[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
you that in each separate case it seemed quite clear that the person accused, or suspected, had actually
committed the crimes in question, that there was no alternate solution. And I then proceeded to the
second important fact - that in each case X had been either on the scene or closely involved. You then
jumped to a deduction that was, paradoxically, both true and false. You said that X had committed all
the murders.
But, my friend, the circumstances were such that in each case (or very nearly) only the accused person
could have done the crime. On the other hand, if so, how account for X? Apart from a person connected
with the police force or with, say, a firm of criminal lawyers, it is not reasonable for any man or woman
to be involved in five murder cases. It does not, you comprehend, happen! Never, never does it occur
that someone says confidentially: "Well, as a matter of fact, I've actually known five murderers"! No,
no, mon ami, it is not possible, that. So we get the curious result that we have here a case of catalysis - a
reaction between two substances that takes place only in the presence of a third substance, that third
substance apparently taking no part in the reaction and remaining unchanged. That is the position. It
means that where X was present, crimes took place - but X did not actively take part in these crimes.
An extraordinary, an abnormal situation! And I saw that I had come across at last, at the end of my
career, the perfect criminal, the criminal who had invented such a technique that he could never he
convicted of crime.
It was amazing. But it was not new. There were parallels. And here comes in the first of the "clues" I
left you. The play of Othello. For there, magnificently delineated, we have the original of X. Iago is the
perfect murderer. The deaths of Desdemona, of Cassia - indeed of Othello himself - are all Iago's
crimes, planned by him, carried out by him. And he remains outside the circle, untouched by suspicion -
or could have done so. For your great Shakespeare, my friend, had to deal with the dilemma that his
own art had brought about. To unmask Iago, he had to resort to the clumsiest of devices - the
handkerchief - a piece of work not at all in keeping with Iago's general technique and a blunder of
which one feels certain he would not have been guilty.
Yes, there is there the perfection of the art of murder. Not even a word of direct suggestion. He is always
holding back others from violence, refuting with horror suspicions that have not been entertained until
he mentions them!
And the same technique is seen in the brilliant third act of John Ferguson - where the "half-witted"
Clutie John induces others to kill the man that he himself hates. It is a wonderful piece of psychological
suggestion.
Now you must realize this, Hastings. Everyone is a potential murderer - in everyone there arises from
time to time the wish to kill - though not the will to kill. How often have you not felt or heard others
say: "She made me so furious I felt I could have killed her!" "I could have killed B. for saying so-and-
so!" "I was so angry I could have murdered him!" And all those statements are literally true. Your mind
at such moments is quite clear. You would like to kill so-and-so. But you do not do it. Your will has to
assent to your desire. In young children, the brake is as yet acting imperfectly. I have known a child,
annoyed by its kitten, say: "Keep still or I'll hit you on the head and kill you" and actually do so - to be
stunned and horrified a moment later when it realizes that the kitten's life will not return - because, you
see, really the child loves that kitten dearly. So then, we are all potential murderers. And the art of X
was this: not to suggest the desire, but to break down the normal decent resistance. It was an art
perfected by long practice. X knew the exact word, the exact phrase, the intonation even to suggest and
to bring cumulative pressure on a weak spot! It could be done. It was done without the victim ever
suspecting. It was not hypnotism - hypnotism would not have been successful. It was something more
insidious, more deadly. It was a marshalling of the forces of a human being to widen a breach instead of
repairing it. It called on the best in a man and set it in alliance with the worst.
You should know, Hastings - for it happened to you...
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]