Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert

methods of defence and attack?”
    “Yes. Whenever possible they were so trained.”
    “I will be more specific. The nature of the blow which killed Major Thoseby has been described to you.” Mr. Summer repeated the description which he had given in his opening address. “Would it be your opinion that such a blow had been given by a person trained in Resistance work?”
    “There’s no certainty about it. It might very well have been.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Resistance workers were trained to use any weapon that came to hand – or even to manufacture them out of ordinary household implements – a sharpened knitting needle run through a thick cigarette holder, or a bicycle spoke held in a rubber bicycle pedal or household ammonia in a scent squirt – that sort of thing. It wasn’t safe to carry weapons recognisable as weapons. Then again the blow, being left-handed and upward, is certainly significant. Amateurs were always taught to use a knife in this way.”
    “Perhaps you could explain very shortly why.”
    “Yes. The blow delivered in this way, from in front, goes in under the ribs, and the swing of the arm naturally takes it up into the region of the heart. If you hold a knife point downward—” Major Ammon demonstrated—“and strike at a person in front of you the blade usually turns on the ribs.”
    Your agents were all instructed in these regrettable but necessary arts in case they had to kill Germans?”
    “Yes,” said Major Ammon. “Or themselves.”
    He said this casually, but many people in court suddenly found themselves looking back at an unknown and rather frightening landscape. A place where it might be necessary – where it might be most necessary and desirable – to be able to kill yourself quickly.
    Mr. Summers resumed his seat well aware that this last answer might have done more for him than the whole of the rest of the examination.
     
    “Major Ammon,” said Macrea. “You knew the deceased very well?”
    “Yes. I think I did.”
    “If I have your answer correctly, this was not only a wartime acquaintance. It started before the war?”
    “As a matter of fact, I was at school with him.”
    “And kept up with him afterward?”
    “In the way that two busy men do.”
    “Quite so. And afterward you worked very closely together over the French Resistance work. You spoke of yourself as his ‘official contact’?”
    “That is correct.”
    “Might I suggest that you knew him about as well as one man ever does know another?”
    “Yes. I suppose that is so.”
    “Major Ammon, was Major Thoseby the type of man likely to indulge in an illicit union with a woman, to have – and later to refuse to acknowledge – an illegitimate child?”
    “I—”
    “Really, your lordship,” said Mr. Summers. “I must object to the witness being asked to express what is purely a matter of opinion.”
    “Why not?” said Macrea. “It’s a thing all men do have opinions about – where their men friends are concerned.”
    “I think,” said the judge, “in view of the motive which you have yourself suggested, Mr. Summers, it is a question which the witness can properly be asked. I think, however, he would equally be within his rights if he refused to answer it.”
    “As your lordship pleases,” said Mr. Summers.
    “Well, Major Ammon?”
    “I don’t mind answering the question,” said Major Ammon. “The answer is, No. Major Thoseby was not, to my mind, that sort of man.”
    “You agree that men usually do know about other men, whether or not they are the type who is likely to – to have an affair of the sort suggested.”
    “In nine cases out of ten, yes.”
    “And Major Thoseby was not that type?”
    “No.”
    “Now in connection with the numerous attempts – half a dozen I think you said – that the prisoner made to get in touch with Major Thoseby through you. You do not know if she was successful or not? You gave her his latest address and that was all?”
    That is