Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

Bar Harbor, Maine

April 18, 1942

My Dear Mr. Mears,

Or is it professor Mears? John can’t seem to remember, and Sheriff Tice does not say, but a professor would make me feel even safer about sending my niece, Anastasia Rider, to you, but of course a professor would hardly be a detective, would he? And a detective is what we do so need, that is one who detects in advance and prevents all the trouble. But of course I felt completely relieved when I learned you were in my brother John’s class in Yale.

It was sheer coincidence that this Sheriff Tice from Florida came to dinner, but it seems he and John were “buddies” in the first war in France. John met the strangest people in France. He was here trailing someone, if you can imagine — I mean Sheriff Tice. So he told us the safest place in the whole wide world if Anastasia was ever threatened again was your island and the sharpest detective he’d ever met was you. And it was coincidence again that this island is not far from MacDill Field where Anastasia’s fiancé is stationed. That is this Brook Hanna. And he is even training with all the others over this Honeymoon Island next to you. So for once Anastasia’s wishes do not conflict with ours. For right away we had this anonymous warning note that she would be kidnaped again. Naturally John and I are as terrified as Anastasia — so unfortunate when she already has this kidnaping complex.

The Sheriff says you have a big rambling old house with plenty of room, and of course Anastasia will reimburse you, we insist, and I hope she will be no trouble, she is a dear girl, but you know about the kidnaping when she was five. She is twenty now and after all, she cannot remember what happened to her when she was five, her growing imagination must have built this up. It is absurd to say that Carl Schee resembles this kidnaper, he was only five himself when the kidnaping occurred. Personally I favor Carl, he cannot be running after her money as I tell Stacy, for the Schees, as you know, are Oil. This Brook Hanna could quite easily be marrying her for her money. But after all, I am only forty and very tired of this situation and entitled to my little fling. I am going to Mexico City. The main thing is not to let her be kidnaped again or of course murdered or anything.

Gratefully yours,

(Miss) Lucinda Rider

P.S. As it is an island, the bodyguard will not perhaps be necessary.

“So that,” exclaimed Mr. Mears, “is what I get for helping the Sheriff solve two murder cases! Just wait till I get at him! Any job he does not fancy—”