# The Man in Lower Ten — Character guide

> Key figures in The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

- [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/narrator.md): He boards the Washington Flier bound for Pittsburgh and wakes in the wrong berth, wearing a stranger's tan shoes and red tie while his own valise has vanished. Caught between the porter's quiet amusement and a mounting s
- [Richey McKnight](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/richey_mcknight.md): McKnight turns the arrest of the harmless clerk Stuart into a comedy of errors, laughing over nightshirts and scarf pins while the case against the real culprit slips further away. Women have always loved him, perhaps be
- [Alison West](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/alison_west.md): She meets the narrator on the train and again in the aftermath of the disaster, where she binds his broken arm and improvises a child's straw hat into something radiant. Something weighs on her — a small object clutched 
- [Henry Pinckney Sullivan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/henry_sullivan.md): Sullivan walks into a room of detectives and lawyers with the composure of a man who has rehearsed his confession, admitting the larceny but denying the murder of Simon Harrington. His use of Alison West's first name and
- [Wilson Budd Hotchkiss](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/wilson_budd_hotchkiss.md): Hotchkiss treats the investigation as a sacred calling, sharpening pencils and sketching diagrams on envelopes while dismissing the police as hopeless tanglers. He is not vindictive by nature, but the idea of a murderer 
- [Mrs. Klopton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/mrs_klopton.md): Mrs. Klopton nurses her injured employer with beef tea and firm pressure, attributing his protests to mental exaltation rather than pain. She is chastened only when reading Science and Health, and even then she will not 
- [Mr. Francis Johnson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/johnson.md): Johnson works the Sullivan murder case with a professional's calm, arranging Blakeley's voluntary surrender with the same matter-of-factness he brings to any errand. His placid exterior and grisly small talk unsettle his
- [Mr. Blakeley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/blakeley.md): Blakeley narrates the unraveling case from the uneasy position of a man who has surrendered himself and yet keeps investigating. He spars with the self-important Hotchkiss, withholds half-confidences he later regrets, an
- [Sammy Forbes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/sammy_forbes.md): Sam is the explosively generous host whose Shack becomes a refuge where Alison West is staying with his wife, Dorothy. He sees more than he lets on, confiding that Alison is worried and that she cannot be read like a boo
- [Jennie MacLure](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/jennie_maclure.md): McKnight's theory casts her as the figure who slipped behind the curtains of lower ten, groped for the wallet, and struck when the sleeping man seized her. She is a woman acting for Bronson, or against him, and her hyste
- [Mrs. Carter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/mrs_carter.md): A passenger on the train who provides key testimony.
- [Andy Bronson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/andy_bronson.md): Bronson moves through the case as a threat rather than a presence, tracked by the nervous Hotchkiss from a streetcar to a Washington boardinghouse. His savage exchange with a blond man behind a closed door reveals a man 
- [Mrs. Curtis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/mrs_curtis.md): A woman who provides information about the Sullivan family.
- [Mr. Lawrence](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/mr_lawrence.md): A lawyer who represents the Sullivan estate.
- [Simon Harrington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/simon_harrington.md): An elderly man with knowledge of the crime's background.
- [Dorothy Browne](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/dorothy_browne.md): A friend of Alison West.
- [Porter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/porter.md): A train porter who provides information.
- [Doctor Van Kirk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters/van_kirk.md): A doctor who examines the body.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_man_in_lower_ten_se/characters