I did not answer. I lay back on my pillows with my eyes shut. I had given him the plague, had seen him die and be buried, before he spoke again.

“The chin,” he said, “is not so firm as I had thought. The outlines are savage, but the dimple—You poor little thing; are you really frightened?”

“I don’t like you,” I said furiously. “But I’d hate to see anyone with—with that trouble.”

“Then I’ll confess. I was trying to take your mind off your troubles. The bite is there, but harmless. Those were new ferrets; had never been out.”

I did not speak to him again. I was seething with indignation. He stood for a time looking down at me; then, unexpectedly, he bent over and touched his lips to my bandaged arm.

“Poor arm!” he said. “Poor, brave little arm!” Then he tiptoed out of the room. His very back was sheepish.

THE MYSTERY IN ROOM 913

Cornell Woolrich

Detective: Striker

ARGUABLY THE greatest suspense writer of the twentieth century, Cornell (George Hopley) Woolrich (1903-1968) was born in New York City, grew up in South America and New York, and was educated at Columbia University, to which he left his literary estate.

A sad and lonely man who desperately dedicated books to his typewriter and to his hotel room, Woolrich was almost certainly a closeted homosexual (his marriage was terminated almost immediately) and an alcoholic, so anti-social and reclusive that he refused to leave his hotel room when his leg became infected, ultimately resulting in its amputation.

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the majority of his work has an overwhelming darkness, and few of his characters, whether good or evil, have much hope for happiness—or even justice. No twentieth-century author equaled Woolrich’s ability to create suspense, and Hollywood producers recognized it early on; few writers have had as many films based on their work as Woolrich.

The major films began with Convicted (1938), based on the short story “Angel Face,” starring Rita Hayworth, and continued with Street of Chance (1942), based on The Black Curtain, with Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor; The Leopard Man (1943), inspired by Black Alibi, with Dennis O’Keefe and Jean Brooke; Phantom Lady (1944), a film noir classic based on the novel of the same title, with Ella Raines and Alan Curtis; Mark of the Whistler (1944), based on “Chance,” with Richard Dix and Janis Carter; Deadline at Dawn (1946), a much-changed film than the novel of the same title, with Susan Hayward; the Hitchcock classic Rear Window (1954), based on “It Had to Be Murder,” with Grace Kelly and James Stewart; the Francois Truffaut-directed The Bride Wore Black (1968), with Jeanne Moreau; and at least fifteen others.

“The Mystery in Room 913” was originally published in the June 4, 1938, issue of Detective Fiction Weekly; it was first collected in Somebody on the Phone (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1950).

The Mystery in Room 913

By Cornell Woolrich