No Way Out by h. A. Ripley. On a battered desk in
the small dark room lay a penciled note in handwriting resembling that of the dead
man. Dear John, you know the trouble I'm in. There's only one
way out and I'm taking it. You're my pal and we'll understand. Good
luck, Signed Paul. The only other furniture consisted of the chair in which
Paul Morrow had been found with his throat cut, a bed, and a
high ornate an apparently brand new waste basket. It had been definitely established that
the dead man had not left the room during the twenty four hours before he
was discovered. Finishing his examinations of the contents of the dead man's two twenty
dollar bills, a cheap watch, and an expensive wallet in which there was
a picture of a beautiful woman, Fortney turned his attention to the meager inventory
of the room. That's all we can find, said Inspector Kelly, indicating
a dictionary, scraps of a letter in a feminine handwriting found in the ornate
waste basket, a pen, some cheap stationery, a few clothes, pipe
and tobacco, and a bloody razor. Sharp knife certainly has all the appearances
of suicide. He continued, This door was locked and no one could have
left by the window. What do you make of it? Fortney? The
professor didn't reply at once. He picked up the photograph, studied it a
moment, and then, with a slow searching look around the small room,
said, better try to piece those bits of letter together. This isn't suicide,
it's murder. I believe you are right, exclaimed Kelly, with dawning
comprehension number thirty three No Way Out. The note was written with pencil,
yet there was no pencil found in the room. Apparently the murderer wrote the
note to resemble the dead man's handwriting, and through force of habit, put
it in his pocket. Men are men the best. Sometimes forget Shakespeare.
The end of No Way Out by H. A. Ripley