Speaker 1: 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