100 Malicious Little Mysteries

by Isaac Asimov

  Blair had backed to the wall now, and he could feel its chill firmness through his coat. He raised the dagger menacingly. “Come any closer. Sawbones, and I swear I will kill you!”

  The doctor hesitated a moment. He glanced at the darkened skylight above their heads, where the rain was now beating a steady tattoo upon the glass. Then he said, “The mind of man is his greatest gift. To corrupt it, to poison it with drugs, is something hateful and immoral. I hope that I am never in a position where I lose control of my free will because I have surrendered to the dark side of my nature. You, poor soul, are helpless in the grip of this opium, like the wretched folk who smoke it in the illegal dens, curled upon their bunks and oblivious of the outer world.”

  “I... I—” began Blair, but the words were lost in his throat. The physician was right, he knew, but he was beyond caring now, beyond distinguishing between right and wrong. He only knew that the doctor had forced him further from the bottle of laudanum.

  “Let me call the police,” urged the doctor, softly.

  “No!”

  The physician’s hand moved, all in a flash, seizing one of the bottles from the shelf beside him and hurling it upwards through the skylight. There was a shattering of glass and a shower of silvery white pellets from the bottle. Then a sudden violet flame seemed to engulf the entire skylight, burning with a hissing sound that ended almost at once with a burst of explosive violence.

  Terrified, Blair tried to lunge past the doctor, but the large hands were instantly upon him, fastening on his coat and wrist, forcing the dagger away.

  They were still locked in a life-and-death, silent struggle when, moments later, a helmeted bobby burst into the laboratory. “What’s happening here, sir? I saw the flame and heard the explosion—”

  “Help me with this man,” shouted the physician. “He’s trying to steal opium!”

  Within seconds Blair was helpless, his arms pinioned to his sides by the burly police-officer. “Take me,” he mumbled. “Take me and lock me up. Help me.”

  Another bobby arrived on the scene, attracted by the noise and flame. “What was it?” he asked the doctor.

  “I had to signal you somehow,” he told them. “There were potassium pellets in the bottle and I took a risk that enough rainwater had collected on the skylight to set off a chemical reaction. Potassium reacts even more violently with water than does sodium.”

  “You were successful,” returned the second policeman. “I heard that boom two streets away.”

  The doctor was busy moving some of his equipment out of the rain which was still falling through the shattered skylight. “I think with treatment this man can be saved,” said he. “It is his addiction that has led him into a life of crime.”

  “I would not worry too much about him, sir. He could have killed you with this dagger.”

  “But I do worry about him, as I would about any human being. As for myself, I was much more fearful that he would wreck my laboratory. I have been engaged in some important experiments here, relating to transcendental medicine, and I feel I am on the verge of discovery.”

  The first police-officer pulled Blair towards the door. “Then we will leave you alone to clean up, sir. And good luck with your experiments.” He was half-way out the door when he paused and said, “O, by the by, sir, I will need your name for my report. I did not have time to catch it on the brass outside.”

  “Certainly,” replied the physician, with a smile. “The name is Jekyll. Doctor Henry Jekyll.”

  Over the Borderline

  by Jeff Sweet

  “Don’t you see? He had to be stopped.”

  “Stopped, Mrs. Sutherland? Stopped from doing what?”

  “If I hadn’t acted she would have died. He would have killed her.”

  “Who, Mrs. Sutherland? Who would he have killed?”

  “You’re looking at me like you don’t believe me. Lieutenant Foley. You think I’m just a batty old lady, don’t you? An old lady who’s lost her marbles.”

  “No, I don’t. Really, I don’t.”

  “Like crazy Mrs. Jessup who’s always calling the police or the F.B.I, about enemy agents hiding under her bed. I’m right, aren’t I? That’s what you think.”

  “I swear, Mrs. Sutherland, I don’t think that at all.”

  “Then why don’t you believe me?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Mrs. Sutherland, it isn’t that I don’t believe you. It’s just that I... well, I guess I really don’t understand. I mean, I don’t have the full picture.”

  “I’ve tried to answer all your questions. Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, and I appreciate that, Mrs. Sutherland. But still—”

  “What?”

  “Look, I have an idea. Why don’t you tell me about it again, from start to finish? I promise you I won’t interrupt.”

  “From start to finish? Yes, maybe that would be best, and I suppose the best place to start would be with Cora and Jim. Cora and Jim Franklin. Such a nice couple. They remind me of the late Mr. Sutherland and myself when we were young. A very nice couple, the Franklins. Of course, they have their problems. More than their share. She was pregnant when they got married, you know. That’s not always the best way to start a marriage, especially since the baby wasn’t Jim’s. That awful Harrington Furth.”

  “Uh, Mrs. Sutherland—”

  “Lieutenant, you promised you wouldn’t interrupt.”

  “I know, Mrs. Sutherland, but I’m afraid I’m a little lost. Who is Harrington Furth?”

  “Lieutenant, if you will hold your horses I’ll get to that, I promise you. All in good time. But you mustn’t interrupt.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Sutherland.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Harrington Furth.”

  “Oh, yes, Harrington. A very rich, very irresponsible young man. His father is the president of Furth Electronics, you know — a very distinguished man. But Harrington, I’m afraid, doesn’t take after his father. Or should I say Harrington didn’t take after his father? Oh, well, you understand my meaning, I’m sure. It must have been very hard on old Mrs. Furth, having a son like Harrington. Always racing around in his fancy cars, always getting into trouble. And his father always coming to the rescue. I swear, if it had been me, I would have let that young man stew in his own juice! It might have taught him a sense of responsibility. And the way he drank!

  “Anyway, there was poor Cora. She hadn’t married Jim yet, you know. Jim was going with the Stanton girl then — the one with the big false eyelashes and all the teeth. What Jim saw in her I don’t know. But like I say, there was poor Cora. Her mother had just died on the operating table and Cora was all alone. She was scared and vulnerable. And that awful Harrington saw this and — well, he took advantage of the situation, and when he’d gotten what he wanted he left Cora flat. Not too long after she found out she was pregnant.”

  “You mean with Furth’s child?”

  “That’s what I said, didn’t I? Really, Lieutenant, you must learn to listen. Anyway, around this time the Stanton girl left Jim and took up with young Harrington, which in my opinion served them both right. Meanwhile, Jim was desperate, almost suicidal, and then, one day, in came Cora. Did I tell you Jim was an obstetrician?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he was, and all the girls on the staff at the hospital thought he was the handsomest doctor around. But he didn’t pay any attention to them. And then, as I said, in came Cora and he told her she was pregnant and she just stood there, very bravely, fighting back the tears. But, of course, it wasn’t any use. Before you could blink an eye she was in his arms, crying like a little girl. And he was holding her so tenderly. It was love from that first moment, I could tell. I could tell right off because it was just like that when Mr. Sutherland and I met. Except I wasn’t pregnant and Mr. Sutherland wasn’t an obstetrician.

  “What I’m talking about is the way you — well, you know in your heart when someone’s just right for you. You don’t think about it, you jus
t know. That’s the way it was with Mr. Sutherland and me. And that’s the way it was with Cora and Jim.

  “I’ll never forget the day Jim proposed. She was in her eighth month then and he’d been seeing a lot of her. ‘Marry me,’ he said. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t make you part of my shame,’ she said. I remember how difficult it was for me to keep from shouting out to her, ‘Don’t be a fool, Cora! He loves you! Don’t give up this chance for happiness!’

  “But I needn’t have worried because that’s just what he said to her himself. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘You give my life purpose. If you don’t say yes, I don’t know what I’ll do.’ To make a long story short, she did say yes and they were married soon after. He even delivered the baby.”

  “Mrs. Sutherland, what has this got to do with—”

  “Lieutenant, please!”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Sutherland.”

  “As I said, they were married and were so happy, and the baby didn’t look a bit like Harrington. But I could tell they weren’t over the worst of it. I knew in my bones that tragedy was going to strike, but for the longest time I didn’t know how.

  “To tell you the truth, I was having an awful time sleeping. I finally had to go to Dr. Sumroy and get a prescription for sleeping pills. I’d never used them before because I’ve heard so many stories of old people accidentally taking an overdose. And not just old people. Young people, too. It’s supposed to be especially bad if you take them when you’ve been drinking, though in my case that was no problem. But I was having so much trouble sleeping because of all my worrying about Cora and Jim that I just knew something tragic was going to happen even though I didn’t know what.

  “Then, suddenly, it came to me. I can’t tell you how it came to me because I honestly don’t know how to explain such things. Call it woman’s intuition, if you like, but I knew what was going to happen. Harrington was going to kill Cora in an automobile accident! It was inevitable. He’d just bought a new sports car — one of those fancy foreign things that makes a lot of noise, and it was common knowledge he was speeding recklessly all over town. So you see, it was logical.

  “Of course, I couldn’t let it happen. I remember how heartbroken I was when Mr. Sutherland died in an accident, only he wasn’t killed by a foreign car. I was so miserable, I nearly died. So what was I supposed to do? I knew what would happen if something weren’t done, and I couldn’t just sit quiet and let it happen. I had to do something. But what?

  “Then, today, an amazing coincidence brought me the answer. I came into the city to shop on Fifth Avenue for my nephew’s birthday, and I stopped into a restaurant on Forty-Seventh Street. Not too far away from Radio City and Rockefeller Center, you know the area? And who was in the restaurant but young Harrington!

  “I went up to him, and I said, ‘Mr. Furth?’ He smiled. I’ll say that for him, he had a nice smile. ‘Mr. Furth,’ I said, ‘I want to talk to you.’ He stood up, a little woozy from all the liquor he’d been drinking, and offered me a seat, which I accepted. ‘Mr. Furth,’ I said, ‘I’m going to speak plainly. I know what’s going to happen.’ ‘What’s going to happen?’ he said, still smiling. ‘I know you’re going to kill Cora Franklin with that fancy foreign car,’ I answered.

  “ ‘How did you find out?’ he asked, obviously surprised. ‘Never you mind how I found out,’ I said. ‘What I’m saying is so, isn’t it? You’re going to kill her with your sports car, aren’t you?’

  “ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s so.’

  “He admitted it! With a smile! There wasn’t a trace of regret anywhere on his devilish face. He actually seemed happy about it! I knew I was in the presence of great evil.

  “He excused himself and went to the men’s room. I suddenly knew what I had to do. I opened my handbag and took out the sleeping pills I had got from Dr. Sumroy, and I dropped something like two dozen of them into his coffee. I left, waited until I was sure it was all over, then came here to turn myself in. And that, Lieutenant, is my confession.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes, I believe you, Mrs. Sutherland.”

  “One thing you have to know — I did this for them, Lieutenant. For Jim and Cora and the baby. You have to realize that it was the only way. You do understand, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Sutherland, I think I do.”

  A few minutes later, after Mrs. Sutherland had been led away. Lieutenant Foley turned to Sergeant Warren, who was standing a few feet away. “Well, that settles that,” he said.

  “Lieutenant, maybe I’m some kind of an idiot,” said the sergeant, “but I don’t see that it settles anything. Her story about the overdose in Maxwell’s coffee jibes, and she matches the waiter’s description, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out why she kept calling Taylor Maxwell by the name Harrington Furth.”

  “Sergeant, Taylor Maxwell was an actor.”

  “I still don’t get it, sir.”

  “I’ve just been looking at his resume. For the past few years he’s been a regular on an afternoon TV soap opera called The Will To Live,” explained the lieutenant. “The name of the character he played was Harrington Furth.”

  It Could Happen to You

  by John Lutz

  I never dreamed something like this could happen; or rather, I’d always thought something like this could happen only in a dream. But looking back on it piece by piece, it’s easy to understand how it did happen. It was just a chance combination of circumstances, none of those circumstances so unbelievable by itself. It’s the sort of thing that could happen to anybody; to you.

  There’d been some mix-up in the flight schedule, so here I was with a six-hour layover in a city a thousand miles from home. It was a big city, and a nice summer night, so I decided to take a little walk around the downtown area, just to look things over.

  That was at eleven o’clock, maybe too late for that kind of walk on a week night. And there wasn’t much happening downtown, only a few night spots here and there open; or maybe I’d just picked the wrong part of town.

  I strolled innocently along, my light raincoat slung over my arm against any threat of rain. I’d stopped in a few places that looked fairly respectable, staying in each for only one drink and a few words of conversation before going back outside and resuming my wandering. Walking around and sort of taking in the atmosphere of strange cities is a habit of mine. My job keeps me traveling just enough not to get bored with it, so I’m usually interested in new places. And I knew I’d probably never get back to this city.

  It was almost one o’clock when I noticed my wallet was missing. I was on Nineteenth Street at the time, idly walking along and looking in the windows of the closed shops.

  A lost wallet. Nothing so unusual about that. You’ve probably lost your wallet at some time and felt that sudden rush of helplessness. Well, that feeling’s even stronger in a strange city, in case you’ve never had the experience. Everything that gave me a sense of identity or security was in that wallet — my driver’s license, my folding money, my credit cards...

  For a moment I stood in bewilderment, checking my other pockets, but of course the wallet wasn’t in any of them. A wallet’s the sort of thing you automatically return to the right pocket. I hurried back along the almost-deserted streets toward the Posh Parrot on Twelfth Avenue, the last cocktail lounge I’d been in, all the time keeping my eyes to the ground on the off-chance I might see the wallet where it had fallen from my pocket.

  The Posh Parrot was closed, the neon sign in its window dull and lifeless, the window itself throwing back a pale reflection of my worried self.

  I told myself it didn’t matter. If I had lost the wallet in the lounge and someone had picked it up, he’d probably taken it with him. But I distinctly remembered sliding the wallet back into my hip pocket after paying for my drink; I even remembered folding the corner of a fifty-dollar bill to mark it from the smaller denominations. I began retracing my route back
to Nineteenth Street, figuring the wallet must have slipped out of my pocket somewhere along the way.

  No luck. What was I going to do? What would you do?

  Even the ticket for the last leg of my trip home was in that wallet. I felt suddenly like a vagrant, a trespasser. I realized what a difference a dozen credit cards and a few hundred dollars’ cash make in our society.

  The only thing I could do was phone Laurie, my wife, and get her to wire me some money. I felt in my other pockets, and among keys, comb, and ballpoint pen, could muster only a nickel and two pennies. So much for that inspiration.

  To make me feel worse, a light drizzle began to fall. I hurriedly slipped on my raincoat and turned up the collar.

  I was walking forlornly, head down, hands jammed in my coat pockets, so I didn’t see the man walking the poodle toward me until we were only about a hundred feet from each other.

  My awkwardness and embarrassment about trying to borrow money from a stranger, combined with the short period of time I had to come up with what I was going to say, made my throat suddenly dry. You’d feel the same way.

  I stopped directly in front of the man, a little guy with wire-framed glasses and a droopy mustache, and he stood staring at me with alarm.

  “Would it be possible for you to lend a stranger some money?” is what I meant to say, and then I was going to explain the reason to him. I was ill at ease, as nervous as the little man appeared, and my voice croaked so I guess he only heard the last part of my sentence, the word “money.” He backed up a step, and his poodle sensed his fear and my nervousness and began to growl.

  The man’s droopy mustache trembled. “I don’t have much...” he said, “honest...” I saw his eyes dart down to the bulge of my right hand in my raincoat pocket, and I understood.

  “Wait a minute,” I started to say, but I saw him glance off to his right and his eyes grew wider behind his thick glasses. I looked and saw the cop almost on us.