Nightmares & Geezenstacks by Fredric Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

little druggist nodded. “Yes, I occasionally dispense an undetectable poison. I do so freely; I do not charge for it, if I think the case is deserving. I have helped many murderers.”
    “Fine,” Sangstrom said. “Please give it to me, then.”
    The druggist smiled at him. “I already have. By the time the coffee was ready I had decided that you deserved it. It was, as I said, free. But there is a price for the antidote.”
    Sangstrom turned pale. But he had anticipated—not this, but the possibility of a double-cross or some form of blackmail. He pulled a pistol from his pocket.
    The little druggist chuckled. “You daren’t use that. Can you find the antidote”—he waved at the shelves—“among those thousands of bottles? Or would you find a faster, more virulent poison? Or if you think I’m bluffing, that you are not really poisoned, go ahead and shoot. You’ll know the answer within three hours when the poison starts to work.”
    “How much for the antidote?” Sangstrom growled.
    “Quite reasonable. A thousand dollars. After all, a man must live. Even if his hobby is preventing murders, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t make money at it, is there?”
    Sangstrom growled and put the pistol down, but within reach, and took out his wallet. Maybe after he had the antidote, he’d still use that pistol. He counted out a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills and put it on the table.
    The druggist made no immediate move to pick it up. He said: “And one other thing—for your wife’s safety and mine. You will write a confession of your intention—your former intention, I trust—to murder your wife. Then you will wait till I go out and mail it to a friend of mine on the homicide detail. He’ll keep it as evidence in case you ever do decide to kill your wife. Or me, for that matter.
    “When that is in the mail it will be safe for me to return here and give you the antidote. I’ll get you paper and pen…
    “Oh, one other thing—although I do not absolutely insist on it. Please help spread the word about my undetectable poison, will you? One never knows, Mr. Sangstrom. The life you save, if you have any enemies, just might be your own.”

THE RING OF HANS CARVEL
    (retold and somewhat modernized from the works of Rabelais)
    Once upon a time there lived in France a prosperous but somewhat aging jeweler named Hans Carvel. Besides being a studious and learned man, he was a likable man. And a man who liked women and although he had not lived a celibate life, or missed anything, had happened to remain a bachelor until he was—well, let’s call his age as pushing sixty and not mention from which direction he was pushing it.
    At that age he fell in love with a bailiff’s daughter—a young and a beautiful girl, spirited and vivacious, a dish to set before a king.
    And married her.
    Within a few weeks of the otherwise happy marriage Hans Carvel began to suspect that his young wife, whom he still loved deeply, might be just a little too spirited, a little too vivacious. That what he was able to offer her—aside from money, of which he had a sufficiency—might not be enough to keep her contented. Might not, did I say? Was not.
    Not unnaturally he began to suspect, and then to be practically certain, that she was supplementing her love life with several—or possibly even many—other and younger men.
    This preyed on his mind. It drove him, in fact, to a state of distraction in which he had bad dreams almost nightly.
    In one of these dreams, one night, he found himself talking to the Devil, explaining his dilemma, and offering the traditional price for something, anything, that would assure him of his wife’s faithfulness.
    In his dream, the Devil nodded readily and told Hans: “I will give you a magic ring. You will find it when you awaken. As long as you wear this ring it will be utterly and completely impossible for your wife to be unfaithful to you without your knowledge and consent.”
    And the