CHALLENGE

TO THE READER

At this point in the story of THE DUTCH SHOE MYSTERY, according to a precedent I created in the first of my detective novels several years ago, I inject a Challenge to the Reader … maintaining with perfect sincerity that the reader is now in possession of all the pertinent facts essential to the correct solution of the Doorn and Janney murders. …

By the exercise of strict logic and irrefutable deductions from given data, it should be simple for the reader to name at this point the murderer of Abigail Doorn and Dr. Francis Janney. I say simple advisedly. Actually it is not simple; the deductions are natural, but they require sharp and unflagging thought.

Remember that knowledge of the article which the author extracted from the cabinet in the Anteroom, and of the information which the author gave to Harper over the telephone in the preceding chapter is not necessary to the solution … although if you have correctly followed the logic you may deduce what the article was, and with less certainty, what the information was.

To avoid any charge of unfairness I submit the following refutation: that I myself deduced the answer before going to the cabinet and before telephoning Harper.

—ELLERY QUEEN