Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

An unforeseeable oversight, you might argue, but what about the Hungarian? At worst, he might have died on Devil’s Island. At best, he would have endured twelve years of hell, returning home a broken man. Or did you think that, because you’d paid him, it was the end of the matter? That a contract is a contract is a contract...? Ah, but whether you were aware of the repercussions or not, you callously deceived two decent men, and if that wasn’t enough, you set a course on coldblooded murder.

Oh, madame, if only you had stopped to think! So much beauty, so much intelligence, yet so little common sense!

You compliment my stage show, but not once during your visits backstage do you mention my heroics, even though they are splashed all over the papers, and why? Because you imagined that, in raising the subject, I might suspect that the Countess of Ravenna and the Countess of Perugia were not two different women, but one and the same, and that you were on to my snoopings. Instead, you imagined that with a combination of flattery, champagne, and a shapely ankle you would win my trust.

Well, I cannot deny I’ve been won over with less, but never, madam, without those two linchpins of life, humour and joy.

Contessa, I have played you at your own game from the start and, not wishing to sound conceited, am willing to bet that the poison of your choice is strychnine, added to that sublime vintage port destined to round off tonight’s repast. As little as two-hundredths of a gram would be fatal to a man of my build, with the convulsions passed off as heart failure, and no doubt when the time came for the digestif, you planned to have me too intoxicated with champagne, caviar, and your magnificent cleavage to notice any bitterness in the taste.

So then. Having established why you wished me dead and how you planned for my murder, what should we do about it?

Oh, Contessa! My brave and beautiful countess, I am so happy — yet so sad — to see you have done the right thing.

When I left you alone in my dressing room with the port and a notepad, I knew in my heart that you were not wicked by nature; merely a loving and devoted mother whose reasoning was savaged by grief. But no longer, madame. No longer. And rest assured, this is the right course you have taken, although not the easiest, I admit.

The easy way was to swallow the strychnine.

Instead, you waited for me to return (never has a late-night stroll been so sorrowful!), and now, my brave countess, together let us face the authorities and explain why you switched prisoners and where they can find the monster who butchered your daughter, that he might stand trial for his terrible crime.

Please. Take my arm. You are quite unsteady on your feet and not just from the vodka, but before we leave, let me just pour this port down the drain—

Oh, Contessa! The tears of grief are flowing at last. Here, take this handkerchief. No, no, I insist. It is silk, the only one of quality I have to hand, and — oh, apologies, madame. This is not the time, not the time at all for a bunch of fake flowers to pop up! But as I have lamented so many times on this tour, it can be a terrible strain, being The Great Rivorsky.

Copyright (c); 2005 by Marilyn Todd.

The author of sixteen novels and dozens of short stories, Helen Tucker was once a print journalist and a writer for radio. She lives with her husband in Raleigh, North Carolina. She describes the situation depicted in her latest story for us as “fairly common in schools and colleges” but adds “the ending is not that common... at least, not that I’ve heard!”

He cleared his throat.

In the beginning, when he first started teaching, he had done it consciously to alert the students that he was about to say something important or clever. Now it was a completely unconscious habit, but still just as effective.

“Had it not been for Mrs. Soc-rates, the world would never have heard of Socrates or, in-deed, Plato either.”

He paused to let that earth-shaking statement break new ground in their minuscule minds.

“Mrs. Socrates — Xanthieppe — was such a shrew, such an impossible nag, that Socrates couldn’t stand to stay in the house with her. She was peevish, quarrelsome, and had a temper that would frighten a pit bull. So from sunup to late at night, Socrates roamed the streets of Athens spouting his philosophy, with Plato, his number-one disciple, right beside him scribbling it all down on his tablet.”

Unfortunately the bell rang at that dramatic moment and twenty books were closed with the sound of a small explosion and twenty young ladies scraped the parquet floor as they pushed their chairs back and stood up.

He frowned. They cared almost as much about philosophy and the Early Thinkers as they did about sitting through a four-hour chamber music concert or being in a bubonic plague epidemic.

But wait... one student was staying after class. Vivian Dalroy — he might have known — came up to his desk, smiling. He stood and returned the smile. If it could be said that there was a “teacher’s pet,” she was it. She was bright, seemed to be more interested than most in the class, and she was pretty — in fact, just missed being beautiful with her huge brown eyes, reddish-brown hair, and perfect complexion. She was tall and slim, and unlike most of the girls, who wore cutoff jeans or slacks, she always came to class in a dress or skirt. And she was interested in Greek philosophy. Sometimes he got the impression that she might even be a little interested in him, though she had done nothing overt to put that idea in his head. She was not one of the boarding students, but lived in town with her mother.

“Professor Penley, I was wondering...” Shyly, she stopped and looked down at the floor.

“Yes, Vivian?”

“Could Xanthieppe be the reason Socrates drank the hemlock so willingly?” She was standing so close to him that he caught whiffs of her perfume.

“I don’t know if he was willing,” he said, “but we are given to understand that he put up no argument. Just drank it right down while continuing to pace around in his cell asserting his ideology and theories.”

“Then we are indebted to Xanthieppe for the Socratic method of inquiry, aren’t we?”

She reached out and touched his shoulder, sliding her hand down his arm, then jerked her hand away as though she had caught herself in a reflexive action.

“I suppose we are,” he said. Even through his jacket, he felt her touch.

“Apparently you do think so, because you said, ‘If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Socrates...’ ” She broke off and gave him one of her appealing smiles. “Thank you for making philosophy so interesting, and the philosophers so... so human.” She touched his hand fleetingly and was out the door before he could utter a word.

Well, at least one student found his class impressive. He supposed he should be thankful for that. He hadn’t wanted to teach in this kind of school anyway — last two years of high school, and two years of college preparatory for “young ladies.” Years ago he had dreamed of teaching at the university and someday having a chair of philosophy named for him. But he only had a master’s degree and without a Ph.D. could never get tenure at the university. Back then, he couldn’t afford the time or the money to get the higher degree. So he had taken what he could get. Now he was too old to start over. At fifty-two — gray hair, slight paunch — he couldn’t imagine himself a student again.

He put his book and lecture notes in his briefcase and erased the next assignment from the blackboard.

The young daydream of what will be, and the old daydream of what might have been.