“A perfectly decent fellow may be driven by circumstances to commit a crime and if he's found out he's punished; but he may very well remain a perfectly decent fellow.”
Circumstances are vey bad advisers, and in the Mr. Cartwright’s case it was the very best example. He has fallen in love with a wife of his friend and when she got pregnant he dared for a desperate step – to kill his friend so he would never find out about the doubled betrayal – of his friend and his wife. And the narrator supposes that the murderer lives on leading a decent life.
“I have always thought the detective story a most diverting and ingenious variety of fiction, and have regretted that I never had the skill to write one, but I have read a good many, and I flatter myself it is rarely that I have not solved the mystery before it was disclosed to me”
Somerset Maugham was a great admirer of detective stories, and has put this phrase into the mouth of the narrator so to show his own preferences. Detective line of the story is not to much twisted, but it involves all the best traits of detectives – mysterious detail which at last helps to solve the crime – in this case these are the footprints.
“Look at that square chin of hers and tell me that she hasn't got the courage of the devil. She has a will of iron. She made Cartwright do it. She planned every detail and every move. He was completely under her influence; he is now"
Gaze gives a bright and direct description of Mrs. Cartwright. There is nothing this kind of women cannot get and achieve. She has a power of controlling over the others, and poor Mr. Cartwight has got under this power. It is not that his life has changed into the bad direction, but still because of her he has commit a crime and if it had come out it would have been he who would have answered for that. These “devil women” are the biggest trouble for a “decent fellow.”
