"The Catbird Seat" opens in a crowded cigar store in New York City, where Mr. Erwin Martin is buying a pack of Camel cigarettes. As the narrator points out, this is an unusual act for Martin, who is generally known as a nonsmoker. But the reason for his purchase is soon made clear: he is planning to murder Mrs. Ulgine Barrows.

Martin is the head of a filing department in a large corporate firm; he is characterized as a neat and precise man who is known for his "cautious, painstaking hand." Back in his apartment, drinking a glass of milk, he contemplates the horrible Mrs. Barrows. He resents her for her "quacking voice and braying laugh," her constant chattering, and her use of colorful phrases she picks up from the radio.

Quoting Red Barber, the announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, she asks him seemingly nonsensical questions...