The Philadelphia Murder Story by Leslie Ford

Composition slip, nobody would have noticed it was gone; it could have been gone until somebody from Post Editorial called up and asked for it.” He shook his head. “This has never happened before.
    “I don’t know who would know where to come to get a manuscript,” Mr. Trayser continued. “I can’t believe that any of our employees—” He shook his head again.
    “You have a good many new ones, probably,” Colonel Primrose said.
    “Yes. Filling in for those in the service.”
    “Then if a man took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and walked in here as if he knew what he was doing, it’s ten to one nobody would have stopped him?”
    “That’s true, colonel. But he’d have to know his way about. You see, it isn’t easy.”
    Colonel Primrose nodded. “He would also have to know where the manuscript was at that exact time,” he said slowly. “Which would be harder still, for an outsider.” He stood there for a moment, looking down at the desk and the basket, and over at the keyboard. “The foreman?” he said then.
    Mr. Trayser nodded. The keyboard foreman came up. His face had a look of mingled surprise and indignation, and the surprise increased at Colonel Primrose’s question.
    “I was wondering,” Colonel Primrose said quietly, “if you had a call about this manuscript this morning?”
    The foreman stared. “I was going to tell somebody about it,” he said. “Somebody called up from Post Editorial and asked where it was. I told them it had gone to the keyboard. Now they tell me they didn’t call.”
    Colonel Primrose’s black eyes sparkled. “Did he give his name?”
    “Oh, sure. I wouldn’t give anybody any information unless I knew who I was talking to—or thought I did. I recognize some of the voices, like Mr. Fuoss’. I don’t like to say, now he says it wasn’t him. But he said it was W. Thornton Martin.”
    “That’s Pete Martin?” Colonel Primrose asked.
    Mr. Trayser and the foreman nodded.
    “I thought it was funny he didn’t just say ‘Pete Martin’ instead of ‘W. Thornton,’ ” the foreman said. “But he used to be art editor before, and that’s not my department, so I don’t know his voice. But that’s who he said it was. And nobody in here took that manuscript, Mr. Trayser. I know all these people. They wouldn’t do anything like that.”
    “Thank you,” Colonel Primrose said politely.
    We went on. The composing room seemed to be practically the whole side of the building. At the end of it, we were back to the fireproof wall dividing Manufacturing from Editorial. There was an open fire tower with a broad staircase at either end, but no one had gone out that way. There was also an elaborate series of service elevators, air shafts and ventilators, closets and storeroom and washrooms, a telephone pay booth and a tunnel leading across to the women employees’ cafeteria on the ninth floor of the publication side.
    We got to the front elevator again.
    In the lobby, Captain Malone’s men were gone, except for one detective standing by the door. Myron Kane was gone. So was the man who had seen Benjamin Franklin. One of the watchmen had taken his place at the desk. The colors in the great glass mosaic had changed and deepened, as if the sun had really set behind the purple shadows of the gnarled, fantastic trees. There was a sense of emptiness in the marble hall, and a silence so profound that the vibration of the great presses on the other side of the wall hummed audibly.
    “Will you tell Mr. Hibbs I’ll see him later?” Colonel Primrose said to Mr. Trayser, who’d stopped at the door with us.
    He started to push it open, and stopped. He was looking at my hands. I looked at them too. My gloves, that had been clean when I came, were absolutely gray with the graphite dust from the bench where the cutting-down knife had come from. It was a little startling, because I had no memory of touching anything there.
    The colonel looked at his own hands. They were