The fatal chance

. 'Guy Bailey' was the pseudonym of a distinguished 'Home Office pathologist' who was engaged with the police in hundreds of investigations during the previous 30yrs. His notebook contained firsthand details of some of the most notorious criminals and crimes of the period - Heath, Haigh, Timothy Evans, the Epping Forest abortion burial, the death of the Siamese King, Ananda VIII. By isolating the thread of chance, 'that great arbiter of fate', in these and other cases in the book, and by bringing to bear all his 'inside' knowledge of pathology, police work and the law, the author places each crime in a fascinating new light. A blocked drainpipe in an army guardroom led to the discovery of the famous 'beak-nosed' knife that sealed the fate of Sangret in the Godalming 'wigwam' murder; a greasy finger-print that somehow remained on a post-office withdrawal slip after handling by a score of postal clerks convicted Stoneley, the Southampton 'taxi' murderer. The great detectives who figure so prominently in this book, like Greeno, Chapman and Jones, never relied on chance evidence - but if it came their way they would test it and exploit it to the full. They knew only too well that the s