I have certainly done my best to hide it. For although the
personalities of the villain and his legal spouse crop up periodically,
with ominous insistence, from the first chapter onwards, they are always
swallowed up again. The reason is given in the penultimate chapter,
where the critic might have found a resume of my intentions and the key
to this plot--to wit, that a murder under those particular circumstances
is not only justifiable and commendable but--insignificant. Quite
insignificant! Not worth troubling about. Hundreds of decent and honest
folk are being destroyed every day; nobody cares tuppence; "one dirty
blackmailer more or less--what does it matter to anybody"? There are so
many more interesting things on earth. That is why the bishop--i.e. the
reader--here discovers the crime to be a "contemptible little episode,"
and decides to "relegate it into the category of unimportant events." He
was glad that the whole affair had remained in the background, so to
speak, of his local experiences. It seemed appropriate. In the
background: it seemed appropriate. That is the heart, the core, of the
plot. And that is why all those other happenings find themselves pushed
into the foreground.
I know full well that this is not the way to write an orthodox English
novel. For if you hide your plot, how shall the critic be expected to
see it? You must serve it on a tray; you must (to vary the simile) hit
the nail on the head and ask him to be so good as to superintend the
operation.
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