The Beast Must Die Read Online Free PDF

only direct eyewitness of the crime could secure conviction.
    Provided George and Lena do not connect Felix Lane with Frank Cairnes, the father of the child they ran over, nobody on earth can ever find any connecting link between me and George. Now, no photographs of me appeared in the press in connection with Martie’s death. I made certain of that. Mrs Teague was giving the reporters no chance. And the only people who know that Frank Cairnes is Felix Lane are my publishers, who are sworn to secrecy. Therefore, if I play my cards sensibly, all I have to do is to get an introduction to Lena Lawson,
as Felix Lane
, get at George through her, and kill him. If by any chance she or George has read my detective novels and seen the ‘mystery’ stunt – the ‘who is Felix Lane?’ stuff – that my publishers have been running, I shall merely say that it was all a publicity fake and that I have really been Felix Lane all along. The only danger would be if someone I knew found me posing as Felix Lane with Lena, but I don’t think that will be very difficult to avoid. For one thing, I shall grow a beard before I have any doings with the luscious starlet.
    George will take the mystery of Martie’s death to the grave with him (where he’ll have all eternity to meditate on the bestiality of road hogs), and in the same grave will be buried therefore my own motive for the ‘crime’. The only possible danger could come from Lena. It may prove necessary to get rid of her too, but let us hope not – though I’ve no reason at present to suppose that she’d be any loss to the world.
    Are you commenting unfavourably, ghostly confessor, on my desire to save my own skin? A month ago, when first the idea of killing Martie’s murderer began to insinuate itself into my mind, I had no wish to go on living. But my will to live somehow grew strong, as my will to kill flourished; they have grown up together, inseparable twins. I feel I owe it to my revenge that I should get away with this killing scot-free – as George so nearly got away with his killing of Martie.
    George. I’ve already begun to look upon him as an old acquaintance. I feel almost a lover’s impatience and trembling anticipation of our meeting. Yet I’ve no real proof that he is the man who killed Martie; nothing more than his odd behaviour at the watersplash, and a feeling in my bones that I am right. But how shall I be able to prove it? How shall I ever be able to prove it?
    Never mind. I’ll not cross my bridges till I’ve come to them. What I have to remember is that I can murder George, or X, or whoever he is, with absolute impunity – as long as I don’t over-elaborate or lose my head. An accident, that’s what it must be. No nonsense about subtle poisons and complex alibis, just a little push when he and I are walking along a cliff, or crossing a street, that sort of thing. No one will ever know my motive for wanting to kill him, and therefore no one will have any reason to doubt that it was a genuine accident.
    Yet, in a way, I’m sorry it must be like this. I’d promised myself the satisfaction of his agony – he does not deserve a quick death. I’d like to burn him slowly, inch by inch, or watch ants honeycomb his living flesh; or, there’s strychnine, that bends a man’s body into a rigid loop – by God, I’d like to bowl him down the slope into Hell …
    Mrs Teague came in just then. ‘Writing at your book?’ she said. ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, you’re lucky you’ve got something to take your mind off—’ ‘Yes, Mrs Teague, very lucky,’ I said gently. She was fond of Martie, too, in her way. She’s long ago given up reading the mss on my desk. I used to leave notes for my apocryphal Life of Wordsworth lying about – that put her off all right. ‘I like a good read, mind you,’ she said once, ‘but none of your highbrow stuff. Gives me the bellyache, it does. My old man was a great reader – Shakespeare, Dante, Marie Corelli – he’d