Character guide

Lieutenant Valcour

major

Also known as Valcour, Murder Lieutenant Valcour

Valcour arrives at the Endicott estate to find a dead man, a forged postscript, and a household of people performing innocence badly. He is methodical rather than theatrical, cataloguing a broken fingernail and a bruise beneath chiffon while a letter from a woman named Marge sits in his pocket. What unsettles him is not the evidence but a recurring presentiment of menace — the sense that the criminal and the weapon are still somewhere in the house, and that his theory might be wrong.

Mrs. Endicott

major

Also known as Mrs. Herbert Endicott, Herbert Endicott, Endicott

Mrs. Endicott walks into the investigation already bruised, already lying about small things, and already certain her husband's Latin-eyed mistress is the sort who would kill. She speaks of Herbert with a mixture of contempt and love so tangled that Valcour cannot separate them. Her confession that she loved him — even when she wished to kill him — makes her the emotional centre of the early case, and the question of what she actually did in the attic that afternoon hangs over every interview.

Thomas Hollander

major

Also known as Mr. Hollander, Tom, Hollander

Hollander is the friend Lieutenant Valcour calls in to sit with the recovering Endicott, a man whose soft accent and easy manner make him seem like comfort itself. But in the sickroom his right hand moves with unnatural rigidity toward a spot above Endicott's heart, and the conversation turns from sympathy to threat in a whisper. He is the novel's most immediate danger — a visitor whose presence at the bedside transforms a locked-room mystery into something far more intimate and lethal.

Dr. Worth

supporting

Also known as Dr. Sanforth Worth, Worth

Dr. Worth is the kind of doctor Nurse Murrow dreams about — unmarried, distinguished, never snappish — but his eagerness has long since faded into the puffy chains of sleep. He attends Endicott through the night, is astonished by every new development, and moves through the house with the slightly damp bewilderment of a man who did not expect his quiet practice to become a murder investigation. His medical judgment and his presence in the house make him both a witness and a quiet suspect.

Herbert Endicott

major

Also known as Mr. Endicott, Mr. Herbert Endicott

Herbert Endicott is dead before the novel properly begins, but he dominates it through the testimony of everyone who knew him. His wife describes a man who talked elaborately only when lying, who kept weekly impromptu reunions at the Yale Club that were neither impromptu nor at the Yale Club, and who was found dressed for outdoors without his hat. His weakness, his cruelty, and his refusal to be understood made him a target long before anyone pulled a trigger — and the question of who finally did is the engine of the whole case.

Roberts

supporting

Also known as Miss Roberts, Deeps Roberts

Roberts is the household employee who knows too much and admits it too late — she fetched her own revolver from a locked trunk during the confusion after the shooting, and by the time she returned it, silence had become the only safe option. Her testimony against Mrs. Endicott is relentless and precise, yet her suggestion that Hollander be the one to sit with the dying Endicott is a contradiction Valcour cannot let go. She is the case's most self-incriminating witness, and her bitterness makes her both credible and suspect.

Marge Myles

supporting

Also known as Marge

Marge Myles slips into Endicott's room at seven to rifle his pockets for a letter, and by dawn she is the name on everyone's lips — vanished, possibly hiding in the house, possibly fled into the city. The letter she left behind calls Endicott a liar and a louse and swears she is through with him, which gives the prosecution its motive and Lieutenant Valcour his most slippery variable. Whether she fired the shot or merely stumbled into catastrophe, her absence is the hinge on which Mrs. Endicott's guilt or innocence swings.

Cassidy

supporting

Also known as young Cassidy

Cassidy is the junior man Lieutenant Valcour leaves watching over Endicott's room, and when his superior finds him asleep on the chest by the window, the lieutenant envies rather than scolds him. His sheepish 'cat nap' and eager obedience — gun, arrest, warnings to the men at the servants' entrance — sketch a force stretched thin and running on nerve. He matters because the house is sealed on his watch, which makes every later disappearance inside it a quiet indictment of the men holding the doors.

Mrs. Siddons

minor

Also known as a Sailor Mrs. Siddons

A character who appears in a scene, possibly a witness.

Madame Velasquez

supporting

Also known as Velasquez

Madame Velasquez receives Lieutenant Valcour with gritty contempt and a grievance: Marge has left her 'in the ditch,' and she means to learn her a lesson. She either knows Marge killed Harry Myles or has convinced Marge she does, and either way she has extracted money for the silence — a sweet little bunch of filth, Valcour decides. When he glimpses her alone, wig off and corn-gray hair exposed, muttering 'he didn't know' to a mirror, the blackmailer becomes something lonelier and more dangerous: a woman who may be the only person alive who understands the crime.

Miss Murrow

supporting

Also known as Nurse Murrow

Miss Murrow sits the graveyard shift over the revived Endicott, mentally drafting novels and rehearsing the married name 'Mrs. Sanford Worth' while her attention drifts to Mr. Hollander in the chair. She fancies herself a student of life and words — 'glitter,' 'tripe,' ten French phrases — but her real gift is noticing: Hollander's hand slipping from the chair arm, vanishing into his lap, moving almost sneaky. Her idle vigilance makes her the quiet witness whose observations could place a man's hands exactly where they should not have been.

Officer Hansen

minor

Also known as Hansen, Officer O'Brian

A police officer assisting in the investigation.

Mr. Smith

minor

Also known as Smith

A minor character, possibly a servant or visitor.

O'Brian

minor

Also known as Death O'Brian

A police officer or associate involved in the case.

Jane

minor

A woman whose perspective or actions are referenced.

Miss Vickers

minor

Also known as Nurse Vickers

A nurse or caregiver at the estate.

Andrews

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant or police officer.

Herb Endicott

minor

Also known as Herb, Herb Endicott

A relative or associate of the Endicott family.

Harry Myles

minor

Also known as Harry

A man connected to Marge Myles, possibly a relative.

The Endicotts

minor

Also known as Endicotts

The Endicott family as a collective presence.