Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 43: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

If people weren’t constantly talking too much and thereby getting themselves killed, a frightening de- pression would occur in a business that shall remain : nameless. Which makes it something of a dilemma, therefore, whether to cheer for Lurline or her garru- lous bat of a mother in this—ah—slice of life—here presented for your entertainment. Ugh! by Sam Merwin, Jr. Huurune cassiy finished sewing the scrap of veil on her little black hat. Then she held the hat up, turning it, appraising it. Across the green-walled rectan- gle of the hotel room, Lurline’s mother, Martha, was busily paint- ing a cigar box. She liked to give the boxes she decorated to friends or acquaintances on birthdays and Christmas. “Everybody sends cards,” she en- joyed saying with a supercilious tilt of her head, a smug dilation of thin nostrils. “I think it’s so much nicer to give something you’ve done yourself. Long fin- gers touched pale, henna-dyed hair. “Tt conveys so much more.” Martha was talking as she painted—as usual, whenever her daughter got home from the de- partment store where she sold la- dies’ dresses, marked down. Also as usual, she was talking about A DATE WITH JONATHAN Pai Hollywood, about the scandals of the old days, when she had been a young widow and Lurline, her hair tediously arranged in Shirley Temple ringlets, had had tiny bit parts and been the family meal ticket, something she still was. Martha interrupted her chatter to regard Lurline, noted the hat and said, “really, that’s very clever —almost like a new hat.” Then, shaking her head, “It’s a pity you had to take after your father in- stead of my side of the family. You were such an adorable moppet. If only you could have stayed that way a year or two longer, I feel certain as I’m sitting right here that you’d have been a star.” “Yes, Martha,” Lurline replied dutifully. She seldom bothered to point out her mother’s inconsist- encies any more. They occurred so frequently, and the arguments that resulted when she did try to straighten Martha out invariably ended in confusion, recrimination and tears. She arose and tried on the hat in front of the battered hotel dress- 4] COMMIGLOOOKS EO)