He said, "From your point of view, a true 'perfect crime' would be one in which no clue existed, including the fact of the crime itself--except those clues that were deliberately planned by the perpetrator for some purpose of his own. That is your own angle, isn't it?" I nodded. Indeed it was, and it had been expressed in precisely the same words that I had used in speaking to Chief Weston. "However," he went on blandly, "you'll agree that a clue is usually the result of a mistake, or failure to plan completely, or the result of some accidental circumstance." "Right." "But in a 'perfect crime' there would be no error, no mistake." "Yes, but aren't you backing yourself into a hole that you've lined with fish hooks yourself?" "Not at all," he replied. "Clues must be cleverly contrived, created, and established in such a way that the episode is ultimately known to be crime and not labeled misadventure, suicide, or the like. Otherwise," he said with a genial smile, "we're writing about a 'perfectly justifiable homicide' instead of a 'perfect crime.'" I nodded again. "And, of course," he finished, "these clues must also provide precisely the correct amount of information so that the motive of the criminal is not only fulfilled, but exposed--if not to one of the characters in the book, at least to the reader." * * * * * Mr. Wood relaxed and sipped his own drink. From somewhere aloft, a number of individually insignificant traces added up to fairly reliable evidence that Florence and Mrs. Wood were about to return. I gathered that the cross-questioning had allayed any parental suspicion. I said, "One thing you haven't mentioned," and paused for effect. "To the Hindu, 'perfection' means the inclusion of an almost imperceptible flaw so that its maker cannot be accused of presuming to be as good as God. Is your 'perfect crime' to be perfect in the eyes of the criminal, or in the eyes of the police?" He said, "Ah, Captain Schnell, that is indeed one of my bothersome problems." Mrs. Wood came into the room, followed by Florence. The girl had lost the soaked-gamin look. She was transformed by modern alchemy into a poised young woman who forced me to revise my estimated eighteen several years upward. She nodded affably at her father, smiled at me and then came over because she noticed that my highball glass was empty. I thanked her, and she smiled wide and bright as she asked, "Has Daddy been giving you the details of his impossible bandit?" "Well, in a way." Mr. Wood said, "I'm sort of like the standard television father--incapable of adding two and two without the close supervision of the female members of my family." "I--that is, we--keep telling Daddy he should hire Superman for a hero." "You've changed," chuckled Mr. Wood. "Changed?" "Yesterday you advocated that I hire a detective with telepathy and a sense of perception." "We discussed it on the way home," said Florence. "Superman?" I asked.