First US: Popular Library 10 (1943)

Synopsis:

Wealthy Christopher Kent never realized, when he made a thousand-pound wager with his friend, Dan Reaper, that the payoff would be murder!

On a cold day in January Kent found himself in front of a hotel in Picadilly with nothing in his pockets. He was hungry, and it was snowing. But there was a reason why he could not get a penny or disclose his identity for forty-eight hours, a reason which made it seem possible that he might cadge a breakfast in the hotel.

If he simply strolled into the hotel restaurant and gave the number of a certain room -

It worked - up to a point. Through a curious series of accidents, he was compelled to go to the room he had mentioned. When Kent reached it, there was a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door - and beneath the sign, scrawled in red ink, the words "Dead Woman!"

Kent's amazing introduction to violent death and his startling discovery that he knows the victim is the beginning of TO WAKE THE DEAD, by John Dickson Carr - a smashing mystery novel involving that philosophical sleuth, Dr. Gideon Fell. It's packed with action and suspense!