“Well, sir,
and what conclusion have you arrived at?” he inquired. The tone was not supercilious; but it
certainly had a touch of kindly condescension that reminded me of a pompous
examiner who had put me through it when I was a nervous youth undergoing the
first professional in Edinburgh.
“Homicidal
melancholia,” I said, and not at all as I would have said it to an examiner.
His eyebrows
went up.
“Really – as bad
as that? Why not ephemeral mania?”
“Because, for
one thing, ephemeral mania does not begin with sleep, as his did.”
“Is that
certain? At all events it ends in deep
sleep, and he may be sleeping somewhere now.
Still” – he waved a hand – “I’ll have to consider that possibility. By
the way, have you – er—envisaged the probability of its being a case of senile
dementia? He was an old man, you know.”
“There was no
evidence of childish degeneration when I saw him. His will-power was strong and his physical
condition good."
“And you do
not consider that points to some other form of mania?”
“No, he slept
for hours on end.”
“He certainly
did,” Carey intervened. “All the
testimony we’ve had confirms that; but is it important? You’ve twice mentioned sleep.”
Whether or no
this intrusion was meant for remonstrance by the weary Chief Constable I cannot
tell, but Sullivant turned on him.
“It is of
decisive importance – a maniac is entirely sleepless,” he almost snapped back.
From: John Ferguson, Death Comes To Perigord (Chapter IV: The Gilt Tennis Ball). London and Glasgow, William Collins and Sons Co., Ltd., 1931.
