FELO DE SE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17410, 12 December 1924, Page 3 (Supplement)

FELO DE SE.

A PROBLEM IN SANITY. M i‘itton for the Christmas Number. (By S. W. LANE.) Henry Graham, pacing the floor of his room, had at last decided that life had no further inducements to offer Tim, and that he would end it all. There were many causes contributing to this decision, and it is not within our province to say he was wrong, unless wo possess sonic knowledge of psychology. Graham was “ highly strung ” and of nervous temperament, and when at the early age of thirty-five years he .bought he had discovered that love and the so-called benefits of marriage were illusions, it was a tragedy for him. It is always so—for the young — rut for the mature man love is an op-, lortunity. and marriage a delightfully . atirical comedy. Graham had loved, married, and no>v had the humiliating experience of knowing that the woman preferred another man. All his life he hud expect’d too much and disappointment was doubly keen. ! In connection with the act he was i about to commit was a consequence bat especially annoyed him. That was he coroner’s verdict in suicide cases, •t was Graham’s wont to argue that it vas quite unfair to say that a suicide vas always insane, and lie was determined that his death should be of such i character that a verdict of “ felo de I -e ” must be returned. Possessed of a mechanical turn of I iind. he found little difficulty in inditing a contrivance for his particular urpose. It consisted of an alarm lock and small, powerful buzzer and iectric battery. A weight was attach'd to the gas-meter handle in such a vay that when the alarm rang in the dock electrical contact was made in c’ne buzzer circuit, which in turn caused the weight to fall, so cutting off fur- ! ther gas. Graham ceased his pacing and tested his apparatus once more. The clock and weight set to his satisfaction, he stood back and waited with almost childish anticipation. T he clock gave a little click ; the alarm rang; a bright blue spark flew across the terminals of the buzzer ana the weight fell with a crash as the handle dropped over. Graham muttered his satisfaction as he seated himself at the table and wrote his letters to the District Coroner, police and friends, explaining his act. On the wall above him was an enlarged portrait of his father, and the photographer had touched up the eyes and eyebrows with a black lead pencil so that the face wore a glaring and slightly pugnacious expression. It Henry Graham had possessed a working sense of humour lie would never have contemplated the act- he was about to do, after seeing the contemptuous look in the pencilled eyes. When he had finished his letters and placed them prominently on the table, Graham procured a pot of paste and some old newspaper. A neat notice—“ Beware of the Gas ” he pasted on the outside of the door. Inside the room, after locking the door. Graham pasted the newspapers over every opening. At last all was arranged to his satisfaction. Surely, he thought, a man is not “non compos mentis” when he takes care to safeguard the interests of others. Winding the clock again and lifting the lever of the gas meter was his next work. It was now seven o’clock, the little hand on the alarm dial pointed to ten o'clock, and in three hours the lever should drop, thus cutting off further supplies. Graham seated himself at the tabD. He would think the matter over again. He would see if life did hold any inducements at the last moment. But, with a softly' murmured curse i#»r what he considered as a weakness, he stretched forth his hand and turned on the gas. A loud hissing filled the

room with noise as the noxious fumes entered and the hard mouth and pencilled eves of the portrait on the wait seemed to move into a cynical sneer as Henri' Graham waited for the end The District Coroner shuffled his papers together and gave a little preliminary cough. An elderly man now, hut with faculties unimpaired, he found that the case had presented sonic difficulties. Strange to say. the Distri *c Coroner had been a well-known amateurboxing referee in his barrister days, and the training he had received had greatly improved his knowledge of psychology. “ Er—l am sorrv I have kept vo i waiting." said the Coroner, “hut the peculiar features ot this case and the deceased's wishes deserved some consideration. The deceased wished to ! l>e considered presumably sane, and based his assertions upon his contrivances to safeguard others and upon his

clock to cut off the pas. Surely the most important part of an alarm cloci is the lever which operates the alarm, fliis the deceased entirely forgot, with tile result that the gas leaked all night and the suspicions of the neighbours were aroused. If the deceased was quite sane and not obsessed with the thought of suicide he would not forget such an important part of the mechanism. I therefore find that the deceascommitted suicide whilst temporM us Henry Graham cheated?