CHAPTER IV
WHY DO MEN KILL?
When a shrewd but genial editor called me up on the telephone and asked me how I should like to write an article (a “story,” he called it) on the above lurid title, I laughed in his—I mean the telephone’s face.
“My dear fellow!” I said (I should only have the nerve to call him that over a wire). “My dear fellow! It would ruin me! How could I keep my self-respect and write that kind of sensational stuff—me, a reputable, conservative, dry-as-dust member of the bar! Go to! Why do men kill? Ha-ha! Why do men eat? Why do men drink? Why do men love? Why do men——”
“Yes,” came back his somewhat cynical voice “Why?”
“How do I know?” I answered, still trying to be jocular. “I never killed anybody!”
“Eh?” said he.
I paused.
“Well,” I admitted, “never actually with my own hand, old chap! I have—taken part—so to speak—in—er—proceedings that ultimately resulted in the death of certain human beings—in a perfectly legal way, but I’m not sure that I entirely approved of it. Duty, you know! Salary—I had a growing family.”
“Look here!” he interrupted. “I want that story. I want to know something. I do! I want to know why one man kills another man. If we knew why, maybe we could stop it, couldn’t we? We could try to, anyhow. And you know something about it. You’ve prosecuted nearly a hundred men for murder. Get the facts—that’s what I want. Cut the adjectives and morality, and get down to the reasons. Anything particularly undignified about that?”
“N—o,” I began, taking a fresh start.