“You know,” Mr. Trivs continued thoughtfully, “human beings. Human beings of all kinds and categories and sizes and shapes. People. Some with brains and most without. Brought from everywhere – from Lancashire, from Scotland… that restaurateur from Italy and that teacher from somewhere in the Midwest… Each one involved in the matter and trapped in its nets, and ultimately all together locked in a courtroom in London on a gray November day. With each one playing his or her own small role. With the whole thing culminating in a murder trial.”
He paused and lightly played his fingers on his knee.
“I like good detective stories,” he said. “You know, though, most of them start at the wrong point! They start with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that – sometimes years before – with all the causes and events that ultimately bring certain people together in a specific place, at a specific time on a specific day. Take, for example, the testimony of that little maid – if the cook’s assistant hadn’t stolen her lover, she wouldn’t have gone ballistic and wouldn’t have gone to the Lamorns, and wouldn’t have become the key defense witness. Or that Giuseppe Antonelli, who came to England to stay with his brother for a month. The brother blind as a bat. There was no way he could have seen what Giuseppe’s hawk-like eye spotted. And if the constable hadn’t flirted with the cook of the house at number 48, he wouldn’t have been late for his shift…”
