Now, the rest of the story. You have seen characterizations of adorable English children,
the propriety of dress and manners, the aura of defenselessness. It was little ale of
the age of five right down to the blush on his cheeks and the shine on his tiny shoes.
Daddy was a prosperous London importer. He called the boy his little lamb without a spot.
And yet even as he spoke those words, Daddy was intentionally setting up that little fella
for a blow he never forgot. Now as I say, little ale was barely five. One day he was
playing around the house of pretend to game of knights and dragons. Suddenly Daddy called
from upstairs. Little ale ran up to see what Daddy wanted. Daddy was holding a note
in his hand. It was a note in a sealed envelope. Little ale knew where the police station
was. Did he not? The boy was to take that note down the street to the police station,
handed to the police chief and wait for a reply. Sensing the importance of the message,
little ale eagerly accepted the errand. And the time he reached the police station, he
was out of breath, but still beaming with pride over this new responsibility.
I'm to wait for an answer, said little ale, thrusting Daddy's message into the police
captain's hand. Reading the note, the police captain
grinned at first and then appeared bewildered and then grinned again and said, come with
me. Little ale followed him through a door down a long hallway, through another door
until he and the policeman were standing in the open entrance of a vacant cold somber
jail cell. The full little ale knew what was happening or why he was inside. And the
iron barred to sell door was clanking shut behind him. He could hear the police captain's
voice trailing away. As the police captain said, this is what we do to naughty boys.
And then all was silent. There was no one to hear a little else frightened cries for
probably only about ten minutes, but it seemed an eternity. And then the captain returned
and released the boy without any explanation, little ale ran as fast as he could. And from
that day on he lived with fear and exceptionally nervous childhood, devoid of friends, followed
by a lonely adolescence full of trepidations and phobias. A strict Jesuit education
replete with regular corporal punishment only expanded his vast repertoire of anxieties.
He would approach young manhood with a permanent case of the jitters, with a lump in his throat
and a nut in his stomach and a sense of unwarranted suspense. He was afraid of high places.
He was afraid of what might be lurking around the next corner. Most of all, most of all
and for the most obvious reason of all, he was terrified. All his life, he was terrified
of policemen. Well, little ale became a man and he never knew and I don't know. Nobody
has ever explained nor ever will why his father would have that tiny son jailed. What if
anything a little boy might have done to deserve such a fright at the age of five. And yet
living in fear, one day ale would learn to express fear in a singular manner which would
chill all of us. For those ten terror-filled minutes in a London jail inspired a redefinition
of theatrical suspense. For you see that little boy became the motion picture director since
described as the master of mystery, the author of the involuntary scream, little ale became
Alfred Hitchcock. And now you know the rest of the story.
