Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense (9 page)

“Where did you get a copy of that?” I said, getting to my feet and brushing the damp sand off my swimming trunks.

“Gamecocks are my source of livelihood,” he replied simply. “And I read everything I can concerning gamefowl. Your pamphlet, sir, was excellent.”

“Thank you, but my information was excellent. I didn't know you fought gamecocks on Bequia, however. According to an English mandate passed in 1857, cockfighting was forbidden throughout the empire.”

“I don't fight gamecocks, Mr. Waxman.” He smiled again and held up a hand. “My interest in gamefowl lies in a parallel art: alectryomancy.”

I laughed, but I was interested. I had gone to Bequia because it was a peaceful little island in the Grenadines, and I had hoped to finish a novel. But in three months time I hadn't written a line. Bored, and with little to do but stare sullenly at the sea, I found myself enjoying this curious encounter.

“That's a parallel art,” I agreed, “but I didn't know there were any practitioners of alectryomancy left in the Atomic Age.”

“My rooster has made some fascinating predictions concerning the atom, Mr. Waxman,” the alectryomancer confided. “If you would care to visit me sometime, we could discuss his findings. Or possibly, you might be more interested in obtaining a personal reading—”

“I don't need a gamecock to make predictions for me,” I said truthfully. “If I don't get some work done on my book soon, I'll run out of money and be forced to return to the States and look for work.”

“Isn't your writing going well?”

“It isn't going at all.”

“Then there must be a reason. And only through alectryomancy—”

I cut the interview short and returned to my cottage. After fixing a cup of coffee and thinking about the odd meeting for a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that there might possibly be an article in it. Three or four thousand words on the old fellow's occupation might conceivably find a market in the U.S., and I wasn't getting anywhere with my novel. Of course, alectryomancy is usually considered as a false science, on a par with astrology. A circle is described on the bare ground; the alphabet is then written around the outer edge of the circle, and a grain of corn is placed on each letter. A rooster is tethered to a stake in the center by his left leg, and then as he pecks a grain of corn from the various letters, the letters are written down, in order, and a message of—the science is crazy, really! For one thing, before there could be any validity to the message, the rooster would have to be able to understand a language. And a chicken's brain is about the size of a BB. Still, an article about a practicing alectryomancer would be of interest to a great many people, and I needed the money.

I didn't look the alectryomancer up immediately; things are not done so speedily in the West Indies. I prepared myself for the impending interview by thinking about it for a couple of days, and then made my way to the seer's shack on Mt. Pleasant. Bequia is a small island, and it wasn't difficult to learn where he lived.

“Where,” I asked my maid, “does the old man with the rooster live?”

It is to the woman's credit that she knew to whom I referred, because every resident on the island owns a few chickens and at least one rooster. She gave directions I could understand, and even went so far as to draw a crude map with her finger on the sandy beach in front of the cottage.

Mt. Pleasant isn't a high mountain, but the path was crooked and steep and the walk of forty minutes had winded me by the time I reached the old man's shack at the peak. He greeted me warmly and invited me to enjoy the loveliness of his view. Nine miles away, the volcanic, verdant mass of St. Vincent loomed above the sea, and behind us toward the southwest, the smaller islands of the Grenadines glimmered like emeralds.

“Your view is beautiful,” I said, when I was breathing normally again.

“We like it,” the old native nodded his head.

“We?”

“My rooster and me.”

“Oh, yes,” I said casually, snapping my fingers. “I'd like to take a look at him.”

A low whistle from the alectryomancer and the rooster marched sedately out of the shack he shared with his master and joined us in the clearing. He was a large whitish bird of about six pounds, with brown and red feathers splashing his wings and chest. His comb was unclipped, and his dark red wattles dangled almost to his breast. He eyed me suspiciously for a moment, cocking his head alertly to one side, and crowed deep in his throat before turning away to scratch listlessly in the dirt.

“Looks like a Whitehackle cross.”

“Correct, Mr. Waxman,” the alectryomancer said respectfully. “His mother was a purebred Wild Jungle Fowl.”

“I suspected as much. Only purebred gamecocks can be utilized in alectryomancy, as you must know,” I added pedantically.

“Of course.”

For a few moments we sat quietly on the ground watching the rooster, and then I cleared my throat. “As long as I'm here, I may as well have a reading.”

“I'll change my clothes.” The old man smiled, exposing his raw gums for my inspection, before hobbling painfully into his shack. The shack itself was an unusual structure, built of five-gallon oil tins, smashed flat, and topped by a mauve-colored fifty-gallon oil drum, which held, I presumed, rain water. Forming an even square around the clearing were several dozen additional five-gallon tins, each containing a potted arrowroot plant. I don't suppose an alectryomancer does too much business on a small island, and the arrowroot plants probably supplemented the old man's income.

I was unprepared for the change in attire and started slightly when the alectryomancer reappeared. A dirty white cotton turban had been wrapped around his bald head, and he wore a long-sleeved blue work shirt buttoned to the neck. Tiny red felt hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds had been sewn in thick profusion on the shirt, and larger hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds had been sewn on the pair of faded khaki trousers he now wore instead of the ragged blue denim shorts. His feet were still bare, however, which rather spoiled the effect.

“That's a unique costume, Mr.—?”

“Wainscoting. Two Moons Wainscoting. Thank you, sir.”

“Is Two Moons your given name, Mr. Wainscoting?”

“You might say that. It was given to me when I was a small boy. My father took me across the channel to St. Vincent when I was eleven years old. When I returned, my friends asked me what I had seen over there. ‘St. Vincent has a moon, too,' I told them. And I've been called Two Moons ever since.”

“It's a perfect name for an alectryomancer.”

“I've always regarded it highly. And now …” Two Moons tethered the Whitehackle cross to a stake in the clearing with a piece of brown twine, and proceeded to draw a large circle around him with a pointed stick.

“The ancient Greeks,” I said, to reveal to the man that I knew a few things about alectryomancy, “always described the circle on the ground
prior
to tethering the gamecock in the center.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But that isn't the way we do it in the West Indies. Every island race has its own peculiarities. Of course, I can see some merit in describing the circle first, but on the other hand, it is possible that a portion of the circle will be rubbed out inadvertently when reentering it to tether the cock. I have tried both methods, and in all probability I shall use the Greek method again some time in the future. But the system employed doesn't affect the reading, or so I have learned through experience.”

“You could get into an argument on that statement.”

“You can have an argument on anything pertaining to alectryomancy,” Two Moons said cheerfully, and he began to draw the letters of the alphabet in a clockwise direction about the outer perimeter of the circle. He apparently took considerable pride in his work, drawing large capital letters with a pointed stick, rubbing them out again when they didn't come up to his high standards, and doing them over again. He measured the distances between each letter, using his stick as a ruler, and found it necessary to redraw the S and T because they were too close together.

“Now,” he said when he was finished, “the hard part is over. What is your birth date, Mr. Waxman?”

“January 2, 1919.”

“You'll have to speak a trifle louder, Mr. Waxman,” Two Moons said apologetically. “My old rooster's getting deaf, and I don't believe he heard you.”

I repeated my birthday loudly, enunciating carefully for the rooster's benefit.

Two Moons walked counterclockwise about the circle, dropping a grain of corn in the exact center of each letter, and then sat down beside me. He signaled the gamecock with his pointed stick, and the bird crowed, wheeled about, and pecked up the grain of corn on the letter M. Two Moons wrote M on the ground, and followed it with the O, R, and T as the chicken pecked up each grain. After eating the fourth grain of corn, the rooster returned to the center of the circle, leaned wearily against the stake, and hung his head down to the ground. We waited, but it was evident from the apathy of the chicken that he was through.

“Maybe he isn't hungry?”

“We'll soon find out.” Two Moons Wainscoting untied the cord from the rooster's left leg and carried him out of the circle. He scattered a few grains of corn, released the cock, and the bird scratched and gobbled down the food as if it were famished.

“He was hungry, all right, Mr. Waxman. Your reading is complete. M.O.R.T.” Two Moons muttered, savoring each letter with half-closed eyes. “Mort. Is your middle name Mort, by any chance?”

“Harry Waxman, only. I dropped my middle name when I became a writer, but it wasn't Mort.”

“Any relatives named Mort?”

“No.” I thought carefully. “No, none at all.”

“That's too bad.” Two Moons shook his head. “I had hoped—”

“Hoped what?”

“That Mort didn't mean what I knew in my heart it meant.” He thumped his breast with a closed fist. “
Mort
is a French word meaning death, Mr. Waxman.”

“So? How does it apply to me? I'm not a Frenchman; I'm an American. If the rooster's predicting anything for me, he should do so in English.”

“He doesn't know any English,” Two Moons explained patiently. “I bought the chicken in Martinique, after my last rooster died. All he knows is French. On difficult readings I often have to consult a French-English dictionary—”

“Maybe he was going to write ‘MORTGAGE'?” I broke in.

“I sympathize with you, Mr. Waxman.” Two Moons shook his head, dislodging his dirty turban. “But in alectryomancy we can go only by what the gamecock does write, not by what he does not.”

“Let's try another reading.”

“Another time, perhaps. It's a great strain on my chicken, making predictions, and I only allow him to make one a day.”

“Tomorrow, then,” I said, getting to my feet.

“Perhaps tomorrow.” He agreed reluctantly.

I took my wallet out of my hip pocket. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.” The alectryomancer spread his arms wide, palms up, and shrugged. “I would appreciate it, however, if you autographed my copy of your pamphlet,
Cockfighting in the Zone of Interior
.”

I tapped my shirt pocket. “When I come up tomorrow. I didn't bring my fountain pen with me today—”

“If you don't mind, Mr. Waxman,” Two Moons said reasonably. “In view of the prediction, I would prefer to have the autograph today. If you'll wait a minute, I have a ballpoint pen inside the house …”

I
SLEPT FITFULLY
that night, but I had slept fitfully every night of the three months I had been on Bequia. No one had informed me of the fierceness of the sand flies and mosquitoes on Princess Margaret Beach, and I had neglected to purchase a mosquito bar before departing Trinidad. But between waking and sleeping, the prediction of the Whitehackle cross gave me something to think about. I was far from satisfied with Two Moon's interpretation of the word “mort.”

It was too pat. And yet, no other meaning suggested itself to me. Toward two
A.M.
I was reduced to considering M.O.R.T. as initials standing for something else. During the war I used to get letters from a girl in California with S.W.A.K. written across the back of the envelope. This meant “Sealed With A Kiss.” When this piece of tripe crossed my mind, I cursed myself for a fool, downed three quick tumblers of Mount Gay rum, and slept soundly until dawn.

By eight-thirty
A.M.
I was on the mountain trail to Two Moon's metal residence. Halfway up the mountain I stopped for breath and a slow cigarette, and almost changed my mind about obtaining a second reading. Curiosity got the better of my judgment and I climbed on. When I topped the last rise to the clearing, Two Moons was sitting cross-legged in the sunlight before his shack, humming happily, and plaiting a basket out of green palm leaves. He dropped his lower jaw the moment he saw me, and his yellow eyes popped in their sockets.

“Why, it's Mr. Waxman!” He said with genuine astonishment. “I didn't expect you this morning!”

“You needn't act so surprised. I said I'd be back this morning.”

“I apologize for my astonishment. But your case was remarkably similar to a reading I gave a student at Oxford, and I—”

“You attended Oxford?” It was my turn to be surprised.

“For a year and a half only,” Two Moons admitted modestly. “I was putting myself through Oxford by practicing alectryomancy in the West End. I had a poor but steady clientele, actors, actresses, producers, and two or three dozen playwrights.”

“I fail to see how an Oxford man could end up on Bequia,” I said, looking at the alectryomancer with new respect.

“An English Dom did it,” Two Moons said sorrowfully.

“Got mixed up with a woman?”