The Perfect Crime Busted-With Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M For Murder In Mind

By Lionel Adderley

Ray Milland, the great English tennis star from the 1940s and 1950s not the famed Oscar-winning actor with the commanding voice and dapper manners, played his projected crime, his murder of his wife too cute. Did what every amateur criminal has done and had a plan, not a bad plan by any means, but a plan that just had too many moving parts. The kiss of death for any such venture. And the man who spoke those words Reginald Marsh, “Reggie” was a man who should know since he had spent almost half his life as a professional “hit man” for whoever had the dough and wherewithal to hire his services. Reggie used to laugh anytime he read a crime detection book where the perfect crime got snagged up in some not thought out item like forgetting to close a door which did the felon in. Did the same anytime he saw a movie where the suspect would build up and build up until that decisive climax where the villain of the piece would be nabbed for having his or her underwear on the wrong way or something.

Had had to laugh as well in contrast about his own experiences where he flitted in and out of airports (this before such events as 9/11 made getting through security more onerous if not impossible). He had gotten through a couple of times with a weapon so disassembled that even when the courteous airport security agents asked him what it was he was able to say it was a new invention he was going to a convention in hopes of getting venture capital to mass produce the item. Had passed through bus stations, and train depots without much trouble at all. Had had no problem keeping his freedom for so long by observing that one simple notion-keep it simple.

So one night when he mentioned to the guy sitting beside him, a guy he knew slightly, that the great English tennis star of yesteryear, of the war years and the early 1950s, Ray Milland had just been picked up for murder he figured that once again the plan was way over the top for what Ray was trying to accomplish. Simply in the end murder his wife through the legal process. The guy sitting next to Reggie, a mild-mannered sort, Henry Higgins, responded to Reggie’s comment by asking him about the known details of the Milland murder. That was all Reggie needed to hear as he went almost apoplectic to once again show how his “perfect crime” theory gone wrong by over-planning had been verified.    

Of course a guy like Ray Milland had certain expenses, had developed certain expensive habits while cavorting with the Mayfair swells who supported tennis in those days. And among the ladies provided the money and sexual favors that allowed Ray to prosper once his serious professional tour playing days were over. That was the bitch though. A guy like Ray, brought up on the British public school tradition and its finale, Cambridge or Oxford just couldn’t get used to living on high society hand-outs. That was when the no question handsome and surface debonair Ray took dead aim at Margo Kelly, yes the Margo Kelly whose father had all the dough in Philadelphia locked up in his vaults, and after some serious wooing took her hand.                      

The marriage might not have been made in heaven but for a few years Ray held off his temptation to bed every female Mayfair swell that crossed his path in the interest of keeping the money spigot running. Besides Margo was nothing to throw out of bed, at least at first before her (and his) ardor wore off. Then one day Ray found a letter from Margo to a guy in America, some kind of writer whom she had known back in the states, Robert Cummings. The letter contained explicit suggestions that this secret love affair was going to explode in his face as soon as this Cummings bastard hit the cliffs of Dover. The thought that after all the years of surface faithfulness he had been cuckolded by his wife and more importantly to place his financial future in doubt got him to the drawing board. Didn’t think twice, or for two minutes, about not doing the deed. Maybe it was depending too much on his Cambridge heritage, maybe it was his anger at Margo but he immediately went into overdrive in planning the caper. Made mistake number one right away by putting together an elaborate scheme based on anonymously blackmailing Margo over the love letter. Went way over the top there was no other way to explain it. Had stolen a Margo pocketbook some time before which contained a love letter and had been blackmailing her on that basis figuring she would come across with the dough rather than be exposed as an adulteress. Reggie speculated that Ray should have killed her, or better, had her killed by a professional like him outright then. Could have claimed some bogus over-heated blood-boiling bullshit that a friendly court might buy into.         

No, Ray let the whole thing fester until what he thought was an opportune moment when he made his worst mistake. Brought an amateur into the operation. Or if not an amateur not a professional killer. Seems Ray had been in his overheated condition looking for a “fall guy” to take the rap if necessary. Had been “channeling” an old rummy of a college acquaintance who had taken up small-time con jobs and midnight creeps, a guy who went under about six aliases but Reggie said he would just call him Smythe-Jones and that would do. Never ask a rummy to do anything, period. Ray’s idea was to blackmail this Smythe-Jones into murdering Margo in order not to be turned in by Ray to the peelers. Of course a rummy thinking about stir and having to dry out will fall to any scheme especially if there is some cash involved. And as Ray laid out the plan to Smythe-Jones he became all ears. Figured a big time guy like Ray would not leave him in the lurch.     

The whole fucking plan hinged on a key. See the idea was that Smythe-Jones was to strangle Margo in what was to look like a rummy doing a midnight creep burglary. But you can’t leave being able to jimmy open a window or a door to chance so Ray placed a key above the door to the flat for Smythe-Jones to use to enter, open a window from the garden to make the burglary idea plausible and hide behind a curtain in the study where the telephone was located when Ray made a call to the flat awakening Margo late at night. Then our rummy would pounce. One less beautiful Mayfair swell in the world. End of story.

No way, no fucking way. The whole thing went south. First Ray called late then, then half-drunk rum brave Smythe-Jones couldn’t subdue Margo and she killed him with a blow to his soft-boiled head. Christ what a mess. Ray was on the line while all this fiasco was going as Margo asked for bloody help. That is when Ray went into Plan B (Higgins mentioned to an associate after Reggie was long gone that he had never seem such a look of contempt on a man’s face when he uttered the words “Plan B” like there was no more heinous activity that a man could promote). He would set Margo up for the “murder” of Smythe-Jones using his, Ray’s, blackmail of his wife the past several months as the reason that Margo had had to kill the rummy. It worked, worked so well that Margo got railroaded right up to the hang-man’s noose.

See Ray worked some great moves to push Margo toward the gallows. Told Margo not to call the police until he got home.  Got home to do some nifty work like disappearing that guilty key from Smythe-Jones’s pocket into her handbag, putting that dastardly love letter that had burned a hole in his brain into the rummy’s pocket and best of all, an inspired move, getting rid of that so-called murder scarf  Smythe-Jones  was to use and replacing it with one of her stockings like she was sick unto to death of paying the bloody beast blackmail and was to finish it the only way possible with the sullen death of the blackmailer.

Some beautiful stuff, stuff guys will study for years trying to perfect. But the whole sorry thing unraveled in the end. That fucking key bothered the peelers and bothered this Cummings lover guy who fancied himself something of an amateur sleuth. So the day before Margo was to swing, the freaking day before Ray would have had it made, could have lived in splendor with every woman he could get his hands this Cummings decided to test the key theory. Found out that no way could Margo have had the key that Smythe-Jones was supposed to use to get into the flat to kill her. The coppers came into play too since one of their officers was not fully convinced that Margo had done the murder. Had been bothered by the key angle and Margo’s seeming inability to explain it away. So between the two forces opposed to him Ray had to cry “uncle.” That was all that Reggie knew about the case after what had come out after they picked Ray up in that high-end flat. Reggie told Higgins before he left a few weeks later that Ray would have been better off just slitting Margo’s throat after finding her and that American in bed together. He probably would not have swung for it in the heat of passion.              

That “left a few weeks later” should be explained. Reggie had been telling Higgins his simple art of murder theories while they were “bunk-mates” at Reading Gaol where the pair were awaiting execution. Reggie’s number had come up first. See, Reggie did not follow his own advice in the end and had only been enthralled by the Milland case out of a latent professional interest. Reggie had found his own wife in the arms of another man and like Ray had been outraged that he had been cuckolded. So he had hired a “hit man” to waste his wife and her lover. Except, acting in rage and not good sense he wanted to watch as the deed was done. Had planned it so that he would surprise the entangled couple in bed (in his own damn house which further enraged him) feign outrage, real enough as it was, then have the “hit man” come in and waste the guy, then her. While the “hit man” got away Reggie was spotted by a neighbor coming out of his own apartment right after the murders. He took the fall. Took the big-step off.  Jesus. Keep it simple.