Elizabeth George - A Moment On the Edge - 100 Years of Crime Stories By Women

I sat with Mrs. Newberg in her bedroom while she dabbed gently at her tears and explained to the officer that she had been sitting at her dressing table and putting the finishing touches to her makeup when Mr. Newberg left the room to go downstairs. “He always went first,” she said. “He liked his coffee fresh.”

The policeman nodded as if her remark made sense, then inquired tactfully about her husband’s drinking habits. A sample of Mr.

Newberg’s blood had shown a high concentration of alcohol, he told her. She smiled faintly and said she couldn’t believe Mr. Newberg’s moderate consumption of whiskey had anything to do with his fall.

There was no elevator in the hotel, she pointed out, and he had had a bad leg for years. “Americans aren’t used to stairs,” she said, as if that were explanation enough.

He gave up and turned to me instead. He understood I was a friend of the couple. Was there anything I could add that might throw some light on the accident? I avoided looking at Mrs. Newberg, who had skillfully obscured the faded bruise around her eye with foundation. “Not really,” I said, wondering why I’d never noticed the scar above her cheek that looked as if it might have been made by the sharp corner of a bedside cabinet. “He told me once that the secret of fulfillment is to live dangerously, so perhaps he didn’t take as much care of himself as he should have done.”

He flicked an embarrassed glance in Mrs. Newberg’s direction.

“Meaning he drank too much?”

I gave a small shrug which he took for agreement. I might have pointed out that Mr. Newberg’s carelessness lay in his failure to look over his shoulder, but I couldn’t see what it would achieve. No one doubted his wife had been in their room at the time.

She bowed graciously as the officer took his leave. “Are English policemen always so charming?” she asked, moving to the dressing table to dust her lovely face with powder.

“Always,” I assured her, “as long as they have no reason to suspect you of anything.”

Her reflection looked at me for a moment. “What’s to suspect?” she asked.

540

“Introduction” by Elizabeth George. Copyright © 2001 by Elizabeth George.

Story notes by Jon L. Breen. Copyright © 2004 by Jon L. Breen.

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. Copyright 1917 by Susan Glaspell, renewed. First published in Every Week , 1917. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s Estate, Curtis Brown Ltd.

“The Man Who Knew How” by Dorothy L. Sayers. Copyright 1932

by Dorothy L. Sayers, renewed. First published in Harpers Bazaar , February 1932. Reprinted by permission of the agents of the author’s Estate, David Higham Associates.

“I Can Find My Way Out” by Ngaio Marsh. Copyright 1946 by Ngaio Marsh, renewed. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine , August 1946. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. and the agents for the author’s Estate, Gillon Aitken.

“The Summer People” by Shirley Jackson. Copyright 1950 by Shirley Jackson. First published in Charm , 1950. Reprinted by the permission of the agent for the Estate of Shirley Jackson.

“St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning” by Charlotte Armstrong. Copyright © 1959 by Charlotte Armstrong. Copyright renewed © 1987

by Jeremy B. Lewi, Peter M. Lewi, and Jacqueline Lewi Byngata.

First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , April 1960.

Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s Estate, Brandt & Brandt Literary Agents, Inc.

“The Purple Is Everything” by Dorothy Salisbury Davis. Copyright

© 1963 by Dorothy Salisbury Davis. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , June 1964. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Money to Burn” by Margery Allingham. Copyright © 1969 by Rights Limited, a Chorion Group Company. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , April 1957. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s Estate, Rights Limited, a Chorion Group Company. All rights reserved.

“A Nice Place to Stay” by Nedra Tyre. Copyright © 1970 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , June 1970. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s Estate, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

“Clever and Quick” by Christianna Brand. Copyright © 1974 by Christianna Brand. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , March 1974. Reprinted by permission of the agent for the author’s Estate, A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd.

“Country Lovers” by Nadine Gordimer. Copyright © 1975 by Nadine Gordimer, from Soldier’s Embrace by Nadine Gordimer. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc., A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Nadine Gordimer.

“The Irony of Hate” by Ruth Rendell. Copyright © 1977 by Kings-markham Enterprises, Ltd. First published in Winter’s Crimes .

Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Sweet Baby Jenny” by Joyce Harrington. Copyright © 1981 by Joyce Harrington. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , May 1981. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Wild Mustard” by Marcia Muller. Copyright © 1984 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust. First published in The Eyes Have It . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave” by Antonia Fraser. Copyright

© 1988 by Antonia Fraser. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine , June 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Case of the Pietro Andromache” by Sara Paretsky. Copyright

© 1988 by Sara Paretsky. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine , December 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author and her agents, Dominick Abel Literary Agency Inc.

“Afraid All the Time” by Nancy Pickard. Copyright © 1989 by the Nancy J. Pickard Trust. First published in Sisters in Crime . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Young Shall See Visions, and the Old Dream Dreams” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Copyright © 1989 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine , July 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“A Predatory Woman” by Sharyn McCrumb. Copyright © 1991 by Sharyn McCrumb. First published in Sisters in Crime #4 . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Jack Be Quick” by Barbara Paul. Copyright © 1991 by Barbara Paul.

First published in Solved . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Ghost Station” by Carolyn Wheat. Copyright © 1992 by Carolyn Wheat. First published in A Woman’s Eye . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“New Moon and Rattlesnakes” by Wendy Hornsby. Copyright ©

1994 by Wendy Hornsby. First published in The Mysterious West .

Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Death of a Snowbird” by J. A. Jance. Copyright © 1994 by J. A.

Jance. First published in The Mysterious West . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“The River Mouth” by Lia Matera. Copyright © 1994 by Lia Matera.

First published in The Mysterious West . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“A Scandal in Winter” by Gillian Linscott. Copyright © 1996 by Gillian Linscott. First published in Holmes for the Holidays . Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Murder-Two” by Joyce Carol Oates. Copyright © 2001 by The Ontario Review Press. First published in Murder for Revenge . Reprinted by permission of the author.