“No reason for suicide and no motive for murder—no proof of suicide, no positive evidence of murder.” Such is the conclusion reached by the police, private investigators employed by Z’s family, and by newspaper reporters who have worked on the baffling case unique for its mass of contradictory theories and circumstances.
|A Psychopathic Individuality.| [And to the present writer, himself an androgyne and instinctive cross-dresser, the strongest of reasons for suicide and the strongest of motives for murder! Androgynes, because so terribly misjudged by their associates, are the most melancholy and prone to suicide of any class of mankind. Moreover, they are often murdered on the strong motive of intense loathing felt by prudes ignorant of abnormal psychology, in whose eyes the androgyne is a “sodomite,” with all the terrible, though false, connotation of that term. Such prudes believe themselves mandatories of society to rid the world of the “monster.” The present writer did some detective work in this case “on his own hook.” He ascertained that in the circle of those who knew Z by sight but were not personal friends, he had the reputation of being a fellator. I interviewed several of this circle, but did not dare thrust myself into that of Z’s close friends.]
The view of the police generally is that the death was clearly suicide. But as to how the suicide was accomplished, police officers hold theories no two of which agree.
Family Sure Z Was Murdered
Z’s family, his closest chum, and his friends generally, maintained from the first, and still believe, that Z was murdered aboard the yacht by an assassin who secreted himself in one of the cabins and afterwards escaped in a fashion equally mysterious.
The fact that young Z wore woman’s clothing is to the police the strongest evidence of suicide and supplies to them evidence of a psychopathic individuality. [That fact is to myself the strongest evidence of murder since I have repeatedly witnessed the intense revulsion of prudish bigots at any cross-sex phenomenon, and have been myself half-murdered solely on this incentive.]
Families Ignorant of Bisexual Members.
Opposed to this is the most positive assertion from Z’s family and friends: (1) That he was a normal boy in every respect. [In nearly every case of a cultured androgyne in the past, his family have never suspected anything because of the veil of silence that the deluded public has insisted be thrown over the phenomenon of androgynism and the consequent absolute ignorance of the truth about this phenomenon on the part of the entire Overworld excepting a handful of sexologists. Just to throw their associates off the scent, some cultured androgynes purposely do some courting of females, and have even contracted a marriage (of course, Platonic) as mentioned by Phyllis in the last chapter of Part Five. Moreover, some androgynes are psychic hermaphrodites and capable of sincerity in courting a girl, while at the same time Nature insists on occasional female-impersonation sprees. Z might have been a psychic hermaphrodite.]
(2) That he had never shown any suicidal tendencies. [Readers of my Autobiography of an Androgyne know that I probably showed more suicidal tendencies than almost any one else who has failed to carry them out; yet I always hid them absolutely from my family and every-day associates. Androgynes, because they do not want their friends to become aware of the cause of their melancholia (fearing it would alienate them, as at present no one can forgive cross-sexism in an intimate) habitually suffer in silence and seclusion the most intense mental torture.]
Many Female-Impersonation Explosions.