Murder Plus: True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

From the late 1940s until about 1960, publicity-shy Bruno Fischer was one of the most successful mystery writers in the field. Along with top-shelf talent like Jim Thompson, Lionel White, Day Keene, Harry Whittington, Gil Brewer, Charles Williams, James M. Cain, John D. McDonald, and David Goodis, Fischer’s books were a mainstay in the Fawcett Gold Medal paperback line, his stories a fixture in Manhunt, the finest of the postwar crime fiction digests. And he was good. Read More Deaths than One, Her Flesh Was Cold, or The Girl Between, and you’ll know what I mean. Today, one must search dusty shelves at secondhand bookstores and flea markets to find his books. But the effort is worth it. His lean, pared-down writing style, his somber, often-brutal observations about small-town America, and inventive storytelling techniques (check out his 1947 More Deaths than One, a novel presented through the eyes of seven people: six suspects and a detective) make for powerful reading indeed. This little lost gem is from earlier in his career. It is about a radio singer’s mysterious death — and the clues detectives pieced together to bring her unlikely killer to justice.

The Footprint in the Snow

Dawn was trickling through the frosted bedroom windows when the persistent jangling of the telephone awoke Chief of Police Edward K. Herrick. His wife stirred, muttered, “Who can that be at this hour?” and snuggled deeper under the covers. Reluctantly Herrick left the warmth of his bed and groped his way drowsily downstairs to the telephone.

Patrolman Michael Rossi, who was on duty, said excitedly, “Chief, there’s been a murder.”

Abruptly Herrick was wide awake. For nine years he had been Chief of Police of Marvin Center, an incorporated village of Long Island, New York, and during that period the nearest thing to a homicide had resulted from automobile accidents. He had, as a matter of fact, never in his life been on a murder case.

“Did you identify the body, Mike?” Herrick asked.

“No trouble about that, Chief. She was found right outside her house. Did you know Vivian Lahey, the radio singer?”

The picture of the bright-eyed brunette with a charming, heart-shaped face leaped up in Herrick’s mind. In a place the size of Marvin Center, there weren’t many of the older families he didn’t know. He had never spoken a word to Vivian Lahey, but he had been casually acquainted with her father before he had died several years previously, and he had heard her voice on the radio.

“Will Hitch, the milkman, found the body about fifteen minutes ago,” Rossi was saying. “She was struck over the head by an empty milk bottle and—”

“Not by Hitch!” Herrick broke in.

“No, no,” Rossi said. “Miss Lahey lived with her sister and brother-in-law, George Engleberry, at 37 Oak Lane. Hitch found the body near the back door when he was delivering milk. What do I do now, Chief?”

“Keep Hitch there. See that nobody touches the body or goes anywhere near it. And get somebody to call the rest of the force. I want every man there.”

As Herrick hung up, he felt a sense of inadequacy. Every man on the Marvin Center police force meant exactly five men, including himself. Up until now, that many had sufficed to uphold law and order and enforce traffic regulations in the placid community fifty miles from New York City. But this was murder. He could count on the full cooperation of Arthur Simms, the District Attorney, and the State Police, but crime in Marvin Center was essentially his responsibility.

Mrs. Herrick was wide awake and curious when he returned to the bedroom. As he dressed, he told her of the murder.

“Vivian Lahey!” she exclaimed. “Well, I’m not surprised!”

With one sock dangling from his hand, Herrick turned sharply to his wife. “What’s that?”

She bit her lip, as in regret over her outburst. “That was a foolish thing for me to say. But when an attractive girl like that runs around with a married man like John Shanken—”

“Shanken?” The Chief frowned. “You can’t mean the haberdasher on Division Street?”

“All I know is what I’ve heard. Of course it may be only idle gossip, and even if it isn’t, it probably doesn’t mean anything.” She added somewhat contritely, “I suppose in a terrible thing like murder it’s unfair to get anybody in trouble by repeating rumor.”

“You never can tell,” Herrick said slowly.

Daylight was complete when he took his car out of the garage. It was a bitingly cold morning. A thin sheet of ice had formed over the five inches of snow that had fallen two days before.

Oak Lane was a two-block-long street consisting of neat gray-brick suburban houses, each detached from the other by a driveway which ran between them. Patrolman Michael Rossi’s bulk was planted solidly at the head of the driveway between Numbers 37 and 39; he kept back the gawking crowd which, in spite of the early hour, had already gathered. Herrick spoke briefly to Rossi and started up the driveway.

“Watch where you walk, Chief!” a voice shouted in warning.

Sergeant Raymond Sperling had arrived a few minutes before. He leaned against the far corner of the house, and then ducked back. Herrick looked down at his feet. His galoshes made deep imprints in the snow, but many feet had come and gone along the driveway in the last two days, in addition to the two icy ruts that the car had formed. Gingerly he walked the rest of the way in one of the car ruts.

When he turned the corner of the house, he saw the dead girl. She wore a fur coat, and at first sight that huddle of fur gave the appearance of an animal lying in the snow. But arms and legs protruded from the coat. Somebody, probably Rossi, had placed a towel over her head.

Sergeant Sperling was down on his knees, scooping pieces of a broken milk bottle onto a cardboard. Beside him stood the big valise that contained the police kit — all the scientific equipment the Marvin Center force possessed. Sperling was a bright, rosy-cheeked young man who had attended the New York City Police Academy and read voluminously on the latest methods of detection.

“Watch those footprints, Chief,” he warned again, looking over his shoulder. “The murderer must have come and gone this way.”

“How can we tell which prints are his?” Herrick muttered. He brooded over the thick curves of broken glass Sperling had gathered on the cardboard. “It was very cold last night. Chances are the murderer was wearing gloves. The only fingerprints you’ll probably find are those of the people in the house who had a right to handle the milk bottle.”

“All the same, you want me to be thorough, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

Vivian Lahey’s body lay within three or four feet of the back door. The snow had not been shoveled from the stoop or the walk, but, since the snowfall, feet had beaten out an icy path. On either side of the path there were occasional indentations in the snow where a foot had strayed. And in a small area around the body drops and streaks of frozen blood were scattered on the white snow.

Careful not to tread on any of the blood, Herrick went to the body and lifted the towel. Half the girl’s face was buried in the snow; the visible half was as lovely as that of a wax figure. A black fascinator was still over her hair, and blood had seeped through the material and had frozen.

Herrick replaced the towel and straightened up. “Coroner Ames will be here soon. I called him before I came.”

“I wonder if anybody heard anything,” Sperling mused, “though my idea is that the blow killed her, or at least knocked her out, before she could make a sound. It had to be a terrific blow to break a milk bottle.” He pointed a finger. “She didn’t stagger or anything or the snow would be messed up. She just keeled over, scattering blood on the way.”

The Chief raised his eyes to the back stoop. Two empty milk bottles stood on the top step. Three must have been put out last night. He shivered in his overcoat. He had never before realized what a deadly weapon a prosaic milk bottle could be.

“Concentrate on this area,” he told Sperling, and returned to the street.

The two remaining members of the Marvin Center force, Patrolmen Irving Byron and Joseph O’Connell, had arrived. Herrick dispatched them to question the immediate neighbors.

Will Hitch, the milkman, stepped forward. He had telephoned his company, and another man had been sent to continue his route. His story was brief. At around six-twenty he had walked up the driveway to leave the usual order of two quarts of milk and one bottle of cream at the back door. His flashlight had picked out the furry shape in the snow.

“When I bent over her, I saw all that blood,” Hitch said, “but even then I wasn’t sure she was dead. I took off my glove and touched her cheek, and her skin was as cold as ice. Then I went up to the door and rang the bell. Mr. Engleberry stuck his head out of the window and I told him. He came outside and so did his wife, both of them hardly dressed, though it was freezing cold. Engleberry took one look and shoved his wife back into the house. I went in with them and phoned Police Headquarters. Guess that’s all I can tell you. Want me any more?”

“You can go,” Herrick said, and went up the porch steps to the house.

Engleberry must have been watching from the window, for he opened the door before the Chief could ring the bell. He wore a faded bathrobe over his pajamas and slippers on his feet. He was a tall, thin man in his early thirties, with a narrow face and deep-set, brooding eyes.

“I’m Vivian Lahey’s brother-in-law, George Engleberry,” he introduced himself. “My wife is upstairs in the bedroom. Naturally she is terribly upset over the death of her sister. Is it necessary to — ah — bother her now?”

“I’m afraid so,” Herrick said. “But first I’d like some information from you.”

In response to the Chiefs questions, Engleberry revealed that he had come to Marvin Center six years before to take a job as linotype operator with the Marvin Center Press on South and Division streets. A year later he had married Rose Lahey, and had rented this house. Rose’s sister, Vivian, had moved in with them and shared expenses. He and his wife had no children.

“Was Vivian Lahey ever married?” Herrick asked.

“No.”

“I suppose a good-looking girl like she was had quite a few men friends?”

The brother-in-law shrugged. “I guess she did. But she spent most of her time in New York, especially when she was working. She’d stay at a hotel and not come home for days at a time. I guess her dates were mostly New York men and she’d meet them there to go out with them.”

“No man in particular?”

Engleberry glowered. “Vivian liked to run around. I thought I was sort of responsible for her, she being a single girl and living with us, but she never paid any attention to me.”

“What about local men?” the Chief persisted.

“Well, she didn’t bring any to the house.” Engleberry hesitated, then added, “All I know is that she did have a date last night. At least I imagine she did because she left the house at around nine-thirty last night, and wasn’t home when I went to bed.”

“Any idea who she was with?”

“No. She received another phone call before she went out, but she didn’t tell us who called.”

“May I see your wife now?” Herrick asked.

Reluctantly Engleberry led the Chief into a bedroom. Rose Engleberry was lying on one of the twin beds. Like her husband, she wore a robe over her night clothes. At the sight of Herrick, she sat up. She was a plump woman in her early thirties. Her eyes were red with weeping and her hair straggled down her face.

She told Herrick that she didn’t know whom her sister had been out with the previous night. Vivian was rather secretive about her men friends. One thing, however, was certain: The date had been made at the very last minute, when somebody had phoned her after nine, because at seven o’clock Dwight Braun had phoned Vivian and she had told him she was going to spend the evening at home.

“Who’s Dwight Braun?” Herrick asked.

“He was Vivian’s agent,” Mrs. Engleberry said. “George and I didn’t approve of him. Vivian had plenty of talent, but except for a few spots now and then on one of the big networks, the only singing jobs she could get were small stations with bands nobody ever heard of.”

“Then she couldn’t have been making much money?”

Engleberry answered that one. “Very little left after expenses and agent fees and all that. That’s the chief reason she stayed on in Marvin Center with us instead of moving near the studios in New York. It always seemed to me that she could have done better if she hadn’t been tied up with this agent, Dwight Braun. His agency is very small; he hasn’t even got a real office. I told her what she needed was a big-shot agent.

“Well, last week she decided to break off with Braun. Last night at seven he called up and asked if he could come out and see her. I guess he wanted to talk her into staying with him. Vivian said she’d be home, but at about nine-thirty she got that second phone call. She put on her coat and said she’d be right back, and that’s the last we saw of her.”

“Did Braun show up?”

“At around ten, I guess,” Engleberry said. “He waited around for a whole hour and got sore and left. I don’t blame him for being sore. Here he had come all the way from New York and Vivian hadn’t even waited for him.”

“Did you hear her come home? A car pull up or her walking up the driveway or anything like that?”

They shook their heads.

Mrs. Engleberry put her handkerchief up to her eyes and muttered, “Mr. Braun was angry when he left. Vivian might have been coming home just as he left the house and they met outside.”

“Rose!” her husband exclaimed. “Do you realize you’re accusing a man of murder when you know nothing about it?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Why, I said no such thing, George.”

“Another thing,” Herrick injected quietly. “What was Miss Lahey doing around the back of the house? Had she driven a car into the garage?”

“Vivian couldn’t drive,” Engleberry replied. “She came around to the back door because she’d lost her key to the front door. I was planning to have another one made, but I didn’t get around to it.”

The Chief recalled the bit of town gossip his wife had told him. “What about John Shanken?”

There was a brief silence. Engleberry and his wife looked at each other. Then the husband said, “You mean the Shanken who has the men’s store? What about him?”

“George, there’s no sense trying to protect anybody,” Mrs. Engleberry said.

“Vivian’s dead!” he objected angrily. “Why let her name be dragged in the mud?”

“Don’t you want her murderer caught?” Herrick asked softly.

Mrs. Engleberry blew her nose noisily and started to sob. Her husband raged. “Vivian was as fine and decent a girl as you could find. I don’t know who killed her. It could have been a thief or a madman. Did you think of that?”

Herrick excused himself and descended the stairs. Sergeant Sperling was in the hall.

“I think I’ve got something, Chief. Come on outside.”

They left through the back door. Near the corner of the house, beyond the girl’s body and a little to the right of the path, Herrick saw an inverted cardboard box resting in the snow. Tenderly Sperling lifted the box and revealed a footprint in the snow.

“Look at this,” he said excitedly.

Herrick squatted. A foot had crushed through the top layer of ice and pressed down the snow beneath. At the heel of the print there was a ragged smear of blood and another at the instep.

“Somebody made this after Miss Lahey was murdered,” Sperling explained, “after her blood had been spilled on the snow. See how the blood is everywhere else. It lies on top of the ice in globules and it froze that way. But the shoe came down here and spread and pressed the blood. The toe points to the driveway. Here’s part of another print — see this rubber heel? — and then he turned around the corner of the house and walked down the driveway along one of the car ruts. I looked, but I haven’t found another print of a rubber-heeled shoe.”

Herrick nodded. “It’s that rubber heel that interests me more than the blood. With all the snow and ice these last few days, nobody would leave the house without something over his shoes.” He glanced at the dead girl’s feet. “She’s wearing galoshes. So am I. You’re wearing rubber and the milkman wore boots. I’d say that this footprint was made by somebody who went out in a car and didn’t expect to do much walking. Or somebody who came from New York where the snow has been cleared from the streets. Well, it’s a lead.”

Sperling beamed happily. “It’s more than a lead, Chief. It can be evidence. I can make a plaster cast of this footprint. All I need is some talcum powder to shake over it and some fine shellac to spray with a Flit gun. I repeat that a couple of times and then I get some very fine plaster of Paris from a dentist and make a cast. If we can find the shoe, we can take it and the cast to the police laboratory in Brooklyn and have them matched up. It’s as good as a fingerprint.”

“If we find the shoe,” Herrick observed dryly.

A black cloth handbag lay near one of the dead girl’s gloved hands. Herrick looked through it. He found a wallet containing eighteen dollars. Obviously the motive for her murder hadn’t been robbery.

Patrolman Byron came up the driveway with the information that the woman next door, in Number 39, had heard two people fighting outside during the night. Herrick felt his shoulders lighten a little. Here, at last, was a witness. He hurried to the house next door.

Mrs. Tracy M. Anderson, a fading middle-aged blonde, wearing a cloth coat over her house dress, was watching the crowd that was gathering by the minute in front of Number 37.

“Well, I’m not sure it was exactly a fight,” she said. “But the voices sounded like a quarrel.”

“Did you recognize the voices?” Herrick asked.

“Well, one was Vivian Lahey’s, I suppose, but all I can be sure of is that it was a woman’s voice. You see, I was in bed, more than half asleep, when those voices woke me up. The bedroom is on that side of the house, right next to the Engleberry driveway. I heard a kind of muttering at first, then the voices rose but I can’t tell you who the man was, even if I’d ever heard his voice before.”

“Did you hear what was said?”

“No. Just voices. Then I fell asleep. I told that other policeman who was here that I didn’t hear anything else — no cry or anything like that. I just fell asleep in the middle, I guess. And I can’t tell you what time it was. All I know is it was night.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“A little before twelve,” Mrs. Anderson replied. “Me and my husband both. The children were in bed since ten. But Tracy — that’s my husband — he didn’t hear a thing. He sleeps like a log.”

“Where’s your husband now?”

“He left for work a little while ago. But he didn’t hear anything. We talked about it when we heard poor Vivian Lahey was murdered. That was when I remembered hearing those voices. I said to Tracy—”

Mrs. Anderson went on talking, but she had no more to contribute. Herrick was satisfied that she had given him vital information. Vivian Lahey had quarreled with the man who had murdered her, which meant that she had known him well. And likely the murder hadn’t been planned, but had resulted from the quarrel. A milk bottle was the sort of weapon one would snatch up in a fit of overpowering rage.

John Shanken scowled when the Chief entered his haberdashery store.

The clerk stepped up to Herrick, “What can I do for you, sir?” But before the Chief could reply, Shanken waved the clerk aside and beckoned Herrick into the back room of the store.

Shanken was an athletic-looking man in his late thirties. He dressed like a fashion-plate, as befitted a man who sold men’s wear, and sported a sleek mustache. Herrick recalled that Shanken, in spite of a wife and three children, was considered quite a lady killer.

The Chief asked casually, “Have you heard what happened to Vivian Lahey?”

“The news is all over town.” Shanken had trouble finding a place to rest his gaze. He shuddered. “Terrible tragedy! She was such a fine girl.”

“A friend of yours, I hear.”

The haberdasher shrugged. “Oh, well, I knew Miss Lahey as a good customer. She bought all her Christmas and birthday presents for male relatives and friends in my store.”

Through narrowed eyes, the Chief studied the man. There was no doubt that he was badly frightened. He hazarded a guess. “Where did you go with Miss Lahey last night?”

It worked. Shanken’s head jerked up; the fear in his eyes was plain. “I didn’t kill her! I swear—”

“Where did you go with her last night?” Herrick repeated.

Shanken dropped limply into a chair. “I was going to tell you. I’d just heard of the murder and I was about to go to the police station when you came in.”

“Were you?” Herrick grunted skeptically. “All right, tell me now.”

“She... I... well, we’ve been seeing each other. Secretly. Look, Herrick, there’s nothing to be gained by letting my wife know.”

Herrick felt an unpleasant taste in his mouth. “I can’t promise you anything. It depends on whether you’re innocent and how completely honest you are with me.”

“I’ve nothing to hide from the police,” the man insisted. “But if my wife should find out — well, the scandal—” He shook himself and went on, “Vivian hasn’t let me see her for three weeks. I went almost crazy. She is — she was a very lovely girl. Last night I phoned her.”

“At what time?”

“Around nine. A little after.”

“As late as nine-thirty?”

“It may have been. I told Vivian that if she didn’t at least come out and talk to me for a few minutes, I’d barge into her house. She gave in grudgingly and I picked her up in my car on the corner of Oak Lane and Lanning Place. We drove and parked and drove some more while I kept arguing with her.”

“How long?”

“What? Oh, hours.”

“In the cold?”

“I’ve a heater in my car,” Shanken replied. “Vivian said that people were talking about us and that we mustn’t see each other again. I couldn’t give her up. She was in my blood. I argued and argued. I—” He broke off and hunched his shoulders. “It was no use, so after a while I drove her home.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. Around midnight.”

“Can you fix the time closer than that?”

Shanken was thoughtful, and then shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I was very upset. I didn’t bother to look at the time. I’m sure it was at least twelve. Maybe a few minutes later.”

Herrick was ready to spring a trap. He asked with apparent indifference, “What happened when you walked to the back door of the house with her?”

“I—” Shanken took a deep breath, “I didn’t get out of the car with her. By that time we were both pretty sore at each other. When I pulled up in front of Vivian’s house, she got out of the car and slammed the door. I drove home.”

“Just like that?” Herrick said grimly.

“I tell you I did. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of her head.”

“You said you were sore at her.”

“But not enough to kill her. Why would I want to kill her? That would be crazy.”

“Crazy,” the Chief muttered. “By the way, did you wear rubbers or galoshes last night?”

“I never wear galoshes. They look frightful. Rubbers sometimes, but—” He frowned up at Herrick. “I don’t understand the question.”

“All the same, I want an answer. What did you wear on your feet last night?”

“Just my shoes. The garage is under my house. I didn’t have to walk in the street.”

At any rate, that was Shanken’s story and he stuck to it. Herrick debated with himself whether to take him to Headquarters for further questioning, and decided not to. He hadn’t enough on the man to hold him and would only succeed in putting him on his guard. In a place the size of Marvin Center, where Shanken was a businessman of considerable importance, it was necessary for the police to feel their way carefully.

As the day wore on, the responsibility of the case piled on Herrick’s shoulders. He knew that the whole town — indeed, the whole county — was watching him. This was the first big test in his nine years as Chief of Police.

In the late afternoon Arthur Simms, the District Attorney, and Dr. Everett J. Ames, County Coroner, came to his office for a conference.

Dr. Ames had his preliminary report. He agreed that Vivian Lahey had probably died between midnight and 1 A.M., but he could not give a definite statement until he had completed the post-mortem, which would be some time the following day. He had no doubt, however, that the blow with the milk bottle had killed her almost instantly.

“Sergeant Sperling went over the broken pieces of the bottle for fingerprints,” Herrick reported. “He found about what we expected — the prints of Mr. and Mrs. Engleberry and one of the milkman, Will Hitch. On a night as cold as last night, practically everybody wore gloves.”

“How about the New York City end?” District Attorney Simms inquired. “Miss Lahey worked there and most of the people she knew, it seems, live there.”

Herrick nodded. “I spoke to the New York Homicide Bureau on the phone. They promised full cooperation. All the men she’s known in New York are being investigated.” He sighed. “But I hardly expect anything to come of that. I am convinced that the murderer did not come all this way to murder her. The crime shows all the marks of having been impulsive, unpremeditated.”

“And Shanken admitted he had been out with Miss Lahey last night,” Simms rubbed his lean jaw. “He’s our man.”

For brief moments they sat about the desk in silence. Then Herrick said glumly, “You’re the District Attorney. Can you prove Shanken guilty in court? Have you even enough to indict?”

“Well, no,” Simms admitted. “Not yet, at any rate.”

Shortly after the District Attorney and the Coroner departed, Sergeant Sperling entered the office with a cardboard box under his arm. Within the box, the white plaster cast of the footprint was carefully protected by excelsior.

“The casts are finished,” Sperling announced. “I made three. I’m sending Mike Rossi to New York with one. Now what shoes do we look at?”

Herrick had not mentioned the cast to the District Attorney. He was afraid it wouldn’t be taken seriously; he wasn’t sure himself whether or not to take it seriously. But Sperling believed in what he was doing, and there was nothing to be lost by following through.

“Try Shanken first,” the Chief told him.

It was almost time to knock off for supper when a dumpy little man walked into Police Headquarters and introduced himself to Herrick as Dwight Braun, the radio agent.

“Say, what’s the idea of sending the cops after me?” he demanded. “I’m minding my own business when a couple of detectives barge in on me and ask all kinds of questions about Vivian Lahey’s murder. That was the first I heard of it. They acted as if I’d killed her.”

Herrick grunted with satisfaction. The New York police were wasting no time.

“Did you kill her?” he asked softly.

“Don’t be a sap!” Braun spread his plump body on a chair and set fire to a cigarette. “The minute those cops left, I drove out here to let you know what happened last night.” And he told substantially the same story as the Engleberrys.

“Did you drive out to Marvin Center in your car last night?” Herrick wanted to know.

“Sure. The train connections out of this place are terrible, especially at night.”

“Let me get this straight,” Herrick said. “Miss Lahey was in New York more than she was here. Yet you took this trip late at night, when you could as easily have seen her in the city?”

“Who says so? The point is, Vivian decided to get another agent after all I’d done for her, and then she wouldn’t even discuss it with me. Maybe she wasn’t a top-notch singer and maybe she would never have been, but the ten percent commission I made on her was worth spending an evening on.”

“And after having come all this distance you left without seeing her.”

“I was sore, I’d phoned Vivian beforehand and she’d said she’d be home, and then she left before I arrived and hadn’t returned by eleven. She wasn’t enough of a big-shot for me to take that from her.”

Herrick toyed with his pencil. “Did you wear rubber shoes last night?”

“Huh? What for? The sidewalks were clean. At least in New York they were.”

The Chief went out and returned with the third plaster cast of the footprint. While Braun watched in bewilderment and flung questions at Herrick, the latter got down on his knees and carefully placed the agent’s shoe in the cast. Braun’s foot was almost womanish in its smallness; there was a good inch to spare at the toes. The Chief didn’t have to compare the heel markings to know that Braun’s foot had never made that print.

As Herrick clambered back to his feet, he saw Sperling standing in the doorway with the cardboard box under his arm and an amused smile on his lips. “That man’s foot is too small, Chief. I could’ve told you without measuring.”

Herrick gave the Sergeant an annoyed look and retreated behind his desk. “You can go,” he told Braun wearily.

“Does that mean I won’t be bothered any more?” the agent demanded.

“It means you can go now,” the Chief said snappishly. He was annoyed with himself at discovering that his nerves were on edge.

When Braun had gone, Sperling advanced into the office and placed the boxed plaster cast on the desk. “I drew a blank myself, Chief. John Shanken’s shoes weren’t the right size either. I went to his store and he made no fuss while I matched his shoe. His foot is too big by at least a size, so I didn’t bother going to his house to look at his other shoes.”

Herrick studied his fingernails. “You know more about these scientific methods than I do, Ray. How much confidence have you that footprint means anything?”

Sperling hesitated before answering. “If the murderer made that footprint, then Shanken is out.”

“If!” Herrick echoed. “That’s the trouble. You may be able to show that that footprint was made after the murder and not before. But you can’t prove to a jury’s satisfaction that it’s the murderer’s.”

“Well, Chief—” Sperling obviously did not want to put himself out on a limb. “If Shanken had made that footprint, it would at least prove that he had gone to the back door with Miss Lahey.”

“But it doesn’t prove that he didn’t,” Herrick muttered. He stood up in sudden decision. “Come with me, Ray. And bring that cast.”

They drove to 37 Oak Lane. Rose Engleberry was home alone. Evidently she had not dressed all day, for she still wore her nightgown and a robe and slippers. In ten hours she seemed to have aged ten years.

“When do you expect your husband home?” Herrick asked her.

“Usually he gets home a little after six, unless he works overtime,” she replied listlessly. “Do you want to wait for him?”

“You’ll do just as well. I’d like to get the events of last night clearer in my mind. You say you went to bed at about eleven?”

Her plump shoulders shrugged. “Around then. I’m not certain of the time, except that it was right after Dwight Braun left.”

“And your husband went to bed with you?”

She sat back in the corner of the couch and looked curiously at the Chief. “Why do you ask that question?”

“I’m anxious to pin down the time of the murder. I imagine it was after Mr. Engleberry went to bed or he would have heard something.”

“As a matter of fact, George stayed up a little while longer. He wanted to finish reading his paper.”

“Did you hear him go to bed?”

“No. I fell asleep practically at once. And as we have twin beds—” She stopped. A shadow crossed her face. “Why don’t you ask George?”

“I will,” Herrick said dryly. “Now, Mrs. Engleberry, I have a favor to ask. We found a footprint outside in the snow. If it belongs to Mr. Engleberry, whose footprints would naturally be all around the house, then we can eliminate it from consideration. May we see your husband’s shoes?”

She took some time to consider the request, then said doubtfully, “George, of course, is wearing a pair of his shoes. Hadn’t you better wait till he comes home?”

“We’re in a hurry. All we want to do is measure any of his shoes for size.”

“Well, all right.” She rose slowly. Herrick and Sperling followed her up the stairs.

In the bedroom, she rummaged in a closet and came out with a pair of heavy brogues. “Will these do?”

Sperling placed his box on the floor, untied the string and opened the lid. He scowled at the heavy shoes and solid leather heels and tried one for size. It seemed too wide.

He looked at Herrick and shrugged and then said to Mrs. Engleberry, “Are those the only extra shoes he has? What I need are a pair of dress oxfords with rubber heels.”

“He has only one good pair and he wears them to work. But there’s an old pair somewhere. Just a minute.” She dug into the closet again and this time came out empty-handed. “They’re not here. George may have thrown them out or perhaps they’re at the shoemaker’s.”

“When was the last time you saw them?” the Chief inquired.

Again the shadow crossed her face. She chewed on her lower lip. “Why don’t you ask George those questions? Anyway, it seems to me that all this bother about shoes is ridiculous.”

Sperling tied up his box. Herrick thanked Mrs. Engleberry for her cooperation and the two men left the house.

“Well Chief?” Sperling said when they were in the car. “He seems to wear the same size, but you can’t tell exactly from those heavy shoes. And we need more than size. We need positive identification. That wouldn’t be legal evidence even then, but it would be a lead. Should we drive over to the print shop where he works?”

The Chief closed his eyes in frustration. He had the thought that all day he had been running in circles.

“We might as well try it,” he said almost indifferently.

When they reached the Marvin Center Press on Division Street, they learned that George Engleberry had left five minutes before. Sperling said, “We must have passed him on the way. Should we go back to his house?”

“Why not?”

More lights were on in Number 37 than there had been ten minutes before. A cream-colored sedan was parked in the driveway. The door was again opened by Mrs. Engleberry. She started at the sight of the two policemen.

“Why are you back?”

Herrick said placatingly, “We still want to ask your husband those questions and we noticed his car outside.”

His manner seemed to reassure her. “He’s down in the cellar tending the furnace.” She raised her voice. “George, come up here.”

“Who is it?” a voice came hollowly.

“Please come up.”

“Just a minute.”

As Herrick waited in the hall with Sperling and Mrs. Engleberry, an urgent feeling that he should be doing something came over him. Almost without thought, he started down the hall toward the kitchen.

He was in the kitchen when Engleberry appeared through the cellar door. The man drew back as if from a blow. His deep-set eyes were wild, his cheeks pinched.

“What do you want?” he asked hoarsely.

Herrick’s gaze was drawn down to Engleberry’s feet — to the worn, split shoes. They didn’t go with the clean neatness of the rest of his clothes, and his wife said he wore good shoes to work.

“Are those the shoes you wore all day?” the Chief demanded.

“I—” Engleberry’s eyes dropped to his feet. He started to shake. “Sure, I wore those shoes to work. They’re comfortable.” His voice rose stridently. “What’s the matter — can’t I wear any shoes I want?”

Herrick snapped, “Keep your eyes on him, Ray,” and pushed past Engleberry and rushed down the cellar steps. Behind him he heard Mrs. Engleberry utter a choked cry.

When the Chief reached the cellar, he paused in indecision. Engleberry’s manner had been that of a man very badly frightened, but how much did that mean? And if it did mean anything, how sure could he be that there was anything to be found here in the cellar?

His eyes fell on the coal furnace. He was hardly breathing as he pulled the door open. A little sigh escaped him at what he saw on the glowing coals. Quickly he snatched up a shovel and a poker.

The smell of burning leather and rubber was acrid in his nostrils as he carried the smoldering shoes upstairs on a shovel. The three others were still in the kitchen.

Engleberry had dropped down on a chair beside the porcelain-topped kitchen table, and his face was in his hands. Dully he looked up when Herrick entered with what was left of the shoes.

“I didn’t want to hurt her!” Engleberry moaned. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean it!”

Later that night, he made a complete confession to Herrick and District Attorney Simms.

He said that all along it had been Vivian Lahey whom he had loved. Years ago he had asked her to marry him, and when she would not have him, he had married her sister Rose. But through the five years of his married life Vivian lived in the same house, and her constant presence kept his passion for her alive. He insisted that he had never made an indecent proposal to her or approached her in any way, but he admitted that he had been jealous of the other men she had gone with.

Her affair with Shanken had affected him most. Because Shanken was a married man with children, it had seemed to Engleberry that she was degrading herself. Once or twice he had spoken to her about it. Her retort had been that her personal life was none of his business.

The night of the murder, he had remained up reading after his wife had gone to bed. He had heard a car pull up, and through the living-room window he had seen Vivian get out. He had recognized the car as Shanken’s. At that, the twisting, brooding jealousy that had tormented him for five years had caused something to break inside him. He had gone to the back door, and there, standing outside the stoop without hat or coat, he had abused her.

Again Vivian had told him that it was none of his business what she did. He lost his head completely. In the grip of insane rage, he had snatched up a milk bottle and struck her.

When he had seen her lying dead in the snow, some measure of self-control had returned to him. He had stepped to the corner of the house and glanced down the driveway to make sure that nobody had heard or seen anything. Then he had returned into the house and undressed in the bathroom. Because he and his wife slept in twin beds, she had not heard him slip into his bed.

Next day his nerves steadily deteriorated, especially when he had observed Sergeant Sperling making a cast of a footprint in the snow. He hadn’t been sure what that had meant, but he had been afraid it was evidence against him. He had hidden the shoes he had worn the night before in the cellar.

When he had returned from work, his wife had told him that the police had been there to look at his shoes. Panic seized him. He had rushed down to the cellar to burn the shoes. And when Herrick had retrieved them from the furnace, it had not occurred to Engleberry that that smoldering mass of leather and rubber was probably worthless as evidence. He had been too far gone, at the end of his rope. His nerves hadn’t been able to take more.

Six weeks later, on January 29th, 1945, George Engleberry was tried for murder in the second degree. His defense attorney tried to prove temporary insanity, but the jury thought otherwise. He was found guilty and given a sentence of twenty years.