In Competition No. 3339 you were invited to submit a crime story in sonnet form.

Poems that have the suggestion of a criminal act at their heart – Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’, for example – were at the back of my mind when I set this challenge, and it attracted a terrific crop of entries. Hugh King’s Cluedo-inspired offering and Bill Greenwell’s Perry Mason-themed sonnet, which had echoes of Scooby-Doo (‘It was the janitor!), were unlucky to miss out on a prize, as were Bo Crowder, C. Paul Evans and Iain Morley. Those who did make the cut nab £20 and are printed below.

’Twas such a deed as no man ever did,

Though after me it would become the norm.

To kill a human like a calf or kid –

I was transgression in a brave new form.

I broke the law before it was the law.

(We had no Ten Commandments in my day.)

Each one of us must die, we knew; we saw

That day that any one of us can slay.

We laboured and we made our sacrifice.

My brother’s flocks and my crops both were good.

Yet I, the Lord adjudged, did not suffice.

I had no answer, but said what I could.

I wander with this mark upon my head

Safeguarding me, but some day I’ll be dead.

Chris O’Carroll

Inspector Nietzsche got the call last night.

Some bloke had vanished: old, but highly feared.

He took down statements. Those who’d had a sight

described white hair, white robes, a flowing beard.

Inspector Nietzsche found it very odd.

No body in the morgue. No ransom note.

It seemed the victim was Almighty God,

who’d ruled the world with meaning and with rote.

‘Now God is dead. But who’s behind the crime?’

Inspector Nietzsche watched the planets fall,

and heard the doomsday crack that ended time

and sensed the earth turn brimstone, blood and gall.

He climbed upon the Clapham omnibus.

‘The answer’s very simple: it was us.’

Philip Wilson

The butler found him on the study floor,

Shot through the head, a pistol by his side.

But this time there is no point calling for

The Great Detective: he’s the one who’s died:

He solved others’; his own death he can’t solve.

His jilted mistress or his jealous wife?

Detectives ponder what it could involve.

Perhaps his greedy brother took his life?

Police are stumped: all three have alibis.

But servants are so easily ignored.

The butler walks, unseen, before our eyes.

He knows the Great Detective was a fraud.

‘I solved those crimes; he took the credit,’ said

The butler. ‘No one knows I shot him dead.’

Nicholas Hodgson

Blake got it wrong. I had this randy friend

Whose morals would have shamed a Visigoth,

Forever making plans to ‘get his end

away’ with women, candles to his moth.

But even so, I never thought he’d dare

To steal my girl. Imagine, then, my wrath

The day I came home early, found the pair

Stark naked, screwing on the tablecloth.

On William Blake’s advice, I told my wrath;

I cursed him for a scoundrel and a cad.

He laughed so hard, his mouth began to froth,

And when he stopped for breath, he sneered: ‘Too bad!’

   Seething with righteous anger at my friend,

   I poisoned him, and then my wrath did end.

Brian Allgar

The king was murdered. This much we all knew,

Though how and by whom none could really say.

His brother was the main suspect, it’s true,

But quite unlikely, this soon in the play!

Polonius was the next one in the frame

For murder, but he took a fatal fall.

Ophelia likewise. Whom else can we blame?

The ghost, that Mousetrap stuff – red herrings all!

Then Chief Inspector Hamlet had a hunch

That the late king was murdered by his wife,

Poisoned not in his ear, but in his lunch,

And not for glory, just domestic strife.

The queen, now rumbled, drained her poison cup,

Because by then she knew the game was up.

Brian Murdoch

She’s eighty-nine, he wafts fake ID quickly

And claims he’s from the Council or the Bank.

She’s quiet, polite, his patter runs on slickly;

His eyes are darting, hers are oddly blank.

She brews the tea he takes with sly politeness

And caution spent, accedes to his request,

Vouchsafing passwords with a trusting brightness.

He jots all down, declares himself impressed.

Gulping his tea, he jokes he’d better scarper

Makes for the door while she keeps wittering,

Speaking of things he won’t remember after

When, throat afire, he can’t stop shivering:

The poisons cultivated in her garden

And con men nowadays who’ll get no pardon.

Adrian Fry

The motive? Envy! Everywhere, he starred.

They fell upon his every word – sooooo sweet –

His face on every calendar and card,

His every puffed-up pose, his every tweet!

The opportunity? You couldn’t miss him,

As though a red-dot target graced his chest –

And me? Anonymous, ignored and hidden,

You’d give me once a passing glance, at best.

So yes, too right, I killed that damned cock robin!

The murder weapon? Bow and sixteen arrows.

And no, you’ll see no soppy sighs or sobbin’

Among excluded, disempowered sparrows.

A special providence was in my fall.

The motive, means and readiness were all.

David Silverman

No. 3342: Won’t you marry me?

You are invited to submit a proposal of marriage in the style of a famous writer (please specify). Please email entries of up to 150 words/16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 20 March.