1799. A full set of teeth

Bruno had lost most of his teeth. It wasn’t because he’d lost them in a fight or anything. Nor had he lost them through lack of care. He had two top teeth right in the front and very little else in his gums. When he smiled he looked like a rabbit; or at least a caricature of a rabbit.

He had brushed his teeth throughout life, and he had been to the dentist when it was deemed absolutely necessary. But his teeth had decided to go on the move and migrated into a bunch. The specialist pulled most of them out to make room and said “You need dentures”.

Getting dentures was easier said than done. They cost money, which Bruno didn’t have. And then he met Bianca. She was as rich as hell. She laughed at Bruno and called him “My little bunny rabbit.” He didn’t mind because they were in love and she paid for his dentures.

That was years ago. They divorced after a few months. Bianca claimed in court that Bruno married her only to get expensive dentures. The judge would have none of it. These days Bruno lives off the interest in the divorce settlement. He met Patsy-Lee on a recent Mediterranean island cruise. She fell in love with his smile.

1592. How best to murder a spouse

To poison someone by putting poison in their lemon curd or lacing a black currant pie with arsenic is highly uncreative. It’s very run-of-the-mill. Likewise to get a gun and shoot someone point blank is crass. Such gross behaviour is equally uncreative. Let it be made clear: to murder someone by shooting them with a pistol is the height of boring unsophistication. Only a yob would do something so dull and unrefined. Martin Werherall believed that if he was going to kill someone it was best to do it creatively. After all, he was a pharmacist and had all sorts of resources at his fingertips.

As a teenager Martin had developed wonderful, dexterous skills. His parents had sworn black and blue that no child of theirs should put sugar in their tea or coffee. Sugar was the scourge of the contemporary diet. One simply did not need to add sugar to a beverage. Drinking sweetened things was a matter of sugar addiction. But Martin knew a magician who taught him, with practice, how to conceal a sugar cube in the back of his hand and the palm of his hand and goodness knows where else. Then with a modest wave Martin could drop the sugar cube into his mug and his parents were none the wiser.

Now that he was all grown up with his own pharmacy and married and struggling to find happiness he decided to rid himself of all matrimonial encumbrances. The easiest way was to combine his pharmaceutical and magician abilities and drop a pill into his wife’s cup. It should be made clear, in the interests of creativity, that this pill was not a pill of poison; it was a pill that was intended to prolong life and happiness in the pill-taker. Martin frequently dispensed such pills to patients in this pharmacy. But it was for sick people. Healthy people would possibly discover that their heart would begin racing irregularly and they would drop dead, basically from too much health! Such was the brilliance of Martin’s plan.

One day, with a wave of the hand, he surreptitiously dropped a pill into his wife’s cup of Camomile and Spiced Apple Tea infusion. That should finish her off.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” said his wife of seven years, pulling out a pistol concealed in her breast. She shot Martin dead.

God! No wonder Martin wanted to be rid of her. That woman was so crass.