Committee members when they made visits of inspection. Mrs. Baumgarten, the art therapist, likes to keep some of the best work on show. That’s why she had theshelves put up. She’s on sick leave at the present but you’ve been shown the department, I expect?”
Dalgliesh said that he had. “Some of my colleagues feel that the art therapy is a waste of money,” confided Dr. Steiner. “Certainly I never use Mrs. Baumgarten. But one must be tolerant. Dr. Baguley refers patients now and again and it probably does them less harm to dabble about down there than to be subjected to ECT. But to pretend that the patients’ artistic efforts can help towards a diagnosis seems very farfetched to me. Of course that claim is all part of the effort to get Mrs. Baumgarten graded as a lay psychotherapist, quite unwarrantably, I’m afraid. She has no analytical training.”
“And the chisel? Did you know where that was kept, Doctor?”
“Well, not really, Superintendent. I mean, I knew that Nagle had some tools and presumably kept them in the porters’ duty room but I didn’t know exactly where.”
“The toolbox is large and clearly labelled and is kept on the small table in the duty room. It would be difficult to miss.”
“Oh, I’m sure it would! But then, I have no reason to go into the porters’ duty room. That is true of all the doctors. We must get a key for that box now and see that it’s kept somewhere safe. Miss Bolam was very wrong to allow Nagle to keep it unlocked. After all, we do occasionally have disturbed patients and some tools can be lethal.”
“So it appears.”
“This clinic wasn’t intended to treat grossly psychotic patients, of course. It was founded to provide a centre for analytically orientated psychotherapy, particularly for middle-class and highly intelligent patients. We treat people who would never dream of entering a mental hospital—and who would be just as out of place in the ordinary psychiatric outpatientdepartment. In addition, of course, there is a large research element in our work.”
“What were you doing between six o’clock and seven this evening, Doctor?” inquired Dalgliesh.
Dr. Steiner looked pained at this sudden intrusion of sordid curiosity into an interesting discussion but answered, meekly enough, that he had been conducting his Friday night psychotherapy session.
“I arrived at the clinic at five-thirty when my first patient was booked. Unfortunately he defaulted. His treatment has arrived at a stage when poor attendance is to be expected. Mr. Burge was booked for six-fifteen and he is usually very prompt. I waited for him in the second consulting room on the ground floor and joined him in my own room at about ten past six. Mr. Burge dislikes waiting with Dr. Baguley’s patients in the general waiting room and I really don’t blame him. You’ve heard of Burge, I expect. He wrote that interesting novel
The Souls of the Righteous
, a quite brilliant exposure of the sexual conflicts concealed beneath the conventionality of a respectable English suburb. But I’m forgetting. Naturally you have interviewed Mr. Burge.”
Dalgliesh had indeed. The experience had been tedious and not unenlightening. He had also heard of Mr. Burge’s book, an opus of some two hundred thousand words in which the scabrous episodes are inserted with such meticulous deliberation that it only requires an exercise in simple arithmetic to calculate on what page the next will occur. Dalgliesh did not suspect Burge of any part in the murder. A writer who could produce such a hodgepodge of sex and sadism was probably impotent and certainly timid. But he was not necessarily a liar.
Dalgliesh said: “Are you quite sure of your times, Doctor? Mr. Burge says that he arrived at six-fifteen and Cully has booked him in at that time. Burge says he went straight intoyour own consulting room, having checked with Cully that you weren’t seeing a patient, and that it was a full ten minutes before
Dalgliesh said that he had. “Some of my colleagues feel that the art therapy is a waste of money,” confided Dr. Steiner. “Certainly I never use Mrs. Baumgarten. But one must be tolerant. Dr. Baguley refers patients now and again and it probably does them less harm to dabble about down there than to be subjected to ECT. But to pretend that the patients’ artistic efforts can help towards a diagnosis seems very farfetched to me. Of course that claim is all part of the effort to get Mrs. Baumgarten graded as a lay psychotherapist, quite unwarrantably, I’m afraid. She has no analytical training.”
“And the chisel? Did you know where that was kept, Doctor?”
“Well, not really, Superintendent. I mean, I knew that Nagle had some tools and presumably kept them in the porters’ duty room but I didn’t know exactly where.”
“The toolbox is large and clearly labelled and is kept on the small table in the duty room. It would be difficult to miss.”
“Oh, I’m sure it would! But then, I have no reason to go into the porters’ duty room. That is true of all the doctors. We must get a key for that box now and see that it’s kept somewhere safe. Miss Bolam was very wrong to allow Nagle to keep it unlocked. After all, we do occasionally have disturbed patients and some tools can be lethal.”
“So it appears.”
“This clinic wasn’t intended to treat grossly psychotic patients, of course. It was founded to provide a centre for analytically orientated psychotherapy, particularly for middle-class and highly intelligent patients. We treat people who would never dream of entering a mental hospital—and who would be just as out of place in the ordinary psychiatric outpatientdepartment. In addition, of course, there is a large research element in our work.”
“What were you doing between six o’clock and seven this evening, Doctor?” inquired Dalgliesh.
Dr. Steiner looked pained at this sudden intrusion of sordid curiosity into an interesting discussion but answered, meekly enough, that he had been conducting his Friday night psychotherapy session.
“I arrived at the clinic at five-thirty when my first patient was booked. Unfortunately he defaulted. His treatment has arrived at a stage when poor attendance is to be expected. Mr. Burge was booked for six-fifteen and he is usually very prompt. I waited for him in the second consulting room on the ground floor and joined him in my own room at about ten past six. Mr. Burge dislikes waiting with Dr. Baguley’s patients in the general waiting room and I really don’t blame him. You’ve heard of Burge, I expect. He wrote that interesting novel
The Souls of the Righteous
, a quite brilliant exposure of the sexual conflicts concealed beneath the conventionality of a respectable English suburb. But I’m forgetting. Naturally you have interviewed Mr. Burge.”
Dalgliesh had indeed. The experience had been tedious and not unenlightening. He had also heard of Mr. Burge’s book, an opus of some two hundred thousand words in which the scabrous episodes are inserted with such meticulous deliberation that it only requires an exercise in simple arithmetic to calculate on what page the next will occur. Dalgliesh did not suspect Burge of any part in the murder. A writer who could produce such a hodgepodge of sex and sadism was probably impotent and certainly timid. But he was not necessarily a liar.
Dalgliesh said: “Are you quite sure of your times, Doctor? Mr. Burge says that he arrived at six-fifteen and Cully has booked him in at that time. Burge says he went straight intoyour own consulting room, having checked with Cully that you weren’t seeing a patient, and that it was a full ten minutes before
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