Might as Well Be Dead

The victim, Michael M. Molloy, forty-three, a real-estate broker, had lived with his wife, no children, in a four-room apartment on the top floor, the fifth, of a remodeled tenement on East 52nd Street. There was no other apartment on the floor. At 9:18 P.M. on January 3 a man had phoned police headquarters and said he had just heard a shot fired on one of the upper floors of the house next door. He gave the address of the house next door, 171 East 52nd Street, but hung up without giving his name, and he had never been located, though of course the adjoining houses had been canvassed. At 9:23 a cop from a prowl car had entered the building. When he got to the top floor, after trying two floors below and drawing blanks, he found the door standing open and entered. Two men were inside, one alive and one dead. The dead one, Molloy, was on the living-room floor. The live one, Peter Hays, with his hat and topcoat on, had apparently been about to leave, and when the cop had stopped him he had tried to tear away and had to be subdued. When he was under control the cop had frisked him and found the Marley.38 in his topcoat pocket.

All that had been in the papers. Also:

Peter Hays was a copywriter. He had been with the same advertising agency, one of the big ones, for eight years, and that was as far back as he went. His record and reputation were clean, with no high or low spots. Unmarried, he had lived for the past three years in an RBK-room, bath, and kitchenette-on West 63rd Street. He played tennis, went to shows and movies, got along all right with people, had a canary in his room, owned five suits of clothes, four pairs of shoes, and three hats, and had no car. A key to the street door of 171 East 52nd Street had been found on his key ring. The remodeled building had a do-it-yourself elevator, and there was no doorman.