Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... Part 9

"There's no way of knowing," said the Duke, "But I think there's just as good a chance that he'd have gotten his hands on some other little girl, even if the warning had gone out. There will always be parents who don't pay enough attention to what their children are doing. They may blame themselves if something happens, but that may be too late.

As it happens, we _weren't_ too late. Let's be thankful for that.

"By the way, am I wrong in a.s.suming that Nestor will not get your psychotherapy treatment?"

"No, you're right," I said. "The warden at Sing Sing will be taking care of him from now on." I turned to Brownlee and said: "Which reminds me--what's going to be the disposition on the Hammerlock Smith case?"

"I talked to Judge Whittaker and the D.A. Your recommendation pulled a lot of weight with them. They agreed that if Smith will plead guilty to felonious a.s.sault and agree to therapy, he'll get off with eighteen months, suspended. When I release him, he'll never bother young boys again."

The Duke looked puzzled. "Hammerlock Smith? Odd Name. What's he up for?"

I told him about Hammerlock Smith.

He thought it over for a while, then said: "Just what is it you do to men like that? How can you be so sure he'll never hurt anyone again?"

Brownlee started to answer him, but a uniformed officer put his head in the door. "Excuse me, Dr. Brownlee, the District Attorney would like to talk to you."

Brownlee excused himself and followed the cop out, leaving me to explain things to His Grace.

"Do you remember that, a couple of centuries ago, the laws of some countries provided the perfect punishment for pickpockets and purse-s.n.a.t.c.hers?"

He gave me a wry grin. "Certainly. The hands of the felon were amputated at the wrist. Usually with a headsman's ax, I believe."

"Exactly. And they never picked another pocket again as long as they lived." I said. "Society had denied them the means to pick pockets."

"Go on."

"Do you remember Manny the Moog? The little fellow who was brought in yesterday?"

"Distinctly. I thought it was odd at the time that you should release a man who has a record of such activities as car-stealing and reckless driving, especially when the witness against him turned out to be a perfectly respectable person. I took it for granted that he was one of your ... ah ... 'tame zanies', I think you called them. But I did not and still don't understand how you can be so positive."

"I let Manny go because he's incapable of driving a car. The very thought of being in control of a machine so much more powerful than he is would give him chills. Did you ever see what happens when you lock a claustrophobe up in a dark closet--the mad, unreasoning, uncontrollable panic of absolute terror? That's what would happen to Manny if you put him behind the wheel of a running automobile. It's worse than fear; fear is controllable. Blind terror isn't.

"Manny had one little twist, in his mind. He liked to get into a car--_any_ car, whether it was his or not--and drive. He became king of the road. He wasn't a little man any more. He was G.o.d, and lesser beings had better look out.

"We got to him before he actually killed anyone, but there is a woman in Queens today who will never walk again because of Manny the Moog.

But there won't be any more like her. We took the instrument of destruction away from him; we 'cut off his hands'. Now he's leading a reasonably useful life. We don't need to sacrifice another's life before we neutralize the danger."

"What about Joey Partridge?" His Grace asked. "He's one of your zanies, too, isn't he?

"That's right. He couldn't keep from using his fists. He liked the feel of solid flesh and bone giving under the impact of those big fists of his. Boxing wasn't enough; he had to be able to feel flesh-to-flesh contact, with no padded glove between. He almost killed a couple of men before we got to him."

"What did you do to his hands?"

"Nothing. Not a thing. There's nothing at all wrong with his hands.

But he _thinks_ there is. He's firmly convinced that the bones are as brittle as chalk, that if he uses those fists, _he_ will be the one who will break and shatter. It even bothers him to shake hands, as you saw last night. It took a lot of guts to do what he did last night--walk over to those two thugs knowing he couldn't defend himself. He's no coward. But he's as terrified of having his hands hurt as Manny is of driving a car."

"I see" the Duke said thoughtfully.

"There are other cases, plenty of them," I went on. "We have pyromaniacs who are perfectly harmless now because they have a deathly terror of flame. We have one fellow who used to be very nasty with a knife; he grows a beard now because the very thought of having a sharp edge that close to him is unnerving. The reality would send him screaming. We have a girl who had the weird idea that it was fun to drop things out of windows or off the tops of high buildings. Aside from the chance of people below being hurt, there was another danger.

Two cops grabbed her just as she was about to drop her baby brother off the roof of her apartment house.

"But we don't worry about her any more. People with acute acrophobia are in no condition to pull stunts like that."

"What will you do to this Hammerlock Smith, then?" His Grace asked.

"Actually, he's one of the simpler cases. A large percentage of our zanies lose control when they're under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Alcohol is by far the more common. Under the influence, they do things they would never do when sober.

"As long as they remain sober, they have control. But, give them a few drinks and the control slips and then vanishes completely. One of our others was a little like Manny the Moog; he drove like a madman--which he was when he was drunk. Sober, he was as careful and cautious a driver as you'd want--a perfectly reliable citizen. But, after losing his license and the right to own a car, he'd still get drunk and steal cars.

"He has his license back now, but we know we can trust him with it. He will never be able to take another drink.

"Smith is of that type. So, apparently, is Nestor. When we get through with Smith, he'll be sober, and he'll stay that way to his grave."

"Astounding." The Duke looked at me again. "I can see the results, of course. I'm going to see that some sort of similar program is started in England, even if I have to stand up in the House of Lords to do it.

But, I still don't understand how it can be done so rapidly--a matter of hours. What is the technique used?"

"It all depends on the therapist," I said. "Brownlee is one of the best, but there are others who are almost as good. Some of the officers have started calling them _hexperts_ because, in effect, that's exactly what they do--put a hex on the patient."

"A _geas_, in other words."

I'd never heard the word before. "A what?"

"A _geas_. A magical spell that causes a person to do or to refrain from doing some act, whether he will or no. He has no choice, once the _geas_ has been put on him."

"That's it exactly."

"But, man, it isn't magic we're discussing, is it?"

"I don't know," I admitted frankly. "You tell me. Was it magic this morning when both you and I had a hunch that little s.h.i.+rley was _not_ in the park, in spite of the way it looked? Was it magic when we eliminated, without even searching, every spot but the place where she actually was?"

"Well, no, I shouldn't say so. I think every good policeman gets hunches like that every so often. He gets a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with."

"Well, then, call it hunch or telepathy or extra-sensory perception or thingummybob or whatever. Brownlee has just what you say a good cop should have--a feel for his work and for the types he's dealing with.

Within a very short time, Dr. Brownlee can actually get the feel of being inside his patient's mind--deep enough, at least, so that he can spot just what has to be done to put a compensating twist in a twisted mind.

"He says the genuine zanies are very simple to operate on. They have already got the raw materials in them for him to work with. A normally sane, normally well integrated person would require almost as much work to put a permanent quirk in as removing such a quirk would be in a zany. The brainwas.h.i.+ng techniques and hypnotism can introduce such quirks temporarily, but as soon as a normally sane person regains his balance, the quirks tend to fade away.

"But a system that is off balance and unstable doesn't require much work to push it slightly in another direction. When Brownlee finds out what will do the job, he does it, and we have a tame zany on our hands."

"It sounds as though men of Brownlee's type are rather rare," His Grace said.

"They are. Rarer than psychiatrists as a whole. On the other hand, they can take care of a great many more cases."