Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 63: what you’re looking at

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

-ing her against. him, his arms locked around hers. “Now, : listen,” he said, his mouth almost against her face. “You want to play rough, Ill do it, but it’s my game, baby, and you won't like the way it turns out. So what do you want to do? Play nice—behave yourself—or go out of here without your front teeth?” Blue eyes blazed at him help- lessly. Her throat rippled with the effort to speak. “You'll behave?” “Just nod for yes.” She hesitated. Then, all the an- ger went out of her eyes, and tears filled them; she nodded, sobbing. Mitch took the tape from her mouth. He was all set for a scream or a struggle, but neither came. All the fight had left her, appar- ently, for she stayed where she was, weeping as helplessly as a baby. Her body trembled against his as she wept. Trembled in an ex- tremely pleasant way. Mitch gave her a few experimental pats, he stroked her and was met with only token resistance. “You s-stop that”—but she did- n’t move away. In fact, she seemed to cuddle a little closer. “First you ch-cheat me, and then y-you—” “Now, now,” Mitch said. “I did- n’t like it either, baby. It was just business, you know, nothing per- sonal.” “T was sorry for you! I Llost my said, Mitch THE CELLINI CHALICE job last night and I’m almost broke, but I felt s-so sorry for you that—” Mitch clicked his tongue re- morsefully. He murmured that he was terribly, terribly ashamed of himself, and that he was going to start right now to turn over a new leaf. “Y-you—you mean”—she shifted her red head, stared hopefully into his eyes. “You mean you'll—” “That’s just what I mean, honey. We'll split the take right down the middle. Half for you, half for me.” “Ooooh!” she kissed him wildly. “You darling, darling! You know what I’m going to do for you?” “Let me guess,” said Mitch, and he increased his patting. Needless to say, he wasn’t going to split Doc’s grand with her. The only dough she’d get out of him would be her cab-fare, and she wouldn’t get that until morning. “You're so sweet to me, I’m go- ing to be sweet to you. I'll give you half of the eight thousand / get from Doctor Krug.” “Fine. Swell. You'll give... Mitch stared at her. “Something wrong, darling?” “N-nothing.” Mitch fought to control: his voice. “So Doc told you he’d paid me eight grand for the cup?” “Uh-huh. Well, no, he didn’t ei- ther, exactly. He came out to the house to see if I had another cup. A chalice he called it, a Cellini chalice, like the one I gave you. - 61 39 COMMiclooolks.c@