Miss Hinch

Miss Hinch captivates the New Yorkers of the story with a tale of a daring escape. Her ability to become someone else as an actress creates her possibilities for camouflaging her identity as a criminal. Though her mind remains inaccessible in the text, she is described as intelligent and a “considerable beauty of a bold sort” (561). Miss Hinch’s first name is not provided. She blends into whichever character best suits her needs. Her theatrical performances consist of “transformations so amazing as to be beyond belief, even after one had sat and watched them” (561). She uses these talents for disguise and immersion into a role to allow her to temporarily escape justice after she murders her lover.

Miss Hinch must either run or surrender. Though her lover has “done things he hadn’t ought” (561), news reports do not leave space for the presumption of her innocence. Hinch is not framed as a stereotypical serial villain or femme fatale. She committed a single crime of passion, if she indeed committed it at all.

The narration reveals Miss Hinch’s increasing desperation as her suspicions of the elderly woman who insists on remaining near her increase. Although her thoughts are not revealed, her movements increasingly characterize her as a calculating murderer.