Murder and the Married Virgin

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It was mid-morning when Michael Shayne walked into the small reception hall of his recently acquired offices on the fourth floor of the International Building in New Orleans. He scowled at the white light illuminating the room and accentuating the drabness of the furnishings. When he rented the two-room suite a month previously, the walls and ceilings were mellow with a smooth accumulation of dust and the residue from smoke, and he had zestfully searched through second-hand stores for suitable equipment. He liked old things. He had liked the walls and ceilings as they were, but before he could move his prized purchases into the suite an ambitious building manager had the ceilings painted white, installed long tubes of fluorescent lights, and redecorated the walls with creamy tints.

The oak railing in the reception room which partitioned off a space for a typewriter desk had been sandpapered and freshly varnished. Lucy Hamilton sat at the desk tapping her pencil impatiently.

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