The Bullets Lied

Начало книги

When Robert Gaylin, owner, of the Atlas Automobile Agency, was found on a Monday morning in February, shot to death as he sat behind his desk at his office at the agency, I noticed in the afternoon paper that my friend. Lieutenant John Darmody, Deputy Chief of the Homicide Detail, was in charge of the case.

At breakfast the next morning I read that a Ralph Burnett, one of the agency salesmen, had been arrested and charged with the murder. There was a picture of him, a young man with a rather open, pleasant face. I thought he did not look particularly murderous, but few murderers do. The news item stated that ballistics evidence had figured in the arrest.

John Darmody phoned me at the college at three on Thursday afternoon and asked, all too casually, if he could stop around to see me that evening. We settled on eight-thirty as a time convenient for both of us.

To some, our friendship may seem incongruous: the friendship of a lean, dark, nervous career cop with a plump and placid bachelor logician in his middle years, a man who abhors violence and physical effort. The key to it is perhaps that the cop’s hobby is applied logic and the logician’s hobby is criminology.

Читать дальше →