Alfred Hitchcock Presents: 16 Skeletons From My Closet

'That's Morgan all right,' Hendryx said.

'You know what he said to me? He said other criminals were illiterate and that's why they were always caught. And he tells me that he had killed twelve men — one whole dozen — and had never even been suspected.'

'Okay, Pop. Just you be careful.'

Hendryx left. For a moment Pop looked gloomy as he walked over to the carefully set table where a handsome, curly-haired figure sat as if eating. Pop began to dust the dishes and silver and rearrange them.

'That's life, Pretty Boy,' he sighed. 'Get a nice exhibit worked out and then Burke Morgan has to escape. But maybe I can save it yet — reenact the murder maybe, when Morgan shot you just as you were eating oysters. What was that quarrel about between you two, anyway?'

He waited, but Pretty Boy did not answer. Probably Pretty Boy felt upset over the escape, too. Naturally, he'd rather have been part of an exhibit showing Morgan electrocuted than of one that re-created his own violent death.

Pop turned to the wax figure of Alice Johnson, a slender girl with dark brown hair and rather wistful eyes, the girl who had witnessed the murder. He straightened Alice's apron, made sure the tray was firm. Then he fluffed up her hair. 'There,' he said, 'you look pretty, Alice.'

He thought he heard her say, 'Thank you,' but he couldn't be sure. Alice was still extremely shy and hardly ever talked above a whisper.

Alice looked so pretty that Pop could not restrain himself from saying, 'If only you hadn't screamed, Alice, Morgan might not have noticed you and shot you. But there, don't look so upset, I shouldn't have brought it up. I know it's a painful memory, but you'll be happy here with us, Alice, really you will. This summer you'll get to see thousands of new people, and they'll all admire you, you'll see. And after all, it was because you screamed that Morgan got caught.'

Pop tactfully left Alice to recover her composure and went on dusting his way toward the darkest corner of the room. There he stopped. The figure standing there was out of place.

'Now, Burke Morgan,' he said reprovingly, 'what are you doing in this corner?'

'All right, Pop,' the figure said softly. 'Take it easy, don't make me kill you.'

Pop's expression became severe. His figures were allowed to talk, but they weren't permitted to threaten him.

'Don't talk like that, Morgan,' he said, 'or I'll put you in a dark closet for a week. Besides, you're not finished yet. So you just go right back down to the workshop.'

The waxworks figure stepped forward, blue-steel glinting in its hand.

'This is me, Burke Morgan,' the soft, curiously cultured voice said. 'You don't really think one of your dummies is going to start talking to you?'

'Of course they do,' Pop told him, realizing that this Burke Morgan was flesh and blood, not wax. Apparently, he had slipped into the Chamber of Horrors to hide. 'Almost all of them talk to me. Jack the Ripper and Billy the Kid are especially good talkers. They're the boastful type. Only Jesse James never says a word. I think Jesse James is angry because folks don't pay him much attention any more.'

'Break the connection, you're talking too much.' Morgan stepped forward, patted Pop's pockets, then put away his own gun. 'If you want to be around to open this nightmare factory next month, you'd better do just as I say.'

'Oh, I will,' Pop promised. 'So will everybody here. We don't want to get hurt. Most everybody here except me has been killed once already, and that's enough.'

'The cops have this place surrounded. And I have a flesh wound in my shoulder. I must get to the hiding place my friends have waiting for me. That's where you come in.'

Pop shook his head doubtfully. 'There just isn't any way. The police will spot that prison suit right away.'

'But what is the one thing they won't notice tonight?' Burke Morgan almost purred. 'Another cop. You have a half dozen dummies here wearing police uniforms. I want one of those uniforms.'

'Why, that's very clever.' Pop cocked his head and listened. 'They all think it's very clever, Burke. Jack the Ripper says you're a very artful dodger.'

'Never mind Jack the Ripper. A man has to have brains and imagination to stay on top in any business, Pop, and I have them. That's why I'm here now and not up in the state pen waiting to walk through that little green door. Now help me off with this — My shoulder! You'll have to cut this jacket off me.'

'Oh, I don't want to do that! Why, if I can get that suit off without cutting it, I can still have an exhibit. I can show the very prison suit you escaped in, the night you were to be electrocuted.'

'Pop, don't get me angry. The doc at the prison said getting angry was bad for me, so I'm being gentle with you. I don't care if twenty-five years of running this private morgue has scrambled your gears so you think your dummies talk to you, but just don't play games with me.'

'Oh, they don't just talk to me,' Pop explained. 'They talk to each other too. You should have heard them talking the night you killed Pretty Boy and Alice Johnson, right over by the boardwalk. My, they were excited — Oh, I'm sorry. I'll cut that coat right off you and I won't say another word.'

'Pop!' The word was like a pistol shot. 'Someone's rattling the front door!'

'Probably Hendryx came back.' Pop looked toward the door. 'He's the only one it could be.'

'Get rid of him!' The tall man with the strange light blue eyes slipped behind a group of figures at a card table. One of the figures was Jesse James, and behind him Howard, his slayer, was creeping up with a drawn revolver. At the card table Morgan froze into immobility, appeared to be a spectator.

'I'll stand here until he's gone,' Morgan whispered. 'Remember, I have you covered. The wrong word and you and the cop'll be exhibits in this three-dimensional cemetery.'

'I'll be careful,' Pop promised. 'Everybody, you must promise not to make a sound. Especially you, Billy the Kid!' He raised his voice. 'Is that you, Hendryx?'

The burly young cop came through the door.

'Just wanted to warn you again, Pop. Morgan was seen entering the amusement park an hour ago. We're going to search the whole place inch by inch. We got orders to shoot to kill.'

'Oh, please don't shoot him! If you catch him alive, he'll still go to the electric chair and then I can use my new exhibit.'

There was a tiny sound, a brief movement. Young Hendryx stared toward the group of dummies around the card table.

'Pop, one of those dummies moved!'

'Oh, they couldn't have! I made them promise not to.'

But Hendryx already had his gun out, moving toward the card table tableau. He had taken no more than two steps when the muzzle flare of a.38 flickered shadows over the wax faces of a score of dummy figures, making them seem to grimace in excitement and horror. Hendryx grunted as the bullet hit him, gave a long gurgling sound, and pitched forward on his face.

Pop stood very still.

'You'd better be leaving, Morgan,' he said. 'Even if the police outside didn't hear that shot, they'll be here soon, because they're searching the whole amusement park. They'll find Hendryx and they'll find you, because there isn't any place here to hide either of you.'

'Oh, yes there is,' Burke Morgan told him. 'So I'm staying. First, lay two or three dummies in police uniforms on top of this flatfoot. If anybody asks, they're all going back to the workshop for repairs.'

'That might work, yes indeed, it might,' Pop agreed. 'Dr. Crippen, the English poisoner, says he thinks it will work. But what about you?'

'Don't worry about me, Pop. You forget — I have imagination! So when the police get here, I'll be ready. And you won't give me away or you'll get what Hendryx got. Now get busy piling those dummies on him.'

'Yes, Morgan, I will. And I'll not breathe a word to the police. That goes for all the rest of you.' Pop raised his voice. 'If the police come, not a word about this, do you hear?'

He waited, then nodded.

'They've promised, Morgan,' he said. 'Even Billy the Kid has promised. For my sake. They won't say a word.'