Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for September 19, 2023

sure seems like a Minit Mystery…

yeah, it was a known acquaintance that killed her… NOT an enemy…

Good morning™, everyone!

The very thought that Ms. Caxton could possibly have enemies is enough to make the housekeeper raise her voice! Well, I don’t think it was an enemy of Ms. Caxton, just someone who wanted the thing in her vault at any price. The only thing is that they haven’t yet discovered that something is missing.

Looks like Senior Abuse !

A sweet, inoffensive and good woman. The worst kind!

Seems like another mystery, but will it be short enough to be called “minit”? Of course, the shortness is precisely why it’s difficult to make those mysteries really make sense, with a solution that both follows from the clues we’re given, while at the same time not being so obvious that we can all see it right away.

After all, Tracy is a detective, and mysteries should be his forte. I know that some here prefer action-packed stories that don’t require much thinking. But I refer you to the very first story you see if you click back to the beginning of the GoComics archive. That is a bona fide mystery, of a murder on an airplane, by Mike Kilian and Dick Locher.

A snapped answer is never suspicious.

Good morning™, distressed servantry !

Shelley done great in conveying that woman’s distressed condition. Elegant arty lamp in P. 2., :-)

Methinks she doty protest too much

Interesting that fireperv call this a minit mystery and Real Deal Neil agrees with him. Yesterday I called it a minit mystery and all I get is a lecture by Kenny G.

Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Lol!

Watch it Tracy, you ticked off Gertrude the maid!

The traditional victims in a classic murder mystery are either someone with no enemies or someone everybody hates.

Seriously doubt Ms. Claxton had an iPhone or iPad or anything like that .. but she may have kept an appointment book or desk calendar or something with an entry along the lines that she was having Col. Mustard over for tea at 8:00 for what turned out to be the nite of her murder.

Did Tracy unintentionally flip her switch?!

Well gets a police doggie and he’ll sniffs out yer criminal!

Maybe the idea started as a minit mystery and Mike liked it enough to ask Eric to expand it into a full story to give Mike a much needed break.

Sigh, still no bow on the Tracy chapeau—but he has taken his gloves off!

is it me or in the last panel is Tracy less…craggy? think the city pays for the Botox?

Fall is here . Dick got his trench coat out .

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Hmmm, the House keeper really got upset at the word enemies……?

It seemed quiet, tranquil…and then IN with the pointed sticks!

The butler did it, in the library…

“Well… apparently she had ONE!”

The business with the tea is odd. A set and a burner are kept in the study so she could make her own tea? Was she incapable of going to the kitchen on her own for some reason? She didn’t appear to be handicapped when we saw her on the sofa on Sunday.

1-MAID MARION: BOO HOO! What will a pretty young Irish lass like meself do for a job now, I ask ye, Mr. Tracy?

2-… I remember like it twas yesterday – she came into this very room and fired… er…asked me ta make her a nice cuppa.

3-DT: Hang on. Did she fire you yesterday? That would be a pretty good motive for murder I think. I’ll have to look it up in my Motive Handbook to be sure though.

MAID MARION: Gosh and begorrah, Mr. Tracy! How could ye accuse a sweet, young thing sech as meself of sech a thing??? I could cut yer throat for even suggesting it!

DT: Mental note to self: Rule out Maid Marion as she clearly had great affection for Mrs. Biddy.

So the criminal cleaned up the tea service and wore gloves, this is going to be hard.

Maid: Although… she did have a beef with that Worth woman…

Tracy: Worth… ? Do you mean… Mary Worth?

Maid: Yes.

Tracy: (on wrist radio) Chief? I’m taking early retirement—effective immediately!

What was in the safe???

Prissy Housekeeper-Lady had the night of the murder off [that’s convenient!] and thinks Wilhelmina Caxton would have been Home Alone. But there was a stand-by tea set and burner in the Study, so Willy could brew herself and any possible guest a cup. We’ve seen the (fatal) result of that preparedness.

Housekeeper-Lady becomes quite incensed at the very notion that Ms. Caxton might have had enemies! She was “a sweet, inoffensive, and good woman!” The response to Tracy’s inquiry seems overwrought and suspicious. Might Housekeeper-Lady be rated Person of Interest status?

And how and when will Grandfather’s Wonderful Toy and its “missing” status come to light? That does seem crucial, yet so far there is not the slightest awareness of its very existence….

Okay,big question to me… was the wall safe left open or re-locked?

open