Somebody started rumors that he'd been bribed. The remarks were libelous, and I kept urging him to sue. But he said he was too old for a fight. Did you hear a shot? Haledjian knew Mitchell wasn't a law clerk. He and the judge's suicide note misused an elementary legal term to describe the defaming rumors -- "libel" published statement instead of the proper word, "slander" spoken statement.
Dead Millionaire "I see Willie Van Swelte just reached his twenty-first birthday," said Inspector Winters, looking up from his newspaper. Edgar Van Swelte shot himself below the heart. The bullet passed upward, piercing the heart all right. Death was instantaneous. But why did he aim like that -upward? Nobody was in the house when he died.
I've got a picture of the scene, though. It showed Edgar Van Swelte dead. His body, seated in the kitchen, had 40 fallen across the kitchen table. His right hand, still clutching the gun, rested on the table close beside the back of his head. When our photographer snapped this, it was 1 a.
Edgar had been dead approximately six hours. Then he inquired, "How tall was Edgar? How did Haledjian reach his conclusion? Had Van Swelte shot himself "from below the heart" while seated, he must have held the gun close to his lap. Since death was "instantaneous," it would have been impossible for him, a short-bodied man, to have lifted the hand with the gun until it "rested on the table" after shooting himself.
Dead Professor "I heard a shot as I was sorting the silverware," said Mrs. Grummand, the housekeeper. Haledjian studied the position of the body, which had sagged against the left arm of the leather swivel chair. The bullet had entered the right temple. On the desk was a note apparently signed by Reingald Townsend. Haledjian read: "After having spoken with Dinker this morning, I have decided not to delay. I do what I must. Not even you, dearest Kay, can know the bottomless despair of being compelled to retire.
Too old! To 42 fully understand, one must have taught thirty-five years, as I have. Ahead is nothing. Farewell, I love you.
She was called out of town suddenly. She left about ten this morning. Grummond hesitated. Townsend and I will share equally. The suicide note was an obvious phony. The chairman of the English Department would never have committed two grammatical sins -- a redundant phrase and a split infinitive. He would have written, "Having spoken," instead of "After having spoken," and "To understand fully," instead of "To fully understand.
Death at Sunrise Inspector Winters raised the tattered window shade, letting morning light into the dingy room of Nick the Nose. In the courtyard four stories below, policemen were gathered around the shattered body of a young woman. Nick, who hadn't sold one of his phony tips to the police in months, shifted nervously. Suddenly I hear scuffling, and I see Mrs. She lives right across the court on the fourth floor. He gives her a shove toward the window, and whammy, out she goes!
So I run down to the drugstore and telephone you. I stayed with the body till we came up here, just to keep everything like it was for you. I figure I can identify him or at least tell you what kind of uniform he had on. That ought to be worth something.
Why did Nick get the boot instead of cash? The inspector surmised that Nick had discovered the body while entering the building and concocted the murder angle for a buck.
He couldn't have seen from the window of his room what he described. The shade was drawn, remember? Haledjian stopped to admire a striking photograph in the flashgun category entitled "Death Plunge. Beside the candle stood a pile of gifts. The girl was blonde, pug-nosed, adorable. But what made the photograph spellbinding was the second figure. It was a woman, back to camera, falling past the picture window just behind the little girl.
The caption read:. At the moment Mr. Kennedy took the picture, Mrs. Claire Gramelin was falling from the roof six stories above. Her body, stopped in 46 midair, produced this startling backdrop for what was intended as the Christmas cover of Family Times Magazine. It is believed Mrs. Gramelin, who weighed only ninety pounds, lost her footing in the storm winds which reached forty miles an hour that night. She died upon striking the sidewalk. One of the men held a blue ribbon.
As he was about to pin it to "Death Plunge," Haledjian spoke up. The picture window was closed, or else the little girl could not have held a lighted match in winds of "forty miles an hour. Remember, the shot was snapped at night with a flashgun, making the room brighter than the outdoors; thus, the window would have acted as a mirror, reflecting the room rather than transmitting the figure of Mrs.
Dentist's Patient Dr. Evelyn Williams, London-born New York dentist, was preparing to take a wax impression of the right lower teeth of his patient, Dorothy Hoover. Silently the door behind him opened. A gloved hand holding an automatic appeared. Two shots sounded. Miss Hoover slumped over, dead. Haledjian at his office an hour afterward. Williams has. The description fits John 'Torpedo' Burton.
As far as he knows, I want to question him about a minor parole infraction. Evelyn Williams? Williams' office. I ain't been near a dentist's office since Sing Sing. This Williams, I bet he never saw me, so what can you prove? Haledjian, "to send you to the chair!
Although Burton claimed never to have heard of a Dr. Evelyn Williams, he knew the doctor was 1 a dentist, and 2 a man. Flawless Phil "I've caught a good many crooks, but I've never tried to catch one while posing as a used-car salesman," confessed Dr. He pointed to a gray sedan. We missed the smugglers, but got the car. Under the back seat we found a million dollars worth of pure heroin. It's bait. We hope the smugglers will try to find out if the dope is still hidden in it.
After a while a dark-haired man moved toward the sedan. The customer edged toward the sedan without ever getting nearer than six feet of it. He seemed only halfheartedly interested as he peered at the engine. Haledjian stepped around to the driver's window. The inside," he admitted, "is floorless. The man was scared off because he thought Haledjian said the car was "floorless," which in fact Haledjian did say.
But as the man never got close enough to see the floor of the car, he would have assumed, had he not been floor-minded, that Haledjian had said "flawless," the slogan of the car lot. Footprint Half a mile from where the body of Art Sikes, a hunter, had been found stabbed to death, was a rudely constructed hut. The occupant, an eccentric hermit who grubbed a meager living from the surrounding forest by hunting and fishing, was the only human being found within thirty miles of the murder.
He was taken into custody protesting his innocence. The local police chief established the following facts as the "wild man" crouched miserably in his jail cell grunting, "No kill man.
Hearing that Dr. Haledjian was nearby, the police 52 chief summoned the sleuth to show off his up-to- date, scientific police methods. I'm afraid, chief, your plastic impression does more to prove him innocent than guilty. To be the killer's, the footprint had to be made when the earth was wet, but the impression was taken after the earth had been baked dry.
As earth contracts in drying, shrinking footprints up to half an inch, the fact that the undersized print made when the ground was baked dry fit the suspect's shoe perfectly proved it was not made by him. Naples, Sept. Athens, Sept. London, Oct. Palestine, Oct. Moscow, Dec. She said she was in his hotel and overheard him making a long distance telephone call. She didn't overhear much, but she thinks he then made a plane reservation for a flight that left New York at 2 p.
Toby Kirk says when he was in New York he bought a ten-gallon hat. Diehl leaves tonight for France. If Freddie shows up in Paris wearing a fez, Diehl will spot him and bring him back.
The fact that Freddie wrote down Palestine instead of Israel as a destination told Haledjian he planned a transcontinental flight, not a transatlantic one. The new tengallon hat pinpointed Texas. French Vineyard The dinner at the mansion rented by Pierre Gibrault was superb. While the roast was being served, Gibrault arose, deftly unscrewed the cork from a chilled bottle of red table wine, and poured a little into the glass of Dr. Haledjian sipped and politely nodded approval.
As Gibrault poured for his other guests, Jim Morgan, seated by Haledjian, whispered, "What do you think? It produces the very best grapes. He wants to make red sparkling Burgundy to sell in America at top prices. Haledjian knew Gibrault was a confidence man, not a wine expert from Bordeaux, because: 1 he served chilled red wine opened at the table when red table wine should be opened an hour before serving and kept at room temperature; 2 "the richest soil" does not produce the best grapes for wine; 3 the poorest, not the best, French grapes go into red sparkling Burgundy.
Haledjian there was nobody at the Meadowbrook Bowling Lanes, the only alleys in town, except a young woman sprawled by the front door with a knife in her back.
They have a little house on Bleaker Street. Roberta jilted him for Ted. Barnett a visit. Haledjian's first words were, "Do you know Roberta has been murdered? Then, as if in afterthought, he added, "I must have dropped my fountain pen by the front door of the lanes where we found the body.
I'm due in the city in an hour. Mind getting the pen for me and leaving it with the sheriff this morning? He shrugged. Although Barnett claimed he did not know Roberta Layne had just been murdered, he knew, as Haledjian said, that the pen lay "by the front door of the lanes. Haunted House "You can't rent more for your money than this house," said Tilford, the real estate agent.
Haledjian, pushing open a bedroom window. He gazed upon the flagstone terrace two stories below. On March 28, , she was hurled from this very window. Her body was found on the stones below. It was a chilly day, and he claimed that he didn't know his 60 wife lay dead on the stones below. Of course, he was sentenced to life -- " "Whoa! He was out bird-watching. The Godleys lived like hermits -- never had visitors, didn't allow anyone within a mile of the place. But Ben Taylor had binoculars, and at the trial he testified that he saw Henry Godley slide up the window and throw poor Jennifer head first to the terrace.
The next day he telephoned Tilford. Ben Taylor lied in testifying he saw Godley "slide up" the window by which he allegedly threw his wife to her death. It was a casement window, which is hinged, and which Haledjian opened by "pushing.
If you aren't a canine connoisseur with a fabulous dog somewhere in the family, she won't date you twice. So to score with her, I made up a grandpa and his faithful four-legged helper.
Then he recounted his latest unsuccessful pitch. From his fields, Grandpa could see the tracks. If rocks fell upon them, Grandpa climbed a hill and warned the engineer by waving a red flag. He started for the hill as a train approached, but 62 tripped and knocked himself unconscious.
That's when the dog proved his mettle. The dog pulled down Grandpa's long red underwear from the clothesline, raced to the hill, and there ran back and forth, trailing the red underwear like a warning flag. Unfortunately for Cyril's pitch, the dog couldn't have known that the flag Grandpa waved was red, or that the underwear was red.
Dogs are color-blind. Hidden Diamond The thieves spent six hours in the home of Ted Duda. At first they searched the house, trying to find where he hid his huge diamond, valued at half a million dollars. Then they tried beating the information out of him.
They fled at dawn, fearing detection. Fatally hurt, Duda crawled to his desk and typed a note to his partner, John Madden. It read: "John -- four men tried to make me tell where I had hidden the diamond.
At first they looked through the house, raving like madmen. Then, in desperation, the barbarians split open the cat! When all failed, they beat me, but I did not tell. I'm dying. The diamond is hidden in the vane. They broke the barrel and every bottle in Duda's little wine cellar.
But how did Haledjian know? Haledjian realized that the dying Duda could not have typed errorlessly, as it appeared. He quickly saw that Duda had interchanged the "v" and "c" which are positioned next to each other on the typewriter keyboard.
Reread the note, substituting the "v" for the "c," and vice versa. Hitchhiker "Boy, thanks for the lift," exclaimed the young man as he slid off his knapsack and climbed into the front seat of the air-conditioned patrol car beside Sheriff Monahan.
He took a chocolate bar from his knapsack, broke off a piece, and offered the rest to the sheriff. They escaped in a big black sedan. It had four men in it. They nearly ran me off the road. First car I saw in. But they took a left turn. They're headed west, not north! The young man began peeling an orange, putting the rinds tidily into a paper bag.
The hitchhiker quickly confessed to being one of the hold-up gang, left behind to misdirect pursuit. His story was obviously phony, since he "broke off a piece" of chocolate. Standing for more than an hour in eighty-five-degree heat, as he claimed, the chocolate bar would have been soupy. Home Bakery "I was driving by when I got the darndest attack of indigestion," said Sheriff Monahan apologetically. Duffy, a motherly woman of sixty, smiled cheerfully. It'll work wonders, I promise.
Duffy bustled about her neat little kitchen. He had always admired the kindly woman who dwelt alone and made her own living. After the sheriff had finished his tea, he rose to leave. Many thanks.
Duffy's panel truck. It was parked by the south wing of the house which, he had always assumed, was her bakery, in which she 68 made the bread, cakes, and pies she sold to inns along the highway. Back in town he telephoned Dr. The famed criminologist heartily advised him to get a search warrant, and within the hour the sheriff had returned to Mrs.
A search of the premises disclosed that Ma Duffy's pies, cakes, and bread were commercial products with wrappers removed. But the bottles of whiskey illegally secreted within each pullman loaf were strictly home brewed. What made the sheriff suspicious? The sheriff realized that Mrs. Duffy wasn't baking in the back of her house when she said, "I don't keep bicarbonate of soda on hand.
Hotel Murder Dr. Haledjian was shaving in his hotel room on the second floor when he heard a woman screaming, "Help! In front of room a woman stood crying and screaming. Introducing himself, Haledjian looked through the open door and saw a man slumped in an easy chair. A swift examination showed he had just been killed by a bullet through the heart. A voice said, 'Telegram. A masked man stood there, a gun in his gloved hand. He shot my husband, tossed the gun into the room, and ran.
Returning to the hall, he noted the door at one end marked Exit. Reentering the room, he stepped on something hard. It turned out to be an empty cartridge shell. Farther to the left was another.
Both were of the caliber to match the pistol. Embedded in the wall, about two feet above the seated body, Haledjian discovered a second bullet. Uffner," he said sternly.
Had the mysterious killer fired from the hail into the room, the shells from his gun would not have fallen forward into the room and to the left. An automatic pistol ejects to the right and a few feet behind the shooter.
Haledjian's weekend hunting trip ended abruptly when he stumbled upon the body of a middle-aged man dressed in hunter's garb lying in a shallow gorge. An autopsy disclosed that death had been instantaneous. A bullet had entered just above the hip and lodged in the heart. Investigation by the police established the dead man as John C. Mills, a New York City ad man. Further, Mills and a friend, Whit Kearns, had rented a hunting lodge near where the body was found.
Kearns was immediately brought in for questioning. A suave, impeccably tailored sportsman of fifty, Kearns looked from the inspector to Dr. Haledjian before saying resignedly, "All right. I didn't mean to run away. I suppose I just panicked. It was the last day, and for the first time we hadn't shot a solitary bruin.
I noticed a rock formation and climbed to the top to see if I couldn't spot one. A bear had got to him. I shot, but only wounded the bear. It reared on its hind legs. Just as I fired again, John got in the way. My bullet struck him, and he tumbled into the gorge. Shooting into "the clearing below" from atop a rock formation, Kearns' bullet would have followed a downward angle.
But the bullet that killed Mills traveled upward -- from hip to heart. Indian Jug The day before the big Tech vs. State football game, the State mascot, an Indian jug, disappeared. Three hours before kickoff, one of the State fraternities was anonymously informed that the jug was buried on the estate of E. Van Snite, millionaire Tech grad, fanatical football booster, and notorious prankster. Six State undergraduates enlisted the aid of Dr. Arming them with shovels, the famous sleuth drove out to see Van Snite, an old friend.
The State boys gazed with dismay upon the area of ground Van Snite had indicated. It was a freshly turned half acre, scraped and rolled and freshly sown on every inch with grass seed. The area was walled on three sides, and a stone 74 walk bordered the fourth. In dead center stood a bird bath. A maple tree grew at one end of the expanse and two wild olive trees at the opposite end.
But if you fail by game time, you must pay for planting the whole lawn. The State boys prepared to leave. But within half an hour they had unearthed the Indian jug -- after Haledjian had told them where to dig. That meant under the maple, whose surface roots steal food and moisture from the smaller grass roots, making grass impossible.
Indian Trader Dr. Haledjian and the rest of the saddle-sore dudes on the deluxe tour of western sites entered the adobe museum and stared at an empty green-tinted glass bottle. Its label read: Doc Henry's Secret Elixir.
The tour's bandy-legged little guide recounted the reason for the bottle's enshrinement. But on his deathbed, he's supposed to have admitted it weren't nothin' but sugar water. It was Doc Henry who volunteered to go after her. For five days of sub-freezin' weather he palavered with them savages. He'd had to trade all his bottles but three fer her, and all his other stuff in the bargain. Imagine goin' up into them hills alone and tradin' a pack of crazy-drunk redskins out of a beautiful girl!
After "five days of sub-freezin' weather" the "sugar water" would have frozen and broken the glass bottles. Hence the elixir had to be something with a low freezing point -- an alcoholic beverage that got the Indians "crazy drunk. Last Moreno "From the smirk connecting your ears, I assume you've hit upon a new scheme for making a million dollars," Dr. Haledjian said to Bertie Tilford. Bertie opened his briefcase and showed Haledjian a pen-and-ink sketch of a bearded man.
The details were never divulged till his friend, Kiako, meeting hard times, came to me. The weather had been far below He stopped up the broken window with his gloves. As he tore apart a chair to build a fire, Moreno called to him. There was no time. He wouldn't live half an hour. Kiako found an old pen and a bottle of ink in a cupboard.
Moreno sketched his faithful friend, and died. His last picture should be worth a quarter of a million. I can buy it from Kiako for twenty thousand," concluded Bertie. Not twenty cents! As "the weather had been far below freezing for days," and the shack had a "broken window," the ink would have been frozen solid and impossible to draw with. Lazy Murderer According to the coroner's report, Mrs.
Treddor, the town recluse, had been bludgeoned to death two days ago in the kitchen of her decaying hilltop mansion. Treddor's been the butt of every practical joke in the book, including the death gimmick, a dozen times. Had to have it in writing. Aside from a daily milk and newspaper delivery, the only visitors who climbed up to see her regularly. You can see why. The driveway to the house was overgrown and impassable, and deliveries obviously had to be made on foot.
The famed sleuth sat down in a rocking chair, the only object on the sagging porch besides two unopened newspapers. Treddor alive? Carson, probably," said the sheriff. Treddor's death, she was driving by and noticed the old lady come out on the porch to take in her bottle of milk.
Treddor was supposed to have fifty thousand dollars hidden someplace. We can't find it, or any clues. The milkman, who thought he didn't have to make his daily delivery. There were two newspapers on the porch, but no bottles of milk. Locked Room "I think I've been taken for ten thousand dollars, but I can't figure out how it was done," said Archer Skeat, the blind violinist, to Dr.
Haledjian, as the two friends sat in the musician's library. He took a bottle of ginger ale and left the room. Then I turned off the lights and sat down to wait. Confidently, I unlocked the door. I kept Marty whistling in the hall when I crossed the room to the opposite wall and opened the safe.
The glass was inside. By heavens, it was half filled with ginger ale and only ginger ale. I tasted it! How did he do it? But no man could have heard -- " Heard what? Ice melting. Marty had brought with him frozen cubes of ginger ale. After setting up the bet, he had slipped the ginger ale cubes into the glass. While they melted in the glass inside the safe, Marty waited in the hail! Lookout Dr. Haledjian was the only customer in the little drugstore when the shooting started.
He had just taken his first sip of black coffee when three men dashed from the bank across the street, guns blazing. As the holdup men jumped into a waiting car, a nun and a chauffeur sought refuge in the drugstore. The nun ordered black coffee, the chauffeur a glass of root beer. The three fell to talking about the flying bullets and had barely touched their drinks when sirens sounded.
The robbers had been captured and were being returned to the bank for identification. Haledjian moved to a front window to watch. As 84 he returned to the counter, the nun and chauffeur thanked him again and departed.
The counterman had cleared the glass and cups. There isn't a limousine on the street. What aroused Haledjian's suspicion? The woman dressed as a nun admitted being the lookout after Haledjian had seized her down the block. Haledjian, too, had noticed the lipstick on her coffee cup and knew she was not a real nun, since nuns don't wear lipstick. Lost City "I'm really onto something big this time," said Bertie Tilford, the irrepressible Englishman with more get-rich-quick schemes than horsehair in a mattress factory.
He fished a letter from his pocket and pressed it to Dr. Can you rush me thirty thousand dollars to begin excavations? He said if he ever found the city, he'd let me in on the ground floor, so to speak. Uploaded by Sanderia on February 22, Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo.
Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Recognizes his own fallibility, but knows his own worth and does not suffer from that abominable social vice, false modesty.
They illustrate forcibly his contention that crime is simple and that most criminals are caught, not by any superhuman qualities of the detective, but by their own ignorance, stupidity, or carelessness. In these accounts every fact, every clue necessary to the solution is given. The answer is in the story itself.
You need look nowhere else but there. Each problem has only one possible solution. Written in less than two hundred and sixty words, these little stories can be read in a minute. You know as much as the Professor does.
Now you have an opportunity of proving just how good a detective xiv you are and what poor detectives your friends are. The author hopes you will find them as fascinating reading as they were in the telling by the Professor.
Here is a fascinating game of wits for a party of any size. It can be played in either of two ways. Select one or more stories from the Minute Mysteries that particularly appeal to you. Make as many copies of each as there are guests at the party. Then pass the copies around and allow three minutes, say, for your guests to study them.
At the end of this time each must hand you a written solution, giving the line of reasoning which was used. You compare these with the solutions at the back of the book; the one who is most often correct is the winner.
Instead of making copies of each story, you may read it aloud, slowly and carefully. If any of the listeners so desire, it may be read a second time. But after this no questions may be asked. After the period agreed upon has elapsed, each guest writes out his solution as in 1 , xx and hands it to you for comparison with the book. Professor Fordney was hunting in the Rockies when informed of a tragedy at one of the camps.
After searching for an hour, I was coming up the slope of a ravine when I saw a pair of eyes shining out at me in the dark. Imagine my horror when I reached the spot, struck 2 a match, and saw I had nearly blown the head off Marshall. A terrible experience! I wish interesting things like that would happen in my game. However, I did have an amusing experience last December. A narrow road through dense woods led to the spot. Arriving there, I found an old dilapidated shanty screened by trees.
As I entered the woods, I smelled alcohol. Sneaky Joe was right, after all, I thought, as I drove up to the shanty. After opening the 4 door and entering the house, however, I knew liquor was not being made there. I searched the woods, but found nothing. As I was driving back along the road at a good rate, I discovered the alcohol I smelled was coming from my own radiator! Imagine my chagrin! Harold Bronson, his last known caller, had this to say of his visit:. I found him seated in the dusk at the end of his library table.
Reaching for my cigarettes, I remembered that Crowley did not permit smoking. Very sparing of words, was Mr. It was my wife asking me to return at once to see an unexpected 6 visitor. Finishing the conversation, I returned to my chair and, after I explained the call, Crowley nodded assent to my request to leave immediately.
Kewley locked himself in his library an hour ago, sir. The two men forced the lock and found John Kewley on the floor, an empty strychnine bottle at his side. The terrace door was open.
After a careful examination, Fordney returned home. A few hours later, Bob Kewley entered his living-room. Your butler and I found him lying on the floor, but were too late to save him. Friday when two masked men, with drawn guns, ordered me into a blue sedan. I was blindfolded and gagged. After driving for about an hour, I was led into a house and down some stairs to a small room, where they removed my blindfold and gag.
They took off my outer clothing and hung it on a chair. Then they questioned me at length about the Shirley case and refused to believe I knew nothing of it. I lay still for a few minutes and, hearing nothing but the ticking of my watch, I cautiously got to my feet and groped for the door, as the room was in darkness.
Before I could locate it, two men, still masked, entered, turned on the light, apologized profusely for the treatment I had received, and said they had mistaken me for someone else. Then they gave me something to eat, blindfolded me again, and drove me to within a block of my home, still apologizing for the mistake. Before I could remove my blindfold after getting out of the car, it had sped away. As he rummaged through the papers in the drawer, I hastily dialed headquarters, leaving the receiver off the hook, trusting you would trace the call.
I was afraid to talk because I was unarmed and he looked like a desperate fellow. I sold the original to Schmitz yesterday for twenty thousand dollars and I intended to destroy the duplicate tonight. He had jet-black hair, swarthy complexion, an unusually large nose, and a vicious-looking mouth. As he left obviously unaware of my presence, I noticed he had a big rip in the back of his blue coat.
The body of Irene Greer, lying on the railroad right-of-way, was found half a mile from here by a fishing party at 6 A. It could be seen that she was a beautiful girl despite the tousled hair matted with mud and a nasty bruise on her cheek.
Her flaming red dress was torn and dirty. She had on shoes, but no stockings. Incidentally, her clothes were of the finest quality. Her body indicated that she had received a terrific beating, poor girl. No doubt she was unconscious when this was done, but she must have revived 14 temporarily and crawled to the gravel right-of-way before a train came along.
There she died. Bridewell says that was the cause of death. Oh, yes, she was probably strangled with a scarf which, employed in a certain manner, would leave no outward trace. It took me a while to locate it.
The door was locked and I had to break in. The last time I saw him, he told me he had been shot at a couple of weeks ago. They must have locked the door from the inside when they entered, shot him, and then jumped out the window. Gifford committed suicide. After explaining why I was sure of that, he agreed with me. How much is it worth? Three men and a woman. I want something more definite than that.
Well, Chief, how much do I get? The windows and the doors to the porch and cellar were locked on the inside and nothing seemed to be disturbed. What an opening it was! A hurried examination disclosed he had been shot in the back of the head and that he was an extremely tall man. When almost there, I heard another shot and knew I was too late. Entering the small compartment, hung under the balcony, I found the operator with 24 a bullet through his temple and a smoking revolver by his side. He had some negotiable bonds in the library safe and told me to stick close to home until he returned from New York.
I was up in my bedroom about twenty minutes ago when I heard a noise. I rushed downstairs just in time to see a man dash out of the library. I ran after him and, as I passed the door, I noticed the safe was open, so I suppose he got the bonds.
He jumped into a waiting automobile and I trailed him in my car which, fortunately, was standing in front of the house, but he got away from me. When I lost him in the traffic, I drove right over here. Yelpir at the time of the murder, was questioned, and she appeared nervous.
She insisted, however, that she had been in her room at the time Yelpir was slain. She said she followed a minute later and heard Diana and Yelpir violently quarreling. A case in point is a messy affair we cleared up recently.
He related the following story:. It was great on the water. Remembering that the international distress signal is a flag flown upside down, I ran mine up to the top of the 30 mast in that manner. Thank God it was a clear day. The Captain said he had seen my distress signal about four miles away and would put me ashore at Gladsome Landing. He did so, and, as there was no one about, I hailed a passing motorist who gave me a lift back to town. Imagine my surprise when I read in the paper this morning that the Leone had been sunk in a storm after putting me ashore, and all hands had been lost!
I screamed, jumped off, and ran for the manager. I got blood on my hand when I shook her. Does the merry-go-round ever make you dizzy? Seeing he was dead, I called the police and remained here. Further examination disclosed several kinds of writing-paper, a pen-tray holding the recently used pen, inkwell, eraser, stamps, letters, and bills.
The gun from which the shot had been fired was on the floor by the side of the chair, and the bullet was found embedded in the divan. Pretty thorough job, this. Good thing for you, Lynch, and for us too, that the murderer was careless about something.
This is like the Morrow case we handled. How did both men so quickly determine that the incriminating note had not been left by Dawson? A man with his throat cut, the head almost severed, sat slumped over a blood-spattered desk.
What a horrible sight! His bloodstained coat flung across the room, the razor! How long has he been dead, Doctor? At this moment the telephone rang. His name is Thompson. As he glanced around, he observed that the alarm-clock on the dresser had stopped just two hours and fifteen minutes before. Thompson stepped out for a few minutes.
Leave your number. Claudia Mason, beautiful and popular young actress, was found lying across the chaise-longue in her elaborately furnished dressing-room, dead from a bullet wound in the temple. Being unarmed, I hurriedly turned out the lights in my office and waited breathlessly, as there was a large sum of money in the safe. I knew my chances of attracting attention from the tenth floor were small, so, reaching for the telephone, I hastily dialed Headquarters and told them in a low voice to send help immediately.
Then, creeping noiselessly to the open safe, I gently shut the door, twirled the combination, and crawled behind that big old-fashioned desk. He had it open in a few minutes, took the money, and left. Shortly after he entered the house, we heard a shot. I rushed into the drawing-room and found Rocca, smoking gun in hand, staring dumbly at the chair in front of the open window which held the huddled body of Chase.
His replies to my hastily put questions were evasive. Inspector Kelley arrived while I was talking and took up the questioning. Rocca then admitted Chase had been shot with the gun found in his own hand, but stubbornly refused to say anything more. We have positive proof he came directly here and has not left this room. That, combined with the other evidence discovered, absolutely exonerates Rocca. Finding the wall safe open and the jewels gone, he let out a scream for help. About fifty yards below the bridge, I looked up and saw Scott and Dawson going across it in opposite directions.
As the two men passed, Scott reached out, grabbed Dawson, and hit him in the jaw. Then he pulled a gun, and, in the scuffle that followed, Scott fell off the bridge. He dropped into the water, but, as the current was strong, by the time I reached the spot, he had sunk. When I finally pulled him into the boat, he was dead. Lyman, police surgeon, knelt beside Mr. I was in here when Mr. I set it on the table—both men pulled guns and as Cross protested, one of them knocked him unconscious with a blow on the head.
The safe door was slightly open. Cross tried to call my attention to it with a jerk of his thumb as the robber pocketed the diamonds. Those two blows on the head were a bit too much for him. Forcing the library door, locked for three months, they saw the Judge seated in front of the fireplace opposite the door, apparently dead.
Were two shots fired? We were alone on the boat. We could hear a boat approaching, running without lights, as were we. My husband told me to return to the cabin, which I did. I went up and, just as I stepped on deck, a man put a gun against my ribs and told me to keep quiet. My husband was engaged in a terrific fight with two others. As you know, I was found drifting next morning by that fisherman. He was a tall, well-dressed, good-looking chap.
Wore a panama hat, turned-down brim, blue coat, smart blue tie, natty white flannels with silver belt-buckle, black-and-white sport shoes, and had a general air of culture and refinement. As he passed through the door, he unbuttoned his coat and slipped the revolver into his back 54 pocket. Returning to town late one night, Professor Fordney was driving along an unfrequented road when the sight of a motor-cycle policeman examining a car in a ditch caused him to stop and offer his services.
Joining the policeman, he found that a man, obviously the driver, had been thrown through the windshield and was lying about six feet from the car. His examination disclosed that the man had been terribly cut about the head. The jugular vein was completely severed.
The bent steering-wheel, shattered glass, and the blood on the front seat and floor of the car were mute evidence of the tragedy. A search of the body revealed nothing unusual except that the man wore only one glove.
The other could not be found. In the absence of any further evidence, it seems to be pretty clearly indicated. There was someone moving about. The door was open. As I peered around it, I saw a masked man, gun in hand, hesitating near the fireplace.
I called the police immediately and gave them a description. Does your master gamble often? Fordney noticed Jones, the gardener, working at the edge of a flower-bed. He kept looking furtively at the house while he frantically covered over the hole he had dug. Finishing, he hurriedly walked toward the boat-landing.
What a battle he gave me! See him in the end of the boat? He states that just as the plaintiff put his foot on the ground, with his back to the front of the car, it gave a sudden start and he was thrown to the road. He is always despondent after seeing her.
His head rested on the edge of the table, his right hand on his knee and his left hung lifelessly at his side. As he did so, Madeline entered the room. She stopped, horrified. Your ex-husband was murdered. On a battered desk in the small, dark room lay a penciled note in handwriting resembling that of the dead man:. Good luck. The only other furniture consisted of the chair in which Paul Morrow had been found with his throat cut, a bed, and a highly ornate and apparently brand-new waste-basket.
It had been definitely established that the dead man had not left the room during the twenty-four hours before he was discovered. What do you make of it, Fordney? He picked up the photograph, studied it a moment, and then, with a slow, searching look around the small room, said:.
I share this apartment with Al Quale. I returned from the theater, shortly after midnight, went into his room, and found him lying there on the bed.
When I saw he was dead, I called Headquarters at once. God, this is terrible! Got that blood on the muffler when I bent over him. This is a stick-up. I told him and he poured himself a drink. Professor Fordney, on his way to investigate a case of blackmail, was musing on the perversity of human nature when a jar threw him into the aisle as the train came to a sudden stop.
Jumping off, he rushed ahead of the engine, where he found a small crowd gathered about the mutilated body of a man hit by the train. He was identified by a card in his pocket as John Nelson, an important figure in railroad labor circles.
There are several miles of straight-away along here and I was beating it along at sixty miles trying to make up time.
I jammed on the brakes, of course, but it was too late. As he idly shaped the wax of the candle standing on the desk, he continued to ponder this unusual choice of color in stationery. One of the letters was addressed to Dot Dalton, who had been murdered between eleven-forty and eleven-fifty.
She was one of the guests at this house party in the Adirondacks. Jack Fahey broke our engagement yesterday and told me he was going to marry Dot. My letter was to tell her just how despicable I thought she was in luring him away from me. Why was the Professor practically certain Molly was involved in this horrible murder?
Half an hour later, still grumbling, he splashed his way through the mud and rain to the door of 27 Holden Road. Removing his rubbers in the spotless vestibule, he stepped into a large, well-furnished living-room running the entire width of the house. Introducing himself and explaining he would question everyone later, he asked to be left alone. In the far corner of the room he found a man lying on the floor, his throat cut.
As he bent over, his attention was attracted to a dime lying about five feet from the head of the dead man. He picked it up, regarded it curiously, and, with a thoughtful look, put it in his pocket.
White here gasping his last breath. Cannon, lose a dime? But what were you doing out in an open boat in the cloudburst that lasted all yesterday afternoon? I had rowed back to within a few yards of shore when I just happened to notice the bag lying on the bottom of the lake, so I landed, tipped my boat over to keep the rain out, and waded in.
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