Shevlin said , I &apos;ve got more information for you . yeah ? what ? a scream from the Slaytons &apos; living-room can be heard at the Weeks &apos; if the French doors are open . it can n&apos;t if they &apos;re closed . you tested it ? that was my experiment this morning . Willis said , good going , Shevlin . that &apos;s important . if Shevlin expected a pat on the back from Camp , he did n&apos;t get it . yeah , said the chief , except he might &apos;ve been smarter to find out how loud a scream sounds in Star &apos;s bedroom . chapter nine . the papers Tuesday night spread the murder all over the front pages . chauffeur held in socialite slaying were the headlines and they contained all the nuances of sin and sex that readers ate up . it was the kind of case the papers loved . there were people in high places , a beautiful and almost naked woman , and the possibility that under the bright light of police investigation all sorts of scandals would be uncovered . it was the dream case and editors had spared no pains in their effort to give colour to the facts . one enterprising reporter had dug up an old publicity photo of Phyllis taken when she was pounding on the doors of show-business and that helped the cause for it showed her as a ravishing beauty taken , as it had been , under the best conditions and eleven years before . Phyllis &apos; career on Broadway was played up ; the fact that she had been the prot&amp;eacute;g&amp;eacute; of a big-name director and that she had , for two years , been married to Hans Meredith who had since become a prominent playwright . there were even statements from Meredith and the director in which they both said flattering things about Phyllis and regretted her untimely death . Phyllis was glorified by the articles but her husband fared less well . in mentioning his five years of marriage , they did n&apos;t overlook the fact that he had divorced an earlier wife who had run off with another man . it was n&apos;t the sort of material that helped the head of a hospital and one of the top heart surgeons in the east . Wednesday morning &apos;s papers took a slightly different approach . with few developments in the investigation , they turned to interviews and speculation and the picture they ran was of Ralph , not Phyllis . it showed him , head lowered , coming out of the Griswold funeral parlour with Harry and May Wilson , and Phyllis &apos; father and mother . he was wearing a black suit and a black hat and dark glasses and he did n&apos;t look happy . the questions that the articles raised were : why was Phyllis Slayton dressed as she was ( overlooking the perfectly plausible possibility that she was getting ready for bed ) , why was nobody at home that particular night , and who had parked a big car behind the bushes and gone to see her ? the amateur detectives of the press dismissed the hidden tea service as merely a plant , an attempt to disguise the real motive for the murder . Wednesday was the day of the inquest and the crowds came early . there were fifty people on the town hall steps at seven-thirty in the morning and when the auditorium doors were opened at nine , a double line of people extended across the street and all around the green in front . the auditorium had eight hundred seats but more than twice that number were waiting outside and fifteen minutes after the line started moving , there was n&apos;t a seat to be had outside of the section reserved for principals and officials . Phyllis Slayton was packing them in as she never had on Broadway and hundreds had turned out the night before to file by her bier in the funeral parlour even though the lid was closed . Judge Mansfield , with a flair for the dramatic , strode on to the platform in a swirl of robes at precisely ten o&apos;clock and the buzz of the crowd turned into dead silence . he sat behind a table near the front of the stage beside which an empty chair for witnesses faced the audience . the inquest was conducted by town prosecutor Robert Herring and Dr Allen was the first man called . Herring spent twenty minutes questioning him with Dr Allen answering in a soft voice that people strained to hear . he described the position and condition of the body and the means by which he determined the time of death . then Herring asked him pointedly about the matter of sexual attack and it was obvious from Herring &apos;s manner that he strongly doubted the claim that there had been none . it seemed to Herring and all the other people in the hall that no woman , clad only in a filmy n&amp;eacute;glig&amp;eacute;e , could possibly be strangled without being attacked , but Allen knew what he knew and he would n&apos;t be swayed . there had been no attack . after Dr Allen stepped down , Dr Slayton took the stand and the questioning was brief . he told how he had gone to the board meeting , stopped for a couple of drinks at Phaedo &apos;s and come home to find his wife had been killed . Slayton was obviously suffering on the stand and Herring was gentle with him . Lt Willis was next and he explained what had been done . the victim &apos;s robe , dust from the scene , and fingerprints from all over the house had been sent to the laboratory in Hartford . no clues had been found in the robe or the dust and the fingerprints were still being sorted . further than that , extensive interviews had been conducted and over seventy-five people had been questioned , not only those acquainted or related to the deceased but all known criminals , perverts , and sex-offenders in the area , everyone who had ever been called to the attention of the police . nothing conclusive had been uncovered . Star Slayton was at the inquest with her father , as was everyone else on Terrace Lane , but she was n&apos;t called upon for testimony about the grey-haired man who looked like Joe Morgan and no mention was made of a chauffeur named Gary James , nor of his pink smudged handkerchief . Herring conducted the whole affair in as general a way as possible so that the only statements definitely made revolved around the time , place , cause , and victim of death . anything to do with the perpetration was left wide open so that Judge Mansfield could pronounce the broadest decision of the court , to wit : the court finds that Phyllis Slayton , n&amp;eacute;e Wilson , was strangled to death by hands and by sash in the living-room of her home on Terrace Lane between the hours of nine and ten-thirty on the evening of August third , nineteen hundred and fifty-nine , such death being at the hand of person or persons unknown . then he adjourned the inquest and went into his chambers to pose for pictures with Herring . as the crowd filed out of the torrid and stuffy auditorium , Camp and Willis went back to the basement headquarters . the chief was perspiring freely and he was grumbling , as he always grumbled , at such red-tape phases of law-and-order as inquests . a supernumerary was holding down the desk because all regular patrolmen had been ordered to attend the inquest . he held up an envelope and said , this came while you were upstairs . it was a special delivery letter , made of an ordinary three-cent stamped envelope with the fourth cent for first class mail and the price of a special delivery made up by additional three cent stamps with extra for good measure . it bore a Marshton postmark with the time 9 a.m , and was addressed to : Chief of police , police headquarters , Marshton , Conn . the address and the words special delivery had been typed on the envelope by a battered old machine that had a piece missing from the L and a badly worn and unaligned E . Camp looked the envelope over briefly , then ripped it open and pulled out the sheet inside . he unfolded it carefully , as though by instinct not touching it with more than his fingertips . inside was a four-word sentence which read : Ralph Slayton killed Phyllis . chapter ten . Camp read the note and frowned . then , holding it by the corners , he showed it to Willis and Shevlin . the lieutenant whistled but Shevlin shook his head . there &apos;s one in every crowd , he said . one what ? it sounds like a crank note . Camp grinned . kind of a funny note for a crank . notice it does n&apos;t suggest Ralph might have killed his wife as a poison pen writer usually does . this says he did kill his wife . the writer talks as if he knew something we do n&apos;t . he talks as if he &apos;d seen it happen . and , Willis agreed , as if he was afraid we were going to send James up for it . Shevlin stood alone . he said , I do n&apos;t think Slayton did it . give me a reason , said Camp . he &apos;s alibied . it &apos;s an alibi we have n&apos;t checked yet . the writer of this note might have been afraid we would n&apos;t check it . Willis said , he does n&apos;t know the state police . hell , said Camp . he does n&apos;t even know the local force . here , he told the supernumerary . go find a board and some thumbtacks . I want Lieutenant Willis to take this to the lab . the officer went out in search of the materials and Shevlin said , Ralph went to a board meeting and stopped at a bar . he did n&apos;t get home until twenty minutes past eleven and Phyllis was n&apos;t killed any later than ten-thirty . how &apos;s he going to lie about a thing like that ? it &apos;s funny about that bar , Camp said musingly . he sat down at his desk and pulled out a black and acrid cigar from his shirt pocket . he stared at it thoughtfully . Slayton did n&apos;t usually stop at bars after meetings . interesting that he happened to do so this particular night . that &apos;s easy . he &apos;d had a fight with his wife . he did n&apos;t want to go right home . a violent fight , Willis put in . very violent . it might have picked up again after he returned . at eleven-twenty ? Shevlin retorted . an hour after she was dead ? Camp lighted his cigar . the good thing about your growing up in this town is you have background , he said . the bad thing is that it makes you prejudiced . forget the time element , Shevlin . forget that for a minute . he puffed on the cigar in enjoyment . a fight with Ralph could explain what she was doing in the living-room . Shevlin shook his head . not from the way she was killed . are you going to try to tell me that because Ralph Slayton operates on hearts he could n&apos;t strangle anybody ? not that way . not from the arguments you give . Ralph might strike Phyllis in a rage , or throttle her , or even kill her . but to half throttle her and then knot a sash around her neck to finish the job , that &apos;s not just rage . Camp paused with his cigar in mid-air . he looked steadfastly at Shevlin for a long moment . finally he said to Willis , you know ? I thought the men I had to make into cops in this place were pretty hopeless , but I take it back . I think the boy has a spark . I think in time we might make him into a real detective . it was about the first compliment Shevlin had got from Camp and he could n&apos;t help feeling flattered . do n&apos;t tell me I win a point ? hell , no , Camp said , lowering the boom . do n&apos;t go getting a swelled head . one swallow does n&apos;t make a drink . you come up with one vague intangible in Slayton &apos;s favour and you think it eliminates him as a suspect . he was n&apos;t even a suspect until you got that note . was n&apos;t he ? Camp grinned at Willis . we can spot intangibles too , Shevlin . do n&apos;t you think the fact he and his wife had a fight makes us perk up our ears ? do n&apos;t you think we pay attention when it &apos;s stated they fought all the time ? do n&apos;t you think we notice he never thinks his daughter might have been killed too ? 