“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

(“Silver Blaze,” by Arthur Conan Doyle)

I always think of Silver Blaze when I recall one of the few actual murder mysteries I’ve ever gotten close to. I wasn’t actually all that close, but it presented one or two points of interest, as S. Holmes might have said.

Years ago, I was pretty well acquainted with a particular couple, who lived in a suburban community. They socialized quite a lot with their neighbors, most of whom they enjoyed knowing.

There was one exception.

I met the man once, I think, when I was visiting this particular couple. He wandered in through the back door, uninvited, somewhat drunk, and proceeded to monopolize the conversation for an hour or so. I remember that he made fun of the shirt I was wearing. My friends told me they put up with him for his wife’s sake. He was a self-appointed sergeant-major, the kind of man who always had to be in charge of everything, and always knew what to do better than everyone else. His wife smiled tensely, and endured.

The neighbors suspected he hit her from time to time.

And one night, he was murdered.

I’m told the story was featured on the “Unsolved Mysteries” TV show, though I never saw it. His wife, who was not injured, told police a stranger had broken into their house, entered their bedroom and shot him, then fled.

No one was ever arrested for the crime.

My friends felt sorry for the wife, but gradually stopped seeing her, after the murder.

Because there were questions. In particular, the curious behavior of the dogs in the night-time.

The man had owned a couple of big dogs—dobermans or rottweilers, the kind of dogs a man of that sort tends to acquire.

The dogs were there in the house.

And they did nothing in the night-time.

“It was the wife who did it,” my friends said. “Either her or one of their grown-up children. He probably hit her one too many times.”

I’ve heard it said, sometimes, that—considering how many crimes there are, and how thin police resources are stretched—there are some cases they don’t work too hard. Crimes where they figure justice has already been done, or close enough for this world.

I don’t know. That’s why I’ve altered some details of the story, so you won’t be able to guess where it happened.