Sleepless In Tuxedo (Death Comes To Perigord 4)

“Well, sir,and what conclusion have you arrived at?” he inquired.  The tone was not supercilious; but itcertainly had a touch of kindly condescension that reminded me of a pompousexaminer who had put me through it when I was a nervous youth undergoing thefirst professional in Edinburgh.

         “Homicidalmelancholia,” I said, and not at all as I would have said it to an examiner.

         His eyebrowswent up.

         “Really – as badas that?  Why not ephemeral mania?”

        “Because, forone thing, ephemeral mania does not begin with sleep, as his did.”

        “Is thatcertain?  At all events it ends in deepsleep, and he may be sleeping somewhere now. Still” – he waved a hand – “I’ll have to consider that possibility. Bythe way, have you – er—envisaged the probability of its being a case of seniledementia?  He was an old man, you know.”

      “There was noevidence of childish degeneration when I saw him.  His will-power was strong and his physicalcondition good."

        “And you donot consider that points to some other form of mania?”

        “No, he sleptfor hours on end.”

         “He certainlydid,” Carey intervened.  “All thetestimony we’ve had confirms that; but is it important?  You’ve twice mentioned sleep.”

      Whether or nothis intrusion was meant for remonstrance by the weary Chief Constable I cannottell, but Sullivant turned on him.

        “It is ofdecisive 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.

“Va t’en.” (Death Comes To Perigord 3)

                         

      



     “Va t’en.”

         The commandwas hissed rather than spoken. But I had no intention of going before I haddone my job, and as soothingly as possible told him so.  For now I felt sure that Le Marinel must havegood reason for sending me the urgent message I had received, though to me itlooked as if I might have been more usefully employed in examining into hismental rather than physical condition. And examine him I did, in spite of all his expostulations.  His heart was certainly in a flutter; butthat might be set down to his anger just as much to any cardiac weakness, forin other respects he was, for his age, in surprisingly sound condition.  He seemed, in fact, to be, with ordinarycare, good enough for many years to come, and I could not see why I had been sourgently pressed by Le Marinel to go out that night.  The thought had puzzled me even before I leftPerigord.

        Once I haddone with the man I took up the candle from the bed side table with that littleflurry of irritation a doctor is apt to experience in such cases.  Short of accident, many a much younger manwould go before de Quettville.  Theflutter at his heart was nothing.  Heprobably smoked too much.  All theseChannel Islanders smoked too much: tobacco was so cheap for them. And my irritation over the needless call was certainly not lessened bycontact with such an ill-mannered patient. He had sunk back the moment I finished, and now reclined with closedeyes, his sharp nose and white night-cap silhouetted grotesquely in blackagainst the bed curtain, the long beard showing like a waterfall.  But he was not asleep.  As I watched him with disfavor an eyelidfluttered and he waved a hand toward the door.

        “Va t’en,” he repeated crossly.

 

Death Comes To Perigord 2

           That he had disliked me at the time of my visit I was well aware; but now I could divine the maniacal fury which lay behind those vigorous heart-pulsations on which I had remarked to Le Marinel.  He then, of course, had regarded me at the one man likely to thwart his homicidal purpose by getting him put under restraint, and from my experience of delusional dementia I was aware of how easily his hatred could be temporarily transferred from the original object of his hate to myself.  

           The workings of a disordered mind are hard to follow, but it is an error to suppose an insane person cannot conceive, and adhere to a purpose.  There is method in madness; and with homicidal lunatics the doctor frequently becomes an object of intense hatred, the first enemy who must be removed before the original murderous intention can be achieved.

From John Ferguson, Death Comes To Perigord (Chapter XI: How We Caught de Quettville).  London and Glasgow, William Collins and Sons, Co., Ltd., 1931.

                

Death Comes To Perigord 1

“You know,” I said as we shook hands, “it’s deuced hard tobelieve this island of yours is real.”

         Le Marinel,as if to consider this cocked his head to one side, like a thoughtful bird thistime.  I had been but one week on theisland, having come to look after the practice of a doctor friend, an oldfellow student, who needed a change.  Theduty so far had been almost a sinecure, although I was, in fact, then meetingthe avocat to report on a patient about whose condition he was anxious.

        “You mean,” hesaid at length, “that it looks the sort of place where nothing happens.”

          This timethe side-long glance he gave me was more than ever bird-like.

        “That’strue;  it does look like that; but it’snot what I meant.  What I meant was thatfor an island in the Channel less than ninety miles from England it has toomany incredible differences; it looks in fact almost Oriental.”

        The avocatseemed mystified.

        “Oriental?” herepeated, with a rising inflection.

        “More like abit of Tunis or Algiers,” I affirmed.

 “Why look, forinstance, at this very road, so long and narrow, stretching between those highblank walls, with invisible houses and hidden people behind them, I suppose.  And look at those tall palm trees which seemto be peering over the walls as if stretching their necks, watching forsomething to happen in this deserted alley. Look at those shadows too, sharply cut as if by a knife in thisbrilliant white, un-English sunlight; and look at the colour, is that notEastern?”

       I indicatedthe end of the tunnel-like Rue Galette along which we were now walking, for atthe far end, framed like a picture by the tall shadowed, one caught a glimpseof an incredibly blue sea, on the horizon of which another island was justdiscernible, pale as an opal, and ethereal as a mirage of the desert.

From John Ferguson, Death Comes To Perigord (Chapter I:  Night Visit).  London and Glasgow, William Collins and Sons, Co., Ltd., 1931.


All photos depict island of Guernsey.