Ellery Queen - Cat of Many Tails

“I promise. Now I’m putting you to bed.”

When Dr. Cazalis returned, he looked apologetic. “I should have seen those hysterics coming on.”

“I’d welcome a good old-fashioned emotional binge myself right now,” murmured Ellery. “By the way, Doctor, which theories was Mrs. Cazalis referring to?”

“Theories?” Inspector Queen looked around. “Who’s got theories?”

“Why, I suppose I have,” said Dr. Cazalis, seating himself and reaching for a sandwich. “Say, what are those fellows doing out there, anyway?”

“Examining the terrace and roof. Tell me about these theories of yours, Doctor.” The Inspector took one of Ellery’s cigarets; he never smoked cigarets.

“I suppose everybody in New York has one or two,” smiled the psychiatrist. “The Cat murders would naturally not pass a psychiatrist by. And even though I don’t have the inside information at your disposal—”

“It wouldn’t add much to what you’ve read.”

Cazalis grunted. “I was about to say, Inspector, that I’m sure it wouldn’t make any material difference. Where it seems to me you people have gone off is in applying to these murders the normal investigatory technique. You’ve concentrated on the victims — admittedly the sensible methodology in ordinary cases, but in this one exactly wrong. In this case you stand a better chance concentrating on the murderer.”

“How do you mean?”

“Isn’t it true that the victims have had nothing in common?”

“Yes?”

“Their lives crossed nowhere?”

“As far as we can tell.”

“Take my word for it, you’ll never find a significant point of contact. The seven seem unrelated because they are unrelated. At no time did they stand a greater chance of interrelationship than if the murderer had shut his eyes and opened the telephone directory, let’s say, to seven different pages at random, determined to kill the forty-ninth person listed in the second column of each page.”

Ellery stirred.

“We have, then,” continued Dr. Cazalis, swallowing the last of his sandwich, “seven persons dying by the same hand who have no interidentity or contiguity. What does this mean in practical terms? A series of apparently indiscriminate acts of violence. To the trained mind, this spells psychosis. I say ‘apparently’ indiscriminate, by the way, because the conduct of the psychotic appears unmotivated only when judged in the perspective of reality — that is, by more or less healthy minds viewing the world as it is. The psychotic has his motivations, but they proceed from distorted views of reality and falsification of facts.

“My opinion, based on an analysis of the data available to me, is that the Cat — damn that cartoonist! an infamous libel on a very well-balanced beast! — suffers from what we call a systematized delusional state, a paranoid psychosis.”

“Well, naturally,” said the Inspector, who seemed disappointed, “one of our first theories was that the killer’s insane.”

“Insanity is the popular and legal term,” said Dr. Cazalis with a shrug. “There are any number of individuals who, though not insane in a legal sense, are nevertheless subjects of a psychosis. I suggest we stick to the medical terminology.”

“Psychotic, then. We’ve checked the mental hospitals time and again without result.”

“Not all psychotics are institutionalized, Inspector Queen,” said the psychiatrist dryly. “That’s exactly my point. If, for example, the Cat is a paranoid psychotic of the schizophrenic type, he may well be as normal in appearance and behavior — to the untrained eye — as any of us. He might remain unsuspected for a long time, during which he could do plenty of damage.”

“I never yet talked to one of you birds,” said the Inspector wearily, “that I didn’t come away with my chin dragging.”

“I gather, Dad,” said Ellery, “that Dr. Cazalis has more to disseminate than gloom. Go on, Doctor.”

“I was merely going to suggest the alternative, which is that he may be undergoing treatment, or may have been recently under treatment, by a private doctor. It would seem to me whoever’s committing these crimes is a local product, all seven murders having taken place in Manhattan, so a good place to start checking would be right in the borough here. It would mean, obviously, getting the co-operation of every man in the field. Each one, being briefed on what to look for, could comb his own records for patients, either current or discharged, who might be possibilities; and those possibilities would have to be questioned by trained people for clinical clues as well as investigated by you people in the routine way. It might be a total frost, of course, and there’d be a dickens of a lot of work—”

“It’s not the work,” muttered Inspector Queen. “It’s the trained personnel that’s bothering me.”

“Well, I’d be glad to do what I could to help. You heard my wife! I don’t have many patients these days—” the psychiatrist made a face — “I’m tapering off to retirement — so it wouldn’t work any special hardship on me.”

“Handsome offer, Dr. Cazalis.” The Inspector rubbed his mustache. “I’ll admit this has opened up a field we haven’t scratched. Ellery, what do you think?”

“By all means,” said Ellery promptly. “It’s a constructive suggestion and might well lead straight to our man.”

“Do I detect the faintest note of doubt?” smiled Dr. Cazalis. His powerful fingers were drumming on the table.

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t agree with my analysis.”

“Not entirely, Doctor.”

The psychiatrist stopped drumming.

“I’m not convinced that the crimes are indiscriminate.”

“Then you have information I haven’t.”

“No. I base my opinion on the same data, I’m sure. But, you see, there’s a pattern in these crimes.”

“Pattern?” Cazalis stared.

“The murders have a number of elements in common.”

“Including this one?” rasped the Inspector.

“Yes, Dad.”

Dr. Cazalis began to drum again. “I take it you don’t mean consistency of methods — the cords, strangling—”

“No. I mean elements common to the seven victims. I’m convinced they signify a plan of some sort, but what it arises from, what its nature is, where it’s going... Ellery’s eyes clouded.

“Sounds interesting.” Dr. Cazalis was studying Ellery surgically. “If you’re right, Mr. Queen, I’m wrong.”

“We may both be right. I have the feeling we are. ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.’” They laughed together. “Dad, I’d emphatically recommend that Dr. Cazalis’s suggestion be followed up, and right away.”

“We’re breaking every rule in the book,” groaned his father. “Doctor, would you consider taking full charge?”

“I? Of the psychiatric end?”

“That’s right.”

Dr. Cazalis’s fingers stopped exercising. But they remained, as it were, available.

“This is going to be as big a selling as a medical job. It won’t work unless every doctor in the field co-operates. With you heading that phase of the investigation — with your reputation and professional connections, Doctor — it’s a guarantee of thorough coverage I don’t think we’d get another way. As a matter of fact,” said the Inspector thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be a bad arrangement for other reasons. The Mayor’s already appointed my son special investigator. We’re covering the official end. With you in charge of a medical inquiry, it would give us a three-pronged offensive. Maybe,” said the Inspector, exhibiting his denture, “maybe we’d even turn up a little something.”

He said abruptly, “I’d have to get confirmation of this downtown, Dr. Cazalis, but something tells me the Mayor and the Commissioner will be very happy about the whole thing. Pending an okay, can I tell them you’re available?”