by Frances
“Will you come down?” Pam said. “Or shall I come up? Because I think we ought to go to Bill’s office. You know how they are on the telephone. Because if we don’t say it’s important, they don’t pay any attention, and if we say it is, there’s always—well, do you want to explain it to the inspector? From the beginning?”
“I—” Jerry began, and gave it up. “I’ll be down,” he said. “I suppose we have to. Only—” He let that hang; the string of hesitation, of hope, frayed and broke. “I’ll be down,” he said.
He cradled the telephone and looked at the waiting writer without seeing him. Then he did see him.
“Look, Ken,” said Jerry to the author, “I guess we’ve about finished, haven’t we? That was an urgent call and—”
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About the Authors
Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the New Yorker turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances’s death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1945 by Frances and Richard Lockridge
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3127-1
This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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