Case for Sergeant Beef Read Online Free PDF Page A

now. I have a complete choice of time, place, method, and victim, and I find myself veering round inevitably to precedent, to planning my alibi and foreseeing police inquiries just as other murderers must have done.
    However, other murderers had not the genius with which I approach the problem.
    The gun for instance. Suppose I just shoot a stranger at that point on the path I have chosen. Well, it might have been Flipp with his gun, or anyone else with Flipp’s gun, Miss Shoulter with her gun, or someone else with her gun, or someone using my gun, or someone altogether different with another gun. Nothing anyway to suggest that it could be me.
    But another more interesting possibility occurs. Suppose the stranger, whoever he is, is found with a gun beside him from which both barrels have been fired, and suppose there are strings attached to the triggers and his fingerprints on the barrels, who could possibly suggest that it wasn’tsuicide? After all, I could make sure that I shot him from in front and at very close range – and that would conform perfectly. Everybody, for some queer reason, is more ready to believe in a man taking his own life than someone else’s.
    What about the gun, in that case? It mustn’t be mine, that’s certain. But it could very easily be either Miss Shoulter’s or Flipp’s. Both keep them very carelessly. With any luck I could come into possession of one or the other a week or so before the Great Day. The chances are that they would never even notice that the gun had gone, and if they did and reported it, well, I can always postpone the murder and start on a wholly different tack. It’s all getting very interesting, and I scarcely ever need to read at night now. I just sit in the garden and dream of my triumph.
Eleventh Entry
    Yes, that’s how I’ll do it. It’s all clear now. A fortnight before the provisional date I’ll get hold of either Miss Shoulter’s or Flipp’s 12 -bore. This I will hide under the leaves in Deadman’s Wood, wrapped up in an old piece of mackintosh I have. Then, on the appointed day, I will await my victim. If he comes, that is to say if anyone who is a stranger to me comes down the path, I will do it. If not, I will wait till another day, or another, till just the right person comes at just the right time. Then I will get him quite near me. I can think of many ways of doing that. I could pretend to have sprained my ankle and be flat on the ground waiting till he came close to me. Or I could show him something I was going to shoot and as he is looking let off the two barrels in his face. Half a dozen ways. Then get the other gun out of hiding and fix up the string as though he had shot himself.
    Or maybe I might actually shoot him with the other gun. Why not? I should rather like to use my own trusty old 12 -bore, but it would save an extra shot to use the other, because it would have to be fired off, anyway. I will consider the pros and cons of this. But anyway, that’s the broad idea.
    As soon as autumn comes I shall start going for a strollwith my gun every evening towards dusk, and bringing home a rabbit or two. This must be known qs my daily custom. I must let off a few shots, too, even if I don’t see a rabbit so that people get used to the sound of a gun. And, of course, I shall have to take the normal precautions – footprints, fingerprints, and so on. Those will be child’s play to me. And the question of time – I’ll be careful of that. I shall have to make sure that a shot is fired after I’ve come in for the evening. At present I don’t quite see how I’ll do that, but I shall think of a way.
Twelfth Entry
    September already. How this summer has flown. I think time does pass quickly, though, when one has some absorbing interest.
    I’ve had a brilliant idea during the last few days. It is about the gun. I realized that a shot must be heard in the wood after I had