Plot It Yourself

Alice Porter. In her middle thirties, unmarried. No physical description, but a photograph. Fleshy, say 150 pounds. Round face, small nose, eyes too close together. In 1955 had lived at Collander House on West 82nd Street, a hive-home for girls and women who couldn’t afford anything fancy. Was now living near Carmel, sixty miles north of New York, in a cottage which she had presumably bought with some of the loot she had pried out of Ellen Sturdevant. Between 1949 and 1955 had had fourteen stories for children published in magazines, and one children’s book. The Moth That Ate Peanuts, published by Best and Green in 1954, not a success. Joined the National Association of Authors and Dramatists in 1951, was dropped for nonpayment of dues in 1954, rejoined in 1956.

Simon Jacobs. Description and photograph. Sixty-two years old, thin and scrawny, hair like Mark Twain’s (that item from Title House’s lawyer), stuttered. Married in 1948, therefore at the age of fifty-one. In 1956 was living with his wife and three children in a tenement on West 21st Street, and was still there. Overseas with AEF in First World War, wounded twice. Wrote hundreds of stories for the pulps between 1922 and 1940, using four pen names. Was with the OWI in the Second World War, writing radio scripts in German and Polish. After the-war wrote stories again, but didn’t sell so many, eight or ten a year at three cents a word. In 1947 had a book published by the Owl Press, Barrage at Dawn, of which 35,000 copies were sold, and got married in 1948 and took an apartment in Brooklyn Heights. No more books published. Fewer stories sold. In 1954 moved to the tenement on West 21st Street. Member of the NAAD since 1931, dues always paid promptly, even during the war when he didn’t have to.

Jane Ogilvy. Descriptions from three sources and several photographs. Late twenties or early thirties, depending on the source. Nice little figure, pretty little face, dreamy-eyed. In 1957 was living with her parents in their house in Riverdale, and still was. Went to Europe alone immediately after she collected from Mariorie Lippin’s estate, but only stayed a month. Her father was in wholesale hardware, high financial rating. She had testified in court that she had had seventeen poems published in magazines, and had read three of them on the witness stand at the request of her attorney. No stories or books published. Member of the NAAD since 1955; was behind a year on her dues.