Trial and Error Read Online Free PDF Page B

persons, ill informed and ignorant, who aver that public-school career never did any good to anyone. How wrong is this idea may be gathered from the case of Mr Todhunter which is now being cited. For after about ten minutes of this sort of thing Mr Todhunter, reverting to the main issue, posed his question once more.
    â€œNo truthfully, Furze, what would you do in my place?”
    And this time he received an answer.
    For Furze, mellowed by the public-school spirit, rubbed his massive head once more and delivered himself as follows:
    â€œWell, don’t be influenced by anything I say, but I think that if I were in your position I should look round for someone who was making life a burden to half a dozen people, whether out of malice of just wrongheadedness—a blackmailer, say, or some rich old bully who will neither die nor hand out a dime in advance to a pack of semistarving descendants—and . . . well, as I said, these things don’t bear talking about.”
    â€œDear me, this is very odd,” cried Mr Todhunter, much struck. “That’s exactly what those fellows the other night advised.”
    â€œWell,” grinned Furze, “verb. sat., no doubt, sap.” Then he remembered that his guest was a man under sentence of death and cancelled the grin.
    As for all this earnest talk about altruistic murder, Furze never took a word of it seriously. And that is just where Furze made a big mistake.
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    For Mr Todhunter took it very seriously indeed.
    He had been impressed by Furze and was ready to attach much more weight to his advice than to the advice of his own friends; as indeed one usually is in the case of strangers. In any case Mr Todhunter now abandoned political assassination as his gesture; and could they have known it, no doubt Hitler and Musolini would have breathed more freely in consequence.
    But he was still a Man with a Mission. The only problem now was to find an adequate subject for treatment.
    How that treatment was to be applied Mr Todhunter did not for the moment wish to consider. From such gruesome details his mind shrank. Perhaps, too, his instinctive caution kept him from a frank realisation of all the unpleasantness which murder involves. Up to this point Mr Todhunter was regarding the whole thing in an entirely academic way, and the word itself remained to him little more than a word. On the other hand, he did go so far as to congratulate himself, not without astonishment, upon the qualities of pluck and decision which he must possess which Mr Todhunter had hitherto never dreamed might be his. The realisation that they were, gratified him a good deal.
    Academic though Mr Todhunter’s purpose might be, one thing he realised quite clearly: he must have a victim.
    Not without some reluctance Mr Todhunter roused himself to go forth and look for one, walking very carefully on account of his aneurism.
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    However bravely one may be determined to commit a helpful murder, it is not so easy to find a victim. One cannot very well approach one’s friends and say:
    â€œLook here, old fellow, can you tell me anyone who ought to be murdered? Because I’m prepared to do the job.”
    And even if one did, the chances are that the friend would not be able to assist. After all, the number of people whom the average person would like to see murdered is very small; and when these are winnowed down to the number who actually deserve murdering, the result is surprisingly often negative.
    Enquiries therefore have to be exceedingly circumspect. Mr Todhunter’s personal feeling was that a nice juicy blackmailer would suit the bill best, but here again there are difficulties, for blackmailers are elusive creatures. Unlike almost any other person today, they seek no publicity. And if one asks one’s friends point-blank whether, by any chance, they are being blackmailed, they would almost certainly resent it.
    Mr Todhunter did think at one time that he had got on the track of