Alfred Hitchcock Presents 12 Stories for Late at Night by Alfred Hitchcock

Author:Alfred Hitchcock [Hitchcock, Alfred]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

By Friday morning there was still no sign from Hollia. Sue telephoned at noon. Oliver knew the crackle of her voice over the wire when Kleph took the call. Even the crackle sounded hysterical; Sue saw her bargain slipping hopelessly through her grasping little fingers.

Kleph’s voice was soothing. “I am sorry,” she said many times, in the intervals when the voice paused. “I am truly sorry. Believe me, you will find it does not matter. I know. . .I am sorry—”

She turned from the phone at last. “The girl says Hollia has given up,” she told the others.

“Not Hollia,” Klia said firmly.

Omerie shrugged. “We have very little time left. If she intends anything more, it will be tonight. We must watch for it.”

“Oh, not tonight!” Kleph’s voice was horrified. “Not even Hollia would do that!”

“Hollia, my dear, in her own way is quite as unscrupulous as you are,” Omerie told her with a smile.

“But—would she spoil things for us just because she can’t be here?”

“What do you think?” Klia demanded.

Oliver ceased to listen. There was no making sense out of their talk, but he knew that by tonight whatever the secret was must surely come into the open at last. He was willing to wait and see.

For two days excitement had been building up in the house and the three who shared it with him. Even the servants felt it and were nervous and unsure of themselves. Oliver had given up asking questions—it only embarrassed his tenants—and watched.

All the chairs in the house were collected in the three front bedrooms. The furniture was rearranged to make room for them, and dozens of covered cups had been set out on trays. Oliver recognized Kleph’s rose-quartz set among the rest. No steam rose from the thin crescent-openings, but the cups were full. Oliver lifted one and felt a heavy liquid move within it, like something half-solid, sluggishly.

Guests were obviously expected, but the regular dinner hour of nine came and went, and no one had yet arrived. Dinner was finished; the servants went home. The Sanciscos went to their rooms to dress, amid a feeling of mounting tension.

Oliver stepped out on the porch after dinner, trying in vain to guess what it was that had wrought such a pitch of expectancy in the house. There was a quarter moon swimming in haze on the horizon, but the stars which had made every night of May thus far a dazzling translucency, were very dim tonight. Clouds had begun to gather at sundown, and the undimmed weather of the whole month seemed ready to break at last.

Behind Oliver the door opened a little, and closed. He caught Kleph’s fragrance before he turned, and a faint whiff of the fragrance of the euphoriac she was much too fond of drinking. She came to his side and slipped a hand into his, looking up into his face in the darkness.

“Oliver,” she said very softly. “Promise me one thing. Promise me not to leave the house tonight.”

“I’ve already promised that,” he said a little irritably.

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