Books › Blue Book v057 n02 [1933-06], 1933 › scan 5
Scan 5
Blue Book v057 n02 [1933-06], 1933
36 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1There's Murder in
3We here offer you a really great novel—for it gives you something really new! A detective-story, a mystery story, yes; but it is much more than that; for it daringly depicts for you what may be the next great step in mankind's progress. . . . By the exceptionally gifted author of "The Game of Death" and "The Eternal Light."
5By ROY CHANSLOR
7IN a dark and silent old house in East Seventy-ninth Street, two people, a middle-aged man and a young girl, sleeplessly counted the hours. They were waiting, waiting: the man tossing restlessly in the bed in his room at the front of the house; the girl lying quiet in her room at the end of the long hallway.
9The man—Daniel Tyler, retired lawyer and one-time District Attorney of New York County—was listening, in fascinated dread, straining his ears for a sound expected and feared. The girl, his motherless daughter, was merely waiting, with an almost fatalistic resignation, for that strange compulsion, the compulsion which she did not understand but could not disobey.
11Since shortly before midnight both had known that it would come during the night. And after what had happened a week ago, when her terrified screams had wakened him, brought him running to her room, there was no question of sleep for Tyler. As for the girl, on her part there was no desire for it.
13He had tried to persuade her to let him keep vigil by her side, wrapped in a blanket in her big chair. But she had refused; and when he had tried to argue, had pleaded with him to leave her alone. So now he agonized, waiting, listening. If only it were some tangible thing from which he could guard her!
15The girl lay quite still, her body relaxed, trying not to think at all, fighting her nameless terror. And presently she had conquered it, her mind was composed, serene. After perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty, she threw the covers back, fitted her feet into the little mules by her bedside.
17Swiftly, surely, she walked across the dark room. Her hands encountered the violin-case, opened it, took out the mellow old violin. In the darkness she placed it to her shoulder, and very softly, tentatively, drew the bow across the strings. Then she began to play, firmly, the Moonlight Sonata.
19At the first strains Tyler sat up in bed, fumbled for the reading lamp. The clock told him that it was twenty minutes past four. He sprang out of bed, seized his dressing-gown. Then what he was dreading, happened. In the middle of a bar the music stopped!
21Tyler strode across the room toward his door, flung it open. Down the hallway, the violin clutched closely to her breast, the girl was already running. He hurried toward her. She stopped, swaying, pale, her breath coming quickly.
23"Ruth!" he said, going to her swiftly. "Ruth!"
25She gave a little shuddering moan. He drew an arm about her shoulders. They were shaking. Quickly he led her into his room, seated her on the edge of his bed. She dropped the violin and covered her face with her hands.
27"Murder!" she half-whispered. "Murder has been done!"
29His face gray and haggard, the man bent over her, took both her hands in his. She lifted her face. With the greatest effort he controlled his voice.
31"Where, Ruth? Who?" he asked.
33"I don't know where! Oh, I don't know!" she said. Then, slowly, wonderingly: "Martha. . . . Martha. . . . That is her name! Martha! He was strangling her! He has killed her!"
35Tyler stared down into her face.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.