Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, December 1956 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

noticed that a section of rope inside the closet was frayed. The fraying was not caused by opening and closing the closet door. That simply won’t hold water.” Dolan frowned. “How so?” “Well, to begin with, when the door was shut, it would pinch against the rope and hold it in place. In other words, there’d be no slippage, and the hinge could hardly fray the rope. Now, when the door was opened, it’s possible that the weight of the woman’s body might cause the rope to give a little and scrape itself against the hinge. But in that case, the frayed portion would have been on the outside of the door, not on the inside.” Dolan nodded. “Sounds reason- able,” he said. “And if it wasn’t suicide,” I went on, “it had to be murder.” “But how was the job done?” Jim asked. “There was no sign of a struggle.” “Y figure Liz must have been pretty drunk, if not completely un- conscious. He slipped the noose around her neck, then pulled her to the closet. He opened the door and threaded the drag end of the rope over the top hinge. Then he went around to the other side of the door and towed on the rope until he had managed to pull her off the floor.” Dolan nodded again. “That must have been the way it happened,” he agreed, reflectively. A new DEATH OF A TRAMP thought struck him. “What makes you think we'll find his prints on her shoes?” : I lit a cigarette. “Liz wasn’t any lightweight,” I said, “and hoisting her off the floor hadn’t been as ~ easy as he had thought it would be. When he finally got the job done, her feet didn’t clear the floor by more than four or five inches. “She may have been drunk when he hooked the rope around her neck, but she sobered up fast and died hard. She was fighting for her life and she wasn’t passing up any bets. I figure she slipped her pumps off and eased them down onto the floor upright. By stretch- ing her toes, she could reach the backs of the shoes and stand on them. That would account for’ the indentations we found in the backs of the pumps. It couldn’t have beén much support, but it must have relieved some of the tension from the rope; and it was probably keep- — ing her alive.” “And he pulled them away?” “Sure. That’s why we found them where we did—lying together and only two feet away from the door. If she’d lost them in her struggles, they’d have been scat- tered and probably ’further from the door.” Dolan sighed. “That about ties everything in place, Tom. And real neat too, if it holds up.” “T think it will.” Nervously Dolan began pacing . the floor, ticking off his assets on 35 EOPMICGLOOOCKSsE©