Free The bride wore black by Cornell Woolrich Page A

woman is involved in both."
    "Oh, no, there's where you're wrong, it couldn't possibly be," his chief overrode him, semaphoring with both hands. "Ill admit I had some vague notion along those lines myself when I spoke to you last week. But that won't stand up, man, it won't wash at all! Since then I've

    had time to look over the composite description Cleary obtained of her and sent in. That knocks it completely on the head. Take the Bliss one out of the files a minute, bring it in here. . . . Now just look at the two of them. Put them side by side a minute.
    Bliss file Mitchell file
    yellow blond hair red hair
    five feet five five feet seven
    fresh complexion sallow complexion
    blue eyes gray blue eyes
    about twenty-six about thirty-two
    speech shows educa talks with slight tion and refinement foreign accent
    There's not even a similar modus operandi involved, or anything like it! One pushed a young broker's clerk off a terrace. The other dropped cyanide into the drink of a seedy ne'er-do-well in a mangy hotel. As far as we know, the two men not only did not know the women who brought about their deaths but had never heard of each other. No, Wanger, I think it's two entirely different cases "
    "Linked by the same murderess," Wanger insisted, unconvinced. "With these two diametrically opposite descriptions staring me in the face, I'll grant you it's like flying in the face of Providence to dispute. Just the same, all those physical differences don't mean much. Just break them down a minute, and look how easy it is to get the smallest common denominator.
    "Blonde and redhead: any little chorus girl will tell you how transitory that distinction can be.
    "Five feet five and five seven: if one wore a pair of extra-high heels and one wore flat heels, that could still be the same girl.

    "Fresh and sallow complexions: a dusting of powder takes care of that.
    "The difference in eye coloring can be an optical illusion created by the application of eye shadow.
    "The seeming difference in age is another variable, likewise dependent on externals such as costume and manner.
    "And what else is left? An accent? / can talk with an accent myself, if I feel like it.
    "A point to remember is that no single person who saw one of these women saw the other. We have a complete set of witnesses on each of them separately. We have no single witness on the two of them at one time. There's no chance of getting a comparison. You say there's no similarity in modus operandi, but there is in every way. It's just the method of commission that was different; you're letting that mislead you. Notice these 'two' unknown women involved. Both have a brilliant, almost uncanny faculty for disappearing immediately afterward. It amounts almost to genius. Both stalk their victims ahead of time, evidently trying to get a line on their background and habits. One appeared at Bliss's flat while he was out, the other cased Mitchell's room also while he was out. If that isn't modus operandi, what is? I tell you it's the same woman in both cases."
    "What's her motive then?" his superior argued. "Not robbery. Mitchell was a month and a half behind ia his room rent. She bought out an entire loge at $3.30 a seat and threw two of the seats away just to be sure of getting to meet him under favorable circumstances. Revenge would be perfect, but he didn't know her and she didn't know him. We not only can't fit a motive to it, but we can't even apply the explanation that usually goes with lack of motive. She's not a homicidal maniac, either. She had a beautiful opportunity to kill the Hodges girl and

    the Hodges girl is the juicy, beefy, lamebrain type that's almost irresistible to a congenital murderer. Instead she passed it up, warned the girl off for the girl's own sake."
    "The motive lies back in the past, way back in the past," Wanger insisted obdurately,
    "You sifted through Bliss's past broke it down almost day by day and couldn't find one anywhere."
    "I must have missed it