They Return at Evening

Well, that’s over! I expected an ordeal and found almost a farce. There is something to be said for being a Local Notable. For example, deferential condolences and preferential treatment (and no awkward questions) from the Coroner when one’s wife is found dead at the bottom of the steps into the garden. With what censorious disdain old Weldon brushed aside the curiosity of Mr. Trench Senior! Now I have prosecuted Trench Junior for poaching three times; consequently Trench Senior does not love me. So I was none too pleased to see him on the Jury. I knew he would be nasty if he saw a chance, and he asked a very nasty and intelligent question. For if she had tripped on the top steps I doubt if she would have fallen so far, and if she had slipped lower down, why such shattering injury? Why indeed! You didn’t deserve such a pulverising rebuke, Mr. Trench, but I’m very glad you got it!

And now that it is all over I can reflect without anxiety. Reflect that I am a murderer and, as such, if I got my deserts, a doomed and execrated pariah. No more loose generalisation was ever made than that whoever commits adultery--and, of course, any other sin or crime--in his heart, is guilty of that offence. Every man of imagination who is tempted commits sins in his heart as often as he is tempted, but not one in ten thousand commits them with his hand. Myriads of men must have played with the idea of killing their wives, but I killed mine. Is there no difference? Consult the Shade of Ethel! No, I realise perfectly that I possess a kink which should have resulted in a six-foot drop. That I might never kill again, and that it was only by an acute combination of circumstances that I did so once, is beside the point.

A murderer should die--if he is sane and sober and selfish.

And am I so sure I could never commit another? I am not so sure. I have no remorse. There might be something to be said for a murderer who bitterly repents (though I’d hang him), but as for me--why shouldn’t I murder again if someone again drove me to such an extremity of exasperation?

I rehearse all this--why and to whom? Why, because, murderer though I am, I feel compelled to tell the story of this repulsive episode impartially, and so rid my mind of it and, perhaps, forget it, for, murderer though I am, otherwise I believe myself to be reasonably decent and civilised, and I want to see what sort of defence I can muster. And to whom do I address myself? Well, it has long been a theory of mine--more than that, a profound conviction--that the minds of men are far more complex, bifurcated and stratified than is generally accepted or perceived. There is more than one “I” pervading my consciousness. There is the “I,” the murderer, who is sitting here recalling, sifting and writing down. “I” number one, let us call him; but there is also “I” number two, who is compelled to observe “I” number one. It has been suggested that there is also a “number three” watching “number two,” and so on ad infinitum. It may be so, but for me there is a limit set to the terms in the series, and it is fixed at “number two.” I often feel compelled to explain to him the actions of “number one,” though I do not feel he is or wants to be a judge, but just an aloofly interested spectator; in no sense a “conscience,” but poised in another layer of consciousness. It is with such vague precision that this duality works in me. And I want to explain to this watcher just how I came to kill Ethel. He may or may not be particularly interested, but he is in the unfortunate position of being compelled to listen!