Murder by the clock

It was what the printed notices in the telephone directory urged one to do in case of an emergency. But it wasn’t an emergency exactly, nor—still exactly—was it a policeman she...

Lieutenant Valcour felt that the utter stillness of the room would overwhelm him. He—Mrs. Endicott—everything seemed to be taking its cue from death. He reached past Mrs. Endico...

There are knocks, Lieutenant Valcour believed, and knocks. He ranged them from gentle careless rappings, through sly sinister taps, to imperative demands and, finally, thumps. H...

Lieutenant Valcour wondered concerning Mrs. Endicott as he walked slowly across the corridor and knocked on the door of her room. A curious, curious woman, with youth and beauty...

Lieutenant Valcour’s eyes narrowed slightly. He had a habit of dividing suicides into two classes—those who talked about killing themselves, and those who did so. He knew that t...

“Nonsense,” Lieutenant Valcour said sharply. “You have simply misunderstood Dr. Worth. It is possible that Mr. Endicott was not dead at all but in some state of catalepsy. No on...

Lieutenant Valcour walked along it to the top of the stair well and looked down into the entrance hall. He could see the broad athletic back of Officer O’Brian on guard at the d...

The tangents and the bypaths were beginning to increase. Lieutenant Valcour tabulated them as he went thoughtfully down the stairs and along the corridor toward Endicott’s room:...

Roberts went indifferently to the chair that Jane had been using and sat down. Lieutenant Valcour drew another up beside her. He began with the usual distant skirmishing before...

A painting on the wall held Lieutenant Valcour’s attention while he waited. A Gauguin, he thought, and, going closer, confirmed it. His eye drifted over the entire corridor. Eve...

“Mr. Thomas Hollander?” he said, when a man’s voice answered him. It was a smooth, soft voice, and he suspected that further words beyond the initial “hello” would reveal a Sout...

The taxi ran north along Fifth Avenue for a few blocks and then bore left into the leafless, frosty stretches of Central Park. It was deserted of pedestrians. Occasional yellow...

She glanced at her wrist watch as she crossed the room, and was glad to note that it was just after two o’clock. Three or four hours, now, and it would be dawn. She’d get some c...

It was just after two o’clock when Lieutenant Valcour stepped to the pavement and paid his fare to the driver. The cab snorted away and left silence hanging heavy on the street....

Even after the many, many years she had spent in nursing she had never accustomed herself to spending a night quite comfortably in a chair. She had always had her attacks of the...

O’Brian stirred a bit restlessly in his chair by the hall door and yawned; then he looked at his watch. It was almost a quarter past two. He began to enumerate the various thing...

The pounding on the door became hysterical, and Cassidy, who for two cents would have become hysterical himself, went over and unlocked it. He found Dr. Worth, backed by scandal...

Dr. Worth, too, was staring at the black, impenetrable rectangle left by the opened window. It was a passageway for air, but infinitely more so was it a passageway leading to ob...

“Doctor,” Lieutenant Valcour said, “our immediate concern is to find out who fired that shot. The principal reason is quite academic: we want to catch and arrest the person who...

She _had_ been under a strain, and a rather terrible one. There wasn’t any doubt about that. It was emotion, after all, that brought age, not years, thought Lieutenant Valcour a...

Lieutenant Valcour felt a distinct shock, and his eyes became predatorily alert. If this astonishing thing was true and Mrs. Endicott had not taken the narcotic prepared for her...

Lieutenant Valcour picked the slipper up and sighed. It was a distressingly leading and decisive clue, but it did not lead in a direction he cared to follow, nor did it decide t...

“I’m glad you didn’t use the stereotyped formula, Lieutenant. It would have disappointed me if you had. Get me a cigarette, please; there are some over there on the dresser.”

“Why, certainly, Doctor, if you wish. The prosecuting attorney will probably require your testimony to secure an indictment and will want you later on at the trial, but I’m sure...

The report from Central Office which Lieutenant Valcour received over the telephone contained one definitely useful piece of information: the person who had used the comb and br...

Mrs. Siddons had not gone to bed at all. She remained the same amazing pencil done in flat planes of black that had left him standing with his ear pressed against the panels of...

Lieutenant Valcour stepped across the corridor and rapped on the door of Mrs. Endicott’s room. There was no response. He rapped again, and still there was no response. He turned...

Lieutenant Valcour was out of the door in no time and racing along the corridor up the stairs to the floor above. Somewhere—somewhere was the entrance to the stairs leading fart...

“I shall be as patient with you, Mrs. Endicott, as you have just been with me. Listen carefully to me, please, and I will tell you why it is I believe Marge Myles killed your hu...

Mrs. Endicott preceded him down two flights of stairs and to the door of her husband’s room, which Lieutenant Valcour opened. He looked inside and saw Cassidy sound asleep, seat...

It was what the printed notices in the telephone directory urged one to do in case of an emergency. But it wasn’t an emergency exactly, nor—still exactly—was it a policeman she...