Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 6, No. 12, December 1961

The Engineer’s Cap by Donald Honig

Give a small boy an engineer’s cap, and he becomes an engineer, forthwith, in his own mind. No mechanical device is safe from his tampering fingers, all as a result of his new headgear.

The three most talkative women on Chester Street met every morning in Joseph Tompkins’ grocery store to discuss local topics.

“Well,” said Mrs. Fairley, “I hear that Mr. Gregg is about to move out and ask her for a divorce. He wants to marry that blonde tigress we’ve seen him with.”

“And I hear,” said Mrs. Duffy, “that Mrs. Gregg is quite upset about it all. I don’t for the life of me know what she sees in that scoundrel. You’d think she’d want to be rid of him, but she’s been more than melancholy over it. Mr. Gregg told my man that he was quite worried about her, and that he hoped she wouldn’t do anything foolish.”

“My God,” said Mrs. Tinny, “you don’t think she would, do you?” She was quite properly aghast, not that she was completely sure as to what it was that Mrs. Gregg might or might not do — suicide, murder, etc.

“Stranger things have happened,” Mrs. Fairley said knowingly.

“Well,” said Mrs. Duffy, “I do hope and pray they’ll be able to work their problem out.”

“If only for the sake of the little boy,” Mrs. Tinny said sadly.

“Speaking of that young rascal,” said Mrs. Fairley, “do you know what he did yesterday? He hit a baseball through Mrs. Pickett’s window!”

Everyone made sighing sounds of dismay and despair, honoring the mischievous powers of six-year-old Jamie Gregg.

In an apartment not far from Chester Street, Jim Gregg was sitting on the sofa contemplating a glass of straight Scotch. Lines of concern made his face appear much older than it was. Across from him, sitting rather imperiously, watching him with a face that was calling for a decision, was blonde, extremely attractive Helen.

“What is it going to be, Jim?” she asked (for perhaps the tenth time that morning). “I can’t wait forever. You’ve got to choose, you’ve got to make up your mind.”

“It isn’t that easy, Helen,” Jim said. He did not like being pressed by Helen anymore than he liked being thwarted by his wife. “Kay and I have been married for almost nine years. The least I can do is respect what we once hack It just isn’t that easy to break it off.”

“It is if you want to.” Helen said bluntly. “You do want to, don’t you? You admit yourself that there’s nothing between you anymore. I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

“There’s the boy, for one thing,” Gregg said.

“And there’s me, for another. How long do you expect me to wait? You have to start showing me that you’re really sincere about this thing.”

“Well, the truth is, Helen, Kay won’t give me the divorce. I spoke to her about it last night. She absolutely won’t do it.”

“Can’t you make her change her mind?”

“Unfortunately, she’s a very stubborn woman.”

“And unfortunately, I’m a very selfish one,” Helen said with some heat. “I don’t want to share a man with another woman.” Now she rose, squaring her hands on her well-rounded hips and glared at him. He was unable to meet her gaze, furrowing his brow and staring into his drink as though he might find an answer there. “Why didn’t you tell me that right away?” she demanded. “You must have known for a long time that she would say that.”

“I don’t think I can change her mind,” he said almost casually.

“Then what’s the use of any of it? We’re certainly not going to go on like this; at least I’m not. If you think you’re just going to keep me like a...”

“Just a minute,” Gregg said, looking up at her now, silencing her. “I never said that. I said that it was going to be all right and it will be. I’m not ending it, it’s going to go on, it’s going to be just the way we want.”

“How?”

“Leave that to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I said, leave it to me.”

“You said you can’t change her mind.”

“Whether I can or not, it’s still going to be our way,” Gregg said, an odd, flat finality in his voice. He put the drink down, watching her coolly; he had impressed her now, and knew it.

“What are you planning?” she asked.

“Never mind that. What difference should it make to you anyway — as long as you get what you want?”

She regarded him for a moment, shrewdly, and then nodded as if entering a pact with him.

“That’s right,” she said. “It makes no difference — as long as I get what I want. But don’t involve me in anything sticky, Jim.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be involved in anything. Nobody is going to be ‘involved.’ In a little while it’s going to be all right,” he said, putting down the drink and getting up.

“Where are you going now?”

“I’m going over there.”

“You’re going to see her?”

“Yes.”

He went to her and put his arms around her; her kiss was strangely flat, mistrustful.

“You can do better,” he said quietly.

She did.

After Gregg had left, she sat down at the window, gazing out at the day. Dark rain clouds were gathering over the rooftops. The city would be hit by a storm later. It seemed to be an appropriate gathering, but she was not thinking of any symbols. She was thinking of Gregg, He was an odd person, she thought; strong at times, at other times quite weak and vacillating. He was not the most admirable person. His strength was a petty sort, asserting itself only when he became frustrated with his weaknesses. There were people like that and sometimes they did foolish things. She wondered what he was going to do now. She had a disturbing feeling about it. His determination seemed to her quite desperate and perhaps reckless. But she did want him; to her it was really quite inexplicable, seemed positively foolish at times, but it was what she wanted. So she really didn’t care what he did, or how; just as long as it was done and over with.

When he left Helen, Gregg walked towards Chester Street. As he neared his neighborhood he began taking a circuitous route, wanting to have more time to think, to plan the method for carrying out his decision. He would try Kay once more, but she would be unyielding. He hated her for that. She seemed like a small, willful woman to him, a petty impediment. It seemed now that she had always dominated him, always kept him from the things he most wanted. That tenor of thinking seemed to give him a certain justification. He felt unfairly put upon, not just in this instance, but for a long time; so any retaliative measure he might take would be justified.

His thinking finally straightened out, he now headed directly for the apartment in the old brownstone building. Glancing up at the dark clouds, he construed them as some great leaden force urging him on, some monumental judgment made for his benefit. They seemed a very part of his situation, his mood, his resolve; it was as if they were waiting to enshroud his past and conceal it forever.

As he stepped into his street he saw Jamie. Father and son saw each other almost simultaneously. The boy leaped from where he had been sitting on the stoop and ran toward his father.

“Daddy!” the boy cried with excitement. “Will you buy me an engineer’s cap? I must have one!”

“What’s all this about?” Gregg asked, lifting the boy into his arms for a moment and swinging him around, then putting him down again.

“I must have an engineer’s cap. There’s one in Lombardo’s window. Someday I want to drive a train.”

Gregg took his son by the hand and they walked down the street towards the toy store.

“Where is your mother?” Gregg asked.

“Oh, she’s upstairs.”

When they neared the store the boy broke away and ran to the window and stood there jabbing his finger against the glass, imploring his father to hurry on lest the magic hat wither from neglect.

“There it is!” Jamie exclaimed, filling with excitement.

Gregg came up to the window, looked at the white and blue striped hat and smiled at the boy. “Is that what you want? All right. Let’s get it.”

A few minutes later they emerged from the store. The coveted hat was crowning the excited boy who now felt rocketed on towards great achievements. With puckered lips Jamie simulated train whistles and the sounds of wheels and pistons; but his father hardly noticed, his mind somberly occupied, his eyes moving up to the rows of windows that eyed out from his house, his teeth sinking firmly into his underlip. At the brownstone stoop they stopped and without taking his eyes from the windows he released the boy’s hand.

“You’ll play here for awhile, Jamie,” he said.

“Can I play in the rain?” the boy asked.

“Rain?” Gregg asked, looking down at the boy. Then he glanced back up at the mounting dark clouds that were rapidly obscuring all light. “No, you can’t. If it starts to rain, go down into the basement and play. But don’t come upstairs unless I tell you to. Will you do that?”

The boy, in the midst of terrific pride and excitement, nodded. He pulled forward on the visor of his outlandish cap and pulled the cord of an imaginary whistle, not watching his father slowly climb the steps and go into the house.

Gregg went up the hall stairs like a man ascending some ancient gallows where martyrs once mounted. He felt a peculiar ironic grimness, made the more profound by the persistent rectitude he felt. He turned at the landing, and pulling the house key from his pocket, went to the door and unlocked it and went in.

The rain was just hitting the windows and the clouds cast a weary gloom over the rooms. She was there, but had put on no lights. In fact, she was sitting with her head slumped on the kitchen table, asleep, apparently a victim of her own despair. At the sight of her he became quite still, furtive. The opening and closing of the door had not disturbed her. He watched the still, unruffled coming and going of her breathing; it was as if she had already consigned herself to the fate he had planned for her. It was going to be easier than he had hoped.

Now he began to plan and devise and calculate. Only the boy had seen him come in. No one had been on the street or in the hall. He had an endless latitude of action. His heart leaped with excitement as his mind worked with deadly coolness and subtlety.

Moving stealthily, he went inside and in the bedroom found a handkerchief and several lengths of rope. Coming soundlessly back to the kitchen he looped the handkerchief over his wife’s slumped head and suddenly pulled it over her mouth as she jerked up her head, and knotted it behind. As she began to struggle (and now this was the worst, the most dreaded part of it) he struck her in the face, knocking her to the floor where she momentarily lost consciousness. When she came to a few moments later she found herself helplessly bound, hands and ankles, staring up at her husband. The sound of falling rain filled the starkly still kitchen, drumming.

“Now you can see how sincere I was about this thing,” Gregg said. “Now you can see how important it is to me. I asked you, Kay; I asked you to put an end to something that no longer had reason to exist. But you wouldn’t. All right. Now I’ll do it.”

Gregg closed the kitchen window. Then he closed the door. Once more he looked down at his wife.

“I’m going to do this very sweetly for you, Kay,” he said, “Some husbands make a bloody and painful massacre, of it, with knives or hammers or guns; but I’m going to be most gentle with you. You just close your eyes and go to sleep. People will say what an awful thing it was, that you just couldn’t bear to live any longer.”

He went to the stove and began turning on the jets, one at a time, until from each of the four jets there rose a deadly almost inaudible hiss. He avoided looking at each as he backed toward the door. He began to feel ill; he wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

The plans were running through his mind: he would leave the boy at her sister’s (telling the sister, of course, that he had left Kay in a most depressed frame of mind) and come back later and ‘discover’ her. He would untie her and then call the police and lament over the terrible tragedy. Oh, he would accept some of the blame, for having been a philanderer, but that would be a minor and inconsequential stigma, and well worth it.

“Goodbye, Kay,” he whispered without looking at her as his wide-eyed, voiceless, helpless wife squirmed frantically on the floor.

Gregg went downstairs and outside. The rain had almost stopped. He called Jamie from the basement and the boy popped out, running excitedly, the engineer’s hat on his head. Taking the animated boy by the hand, Gregg said, “Your mother’s not feeling so well, Jamie, Come along and we’ll go to a movie.” Without protest, the boy took his father’s hand and followed. When they got to the corner, Gregg looked back at the windows. Then he turned and went quickly on.

The following morning the three most talkative women on Chester Street met in Joseph Tompkins’ grocery.

“Isn’t it awful,” Mrs. Fairley said “I think it’s an absolute shame and tragedy.”

“But does anyone know why?” asked Mrs. Duffy.

“No,” said Mrs. Tinny. “It happened and no one yet knows why.”

“What’s all this talk this morning?” Mr. Tompkins asked.

“Haven’t you heard?” Mrs. Fairley asked.

“If I’d heard,” the grocer said crankily, “I wouldn’t be asking, now would I?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fairley, “the police came last night and arrested Mr. Gregg. No one knows why.”

“He had a bad side to him,” Mrs. Duffy said. “I always said it.”

“And that little Jamie is right off the same branch,” Mrs. Fairley said. “Why, do you know what he did yesterday? He was fooling about in the cellar and turned off the gas for the whole house.”

“Did he? Well,” Mrs. Tinny said righteously, “a boy like that deserves a good whipping.”