An Oxford Tragedy Read Online Free PDF Page A

wine begun its first leisurely journey round the table, when Doyne reminded Brendel of his remark in Hall.
    â€˜You must tell us more about your views on detection, Professor. Here we all belong to different schools of thought. Apart from Mitton, who has a school of his own, simple faith and all will come well, you know’ (the chaplain made an inarticulate murmur of protest which passed unheeded), ‘we’re really divided into three groups. Let me see. There are Dixon and Whitaker, who belong to the pseudoscientific school. They’ve discarded cigarette ends and heel marks as belonging to an earlier age, but they still believethat by picking up hairs and putting them under microscopes they can prove that the murder has been committed by a man of about fifty-five, going bald at the temples. Prendergast and I, on the other hand, believe in sitting in arm-chairs and smoking pipes, until we have discussed all the possible murderers and their motives. We then get up and point with unerring finger at the guilty man. Lastly, there’s the Bursar, who believes in official methods and the trained detective. He would have everyone who was within half a mile of the murder lined up and presented with a questionnaire of the most searching description. The man who can’t answer the questions to the Major’s satisfaction is the murderer. What could be simpler? Now, Professor, which school gets your vote? Are you for clues, or are you for logical deduction, or are you for military methods and death at dawn?’
    We all laughed, Brendel with us. I could see that he liked the young and their talk. Yet his answer, when it came, was carefully phrased and his tone was oddly serious.
    â€˜You must forgive me,’ he said, ‘if I take it all a little more seriously than that. I said that I read detective tales, and so I do, but that’s only as a kind of relaxation. What fascinates me, yes at times obsesses me, is the real crime – the murder that has actually been committed. Listen.’ (I had already noticed that Brendel had a habit of saying ‘listen’ in a curiously compelling tone of voice before any sentence which he regarded as especially important.) ‘I must beg leave to tell you gentlemen how I came to be immersed in that special study. I was a young lawyer in Vienna, and a client of mine was murdered, suddenly, horribly, inexplicably. I was drawn into the investigations which followed; I could not escape from them. And gradually there was unfolded before my eyes a drama of feeling and passion, of hidden desires and secret motives, of a sort that I had never dreamed of. It so happened thatI saw more clearly than the rest; I was able to suggest a line of investigation that led eventually to the arrest of the murderer. Through that I won a sort of. …’ He hesitated for a moment for a word. ‘
Renommée?
’
    â€˜Reputation,’ said someone.
    â€˜Yes, reputation. How ridiculous it is that one suddenly fails to find the simplest word when one is speaking a language not one’s own. I acquired a sort of reputation. The police consulted me not once but many times; sometimes I could help them, often I could not. And so I learned the grammar and the syntax of murder.’
    He paused for a minute, and seemed to be diving into his memories.
    â€˜Have you ever really considered,’ he went on, ‘the drama behind a murder, the play of human passions, the desperation, the daring? And think of the stake at issue! Your scientist can do most things, but he can’t create life, and it is life that you are, by one quick act, taking away. And to take it you risk everything; not just your future or your goods or even your happiness, but everything you have – everything – your own life! And remember, once the stake is thrown on the board it cannot be removed. What gamble is there comparable to that, a gamble in human life?’ He held up his forefinger