Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 4. Whole No. 245, April 1964

Federal Offense by Henry Slesar

Another memorable little chiller — about a horse racing bet and a threatening letter...

Phil Burns, a walking catalogue of grievances against his wife, didn’t learn of her latest offense until he incurred the wrath of Joe Cleveland. Cleveland was a graven-faced bookie who worked out of Rip’s Barber Shop on Superior Avenue in, of course, Cleveland, Ohio. Office business took Phil to that city on the average of twice a month, and he had been dealing with the bookmaker for well over a year without friction on either side. Now, however, he had placed a larger than usual bet, lost, and neglected to pay. Cleveland wrote Burns a letter.

“ ‘Dear Mr. Burns,” Louise quoted bitterly. “Last time you was here you didn’t pay up the two hundred. Please remit.’ ”

“You opened my mail,” Phil said angrily. “That letter was addressed to me and you opened it!”

“So what?” Louise said.

“What do you mean, so what? You know that’s a Federal offense, opening other people’s mail?”

“So turn me over to J. Edgar Hoover, why don’t you?”

“How long you been doing this? Reading my mail?”

“Listen,” Louise rasped, “around this joint you gotta protect yourself at all times. If I didn’t read that letter you could have given me some phony story about needing an engine overhaul or something—”

She had cited Grievance Number One. Phil’s wife had her own money, a trust account from her father, and Phil had been drawing on it from Day One of their marriage.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to ask you for a nickel.”

He slammed out of the house and went to see his pal Mort.

“Lend me some dough for a couple of days, Mort, huh?”

“Are you kidding? You’re into me for fifty already.”

At the office he saw old Sakolsky, the treasurer.

“Sorry, Phil, you know the company rules. You’ve already had three advances, and that’s the limit.”

That night he leaned over Louise’s shoulder at her vanity table and said, “Aw, come on, honey, let’s not — fight. Just give me the two hundred bucks and it’ll be the last time. I promise.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said dryly, and sprayed the surroundings with hair fixative. Phil coughed and went to bed.

On the train to Cleveland he got an idea. He went to Rip’s Barber Shop and had a haircut while waiting for Joe.

When the bookie arrived, Phil said, “Listen, Joe, can you give me one more week? I guarantee to raise the money in a week.”

“All right,” Joe said wearily.

In the hotel Phil sat down with a blank sheet of stationery, and in block letters he wrote a letter to himself:

He left the note unsigned. Then he addressed an envelope to his home address, and put the letter in the mail.

Three days later he went back East and chuckled all the way, just thinking of that anonymous letter. Thinking of Louise’s reaction when she opened it. He envisioned a scene full of tears and recriminations, but it was bound to end happily. Money in his hand. Maybe he wouldn’t pay Joe back right away. There was a horse running at Aqueduct that had once paid him twenty-four for two...

He walked into the apartment and called out, “Louise?”

She came out of the bedroom, filing her nails.

“I’m home,” he said.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Any mail for me?”

“Nothing much. It’s on the kitchen table.”

He went into the kitchen and riffled through the stack. There was a gas bill, a phone bill, four pieces of junk mail, and a post card from his sister.

“Is this all?” he said.

“Yeah, that’s all.”

“It couldn’t be. I been gone four days.”

“That’s all,” Louise said positively. “Nothing else. Absolutely nothing at all.”

She went back into the bedroom, leaving him to get his own supper. He went to bed an hour later, still unable to understand what had happened to the anonymous letter he had sent.

He woke up in the middle of the night, sweating, when he finally understood...