Page:The Viaduct Murder (1926).pdf/43

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PIECING IT TOGETHER
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Supposing, just for the sake of argument, that Brotherhood has saved a nest-egg for himself, and is skipping to avoid his creditors⁠—what better way of throwing people off the scent than by a pretended suicide?"

"That is, by pitching a total stranger down the viaduct."

"I didn't say a total stranger. Suppose it were somebody in pursuit of him, or somebody he suspected of pursuing him?"

"But he couldn't be sure that the face would get mangled like that. It was only one chance in a thousand that the body should scrape down all along that buttress on its face."

"He may simply have wanted to kill the man, without hoping that the corpse would be mistaken for him. After all, we've got to explain the ticket; a man who takes a single ticket down here is almost certainly not a resident here⁠—the half-fare is so cheap. A spy, tracking him, or somebody he takes to be a spy tracking him. He stuns the man while he's not looking, and then pitches him out. He's desperate, remember."

"Well, it seems to hang together that way."

"But I'm not at all sure that's the right way. I'm not at all sure that Brotherhood isn't the murderee, and the murderer somebody unknown⁠—such a murder might be connected with a bankruptcy, a ruined creditor, for example."

"And how are you going to look for the murderer if that's so?"

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