Virden: The Thing in the Night

Old Elmer Hicks, irritable, rheumatic, and gossipy, is awakened from his sleep at 2 a.m. by the whirr of a motor moving slowly into the neighboring garage. But, instead of the scandalous sounds that usually accompanied his young socialite neighbor’s homecoming, a long silence followed, and then a terrible cry in the night—the blood-curdling cry of a woman being strangled. Helene Baird’s body is discovered the next morning, but the doctor rules it a carbon monoxide poisoning. The elderly maid who found the body, agrees—then promptly disappears. Soon enough, Elmer Hicks and his wife invade the office of Judge Lonsdale, asking “Who murdered Helene Baird?” The Judge investigates, and the case gets stranger and stranger . . .

The Author

Mrs. Katharine Virden Southerland (1892-1955) was a native of Dover, Delaware, and both of her mystery-thrillers were set in that state. She was married to attorney Clarence A. Southerland, who became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Delaware.