Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

You take a memo pad from the desk and start to write down every item that remains to be done. But, before you put down the first word, you warn yourself not to. You have to dispose of the sheet with the writing on it, so what good is the memo? And besides, you have to worry about the pencil impression left on the second sheet. So you replace the pad and you check the items mentally, one by one. Then you look at your watch. Five minutes have gone by.

Alec thought of the money he’d inherit and of the stocks Grace had invested in. He tried to review them in his mind, starting with American Tel and Tel and ending up with Zenith. He was partway through when he heard the front door open. He ducked down behind a chair, and peeked over the top of it.

The man who came in was not Toosh. He was taller, heavier and somehow menacing. He hesitated at the entrance to the living room, glanced around and then spotted the necklace. He walked over and picked it up.

Alec, panic-stricken that the wrong man had the necklace and that Toosh would arrive later on and make a fuss, accuse Alec of breaking his word, stood up and called out sharply.

“You. What are you doing here?”

The man swung around to face the direction of the voice, and he hunched up his huge shoulders and peered into the half-light. He loomed up threateningly, as if he was spoiling for a fight. Nevertheless his words were almost apologetic.

“I didn’t expect anybody to be around,” he said. “Who are you?”

“I’m asking the questions. You walk into a house and grab the first thing you see. Put it back — hear me?”

The big man examined the necklace then glanced at Alec, still partly hidden in the darkness.

“Never mind names,” the guy said. “Toosh sent me.”

“What for?”

“You ask too many fool questions. Toosh got a job he couldn’t turn down. What’s it to you? You wanted somebody to lift this, and that’s me. Any objections?”

“Beat it,” Alec said. His voice came out in a croak, and he repeated the words, cracking them out hysterically. “Beat it. Get out!”

The big man didn’t move.

“You got a nerve,” he said. “Invite me in and then get mad over nothing. Something wrong around here?”

Alec didn’t answer. The big man snorted, held the necklace up to the light and inspected it carefully. Apparently it met with his approval. He muttered something, put the necklace in his pocket and went out. He closed the door gently.

Alec, staring into the darkness, smiled.

“I did it,” he said, with quiet satisfaction. “I did it. Me, Alec Condon — I’m free, and I’m rich!”

He felt a vast relief and he wanted to run, to shout or dance or go driving into the night. He thought of Myra waiting for him. Then he thought of the ordeal ahead, and he focused on the program that he’d set himself.

He went about his task efficiently. Move the couch back to where it belongs. Overturn a chair or two to make it look as if Grace had put up a struggle. Alec, surveying the scene and noting details, realized that he’d done precisely the right thing in tearing the necklace from her neck, for it built up the picture of violent robbery. He knocked over a lamp and heard the bulb break. So much the better.

All he had to do now was return to his studio, light a fire and drop the weapon and the blood-stained gloves in it. Until eight-thirty or so he’d stare at the flames and think of Myra. Then he’d return to the main house and start the crucial performance of pretending to find the body before notifying the police.

He felt supremely confident as he left the house via the back entrance, crossed the lawn to his studio and climbed the two steps to the small porch fronting the studio. He pushed open the door and reached for the switch. Before he touched it, lights were snapped on. In the blaze he saw Grace’s friends clustered at the rear of the big room.

“Surprise!” they called out. Then, on signal, they began to sing.

“Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birth—” Then, as their eyes grew accustomed to the light and they saw him standing there, holding a broken piano leg and a pair of stained gloves, they stopped.

So did Alec Condon.

Blue Moon

by Gil Brewer

No woman was going to cheat on him and live to laugh about it. He just wanted to catch them — and prove that she was a liar.

* * *

I came across the vacant lot toward the back of the house. We were out of town a way, and I always thought it might prevent things from happening. It hadn’t. I jumped the fence, and walked through the garden toward the rear door, making it as quiet as I could. I left my lunch bucket beside the porch, and carefully opened the door.

Billy bounced at me from across the kitchen. “Daddy! I got a muff-whump.”

“Fine,” I said, trying to see into the other room. There was no sign of him. I hadn’t heard him run. So maybe they were planning to meet later.