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الاستماع والقراءة

Stuart Palmer

A sharp-witted Manhattan schoolteacher tackles eight little mysteries in this collection from the author of The Puzzle of the Happy Holligan.

When not teaching third graders, middle-aged singleton Hildegard Withers enjoys sipping orange pekoe tea, reading Sherlock Holmes stories, and tending to her tropical fish. And from time to time, she also helps her friend, Insp. Oscar Piper, with some puzzling cases …

“The Riddle of the Lady from Dubuque”: Miss Withers goes undercover at an affluent dinner party, but murder cuts the evening short.

“The Riddle of the Yellow Canary”: Hildegarde races to prove a young songwriter’s death was a homicide and force her killer to face the music.

“The Riddle of the Blue Fingerprint”: A mahogany wardrobe for sale at a local auction house contains a peculiar surprise: the body of a man Miss Withers was hired to find.

“The Riddle of the Doctor’s Double”: A doctor pays a house call to a sick patient on Riverside Drive, but the housekeeper thinks she just let him in, so … who is upstairs with her boss?

“The Riddle of the Twelve Amethysts”: Miss Withers investigates a curious case of blackmail involving packages containing the violet gemstone.

“The Riddle of the Black Museum”: A baffling locked-room murder sends Miss Withers on a field trip to the NYPD’s famed collection of apprehended weapons.

“The Riddle of the Green Ice”: Apartment hunting in New York can be killer, but Miss Withers wasn’t expecting a robbery and a shooting, too.

“The Riddle of the Snafu Murder”: After a possible spy uses her name in bars around town, Hildegarde’s search for answers leads her to a Greenwich Village murder.

Her style may be eccentric, but Miss Withers is as clever as they come. If you enjoy reading these cases, be sure to check out any of the full-length mysteries in the series like The Penguin Pool Murder, Murder on Wheels, or Murder on the Blackboard.

Praise for the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries

“One of the world’s shrewdest and most amusing detectives. ” —The New York Times

“Hildegarde Withers remains incomparable and inimitable. ” —Anthony Boucher

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries

The Riddles of Hildegarde Withers: Stories

On a trip to the New York Aquarium with her third-grade class, a teacher discovers a dead body: “One of the world’s shrewdest and most amusing detectives” (The New York Times).
 For the third graders at Jefferson School, a field trip is always a treat. But one day at the New York Aquarium, they get much more excitement than they bargained for. A pickpocket sprints past, stolen purse in hand, and is making his way to the exit when their teacher, the prim Hildegarde Withers, knocks him down with her umbrella. By the time the police and the security guards finish arguing about what to do with Chicago Lew, he has escaped, and Miss Withers has found something far more interesting: a murdered stockbroker floating in the penguin tank. With the help of Detective Oscar Piper, this no-nonsense spinster embarks on her first of many adventures. The mystery is baffling, the killer dangerous, but for a woman who can control a gaggle of noisy third graders, murder isn’t frightening at all. The Penguin Pool Murder is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes Murder on the Blackboard and Murder on Wheels.

The Penguin Pool Murder

On vacation in California, the spinster sleuth stumbles onto the case of a man murdered in mid-air—“Withers is still one of the best” (Anthony Boucher).

Because of the fog, the man in the brown suit arrives five minutes late for the ferry to Catalina Island. If he wishes to reach his destination today, his only option is the Dragonfly, a twelve-seat prop plane that makes up in speed what it lacks in comfort. The ride is bumpy, and all of the passengers—including a honeymooning couple, a film producer, and a would-be adventuress—find themselves feeling queasy. But none react as badly as the man in the brown suit, who sweats, shakes, and screams, “I’m dying! I don’t want to die!”—and by the time they reach Catalina, he already has. Vacationing schoolmarm Hildegarde Withers notices the corpse when they’re taking it off the plane. An amateur sleuth with a nose for murder, it doesn’t take her long to deduce foul play. But which of the passengers was dastardly enough to commit murder in mid-air? The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree

A model is dead in Central Park, and the only witness to the crime is a horse: “A most readable and entertaining story” (The New York Times).

The evening’s party is over, and modeling sensation Violet Feverel wants to get in a quick horse ride before the dawn breaks. She saddles up Siwash the stallion, and gallops onto the Central Park bridle path, eager to begin what will be the last ride of her life.

On the other side of the park, Miss Hildegarde Withers—schoolmarm and expert sleuth—breaks into a grin when she hears a patrolman’s radio mention a “Code 44. ” As she knows all too well, “Code 44” means a dead body—and “dead bodies” mean adventure. Miss Withers follows the cop to the crime scene, where they find Violet Feverel lying dead, having apparently fallen from her horse. But if she died when she hit the ground, then why is Siwash marked with a spot of blood? For Miss Withers, answering this question will prove more exciting than an afternoon at the races—and much more risky.

The Puzzle of the Red Stallion is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

The Puzzle of the Red Stallion

A corrupt politician’s trophy wife is targeted during a train ride: “The best of the Hildegarde Withers stories, and that is saying a good deal” (The New York Times).

Oscar Piper doesn’t belong on Mexican trains. A New York City detective, he’s in the Dominican Republic as part of an international delegation come to cut the ribbon on a new transcontinental highway. This grants him the honour of a trip to Mexico City on the hottest, dustiest train in North America—a crowded slow coach that’s about to become a crime scene. The alderman’s wife does not know how the bottle of Elixir d’Amour got into her bag. She only knows that when the porter smelled it, he dropped dead. 

She seems to have been the intended target for the poisoned perfume—but who would want to kill a corrupt politician’s trophy wife? Oscar sends a wire to his friend Hildegarde Withers, a schoolteacher and amateur sleuth, whom he knows will not wilt in the Mexican heat. Before she begins her investigation, she has only one question: “Cómo se dice ‘murder’?” The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla

On vacation in Hollywood, Miss Withers gets a job—and a case—in a mystery “that will keep you laughing and guessing from the first page to the last” (The New York Times).

Hildegarde Withers—schoolteacher and occasional detective—has just finished planning her grand European tour when Germany invades Poland. Not wishing to join the international conflict, she books a ticket to Hollywood, trading the Louvre and the Vatican for the Brown Derby and La Brea tar pits. She has only been in Los Angeles three days when she’s offered a job in pictures. Not as a starlet—Miss Withers is no ingénue—but as a technical adviser to a film version of the Lizzie Borden story. The job is perfect, for no one knows murder like Miss Withers. On her first day at Mammoth Studios, the screenwriter in the next office dies of an apparent broken neck. To understand why, Miss Withers must contend with a film producer who makes her third graders look like grown-ups—and a killer every bit as vicious as Lizzie Borden herself. The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan

There are lessons to be learned for retired teacher Hildegarde Withers when a society murder reveals a love triangle gone bad. 

The war in Europe is over, and America’s fighting men are coming home. Lieutenant Pat Montague spent the war dreaming of a return to his beloved: society princess Helen Abbott. But when Uncle Sam finally lets him go, Pat finds that Helen has become Mrs. Huntley Cairns, and he has nothing to return to at all. He goes to see Helen at the Cairns mansion, only to stumble upon his rival’s murdered corpse. 

The jealous soldier is the obvious suspect, but Pat’s friends know he is innocent, and entreat Hildegarde Withers—elementary school teacher and talented sleuth—to clear his name. Huntley was rumoured to be involved in the black market, and Miss Withers soon discovers his killer was far more sinister than a soldier with a grudge. Miss Withers Regrets is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

Miss Withers Regrets

A librarian who just came into money dies in a New York hotel room, and justice is overdue: “Full of fun and delightful people. A really terrific plot” (Chicago Daily News).
 
 With a seven-hundred-dollar inheritance in her pocket, small town librarian Harriet Bascom went to the track. By the time she left she had thousands—enough to live life the way she had always wanted: with champagne, music, and love. The champagne and music flow freely once she arrives in New York City, but it’s love that brings trouble. When she discovers her beloved has a terrible secret, she makes the mistake of being alone when she confronts him about it—and doesn’t even scream when she dies.
 
 Harriet is one of the three thousand women who disappear in New York each year—the women Hildegarde Withers wants to know more about. Unhappily retired, this former elementary school teacher is hungry for action. Investigating Harriet’s case—and the three other ladies who follow her into death—will provide all the action Miss Withers could ever want.
 
Four Lost Ladies is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

Four Lost Ladies

A comedian is dead, a witness is missing, and it’s up to Miss Withers—“one of the world’s shrewdest and most amusing detectives”—to solve the crime (The New York Times).

In comedy, timing is everything. If Tony Fagan were a better comic, perhaps he would’ve known when to keep his mouth shut. After weeks of jokes at the expense of businessman Winston H. “Junior” Gault, the sponsor of Fagan’s television show, Fagan is found with his head bashed in, and Gault is charged with the murder. The case seems open and shut, but Gault has the money to buy himself an acquittal. The only witness against him is Ina Kell—a small-town dreamer who came to New York to find fame—and she’s disappeared. It’s up to Hildegarde Withers, a retired schoolteacher with expertise in solving crime, to find the vanished witness. Ina may have come to New York seeking excitement, but she didn’t deserve to get caught in the line of fire. Nipped in the Bud is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

Nipped in the Bud

When a Hollywood cartoonist is poisoned, sharp-witted sleuth Miss Withers must draw her own conclusions. “Miss Withers is … still one of the best” (Anthony Boucher).

At Hollywood’s most renowned cartoon studio, there are a few things you simply do not draw: snakes, cows with udders, violence, and death. So when Janet Poole finds a doodle of the studio’s famous cartoon penguin with a noose around its neck, she takes the drawing as a threat. Someone at the studio has murder on the mind. The top brass reach out to Hildegarde Withers, a retired amateur sleuth who has come to Los Angeles to relieve her asthma. The obvious suspect is Larry Reed, a disturbed cartoonist with a dark sense of mischief, but on Miss Withers’s first day working the case, something happens that suggests Larry is likely innocent: He’s murdered. This studio may work in animation, but Miss Withers will find the violence on the lot anything but cartoonish. Cold Poison is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.