Chapter 3

The Murderer's Guide

There were heavy footsteps. Annabel and I stepped apart just as the door opened. A short, very fat man wearing a lugubrious expression came into the room. Pince-nez spectacles seemed grotesquely out of place on his completely round face.

He said, “Hullo, Annabel. And I suppose this is your wonderful Wunderly.” Without giving either of us a chance to speak, he held out his hand to me and kept on talking. “Glad to know you, Wunderly. I'm Hill. Darius Hill. Annabel, what's wrong with Zoe? I passed her and Fillmore out in the hall. She looked as though she'd seen ghillies and ghosties.”

Annabel said, “Elsie Willis is dead, Darius.”

“Elsie dead? You're fooling me, Annabel. Why, I saw her only a few hours ago, and--- Could it have been murder?”

The italics were his. He took off his pince-nez glasses and his eyes went as round as his face.

I said, “Nobody knows, Mr. Hill. It might have been accidental. Probably she fainted and fell.”

“Fainted? A buxom wench like Elsie?” He shook his head vigorously. “But---you say fell? That would imply a head injury, would it not? Of course.

“But what a banal method of murder---with a garage full of rattlesnakes at hand. And with Bailey a chemist, too. Or would Zoe have done it? I fear she would be inclined to direct and unimaginative methods but I didn't think she harbored any animosity---”

“Please, Mr. Hill.” Annabel's voice was sharp and I noticed she addressed him by his last name this time, not his first. “If it was murder, neither Paul nor Zoe could have done it. They were both in this room, right here, when she died. We all heard her fall.”

“Ah---then the scene of the crime was upstairs? And right over this room. Let's see---of course. She was in Bailey's room, waiting for him.”

“Apparently. Paul had been sent to check plates on the blink-mike and he was passing through here on his way to his room when---when it happened. If you'll both pardon me, I think I'd better go tell the housekeeper about it. She should know right away.”

Hill and I both nodded. Hill said, “I'd like to talk to you, Wunderly. Come on up to my room and have a drink.

“This way---” He was taking my acceptance for granted, so I could do nothing but follow.

Hill's room was just like the one that had been assigned to me, save that one entire side of it was made up of shelves of books. While he hunted for the bottle and glasses, I strolled to the shelves and looked them over. The books were in haphazard order and they concerned, as far as I could see, only three subjects; one of which didn't fit at all with the other two. Astronomy, mathematics---and criminology.

When I turned around, Hill had poured drinks for us. He waved me to a chair, saying:

“And now you will tell me about the murder.” He listened closely, interrupting several times with pertinent questions.

When I had finished, he chuckled. “You are a close observer, Wunderly. If I am to solve this case, I shall let you be my Watson.”

“Or your Archie?”

He laughed aloud. “Touche! I grant more resemblance, physically at least, to Nero Wolfe than to the slender Holmes.”

He sipped his drink thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “I'm quite serious, though, about solving it. As you've undoubtedly deduced from your examination of my library, murder is my hobby. Not committing murder, I assure you, but studying it. I consider murder---the toss of a monkey wrench into the wheels of the infinite---the most fascinating of all fields of research.

“Yes, I shall most certainly take full advantage of the fact that someone has, figuratively, left a corpse conveniently in my very back yard.”

I said, “But if you're serious about investigating shouldn't you---”

“Study the scene of the crime and the corpus delicti? Not at all, my dear boy. I assure you that I am much more likely to reach the truth listening to the sound of my own voice than by looking at dead young women.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Isn't it obvious? A kills B---or rather, in this case, kills Elsie. One could pun with the formula X kills LC, but that is irrelevant, not to say irreverent. My point is---would he leave her body in such a manner that looking at it would inform the looker who killed her? Of course not, and if a calling card is found under the body, it might or might not be that of the murderer. . . . What do you think of Andressen?”

“Eric?” The sudden question surprised me. “Why, I hardly know him. Seems likable enough. He's Norwegian, isn't he?”

“Yes. He plays cello, too. Not badly. A brilliant, if erratic chap. How do you like Fergus Fillmore?”

“I like him well enough. His main interest is the moon, isn't it?”

“Right. Good old Luna, goddess of the sky. Thinks the others of us waste our time with distant galaxies and nebulae. How about another drink, Wunderly?”

“Thanks, no,” I told him. “I think I'd better look up Annabel. She---”

“Nonsense. You're going to see plenty of Annabel from now on. Right now we're talking about murder, or had we digressed? Are you interested in murder, by the way?”

“Not personally. Oh, I like to read a good murder mystery but---”

“Murder mysteries? Bah, there's no mystery in them. A clever reader can always guess the murderer. I ought to know; I read them by the dozens. One simply ignores the clues and analyzes the author's manner of presenting the characters.

“No, Wunderly, I'm talking about real murder. It's fascinating. I'm writing a book on the subject. Call it ‘The Murderer's Guide’. If I say so myself---it is excellent. Superb, in fact.”

“I'd like to read it.”

“Oh, you shall, you shall. It will be difficult for you to avoid reading it, I assure you. Here is the manuscript to date---first fifteen chapters and there are two more to be written. Take it along with you.”

I took the thick sheaf of typed manuscript hesitantly. “But do you want to part with it for a day or two? I doubt if I'll have time to read it tonight, so may I not borrow it later instead?”

“Take it along. No hurry about returning it. Leave it in your room and go seek your Annabel. Later, if you're not sleepy, you might want to read a chapter or two before you turn in. Possibly you'll read something that will come in handy within the next few days.”

“Thanks,” I said and stood up, glad to be dismissed. “But what do you mean about the next few days?”

“The next murder, of course. You don't think Elsie is going into the great unknown all by herself, do you? Think it over, and you'll see what I mean. Who is Elsie to deserve being murdered? A scullery maid with red hair and willing disposition. Nobody would want to kill Elsie!”

“But unless it was an accidental death after all,” I said, a bit bewildered by this point of view, “somebody did kill her.”

“Exactly. That proves my point. The death of a scullery maid would scarcely be the real desideratum of the murderer, would it?”

In my room, I put the manuscript down on the desk and leafed it open to a random paragraph. I was curious merely to see whether Darius Hill's style of writing matched his brand of conversation.

“The murderer” I read, “who is completely ruthless has the best chance of evading detection. By ruthless I mean willing to kill without strong motive which can be traced back to him, or, better still, without motive at all other than the desire to confuse.

“Adequate motive is the murderer's bête noire. The mass murderer, who lacks in each crime adequate motive therefor, is less vulnerable to suspicion than the murderer of a single victim through whose death he benefits.

“It is for this reason that the clever murderer, rather than the stupid one, is led from crime to crime. . . .”

There was a rap on my door. I said, “Come in.”

Eric Andressen opened the door. “Annabel's looking for you. Thought you'd want to know.”

“Thanks,” I told him. “I'll be right down. Hill just loaned me the manuscript of his book, by the way. Have you read it?”

He grinned wryly. “Everybody here who can read has read it. And those who can't read have had it read to them.”

I flicked off my light and joined him in the hallway. I asked, “Have the police arrived?”

“The police won't be here,” said Andressen grimly. “The bridge is gone. Phone wires are down, too, but we notified them by shortwave. There's a two-way set here.”

I whistled softly. “Are we completely cut off, or is there another way around?”

“Yes, over the mountains, but it would take days. Be quicker lo wait till they send men out from Scardale to replace the bridge. The stream will be down by tomorrow night.”