The trap

Colby stood stock still
Colby’s murder plan was perfect—except at one point
By Murray Leinster
This is a very instructive story. It deals with the value of a reputation, the best way to commit murder, what to do with embarrassing letters, and where stolen thousand-dollar bills may be exchanged or spent with the minimum discount—all of which information is useful; but mostly it deals with the value of a reputation.
Colby had thought about reputations rather carefully, but the sound of the shot with which he killed Grahame had not quite died away before he remembered the reputation of Detective Sergeant Nesbit. Then cold sweat came out on his forehead.
He stood stock-still for a matter of seconds, with a horrible sick feeling coming all over him. Grahame, of course, caused none of that feeling of nausea. Grahame had acted according to schedule. The load of buckshot went into his skull just where the spinal column entered it. While the thunderous crash of the gun still echoed among the nearer tree trunks, his arms went stiffly out in an aimless gesture and he fell with a slight splashing sound in the leaf-littered mud underfoot. Colby stood still, with thinning smoke coming out of the gun barrel, while the echoes died away to a dimming murmur among the trees, until even that sound was lost in the noise of the breeze in the bare branches overhead and the dry rustling of lingering brown leaves.
It was very peaceful, here among the trees. The brown clothing of the crumpled figure on the earth blended in color with the carpet of leaves. Any living creatures that might have been within hearing had been startled into immobility and silence by the shot. Colby had not yet moved even his feet after pulling the trigger. There was no sound at all, except a faint trickling noise from a little stream some twenty yards to the right.
Colby pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead—not at all the conventional thing for a murderer to do, of course; but he was not thinking of the dead man at his feet. He was thinking of Nesbit.