The Moving Finger

The Moving Finger by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

Natalie Sumner Lincoln's "The Moving Finger" opens at Dewdrop Inn, the Virginia country home of Mrs. Lawrence Porter, where night nurse Vera Deane is caring for the paralyzed war veteran Craig Porter and is asked to look in on Bruce Brainard, a dinner guest taken suddenly ill with vertigo. In the early morning Vera discovers Brainard dead in his bed, his throat cut with a razor no one in the household claims to own. Hugh Wyndham, Mrs. Porter's nephew, helps summon help, and Vera phones the coroner, who directs her to call in Dr. Beverly Thorne, a physician and justice of the peace whose family has feuded for generations with the Porters over an old romantic slight and a spite wall blocking the river view. Thorne examines the body and scene despite Mrs. Porter's open hostility toward him. At the inquest, testimony from Vera, footman Murray, Mrs. Porter, Hugh Wyndham, and Deputy Coroner McPherson establishes that Brainard had no luggage or razor of his own, that the wound's direction suggests he could not have cut his own throat unless left-handed, and that Dr. Alan Noyes, Craig Porter's attending English surgeon, vanished the same night after supposedly receiving a recall cable to rejoin the war in Europe, missing his booked steamer. The jury returns a murder verdict against "a party or parties unknown." Suspicion centers on Noyes and Wyndham, since the household's doors and windows were all found locked, pointing to an inside crime, though Detective Mitchell and Thorne differ on how much weight to give the medical evidence. Vera's estranged younger sister, Dorothy Deane, a Washington society columnist, learns of the murder and comes to stay at the Porter house at Mrs. Porter's invitation to comfort Millicent Porter, who had been secretly engaged to Brainard pending her mother's consent. Millicent's private diary reveals a growing attachment to Dr. Noyes and a quarrel with him shortly before the murder, and she is later seen destroying pages from it and disposing of a photograph cut down a well to keep her likeness from the press. Hugh Wyndham, revealed to be romantically bound to Dorothy despite a mysterious past connection to Brainard, tells her the killing was "justifiable homicide," deepening the mystery of what both Deane sisters and Wyndham are concealing. Mitchell subjects Vera to a staged reenactment in Brainard's room to test whether sounds carry through the transom to Craig Porter's bedroom, a trick sprung using Murray as a decoy corpse, which Vera resents bitterly. Meanwhile Beverly Thorne reveals to Vera that they share a prior connection: he was the surgeon who once treated her dying mother years earlier, and she recognizes his keepsake black-edged card. Dr. Noyes then unexpectedly returns to the Porter house, having missed his ship, and gives evasive answers to Mitchell and Thorne about his movements, ultimately revealing that his right arm was lost in the war, which he argues makes it physically impossible for him to have inflicted the fatal wound. Immediately afterward, Millicent is found crying out that papers have been stolen from her. Separately, Chief Connor of the Secret Service and Inspector North investigate a lost handbag containing Vera's old visiting card and a large sum of money, discovering that much of the cash is sophisticated counterfeit currency linked to a forger known as "Gentleman Charlie." That night, Thorne learns from his old servant Cato of his own childhood friendship with Millicent despite the family feud, and discusses with Mitchell theories implicating Noyes, including the possibility of a concealed artificial arm and a motive of jealousy over Millicent. An unnamed counterfeiter works secretly in a hidden cabin workshop, comparing forged and genuine banknotes under lamplight amid printing and engraving equipment.

By Natalie Sumner Lincoln · First published 1918 · Genre: Mystery, Detective Fiction, Thriller/Suspense · 23 chapters · 79,396 words

First lines

THE swish of starched skirts caused the man in the bed to roll slowly over, and for the first time patient and nurse regarded each other. The silence grew protracted.

"Well? " The man's tone was husky and the short interrogation was almost lost among the pillows. He made a second attempt, and this time his voice carried across the room. "What -- what do you want?"

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mystery · detective · crime · suspense · thriller · whodunit · investigation · murder · secrets · intrigue · clues · deception

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The Moving Finger is listed on Textopian as a novel by Natalie Sumner Lincoln, dated 1918 CE.

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