A Difficult Problem

"A LADY to see you, sir." I looked up and was at once impressed by the grace and beauty of the person thus introduced to me. "Is there anything I can do to serve you?" I asked, rising. She cast me a child-like look full of trust and candor as she seated herself in the chair I pointed out to her. "I believe so, I hope so," she earnestly assured me. "I—I am in great trouble. I have just lost my husband—but it is not that. It is the slip of paper I found on my dresser, and which—which——"

Known as the "Mother of the Detective Novel," Anna Katharine Green (1846 1935) shaped the structure of the modern detective novel and gave it a distinctive American style. Her works include the bestselling The Leavenworth Case, A Strange Disappearance, and The Step on the Stair.