English detective story.

• Author: Fernando Verissimo, Luis
• Position: Short story

It was summer. Lord Asquith was reading a detective story in the garden of his Devonshire mansion. The luminous atmosphere, the drone of the locusts, and that extra glass of claret at lunch made him sleepy, but Lord Asquith continued to read. When he came to page 141--the part where a drowsy English lord was reading a detective story in the garden of his mansion--he was interrupted by the butler, who approached the wicker armchair silently and said "Sir?"

"Yes."

"The telephone, sir, Lady Agatha."

Lord Asquith stood up, placed the book open to page 141 on the cushion embroidered with the family coat of arms which he used as a seat in the wicker armchair he'd brought back from India, and went to the telephone in the library. "Yes?" he said, somewhat irritably.

"It's Agatha."

"I know it's Agatha. What do you want?"

"I've been thinking."

"Heaven help us."

"What?"

"You've been thinking. That is a sure omen of impending calamity. Don't think, Agatha. Your brain is one of the last areas of the world in perfectly primitive condition. Don't spoil it with the white man's culture."

"I've been thinking about a way to ruin you forever."

"Ah, well. For a moment I thought it might be something important."

"Is that all you have to say to me?"

"The last word I had to say to you, Agatha, was said years ago. If I recall correctly, it was goodbye."

"You're a dog."

"And you're a bitch. I'm surprised our marriage didn't work out well. We had biology working for us."

"Just you wait until you see tomorrow's papers. The tabloids. I'm going to tell the whole world about you. That'll be the end of you--your peace and quiet, your damned detective stories. You can say goodbye to all that too."

The inspector examined the book left face down on the cushion. At the bottom of page 141, Lady Agatha was threatening to tell everything she knew about Lord Asquith to the tabloids. the inspector turned the page. At the top of page 142, Inspector Forthright was questioning the butler, as he examined the book left face down on the cushion: "Are you sure he didn't come back to this chair?"

"Yes indeed, sir. After hanging up the telephone he went directly to the garage. He then got into the car and drove away in a hurry."

"Did he seem upset or nervous?"

"I'm afraid he did, sir."

"Was he carrying a weapon? A blunt object, perhaps?"

"Such as a poker?"

"Yes."

"I'm afraid one of the pokers from the library fireplace is missing."

"Hmmm. It was a poker that killed Lady Agatha."

The...