"Now, Lo and Behold, the Perfect Crime Had Been Committed and He, of All Men Alive, Was the Man Who Had Committed It"

"The Masterpiece."
By Irvin Cobb (1876-1944).
First appearance: Cosmopolitan, October 1930.
Short short story (8 pages).
Online at Archive.org starting (HERE) and concluding (HERE).

"Possession of her—that was what his whole being demanded, and since a heap of good hard Yankee dollars was the price he must pay for his season in a lover's paradise, why, so be it."

Play now, pay later—and pay, and pay, and . . .

Dramatis personae:
~ Mrs. Olivia Thames:
  "Besides being a woman who still kept, embedded in unwholesome bloat, some few traces of a beauty which once had made her notorious, this Thames woman was at least four other things: namely, a former actress, a frequent divorcee, a habitual souse and a reputed hop-head."
~ Wally Staggner:
  "Either I'm going crazy, or else the whole world's gone crazy around me."
~ Solly Lennix:
  "It was a typical Solly Lennix dinner—persons who were smartly polished and persons who merely were shiny with the thin shellac of a sudden affluence."
~ "Mrs. Solly":
  "Mama's off to Shut-eye Town. Trust little Fannix Fix-it, the Camp-fire Girl."
~ Glosscup:
  ". . . it would seem, was by way of being an amateur detective. For he dropped down on his knees and was closely eyeing the ruined wrist watch; next was applying his ear close to it."
~ The policeman:
  "Well, did you kill her here and keep her hid all this time, or did you just fetch her here so as to give me a treat?"
~ Siggy Gottschalk:
  "Siggy's masterpiece was Siggy's meal ticket now, and from now on."

Resources:
- Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was a notable literary presence in his day; you can read all about him in Wikipedia (HERE).

- Cobb mentions the Eden Musée (HERE and HERE) and the Gallery of Famous Criminals at Huber's (HERE).

- Because we've dealt with the perfect crime so often, we'll offer up just a short list of postings about it: (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE),
(HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).

The bottom line: "Murder is murder, as much a curse to the slayer as to the slain, and cannot be a matter of indifference, whoever the dead may be."
― Edith Pargeter
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