Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

I poured the phenol into Andrew’s castor oil blend, patted Smokey as he paced by, tossed the used phenol container into the trunk of the car, and went off for a long drive.

I don’t know where I went. (I thought I knew where I was going — I thought I wouldn’t need a map.) Doubtless I was still in the city limits as Andrew applied the first lethal coating and lifted his reflector into place.

It was warm for April; ninety degrees by noon. I rolled down the window and kept driving. If I’d thought to check, I wouldn’t have run out of gas. If I’d thought to bring my AAA card, I wouldn’t have had to hitch a ride to the nearest hamlet.

The sun was low on the horizon but it was still well over a hundred degrees when I pulled up in front of the house. Andrew’s contorted body would be sprawled beside his deck chair. I hoped Smokey hadn’t made too much fuss. Cautiously I opened the door. Warily I walked through the living room.

I heard a sound in the study and moved toward it.

Andrew sat at his desk.

He looked awful, but no more so than usual.

I ran back to the car and grabbed the phenol container out of the trunk. It was too hot to hold. I dropped it, picked up an oily rag, and tried again.

Slowly I read the instructions and the warning: “If applied to skin can cause sweating, thirst, cyanosis, rapid breathing, coma, and death.” I read on. “Treatment: Remove by washing skin with water. To dissolve phenol, or retard absorption, mix with castor oil.”

I slumped against the car. The sun beat down. Why wasn’t I more thorough?

Glaring at the phenol container, I read the last line on the label: “Caution: Phenol is explosive when exposed to heat or oxidizing agents.”

I dropped the oily rag. But of course it was too late.

The Gold of Mayani by Walter Satterthwait

“Dead,” said Dr. Murmajee, small stubby hands clasped together below the round swell of stomach. As always on these occasions, he wore a sagging black suit, a limp white shirt, a drooping black tie flecked with soup stains, and a frown whose solemnity was not entirely persuasive. Staring down at the bed, he nodded with elaborate sadness. “Quite dead, oh my yes.”

“Yes,” said Sergeant Andrew Mbutu patiently. “To be frank, doctor, that is a fact I was able to determine for myself. I was hoping that you might be able to add to it.”

“Ah,” said Murmajee. He turned to Andrew, thick eyebrows raised in the round Indian face. “There will be an autopsy?” Fascinated by the innards of Wazungu, Europeans. As though he expected to find, hidden among them, some hitherto overlooked gland whose secretions produced white skins, internal combustion engines, computers, imperialism.

“Yes,” said Andrew. “Certainly.” Give the dog his bone. “But in the meantime, what can you tell us about the corpse?”

“Ah,” said Murmajee, lower lip in a thoughtful pout. “Ah. Well, the knife, I should say — without committing myself precisely at this point in time, of course — I should say that the knife is rather suggestive. Yes? Wouldn’t you agree, sergeant?”

“Yes, doctor,” said Andrew, and sighed. Futile. No commitment until after the autopsy, lest someone pilfer the doctor’s new prize.

Little doubt, however, that the knife in question was indeed suggestive. Its black plastic handle, loosely encircled by stiff white fingers, protruded like a long, obscene power switch, set to off, from the solar plexus of the corpse.

The naked body lay on its back, open eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The single sheet — pale blue Egyptian cotton, befitting the luxurious bed of this luxury suite in this luxury hotel — was drawn up neatly to the man’s waist. As though the man, pre-death, had opted for an appearance of post-death modesty, despite the inherent and ultimate immodesty of suicide.

Assuming, of course, that this was in fact a suicide.

“The angle, you see,” said Murmajee. “There is no telling, oh my no, until we determine the length of the blade. But the angle is just exactly right, you see.”

Murmajee bent forward, peering at the knife. “A pushbutton stiletto. Italian, I should think. A narrow blade, and likely long enough to penetrate the heart very nicely, yes. Not much exterior bleeding, as you see. Death would have been quite sudden. Shock, internal hemorrhage. Poof, eh?”

“The wound could have been self-inflicted?” Andrew asked him.

“Ah,” said Murmajee, pouting again. “Ah. Self-inflicted. Could have been, yes. Possibly. And could have been otherwise.” He shook his head. “Perhaps after the autopsy...?”

Behind the two of them, standing at the long wooden dresser, Constable Kobari called out, “Sergeant?”

Andrew turned. Kobari was holding up — carefully, fingertips dainty along its edges — a worn leather wallet. “It was under the dresser,” he told Andrew.

“Excuse me, doctor,” Andrew said to Murmajee, and left him bending over the body while he crossed the room to Kobari.