And I told him how Willie taking the glasses was Miss Easter’s own idea since she said men should make things happen, not just wait for them to happen, but how we had decided to put the glasses back because of our fathers’ ideas. Mr. Barrie said our decision to put them back was the right one and though in special circumstances Miss Easter’s idea might be helpful, could he count on us being guided in the future by our fathers’ ideas, and we said he could.
So then Mr. Barrie said if our part in the case were known there might be some people who wouldn’t realize how much we were in favor of law and order, and so if we could do without the publicity of having solved the case, he thought he could give Miss Easter an explanation about her glasses which would not involve us. Willie, who was still afraid Mr. Barrie might be arrested, told him to remember that we would stand by him and be ready to swear in court that Ronald was the real thief. Mr. Barrie really had a bad cold, he was so choked up. But he told us he could handle the situation, now that we had given him some very interesting information he hadn’t had before.
So that’s about all of our second big case, which we never got any publicity for as Mr. Barrie thought it was better to keep it private. I don’t know what he told Miss Easter, but the funny thing was he kept driving her to school even after she got her glasses back and they are now married, as everybody knows. I guess she decided to overlook the fact that Mr. Barrie is not the kind of person who makes things happen.
So that’s all of this story, which I did not make up no matter what Ronald Pruitt will try to tell everybody. And I guess this proves that Willie and I are good detectives to spot a criminal right away, though you don’t have to be a detective to know Ronald Pruitt is a creep.
PS. I checked with Mr. Barrie to see would it be ethical to turn this in for an English assignment and he said he would leave the ethics of the case to you with a plea for leniency for all four culprits. He spelled this out for me but I don’t get it. I mean Ronald is naturally a culprit, and you might stretch a point and call Willie and me culprits, but why blame Homer XVIII? He was dead most of the time anyway.
Blonde Beauty Slain
by Cornell Woolrich
The late Carl Brandt, beloved literary agent, once described a murder story as follows: imagine a rock thrown into a fishpond: the reader doesn’t want to know what happened to the rock — the reader wants to know what happened to the fish!
Cornell Woolrich’s newest story illustrates that description perfectly: witness the effects of murder on different strata of society, the impact of shock, fear, violence on the everyday lives of people-young, middle-aged, and old — rich and poor — good and evil — the design of the “human comedy,” the pattern of the “human tragedy”...
The delivery truck drove up and parked alongside the newsstand at exactly 9:29 P.M. This was very good time, since its contents were what was loosely called the “Nine O’Clock Edition.” This in itself was wholly inaccurate since the edition itself bore tomorrow’s dateline. To simplify, it was the next day’s paper going on sale the day before. Tomorrow’s paper in turn would really be the day after’s, with a new headline and make-up. But no one was the slightest bit confused — least of all, the reading public.
The newsstand was out at the curb, but it faced inward, toward the subway entrance. This was highly advantageous and Mrs. Maloney, the lessee, had to pay considerable for the concession. However, she made considerable, so the arrangement was to no one’s disadvantage. Mrs. Maloney was a woman of remarkable hardihood and, considering her occupation, surprising years. She habitually wore a coat-sweater in the colder seasons, and drank hot coffee from a container, but never stayed away from her stand. She must by all appearances have already been at the very top of her sixties. She had, however, a nephew — himself far from a youth — who spelled her at mealtimes and performed the harder details for her, such as lifting the papers from the ground to counter. She was, incidentally, called simply “Mom” by all and sundry. Very few actually knew her name.
The driver called out, “Hello, Mom,” jumped down, ran around to the open back of his truck, and hoisted a towering bale of 9 o’clocks, bound around with hairy hempen cord. He staggered a few bow-legged steps, then dropped the newspapers on the sidewalk with a detonating and dust-producing thud.
He said, “Any returns?”
Mom said, “Twanny-four.”
He scowled — he didn’t like returns — but picked them up from her counter and went back to his truck with them. He had to — that was the arrangement.
This completed their dealings until tomorrow night. The truck speeded off to feed the next stand along its delivery route.
Mom’s aforementioned nephew ran out with a short sharp-edged implement and flicked the hempen binding apart. Then he hoisted the massive bale — but by segments, not all at one time — to the counter. Mom in turn disposed a portion of them underneath the counter to wait their turn, placed the rest on top of the counter for immediate sale. The topmost paper invariably — and tonight was no exception — had to be discarded as unsalable. Either the rope had cut it into tatters at the edges, or the pitch to the pavement had smudged obliterating dust into it.
Mom glanced, but with only perfunctory interest, at the undamaged one right below as she threw away the top copy. The covering leaf which folded and went around to the back, was a peculiar pale-green color. The fill, however, was white. On the pale-green outer page, in lettering the size of the top line of an optician’s chart, blazed the words: BLONDE BEAUTY SLAIN. In the space left was a photograph. The two, however, had nothing to do with one another; for in minuscule print, almost invisible compared to its titanic reference, was the footnote: story on page 2. This was called a teaser or hook, the idea being first to catch the reader on the outside and then draw him into the inside. Its psychology was, to say the least, illogical — for it could have been assumed that the reader had already purchased the paper by that time anyway.
Mom sat back, propped her elbows up, and waited. From that point on it was up to the customers.
A man came along, peeled the top newspaper off the pile, threw a dime onto the one below. Quick as a flash, Mom threw down a nickel, and the dime was gone.
The man—
The man put his key in the door and went in, and he was finally home. It always surprised him that so small a flat could produce so much noise. Not that he minded it; he would have missed it — it wouldn’t have been home without it. He wouldn’t have wanted to come in here and find it deathly quiet; it would have frightened him.
She had just spanked Terry and he was howling in the corner. The little girl, who made much less direct noise, but far more indirect, than her brother, was squatting on the floor in front of the blaring television. Even the meat balls were contributing to the din, hissing and sputtering away.
The little girl ran to him and kissed him. Then the little boy. Then he went to her and kissed her. She was harassed, he could tell. He didn’t blame her.
“What kind of day did you have?” he said. It was the wrong thing to have said — he could tell right away.
“What kind of a day did I have?” she declaimed. “You can well ask that! You can well ask!”