Free Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense by Linda Landrigan Page A

on Princess Margaret Beach, I wanted to congratulate him in person.”
    I was mollified, and at the same time, taken aback. Of course, I had written Cockfighting in the Zone of Interior , but it was a thin pamphlet, privately printed, issued in a limited edition of five hundred copies. The pamphlet had been written at the request of two well-to-do Florida cockfighters who hoped to gain support for the sport from an eastern syndicate, and I had been well paid. But it certainly wasn’t the type of booklet to wind up in the hands of a Bequian native in the British West Indies.
    â€œWhere did you get a copy of that?” I said, getting to my feet and brushing the damp sand off my swimming trunks.
    â€œGamecocks are my source of livelihood,” he replied simply. “And I read everything I can concerning gamefowl. Your pamphlet, sir, was excellent.”
    â€œThank 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.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œThat’s a parallel art,” I agreed, “but I didn’t know there were any practitioners of alectryomancy left in the Atomic Age.”
    â€œMy 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—”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œIsn’t your writing going well?”
    â€œIt isn’t going at all.”
    â€œThen 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.
    â€œWhere,” I asked my maid, “does the old man with the rooster live?”
    It is to the