, striking it solidly with his shoulder, then testing it to see if it had given way. He checked the room again, searching for an article of furniture which could be used as a battering ram. The leather chairs were bulky, too heavy to handle practically, the straight chairs comparatively fragile. He carried one of them to the front of the house, carefully smashing it on the step leading to the foyer, placing the broken pieces of it aside, not knowing quite how to use them.

He spent some time examining the entrance door, turned to the kitchen and bedroom doors, to which he gave a lesser amount of time, finding them seated in the same sort of flange encountered at the closet. Jaeger was panting from his efforts, his coat had been laid on the sofa, sweat was running down the front of his shirt. For the first time, he was conscious of fatigue, thirst began to bother him. He glanced at his watch, deliberately forcing himself into a chair to rest.

After a time he rose to try the windows, his tongue wandering over his drying mouth and lips. Grunting with the effort, he picked up one of the heavy chairs, driving one of the legs into the window. He was shocked to find that it resisted his attack. He tried again, bringing the chair around in a clumsy arc, the rebound throwing his overbalanced body to the floor, consuming him in a fiery streak of pain which rushed up his arm and shoulder. He was furious with rage when he picked himself up off the floor, trying every portable object in the room against the glass, finally, ignoring the shock of pain which tore up his arm and wrist, he battered the window with a solid ceramic dish until a jagged hole made entrance of his arm possible. He felt the bars in front of it, shook them savagely, knowing that even if he managed to batter the rest of the window down, he could never get around the steel bars between him and the shutters.

Jaeger was bone-tired now, his arm throbbing painfully. He checked his watch again, sitting for a long time, one hand rubbing injured arm and wrist, the racing minutes ticking by.

Finally, he arose and shoved the desk against the landward wall, placing a chair against it to serve as a step. Taking a broken chair leg in his hand, he reached up to scratch the ceiling, a vast sigh of relief escaping from him when a sandy handful of plaster came down in his face. Dropping to the floor, he placed another chair on the desk, forcing his injured and aching arm to function. He was angry with himself for not having chosen the ceiling as his first point of attack. He stood first on the chair that was on the floor, then stepped to the desk to work from that position, then stood on the seat of the chair that he had placed on the desk. The speed with which the plaster fell pleased him. He scraped methodically, first through the whitecoat, then through the material beneath it, exposing a portion of the metal lath. He tried the strength of the lath, punching the broken chair leg up against it, hitting it again and again with the end of the stick, and, finally, with his bloody fist.

“Cement,” he said. “Cement between the joists.” Wearily, he descended to the floor, his face working, tears of frustration pouring down his cheeks. Suddenly enraged, he rushed the closet door, smashing into it with such a thudding crash that he was bounced grotesquely to the floor. His head spinning, his mouth making little inarticulate cries of rage, he rushed to the window again and pounded at it in a frenzy, finally sinking in a futile heap upon the floor.

There were thirty minutes left. In the closet, two small metal arms crept closer and closer toward a contact.

Perhaps it will not work, Jaeger thought. But he knew it would.

Six miles and a number of city blocks away, Daggett’s ferret face was wary in the dim light of the bar. Motioning Archer to a seat, he poured a shot of whiskey in a glass. “Here,” he said.

Archer reached for the drink.

“Sit here. I’ll be back.”

Archer’s eyes went to the clock while Daggett poured some drinks for a handful of noisy customers nearby.

“Couldn’t sit it out alone?” Daggett whispered as he returned.

Archer shook his head.

“What time’s the fireworks?” Daggett said.

“Twelve o’clock. In a quarter of an hour.”

“Play it cool. There won’t be any problems. Jaeger doesn’t make mistakes.”

Archer’s voice was barely audible. “He made one.”

“When? Where?”

“Last year. When he torched the clothing store.”

“Who told you that?”

“How do you suppose I got your name, Daggett? You set ’em up. He does the work. The client collects the insurance.”

Daggett leaned across the bar. “You’re nervous, boy. You better watch your mouth.”

“There was a fire chief killed in that store fire.”

Daggett’s hands clawed at the bar top. “You trying to shake me down?”

“No. Just thought you ought to know. The man who was killed was my father.”

“Why, the fire chief’s name was Stimson.”

“I know. That’s my name, too. Archer Stimson.”

Daggett stared in horror. “And you mean to say you hired Jaeger to do your job?”

“A job’s a job,” Archer replied. Daggett jerked around to look at the clock.

“That’s it,” Archer said. “Twelve o’clock.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Daggett said, after a moment. “Now I’ve heard ’em all. Have one on the house.”

“One on the house,” Archer replied, as he threw the glass of whiskey straight in Daggett’s face.

“You’re crazy,” Daggett said. “Crazy.”

Archer stood solidly before him for a moment, then calmly turned to go.

“Wait a minute!” Daggett hissed. “Tomorrow you’ll be up to your neck in insurance investigators. You talk, and you’ll go up, too.”

“There won’t be an insurance investigation,” Archer Stimson said. “I cancelled the insurance on my father’s house a week ago.” He turned, and walked into the sunlit street.