Geri Brandner - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 18, No. 5, May 1973

Dear Reader:

Since everyone had a mother and a father, we will make a rather timely bow to that segment of our society this month and let them compare their own progeny with those of the authors who grace these pages. The chances are excellent that few readers offspring are able to match the miscreants depicted herein.

For instance, how many parents may claim a kidnapper for a daughter, or a strangler for a son? I am reasonably sure the list is not long.

Of course, no one is perfect, and so along with the infamous we also present a few shining examples of the more widely accepted methods of child-rearing. From A Message from Andrea by Robert Colby to The Graft Is Green by novelettist Harold Q. Masur, you may find a few random characters to gladden any proper parental heart. Never let it be said that I am biased in favor of evil (but isnt it stimulating).

Good reading.

Alfred Hitchcock

Close association, experience dictates, has a propensity for wielding immeasurable influence for good or for evil.

Stanford Tillman, one of the ten richest men in the world, numbered among his holdings the Tillman Land Development Company, Tillman Real Estate, Tillman Mining, Tillman Oil, and a controlling interest in the Tricontinental All Risk Insurance Company.

Tillman, a lean, athletic forty-two, lived in Bel Air, in a rambling house surrounded by grand old trees amid casual groupings of shrubs and flowers. There were three servants: a maid and a cook who commuted daily, and a chauffeur, Fred Hammond, who lived in quarters above the garage.

Although his place was not nearly so pretentious as some in the neighborhood, Tillman had no need for a mansion, for only he and his twenty-eight year old wife, Andrea, lived there. They had been married just over a year and were still in the honeymoon stage. Stanford was not simply in love with Andrea; she was a more obsessive passion than his whole commercial empire, and Andrea worshiped him.

That was the way it was on a Monday evening in October, as Tillman prepared to leave for Sacramento. There, in concert with other brass who controlled the insurance companies dominating California, he was to meet with the governor to discuss a proposed bill for mandatory auto insurance.

It was dusk. The dark-blue limousine had been brought around to the front of the house and Hammond was loading a suitcase into the trunk. Stanford Tillman, carrying a portfolio containing pertinent insurance statistics for the meeting, appeared in the doorway with Andrea. She was a beautiful woman, with a superbly proportioned figure and her proud, queenly stance seemed effortless, almost casual.

Tillmans strong, youthful features were sun-bronzed and unlined. He did not appear to be incongruously matched with Andrea, despite a difference of fourteen years in their ages.

With an arm about her waist, he said, Sure you wouldnt like to come along with me, Andrea dear? Three days without you is going to be absolute torture.

Oh, I know, I know. She frowned unhappily. But none of the other wives are going and Id be at loose ends. Still, I might fly up Wednesday afternoon and then we could have one night and come back together Thursday.

A fine idea! Is that a promise? he pleaded.

Mmm. She nodded. I do solemnly swear.

Then well plan something special for Wednesday night. Ride with me to the airport and well discuss it on the way.

Id love to, darling, but there wouldnt be time. Im due at the Brunswicks for dinner and I havent begun to get ready.

Well, Im glad youll be staying with Janis and Chet. Youd be depressed rattling around the house alone, and Id worry. He glanced at his watch. See you Wednesday, then, sweetheart. Meantime, Ill phone you at the Brunswicks incessantly.

She turned and lifted her face toward him and he kissed her.

Ill miss you terribly, she murmured. Im a lost child without you.

Hey, its only Sacramento, not the far side of the moon, baby, he said. But dont forget, I love you, honey. He kissed her once more, quickly, then entered the limousine.

Waving, Andrea watched the taillights coast around the curve of the drive, winking once brightly at the road beyond the gate, turning right, then gone.

She went upstairs to their bedroom and began to undress for her bath. Jan Brunswick was an old chum and her best friend so Andrea was looking forward to a couple of days with her (despite Chet, who was jolly but shallow), and the two thundering Brunswick kids, who would be mostly in school. The round trip to the airport should take Fred no more than an hour and a half, by which time she ought to be dressed and waiting for him to drive her to the Brunswick house in Pacific Palisades.

Andrea had stepped from the bath and was drying herself when she heard a muted thump, as of a door closing. Wilma, the maid, had left earlier, while Debby, the cook, had remained to fix dinner for Stan. No doubt that was Debby making her exit from the kitchen, though she should have been gone by now. Her husband, an itinerant gardener, called for her nightly in his truck.

Andrea listened for the starter whine of the truck but heard nothing, and was nudged by a soft finger of alarm. Since Stan was, if anything, overprotective, she was rarely left alone in the house. Yet it was equally rare for Stan to take any sort of trip without her, and this was just an accident of circumstance.

By her tiny, jeweled wristwatch, it would be at least another hour before Fred returned with the limousine. Her clothes were laid out on the bed and she dressed quickly, not really frightened, but a bit unnerved.

She went to the head of the stairs and peered down. A couple of lamps in the livingroom cast a pale glow into the hallway. Cocking her head, she listened. There was nothing but the dignified hush of twilight, the reward to those who can purchase the deep privacy of space and isolation. She descended the stairs and switched on more lamps to cheer the dusky livingroom.

There! That was much better. It was silly to be edgy just because she was left alone for a short time. She was spoiled by too much attention, Andrea reasoned. She crossed to the dining room, entered the kitchen. As expected, it was dark. Though she didnt hear the gardeners truck starting and grinding off, it must have been Debby leaving for the night.

With a shrug, Andrea lighted the kitchen and went to see if the back door had been securely locked.

Fred Hammond braked the limousine before the house, and rang the door chime to signal Mrs. Tillman that he had returned. Then he waited behind the wheel, smoking a cigarette. Hammond, gray and craggy-faced and almost sixty, was a tall, solid chunk of a man, nearly as trim and muscular as he had been at forty, when he was one of the private security cops who made the nightly rounds of the Bel Air estates in a patrol car.

He had been Stanford Tillmans chauffeur for a good many years and had no desire to be anything else. Tillman paid him handsomely and treated him more like a friend than an employee. There was a strong, unspoken bond between them. When Tillman married Andrea, he had told Hammond that henceforth his most important duty would be to keep watch over Mrs. Tillman in his absence, guarding her from the least harm or disturbance. Hammond was pleased to be trusted with such an assignment, for he had discovered at once that Andrea Tillman was a warm, undemanding person who seemed basically unaffected by two of the worlds most generous gifts, wealth and beauty.