Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 9, No. 3, March 1964

High Card Deals by Max Van Derveer

A deck of cards is representative of an uncontestable hierarchy where rewards and punishment are dispensed immediately. When used as an aid for solution, we may expect efficiency, unimpeded by sentiment.

Arnold McDowell, professional blackmailer, paced the thick carpeting in the grandiose penthouse suite nervously. Suddenly he stopped at a sparkling window and stared down on the glut of city traffic twenty-four floors below. He felt very alone. He glanced at the wrist watch with the buzz alarm. Three o’clock in the afternoon. He turned. “Dammit, Talbot, I said she wants out.”

“So?”

“It could ruin us.”

“How? There are other women.”

“Not like Gretchen.”

Seated on the edge of the heavy couch, his knees wide spread, Talbot flipped the cards from the fresh deck effortlessly. In all of his thirty-eight years he had failed miserably in one endeavor. He had failed to beat solitaire. He continued to turn the cards and place them with an esoteric rhythm as he said, “Does the next one have to be like Gretchen?”

“Gretchen is good. She knows all the tricks. We’d have to teach...”

“Why does she want out?”

“Will you forget those cards and concentrate on what I’m telling you?”

Talbot’s fingers became still as he looked up at the tall, lean and slightly stooped McDowell. At fifty-three, McDowell was immaculate and intelligent, the kind of man who fueled himself with twenty demitasses of coffee daily. He knew where he was going, and he knew how he was going to get there. But it was the latter that bothered Talbot, that inner drive that sometimes carried McDowell to the brink of panic. Talbot had no time for panic.

He said calmly, “I’m listening, Arnold. I’ve been listening for eleven years. That’s how long we’ve been associates, isn’t it?” He returned to the card game. “You still haven’t told me why she wants out. Tell me her reason.”

“She wants to go to California.”

“And do what?”

“Nothing. That’s just it. She wants to go out there and just...” McDowell’s face became wrinkled in consternation. “... and just sit,” he finished lamely.

“She’s in love with you, you know.”

“That hasn’t anything to do with this!”

“It could have, Arnold. Definitely. Maybe she’s tired of playing with her doctor friends. Maybe she’s decided she wants to concentrate on you.”

“All of a sudden you’re an expert on women?”

“Not on women, Arnold. Gretchen. I’m an expert on Gretchen Kane.”

“You’ve never shown interest in a woman in your entire life!”

“Which doesn’t necessarily mean I do not understand Gretchen.”

McDowell turned from Talbot in exasperation. Talbot sometimes irritated him. This was one of those times. Sitting there playing that card game while their entire operation was tumbling down. Sure, maybe Talbot could accept the collapse without batting an eye. After all, blackmail wasn’t basically his meat. Give him a killing. That’s what Talbot liked. Hand him an envelope stuffed with crisp bills, point to the victim and turn away. Talbot was glacially efficient. It was why the tough boys liked him. It was why Talbot — certified public accountant, tax expert, with a palatial office in the Adams Building — sometimes made long trips out of the city.

McDowell went to the open French doors and stood concentrating on Gretchen Kane. She was stretched out on a lounge chair on the balcony, soaking up the sun. Dark glasses bridged her nose. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed behind those glasses. Thirty-six, indolent, she was a handsome brunette who had sense enough to remain a brunette, with a soft line of cheek and throat, good strong legs, and a fascinating appetite for double gibsons and korma-curry. A hyacinth colored sunsuit hugged the lines of her body with a provocative plunge of neckline. Her skin was tanned a honey-colored brown.

McDowell said softly, “Reconsider, Gretch?”

“No, darling.” She didn’t stir.

He walked into the sunshine, stood looming over her. “This has been a good thing for all of us. You have lived well. The suites, the clothes, the...”

“We’ve run our line, Arnold. I can feel it. There’s going to be a killing. Talbot is...”

“Talbot is necessary.”

“Is he?”

“He’s our ace in the hole. Our threat.”

“I don’t want anything to do with murder.”

“There isn’t going to be a murder.”

“With Talbot there is. Sooner or later there’s going to be someone who will not bend under the pres sure, someone who will go to the police — and then there will be Talbot. And it’s going to happen soon, maybe the next time out. I can feel it.”

“You’re not psychic.”

“Right now, darling, I feel very psychic. And I want to go to California. I want out.”

“One more, Gretch. Doctor Lynne.”

“No.”

“He’s strictly a pigeon. No sweat. He’s sixty-four. He has a wife, an exclusive practice — and, most important, he already has a reputation. He likes young women. You can wrap him around your little finger. One trip to his office and you will have him up here. Then the tape recordings, the bite and the payoff. It can be big. He has that kind of money.”

“Payoff?” She laughed hollowly. “This time, darling, the payoff is murder. I feel it inside. This time Talbot will...”

“With someone else perhaps,” McDowell conceded begrudgingly, “but not with Lynne. He’s a cinch.”

“No. I want out. That’s final.”

McDowell turned from the balcony in quick anger. “Talbot,” he said in an ominously soft voice when he was out of Gretchen’s hearing range, “I have a job for you.”

“She’s your woman,” Talbot said without looking up from the cards.

“She has suddenly become very dangerous to us. She could talk.”

Talbot remained silent.

“I want her killed,” McDowell said.

Talbot flipped a card, placed it. “So kill her.”

“That’s your line.”

“Not in this particular case, Arnold.”

“Why not?”

“Do you plan to continue the operation?”

“Certainly. It’s very lucrative. You know that.”

“And we will continue to be partners?”

“Naturally.”

“Then you kill her, Arnold. I don’t want it hanging over my head. Someday it could ruin our partnership. You have an uncanny knack of holding a grudge.”

“Dammit, you’re falling down on your end of our deal! Cheat!”

The two men stared at each other for a long time. And then Talbot finally sighed deeply. “All right, Arnold. Let’s play a game.”

“What!”

“Fifty-fifty chance. You interested?”

“Chance on what?”

“Which one of us kills your woman.”

“Oh, no!”

“I’m conceding. I shouldn’t, but I like this set up. It pays off, so I’m conceding to a degree. I’ll take a chance. I don’t want to kill Gretchen for you because I think it will backfire someday. Still — I’ll cut the cards with you.”

“You’ll what?”

Talbot gathered the deck of cards, shuffled them expertly and put them on the low coffee table. He looked out toward Gretchen Kane on the balcony, and then suddenly he was looking up at McDowell hard. “We cut,” he said. “High card deals. High card kills her.”

McDowell was ashen when he cut a Jack of Clubs. Talbot reshuffled the deck and cut an Eight of Hearts.

McDowell looked trapped in the grip of terrible indecision. “I... I don’t know whether I have... the stomach.”

“It’s really quite simple,” Talbot said with a vague shrug. “Push her from the balcony. Very little pain. It’s twenty-four floors.”

“Now?”

“Certainly not now. You have to set it up.”

“B-but...”

Talbot appeared to think deeply as McDowell stumbled for the words. “All right,” Talbot said finally, “I’ll set it up for you.”

McDowell’s mouth worked, but no words came out.

“We’ll make it tomorrow night,” Talbot said as he began placing the cards for a new game of solitaire. “We’ll use my office, the night watchman in the building, a mannequin and a tape. And...” Talbot hesitated, then placed a card carefully. “Yes, an outfit from my kit. One of the disguises for you. Nothing elaborate, just a little something that will keep others in this building from recognizing you.”

“I... I don’t understand any of this!” McDowell exploded.

“Patience, Arnold,” Talbot said with equanimity. “Think of the physical makeup of my office, the entry room and the frosted glass door between it and my private sanctuary. The fire escape outside my sixth floor window. It’s perfect.”

Talbot placed three consecutive cards face up and grinned. “I’ll inform Mr. Jamison, the night watchman, that I have a very important client coming in tomorrow night on a tax matter, a client who is demanding discretion and secrecy. We are to meet in my office. And to absolutely insure that we have complete privacy I will need someone sitting in the entry room to block the charwoman, a late straggler, or anyone who might return to the building for night work. That someone will be Mr. Jamison.”

“But...” McDowell began.

He cut it off when Talbot raised a hand. Talbot placed another card. His grin spread. He was winning. “I’ll seat the mannequin in front of my desk. I will be behind the desk playing the tape of our voices, a tape we’ll make tonight. Jamison will be in the entry room. By placing a lamp strategically, he will be able to see our silhouettes through the frosted glass. He will also hear our voices. There now. You have your alibi and your witness. How could you possibly be in my office and three and a half miles across town at the same time?”

“I... I can’t,” McDowell said hesitantly. He sounded totally befuddled.

“We’ll also select the disguise tonight,” Talbot said thoughtfully. “I think a red wig, a mustache, dark-rimmed glasses and something to fatten you around the middle will do it. You might also limp.” He paused again. “No. The limp is out. You’ll forget it in your excitement. And we don’t want someone remembering a man who limped coming up to this suite and a man who did not limp leaving.”

He turned five cards without placing them on the table and his grin began to fade. “You will come up here at nine o’clock sharp,” he said almost absently. “You will let yourself inside, knock Gretchen unconscious immediately to keep her from screaming, toss her from the balcony, leave without running, take a bus to my building and come up the fire escape to my office. I will have the window open for you. We will then remove and hide the disguise along with the mannequin and tape, and confront Jamison in the entry. It will be imperative that he sees us coming out of my office. We might even converse with him for a few seconds so that he will be absolutely sure to remember you when the police want to quiz you about your whereabouts at the time your love fell — or jumped — to her death.”

McDowell stood rooted in open-mouthed fascination. “Fan-tastic!”

“But good,” Talbot said flatly.

“My ears are burning.”

McDowell jerked convulsively at the sound of Gretchen’s voice. Talbot, without moving, watched her come in from the balcony. She approached them with great animation and a tiny smile working at the corners of her red lips. She swept off the dark glasses. “Why is it people sometimes know when others are talking about them?”

Talbot shrugged and scowled down on the cards spread before him. He had been defeated again. He gathered and stacked the cards swiftly. “Arnold tells me you are planning to retire.”

“In California,” she said. “In the sun.”

“Have fun.”

“I expect to.”

The city shimmered in neon and the light of a full moon on the night of the murder. Talbot sat in his office in the Adams building and stared out on the kaleidoscope of artificial color. The hour hand of his wrist watch crawled from nine to ten o’clock. He waited patiently, only half listening to the voices that came from the tape recording on his desk. He turned, smiled faintly on the mannequin seated opposite him and took a fresh deck of cards from a drawer.

He was in his third game of solitaire when he heard the noise on the fire escape below his window. He gathered the cards, stacked them neatly, put them in the drawer and watched the legs slide through the open window.

Gretchen Kane swept off the red wig and dark-rimmed glasses and removed the layers of towels from inside her clothing. Then she stood before Talbot, tall and beautiful and desirable. She was smiling happily.

“He’s dead?” Talbot asked.

“Smooth as silk, darling,” she purred. She handed him a small automatic. “Just one shot, dead center.”

Talbot laughed softly.

She came to him and fitted her body against his. Her palms were warm against his ears and her lips were full and damp against his mouth. “Have I ever told you that I love you?” she asked.

“Many times,” he chuckled. “Why do you think Arnold had to die?”

“Darling, you have a marvelous mind.”

Talbot put her off gently, quieted the tape recording and carried the full-breasted mannequin into a closet. He locked the door and smiled on her again.

“To California?” she asked.

“In about a month,” he said. “We can’t afford to make the police suspicious.”

He kissed her briefly and opened the frosted door. Jamison, the night watchman, gave them a crooked grin and unfolded from a chair. Talbot pressed a twenty dollar bill into Jamison’s palm. “Business completed,” he said.

Jamison grinned down on the bill. “Well, thank you, Mr. Talbot! I sure won’t forget this night!”

“Please don’t,” Gretchen Kane said significantly.