100 Malicious Little Mysteries

by Isaac Asimov

  “I would advise you against it, Margery,” said your father.

  I smelled the wine. It was hippocras, sleep-heavy with many spices. I brought back the glassful and set it at his elbow, rather than my own, and saw that he did not drink. “Why did you not find some means of killing Penhallow by your own hand?” I asked.

  “Penhallow would not have trusted himself near enough my hand,” said your father. “Nor would I have trusted myself near his.”

  “Perhaps Ned Curnow will not trust himself near your hand again, neither,” said I.

  “I took the man’s measure,” said his lordship. “There is twenty pounds in the balance. He will come.”

  I thought that your father had but applied his own scale to Curnow, while that insolent man with neither hope nor desire nor fear in his grey-green eyes had likely taken better measure of his lordship. But I did not speak this thought, and so we waited. Somewhat after midnight a storm broke, and, thinking Curnow would not come, I might have sought my bed, but every moment I delayed would lengthen out into another moment, and yet another, and so I sat on, scarce thinking, with my book open in my lap. Your father had laid aside even his accounts, and all was still, excepting only the thunder and rain without. A mouse ventured into the middle of the floor. Your father said, “We must find another cat,” and at the sound of his voice the mouse scurried away.

  Close on to one, Curnow came, knocking at the door in the pattern they had arranged. His lordship sent me with a rushlight to bring in his hireling. Curnow was wrapped in a ragged sodden cloak, and trailed mud and filth wherever he stepped, yet on seeing me, he gave me a greeting which shewed he had indeed had gentle breeding once.

  When we were come again into the parlour, his lordship stood already with the silver bottle in one hand and a fresh glass in the other. “Have you done it?” he asked.

  Curnow unwrapped the cloak and tossed it down on the bench. Beneath it he carried in one hand his miner’s pickaxe of iron. The rain had wetted him through cloak and all, but had not utterly rinsed away the blood and bits of hair from the flat-headed end. Curnow stepped forward to shew it his lordship at closer hand.

  His lordship looked shrewdly at the blood, and nodded. “There is your twenty pounds, safe in the purse,” said he. “But drink you a glass of hippocras before you go, to warm you against the weather.”

  “Tom Pen hallow told me much about you before he died,” replied Curnow, “and there is one thing which I owe his soul.” And turning the pickaxe to the sharpened end, he drove it into your father’s skull. The poisoned wine mingled with the blood and streams of filthy water, and the silver bottle took a great dent as it fell.

  Curnow let fall the pickaxe with your father’s corpse, and turned to me. He smiled. “Here is enough of murder for the day, my lady,” he said. “But do not follow me, lest you take a chill in the storm.”

  I smiled at him then as a woman smiles at a man. “There will no one come until the morning,” I said. “Time enough to take off your clothes and dry them by the fire.”

  Hal, your father never did but one good work in the whole of his life, and that was the begetting of you, and that he undid again the night he let you die for his stubborn heart. Yet he was your father, and my father-in-law, and murdered, and he had at least the bowels to leave me better provided for by his death than he had in his life. Let his slayer go out into the night and the storm, and by morning was it likely they could find so much as his trail?

  Forgive me, Hal, my husband, my love, but how else could I keep Ned Curnow until the morning, when he could be taken, save in my bed?

  Child on a Journey

  by Fred S. Tobey

  The big jet had scarcely lifted off the runway at Los Angeles Airport before the passengers began to busy themselves with the things that would pass the time on the long flight to Boston. Some turned their eyes to the TV screen, waiting for the movie; others took out books and magazines. A Hollywood actress drew a script from her handbag and began leafing through it. Two elderly men opened a pack of cards and started playing rummy.

  Dr. Gordon Prince, sitting by himself in a window seat in the coach section, waited until the airliner was well above the clouds before he took his nearly completed treatise on medieval history from his briefcase and laid it on the little table that he had lowered from the back of the seat in front of him. The lengthy document, on which he had labored for weeks, was to be published in a distinguished journal, and the youthful professor of social science meant to spare no effort to perfect the syntax and punctuation. By great good luck, the two seats beside him had not been sold, and he was taking an almost sensual pleasure in the thought of the quiet hours of undisturbed concentration that would be his. He thought he might even pass up dinner, and work right through.

  Midway through page two, as Dr. Prince raised his eyes to ponder a fine point of grammar, he became aware of a small figure standing in the aisle beside his seat. He brought his eyes into focus and saw that it was a girl of seven or eight. She was staring at him steadily with large blue eyes. A pair of auburn pigtails hung primly down the front of her blue denim dress.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Suzy. Are you busy reading?”

  Dr. Prince was a very literal man. “Not exactly,” he said. “I’m writing something.”

  The child’s eyes grew even bigger. “Oh, that must be wonderful,” she said. “I’m going to write when I get older. Do you write for movies?”

  “This is a different kind of writing,” the professor said. He supposed it was not surprising that a writer boarding in Los Angeles should be suspected of turning out froth for the screen. “This is history. Important things that really happened.”

  Suzy dropped into the aisle seat. “I guess I’ll sit here a minute,” she said. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

  “Well...” Dr. Prince began; then, rather lamely: “Won’t your mother be wondering where you are?”

  “Mummy—” Suzy paused and looked appraisingly at Dr. Prince, as if wondering how much she should confide in this stranger. Then she shook her head. “Mummy’s dead,” she said. “Mummy and Daddy were killed in a car accident, and Uncle takes care of me.”

  Dr. Prince looked at the child with increased interest. What a shame that one so young should lose her parents! The professor was not married, but he expected to marry someday when he found time, and if there were children he hoped they would be like this one: bright, neat and well-spoken.

  “My big brother was killed, too,” Suzy offered. “He was driving the car and he and Daddy were having a big fight about money, and he went too fast and hit a tree. I was lucky because I was in the back seat and only got hurt a little, and I went to the hospital but I’m all right now.”

  “Well, you poor kid.” Dr. Prince looked around. “Where is your uncle sitting?”

  “Uncle didn’t come with me. He said he was too busy.”

  “You mean you’re traveling by yourself? A little girl like you?” He knew that children sometimes were handed over to the care of stewardesses, but to his conventional thinking it seemed a strange way of life.

  Suzy nodded. “Uncle put me on the airplane and went home to get drunk.”

  Before Dr. Prince had a chance to respond, a stewardess who had been watching came toward them.

  “Is the little girl being a bother?” she asked. “I said I’d try to keep her amused, but we’ve been kind of rushed today. But if you’re busy—” She nodded toward the manuscript on the table in front of him.

  “Oh, no, it’s all right,” Dr. Prince said.

  The stewardess smiled, patted Suzy’s head and went away.

  “Who is going to meet you in Boston?” Dr. Prince asked.

  “Uncle said his brother will take me home to stay at a mansion and give me a maid all for myself, and I can go out on a big yacht whenever I want. But I don’t believe him. I don’t think anyone is going to meet me at all.”

  “Oh, come, Suzy! Of course someone will meet you
. Your uncle wouldn’t say so if it weren’t true.”

  “Yes, he would. Uncle Lucifer wants me to get lost and die, because he wants my money. When Uncle gets drunk he always says, ‘I hope you die, you little brat, and then I’ll get your money.’ ”

  The information was coming too fast. “Lucifer?” said Dr. Prince. “His name isn’t really Lucifer, is it? What do you mean, he wants your money?”

  “Of course his name is really Lucifer! Uncle says there’s always been a Lucifer in the family. Daddy left tons of money for me, but I can’t have it until I’m eighteen, and Uncle can only spend little bits of it to take care of me, so he wants me to die and he will get it.”

  Dr. Prince looked speculatively at the little girl. How much of this was fantasy? She did seem an imaginative sort. On the other hand, of course, there certainly were people like the uncle that Suzy was describing. Dr. Prince made a mental note to watch and make sure someone did meet Suzy in Boston. Meanwhile, of course, there was his manuscript, which was being sadly neglected. He turned back to it and picked up a page, hoping Suzy would take the hint.

  “I wish I had my teddy bear,” said Suzy, sighing.

  Dr. Prince thought he saw an opportunity. “Why don’t you go back and sit with Teddy for a while, then?” he said. “I think they’re going to serve dinner now, and you ought to be with Teddy when you’re having dinner.”

  “His name isn’t Teddy, it’s Smoky, and he didn’t come with me. He was in the suitcase but Uncle Lucifer took him out and put in a box of candy instead, because he said there isn’t any candy in Boston.”

  “That was a foolish thing to say. There’s all sorts of candy in Boston, even some famous candies...”

  Suzy nodded. “Uncle lies to me all the time. Anyway, it isn’t all candy, I know. There’s a clock.”

  “A clock?”

  Suzy nodded again. “I heard it going ‘tick, tick’ in the box when Uncle went out of the room for a minute, and I told him I heard it, but he just said, ‘Shut up, you little brat!’ and locked the suitcase.”

  Dr. Prince felt a prickling at the back of his neck, and it seemed to him his forehead had suddenly become moist. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at it.

  “Listen to me, Suzy,” he said. “Where is the suitcase now? Is it back at your seat?”

  Suzy shook her pigtails. “Uncle gave it to a man at the airport and the man put a little tag with my ticket and said I could get the suitcase with it when I got to Boston.”

  The public address system of the airliner came on with a sharp click. “This is your captain speaking,” said a confident, pleasant voice. “We have leveled off at our cruising altitude of thirty-six thousand feet. We have a good tail wind, and our ground speed is six hundred and—”

  Dr. Prince cast a furtive glance around the plane. All these innocent people! he thought. How could anyone be so utterly unscrupulous! Fighting panic, he thought incongruously of his precious manuscript, saw, in his mind’s eye, the pages gliding and fluttering down, like autumn leaves, toward faraway earth.

  Pull yourself together, you fool, he thought. With luck, you’ve found this out in time. There must be an airport we can get down to in a hurry.

  He saw a stewardess in the service area, ten rows or so ahead, and he scrambled over Suzy and started up the aisle toward her. Then, turning back, he grasped the child’s hand and pulled her along with him. Better to have her there to repeat the story.

  As they reached the service area, Suzy pulled her hand out of his grasp abruptly and went to sit down in a seat just ahead, in a rear row of the first-class section.

  “I guess I’ll stay here a while,” she announced.

  The frightened professor hurried toward her and tried to take her hand again, but the child pulled away and shrank toward the woman in the seat beside her. It was the Hollywood actress.

  “Dammit, Suzy, honey!” said the woman, putting her manuscript down with a gesture of exasperation. “Where in hell is that stewardess who was going to keep your busy little mind occupied for a while? I told you all about my new movie, Uncle Lucifer. Now can’t you leave Mummy alone for a minute to study the script?”

  The Witches in the Closet

  by Anne Chamberlain

  Except for the witches in the closet, Catharine was the wife John had thought she would be. She was companionable and neat, she played an expert hand of bridge, and she was really interested in cooking. She liked, or pretended to like, the movies, the magazines, and most of the people he liked. It did not occur to him to worry about the witches until some weeks after his marriage. He did not think of them, in fact, until he and Catharine were looking for their first apartment.

  “Remember, darling,” she said, with a chuckle at her own foolishness, “we must find one with the proper bedroom closet.”

  John had to think a moment before he did remember. The problem had not come up in the hotel where they had been staying, and John had almost forgotten the evening when Catharine had told him about the witches. He recalled how she made a small point of telling him, soon after they were engaged, and of how at the time he had thought tenderly of what an innocent child she was. He had not been uneasy at all because, with the telling, she gave a plausible explanation.

  “You see—” she had pressed his hand confidingly. “I really must warn you before we’re married. It wouldn’t be fair not to warn you about my phobia.”

  “Every smart person has at least one phobia these days.”

  Catharine mused, resting a small bright-tipped finger on her lips.

  “Maybe it isn’t a phobia; I’m not sure about those terms. Anyway, when I was ten years old I was real sick with a high fever and chills and all, and one night I woke up and saw three witches in the bedroom closet. I screamed and screamed — really, I did!” She smiled reminiscently. “I was such a silly thing, and you know we had a big bedroom closet in that house, a big, deep dark one. Well, I saw three witches there. Well, since then...”

  “You’re always expecting to see them again,” he interrupted, not because he was uneasy but because he thought they had more important things to say.

  She clasped her fingers.

  “Brace yourself, darling. I was going to tell you. As a matter of fact, I do see them. I still do see those witches once in a while.” Her eyes narrowed, as though she were pondering an irritating puzzle. Then she laughed and shook her head. “Of course, a good deal depends upon the closet.”

  That was all that they said about the witches until they were looking for their first apartment and Catharine demanded brightly that they find one with a closet that was small, shallow, and had a light in it. They made a little joke of this, telling each other that the landlords probably thought they were finicky bores for inspecting the apartment so carefully. When they had rented a place that exactly suited Catharine’s specifications, John almost, but not quite, forgot about the witches again.

  “You’re not the imaginative type,” he observed lazily the evening after they had moved. “It’s funny you think you see such things. Of course, it’s a business of hallucinations.” He looked at her and laughed. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her fine black hair. In a few minutes she would meticulously tuck a hairnet around the curls, cleanse her face with a thick white cream, step out of her yellow kimono, and turn out the light. She looked to be the last person in the world to have hallucinations.

  “Oh, I know that,” she said, a bobby pin between her teeth. “I know it’s perfectly silly, and probably a good psychiatrist could explain it all away. But then he might not.”

  “I can see myself telling the office that I’d just dropped my wife at a psychiatrist’s.”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” she answered casually. “I hope there’s enough breakfast cereal; I forgot to buy some.”

  “You haven’t seen anything of them since we were married, have you?”

  “Oh, no,” she gave her little smile. “No, I imagine I’ll tell you w
hen I do.”

  “Maybe it all had something to do with sex.”

  Catharine giggled.

  “I bet that’s what a psychiatrist would say.” Her eyes were suddenly mysterious. “Maybe.”

  One night, seven months after their marriage, John returned late from his poker club. He had told her he would be home by one, but he did not make it until after four. He entered the apartment softly, and was surprised and irritated to find all the lamps turned on. He had thought her much too sensible to wait for him, angrily awake, and he walked from room to room, calling “Sweetheart?” in a loud, belligerent voice. When she did not answer, he stalked into the bedroom, flung off his coat, and began explaining as he undressed.

  “I couldn’t get out very well when I was taking everyone in the house; it went on like that all evening...”

  He glanced toward the bed, and started. She was curled in a tight, covered hump in the middle. The hump was shivering, as though she had been crying for hours.

  “Catharine!” He leaned over her, weak with remorse. “Were you that worried? You could have phoned.”

  She pulled an inch of cover from her face.

  “Oh, darling.” She sat up, suddenly cheerful. “Darling, they’ve been there for hours. It must have been hours ago I saw them.”

  “Saw what? Oh my God!”

  She laughed happily.

  “I really didn’t mind you staying out. It wasn’t that. But several hours ago I knew they would be there, so I got up and turned on all the lights. But I was afraid to turn on that light. I was nervous, you see, and I did feel so silly.”

  “My God,” he repeated. “Is that what had you down?”