His project was to begin the fire with the stairs that led from the

ground floor to the underground kitchen and scullery. This he would

soak with paraffine, and assist with firewood and paper, and a brisk

fire in the coal cellar underneath. He would smash a hole or so in the

stairs to ventilate the blaze, and have a good pile of boxes and

paper, and a convenient chair or so in the shop above. He would have

the paraffine can upset and the shop lamp, as if awaiting refilling,

at a convenient distance in the scullery ready to catch. Then he would

smash the house lamp on the staircase, a fall with that in his hand

was to be the ostensible cause of the blaze, and then he would cut his

throat at the top of the kitchen stairs, which would then become his

funeral pyre. He would do all this on Sunday evening while Miriam was

at church, and it would appear that he had fallen downstairs with the

lamp, and been burnt to death. There was really no flaw whatever that

he could see in the scheme. He was quite sure he knew how to cut his

throat, deep at the side and not to saw at the windpipe, and he was

reasonably sure it wouldn't hurt him very much. And then everything

would be at an end.

There was no particular hurry to get the thing done, of course, and

meanwhile he occupied his mind with possible variations of the

scheme....

It needed a particularly dry and dusty east wind, a Sunday dinner of

exceptional virulence, a conclusive letter from Konk, Maybrick, Ghool

222

The History of Mr Polly