[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Magazine April 1962.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
She was a wonderful wife--sweet, pretty,
loving--but she would keep littering up
the house with her old, used-up bodies!
I
So help me, I'm not really a fiend, a monstrous murderer or a
Bluebeard. I am not, truly, even a mad scientist bucking for a billing
to top Frankenstein's. My knowledge of science ends with the Sunday
magazine section of the paper. As for the bodies of all those women the
front pages claim I butchered and buried somewhat carelessly out by the
garage, all that is just--well, just an illusion of sorts.
Equally illusory, I am hoping, is my reservation for a sure seat, next
performance, in the electric chair which now seems so certain after the
merest formality of a trial.
Actually I am, or was, nothing but a very normal, average--upper middle
average, that is--sort of a guy. I have always been friendly, sociable,
kindly, lovable to a fault. So how did lovable, kindly old I happen to
get into such a bloody mess?