The Only Good Secretary // The Man With the Cane — Jean Potts

THE ONLY GOOD SECRETARYWhen Louise gets to magazine office on Monday morning, she discovers that someone has murdered Fern Villard, the only good secretary that editor High Dudgeon has ever had. High on the list of suspects is Max Sutter. He and Fern were seeing each other and had argued that Friday night before he left the office. But, then, W. J. Robinson had reasons to be jealous of Fern as well because she was angling to replace him as editor of the Questions and Answers Department. And then there's sullen Donna Hirsch, who clearly has a personal interest in Max. Could she have decided to remove the competition? Certainly Archie O'Brien must know more than he's telling-he stayed late in the building that night at a party on another floor. Someone in the office had wanted Fern dead, but who wanted her dead enough to kill her?THE MAN WITH THE CANEWhen Val discovers the body of the murdered man lying on the church steps, the first thing he notices is how much he resembles the man with the cane that his young daughter had described earlier that day. But how could she have known this anonymous man? She's just a little girl, living with her mother and her step father, blocks away from here. It's too much of a coincidence-yet Val is convinced that this man must somehow be known to them. So Val sets out on a bit of detecting, querying the family members about what they know. First, there's Maudie, Val's giddy ex-mother-in-law; his argumentative ex-wife, Doris, and her perfect husband, Monroe. And Doris's affable brother, Clyde, formerly married to the beautiful, sensitive Barbara. Clyde wasn't even in town at the time... or was he? Each one seems to harbor a closely-held secret, but which secret will unlock the motive behind the murder of the man with the cane?