‘I’ve been upstairs. I didn’t leave with the guests.’
‘Humph—you should have,’ as he shot her a quizzical look. ‘Your presence may prove embarrassing. Your ex-husband was murdered.’
Madeline slipped to the floor in a dead faint.
[What convinced Fordney it was murder?]
33
No Way Out
On a battered desk in the small, dark room lay a penciled note in handwriting resembling that of the dead man:
Dear John:
You know the trouble I’m in. There’s only one way out and I’m taking it. You’re my pal and will understand. Good luck.
(Signed) Paul
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.
Finishing his examination of the contents of the man’s pockets—two twenty-dollar bills, a cheap watch, and an expensive wallet in which there was a picture of a beautiful woman—Fordney turned his attention to the meager inventory of the room.
‘That’s all we can find,’ said Inspector Kelley, indicating a dictionary, scraps of a letter in a feminine handwriting found in the ornate waste-basket, a pen, some cheap stationery, a few clothes, pipe and tobacco, and a bloody, razor-sharp knife. ‘Certainly has all the appearances of suicide,’ he continued. ‘This door was locked and no one could have left by that window. What do you make of it, Fordney?’