The Mystery of Knickerbocker Towers — Emily Thorne

Probably none of the several thousand people who lived in Knickerbocker Towers saw anything sinister in its atmosphere, but when Dora walked in at the nearest entrance that September evening at dusk, that was the way it impresses her. She had just run away from the house in Orange County that her half-brother and guardian, Mark Brisson, had borrowed for the summer, and she had secretly come back to New York, to share Carol Caldwell's apartment at Knickerbocker Towers. In a few weeks she would be twenty-one and legally free from Mark -- from his domination, his thievery, his force of character that had threatened her own individuality.


No one could be better equipped to domineer than Mark, with his good looks, his urbanity, is charm, his great artistic talent, and if to make what he considered a decent living he had to beg, “borrow,” or break hearts -- or marry his half-sister off to one of his major creditors -- he would do it, or die trying.

But as wonderful as it was to have eluded Mark, and to be on her own in New York, Dora could not fight down the feeling of menace that enclosed her as she entered Knickerbocker Towers. And one night two weeks later, the feeling was to return, more poignantly. When she had entered the apartment then, she would find Mark there -- but a Mark who could no longer cause anyone any trouble -- except, by his death there, to make Dora a prime murder suspect.