Murder by the Book

Wellman was being efficient now. "I do not believe Joan was walking in that secluded spot in that park, not a main road, on a cold evening in the middle of winter, and neither does my wife. How did she get the lump on her head? The car didn't hit her head. The medical examiner says it's possible she fell on her head, but he's careful how he says it, and I don't believe it. The police claim they're working on it, doing all they can, but I don't believe that either. I think they think, it was just a hit-and-run driver, and all they're doing is to try to find the car. I think my daughter was murdered, and I think I know the name of the man that killed her."

"Indeed." Wolfe's brows went up a little. "Have you told them so?"

"I certainly have, and they just nod and say they're working on it. They haven't got anywhere and they're not going to. So I decided to come to you-"

"Have you any evidence?"

"I call it evidence, but I guess they don't." He took an enve-lope from his breast pocket. "Joan wrote home every week, hardly ever missed." He removed a sheet of paper from the envelope and unfolded it. "This is a copy I had typed, I let the police have the original. It's dated February first, which was a Thursday. I'll read only part of it.

"Oh, I must tell you, I have a new kind of date to-morrow evening. As you know, since Mr. Hanna decided that our rejections of manuscripts must have the per-sonal touch, except when it's just tripe, which I must say most of it is, I return quite a lot of stuff with a typed note with my name signed, and so do the other readers. Well, last fall sometime I did that with the manuscript of a novel by a man named Baird Archer, only I had forgotten all about it, until yesterday there was a phone call for me, at the office, and a man's voice said he was Baird Archer, and did I remember the note I had sent him returning his manuscript, and I said I did. He asked if anyone else had read it, and I said no, and then he propositioned me! He said he would pay me twenty dollars an hour to discuss the novel with him and make suggestions to improve it! How do you like that? Even if it's only five hours, that will

be an extra hundred dollars for the exchequer, only it won't stay in the exchequer very long, as you know, my darling and doting parents, if you know me, and you ought to, I'm to meet him tomorrow right after office hours."

Wellman waggled the paper. "Now she wrote that on-"