best forensic psychiatrist in the city, maybe in the country. Has worked with me on a dozen cases, and we’ve won all of them. I’d like his opinion before I even start to map out a defense. Will you talk to him, be completely frank with him, if I send him around to see you?”
“Of course. Uh—will you ask him to do me a favor?”
“Probably. What is it?”
“Lend him your flask and ask him to bring it filled. You’ve no idea how much more nearly pleasant it makes these interviews.”
* * * *
The intercom on Mortimer Mearson’s desk buzzed, and he pressed the button on it that would bring his secretary’s voice in. “Dr. Galbraith to see you, sir.” Mearson told her to send him in at once.
“Hi, Doc,” Mearson said. “Take a load off your feet and tell all.”
Galbraith took the load off his feet and lighted a cigarette before he spoke. “Puzzling for a while,” he said. “I didn’t get the answer till I went into medical history with him. While playing polo at age twenty-two, he had a fall and got a whop on the head with a mallet that caused a bad concussion and subsequent amnesia. Complete at first, but gradually his memory came back completely up to early adolescence. Pretty spotty between then and the time of the injury.”
“Good God, the indoctrination period.”
“Exactly. Oh, he has flashes—like the dream he told you about. He could be rehabilitated—but I’m afraid it’s too late now. If only we’d caught him before he committed an overt murder— But we can’t possibly risk putting his story on record now, even as an insanity defense. So.”
“So,” Mearson said. “I’ll make the call now. And then go see him again. Hate to, but it’s got to be done.”
He pushed a button on the intercom. “Dorothy, get me Mr. Hodge at the Midland Realty Company. When you get him, put the call on my private line.”
Galbraith left while he was waiting, and a moment later one of his phones rang and he picked it up.
“Hodge?” he said, “Mearson here. Your phone secure?… Good. Code eighty-four. Remove the card of Lorenz Kane—L-o-r-e-n-z K-a-n-e—from the reality file at once… Yes, it’s necessary and an emergency. I’ll submit a report tomorrow.”
He took a pistol from a desk drawer and a taxi to the courthouse. He arranged an audience with his client, and as soon as Kane came through the door—there was no use waiting—he shot him dead. He waited the minute it always took for the body to vanish, and then went upstairs to the chambers of Judge Amanda Hayes to make a final check.
“Hi, Your Honor,” he said. “Somebody recently was telling me about a man named Lorenz Kane, and I don’t remember who it was. Was it you?”
“Never heard the name, Morty. It wasn’t me.”
“You mean ‘It wasn’t I.’ Must’ve been someone else. Thanks, Your Judgeship. Be seeing you.”
RECESSIONAL
The king my liege lord is a discouraged man. We understand and do not blame him, for the war has been long and bitter and there are so pathetically few of us left, yet we wish that it were not so. We sympathize with him for having lost his Queen, and we too all loved her—but since the Queen of the Blacks died with her, her loss does not mean the loss of the war. Yet our King, he who should be a tower of strength, smiles weakly and his words of attempted encouragement to us ring false in our ears because we hear in his voice the undertones of fear and defeat. Yet we love him and we die for him, one by one.
One by one we die in his defense, here upon this blooded bitter field, churned muddy by the horses of the Knights—while they lived; they are dead now, both ours and the Black ones—and will there be an end, a victory?
We can only have faith, and never become cynics and heretics, like my poor fellow Bishop Tibault. “We fight and die; we know not why,” he once whispered to me, earlier in the war at a time when we stood side by side defending our King while the battle raged in
“Of course. Uh—will you ask him to do me a favor?”
“Probably. What is it?”
“Lend him your flask and ask him to bring it filled. You’ve no idea how much more nearly pleasant it makes these interviews.”
* * * *
The intercom on Mortimer Mearson’s desk buzzed, and he pressed the button on it that would bring his secretary’s voice in. “Dr. Galbraith to see you, sir.” Mearson told her to send him in at once.
“Hi, Doc,” Mearson said. “Take a load off your feet and tell all.”
Galbraith took the load off his feet and lighted a cigarette before he spoke. “Puzzling for a while,” he said. “I didn’t get the answer till I went into medical history with him. While playing polo at age twenty-two, he had a fall and got a whop on the head with a mallet that caused a bad concussion and subsequent amnesia. Complete at first, but gradually his memory came back completely up to early adolescence. Pretty spotty between then and the time of the injury.”
“Good God, the indoctrination period.”
“Exactly. Oh, he has flashes—like the dream he told you about. He could be rehabilitated—but I’m afraid it’s too late now. If only we’d caught him before he committed an overt murder— But we can’t possibly risk putting his story on record now, even as an insanity defense. So.”
“So,” Mearson said. “I’ll make the call now. And then go see him again. Hate to, but it’s got to be done.”
He pushed a button on the intercom. “Dorothy, get me Mr. Hodge at the Midland Realty Company. When you get him, put the call on my private line.”
Galbraith left while he was waiting, and a moment later one of his phones rang and he picked it up.
“Hodge?” he said, “Mearson here. Your phone secure?… Good. Code eighty-four. Remove the card of Lorenz Kane—L-o-r-e-n-z K-a-n-e—from the reality file at once… Yes, it’s necessary and an emergency. I’ll submit a report tomorrow.”
He took a pistol from a desk drawer and a taxi to the courthouse. He arranged an audience with his client, and as soon as Kane came through the door—there was no use waiting—he shot him dead. He waited the minute it always took for the body to vanish, and then went upstairs to the chambers of Judge Amanda Hayes to make a final check.
“Hi, Your Honor,” he said. “Somebody recently was telling me about a man named Lorenz Kane, and I don’t remember who it was. Was it you?”
“Never heard the name, Morty. It wasn’t me.”
“You mean ‘It wasn’t I.’ Must’ve been someone else. Thanks, Your Judgeship. Be seeing you.”
RECESSIONAL
The king my liege lord is a discouraged man. We understand and do not blame him, for the war has been long and bitter and there are so pathetically few of us left, yet we wish that it were not so. We sympathize with him for having lost his Queen, and we too all loved her—but since the Queen of the Blacks died with her, her loss does not mean the loss of the war. Yet our King, he who should be a tower of strength, smiles weakly and his words of attempted encouragement to us ring false in our ears because we hear in his voice the undertones of fear and defeat. Yet we love him and we die for him, one by one.
One by one we die in his defense, here upon this blooded bitter field, churned muddy by the horses of the Knights—while they lived; they are dead now, both ours and the Black ones—and will there be an end, a victory?
We can only have faith, and never become cynics and heretics, like my poor fellow Bishop Tibault. “We fight and die; we know not why,” he once whispered to me, earlier in the war at a time when we stood side by side defending our King while the battle raged in
Similar Books
