"He Was Lying in an Aisle Between a Couple of Overturned Chairs, and a Knife Handle Protruded from Between His Shoulder-Blades."

"The Stars Foretell."

By Frank Gruber (1904-69; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; the GAD site HERE; The Thrilling Detective HERE; and the IMDb HERE).

First appearance: Pocket Book Storyteller Weekly, June 25, 1949.

Short short short story (4 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE; go to Page Four).

(Note: Some text smeared but legible.)

   "'Six and one dead is seven,' he said aloud. 'That's strange—everyone's here'."

SERGEANT DEERING'S job is on the line, so in order to keep it he needs to do three things: Solve a murder committed in front of more than a half dozen witnesses (including himself!), rightly interpret a bloody dying clue from another murder, and not get himself killed by someone who's way too proficient with a knife . . .

Main characters:

~ Detective-Sergeant Sam Deering, the swarthy assistant, Professor Hyde, L. B. R. Pawling, William Connolly, Simon Gray, Captain Holman and two or three detectives, two lawyers, and the lab man.

Typos: "gradually dimmed the" [what?] "of the room"; "to determmine predictions"; "he gripper it"; "stood frowing".

References:

- "the fundamental rules of astrology" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the twelve signs of the zodiac" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "an astrolabe" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "by Hipparchus" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the mariner's sextant" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the swami" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the equivalent of a carbon copy" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a ring of skeleton keys" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the lift operator" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a bucket shop" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- Frank Gruber definitely earned his status as an uberpulpster. He told us how he did it in The Pulp Jungle (1967), which we highlighted last October (HERE).

- A remarkably similar situation as regards the witnesses to the murder and the murder weapon itself also occurred in a TV episode (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE; the IMDb).

- Knives as murder weapons and not eating utensils figured heavily in Robert Bloch's "Wolf in the Fold" (HERE and HERE), Allan K. Echols's "The Unseen Death" (HERE), Jeffrey Farnol's "Footprints" (HERE), Marc Connelly's "Coroner's Inquest" (HERE), and Carter Sprague's "The Triangular Blade" (HERE). (Note: This is only a partial list.)

The bottom line:

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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