To Colonel Henry W. Shoemaker an old and valued friend, who was promised this dedication, with an entirely different novel in mind, twenty-two years ago....

It was hard to judge Jeff Rand’s age from his appearance; he was certainly over thirty and considerably under fifty. He looked hard and fit, like a man who could be a serviceable friend or a particula...

After ushering his client out the hall door and closing it behind her, Rand turned and said: “All right, Kathie, or Dave; whoever’s out there. Come on in.” Then he went to his desk and reached under i...

Humphrey Goode was sixty-ish, short and chunky, with a fringe of white hair around a bald crown. His brow was corrugated with wrinkles, and he peered suspiciously at Rand through a pair of thick-lense...

Stephen Gresham was in his early sixties, but he could have still worn his World War I uniform without anything giving at the seams, and buckled the old Sam Browne at the same hole. As Rand entered, h...

Rand drove slowly through Rosemont, the next day, refreshing his memory of the place. It was one of the many commuters’ villages strung out for fifty miles along the railroad lines radiating from New ...

The Fleming butler⁠—Walters, Rand remembered Gladys Fleming having called him⁠—became apologetic upon learning who the visitor was. “Forgive me, Colonel Rand, but I’m afraid I must put you to some inc...

When Walters entered, Rand had his pipe lit and was walking slowly around the room, laying out the work ahead of him. Roughly, the earliest pieces were on the extreme left, on the short north wall of ...

Pre-dinner cocktails in the library seemed to be a sort of household rite⁠—a self-imposed Truce of Bacchus before the resumption of hostilities in the dining-room. It lasted from six forty-five to sev...

Rand found another car, a smoke-gray Plymouth coupé, standing on the left of his Lincoln when he went down to the garage. Running his car outside and down to the highway, he settled down to his regula...

When Rand came down to breakfast the next morning, he found Gladys, Nelda, and a man whom he decided, by elimination, must be Anton Varcek, already at the table. The latter rose as Rand entered, and b...

Mick McKenna had put his finger right on the sore spot. It did hurt Rand like hell; a nice, sensational murder and no money in it for the Tri-State Agency. Obviously, somebody would have to be persuad...

Gresham must have been waiting inside the door; as soon as Rand came up onto the porch, he opened it, and motioned the detective inside. Beyond a hasty greeting as Rand passed the threshold, he did no...

Rand found Gladys alone in the library. As she rose to greet him, he came close to her, gesturing for silence with finger on lips. “There’s a perfect hell of a mess,” he whispered. “Somebody murdered ...

Neither of them spoke for a moment or two. Then, after they had left the criminological-journalistic uproar at the Rivers place behind and were approaching the village of Rosemont, Pierre turned to Ra...

Parking in the drive, Rand entered the Fleming house by the front door. The butler must have been busy with his pre-dinner tasks in the rear; it was Gladys herself who admitted him. “Stay out of there...

It was raining again as Rand parked his car about a hundred yards up the street from Karen Lawrence’s antique-shop. The windows were dark, but Karen was waiting inside the door for him. He entered qui...

When he rose, the next morning, Rand noticed something which had escaped his eye when he had gone to bed the night before. His .38-special, in its shoulder-holster, was lying on the dresser; he had no...

Dave Ritter, driving his small coupé, kept his eye on the white State Police car ahead. Rand, who had come away from the Fleming home in the white car, had called Ritter from the office of the Justice...

There was less feuding at dinner that evening than at any previous meal Rand had eaten in the Fleming home. In the first place, everybody seemed a little awed in the presence of the new butler, who fl...

The dining-room was empty, when Rand came down to breakfast the next morning. Taking the seat he had occupied the evening before, he waited until Ritter came out of the kitchen through the pantry. “Go...

In the month which followed, events transpired through a thickening miasma of rumors, official communiques, journalistic conjectures, and outright fabrications, fitfully lit by the glare of newsmen’s ...