He seemed a bit doubtful; but he staggered. I shoved the parcel into a drawer, locked it, trousered the key, and felt better. I might be a chump, but, dash it, I could outgeneral a mere kid with a face like a ferret. I went downstairs again. Just as I was passing the smoking room door, out curveted Edwin. It seemed to me that if he wanted to do a real act of kindness he would commit suicide.
“I’m snipping them,” he said.
“Snip on! Snip on!”
“Do you like them snipped much, or only a bit?”
“Medium.”
“All right. I’ll be getting on, then.”
“I should.”
And we parted.
Fellows who know all about that sort of thing—detectives, and so on—will tell you that the most difficult thing in the world is to get rid of the body. I remember, as a kid, having to learn by heart a poem about a bird by the name of Eugene Aram, who had the deuce of a job in this respect. All I can recall of the actual poetry is the bit that goes:
Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum, I slew him, tum-tum-tum!
But I recollect that the poor blighter spent much of his valuable time dumping the corpse into ponds and burying it, and whatnot, only to have it pop out at him again. It was about an hour after I had shoved the parcel into the drawer when I realised that I had let myself in for just the same sort of thing.