can subside or disappear altogether, right?”
“Absolutely correct.”
“All right, suppose now we take a firing zone as a model. You can be killed either by someone deliberately aiming at you or by the sheer density of fire. But either way someone on the other end is anxious to see a lot of people dead.”
“Oh, I see what you’re driving at. The element of chance doesn’t rule out the possibility of a crime, is that it?”
“Precisely. You mean to say that was never considered?” “Not really. Someone once raised the possibility, but the reply was that if that were the case it would mean having to revise the whole method of investigation…”
“Either a wicked man or a wicked fate, is that it? But even the expression
“Too much of a bother. I couldn’t go around loaded down with a lot of electronic equipment. Besides, there was another catch, one that came up in connection with the Swift case—Swift was the one rescued by the friend who had registered at the same hotel. Swift made his hallucinations sound so convincing he almost had his friend believing them.”
“I see what you mean.
“Exactly.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong. Of the eleven victims, two escaped alive, and then there’s another who is still missing. The missing man’s name is Brigg. Am I right?”
“Correct. Brigg would have been the twelfth. He hasn’t been definitely classified yet.”
“Due to insufficient evidence, I suppose. Now we come to their chronological order. In this respect your summary is misleading. It presents the individual eases in the order of their discovery, which is something completely incidental, rather than in the order of their occurrence. What was the time span involved? Two years?”
“Yes. Titz, Coburn, and Osborn passed away two years ago. Brigg disappeared around the same time. The rest date from last year.”
“Any this year?”
“If there have been any, we wouldn’t know about them till the fall. Especially since the original investigation has been discontinued.”
“Assuming your facts are correct, then it would seem to be an expanding series. Three in the first set, eight in the second. Well, well… I see you weren’t acting as a decoy only in Italy.”
“Meaning?”
“That you’ve been trying to bait me, too. And I have to admit it’s tempting! Your version makes everything seem crystal dear. The pattern is all too obvious. But the fact that it has everybody stumped leads me to believe there’s more to it than meets the eye. Although the more one hears of the case histories, the more one begins to suspect some form of unmotivated insanity. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. On that point there’s general agreement. Otherwise they wouldn’t have called off the investigation.”
“So why should there be any doubt that a crime has been committed?”
“How should I put it… it’s like looking at a photo—I’m thinking now of a halftone. The naked eye can make out the general outline but not the details. A magnifying glass will make some things stand out more clearly, but the image will remain blurred. If we take it to the microscope we find the picture gets lost, that it disintegrates into tiny dots. Each dot is something distinct; they no longer combine to a meaningful picture.”
“Are you suggesting that once you’ve accepted the hypothesis of a random series of poisonings, the more detailed the examination the flimsier the hypothesis?”
“Precisely.”
“And the same thing applies if you assume the existence of a culprit?”
“The same thing applies. The conclusion is almost always the same: not one of the victims was poisoned by someone else, and not one of them had the means to do it himself. But the fact still remains…”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“So then why do you always insist on its being either a crime or a coincidence?”
“What alternative is there?”
“Maybe there is one.” He picked up a copy of
He showed me the headlines in bold print: BOMB EXPLODES IN THE LABYRINTH—MASSACRE ON THE STEPS—TEEN-AGED GIRL RESCUED BY UNIDENTIFIED MAN.
“Yes,” I replied. “I’m familiar with what happened,”
“There you have it. The classic example of a modem crime. Premeditated and at the same time accidental. Anyone standing in the vicinity automatically became a victim.”
“But that’s not quite the same thing!”
“Granted, it’s not. The victims in Naples were predestined for death because of certain personality traits, but not those at the airport. Fair enough. But what about the case of that man Adams who wrote his wife about the possibility of a random crime, and who compared it to covering a road with nails. Obviously it was a crude analogy. But it’s just as obvious that whoever’s behind these deaths is anxious to create the impression he doesn’t exist.”
I withheld comment. Barth gave me a quick glance, stood up, paced around the room, then sat down again and asked:
“What’s your own personal opinion?”
“I can only tell you what struck me most. Suppose the cause of death was poisoning; wouldn’t you expect the symptoms to be the same in every case?”
“Well, weren’t they? I was of the impression they all followed a pattern. First the phase of excitement and aggression, then the hallucinating phase, most often associated with a persecution mania, and finally the withdrawal phase—withdrawal either from Naples or from life itself. Either they tried to escape by car, plane, or on foot, or they resorted to a piece of glass, a razor blade, a cord, a bullet in the mouth, a bottle of iodine…”
I had the suspicion he was trying to impress me with the power of his memory.
“I’ll admit they were similar. But when you start looking into the backgrounds…”
“Go on.”
“Well, as a rule, the manner of death has nothing to do with the personality of the deceased. Whether a person dies of pneumonia, cancer, or in a car accident is not something determined by his personality. Of course there are exceptions, as in the case of a test pilot’s occupational death, but as a rule there’s no correlation between the way a person dies and the way he lives.”
“In short, death is unrelated to personality type. Go on.”
“But here it is related.”
“Ah, now you’re feeding me demonology! Just what are you implying?”
“Exactly what I said. A champion swimmer dies in a drowning accident. A mountain climber falls to his death. A car fiend gets killed in a head-on collision.”
“Hold on! Which one was the car fiend—Titz?”
“Yes. He owned three cars, two of them sports cars. To continue: a coward is killed while running away…”
“Who was that?”
“Osborn. The one who abandoned his car and was taken for a member of the road gang.”
“You didn’t mention anything about his being a coward.”
“I’m sorry. The version I gave you left out many details. Osborn was in the insurance business, was heavily insured himself, and was known as a man who avoided taking any risks. The first time he felt threatened he sat down and wrote a letter to the police, then lost his nerve and took off. Adams, the eccentric, died as he lived—in an unconventional manner. The heroic reporter stuck it out till the end and then shot himself…”
“Wasn’t he trying to escape, too?”
“I don’t think so. He had orders to fly to London. He suffered a momentary breakdown, tried to slash his
