Decent suspense race-against-the-clock story in which the chapter headings clue the reader in from the start that someone is going to face execution - they all start with titles such as 'Day One Hundred and Fifty Before the Execution' and countdown as each goes by.

Henderson, a man who has fallen in love with Carol, is being denied a divorce by his manipulative wife and leaves their apartment after a blazing row, vowing he would invite the first stranger he meets to share the dinner reservation and theatre tickets bought for himself and his wife (Carol had suggested he try having a nice evening out with his wife and talk to her calmly in an adult manner to persuade her, as she has already refused him a divorce previously).

Henderson meets a woman in a bar near his home, a woman so nondescript that later (a little implausibly, although it is meant to be explained by his preoccupation with his situation and his later shock at what happens) he recalls nothing about her appearance - only her hat was noteworthy, a bright orange afair with upright black plume. They have a night out on a platonic basis and the only thing she does to draw attention, apart from wearing the hat, is to stand up at the theatre in the front row and flaunt herself in the spotlight, making it obvious to everyone that she has a copy of the supposedly high fashion and exclusive hat worn by the onstage South American singer. (She did it to force the singer to throw her a nosegay during the performance, when the obviously offended singer had thrown one to every other woman in the first rows and left her out because of her wearing a copy.)

Later, she and Henderson part at the bar where they met and Henderson goes home, only to find the police waiting (though it is never explained who discovered the body as we find out much later that the murderer did not notify them) because his wife is dead and he is the prime suspect. Henderson plummets into nightmare as he takes the police to the bar - they have established from his wife's broken watch that he could not have done the murder if his arrival there a few minutes after six p.m. can be corroborated - and the barman denies ever seeing the woman or seeing Henderson with anyone. Then the taxi driver who took them to the restaurrant is tracked down and he also insists Henderson rode alone. The head waiter and table waiter both swear he was unaccompanied, and the box office clerk says that he came to the theatre by himself. Oddly the police do not seem to talk to the singer, but later when she is contacted as part of the private investigation by Henderson's friends, she only remembers the woman, not any man being with her so wouldn't be able to corroborate Henderson's story; however, she does remember another clue, so the police appear negligent in not speaking to her.

Soon Henderson is condemned to the electric chair following a trial where his defence is ridiculed because the woman couldn't possibly exist, and he is meant to have strangled her in a fit of rage at her refusal of the divorce then coldbloodedly gone off to the restaurant etc to try to establish an alibi. (I suppose even if the singer's testimony had been used, it could have been said that he had witnessed the woman standing up at the theatre and used her as a spur of the moment alibi when confronted by the police.) But the very implausibility of Henderson's story makes the detective involved in the case start to doubt his guilt.

The detective does some digging but can't spend a lot of time on the case (or so he tells Henderson) so he asks him to contact whoever would move heaven and earth to prove his innocence. Henderson has a close friend from years ago who has just gone to South America to work, so the policeman sends a telegram on his behalf and Lombard returns and starts to help investigate, tracking down other people who may be able to corroborate that the woman was with Henderson that night. Lombard is aided by Henderson's girlfriend Carol who takes risks to get into the confidence of a somewhat 'dodgy' drummer in the orchestra. But whenever they get a witness to talk, by the time they can fetch the detective to take their statement officially, said witness has had a fatal accident.

Finally, Lombard has the idea of advertising for theatre programmes in exchange for money, because the woman had taken both of theirs and Henderson has the habit of turning down corners. When someone turns up with a programme like that, he gets more than he bargained for, and I found this a surprising twist.

The book was a suspenseful page turning read apart from odd little glitches as mentioned above, and some of the glitches are explained in the long explanation at the end by the detective. Two things keep it from being a 5 star rating: firstly, the explanation, although necessary, comes across as rather dragged out after the murder is solved, although I didn't find it as contrived as the one in 'The Bride Wore Black' which spoiled the story much more than this one affected my reading pleasure. Secondly, there is a 'comedy interlude' when Lombard and Carol are going round interviewing the various witnesses, which was probably acceptable for the 1940s date when this was written but comes across as very racially stereotyped - Lombard visits the South American singer and the scene is played for laughs, but not amusingly for a present day reader. Other than that, the book is a good example of a race-against-time story by this writer. ( )

Alguien ha estrangulado a su esposa, y él está tranquilo: tiene una perfecta coartada para silenciar a la policía. Una mujer llamativa tocada con un abigarrado sombrerito naranja le ha acompañado durante toda la noche por bares, restaurantes, teatros… pero la legión de testigos no recuerdan ni la mujer, ni el sombrero. Y cuando se evoca a un fantasma para salvar el propio cuello, es necesario un milagro para que el fantasma se materialice.

Not as good as some of [a:Cornell Woolrich|25413|Cornell Woolrich|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1287940850p2/25413.jpg]'s other novels but still well above the herd. Typically outrageous plot that we actually don't care much about as long as it carries the suspense. Woolrich supplies the usual twist and doesn't telegraph it too early. Full of metaphor and simile like all good noir books are (that's one of the reasons we like them).

A good read. ( )

A man accused of murdering his wife after a heated fight needs the testimony of a woman he spent the evening with on a whim in order to be acquitted. She's nowhere to be found. I really love his sentences, his descriptions. Too bad mysteries are never any good. Irish should have applied his skills to a different genre. ( )

Good example of his work. ( )