[From Det. Henry Ostermann's private notebook, 1919 volume. Case heading at top of first relevant page.]

THORPE, CORNELIUS A. — 12 Sept 1919. "Heart failure."

1. Dr. Linden signed. Linden is a correct physician. Linden is also a timid physician. He has signed three certificates in the past eight years that raised my eyebrow, all for wealthy households in the Crescent. I do not say he has ever lied. I say: he is the physician who gets called when people want a physician who will not.

2. Home call from the housekeeper at Crescent 411 the evening of the 12th reported only "my master has taken ill." No police were summoned. Expected — a man of 64 collapsing at dinner is not a police matter. But.

3. The hospital nurse attending. Polish woman. Came up to the station on the 14th, out of uniform, and asked to speak with "a detective who is fair." The man at the desk sent her to me. She did not give her name at first. She came to the point: the collapse was inconsistent with a coronary in specific respects. She listed the respects. She was a nurse of fifteen years' service. I took notes. I did not take her name then. I later learned it is Pytel.

4. I went on the 15th to Dr. Linden's office on a pretext (my own knee). I asked him, over the cup of coffee he gives his patients, whether he was satisfied with his finding on the Thorpe matter. He said of course. He said it quickly. He did not meet my eye when he said it. He changed the subject to the weather.

5. I spoke on the 16th with Miss Pellman of the Beacon. She was writing a follow-up piece to the obituary. She had, she said, smelled something. I told her I had smelled something too. We agreed not to name what we had not found. Her piece was killed by Dreyfoos on the 22nd. She sent me a note.

6. I opened a file. I listed in it: (a) nurse's observations, unsigned, (b) Dr. Linden's manner, (c) the timing (death before the Directors' meeting of 4 October — I have learned from a clerk at Hume Shipping's outside counsel's office that a meeting had been scheduled re Blackwell company affairs), (d) the son's sudden access to the company chair.

7. On the 27th I was called in by Chief Royland to his office. He asked me whether I was investigating the Thorpe matter. I said I was gathering. He said he understood I had been speaking to newspaper reporters. He said there was no case. He said Dr. Linden was a capable physician and the family was in grief, and that a detective's time was better spent on the recovery of a stolen automobile on Brayton Hill. I said I understood him. He said I was to close what was not open to begin with.

8. I closed the official file on 28 Sept 1919. I did not destroy my notes. I made this one.

9. One question I would have asked the son Julian if I had been permitted an interview: Where were you between seven-thirty and eight-twenty on the evening of the 12th, when your father took his dinner? I have since learned from a clerk at Doyle's (M., who owes me a small favor) that Julian was at Doyle's at seven and left at seven-forty, walking. His residence is at Crescent 415. The dinner was at 411. The walk is eight minutes. I make the arithmetic.

10. One fact I did not establish, and have since wondered whether I should have pushed past the Chief to establish: Dr. Linden's practice was formerly Dr. Kelsey's. I learned this from the nurse Pytel. The practice has a safe in the back office.

[entry ends. Subsequent pages of the notebook are blank except for one final entry, dated 18 October 1919, in a different, tireder hand:]

"Closed. Left on my desk Pytel's name and number in case some younger officer ever wants it. Marked H.O. pers. file. The chief will not open that drawer."