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  In a moment, however, it became known that her screams were no mere feigning. She rose up, considerably ensanguined about the bodice, holding aloft the gore-encrusted dagger. “You meathead,” she cried, “you got the wrong prop!”

  Yes, it was a real knife. The hero was dead, and Augustus Fox was his murderer. Here was drama with a vengeance! Once more Victor Virtue rushed onstage, this time accompanied by two helmeted policemen, both brandishing their nightsticks in a threatening manner and shouting, “You’re under arrest!”

  Without losing a jot of his aplomb, Fox raised his hands in surrender. But Miss Mopsy Muffet, still in her blood-smeared costume as Nugget Nell, hurled herself between him and the policemen.

  “Officers, I beg of you, do not arrest his man. Little can you know what succour he has granted me, a frail and fragile female forced to yield day after day to the uncouth embraces of this alleged hero, who was in real life a cad and a rotter to whom I wouldn’t have given the time of day if I didn’t have a dear widowed mother to support. Pray let him go free, with the blessings of a wronged woman and her sweet old mother upon his noble head.”

  “But he killed him,” one of the policemen pointed out.

  “I know, but he didn’t mean to,” argued Miss Muffet. “Somebody messed around with the props, that’s all. It happens.”

  “Not in my company,” Victor Virtue retorted. “Not unless somebody makes it happen. I’m not blaming you, Fox, but I must say you’ve let me down sadly. You were supposed to apprehend the miscreant, not fall victim to his wiles.”

  “I did not fall victim to anyone’s wiles, and I have apprehended the miscreant.” Quick as lightning, he seized the wrist of Miss Mopsy Muffet. “This is she.”

  “But … but the pepper in the flower.”

  “A ruse to divert suspicion from herself.”

  “But she almost got sawed in two!”

  “Humbug! She was wearing a steel corset, proof against the keenest sawtooth. As in fact she still is, not having dared to risk leaving it about her dressing room. I felt it just now when I was required in my role as villain to force my doubly unwelcome attentions upon her. And as for stabbing your hero, do you think Augustus Fox would have been fool enough not to make sure the collapsible dagger was in perfect working order before he employed it upon the person of another? You will find that dagger—or a police matron will find it—cunningly concealed somewhere about her costume, probably in that same hiding place whence she extracted the real dagger when she fell upon her pretended lover and actual victim, who of course was still living until she stabbed him during her feigned paroxysm of grief.”

  “But why would she kill him?” demanded Victor Virtue in bewilderment. “I know Reginald Rapture was no plaster saint, but he wasn’t the skunk she’d made him out to be. And he was crazy about her.”

  “Ah, therein lies the crux of the matter. Reginald Rapture was indeed crazy about Miss Mopsy Muffet—crazy enough to fall in with her reprehensible schemes to undermine your troupe. It was because Rapture had been her accomplice that she was compelled to destroy him. You see, she planned to jilt him for another, richer man.”

  With purposeful stride, Fox approached the sodden miner, still huddled on his bench, snoring in a manner that had seemed convincing enough until Fox, with one deft motion, reached out and stripped away the great bush of false beard that had totally masked the man’s countenance.

  “Samuel Slime!” cried Victor Virtue.

  “None other,” said Fox. “It was Slime’s callous intention to preside in person over your final discomfiture and gloat over the ruin of your theatrical fortunes from which he thought to obtain his ill-gotten gains. And in which Miss Mopsy Muffet obviously expected to share. Arrest them, officers.”

  Nonchalantly, Augustus Fox resumed his top hat and opera cloak and turned to the stunned audience. “So you see, ladies and gentlemen, that in real life as in melodrama, true virtue does in fact triumph and true villainy receive its just punishment. Go your ways, remember the lesson you have learned today, and come back next week for another thrilling performance by Virtue’s Victorious Vaudevillians. I thank you, one and all.”

  And thus did the curtain close on the one and only, never-to-be-forgotten on-stage appearance of that dauntless detective, Augustus Fox.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following stories first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine: “Fifty Acres of Prime Seaweed,” February 1985, as “The Unlikely Demise of Cousin Claude.” Copyright © 1985 by Davis Publications, Inc.; “The Mysterious Affair of the Beaird-Wynnington Dirigible Airship,” February 1986. Copyright © 1986 by Davis Publications, Inc.;

  in Yankee magazine: “A Snatch in Time,” December 1963, as “Falling in Love with Arabella”; “Clean Slate,” November 1965; “The Felonious Courtship of Miles Peabody,” November 1965, as “The Courtship of Miles Peabody”;

  in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine: “Force of Habit,” July 1965, as “Quietly, by Night”; “Better a Cat,” August 1966, as “The High Price of Cat Food”; “Lady Patterly’s Lover,’ September 1965; “Journey for Lady G.,” July 1966; “Father Knew Best,” May 1967, as “The Martinet”; “Assignment: Marriage,” January 1967;

  in Good Housekeeping, in an early version: “More Like Martine,” August 20, 1966 issue, as “Mine to Love.”

  copyright © 1987 by Charlotte MacLeod

  cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  978-1-4532-7737-9

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