Roald Dahl's "Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat"

  As part of my studies, I have been given three short stories from Roald Dahl's "Kiss Kiss"- a collection of short stories for adults. These three include "Pig", "Georgy Porgy" and "Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat". As it is the least disturbing of the three, I shall outline the latter first. And if you're wondering what I mean by "disturbing", you shall find out when I outline the others.

  Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat is a tale of deceit and irony; a married woman receives a beautiful black mink coat, from her extramarital lover of 8 years, as a parting gift. As far as her dentist husband, is aware (or so she thinks), she is to return from her monthly visit to her Aunt's, a somewhat convenient alibi for Mrs Bixby. However, she knows too well that her husband will not believe that her poor Aunt Maude could possibly afford to buy such an expensive coat for her niece. The sly fox of a wife will have to ally all her cunning to find a way to keep her prized mink coat.

Photo by Robert Laurent, 1960
Wilhelmina wearing a black mink coat and hat.

  After a couple of hours on the train back to New York, she had come up with a plan. She took the coat strait to the nearest pawnbroker and turned over the coat for $50 and a ticket, to which she refused to leave a single detail other than the amount, knowing full well that "anyone who gets hold of it can come in and claim the article". And so on her way home, she would conveniently "find" the ticket in the taxi and show it to her husband in excitement, telling him just that. Claiming innocently that she thought it may have been a ticket for the Irish Sweep. He agrees to collect the item for her on his way into work, and she visits him on his lunch hour in staged excitement to "discover" what the item may be for the allegedly found ticket. After much teasing from the husband, and guessing from Mrs Bixby, she closes her eyes, holding her breath. She opens her eyes a fraction enough to see the mink fur held up before her. "Real Mink!" he declarers.

A rather miserable looking vintage mink scarf.

  To her horror,  it is not her wonderful mink coat, it is a hideous, scrawny mink scarf. Forcing a smile, she leaves with thoughts of murdering the retched pawn broker should he not give her back her coat. On her way out, however, she sees her husband's assistant gliding past her in the beautiful black mink coat.