The Perfect Murder… Weapon

Marie Anne Cope takes a look at some of the best murder weapons in fiction

We’ve all dreamed of committing the perfect murder, haven’t we? Well, you have if you are being completely honest with yourself. But, how about committing that perfect murder with the perfect murder weapon?

When thinking about committing the perfect crime, your attention is likely focused on the ‘who’, the ‘where’, the ‘how’ and, more importantly, the ‘getting away with it’, but do you ever consider the ‘what’?

What would be the perfect murder weapon? For, dear reader, if you have the perfect murder weapon, then surely a perfect murder is a given?

So, what is the perfect murder weapon, I hear you ask? Well, it is of course one that cannot link you, the murderer, to the crime. But, what does this mean? Quite simply, it is a weapon which cannot be identified, or which seemingly disappears immediately after use.

Still confused? Hopefully my writing colleagues can help clarify the matter, as they have this down to a fine art. Here I’ll share with you some of the best, some of the most perfect fictional murder weapons.

The most perfect of all weapons, for such a crime as murder, has got to be the one that completely disappears after the deed is done. This is used many times in both fiction and film, but there are three authors whose weapons bear mention.

In Lamb to the Slaughter (1953), Roald Dahl chooses a frozen leg of lamb as his weapon of choice. Said leg of lamb is used to bludgeon an errant husband to death, before being roasted and served up as a meal to the investigating officers. Genius!

The commonly used ice/icicle bullet first appears in Anna Katharine Green’s Initials Only (1911), in which a young woman is killed by an icicle shot from a pistol.

Keeping with the theme of freezing, Edgar Wallace, in The Three Just Men (1925), uses snake venom as his perfect weapon. The venom is frozen into the shape of darts, which are then fired from a fake cigarette holder (with an insulated chamber) used as a blowpipe.

The thinking person’s perfect weapon could be said to be one so innocuous that it could never be associated with murder.

One such object is a bed, used by Ronald A Knox in Solved by Inspection (1931). The story sees a rich man, terrified of heights, starved to death when his bed is raised to the ceiling by ropes, leaving him unable to get down other than by falling to his death. This must have been one heck of a high ceiling, don’t you think?

Agatha Christie, in Towards Zero (1944), added that additional complexity and creativity to her perfect weapon, as only she can. The knob from a fireplace fender is screwed onto the handle of a tennis racket (relieved of its oval frame, temporarily) and used to bludgeon the victim to death. Afterwards, both the knob and the oval frame are returned to their rightful place and the tennis racket is stowed as normal.

A rather more complicated, but ingenious, affair is put together by Catherine Aird in The Religious Body (1966). In it, the shaft which connects the heavy round wooden ball (finial) to the newel post of a staircase is used as a blunt object to strike the victim, before being returned to its normal position.

Another canny contrivance, and perfect weapon candidate, has got to be the deadly mechanical instruments of cunning imagination.

In Dorothy L Sayers’ The Poisoned Dow (1933), a corkscrew is altered so that poison, stored in the hollow handle, is released by pressing the plunger. Rex Stout, in Fer-de-Lance (1934), has the head of a golf club modified so that when the ball is struck, a trigger is released and a poisoned needle is shot out of the handle and into the golfer’s abdomen.

Booby traps are another creative way of deliberately disposing of someone, whilst being able to blame it on an ‘accident’.

In Ngaio Marsh’s Vintage Murder (1937), a jeroboam of champagne, supposed to descend slowly and come to rest on the table, plummets upon release (the counterweight has been removed), crushing the victim’s skull.

In a rather comical (in my opinion) booby trap murder, Ruth Dudley Edwards, in Matricide at St Martha’s (1995), has a Cambridge don plummeting to her death from a window, after propelling herself along on a library ladder, from which the brakes have been removed. Was this a stunt in a Carry On film, perchance?

In a more Dr Phibes-esque scenario, Reginald Hill, in Deadheads (1983), tips highly toxic insecticides and weed killers into an attic cistern, which is used to supply the shower. I can clearly see the results of that…

Nature has been used by many authors as the basis for the perfect murder weapon. When I say nature, I mean the creature I most fear – the snake.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses a swamp adder, deliberately trained to strike a certain victim, in The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892). Kathryn Lasky Knight, in Trace Elements (1986), uses a rattlesnake instead and, in Curses! (1989), Aaron J Elkins uses a coral snake as his snake of choice.

But it isn’t just the snake that is used as a natural killer. Ruth Rendell, in To Fear a Painted Devil (1965), chooses bees which are induced to sting a man, causing him to die of an allergic reaction. Finally, Ngaio Marsh’s victim, in Colour Scheme (1943), boils to death when pushed into a thermal mud pool.

Last, but by no means least, I come to the most bizarre of perfect murder weapons. These weapons, I feel, could only ever have been created in the imagination of a writer. As to whether they would ever stand up to the reality test, well, I’ll leave that up to you.

Lindsey Davis, in Venus in Copper (1991), has a man die from choking on one of the suppositories he has been taking to treat his piles. Given this man is supposed to have a medical background, you would think he’d know better, wouldn’t you?

The top spot, though, has to go to Dorothy L Sayers. In The Nine Tailors (1934), a man, locked in a church belfry, mysteriously dies. It is determined later on that he died from the pressure of the sound waves as the bell tolled.
So, are they fiction for a reason, dear reader, or are some of these weapons, quite simply, perfect? I’ll leave you to decide.

May fear protect you when the darkness comes.

Till next time.