Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet

I told him all about the conversation with the stranger, the whole theory of murder as a hobby, the idea of choosing the dregs of life as victims because they weren't likely to be missed.

'Sounds screwy when you talk about it, doesn't it?' I concluded. 'All the while, I thought it was a gag.'

The sergeant glanced at the bowling bag, then looked at me. 'It's no gag,' he said. 'That's probably just how the killer's mind worked. I know all about him — everybody on the force has studied those Torso Slaying cases inside and out for years. The story makes sense. The murderer left town twenty years ago, when things got too hot. Probably he did join up over in Europe, and maybe he stayed on in the Occupation countries when the war ended. Then he got the urge to come back and start all over again.'

'Why?' I asked.

'Who knows? Maybe it was a hobby with him. A sort of a game he played. Maybe he liked to win trophies. But imagine what nerve he had, walking into a Bowling Convention and pulling off a stunt like that? Carrying a bowling bag so he could take the — '

I guess he saw the look on my face because he put his hand on my shoulder. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I know how you feel. Had a pretty close shave yourself, just talking to him. Probably the cleverest psychopathic murderer who ever lived. Consider yourself lucky.'

I nodded and headed for the door. I could still make that midnight train, now. And I agreed with the sergeant about the close shave, the cleverest psychopathic murderer in the world.

I agreed that I was lucky, too. I mean there at the last moment, when that stupid sneak-thief ran out of the tavern and I gave him the bowling bag that leaked. Lucky for me he never noticed I'd switched bags with him.

…Said Jack The Ripper by ROBERT ARTHUR

I wish to direct myself particularly to the realists among you. Dummies — the ones I know at any rate — can be quite vocal. May I ask that you never pooh-pooh the utterances made by them and other inanimate objects. If you, for example, should bark your shins on a chair that gets in your way, kick it, berate it, but, for heaven's sake, do not deny it its right to talk back.

* * *

Two weeks before the annual opening, Atlantic Beach Park was a ghost town by night, wrapped in shadowed silence. A mist riding in from the ocean twined itself around the Ferris wheel, hid the deserted roller coaster, made the street lights into shimmering yellow blobs.

Inside the one big room of the rickety building that housed Pop Dillon's Chamber of Horrors — The Waxworks Museum Supreme — a dusty bulb on the end of a long drop cord gave a little light, but left the corners full of shadows that seemed to crouch as if about to spring. A lifetime in the carnival business had made Pop, a wizened little man, a night owl. Now he was getting his assortment of murderers, cutthroats, criminals and victims ready for the coming season — mostly a matter of brushing off the winter's dust or mending a few moth holes in the costumes.

Humming tunelessly, Pop adjusted the flowing necktie of Holmes, the Chicago murder king whose odd hobby had been to cut up pretty young women in his basement. Then he went on to John Dillinger.

'Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,' Pop sang in a monotone to himself, 'merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream… Hello, Mr. Dillinger. You're looking fine. But what a condition to let your gun get into. Rusty!'

Dillinger didn't answer. Sometimes he did; sometimes he didn't. It depended on his mood. Pop was always willing to chat when one of his wax figures seemed in the mood, and he had had a number of interesting conversations with some of them, such as the ones he had with Jack the Ripper, who was naturally boastful. Others, though, never spoke a word — they were the silent types. Pop never tried to force them to talk — even a wax dummy had a right to privacy, he figured.

Pop was dusting Jack the Ripper, who with knife in hand kneeled over a female victim, a fiendish smile on his face, when he heard the front door open.

'Pop!' It was Hendryx, the beat cop, a friendly, burly young fellow who came forward into the circle of light as Pop turned. 'Got something to tell you.'

'Yeah,' Pop said eagerly, curiously.

'Want to warn you. It happened just a couple hours ago.'

'Yeah?'

'Your old pal Burke Morgan escaped. On the way to the Shore Beach Penitentiary — '

'Morgan escaped?' Pop's creased features registered dismay. 'But he's going to the electric chair at midnight.'

'Was going.'

'You mean he's not?'

'He had the nerve to petition the Governor to postpone his execution. Said he wasn't well enough to be executed. Imagine that. He'd been in the prison hospital with something or other. What do you think of that for nerve?'

Pop could only shake his head.

'Of course the Governor said no. But the way it turned out, that didn't make any difference, far as Burke's getting out. So I thought I'd better warn you.'

'That's bad,' Pop said. 'His escaping.'

'It was all set. Then things start happening. The Governor he orders Morgan transferred to Shore Beach Pen when they find the chair up at the state pen's not working.'

'But you said he wasn't going to be electrocuted — '

'He got away. Four guards in the prison van, and he got away. A big truck comes along, smacks into the van and knocks it over.'

'Oh, that's very bad.'

'They had to cut Morgan out of that van with acetylene torches. And these two guys that done it had machine guns — that's the way I heard it.'

'Oh, he must be caught,' Pop moaned. 'My whole summer'll be ruined if he isn't.'

'I wanted to warn you. They think he's wounded. And that's not going to help his disposition none. Well, I got to be on my way. Just wanted to tell you so you'd be on the lookout.'

'My whole summer,' Pop said dolefully. 'Look over here, Hendryx, at this new display. It'll be a great drawing card, but only if Morgan is electrocuted.'

'Should be going,' Hendryx said as he followed Pop to a realistic electric chair set on a platform in the middle of the room. Then he asked, 'What's the pitch, Pop?'

'Why, down in the workroom I'm making a wax figure of Burke Morgan. It's going to sit in that electric chair. Nice one, isn't it? And you know I got it quite reasonable from that theatrical supply firm down on Race Street.'

'That girl holding the tray. That's supposed to be Alice Johnson, isn't it?'

'And sitting at the table is Pretty Boy Thomas. It's the same table he was eating at when Morgan stepped up to the window of the Briny Spray Oyster House down by the boardwalk and shot him because of their little argument.'

'That sure looks like Pretty Boy, Pop. He sure looks alive — which of course he ain't.'

'I'm going to call this exhibit, 'Burke Morgan, the Quiz Winner, Electrocuted as His Victims Watch.''

'Good idea, Pop. But now I gotta get going. Just wanted to warn you. Case you hear anybody trying to get in, you'd better call us quick.'

'That Burke Morgan's a vain one. Being on that quiz program just blew him up all the more. Always boasting how much he read on Crime and Criminals, so having that subject on the quiz was a natural for him. Just the same he did come to me to talk about my boarders.'