Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

“It was all very quick. He got up, and we faced each other. And then I realized that I might do him some serious damage if I stayed — and that it would all react upon Mrs. Sherman. So I turned on my heel and left him. And this morning I heard that he had committed suicide.”

“Why didn’t you admit having been here?” asked Crook, “Were you afraid you might be connected with his death?”

“No — I never thought of that. That seemed too ridiculous. I accepted the theory of suicide.”

“Then your reason—”

“Was to keep Mrs. Sherman’s name out of it. I didn’t want any chance that the subject of our interview would get around.”

“I see. Were you surprised to learn of the suicide?”

“I was staggered!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson frankly. “I couldn’t find any motive in it. Mr. Sherman wasn’t the sort of man who would take his life, in my estimation.”

“Do you think, Mr. Henderson,” asked Detective Crook quietly, “he was the sort of man who might have been prepared to take the life of another person?”

“I don’t understand,” answered Mr. Henderson, and the inspector glanced at Crook sharply.

“What’s that mean?” he demanded.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Meanwhile, did your struggle with Mr. Sherman knock over all these chairs, Mr. Henderson, and bring that big picture down?”

“Why — of course, not!”

“And if you had thrown Mr. Sherman out of the window, after a struggle of that sort, you would surely have had the sense to straighten the room a little, so that it might have looked like suicide?”

“I don’t know — I suppose — how do I know?”

Crook smiled.

“Perhaps you don’t know. But I know. It was the first thing I thought of when I saw the state of the room—”

“But damn it, man!” snapped the inspector. “If Mr. Sherman fell out of the window, would he disarrange the furniture first?”

“He might, if he wanted it to appear like murder,” said Crook, “and if he were not in a mood to think very clearly. If he wanted, for instance, to make it appear that his rival, whose button he possessed, had killed him.”

Both the inspector and Mr. Henderson blinked uncomprehendingly.

“Can you remember exactly what happened, just before you drank your wine?” asked Crook. “Think hard.”

“Nothing special happened,” replied Mr. Henderson. “Well, I do remember that, just before we drank, Mr. Sherman turned away for a moment to put the decanter aside, and that I vaguely wondered whether I’d taken up the right glass.”

“You didn’t take the right glass,” answered Detective Crook gravely. “You took the wrong glass, and Mr. Sherman drank the poison he had intended for you.”

“Good God!” gasped Mr. Henderson.

“But Mr. Sherman was found in the kitchen area, with a broken head!” cried the inspector. “What are you driving at?”

“This,” said Crook. “Mr. Sherman did not discover his mistake till after Mr. Henderson had left. The poison was probably a slow one, designed to kill Mr. Henderson when he had returned home. This, if his visit had been kept secret, would have diverted suspicion from Mr. Sherman.

“On the other hand, it was unlikely that Mr. Henderson would be thought to have gone to Mr. Sherman’s house deliberately to poison him. He would not know he was going to be offered wine, and the purchase of the poison could not have been traced to him. So — in order that an impulsive murder should be deduced — he disarranged the room to suggest a scuffle, and then threw himself out of the window.”

“That would take some courage,” commented the inspector.

“I think I myself might prefer it,” answered Crook, “to the torment of death by poison.”

There was a long silence. Suddenly Mr. Henderson’s voice broke the stillness.

“May I go?” he said hoarsely.

After he had gone, the inspector turned to Crook.

“How the devil did you get on to it?” he demanded.

“By not being in too much of a hurry to put two and two together — as you and the others did,” answered Detective Crook. “Mr. Sherman’s isn’t the only poisoned body I’ve seen in my time. Come and have another look at it.”

The Torturers by Charles Somerville

A Story of Fact

“Go ahead,” said the aged wife. “But if you kill us I know that God will see that you never get out of this county alive”.

* * *

Not even, I am told, the wanton killing of the little Frank boy by the young human monstrosities, Loeb and Leopold, caused a greater wave of revulsion and resentment to sweep the country than did a crime committed in a small Pennsylvania town a good many years previous.

It was a robbery attended by such hideous cruelty toward the victim that there was nation-wide expression of satisfaction and relief when good detective work effected the capture of the dastardly gang and all its members were dealt heavy prison sentences — sentences ranging from twenty-three years to fifteen.