I read this first a good 25 years ago in my mother language and it was great to find the original here! A good story that begs for a continuation in my opinion: One may call Kellerman's murder the perfect murder - an unimportant figure falling victim to his own carelessness, run over by an unrelated figure's car, the accident confirmed by a number of unrelated witnesses, no motive at all for anything deliberate and no scent of such either for any committed cop to pick up. Bailey's elimination is however a hasty reaction to the events brought about by the flaw in the original plot - Bliss's subconscious belatedly realising that the control has slipped out of his hands and he can do nothing to regain it because it had been slipped out for quite a while. In fact he should have given a good amount of theoretical consideration to the possibility of any of the blackmail victims being too straight or too weak to do what their interests dictate - he should have devised ways to filter out the reliable and useful partners in crime without giving too much information away in advance, so all the other candidates who fail the preliminary test can continue living in blissful ignorance, knowing practically nothing more than the fact that they are not the only flies in Kellerman's spiderweb, without knowing any of the others, unable to make contact with any of them, just happy about a regular monthly expense terminating at a certain point in time, never wondering why. Instead, Bliss leads the conversation and presents his detailed plans to Bailey, and that's the moment when he should have realised he has derailed the plot and should tell all the others that the operation is unfortunately off, because there is a rotten apple in the basket. From this point, Bailey plays the music and Bliss dances to it, even if it doesn’t even occur to Bailey. Had he realised that, he would have perhaps shut up for his own good. Bliss never tried to extract information from Bailey, never tried to bring his opinion and intensions (if any) to the surface. If the idea of killing Kellerman had sprung out of Bailey's head during the dialogue (after Bliss expertly planting it in his subconscious), Bliss could have acted out a little reluctance, gradually agreeing to "Bailey's daring idea". He would have made Bailey the "lead theorist" of the plot and he would have never thought of going to the police. This is the dialogue he should have attempted with everyone, "testing" them. In real life, he would have probably found more than one Gordon Baileys who should have been kept away hermetically from being involved in the plot... Now, all a cop has to do is go home to Gordon's griefstricken wife, tell about his death and ask a few innocent questions. The wife would be deeply shocked, not only because of the tragedy, but also because Gordon's death wouldn’t fit the picture – it would be the last link of a chain of unusual recent events in her eyes and she'd be pouring out all she knows even without the cop asking. It wouldn't take long to find out that Gordon was straight as an arrow, no motive whatsoever to hold a gun on a bartender, except... he'd seemed disturbed lately and he'd recently confessed an old one night affair. That would be enough for the cop to ask further. Soon recently deceased Mr. Kellerman's name would surface, and so would Bliss’, present at both incidents. Any mediocre cop would now smell something out of the ordinary and would soon identify Kellerman as the link between all the witnesses at both locations, identifying their common motive. Bliss should have at least chosen witnesses for Bailey's murder who weren't directly involved in getting rid of Kellerman. As soon as Gordon is shot, he should have left the place before the police was alerted. But even then, you have two fatal incidents, both of which could also be homicides if not for witnesses' statements. Both linked to Gordon Bailey, an ordinary, regular citizen, happily married, steady career, out of any trouble until now. I think that alone is enough for a good investigator.