Inspector Pardot of the Sûreté, on a skiing holiday in the Alps, sees at a distance a man being shot with a revolver drawn by the killer from inside a white ski-jacket. Back at the hotel he stands by while the local inspector interrogates the victim's wife who turns out to be seeking a divorce since she loves another man in Paris. There is another male guest who has been trying to seduce the victim's wife, she says unsuccessfully, but was in bed all day with a stomach upset, he claims. Both of these people own white ski-jackets. Who was the killer?
Evening Standard, 22 August 1955.
Reprinted as "The
Napoleonic Clue", Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (British
edition) No 64, May, 1958.
Included in the collection Crime and Detection, edited by John Higgins, Lulu.com, 2010.