The two men sat playing scrabble.
They had been neighbours for several years, although they had never really got on. The night the man at number 29 invited the man from 34 to come round for a drink, he knew that his wife, visiting her sister in a nearby town, wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. They would have the place to themselves. It was as well that the visitor called when the owner’s wife was away. There had been an unfortunate incident when the visitor, severely drunk, had insulted the homeowner’s wife. She had never got over it, but the husband had decided, man to man, to put it behind them and spend time relaxing and catching up. He remembered two things about him, namely, he liked playing scrabble and was an avid tea drinker. To that end he had the board set up ready and the kettle boiling when the man arrived.
When he arrived he was instantly shown the board on the table, which obviously pleased him, and he was offered a cup of very special herbal tea. His neighbour could see that he was willing to let bygones be bygones. Before long they were sitting at the board, sipping their teas and placing tiles down, making words. They were somewhere in the middle of the game when the homeowner exclaimed.
“Wow! Just look at that! A seven-letter word, ‘toxicor’. I get a triple and a double score with that!” Chuckling to himself, he picked up a pen and began adding up his score.
His visitor said, “Hang on a minute. Toxi what? Doesn’t sound like a proper word; are you sure?”
“Toxicor,” he repeats. “It’s a highly poisonous plant, a cousin of Wolfsbane. As a matter of fact, I have a small patch of it in the back garden.” He handed him the dictionary “Go ahead. Look it up.”
The other takes it and looks it up. He shrugs and says, “OK. Your right.”
“Yes, it’s an interesting plant. Apparently, if ingested, it causes heart arrhythmia, and after a few hours complete failure. As a poison it’s virtually undetectable, I’m told.”
“You don’t say,” said his visitor, obviously tiring of the conversation. “Shall we play on? Despite your big score, I would say that the odds are in my favour.” He was right. He won the game and soon after left in a happy frame of mind.
When he had gone, his host looked up at the clock. He calculated that his neighbour should pass away in his sleep at around two in the morning.
After what he had said to his wife that night, he regarded this as a kindness.