That son of a bitch. That traitor. Cheating on me with Violet all these years and me never guessing. All the drinks and lunches and dinners we had together. Why, he was almost a brother to me! Oh, Fate, how can you be so cruel!
Lady Miranda heard a sob, looked up through her black veil designed especially for her by Mainbocher, saw Nigel Pack crying, and in a snarl across the open graves to him, loud enough to wake the dead, cried, “Hypocrite!”
* * *
“I didn’t!” Slap.
“You did!” Slap.
“Ladies! Ladies!” shouted the matron through the slit in the cell door, “you must stop hitting each other!”
“I can’t stand the sight of her!” shouted Helga.
“She’s a traitorous pig!” screamed Lisl.
“Well, sorry, girls,” said the matron, “but I can’t offer you separate cells.”
Hans Meyer smiled at the newsreel cameras and waved at the women who hurled flowers at him and shouted words of encouragement. He was Britain’s new matinee idol, with his continental good looks, savoir faire, and impeccable mien in the face of adversity. Candies and jellies and pates and aspics were delivered to his cell, along with thousands of love letters and offers of marriage.
“Be brave, lovey!” shouted a secretary. “I’ll always wait for you!”
“Ain’t he gorgeous, Vi?” a shopgirl asked a co-worker.
“A real proper gennelmun, he is,” agreed Vi, “real proper. I’m sure he’s innocent.”
The detectives prodded Hans Meyer into the black van, and as it pulled away from the court house, the driver said to the man at his side, “Did you see her? Did you see that fat blowsy blonde blowin’ kisses at ‘im! That was my missus!”
Madame Lavinia studied the palm of her hand for the tenth time that day and for the tenth time slapped her palm and screamed, “You lie!”
Freddy Regner lived to see a rough cut of The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock had arranged for him to be brought from the hospital to the private screening room on Wardour Street. Freddy looked better now than when Alma had last seen him in the safe house, but they knew it was only a matter of months, possibly less than that, until he would be dead. Amazingly, despite the knowledge of his mortality, he was in a constantly jovial mood. In its own way, his scenario had been a huge success. Hitchcock had made it a success. Freddy was truly happy.
“Now, Freddy,” Hitchcock cautioned him, “you must remember—in this film, any resemblance to people living or dead is absolutely impossible.”
Alma sat in the seat next to the one Hitchcock would occupy, her notebook in her lap, prepared to take the notes Hitchcock would give her during the hour-and-a-half screening. In front of her sat Herbert Grieban, his face swathed in bandages from newly discovered plastic-surgery treatments he was undergoing with a Harley Street specialist. The projectionist was not yet ready to roll the film, and Hitchcock sat down.
“When do the trials begin, Herbert?” asked Hitchcock.
“It will be months. Maybe years. There is so much preparation necessary. Tell me, Hitch, will I recognize the MacGuffin in this picture?”
“If you don’t, I’ll be terribly surprised.” He shouted to the projectionist. “What’s holding us up?”
“Half a mo!” the projectionist shouted back.
Half a mo’, thought Hitchcock. Oh, well. He had all the time in the world. His adventure would always be fresh in his mind. He recalled that afternoon months ago when he and Alma were reunited and, after Sir Arthur Willing was finished with him, they drove to the cottage to be alone together, and Hitchcock told Alma the entire adventure in his own interpretation. He could still hear her laughter when he finally settled back, hoarse from talking. “What are you laughing at?”
“You, you innocent. Don’t you realize what you’ve been?”
“No, I don’t. What do you mean, what I’ve been?”
“My darling,” said Alma, taking his hand, “you’ve been the MacGuffin!”
Sir Arthur Willing fought hard against his recurring bouts of depression, but it was a difficult fight. Basil Cole had been like a son to him, if a bit of a prissy son, what with his passion for neatness and tidiness. Well, it was all neat and tidy for him now, with nothing in his future but the hangman’s noose. Sir Arthur applied a blazing match to the tobacco in his pipe bowl and stared across his desk at Detective Superintendent Jennings. Their job was finished. The men had grown to like each other. Tonight they were dining together at Simpson’s in the Strand. Now they were completing odds and ends, categorizing odd items of information, some pertinent to Basil Cole’s case, others of little value but put in the file nevertheless.
“Snap out of it, Arthur,” said Jennings. “You won’t be made to suffer for Basil Cole, you know that.”
“There are subtler ways of causing suffering, my boy. It’s his deception over all these years. Why didn’t I suspect? Why didn’t I have a clue?”
“Why didn’t anybody else?” Jennings smiled at Sir Arthur.
Sir Arthur was scratching his head. “Well, there’s one thing to be grateful for.”
“What’s that?”
“Basil didn’t turn out a queer.”
* * *
In the projection room, the film was nearing its end. Hitchcock had given Alma very few notes. The film was good, very good. All it needed was the opening and closing titles and musical score to be ready for the exhibitors. Margaret Lockwood had made a marvelous heroine, a delicious lady in distress. Young Michael Redgrave in his first important role in films was certainly destined for a big future. Paul Lukas was a superb villain, though Hitchcock kept seeing Hans Meyer from time to time, visualizing what he might have been. And of course there was dear old May Whitty as the little old spy, the lady who vanished. And here were the final scenes, Lockwood and Redgrave arriving at British Intelligence trying to remember the little melody, the secret code the old lady had taught them in case she didn’t reach London alive. They were coming down the hall
