Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

“Easy, Mr. Mott. You’ll get all the information in a couple of days.”

“But I want to know now,” he pleaded. “I have every right to know.”

“Sorry, you’re in no condition to talk. Just lie quiet until the ambulance gets here.”

“What ambulance? What are you talking about? I want to go home.”

“You can’t,” said the doctor, exerting a slight but firm pressure on his shoulders. “You’re a very sick man.”

Richard struggled frantically. More arms gripped him, held him securely. Were they crazy? Had he overplayed the part of a stricken husband? What had gone wrong?

“I have to be alone tonight. Don’t you understand? She’s dead. My wife’s dead. I feel awful.”

“You should. With that fever you’re running I don’t know how you ever managed to come to your office. I’m afraid we’ll have to operate immediately.”

“Operate?”

“Your appendix. I imagine your stomach’s been like a blast furnace all day.” The doctor nodded sympathetically and picked up his medical bag.

“No, you’re wrong,” protested Richard, aware suddenly that the heavy dull throbbing he had so carefully nurtured and fed upon all day was now something white-hot and knifelike against his stomach wall. Why hadn’t he noticed before? The jabs of pain were excruciating.

“I tell you I’m in the best of health,” he shouted. “It’s the shock, that’s all. All I need is a good night’s sleep. Alone, by myself. In the morning... I’ll be quite all right.”

He felt the needle stab his arm, and the words froze on his lips.

“A sedative to relieve the pain, and help you sleep,” the doctor whispered soothingly.

Richard pulled away, struggling fiercely. “But I don’t want to sleep. I can’t sleep! Emma...”

“What a brave, suffering man,” someone whispered.

“What a loyal husband,” said someone else.

Richard looked up wildly. They were all staring, all sympathizing. He had won. No one doubted his innocence. Victory was in his grasp. Linda was in his grasp. He was free.

“Mustn’t sleep... Mustn’t sleep...”

He saw Linda’s slender form framed in the doorway. She was biting her lip, concerned, worried. She had never seemed more beautiful. He blinked.

The two detectives were leading him back to the couch. Linda’s face never left him. How different she was from Emma... Emma... Why was he thinking of poor dead Emma? He blinked again to shut out her image. She stayed, grew larger.

He closed his eyes tighter. For awhile there was only blackeness, chill, impenetrable.

Then he began to dream...

The Dog with the Curly Tail by Julian Symons

A dazzling crime thriller in miniature... by one of England’s mystery story greats.

* * *

Commissionaire William Jones stood outside the offices of British Commercial Pictures in Deal Street, just off Piccadilly, and considered the scene and people before him with his usual air of expectancy. Behind Jones’ gold braid and old-fashioned, Victorian mustache beat a romantic heart. He had taken this job in the hope that he would be able to obtain promotion, and perhaps a screen career, by some notable act of gallantry like rescuing a film starlet in distress.

In six months nothing remotely like that had come his way, but he never ceased to hope. Jones twirled his mustache and looked up and down the street. Nothing exciting met his gaze.

On the other side of the street some valuable article of jewelry was being taken out of the barred window of Meyerhold’s. And nearby a liver-colored toy spaniel with a curly tail and a collecting box round its neck sat on a chair while its owner ground out a tune on a barrel organ. Just outside Brace and Stone, the tailors, a man sat in a car with its motor running.

And there went Mr. Francis Quarles’s progress down Deal Street. He was such a large and impressive-looking man, he carried his bulk with such an air of authority, and he was followed by such a very small dog. Jones observed with admiration, as he had done on other days when Mr. Quarles took his dog Pinch for a walk, the animal’s exuberant but unquestionably very genuine devotion to his master.

Pinch followed two paces behind Quarles, never deviated for an instant, even at the call of lamp posts, from his master’s course. Then something happened which made Jones forget all about the big man with the little dog.

A man walked quickly out of the jeweller’s shop. Out in the street he began to run. In the shop doorway appeared the figure of Hans Meyerhold, who shouted in stentorian voice: “Stop thief! Police! Stop him! Help!”

Jones saw his chance. The man ran past the barrel organ owner and had just reached the door of the waiting car when Jones was on him. His tackle was expert.

The man was tall, fair and aristocratic-looking, and he expressed his indignation forcibly. “An absolutely unprovoked assault. You’ll pay for this, my man — or your employers will.”

Jones appealed to Meyerhold. “You called out ‘Stop thief,’ isn’t that right?”