No.2 A Murderer?

    I think Number Two was greatly maligned by Number Six! He accused Number Two of killing Number Seventy-three, I don’t think Number Two was a murderer at all! And he left the office slamming the door behind him as he went. I sat back in my chair and began to consider, picturing the scene in my mind’s eye. There was Number 73 lying in bed in a hospital room, recovering from having slit both her wrists, because she had tried to kill herself. Obviously she wasn’t happy in The Village, and was having to endure another interview with Number 2. The question is where is 73’s husband? All she would say is that her husband had some work to finish, and he’s over there, somewhere over there. Did she perhaps mean behind the Iron Curtain? Number 2 attacked her husband’s devotion to 73 by taunting her with a photograph of her husband with the woman Mariah together in her hotel room. Suddenly Number 2 turns nasty, he thinks he’s wasted enough time, we are left wondering what he’s going to do next. Yes he slams down his leather document case in anger, and he does look menacing as he moves slowly and deliberately towards the bed and 73 quite naturally screams. Number 6 hears her screams, and runs to the hospital. He bursts into the room, two burly male orderlies try to restrain him, 73 screams again, leaps out of her bed and out through the open window to her death! Number 2 tells Number 6 that he shouldn’t have interfered, that he’ll pay for it. Number 6 replies “No, you will!” Later in Number 2’s office he has things to discuss with Number 6, who suggests it’s about the girl Number 2 murdered. But consider what happened. Yes Number 2 was using threatening behaviour towards 73, but he didn’t actually lay a hand upon her. Number 73 didn’t actually leap from her bed and out through the window until she saw Number 6 come bursting into the room! Number 2 simply stands there watching 73 jump to her death through the open window. It seems to me that 73 was determined to end her torment, to kill herself sooner or later. If Number 2 is guilty of anything, it’s of not looking after 73 better, and not trying to stop her. He knew of 73’s suicidal tendency, and should have taken due care. That hospital window should have remained firmly closed for a start. After all committing suicide by jumping out of a hospital window is not unheard of, there was Cobb, perhaps that’s why Number 6 went to look out of the window, perhaps just to make sure!
   But why Number 73 should take to committing suicide at the sight of Number 6 bursting into the room is quite beyond my comprehension. Is it that she recognized Number 6? If so where from, and why did his sudden appearance have such a dramatic effect on 73? Perhaps in his former life and employment Number 6 had dealings with 73’s husband, if he was in the same line of work. Did she fear Number 6 more than she did Number 2? One thing is certain, Number 2 may well have been a sadist, but he was no murderer. We shall never know what would have happened had Number 6 not come bursting into the room. However looking at it from a different angle, it maybe that 73 simply saw her chance for escape. That she used Number 6 as a diversion, that it distracted Number 2 long enough as to give her the few valuable seconds she required in order to jump to her death.
   Whereas Number 2 is a sadist who is going to hammer Number 6, Number 6 is a humanitarian, he cares about people. Number 73 was a damsel in distress, and he vowed to avenge her death, he even laid a bunch of daffodils upon her grave. Didn’t you notice that? Well who else is there in The Village who would have laid flowers on 73’s grave?    

    As for Number 2, I was pondering the idea of how he managed to smuggle his own sword shooting stick into The Village? It’s an offensive weapon, and I should have thought the shooting stick would have been confiscated and replaced with the more usual umbrella shooting stick? And why should Number 2 think he would be in need of such a weapon, unless it was for self-protection, but against whom? And if Number 1 knew enough about Number 2 to ask if he required assistance, then perhaps he knew about Number 2 threatening Number 6 with that sword. Poor old chap, he simply wasn’t up to the job this Number 2. As for Number 6, he may have been an avenging angel, but perhaps Number 1 saw him in a different light, as Nemesis, an agent to be used in order to bring about Number 2’s downfall! 

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