In a cottage surrounded by the drone of honey-bees, the bee-keeper's baby daughter is ailing and losing weight. The corner is turned when Albert begins to feed his daughter on Royal Jelly, but a curious transformation is under way...

Drioli, a penniless old tattoo artist, has a fabulous work of art by his friend Soutine and is offered a huge amount for it. He desperately needs the money, but how can he deliver the picture to the buyer while he is still alive? - the masterpiece is tattooed on his back.

After more than sixty years, William Perkins is still haunted by memories of being bullied at an English private school... One day, he is annoyed by a swaggering passenger on a train and is sure he recognizes him as Foxley, the school prefect who made his life so miserable, long ago. And Perkins makes a mistake.

Paul Duveen gives a lift in his ultra-fast new BMW to an elderly hitch-hiker on his way to Epsom for the Derby. Duveen, cajoled into taking the car to its limit, is promptly booked for speeding. In the course of the remaining journey, the passenger reveals his astonishing skills as a professional pickpocket - his name for himself is a fingersmith - and before they finally part, the fingersmith has a little present for Duveen...

Harry Pope is a reformed alcoholic working in Kashmir, India, and hoping to go home to England soon. One hot night, Harry is reading in bed, when he feels something moving on his chest. He looks down to see a deadly little snake, a krait, which slides under his pyjamas and goes to sleep on his stomach. All Harry can do is to wait for his friend, Timber, to come home. When he arrives, Timber sends for a local doctor...

The husband of a fat, greedy woman has a clever plan to get rid of her - but the plan is flawed.

Richard Pratt, a famous middle-aged wine connoisseur, is having dinner with the Schofields for the third time. Twice before, he has won a case of wine from Mike Schofield by correctly identifying the claret served with dinner. This time, Pratt wishes to increase the stakes - he offers his London house and his place in the country against the hand in marriage of the Schofields' teenage daughter, Louise. And Schofield (who is sure he has found a wine no one could identify) persuades Louise to agree to the bet. After all, this wine is unguessable...

Arthur Beauchamp's wife, Pamela, decides to have some fun with their weekend guests, the Snapes - they instal a hidden microphone in the Snapes' bedroom. After a game of bridge for high stakes, the microphone reveals that the Snapes have a complicated system for signalling their bridge hands to each other...

George is an English vicar with a fantasy life. He sees naked women during his sermons. One day, he finds he is suddenly irresistible to the opposite sex, and a beautiful woman throws herself at him on a river bank. What is going on?

An art collector finds himself drawn into an unusual struggle with two beautiful women.

A smart old man, claiming to need his taxi fare home on a wet afternoon in London, persuades a stranger to buy his umbrella. Followed into a pub, it turns out that the Umbrellaa Man spends the money on a large whisky. What is going on?

Klara. the mother of a new-born baby boy, is desperately worried, as she and her husband, Alois, have lost three other children in lessss than two years. A doctor convinces her that her new son is healthy, and Klara decides to call him Adolphus. She loves this beautiful child. Her husband comments on his small size, and the doctor pleads with him to give his wife better support. Alois tries to comfort Klara. ""He must live, Alois,"" she cries. ""Oh God, be merciful..."" We slowly realize who the child will grow up to be.

William Botibol is a pathetic failure whose life-long ambition is to conduct an orchestra. He fills his lonely life with music, pretending to be a great composer and conductor. Then Botibol meets a young lady who shares in his fantasy - but why is she really putting herself out for him?

James Carpenter is a successful doctor at the peak of his career and is also an orchid fanatic, much more devoted to his flowers than he is to his elegant wife, Hermione. And Carpenter is also in love with a younger woman, Samantha. Then a research posting to the U.S. gives the doctor the idea for the perfect murder... Alas for Carpenter and his mistress, the victim has a trick up her sleeve, even from the grave...

Arthur Appleby's orderly world centres on his quiet antique and curio shop. He has just married for the fourth time, and his new wife, Martha, discovers Appleby's dark secret - he murdered all her predecessors. But the new Mrs Appleby has a plan to turn the tables on her husband.

Hardy is a young seaman down on his luck. He has no money and no ship, and then he gets caught up in a dockland fight and kills a man. Anxious to get a new ship and vanish, Hardy turns to his friend, the lovely Diane, a prostitute. Diane knows where to find the elusive, mysterious Man at the Top - the one person powerful enough to help Hardy. And then Hardy finds he did not know very much about the man he killed...