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The Butler who should have been a Detective
(Everything of the Finest)

Short Story (1,990 words)

A rich man has been murdered. The main suspects are his two sons, one of whom is fair-haired and the other bald. The butler claims he saw a fair-haired man talking to the victim before the lights went out. He grappled with the murderer in the darkened room, dropping a tray of glasses in the process. The police find a wig on the floor. Was it the bald one who wore it to throw suspcion on his brother, or was it the fair-haired one who dropped it to suggest that his brother had pulled the trigger?

This Week supplement to Kansas City Star and other US papers, 13 December 1959.
Reprinted as "Inside Information". Australian Women's Weekly, 3 February 1960.
Reprinted as "Everything of the finest". Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, April 1961.

Included in Crime and Detection, ed. John Higgins.