The Thin Man

Young Mrs. Roger Horan had life by the tail. Everybody said she looked like Linda Darnell--and she did. Everybody said her three children were bright and beautiful. They were. Her pin-clean apartment in ugly, teeming Astoria, across the East River from Upper Manhattan, was not so bad, considering the housing pinch. And her husband. . . .

"You must think I'm crazy not knowing where he is," she told newsmen, with a fine flash of teeth and blue eyes. "But he's Been working all hours, and there's been so much excitement the last couple of days my head hurts."

New York's head hurt too. About 1 a.m. on June 8, a young air force veteran and his girl had wandered into Central Park after a Y.W.C.A. dance. They had been attacked by three thugs who had beaten the young man to death, robbed his body of some $6, and hauled his girl into the bushes for a double rape. About 4 a.m. the same day, a trio answering the same description had dragged two men from a car in Astoria, shot one, and beaten the other mercilessly. For twelve days, the thugs had been at large.

"Here's a picture of Roger," Mrs. Horan said, warmly. "He's only 27. He used to be an accountant, and he was a photographer's model when he was 14. I don't know why he wanted to join the police force," she added. "But then he always hated that inside work, and he loves to listen to detective and quiz programs. We bet on them. He owes me a black slip with lace." Mrs. Horan flushed.

Ten Days. The reporters asked Mrs. Horan if she knew what her husband had been doing the last ten days. She frowned:

"When he's in plain clothes I never hear what he's doing. Usually, he talks to me at the movies, and we aren't interrupted by the children. But we never have time for movies any more. And, then, we sleep in twin beds so he won't wake me up when he comes in.

"But a couple of weeks ago Roger told me that a man he knew had been murdered by three men in his car in Astoria. He said he'd been picked to work on the case in plain clothes, and that he only had ten days to do the job, but that it was his big chance. Later on, he said he thought there was some connection between this murder and that horrible one in Central Park."

A fierce yowl drifted in from the street. "That's my son, Reecy," Mrs. Horan said, calmly. She went on:

"Well, I hardly saw Roger at all after that. He'd come" in at 4 in the morning, drink a glass of milk, get out of bed at ten and not come home again until 4. He got thinner and thinner. One night he woke me up and started to tell me that he'd picked up a tip in a bar that he thought would break that whole thing. But I guess I fell asleep and didn't hear."

Forty-Eight Hours. What happened after that?

"After that I think he was gone for almost 48 hours. When he got back, he looked exhausted. But he said his tip had broken the case, all right, and that he'd helped capture the murderers in their homes right here in Astoria, and that he'd have to appear against them.

"And then the next thing I knew his pictures were in all the papers, and people, even the Mayor, were saying that he had broken one of the toughest cases in New York police history singlehandedly, and, well, I couldn't believe it all. And then, on Friday, the Mayor pinned a detective badge on Roger in front of all the big men on the force.

"I wish I could have been there," said Mrs. Horan, wistfully. "But I couldn't leave the children."

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