I was horrified, and expressed myself so. I had never before, it seemed to me, been in such proximity to crime, and I shuddered at the contact with this terrible link.
“And that is not all,” resumed my friend, “the death wounds were not made by the razors grasped in the hands of the dead men, or at least not in the case of the last victim, for, unfortunately, the bodies of the others have been interred and I have not been able to examine them.
“A razor cuts with a slash or gash, but it does not and cannot make a stab, whereas in the last case there was, first of all, a stab penetrating far into the neck, and that was followed by a long cut which severed the great artery and all the surrounding flesh. That is to say, the murderer thrust the knife into the neck, then drew it towards himself, and then the deed was complete.”
As my friend spoke, carried away by his subject apparently and insensible to its revolting character, I grew dumb, petrified with the horror of his revelations. His eyes, always brilliant, shone large and clear and seemed to stand out from the pale ivory features. There was in his appearance the force and pride of elucidation which a successful counsel might show in entangling the criminal in the noose destined to terminate his existence; but there was more than that: there was the physical and mental ardor of the chase, and the flash of eye and teeth which the Zulu Caffre shows when he poises his willing spear to flesh it in his human victims.
“And do you know,” he went on, while I grew sick and giddy beneath the horror of his narration, and the uncanny mesmerism of his eyes, “the murderer, whoever he was, must, after all, have been a bungler, for, just think of it, would any man who had killed himself with the cold premeditation shown by those letters, have done so without first removing the linen from his neck and otherwise preparing himself? When facing the scaffold the murderer dresses in his best, and however brutal and even brutish he may have been in life, he gives much and careful thought to looking decent after death. It seems absurd of course—this anxiety as to how one will look after death, more especially where, as in the case of the murderer, the body will be given up to the tender mercies of quick lime in an hour or two—and yet that this feeling does exist is admitted by every person. Does not one of your great English poets in ‘The Ruling Passion Strong in Death’ put these words into the mouth of the dying coquette?
‘One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s dead
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red!’
“Now these men died in each instance without the slightest regard for the convenances of life or death, if I may be permitted to speak deprecatingly of the dead. They had not an atom of regard for after appearances, and glaringly belied human experience. But, unfortunate men, that was no fault of theirs. They were in fact surprised in the seclusion of their own rooms, where all busy and wearied men, thinking themselves secure from intrusion, avail themselves to the utmost of the few opportunities they have of being comfortably en deshabille.
“Moreover, they died without leaving behind them the faintest trace of any preparation beyond these formal letters announcing their intentions; such letters as, by the way, are rarely written by intending suicides.
“There is probably not one man amongst the millions on this globe who, if calmly contemplating suicide, would not leave behind him some evidence of preparation for the event; some last duty done, some last message of love or upbraiding to be delivered; yet I have been informed on good authority that there was, in every instance, an absolute omission of any such farewell message, as well as of all sign of preparation.
“On the contrary, there is considerable confusion in the business and also in the domestic affairs of the dead men, such as, from their well-known methodical habits, they would have been certain to provide against had they foreseen their end even thirty minutes.