More fable than short story, yet also something of a noir parable, a grim psychological mystery of compulsion and erotic self-abnegation, André Narbonne's "The Doctrinal Murder of a Socratic Beggar in St. Suzette" tells the tale of a frustrated artist whose wife commits a murder to save her husband's work from mockery. Narbonne is an old acquaintance; I selected a wonderful story of his for the 2006 edition of Best Canadian Stories (in the time before time when I edited that estimable volume).