The Short-Story form allows writers to be more “playful” than they could be in a longer form. TExperiment, even cheat a little, if you will. All in the name of entertainment.

Cyril Hare was the pen name of Alfred Clark a barrister and a member of the famous Detection Club. He wrote a number of novels and short stories that enabled him to utilize his understanding of the legal system of Britain.

“The Euthanasia of Hilary’s Aunt” makes no real use of Clark’s legal knowledge. It is merely a fun story with a surprising twist that would only work in a short story. But work it does, quite well.

“The Euthanasia of Hilary’s Aunt” is another story included in the excellent collection, Bodies from the Library: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection. It is story of a man being too clever for his own good.

Here are the opening paragraphs of this delightful story.

Hilary Smyth came of what his father was fond of calling ‘a good old family’. How old the family actually was might have been open to doubt, but Mr Smyth’s standards of behaviour were certainly old-fashioned enough to satisfy any Victorian aristocrat.
So it came about that as the result of the merest peccadillo, relating to a few dishonoured cheques, Hilary had found himself summarily exiled to Australia, a place of which Mr Smyth knew little except that it provided a convenient dumping-ground for the black sheep of good old English families.
Hilary had not liked Australia, nor had Australia liked Hilary, and he took the earliest opportunity to return to England.