Such was the grandeur of yesteryear, when murder was done with flair and imagination.
Of course, we all recall the story of Miss Lizzie Borden, who took an ax and gave her parents forty whacks.
And then there was the gentleman on December 31, 1913, who stabbed his wife to death, dissected her body, and sent the pieces to friends and relatives with best wishes for a most enjoyable New Year.
The press would be much enlivened by a good garroting or a woman tied and left on a railroad track (of course, one would have to be sure the trains are still running).
I cannot promise such excitement in the future, but I can promise you a shudderingly good time in the pages to come.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Ghost Story
by HENRY KANE
Detectives should not be required to apprehend ghosts. It simply takes too much time. Moreover, though clothes may make the man, there's far more to a ghost than his bed sheet.
I do not believe in ghosts. Perhaps I do not believe in ghosts because I refuse to believe in ghosts and my mind rejects the possibility and seeks other explanation. In the Troy affair such explanation, for me, involved death-wish, hallucination, guilt complex, retribution, self-punishment and dual personality, but there again I am out of my ken: I am not a psychiatrist, I am a private detective. There are those who disagree with my conclusions, and you may be one of those. So be it, then. All I can do is render the events just as they occurred, beginning with that bright-white afternoon in January when my secretary ushered Miss Sylvia Troy into my office.
"Miss Sylvia Troy," said my secretary and departed.
"I'm Peter Chambers," I said. "Won't you sit down?"
She was small, quite good-looking, very feminine, about thirty.