The Spanish Cape Mystery

Challenge to the Reader

“In the mountains of truth” quoth Nietzsche, “you never climb in vain.”

No one outside the realm of fairy tales ever scaled a mountain by standing at its foot and wishing himself over its crest. This is a hard world, and in it achievement requires effort. It has always been my feeling that to garner the fullest enjoyment from detective fiction the reader must to some degree endeavor to retrace the detective’s steps. The more painstakingly the trail back is scrutinized, the closer the reader comes to the ultimate truth, and the deeper his enjoyment is apt to be.

For years now I have been challenging my readers to solve my cases by the exercise of close observation, the application of logic to the winnowed facts, and a final correlation of the individual conclusions. I have been encouraged to persist in this practice by the warm testimonials of many correspondents. To those of you who have never tried it, I earnestly recommend that you do. You may run afoul of a snag somewhere along the line, or you may indeed after much thinking get nowhere at all; but it has been the experience of thousands that, successful or not, the effort is amply repaid by the heightened pleasure.

Technically there are no snags. The facts are all here at this point in the story of John Marco’s death. Can you put them together and logically place your finger on the one and only possible murderer?

Ellery Queen.