The Mystery of the Iron Box A Ken Holt Mystery

Sandy shot Ken one startled glance. He picked the box up and hefted it in his hands, as if he might be a better judge of its weight than the scales could be. Then he put it slow...

Sandy dragged him quickly to the top of the stairway, hesitated there a moment trying to orient himself in the confused underground labyrinth beneath Grand Central Station, and...

They were all in the back room, within the circle of light that illuminated the table on which fresh green bills were still scattered. Barrack and Grace, both with guns, kept th...

The loud-speaker’s bellow died away and there was an answering stir in the big terminal building of the airport. People began to move toward the wide windows that overlooked the...

The man in the pea jacket led them southward along South Street. On their right stood the long row of buildings occupied by wholesale sea-food merchants—identifiable now even in...

Suddenly he realized that he was clearly visible, through the glass, to anyone who might be outside the house. Quickly he dropped the curtain into place and with a swift gesture...

The area in front of Morris’s store was one of vast confusion. A hook-and-ladder truck blocked it off from the east and a chemical truck from the west. Traffic had piled up behi...

Almost before Barrack landed heavily against the bulwark, the boys had spun around and were tearing across the deck toward the ladder. The man named Cal emerged through the cabi...

At seven fifty-seven, four minutes before the Brentwood train was due to depart, the boys left the restaurant and sauntered down to the head of the stairway leading to Track Ten...

The cuckoo stuck his head out of the old wall clock to announce that the hour of seven had arrived. But nobody in the Allen house that evening bothered to listen to him.

It was only when the glistening brown turkey was carried to the dinner table the next day that the boys had any relief from the constant barrage of kidding they had been receivi...

“Must handle this with great care,” Sandy said a little later as the boys let themselves into the Holt apartment. He deposited Mom’s jewel box on a table and patted it gently. “...

“Well, here goes,” he said a moment later. He drew his right knee up beneath him and, using that knee and his right shoulder and elbow as points of leverage, he shoved himself u...

On the far side of the cabin wall something—a frying pan, perhaps—began to bang rhythmically as it swung back and forth. The barge was responding sluggishly to the river swells,...

This time Ken couldn’t respond to the determined hope in Sandy’s voice. But he obediently followed the redhead around the cabin into the windy fury of the cabin’s other side. Th...

“If we could find a knife I could back up to you and hack through the ones on your wrists,” Ken said, his eyes traveling rapidly over the room. “There must be one here somewhere...

Sandy repeated Ken’s last words in a sort of daze. “He’d been here before looking for the box?” He shook his head to clear it. “You mean the night your father got back? When the...

“That’s what it means,” Sandy said. He laughed grimly. “I’ve got no feeling in my legs. My arms are numb to the elbow. I’ve got about as much chance of standing up as I have of—...

Sandy reached out to touch them as if he didn’t trust the evidence of his eyes. “The one for the back. And the two for the face—one for green ink, one for black.” He shook his h...

Richard Holt smiled as he set the bags on a low table. “Help yourselves. There’s a hot roasted chicken in there, from the rotisserie, and half the contents of Max’s delicatessen...