Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 2, February 1964

Siege Perilous by Edward Wellen

This brief commentary reveals more about the condition of modern banditry than can often be said in whole volumes.

Allan Moore strode into the hotel lobby as though he belonged there. He carried a glossy-new dispatch case. The case was empty, but he held it as if it bore a burden of crucial documents. He took possession of a chair that gave him a good, though not too obvious, view of the hotel safe. He set the dispatch case on his knees. He waited. Frequent unseeing glances at his wrist-watch established that he was waiting to keep a momentous appointment. Without seeming to notice, he watched the safe fill up with packets as the day’s meeting of the jewelers’ convention ended and the jewelry salesmen put their wares to bed.

A man came out of the elevator like a ball of gum from a slot machine, nodded familiarly to guests and bellhops, and headed Moore’s way. He stopped short, frowning. He started up again but veered out of Moore’s field of vision. Moore waited a moment, then looked around as though seeking the nearest ash tray.

Behind his chair, and to one side, the man stood, chins telescoped, crossed arms resting on round chest, palms cupping elbows, eyes gazing piercingly at Moore.

The unsmiling regard made Moore’s flesh creep. Moore lit a cigarette, forcing his hands steady. The dispatch case slid forward. He raised his legs on vibrating toes to keep it from falling off. Out of the tail of his eye he saw the man trade a meaningful look with a passing bellhop. The bellhop cast a glance Moore’s way and went out of sight, with a wink at the man and a grin. Moore faced forward, his ears burning.

Trying not to show he was doing so, he scanned himself from the shining toes of his shoes to the tight knot in his tie. He couldn’t spot anything wrong with the way he looked. He turned casually as though seeking to check his wrist-watch against the hotel clock. The man stood still staring at him.

The man seemed sort of old to be a hotel dick. But that didn’t have to mean anything. Moore was new to crime, and its obverse law, but he understood lots of hotel dicks were ex-cops working part-time to eke out civil service pensions. Even so, the old guy didn’t look like Moore’s idea of a hotel dick. But then that was part of his job, wasn’t it now? Care to be in the background. Then why was the old guy making it so plain he had his eye on Moore? But that too was part of their job, wasn’t it now? Care not to be too far in the background to help forestall wrongdoing.

Minutes had passed with no more packets going into the safe. If Moore was to move it should be now. The longer he waited, the more he would lose of the keyed-up feeling he needed to pull this off quickly and smoothly. Moore would take the old man before he could unfold his fat arms, march him behind the desk. Moore grew cold. He sat still. His mind raced.

Only one reason for the old man to be careless of showing his vigilance. He’d already notified the law. Hadn’t that exchange of looks with the bellhop been the tip-off?

But what had given Moore away? The gun under Moore’s arm seemed suddenly to shout its presence.

Moore’s vision of himself making off with his dispatch case full of diamonds carbonized like cigarette smoke. The cops were on their way, would be all around any instant. The old guy was probably sadistically hoping he’d try to shoot it out so he’d get the hot seat.

He would get up casually. He rose stiffly, caught the dispatch case in time. He would walk out as if he had no more time to waste waiting for someone so unbusinesslike as to be late for a momentous appointment. In spite of himself, he hurried his step as though he himself were late for some appointment. He had given up the stickup, but they could still get him on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon. He thought he could hear sirens. Any instant now, before he could cross the moat, the drawbridge would go up. By the time he reached the revolving door he was in a sweating panic. He spun out on the sidewalk and ran to get to the other side.

Brakes screamed. The dispatch case whirled into the air.

In anger and triumph the old man made himself comfortable. He found the seat still warm. For the moment he was too churned up to. give the life of the lobby the attention it deserved. Inside this microcosm, with its tense hush of comings and goings, the world outside was always a vague chaos that did not count. He had not heard the scream outside in the street or the police whistle, and even when the ambulance siren sounded in its lost cause he did not hear that, his mind still too full of triumph and anger.

He sucked a lozenge, settling himself in his accustomed seat.

“Nerve of the young fool, taking my chair.”