A Long Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

brainwaves, produced by opium or whisky, and series of handy coincidences: he always happens to be ‘on the spot’ instead of in bed or sitting on the lavatory when something exciting happens, which is legitimate and necessary in fiction, but in life …
    â€˜Nevertheless there is a valid lesson. The sensitivity, the skills at analysis and synthesis, are indispensable and not easily acquired by police-school training. Conclusion, a criminal investigation unit should perhaps consist of no more than four or five men, each with specially sensitized skills. Cf. fictional Maigret. Lucas the elderly, careful, good at details, patience, perseverance, Janvier young, ambitious and imaginative, the “little Lapointe” sensitive and idealistic, innocent and kindly, Torrence who is muscles, and Lognon the indefatigable plodder – this is a clever formula, remaining workable for fifty books. Now postulate smallish flexible computer unit, able mechanically to perform all that timewasting checking. It can give mechanical evaluation, but cannot replace sensitive human understanding, can never replace Maigret! The “private detective” element cannot be eliminated. Take for example this boy Richard, which is perfect fictional “private” example. A Marlowe/Archer might be interested because he had nothing better at the time to do. Existing police structure would have no interest and no ability anyway. Since no complaint has been made, no administrative machinery has even been set in motion. Said ad/mach. hopelessly lumbering and cumbersome.’
    He closed the notebook, pushed it away, and took another, marked ‘Experimental Psychology’.
    â€˜Suppose we conduct an experiment’ he wrote. ‘Cf. notion of difficulty insertion private detective in crim. brig-unit. This Odd, odd-ball odd boy. I would be interested in knowing, assuming I chose to handle this individually, with no official aid or backing (
a
) how far I would get with it and (
b
) whetherthere’s anything in it! … Administrative note: since the hypothetic “private detective” must be a highly trained and well-paid unit, how the devil do you justify this to the financial comptroller who has always the last word? Whereabouts could he be inserted in a hierarchy? Experimentally irrelevant because my time is my own. Note consequently what time I spend on it and with what result!’
    Lastly he took his little pocket diary, and wrote ‘Richard A’dam, Lindengracht, watch plant fiddle, what’s in it?’ It would be interesting, he told himself. Suppose he tried a test case investigation on a purely personal basis of this boy’s tale. There was nothing in it, so that it remained purely experimental. He wouldn’t cheat, as fictional private detectives always did – when they got stuck on administrative detail, they always remembered they had a pal somewhere in an administration who ‘owed them a favour’ and then rang him up to ask for information that could only be got by professional leg-work! He wouldn’t do that. He would work on a strictly private basis, and only in his own time. He could start a notebook called ‘Experiment’. He looked in his drawer – no more notebooks. He got up and opened the door to Miss Wattermann.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ suspiciously eyeing a pile of paper.
    â€˜A précis for Professor de Hartog.’ Aha, his neighbour, who shared her. Nothing for him, thank heaven, in that alarming mass of print.
    â€˜Have you any more of those exercise-books?’
    â€˜No, I’m afraid not. I can buy you some if you give me an order. I’ll have to get it receipted by the shop and then send it in to the accountant.’
    â€˜No, no, I’ll buy them myself.’ He went back frustrated, and took out his notebook marked ‘English Criminal Precedents’ (a very tiresome one, for not only did the English have no