Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

“Phil couldn’t have killed Mr. Fields,” she said. “The other night when he left our house, he waited down the road for me. I went back with him to the playhouse. I was hiding in the front seat when Roger confronted him, and I went back to his cottage with him. I didn’t get home until early the next morning. That’s why there was mud on my shoes.” Elaine ran down toward me. “Oh, Daddy, I’m so ashamed of the mess I’ve gotten into.”

I held her in my arms like I hadn’t since she was a little girl, all the while feeling a bit of shame myself for what I had thought when I first saw the shoes. I walked with Elaine while she cried out her disillusionment. I didn’t try to stop her when she said that perhaps she had been too hard on Reede and headed back to the playhouse to talk things out.

As I drove away from the complex, I noticed the mob of tourists had knocked down a section of rail fence. Staring at the scene, I had a sudden thought. If I stepped on it, I could get to the courthouse before Mrs. Nims closed up.

Everybody was standing and applauding. Leaning against the theatre’s back wall beside me, Seth Fuller beamed. I don’t know, how Reede and Elaine had worked out their problems, but the lines at the end of Death of the Duchess had not been changed and Roger Manchester had given a magnificent performance.

I turned to Seth. “I guess you’d better come with me now.”

“I should have known better, but one big score and my dreams of a powerful regional theatre would have been possible. How did you figure it out?”

“Someone had to be directing Tod and Rod. Your old tobacco barn in back was a great place to store the marijuana, and the records down at the courthouse show that while you sold off a lot of property, you still own that plot of land behind Clem’s. The way I see it, you had a deal with the Bowsers, but on one of his walks Fields stumbled on the cache and wanted in. That was the big deal that caused him to drop out of the play. That night you saw Manchester return to his cottage. You waited for Elaine and Reede to go into his place. Then you confronted Fields. When you couldn’t work out something with him, you lost your hair-trigger timper and hit him with the trophy.”

“Don’t you see,” Seth said without looking at me, “I thought the play couldn’t go on without Fields, but he backed me into a corner. He wanted such a huge split I wouldn’t have been able to put the playhouse back in shape. There was nothing else I could do.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I let Seth stay around long enough to accept the congratulations from the audience and cast. Today I had learned how bad shattered dreams could hurt.

Clement County settled down soon afterwards. Philip Reede went back to New York to launch Death of the Duchess. Elaine promised to come up for the premier. I didn’t much like the idea of her traipsing off to New York, but it was her decision. Reluctantly Sarah Fricker returned the books she had “borrowed” from the library and put up a TV antenna to feed her fantasies.

The only excitement we’ve had around here lately came the day the State Police destroyed the confiscated marijuana. TV cameras were everywhere. And wouldn’t you know, Reverend Spiker and CUT showed up to support the burning of “the demon weed” — downwind.

The Gem Show by R. Tuttle

A long time ago the green elephant had been taken from him. Now, sixty years later, Sing Li was determined to get it back — at any cost!

* * *

Madame Chen was born Mai Ling in the year 1910 in a tiny hamlet in Northern China. The citizens of her village were simple, hard working folk who knew little of the world beyond the limits of their homes except for the grim, frightening stories of ruthless bandits who roamed the barren hills spreading havoc and death.

One such outlaw was Sing Li, who in 1920 was a tall, lean, hard faced stripling of nineteen with ten years of bandit activity behind him. Born of simple stock, he had been kidnapped at an early age and had learned all aspects of the bandit’s trade from the notorious Wong Ho. When Ho was killed in 1919 by government soldiers, Sing Li took over the band and continued to terrorize the hills. His constant companion was a hand sized gem shaped like an elephant that hung on a chain around his neck. Hand ground, the piece boasted hundreds of flat surfaces that literally shattered light into an everchanging spectrum of beautiful colors. Sing had stolen it from a rich merchant at the tender age of fourteen and it was said by his men that this gem was the only real love in Sing Li’s life. He was known as the evil one with the green elephant to his victims.

In August of 1920, Sing Li and his band of cutthroats attacked Mai Ling’s village.