"But they were caught."
"Because they were fools. If you murder someone in a brutal, messy way, or poison someone who has previously enjoyed rollicking health, or choose the very day after a will's been made in your favour to extinguish the testator, or go on killing everyone you meet till people begin to think you're first cousin to a upas tree, naturally you're found out in the end. But choose somebody old and ill, in circumstances where the benefit to yourself isn't too apparent, and use a sensible method that looks like natural death or accident, and don't repeat your effects too often, and you're safe. I swear all the heart-diseases and gastric enteritis and influenzas that get certified are not nature's unaided work."
(from Unnatural Death, by Dorothy L. Sayers)
[The upas tree is an evergreen of southern and southeast Asia whose latex contains highly toxic compounds and is used for poison arrows and darts.]
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