difficult to kill people if you’ve a mind to, as the Irish are so fond of proving to us. And with Professor Emerson and yourself notched up in one day, these people have certainly demonstrated their enthusiasm for it.’
‘You’re pretty sure it was the same pair?’
‘Not necessarily the same pair, I don’t know about that yet. But the same guiding intelligence, I’m sure of that. Because whoever composed your little suicide note must have already known your professor wasn’t going to contradict it.’
Audley paused.
‘But that isn’t a reason why their plan didn’t work out, of course … No, the general reason is that while it’s easy to murder it’s bloody difficult to fake a murder - there are too many things to go wrong once you complicate a basically simple act.’
‘You mean luck?’
Audley shook his head.
‘I prefer not to think of luck coming into it. It’s just that you limit your control of the sequence of action … Take your own case, for example - ‘
Your own case. The sound of the dry, academic voice faded for a moment as Mitchell felt his chest tighten. He still couldn’t hold reality steady for more than a few minutes at a time, and every time he succeeded he liked it less.
‘ - could have cracked you on the head first. And you know why they didn’t?’
It was Paul Mitchell they were discussing, the Paul Mitchell he knew and loved so well, who lived in a very ordinary, rather boring world and worried about girls and money and making a modest name for himself.
‘Because you were going to be a suicide, so you had to drown,’ continued Audley conversationally. ‘They were probably afraid to mark you, because marks make policemen suspicious. Or maybe they were afraid of hitting you too hard, because every schoolboy knows that dead men won’t drown. So they left it to the weir, and the weir didn’t do its job properly. It was out of their control, quite simply.
‘Now, Professor Emerson’s case illustrates the same thing, but in a different way.
They killed him with a blow on the neck - which the fall downstairs was supposed to account for. But the fire was also intended to obliterate everything, and the fire let them down just like the weir.’
‘You mean, it didn’t burn? The papers weren’t destroyed?’
Audley sighed.
‘No, I’m afraid they did manage that. By the time the fire brigade got there the study was like a furnace.’
‘Then how did the fire let them down?’
‘Ah, well that’s the other reason why faked murders don’t work: people do tend to underestimate the efficiency and the intelligence of the experts they hire to look after them. Like the firemen, for a start - just because they wear uniforms and ring bells it doesn’t mean they’re idiots.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You will, believe me … You see, someone spotted the blaze - someone on the top deck of a double-decker bus that was passing. And so the fire didn’t have time to reach the body. Then as soon as the police and the firemen put their heads together they didn’t like the look of things. The firemen reckoned the fire in the study had started in more than one place, and the police couldn’t understand how Emerson had given himself a karate chop on the banisters. That’s simplifying what they told me, but it all added up to the same thing: the fire let the murderers down - it wasn’t as efficient as the fire brigade.’
Mitchell digested the information in silence. It was evident that Audley had barged straight in, waving his little black book with the same magic effect as it had had on poor Constable Bell, who must be even now lying unhappily like a trooper to his sergeant. Whatever agency the big man served, it opened and closed official doors with disturbing ease - and either accidentally or by design he had just warned Mitchell not to underestimate ‘the experts’, of whom he was obviously one. And a rather senior one at that.
Yet there was something distinctly
‘You’re pretty sure it was the same pair?’
‘Not necessarily the same pair, I don’t know about that yet. But the same guiding intelligence, I’m sure of that. Because whoever composed your little suicide note must have already known your professor wasn’t going to contradict it.’
Audley paused.
‘But that isn’t a reason why their plan didn’t work out, of course … No, the general reason is that while it’s easy to murder it’s bloody difficult to fake a murder - there are too many things to go wrong once you complicate a basically simple act.’
‘You mean luck?’
Audley shook his head.
‘I prefer not to think of luck coming into it. It’s just that you limit your control of the sequence of action … Take your own case, for example - ‘
Your own case. The sound of the dry, academic voice faded for a moment as Mitchell felt his chest tighten. He still couldn’t hold reality steady for more than a few minutes at a time, and every time he succeeded he liked it less.
‘ - could have cracked you on the head first. And you know why they didn’t?’
It was Paul Mitchell they were discussing, the Paul Mitchell he knew and loved so well, who lived in a very ordinary, rather boring world and worried about girls and money and making a modest name for himself.
‘Because you were going to be a suicide, so you had to drown,’ continued Audley conversationally. ‘They were probably afraid to mark you, because marks make policemen suspicious. Or maybe they were afraid of hitting you too hard, because every schoolboy knows that dead men won’t drown. So they left it to the weir, and the weir didn’t do its job properly. It was out of their control, quite simply.
‘Now, Professor Emerson’s case illustrates the same thing, but in a different way.
They killed him with a blow on the neck - which the fall downstairs was supposed to account for. But the fire was also intended to obliterate everything, and the fire let them down just like the weir.’
‘You mean, it didn’t burn? The papers weren’t destroyed?’
Audley sighed.
‘No, I’m afraid they did manage that. By the time the fire brigade got there the study was like a furnace.’
‘Then how did the fire let them down?’
‘Ah, well that’s the other reason why faked murders don’t work: people do tend to underestimate the efficiency and the intelligence of the experts they hire to look after them. Like the firemen, for a start - just because they wear uniforms and ring bells it doesn’t mean they’re idiots.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You will, believe me … You see, someone spotted the blaze - someone on the top deck of a double-decker bus that was passing. And so the fire didn’t have time to reach the body. Then as soon as the police and the firemen put their heads together they didn’t like the look of things. The firemen reckoned the fire in the study had started in more than one place, and the police couldn’t understand how Emerson had given himself a karate chop on the banisters. That’s simplifying what they told me, but it all added up to the same thing: the fire let the murderers down - it wasn’t as efficient as the fire brigade.’
Mitchell digested the information in silence. It was evident that Audley had barged straight in, waving his little black book with the same magic effect as it had had on poor Constable Bell, who must be even now lying unhappily like a trooper to his sergeant. Whatever agency the big man served, it opened and closed official doors with disturbing ease - and either accidentally or by design he had just warned Mitchell not to underestimate ‘the experts’, of whom he was obviously one. And a rather senior one at that.
Yet there was something distinctly
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