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Let sleeping dogs lie

Short Story (1,750 words)

This is typical of the short whodunnits that Canning contributed to the Evening Standard in the 1950s.

Alison Chambers is the companion to the frail and hypochondriac Lady Hortense Maltby and her equally frail dog. They live in Venice, where Alison has fallen in love with Gino, who persuades her to make away with the old lady. Alison drowns her in her bath, making it look accidental. She claims to the police that she was not there to supervise the bath (as she was supposed to) because the dog had barked and Lady Maltby had sent her to take care of it. Will this excuse be accepted?

 

Evening Standard, 10 March 1952.
Reprinted in the Aberdeen Evening Express, 6 March 1954.
Included in Italy and the Balkans, 2010.