The Amateur Crime by Anthony Berkeley — Read

If anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve o'clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly, notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be concocted in cold blood.

One does not remark casually over one's second cup of tea: "By the way, you people, an idea's just occurred to me for hoaxing the British Broadcasting Company rather neatly. Anybody care to give me a hand? I shall tell them, you see, that I've got a trained rabbit that gives organ recitals, and... " Certainly not. But give the average law-respecting Briton (which Guy was not, nor yet Mr. Doyle, but George was) a modicum of sound alcohol to titillate his sense of humour into a slightly perverted form, taunt him through the mouth of one friend with inability to carry the thing through, egg him on through the lips of another to show the stuff he is made of, and smile at him through his wife's eyes as if to say, "Dear old Guy! Oh yes, my dear, he often _talks_ like this-but bless you, he'd never _do_ anything. Oh, dear no! "-do these things to him, and then be very careful not to answer for the consequences. For consequences will certainly occur. In cold blood George would never have considered that he possessed any corpse-imitating properties at all.