Design for Murder

I, PRISCILLA EVANS, am telling this story. When Jim Halsey had The Idea, and Cynthia Carter said that we ought to have a historian, Pete Logan said that there wasn't one of us that couldn't write up what happened— or was going to happen— better than the average mystery-story writer; so we didn't put any particular marble in the bag for him— or for her— if that's clear, which I'm afraid it isn't.Pete said, "Any one of us could write it. I've had stories rejected by three regular magazines, and Priss had any number of pieces published by her college literary paper, and I don't know which is worse. And Hilary once got into trouble by writing too many letters to a girl he had no intention of marrying—""It cost me ten thousand," Hilary Densmore said."—and was cheap at that," said Pete. "I saw the girl.""Come, come," said Hilary, "she wasn't as bad as that. Of course the detectives didn't find out until it was too late that she had at least one husband living, and couldn't have married me even if I had been willing to go through with it; but sometimes I get positively homesick for her. Snappy black eyes; snappy figure; snappy dresser—"