after the deadline he felt so weak he could hardly get out of bed. For the better part of the day he was bothered by hallucinations and dizzy spells, so he wasted no time in packing and moving into the Excelsior. Realizing there was no easy way out of the extortion plot, he hired a private investigator, though without immediately divulging the purpose, because he first wanted to look him over and test him while living it up in the manner already described. The whole thing was somehow beginning to make sense, though it still didn’t explain why Swift simply hadn’t left town, especially when there was nothing keeping him in Naples. As Swift explained it, the mineral baths had proved so beneficial for his rheumatism that he was eager to complete the treatment.
At first Kahn was inclined to believe him, but after thinking over everything Swift had told him he began finding his friend’s story less and less credible. The stories he had heard earlier from the hotel staff only confirmed his doubts. Had Swift been testing the detective that time he fired a gun at some flies during an orgy with several ladies of the night?—Kahn asked him straight out. Swift admitted it was true but repeated that the poison had left him temporarily deranged. Almost certain now that his friend had been stricken with some mental illness, Kahn decided to get him back to the States as fast as he possibly could. He settled Swift’s hotel bill, bought plane tickets, and didn’t leave Swift’s side until they were both packed and on their way to the airport. Certain inconsistencies in the record suggest that Swift did not accept his friend’s Samaritan kindness passively. The hotel staff testified that shortly before their departure the two Americans had had a serious quarrel. Whether or not Kahn had used physical force as well as verbal arguments, he would not volunteer any further information helpful to the inquiry, and the only solid piece of evidence, the letter, had disappeared. Kahn had seen only the first page, which had been typewritten—the illegible type made it look like one of a number of carbon copies—and full of grammatical mistakes in English. Back in the States, when he asked Swift what had happened to the letter, Swift broke out laughing and started opening a desk drawer as if he meant to show it to him, only to find it gone. The experts treated this latest evidence as a combination of the plausible and the implausible, Typing an extortion letter through several sheets of thick paper is a common practice, since once the individual letter traits have been obliterated in this way, it is next to impossible to trace the machine used. The fact that this was still a relatively recent practice unknown to most laymen seemed to argue in favor of the letter’s authenticity. On the other hand, Swift’s behavior all seemed inappropriate. A man who is being extorted doesn’t react the way Swift did, not if he believes that the threats made on his life are actually going to be carried out. The experts finally concluded they were dealing with two overlapping factors: real coercion in the form of a shakedown attempt, apparently the work of a local resident (judging at least by the letter’s poor English), and Swift’s temporary insanity. If that was so, then the Swift case, when viewed within the context of the investigation’s previous findings, only confused matters, since his apparent insanity otherwise conformed to the typical pattern.
The next one involved a Swiss by the name of Mittelhorn who arrived in Naples on May 27. His case differed from the others in that he was a familiar sight at the hotel, where he was an annual guest. The owner of a large secondhand bookshop in Lausanne and a well-to-do bachelor, he was a man given to certain eccentricities of behavior that were tolerated because he was considered such a desirable guest. He always occupied two adjoining rooms—one serving as an office, the other as a bedroom. Because of
At first Kahn was inclined to believe him, but after thinking over everything Swift had told him he began finding his friend’s story less and less credible. The stories he had heard earlier from the hotel staff only confirmed his doubts. Had Swift been testing the detective that time he fired a gun at some flies during an orgy with several ladies of the night?—Kahn asked him straight out. Swift admitted it was true but repeated that the poison had left him temporarily deranged. Almost certain now that his friend had been stricken with some mental illness, Kahn decided to get him back to the States as fast as he possibly could. He settled Swift’s hotel bill, bought plane tickets, and didn’t leave Swift’s side until they were both packed and on their way to the airport. Certain inconsistencies in the record suggest that Swift did not accept his friend’s Samaritan kindness passively. The hotel staff testified that shortly before their departure the two Americans had had a serious quarrel. Whether or not Kahn had used physical force as well as verbal arguments, he would not volunteer any further information helpful to the inquiry, and the only solid piece of evidence, the letter, had disappeared. Kahn had seen only the first page, which had been typewritten—the illegible type made it look like one of a number of carbon copies—and full of grammatical mistakes in English. Back in the States, when he asked Swift what had happened to the letter, Swift broke out laughing and started opening a desk drawer as if he meant to show it to him, only to find it gone. The experts treated this latest evidence as a combination of the plausible and the implausible, Typing an extortion letter through several sheets of thick paper is a common practice, since once the individual letter traits have been obliterated in this way, it is next to impossible to trace the machine used. The fact that this was still a relatively recent practice unknown to most laymen seemed to argue in favor of the letter’s authenticity. On the other hand, Swift’s behavior all seemed inappropriate. A man who is being extorted doesn’t react the way Swift did, not if he believes that the threats made on his life are actually going to be carried out. The experts finally concluded they were dealing with two overlapping factors: real coercion in the form of a shakedown attempt, apparently the work of a local resident (judging at least by the letter’s poor English), and Swift’s temporary insanity. If that was so, then the Swift case, when viewed within the context of the investigation’s previous findings, only confused matters, since his apparent insanity otherwise conformed to the typical pattern.
The next one involved a Swiss by the name of Mittelhorn who arrived in Naples on May 27. His case differed from the others in that he was a familiar sight at the hotel, where he was an annual guest. The owner of a large secondhand bookshop in Lausanne and a well-to-do bachelor, he was a man given to certain eccentricities of behavior that were tolerated because he was considered such a desirable guest. He always occupied two adjoining rooms—one serving as an office, the other as a bedroom. Because of
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