Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 11, November 1960

Wanted: A Respectable Victim by C. B. Gilford

One may board at a rooming house, but it is not likely that one will be bored in the process. This is simply because the inhabitants of such an establishment are all determined to get their fill of hot biscuits before they’re cool or gone.

Celestine Carter sat at the escritoire, her quill pen poised over the paper. Now and then, as she sought to compose, the tip of the feather went to her old, wrinkled, dry lips, and her teeth — still her own — gnawed upon it.

“Shall we word it the same as last time, Victoria?” she asked finally.

Victoria Carter, Celestine’s younger sister by half a dozen years, stood by, her brows knit under her stylish gray coiffeur. She was vigorous and spare and straight in maroon silk that was just a trifle gayer than her sister’s black.

“We may as well,” Victoria answered. “I think our wording is discreet and not too misleading. What was it we said the last time? Ah yes, I think I remember. ‘Gentleman. In middle sixties and in good health. Must be refined, cultured, dignified, personable. Reply by letter, enclosing picture.’ Then a box number, of course. I think that was what we said last time, and it worked out very well.”

“Oh yes,” Celestine agreed, “it worked out excellently.”

“Then write it down, dear. ‘Gentleman...’ Oh no, wait a moment. Better make it, ‘Single gentleman...’ ”

Justin Gravelle perused the want ad section more out of habit than with real hope. He had few marketable skills, and his age did not favor him. But he was near the end of his resources, his last two suits were threadbare and his meals for some time now had been skimpy and unappetizing.

When he first read the advertisement which began, “Single gentleman,” he could scarcely believe his eyes or his imminent good fortune. It was almost as if a fairy godmother and Santa Claus had conspired to a solution of Justin Gravelle’s insoluble problem.

He rose and strode to the dingy, clouded mirror that hung over the scarred and decrepit dresser. In the dim light — but perhaps flattering for its very dimness — he scanned his reflection with relative objectivity.

“Dignified, personable,” it had said. Justin Gravelle drew himself up to his full height of six feet, thrust out his still manly chest, assumed the pose that had been so effective in the twenties when he had played fathers and fathers-in-law to some famous Juliets and Desdemonas. The picture he saw in the mirror pleased him. He was more than dignified. He was real.

“Refined, cultured,” it had said. He smiled almost with disdain. Couldn’t he recite entire Shakespearean scenes? Couldn’t he claim some renowned past acquaintances? And couldn’t he, for that matter, imagine a few others?

“Personable.” He strutted back and forth before the mirror, giving to view first one profile, then the other, emphasizing his erect carriage, his aquiline nose, his luxuriant crop of silvery hair. Then he smiled, displaying teeth not badly stained, since long ago economy had dictated only a sparse use of tobacco. If “personable” meant “handsome,” Justin Gravelle decided, he was rather eminently qualified.

“Free board and room.” He was aware, as he rolled the tasty words about in his mouth, of a grumbling, semi-emptiness in his abdominal region. Spurred by it, he sat down instantly and penned an eloquent reply. “Dear Box 747...”

Victoria and Celestine Carter were obviously more than pleased by the aspect of their visitor. Justin Gravelle perceived this pleasure in the ladies, and it sparked a response in his own breast. He had always been one who rather enjoyed matinee audiences, and the feminine contingent, bless their hearts, had always liked him. This fresh display of. admiration gave him a feeling of aliveness that he had not experienced in many a long year, and he basked and scintillated in the warmth of it.

The house — if one were to judge by this drawing room — was more than adequate, at least to Justin’s somewhat old-fashioned taste. It was cool rather than stuffy, shady rather than dim. The furniture was comfortable, and though a bit worn, was immaculately kept. Justin, after years of grubby, dirty rooms with only infrequent maid service, could appreciate that.

But eventually his curiosity brought him round to the point. He seemed so to have entranced his two hostesses that they had apparently forgotten to mention it.

“The ad mentioned ‘small services,’ ” he began. “Might I inquire what those services are?”

Both sisters hesitated. But then Celestine, the elder — he had shrewdly caught and retained the names — fetched a deep sigh which audibly strained her corseting, and launched into a frank reply.

“Mr. Gravelle, this house is a business establishment. We refer to it as a hotel for refined, elderly ladies. My sister and I are the proprietors, and it- is our sole livelihood. We have five guests, all of whom are our age, or a bit older. But this is not what is sometimes referred to as a boarding house. That would imply, you see, that our guests are victims of genteel poverty. Which is not true. Our five ladies are all widows, and although they might not have the means for extravagant luxury, they can afford our pleasant surroundings here. We can boast of delicious food, clean, spacious rooms, and fine companionship. Our guests are not transients. Our newest arrival has been with us for six years. They are all very satisfied with our homey atmosphere. We call this, incidentally, The Carter House.”

Justin had followed all this with rapt attention. But it had only whetted, not satisfied, his curiosity. “If this is an all-female establishment,” he said, “how do I fit in?”

Victoria smiled, a knowing, almost mischievous smile. “It is precisely because The Carter House is an all-female establishment,” she answered, “that you do fit in.”

Justin Gravelle, despite his long service in that most wicked of institutions, the theatre, was nevertheless an innocent. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

“Don’t you see?” Victoria persisted diabolically.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Our guests here are all widows. They crave masculine companionship. My sister and I, of course, have never married, and do not exactly sympathize with this craving. But we operate according to the philosophy that the customer is always right. We are prepared to furnish you free board and room, Mr. Gravelle, in return for your spending a little time each day with our other guests, in the parlor, or out on the porch, or on the lawn — in any respectable place — and just simply being yourself, dining, chatting, watching television, drinking lemonade, playing croquet, whatever happens to be the activity of the moment.”

“And is that all?” Justin asked after a moment, incredulously.

“That is all.”

It was even better, easier, than he could have imagined. If it was merely a matter of being charming and amusing to a few doddering members of the fair sex, it was precisely in his line.

“Do you accept the proposition, Mr. Gravelle?”

It never occurred to him to drive a harder bargain. “Why, of course,” he answered joyfully.

“There is just one stipulation.”

His heart skipped a beat. Had this wonderful situation been offered only to tantalize him, and then to have it snatched away before he could grasp it? His mouth and throat were suddenly parched as he asked, “What is that?”

“Just that you adhere scrupulously to one little rule. We have five ladies as guests here, and they all pay the same rate. Although some of them may seek your special favor, you must never show any partiality. Do you agree?”

“Oh yes,” he almost shouted with joy.

“Because if you would show partiality, it would be fatal, Mr. Gravelle. That is the precise word for the consequences. Fatal.”

The above conversation took place in the morning. Justin Gravelle moved into his new quarters in the afternoon. He was not being given one of the choice rooms, he was told — those were in front — but the neat little bedroom which overlooked the fish pond in the rear garden was luxury to a man in his circumstances. It was sunny and airy, and when Celestine Carter left him alone to get settled, he discovered that the bed was a downy delight.

He lay stretched upon it — minus his coat and trousers to preserve the press — as the afternoon waned toward the promise of dinner time. His mind as well as his body wallowed in the rosy softness of his new life, and he did not question from whence it came, or why, or how long it might endure. Justin was too old to live in the future. All that mattered now was some day-to-day comfort for his tiring flesh.

But as he surrendered himself to this ecstasy, the nostrils in his theatrically shaped nose quivered suddenly, titillated by a familiar smell. Familiar, yet puzzling in this house of females. For try as he might to deny it, or to identify it as something else, the heavy, rather sweet smell was that of pipe tobacco.

For a few moments he merely lay there and let himself be tantalized by it. He himself had given up smoking more than a year ago, not by choice, but rather out of the grim necessity of having to spend all of his Lilliputian income on poor food and poorer lodgings.

Where was the odor coming from? he asked himself. Surely not through the windows from the direction of one of the female guests. Surely not in The Carter House. And besides, the emanation seemed to surround him from all sides, as if it were a quality of the room itself.

Yes, of course! It came to him finally. The odor was in this room. And now that he analyzed it more carefully, he found it was also slightly stale. The former occupant then had been a pipesmoken.

The former occupant! A gentleman, like himself, paid to entertain the feminine guests? But if this was a fine, easy, effortless life, why had this other gentleman left?

The disturbing question was like a sudden, chilly wind blowing across the prostrate form of Justin Gravelle. He shivered in his undershorts. He had had a predecessor undoubtedly, a man something like himself, a little down on his luck. But he had left. A position, as a consequence, had been open. Why had he left? Why had he left?

Justin got up and dressed slowly and thoughtfully. Although he tried to ignore it, there was a small canker of doubt in his mind, an insistent worm, threatening to blight this bed of roses.

He might have asked questions concerning this other, pipesmokeing chap when Celestine came to fetch him to dinner. But by that time he had decided that he really didn’t want to know the answers. If the truth had the power of destroying his present enjoyment, he preferred to live in ignorance.

So he put the whole thing into the back of his mind, and accompanied Celestine down the broad staircase and into the cheery dining room. On the way a new odor, the odor of food, beckoned him with increasing vehemence, and besides, the challenge of a new audience was at hand.

With this double inspiration, he entered the dining room in rare good form. The first thing that caught his eye was the table itself, white cloth and gleaming silver and covered dishes from which delicious steam, arose. It was only by an act of stern self-discipline that he turned his attention from the victuals to his fellow diners.

Celestine handled the introductions, as Justin bowed with courtly gravity to each lady in turn. Farsightedly, he paid strict attention to the names and their accompanying faces.

Alicia Allen was a tiny little old thing with darting blue eyes, snow-white hair, and a wicked, toothless smile. Blanche Norton was twice Alicia’s size and weight, built like a battleship, with iron-gray hair and a face as square as a gun turret. Madeline Howard was wispy and willowy and wistful, with an absent, dreamy gaze, and vestiges of what might have once been good looks. Beatrice Raymond, in direct contrast, was gaunt and hatchet-faced, with hair that had not had the grace to gray. Her raven plumage gave her the appearance of a witch, and Justin wondered how she had ever married in order now to be a widow. The last of the group, Florence Talbot, was short and squat and round; everything about her was round, her barrel-like torso, her button nose, her half-moon smile, her full moon face.

Justin was accorded a place of honor at the foot of the table, while Celestine presided from the head. The meal went swimmingly. Justin had never spent a busier hour in his life. What with discreetly wolfing every scrap he could entice onto his plate, and at the same time relating to an enthralled audience the first chapter of the story of his life, his jaws, if not his mind, were most actively engaged.

After dinner they exited to the drawing room. There, buoyed up by the feeling of well-being that accompanies a full stomach, Justin continued with the second chapter of his vocal memoirs — there was, in fact, an inexhaustible supply of chapters. His actor’s instinct told him that he’d been an instant success, that he was already adored. Florence Talbot’s smile grew ever wider as she beheld him. Madeline Howard fetched the most genuine, audible sighs. Alicia Allen’s grin was strictly of appreciation. Blanche Norton’s stolid, attentive stare could be interpreted as a tribute. Even Beatrice Raymond’s witch-like hardness softened under the merry sun of Justin Gravelle.

The Carter sisters were more reserved, of course. Justin didn’t mind. He had never expected the theatre management to applaud his efforts, only to reward them financially. They sat together in a far corner, rather obviously auditioning him, and then just as obviously signing him up for a long run.

The evening winged by swiftly. But perhaps its high point occurred when Alicia Allen slipped out of the room, then returned a moment later like a Greek, bearing a gift. She brought it across the room, a box that seemed too large and heavy for her tiny, wrinkled hands. Then she held it out in front of him, her thin wrists almost visibly bending under the huge weight.

“Do you smoke cigars, Mr. Gravelle?” she chirped.

Did he smoke cigars! He accepted the box with voluble thanks. Then, as the ladies watched with breathless attention, he proceeded to unwrap one of the cigars, thrust it into his mouth, and search in his pockets for a match. That is, until the horrible thought hit him.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he mumbled despairingly, “but I didn’t think to ask...”

“Please go ahead and smoke,” Beatrice Raymond told him. “We all had husbands once, you know. We miss the smell so.”

The circle of heads bobbed in affirmation. Even the two Carter heads nodded, though with more gravity. Blanche Norton picked a silver lighter off the coffee table — odd that it should be there, he thought — and ignited the cigar for him. Then as he blew out great fragrant clouds of smoke, the circle sighed with contentment.

When the festivities halted at ten, he took the box of cigars upstairs with him. But the moment he was inside his own room, the question came back to him. The food was excellent. The ladies were an appreciative audience. There would probably be more little extras from time to time, like the cigars. Then why — oh why on earth — had the former occupant of this room departed?

Life had perhaps never been quite as pleasant for Justin Gravelle, even in the heyday of his stage career, as it was during those beginning weeks at The Carter House. He had never, even at his zenith, had anything close to top billing. But now he was the star.

He had wondered at first what he was going to do for spending money. But he needn’t have worried. The cigars were only the beginning. All of the ladies seemed to have funds. He was showered with gifts, cigars, cigarettes, pipes, pipe tobacco, shaving supplies, shirts, ties, handkerchiefs, socks, mufflers, tie clasps, cuff links — even gift bonds, which he used for a new suit and a new pair of shoes. Finally, to overflow the cup, there were passed to him little sums in cash, for necessities such as hail cuts, manicures, and yes — Justin was a shrewd diplomat — nominal little gifts for his benefactresses.

And he waxed fat too. Not only from the good food served up by the Carter sisters, but also from the special concoctions which all the ladies — each anxious to prove her culinary skill — prepared. The guests, it seemed, had the run of the kitchen whenever they desired. The place hummed with activity, and out of it poured tea and lemonade, cookies and biscuits, jams and jellies, rolls and cakes, fudges and puddings, soft things and hard things, sweet things and spicy things, appetizers and snacks and desserts, till at last even Justin Gravelle’s starved capacity could hold no more — till he started hiding tins and boxes in his room, and then sneaked them out of the house under his overcoat to pass on to some startled little boy on the street.

It was a contest, of course. A battle, stealthy as it was obvious, for his special favor. He gloried in it, but it did present difficulties. Five ladies, each wanting individual attention, can become something of a burden. To be charming ten to sixteen hours a day — depending upon how often and how long he could escape from the house — was at first a challenge, then a job, next a bore, and finally a torture.

The strain began to tell on Justin. He must not be cross, but often he was weary. And on those occasions when he failed as the perfect cavalier, the slighted lady pouted or scolded, according toiler temperament. Mindful of the warning of the Carters against favoritism, he tried to divide these failures evenly among his five charges. But he was no Solomon. As his failures became more frequent and the difficulties multiplied, he became more desperate. But desperation bred even more failures, and vice versa. It was a vicious circle.

Rescue, however, came in the wispy, willowy, wistful form of Madeline Howard. She had specialized in gifts of English briar pipes, aromatic Turkish tobacco, a peculiarly delicious fudge which he had never given away to a passerby on the street, and ever larger cash offerings. He was ripe therefore for Madeline’s overtures.

She intercepted him as he returned from an afternoon walk and steered him past the house. She needed a bit of exercise too, she explained. It was a new bit of strategy. None of the ladies had ever before tried to extend the battleground beyond the house, the porch, and the garden.

Madeline, for all her dreamy gazes and abstracted manner, came rather briskly to the point. “You’ve told us so much about your stage career, Mr. Gravelle, but you’ve never talked much of your personal life.”

“An actor doesn’t have a personal life,” he answered with automatic, romantic sadness. “He’s always on the stage or otherwise in public view.”

“You traveled about constantly.”

“Oh, yes indeed.”

“You never had a permanent home then?”

“Never after I joined up with the traveling troupe that came through our town.”

“Were you ever married?”

“Never. Never had time to settle down.”

“But now that you’ve retired from the stage” — what delicacy of expression Madeline had — “have you ever considered marriage?”

He maintained his romantic pose and affectations. “Alas, by the time I retired and could consider domesticity, I had nothing to offer a woman except my glamorous past.”

“But that would make no difference, would it,” Madeline pursued calmly, “if the woman of your choice had the necessary financial resources?”

Justin was too startled to answer. Madeline said no more. They walked once around the block in silence. But by the time they returned to The Carter House, the beginning of a new relationship had been made.

The other ladies fought back valiantly. Florence’s smile beamed ever wider, and her face seemed to glow perpetually from the heat of the oven as she baked her exquisite little cakes to tempt the palate of Justin Gravelle. Alicia toddled down to the dry goods store almost daily, and toddled home again with a new necktie for him. Beatrice relied on her two special recipes, one for peach jam and the other for watermelon rind pickles. Blanche made a vulgar show of wealth by rolling up greenbacks and tying them with little yellow ribbons and depositing them not so stealthily under Justin’s napkin at the dinner table.

Justin accepted all this tribute, but did not change his mind about Madeline. He was aware too of the basilisk stares of the Carter sisters as they beheld the storm brewing. But he dared not turn back. The job had been proving too much for him. He’d been expected not merely to companion five ladies, but to court them. And one was enough.

He would marry Madeline Howard. They would move away from The Carter House, set up an establishment of their own somewhere. He would be master of Madeline’s little fortune, whatever size it was, rather than go on being a beggar for small favors. And he would be able to rest.

Because that was what, he concluded now, his predecessor had done. He had married one of these wealthy widows and waltzed away with her. After all, one had to better one’s self somehow.

It was on the very day that he’d intended to propose formally to Madeline Howard that he took sick. It was quite a sudden thing, and had seemed to be only indigestion at first — quite a logical conclusion to come to, considering the quantities of gourmet foods he had consumed at lunch.

But as the afternoon wore on, the indigestion took the form of violent cramps, occasional nausea, and a rising fever. Alarmed, Justin took to his bed. He lay there, alternately writhing and exhausted, till toward dinner time Celestine Carter looked in on him.

“Mr. Gravelle,” she began, “the ladies are clamoring for you. It’s such a nice warm afternoon, and they’ve set up the croquet wickets...”

“I’m sick,” he answered weakly. “Send for a doctor.”

But instead of scurrying off obediently, she came over to the side of the bed and stood looking down on him. She shook her head, clucked her tongue, and finally, sad and resigned, she turned and left the room.

“A doctor!” he pleaded hoarsely after the departing figure. But the only reply was a key turning in the lock of his door.

He screamed, not loudly, because he was too weak to scream loudly. He tried to get up, but he succeeded only in thrashing about on the bed. The effort brought on another wave of nausea, and he had to lie back again, the prisoner also of his own incapacity.

Poison... the word wrote itself across his mind. Somebody had poisoned him. Who? Why?

But it didn’t really matter, his fogged brain told him. All that mattered was that the doctor come, that he get well...

He drifted off. And he stayed in that nether realm of half-consciousness, half-death, almost out of contact with the living world, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, yet somehow aware of his drifting, knowing that the drift was toward the bottomless abyss, and terrified at that knowledge — till a sound woke him to some semblance of realization.

The key turning in the lock again.

The door opening and shutting. Muted voices... one... two... whispering... indistinct... yet coming closer... one on either side of him now... conversing about him... not seeming to know that he could hear...

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, if he’s not dead, he’s far gone.”

“Oh yes, far gone. He wanted me to call the doctor, but I knew there wasn’t any use.”

“Don’t you dare call the doctor!”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You know what kind of trouble having the doctor here would mean.”

“Of course I know. I wasn’t about to call a doctor.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about our consciences. We warned him.”

“Yes, we did. We told him the rule. No partiality.”

“And we said if he played favorites it would be fatal. Well, that’s what it’s been. Or going to be any minute. I do think he’s breathing a little.”

“Well, even if he is we still don’t want the doctor.”

“Oh, of course not. For sure as we had a doctor, the next thing there’d be the police. And we can’t have the police around here.”

“I should say not.”

“But who do you suppose did it this time?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. As long as they pay weekly, I’m not going to pry.”

“But don’t you get curious?”

“I try not to.”

“Well, we know it wasn’t Madeline. Not this time anyway. Because Madeline was the one he’d picked.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the watermelon rind pickles.”

“Maybe so. He was a pig about those pickles.”

“Poor old thing. I wouldn’t blame her. She’s never picked once. It must be discouraging.”

“Yes, she has to do something to keep up her hopes.”

“We are going to have a problem, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“Getting rid of all his junk. He did real well for himself. He collected quite a wardrobe.”

“We’ll just do what we did the last time. The charity agencies. That isn’t the problem that’s worrying me.”

“What is worrying you?”

“Where are we going to put him?”

“With the others, of course.”

“But it’s getting terribly crowded.”

“Yes, but where else is there?”

“I don’t know, but sooner or later we’ll have to find another place.”

“When the time comes. When the time comes.”

“And I wish we could find another method.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m just getting too old to dig”

“But we can’t hire it done.”

“Oh no.”

“And we can’t ask our guests to help.”

“Of course not. But I wish sometimes we were in some other business. This cleaning up after people.”

“It’s a living, sister. It’s a living.”

“I suppose so. Shall it be tonight?”

“It’ll have to be tonight. Dead or alive. This isn’t the sort of thing that can wait.”

“All right, tonight. Midnight?”

“Yes. Gives us at least five hours before the sun comes up...”

The voices receded. The door opened and closed. The lock clicked. And Justin Gravelle was left to his tormented dreams.

Midnight... dead or alive... but he was still alive! Perhaps he would live. He had a rugged constitution. Even now it seemed that some of his strength was returning. That conversation between the Carter sisters had provided him with a spur and a challenge. He commanded his muscles, discovered that he could move a little. But then he lay still again. Better to conserve his strength for one massive attempt.

Slowly life seeped back into his veins. It was very dark outside, and finally he decided he could wait no longer. He got up, dressed in his best suit, stuffed his pockets with what cash he had and the most valuable gifts from his collection.

But when he tried the door, it was locked, of course. In real fear of the Carter sisters, he declined either to try to force the door or to pound on it to summon help. He went instead to the Window. There he discovered a trellis he had somehow never noticed before. He climbed down it, and sped off into the night.

“I’ve just checked,” Celestine Carter announced, “and he’s definitely gone.”

“Good,” Victoria answered with relief. “You know sometimes, sister, I’m afraid we might give one of them a little too much, and the old fellow will have a, weak heart or something, and then we really will have a corpse on our hands.”

“It’s a chance we have to take.” Celestine said philosophically. “Every business has its little risks.”

“True, sister, true,” Victoria agreed, perking up.

“We must consider the alternative, you know. That silly Madeline would have married him, and we’d have lost a good boarder. Why, by this time we’d have lost all of them.”

“Shall we run another ad?”

“Oh yes, as soon as possible.”

“Do you think Madeline will be inconsolable?”

“Not if we get another fine specimen like Justin. Hope springs eternal.”

So saying, Celestine Carter sat down at the escritoire with her quill pen. “Now how do we word it? Oh yes. ‘Single gentleman...’ ”

Justin Gravelle read the advertisement, but he didn’t answer it. Nor did he take his story to the police. He concluded wisely that the police would hardly take the word of a broken-down old bum against that of a houseful of respectable ladies.

He also considered courting Madeline. But he decided against that too. After all, it was possible that she had murdered one of his predecessors when the luck had run against her.