The Unfinished Crime; The Girl Who Had to Die - Tapa blanda

THE UNFINISHED CRIME

Andrew Branscombe has been courting Hilda Patrell in his old-fashioned, priggish way.  He doesn’t realize that, though separated from her husband, she is still married.  So when Charles Patrell returns and begins to interfere with his plans, Andrew accidentally kills him in a fit of rage and fear.  At first panicked, his terror turns to exhilaration as he realizes that he can get away with the deed.  All he has to do is keep everyone from the truth.

First there is his sister Eva, who is trusting enough to believe everything he tells her.  And there is Hilda and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Coralie, Charles’s daughter.  And Charles’s old friend, Vincent Colton, who shows up looking him.  And Charles’s young live-in girlfriend, Blanche, who must be dealt with.  And of course there’s Jerry, who unfortunately appears at exactly the wrong moment, but ends up helping him get rid of the body—and now won’t go away.  Fortunately for Andrew he is up to the task—daring and clever fellow that he is—because a lesser man would surely be caught.      

THE GIRL WHO HAD TO DIE

“I’m going to be murdered,” she said in her muffled, sad little voice.  Jocelyn is only nineteen but is convinced that she is going to die.  She meets John Killian on a cruise ship heading back to New York.  And when later than night she falls over the rail and into the ocean, it looks like her prediction had come true.  Imagine Killian’s surprise when the rescued Jocelyn insists that he was the one who had pushed her.

She’s poison, he thought. She can’t help that, anymore than a rattlesnake can help it.  But you have to get away from her.  When they dock, Jocelyn convinces Killian to accompany her to the Bells for a visit.  She’s claims that she is in love with Killian, and will keep his secret.  And then one of the passengers, Elly L’O, and the ship’s purser, Chauverney, also show up at the Bells, followed by Angelo, who had been their ship’s waiter.  Each one seems to have a connection to Jocelyn—even Mr. and Mrs. Bell--and it soon becomes clear to Killian that they are bonds of hate.  But Jocelyn claims innocence.  Is he being groomed to be her next victim—or her murderer?