A Woman in Green and a Man in Gray
- The unnamed narrator, known only as the Continental Op, arrives by train at the mining city Personville, referred to by its locals as Poisonville.
- The Op tells Donald Willsson of The Herald newspaper that he's in town, and they arrange to meet later that night.
- When the Op arrives at the Willssons' address, Donald isn't home but his wife plays hostess. She's wearing a long green dress and green shoes. The conversation's ten kinds of awkward until Mrs. Willsson is called away to the phone.
- The Op watches through the window as Mrs. Willsson drives off in a Buick coupé. Three-quarters of an hour pass by.
- When Mrs. Willsson finally returns, she apologizes and says that her husband won't be home tonight.
- The Op leaves, but not before noticing that Mrs. Willsson's green shoe looks like it's covered in blood.
- Along the way back to his hotel, the Op sees a large crowd gathering around City Hall. Apparently, a man has been murdered. Cue the suspenseful music.
- The Op finds out that the dead man is none other than Donald Willsson. Uh oh.
- A man in gray named Bill Quint tells the Op the history of Personville.
- It goes a little something like this:
- For 40 years, Elihu Willsson has owned Personville. During WWI, the workers of the Mining Corporation went on strike. Elihu hired gunmen to break up the strike, but after the strike was suppressed, the thugs didn't want to give up their power.
- So now Elihu was in worse trouble than before because the thugs had too much on him. The city of Personville was taken over by four corrupt men: the bootlegger Pete the Finn, the crooked bail bondsman Lew Yard, the chief of police Noonan, and the gambler Max "Whisper" Thaler.
- Elihu's son Donald took over the newspaper and tried to expose the crooks without realizing that his own father was involved in the crimes.
- And now the only honest person in Personville is dead. Bummer, dude.