The Perfect Murder (10 page)

He can hardly follow her at once—you have portrayed him as a man of discretion. Refill everyone’s glass—your guests must on no account feel that they have outstayed their welcome. Then say there is something you have forgotten to tell her about the arrangements for the morning, and excuse yourself for a few minutes.

You knock on the door of her bedroom. She admits you—why should she not? But if not, you still have your key to it. You say that you have come to say “Good night” to her. You throw aside your plaid cloak—don’t forget that, it is of great importance—and you take her in your arms. Do not be tempted, though it is the last, to let your embrace be too long. While your mouth is still on hers you draw the dagger that you have stolen from Blazes—please don’t get confused, you must use the one which has his fingerprints on it—and—there, the thing is done.

Now put her body on the bed. Arrange it so that the wound is not immediately obvious—so that by the dim light of the bedside lamp she looks as if she were merely sleeping. Or not even sleeping, but lying with her eyes closed in languorous contemplation of the lover whom she is awaiting. Hide the tape recorder in the folds of her dress and leave the dagger lying on the floor beside the bed.

Now set the tape recorder in such a way that—

No—no, first wash the blood from your hands. I cannot have your bloodstained fingerprints all over the room. I am, I must confess, a little worried about the blood—can you manage, do you think, to avoid getting any of it on the cuffs of your shirt? If not, you will have to take the risk of washing them, but whatever you do take care to use cold water—hot makes bloodstains irremovable. And do please be quick about all this—your guests will be embarrassed by too prolonged an absence.

Now make sure the door giving access to the adjoining room is unlocked and slightly ajar, and set the tape recorder in such a way that the scream will be heard—let us say, thirty seconds after the door is pushed open. You will, of course, have practiced doing this, so that there should be no difficulty about it. But you will remember, won’t you, that speed is now of the essence?

Examine your appearance carefully in the bathroom mirror. Put on your plaid again, and arrange it in such a way as to conceal any bloodstains. Are you sure, quite sure, that your hands are clean? Very well then—you are ready to return to your guests.

It is possible that the next few minutes will be something of a strain on your nerves. You may perhaps become conscious that committing a murder is in some ways rather different from writing a novel or painting a picture. If you make a mistake, you cannot revise or repaint, or tear up your work and start all over again. And if you happen to find that you have mistaken your vocation, you cannot decide not to be a murderer after all.

But this is not the time to let your nerves get the better of you. More than ever now you must be the genial and generous host—it would never do for your guests to feel that you were weary of them, and depart before the drama reaches its conclusion.

Moreover, you must find some pretext to draw attention to the dagger you are wearing—I want everyone to remember that at this stage in the evening it was still in your possession. Perhaps you could guide the conversation toward the subject of traditional Scottish craftsmanship.

How long will Blazes remain among your guests? Not long, surely? When your wife is looking so beautiful and has smiled as she has at him, surely he will not keep her waiting long?

And once he leaves, the moment of climax is at hand. He will go first to his own room—he is too discreet to enter hers from the corridor. He will spend a few moments perhaps in attending to his appearance. Then he will go to the door giving access to your wife’s room, and finding it ajar will enter. He will see her lying, as you left her, on the bed. He will approach and stretch out his hand to wake her. He will not understand what it is that is moist and warm on her breast.

Then there will be the scream.

You hear it in the supper room, and rise to your feet with a panic-stricken cry: “My God, that’s my wife—what the hell’s happening to her?” You rush from the room and down the corridor, your companions close at your heels—curiosity and good fellowship alike command it. You rattle the handle of the door to her room, frantically calling her name. But only for a moment—the key is already in your hand. You fling the door open and turn on the main lights.

There is Blazes, still utterly bewildered, his hands red with blood. Perhaps, in his confusion, he will have picked up the dagger, and still be holding it; but if he has not, no matter—it lies where he seems but an instant before to have dropped it. Framed in the window behind him—no, I am sorry, Tim, however difficult it may be I really cannot bear to do without it—framed in the window behind him is the floodlit outline of the Castle.

“Blazes,” you cry, “Blazes, what have you done?”

You rush across the room and take your wife’s body in your arms, brokenly murmuring her name. This is your opportunity to retrieve the tape recorder and remote control device. It will also explain any bloodstains which may afterwards be noticed on your clothing.

Your friends continue to look at Blazes with horror in their eyes.

And there we are. I hope I may claim without boasting to have provided the climax that I promised you. I do not know if you will find it as satisfying as you expected—you may perhaps discover that there is only one audience whose applause you really value, and that she is now incapable of appreciating your performance.

That, however, is not my concern—like other professional advice, mine is given without responsibility for the consequences.

You think this is funny, don’t you?

That’s what’s galling about this whole unhappy enterprise. You think it’s amusing, with all your brittle patter, your happy horseshit about murder as an art form. Murder is never artistic and it is rarely formal. It is a means to an end. Almost invariably, it is a bad means to a bad end. An unamusing means, if you will, to an unamusing end.

Life, we are told, is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel. You, sir, reveal yourself as one who does neither. You seem to crave applause for the artistry of your efforts at homicide while at once wanting to escape detection. If your crime should be perfect, if your wife should perish and your friend Blazes be blamed for her death, whatever artistry you would purport to have displayed would in fact remain forever undisplayed. It is as if you would feed to the woodchipper not a human corpse but the good Bishop Berkeley’s tree, the one that falls unheard, the one that makes no sound.

I submit, sir, that you do not wish to kill anyone, that you have not the slightest intention of harming either your wife or your friend. It is abundantly clear to me that you are not a man of action, that indeed the only decisive act of which you have been capable to date has consisted of marrying a wealthy woman and sponging off her all these years. (And, indeed, was that a decisive act on your part? Somehow I think not. Somehow I find myself suspecting that the decision was your wife’s, that she saw in you a harmless and ineffectual toy husband, a perfect Ken to her Barbie. And who is to say she was wrong?)

You won’t kill her. As it happens, your situation at present is ideal for all concerned, and not least of all for you. You have a rich wife and a life of leisure, and your friend Blazes has been decent enough to relieve you of the chore of satisfying the woman’s carnal appetites. I would have to say that he seems too good to be true. Does he really cavort with her every other day? I can’t imagine the extramarital affair that could sustain that pace for more than a few weeks. Indeed, by the time my reply reaches you the bloom may well be off the rose and the whole problem, such as it is, be a thing of the past.

Let us assume, however, that Keats might have been writing of these two, that ever will he love and she be fair. (Or unfair, as you would have it.) So what? I can’t believe you really give a damn. Nothing you cherish is being wrested from you. The only discernible damage is to your self-esteem, and you prop that up by wanking yourself with the notion that you are going to kill her and see him hanged for it. All your plotting and scheming are not a preparation for action but an alternative thereto.

If you were going to do anything, you would have long since done it.

Infirm of purpose! Why are you wasting my time?

Of course, if you really wanted to do it, it wouldn’t be all that hard to work something out.

Well. Here is what I would have you do.

First of all, I want you to contrive to enter that room at the inn on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday at approximately 6:35, which is to say just minutes after your wife and her lover have quit the place. Have a small plastic bag and a pair of tweezers with you, and use the latter to introduce into the former as many body hairs, so to speak, as the bed linen will readily provide.

Your objective here is to provide yourself with specimens of hair from the more intimate reaches of Blazes Boylan’s body. If his hairs and your wife’s are readily distinguishable one from the other, take only his. If not, take everything and sort at leisure, with the aid of a microscope if needed. You do not want to linger in this room, not only because to lurk where they have lately lain is unsupportably perverse, but because you do not want your presence remarked.

This procedure should not be terribly difficult. One assumes the lovers are in the habit of showering after their dalliance, as an aid to concealment. Since they have a scant hour to spend together, they would be unlikely to squander more of it on a preliminary shower as well. There is, consequently, every likelihood that they will have loose hairs to leave behind, and that you will be able to separate them into his and hers, and retain his for future use. (I am assuming, of course, that the inn is not the sort of hot-sheet hovel where they change the sheets once a week, and where the mingled residue of a dozen or more ardent adulterers might coexist. If that is in fact the case, don’t trouble to murder her and frame him; leave them alone and they’ll die of tawdry.)

Enough. Having provided yourself with some of Boylan’s hairs, you’re ready for the next step. (Conversely, having failed to bring this off, you can abandon the whole silly business in safety.) But you say you’ve done it? You’ve harvested some hair, and have escaped detection? Good. Now go and find yourself a girl.

A woman, I suppose I ought to say. Though sexist language seems a small sin indeed compared to what’s in the offing. Two weeks or so after you’ve tucked away a sample of Blazes Boylan’s body hair, I want you to find yourself a woman not too dissimilar to your wife in age and physical type. They need not be dead ringers one for the other, but they could have the same color hair, they could be approximately the same height. If your wife is fair, fat, and forty, don’t find yourself a gaunt, swarthy teenager.

Contrive to be in intimate surroundings with this woman on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday between the hours of 5:30 and 6:30. A hotel or motel room—but not the inn where your wife and her lover do their sporting. The woman’s apartment. Wherever.

It would be nice if you could bring this about on the afternoon of the day immediately preceding the full moon. Not absolutely critical, but nice.

Who should this woman be? That matters less than who she should not be, and she should absolutely not be anyone who could in any way be linked to you. For convenience she might be a prostitute, but surely not one you may have engaged in the past.

Yes, let’s do it this way. Earlier in the day, you take a motel room. You pay cash, and you register under a name similar to the alias Blazes uses at the inn. (I assume he uses an alias, for security, and I assume that it’s the same one each time, as it could hardly be otherwise.) You will have determined this alias somehow, and the name you use will be along the same lines. If he calls himself Roger D. Cole you might call yourself, say, Robert D. Collins. Or you might select a different name but use the same fabricated address, the same made-up license number.

Then arrange for an outcall masseuse to arrive at your door at, say, 5:30. Some of them describe themselves in their ads. Agencies offer a variety of physical types. I’m sure you’ll be able to get someone who looks the part.

Shower before she gets there. You don’t want to leave any of your own short-and-curlies in a compromising place. When she arrives, have her remove her clothes and do the same yourself. If the spirit moves you, have sex with her. But make it the safest possible sort of sex. You wouldn’t want to catch anything from her, for heaven’s sake, or to leave anything behind.

Then kill the bitch.

Well, what did you expect? Did you think I was just going to get you laid and send you home? Of course you’re going to have to kill this woman. That’s what she’s for. She is to be the first and by no means the last, so by all means get on with it and make a good job of it.

The method is up to you. Let me say only that it should be quick and it should be quiet, not so much as to prevent her suffering—what do you care if she suffers? what do I care?—as to avoid attracting attention. Strangulation is good, perhaps with a homemade wire garrote brought along for the purpose. If you do this, leave the garrote behind.

If you stab her, carry the weapon off with you.

I suggest that you take her by surprise. You don’t want her to cry out, and you certainly don’t want her raking your face with her nails.

Once she’s conveniently dead, there are, knowing you, two things you’ll very likely feel you have to do. Neither ought to be necessary if you weren’t such a wretch, but you are, so at least see that you do them in the right order. Throw up first, and then take the Valium.

Then you’ll have to mutilate the corpse.

My apologies. I know this is distasteful to you, but there’s no way around it. It’s dramatic, and will catch the imagination of law enforcement personnel as well as journalists and the general public. There’s no better attention grabber than a bit of chopping and cropping. You’ve already mentioned Jack the Ripper; I would simply remind you that it was the ripping that made his reputation, not the mere fact of serial homicide.