John Bellowes, their solicitor. He would call John and tell him what had happened. John would know what to do. Hitchcock went back to the sitting room to the telephone and groaned with dismay. The wire had been cut. The bastards thought of everything; why couldn’t his scriptwriters? He rushed from the flat, down the steps, and hurried across the street to the phone kiosk. Damn, damn, damn! The wires were clipped there, too! Such efficiency had to be admired. In the dense fog, Hitchcock pulled up his jacket collar and went hurrying in search of another kiosk. They couldn’t have vandalized all of them along Cromwell Road.
John Bellowes was a rare species of solicitor. People liked him. He was sympathetic. He didn’t drone on and on in the lawyerese that most normal people found boring. He was a sensible man married to a sensible woman he’d met while a student at Oxford. Bettina, his wife, had a wealthy father, which again made a great deal of sense. The Bellowes, with their two young sons, ages nine and six, lived quite sensibly in a sensibly detached house in Hampstead.
This night John and Bettina had planned a quiet evening together. After supper, with the boys sensibly tucked in bed, they planned to play backgammon, after which Bettina would sensibly read a chapter or two of the latest Evelyn Waugh and John would sensibly study his briefs for the next day. Then Alfred Hitchcock phoned and nearly drove John Bellowes out of his senses.
“What do you mean, you think you’ve killed a man and Alma has been abducted? Hitch, are you drunk?” Bellowes barked into the phone while Bettina stood behind him wringing her hands like a silent screen heroine about to be tied to the rails. She liked the Hitchcocks, although she thought the director was too fat and his wife a bit aloof, but then, they were cinema people and John warned her all cinema people were a little strange, especially directors and their wives.
Hitchcock shouted into the phone. “I am not drunk, and this is a nightmare. Now listen carefully. Oh, God, how my head aches!” He carefully told him the story of the attack by the thugs, Almas abduction, his awakening with a bloodied knife in his hand, and a fourth man lying dead from a stab wound in his back. “No, I haven’t the vaguest idea who the dead man was. No, I did not look for any identification. My mind was not on identifying him. My only thought was to run and somehow find Alma. I didn’t even stop to wipe my fingerprints from the knife hilt.”
“Well, that wasn’t very clever,” editorialized John Bellowes.
“In times of stress, I’m hard put to be clever. Now listen carefully.…” He instructed his solicitor to phone Jennings at Scotland Yard and relay the information to him. “And when you’re finished, put in a good word for me. I have to go now.”
“Hitch! Hitch!” Bellowes shouted into the phone, “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to church!”
“Hitch! Hitch!” Bellowes shouted, then said to his wife, “He’s rung off.”
“Darling, I’ve never heard you shouting so forcefully before,” said his wife, “Is something wrong? What’s Alfred done?”
“His worst, my dear, he’s done his worst. And Alma’s gone missing.”
“What? Alma’s missing? Alma isn’t the type.”
He ignored her as he phoned Scotland Yard and asked to be put through to Jennings, who listened carefully to Bellowes’ opening line and then asked him to hold on a moment. He shouted for a stenographer into his intercom, and when one came on, told him to get on to an extension phone and take down every word of the conversation. Then he returned to Bellowes, who thoroughly and succinctly relayed the information he’d received from Hitchcock.
“The murdered man. He didn’t know the identity of the murdered man?” Jennings had paled. It could be Angus McKellin. He looked at his wristwatch. It was not yet eight o’clock, when McKellin’s replacement was due to come on duty.
“He didn’t.” Then Bellowes added, as the convincer to illustrate Hitchcock’s befuddled state of mind, “He didn’t even wipe his fingerprints from the knife hilt!”
Jennings glared at the mouthpiece while thinking, thank God for small favors. He asked Bellowes to repeat his name, phone number, and address for the benefit of the stenographer and advised him he’d be in touch with him. “And be sure to let me know if you hear from Hitchcock again!” Jennings rang off and ordered a squad car with three detectives in it to meet him in the driveway in five minutes. Then he got through to Sir Arthur Willing on Willing’s private line, who after he had digested Jennings’ information, said softly, “Tally ho, we’re off to the races.” Then Sir Arthur instructed his secretary to round up Nigel Pack and Basil Cole; there was a long night’s work in store for them.
Hitchcock took the tube to King’s
