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watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific. This noble war in
the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands and exclaimed aloud: ‘William,
dear angel! this is thy funeral dirge.’ [I don’t think William heard it but it
was well meant. Ed.] A flash of lightning illuminated the object and discovered
its shape plainly to me, its gigantic stature. His trousers were still around
his ankles. Each flash of lightning lit up his huge wedding, tackle. What did
he there? I waited, but he did nothing there. Was he the murderer of my
brother? He suddenly rushed towards me. ‘Have you got a fag?’ he said. I
hastily gave him a packet. Yes, he was the murderer! [There is not a shred of
evidence against this poor monster. Ed.] Yes, it must have been two years since
I gave this monster life. Was this his first crime? A murderer two years old?
No court would believe it!
    My
first thought was to discover what I knew of the murderer and cause instant
pursuit to be made. ‘Quick, police, fire, ambulance!’ This being I had myself
formed and given life to and met me at midnight. He asked me for a cheese
sandwich. I told him I had no cheese, would fish paste do?
    ‘Oh,’
he queried, ‘what will fish paste do?’
    ‘Nothing,’
I said, ‘it just stays there.’
    He
asked me to help secure his trousers which I did, fixing them from the back
where it was less dangerous.
    It
was about five in the morning when I entered my father’s house. I told the
servants not to disturb the family and they didn’t but they, too, were still in
bed. Six years had elapsed. I embraced my father, beloved parent. I gazed on
the picture of my mother which stood over the mantelpiece. It was an historic
subject painted at my father’s desire and represented Caroline Beaufort in an
agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. My father was
really bent. Her garb was rustic and her cheek pale; but there was an air of
dignity and beauty that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity. Nevertheless it
was a bloody miserable painting. Below this picture was a miniature of William;
my tears flowed when I looked upon it and soon the room was ankle deep in
tears.
    While
I was thus engaged, Ernest entered. ‘Still bloody miserable? Welcome home my
dearest Dick,’ he said. ‘I’m not Dick,’ said I, ‘I’m Victor.’
    ‘Poor
William, he was our darling. We tried to revive him, we even tried a vet.’
    Tears
unrestrained — strained tears are much purer but less plentiful — fell from my
brother’s eyes. ‘Elizabeth, alas, announced herself as having caused the death
of William and that made her very wretched, but since the Murderer has been
discovered…'
    Good
God! How can that be? Who could attempt to pursue him? It is impossible; one
might as well try to overtake the winds or confine a mountain stream with a
straw. He disappeared at a speed of 100 miles per hour. He was eating a fish
paste sandwich and his trousers kept falling down. The police, ambulance and
fire brigade chased but he outstripped them.
    ‘Indeed,
who would credit that Justine Moritz became capable of so appalling a crime?
The morning of the murder, servants had discovered in her pocket the ivory
elephant brooch. She has been apprehended and charged with the murder.’
    Nonsense!
I knew that the murderer had been eating a fish paste sandwich and travelling
at 100 miles per hour with his trousers down.
     
    The real murderer was eating a
sandwich of fish paste
    To finish it he would have to
make haste
    His trousers were laying in haste
on the floor
    Could he ask for anything more?
     
    My
dear father, you are mistaken. Justine is innocent. No sir, I tried it on with
her and she wasn’t having any of it. I sincerely hope she will be acquitted.
The murderer was a man with his trousers down, eating a fish paste sandwich and
travelling at 100 miles per hour.
    My
tale was not one to announce publicly. I would tell it to someone privately in
a cupboard.
    We
were soon joined