Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/269

Rh the legs of a gazelle); or if they failed me, I pretended loss of consciousness after the first terrific blow. Through this complete passivity, I came out far better than if I had shown fight, and probably saved myself, on several occasions, from being one hundred per cent murdered.]

Z often practiced with a revolver at a target in the basement of his home. [He was pay-master in his father's factory and often had in his possession large sums, and had to know how to defend himself from robbers.] His rifle was found on his boat, together with cartridges, on the day of his death. Why, if he intended suicide, did he not use his revolver, or else the rifle that was handy at the time on the boat? [This, to me, is conclusive evidence of murder or manslaughter.]

Z possessed the only key to the cabin of the boat. The family say there were originally two keys, but the duplicate was "lost" about a year ago. [Possibly Z staged all his female-impersonation sprees on his yacht and so gave the duplicate to an idol before whom he regularly posed, just as I have given a trusted idol a key to enter my own apartment whenever he felt like it.]

On the afternoon preceding the day of his death, Z took his motor-cycle apart in order to renew some mechanism. On his last evening alive, he was in high spirits, setting every one of his circle laughing. So far from being depressed, he seemed flushed with happiness at the prospect of future success in business, having only just received a promotion. [His unusual