Although his friends and neighbors didn’t realize it, he was a man with a mission, and his mission was to kill Carter Malin. It was contrary to his nature to hunt Malin down, but he had an unreasonable conviction that the time would come when he and Malin would meet in circumstances exactly right for murder. Or justice, as he preferred to call it.
After all, Kansas City was not far away, and sooner or later Malin was certain to show up. Perhaps his sales area would be expanded to include this town. Perhaps he would merely stop off on his way through. Perhaps—any number of things. For whatever reason, he would surely come, and in the meanwhile Alvin was prepared and waiting. His position, in short, was a compromise between what he was and what he thought he should be. His great advantage was that Malin had never seen him and wouldn’t recognize him.
And so he waited. And sure enough, nearly three years later, Malin came. Alvin recognized him immediately, but there was no sign of it except the sudden barely discernible throbbing of a pulse in his throat. Malin was as natty and handsome as he had been when Alvin had seen him with Wanda in Kansas City. If he suffered from remorse for Wanda’s fate, it was not apparent. In fact, his appearance of well-being was marred only by the shadow of a twenty-four-hour beard.
Alvin calmly finished the job he was doing, and then turned away. He drew some water into a paper cup. Removing the cyanide capsule from his watch pocket, he swallowed it with the water. There! It was done. In ten minutes he would be beyond the reach of temporal retribution. Any other kind he was willing to risk.
Turning back toward Carter Malin, he bowed slightly with just a touch of deference, holding his tonsorial bib aside like the cape of a matador.
“Next,” he said.
THE TOOL
Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, December 1964.
From his country home, half-hidden in a grove of maples some five hundred yards away, Gavin Brander came across the intervening fields to visit his neighbors, the Singers. To be exact, it was Stella Singer and her daughter, Nettie, that he came to see, although he was prepared to tolerate Cory Singer also, if he happened to be around. Brander was a tall, slender man with the graceful carriage of an excellent tennis player, which he was. It was just after three o’clock when he left for the Singer home, and he hoped that he was not so early that he would be kept waiting for a cocktail.
He approached the house through an old orchard of cherry and apple trees that still bore blossoms in the spring, and fruit in the fall. Under one of the apple trees, a few feet from the fence he had just vaulted, he came upon Nettie. She was sitting on the ground with her back against the tree trunk, and she was eating a green apple on which, before taking each bite, she sprinkled salt from a cellar that she held in her right hand. Her brown hair was so rich and thick that it seemed almost too heavy for her small head and the delicate neck that supported it, and she had a serene golden face that was, apparently, forever brooding pleasantly over some inner cache of warm secrets. She did not speak as he approached, and he stopped and looked down at her with an expression of indulgent affection. Sunlight filtered through the leaves overhead to dapple her white shirt and soiled jeans.
“You know,” he said, “you are going to have the most awful bellyache. Better throw that away.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Green apples never make me sick.”
“That’s rather incredible. It makes me feel squeamish just to watch you.”
“It’s just a foolish notion people have about them. In my opinion, green apples are good for you. In moderation, of course.”
“Perhaps it’s the salt. Do you think so?”
“I doubt it. The salt makes them taste better, that’s all. Would you care to try one? I’ll loan you my salt if you would.”
“No, thank you. I don’t believe I’ll risk it. Why are you sitting out here in the orchard?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“For me? That’s very flattering, I must say. I should think, however, that you could have waited at the house.”
“Mother’s at the house, and I wanted to see you alone.”
This was in precise conformity with his own wishes. Although he had come to see both mother and daughter, he preferred, for his own reasons, to see them separately. Now, balanced on his toes, he sat down easily on his heels.
“What did you want to see me about?”
She salted the green apple and took a bite. Her heavy hair fell forward, shadowing her eyes, and he was a little startled by the glint of malice that darted out of the shadows.
“Thanks to you,” she said, “things have become very difficult in our family.”
“Is that so? I’m sorry. In what way?”
“Cory doesn’t like me. He’s afraid of me, I think. He wants to send me away to school in September.”
“It’s absurd for a grown man to be afraid of a young girl. What makes you think he is?”
“Because I hate him, and he knows it. I wish he were dead.”
“How do you know he wants to send you away to school? Has he discussed it with you?”
“No. He’s only discussed it with Mother, but I overheard them talking.”
“That was lucky for you, wasn’t it? Now you know what to expect.”
Her eyes, in the shadow of her hair, were bright for an instant with an expression of sly amusement.
“It isn’t difficult to hear and see things if you know how to go about it. I’ve listened to Mother and Cory talking lots of times.”
“Oh?”
