"Death Sentence" was first published here Following the death, there is an inquest, and the death is ruled an accident, but the victim was not Al Ravenel-it was Norman Frayne, who committed suicide. One morning, Norman rises early after a sleepless night, goes into the bathroom, and prepares the scene. He plans to rub soap on the floor of the bathtub and cause a fall and he ensures that an electric heater is positioned on a shelf just above the tub where it can be knocked off and land in the water. Frayne appeals to Ravenel, but the ex-con refuses to leave, so Frayne decides that a fatal accident is needed.
Norman convinces Paula that Al is an old friend and she welcomes the stranger into their home.Īfter three months, however, Paula misses being alone with her husband. Frayne agrees to let Ravenel stay with him and his wife Paula Ravenel at first demands $10,000 but quickly agrees to take his money in installments. Ravenel reminds Frayne that the police still have his severed finger and he insists that advances in fingerprint identification mean that Frayne could be matched to the digit. He got a job, married the boss's daughter, and inherited the business. Louis orphanage and now Ravenel expects payback for keeping his mouth shut about Frayne and serving twenty years in jail.įrayne has spent those twenty years establishing himself in a small town. Ravenel shot and killed the guard and was sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter, while Frayne ran away and was not implicated in the crime.
Years before, Ravenel and Frayne had both been involved in a robbery in which a night watchman with an axe had chopped off Frayne's finger. Norman Frayne is shocked to receive a telephone call from Al Ravenel, who has tracked him down at Frayne's real estate office in New Jersey.
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