The Deadly Percheron
To my wife, Rhea
Contents 1 Easy Money 7 2 Gift Horse 21 3 A Question of Motivation 36 4 Non Compos Mentis 46 5 In Which a Man Runs Down 60 6 Between Two Worlds 76 7 The Dilemma 91 8 Memory of Pain 105 9 Memory of Pain II 122 10 Total Recall 133 11 The Beginning of the End 145 12 Percherons Donāt Come Cheap 153 13 A Knife Stained Darkly 167 Epilogue 183
Easy Money
Jacob Blunt was my last patient. He came into my office wearing a scarlet hibiscus in his curly blond hair. He sat down in the easy chair across from my desk, and said, āDoctor, I think Iām losing my mind.ā
He was a handsome young man and apparently a healthy one. There were certainly no surface manifestations of neuroses. He did not seem nervousĀ āĀ nor did he seem to be suppressing a tendency to be nervousĀ āĀ his blue eyes were steady, his suit neat. The features of his face were strong, his shoulders were nicely made and except for a slight limp he carried himself well. I would not have believed he belonged in my consultation room if it hadnāt been for the outrageous flower in his hair.
āMost of us have similar apprehensions at some time or other,ā I said. āDuring an emotional crisis, or after periods of sustained overwork, I, too, have been uncertain of my sanity.ā
āCrazy people see things, donāt they?ā he asked. āThings that really arenāt there?ā He leaned forward as if he were afraid he might miss my answer if he did not get closer to me.
āHallucinations are a common symptom of mental disorder,ā I agreed.
āAnd when you donāt only see thingsĀ āĀ but things happen to youĀ āĀ crazy things, I meanĀ āĀ thatās having hallucinations, isnāt it?ā
āYes,ā I said, āa person who is mentally ill often lives in a world
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John Franklin Bardin
of his own imagining, an unreal world. He withdraws completely from reality.ā
Jacob leaned back and sighed happily. āThatās me!ā he said. āI am nuts, thank God! It isnāt really happening!ā
He seemed wholly at ease. His face had relaxed into a crooked grin that was rather nice. My information had obviously relieved him. This was unusual; I had never before met a neurotic who admitted wanting to lose his mind. Nor had I seen one who felt happy about it.
āThatās a pretty flower you have in your hair,ā I said. āTropical, isnāt it?ā I had to begin somewhere to find out what was wrong with him, and the flower was the only unnatural thing I could find.
He fingered it. āYeah,ā he said, āitās a hibiscus. I had a devil of a time getting it, too! Had to run all over town this morning before I found a place that had one!ā
āAre you so fond of them?ā I asked. āWhy not a rose or a gardenia? Theyāre cheaper, and surely easier to buy.ā
He shook his head. āNope. Iāve worn them at times, but it had to be a hibiscus today. Joe said it had to be a hibiscus today.ā
It began to look as if he might be insane. His conversation seemed incoherent and he was entirely too happy about the whole affair. I began to be interested.
āWho is Joe?ā I asked.
Blunt had taken a cigarette out of the box on my desk and was now fumbling with the lighter. He looked up in surprise. āJoe? Oh, heās one of my little men. The one in the purple suit. He gives me ten dollars a day for wearing a flower in my hair. Only he picks the flowers and thatās where it gets tough! He can pick the screwiest flowers!ā
He gave me some more of that crooked grin. It was almost as if he were saying āI know this sounds silly, but itās the way my mind works. I canāt really help it.ā
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The Deadly Percheron
āJoe is only the one who gives you flowers, is that right?ā I asked him. āThere are others?ā
āOh, sure there are others. I do things for a lot of little guys, thatās what has me worried! Only youāre mixed up about Joe. He doesnāt give me the flowers. I have to go out and buy them myself. He only pays me for wearing them.ā
āYou say that there are other ālittle guysāĀ āĀ who are they and what do they do?ā
āOh, thereās Harry,ā he said. āHeās the one who wears green suits and pays me to whistle at Carnegie Hall. And thereās EustaceĀ āĀ he wears tattersall waistcoats and pays me to give quarters away.ā
āYour quarters?ā
āNo, his. He gives me twenty quarters every day. I get another ten dollars for giving them away.ā
āWhy not keep them?ā
He frowned. āOh, no! I couldnāt do that! I wouldnāt get the ten dollars if I kept them. Eustace only pays me when I succeed in giving them all away.ā
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny new quarters. āThat reminds me,ā he said. āIām meeting Eustace at six, and I have all these to give away yet. Take one of them, will you please?ā
And he flipped a quarter on to my desk. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I did not want to antagonize him.
He watched me closely. āItās real, isnāt it?ā he asked.
āYes,ā I said. It was real.
āDo me a favour. Bite it.ā
āNo,ā I said. āI donāt have to bite it. I know a genuine coin when I see one.ā
āGo ahead and bite it,ā he said. āSo you know it isnāt counterfeit.ā
I took the quarter out of my pocket, placed it in my mouth and bit it. I wanted to humour him. āItās real enough,ā I said.
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John Franklin Bardin
His grin sagged, then disappeared. āThatās what worries me,ā he said.
āWhat?ā
āIf Iām crazy, doc, then you can cure me. But if Iām not crazy, and these little men are real, why then there are such things as leprechauns and they are giving away a tremendous treasureĀ āĀ and then weād all have to begin to believe in fairies, and thereās simply no telling where that would lead to!ā
At that point I thought I was on the verge of uncovering his neuroses. He seemed very excited, almost franticĀ āĀ and he had thrown a great deal of new information at me suddenly. I decided to ignore his reference to āleprechaunsā and āfairiesā for the time being, while continuing to question him about the one tangible piece of evidence: the quarter.
āWhat has this to do with Eustace and the quarters?ā I asked him.
āCanāt you see, doc? If Iām crazyĀ āĀ if I just imagine EustaceĀ āĀ what about the quarters? Theyāre real enough, arenāt they?ā
āPerhaps they belong to you,ā I suggested. āCouldnāt you have gone to your bank and withdrawn them, and then forgotten about it?ā
He shook his head. āNope. Itās not that easy. I havenāt been to my bank in months.ā
āWhy not?ā
āDonāt have to. Why go to the bank and draw money if youāre making thirty to forty dollars a day? I havenāt spent any of my own money since last Christmas.ā
āSince last Christmas?ā
āYeah. I met Joe on Christmas day. In an Automat. He didnāt know how to get coffee out of the gadget there, and I showed him. We fell to talking and he asked me if I wanted to make some easy money. I said, āSure, why not?ā I didnāt know then what a silly job it would turn out to be. But I was bored with the
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The Deadly Percheron job I hadĀ āĀ I was clerking in a haberdasheryĀ āĀ and anxious to do something more interesting. I really donāt have to work, you know. I have a steady income from a trust fund. But the trustee is a cranky old guy who always lectures me about the virtues of having a job. He says, āDoing a task well builds character.ā
āI started to work for Joe that very day and after a couple of weeks I met Eustace and then Harry through Joe. Joe was pleased with my work. He said I was trustworthy. He said the little men always had trouble finding guys they could trust.ā
I was fascinated. This promised to be one of the more curious cases of my career. Most abnormalities adhere closely to a few, well-established patterns. It is not often that you find a man so imaginatively insane as Jacob Blunt seemed to be.
āTell me, Mr Blunt,ā I asked, ājust what exactly is your trouble? It seems to me that you lead an excellent lifeĀ āĀ you certainly make enough money. What is the matter?ā
Once again I saw him discomfited. He looked away from me, and his grin came and went before he answered.
āThereās nothing wrong, I guess,ā he said. āThat is, if youāre sure that Joe and Harry and Eustace are hallucinations?ā
āThat is what I would say they probably are.ā
He smiled again. āWell, if youāre right, Iām just nuts and thatās fine. But what worries me is the dough! If those quarters are real, how can Eustace be imaginary?ā
āPerhaps, as I suggested before, you get them from your bank, and then forget you have made a withdrawal.ā
His smile broadened. He reached into his breast-pocket and pulled out his bankbook. He handed it across the desk to me. āWhat about this then, doc?ā he asked.
I looked at the figures in the book. There had been regular, quarterly deposits of a thousand dollars each for the past two years, but there had not been a withdrawal since 20 December 1942. I handed the bankbook back to him.
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John Franklin Bardin
āI tell you I havenāt been to the bank since before last Christmas,ā he repeated.
āWhat about the deposits?ā I asked.
āMy trustee makes those,ā he said. āFrom my fatherās estate. Itās in trust until Iām twenty-five.ā
I thought for a moment. If I could only get him to give me a coherent account of what had been happening to him, I might be able to inquire a little more deeply into the nature of his trouble. āSuppose you go back to the beginning and tell me all about it,ā I proposed.
He looked steadily at me, and his look made me feel uncomfortable. I had an idea that he knew how puzzled I was, and that my confusion disturbed him.
āItās as I told you,ā he said. āI met Joe in the Automat. He said heād give me a trial at flower-wearing and, if I was good at it, I could do it regular. He was so pleased with what he called my āearnestnessā that he recommended me to Harry and Eustace. Iāve been whistling for Harry and giving quarters away for Eustace ever sinceĀ . . .ā
This was getting us no place. Absurd as his fantasies were, they were consistent. āWhat do you do for Harry? Did you say whistle?ā I asked wearily.
āSure. At Carnegie Hall. At Town Hall. Sometimes in the balcony. Sometimes downstairs. I donāt have to do it loud, and I may sit off by myself so I donāt annoy anybody. Itās a lot of fun. Last night I whistled āPistol-Packinā Mamaā all through Beethovenās āEighthā. You oughtta try it sometime! It does you good!ā
I smothered a smile. I had begun to like the boy, and I did not want him to think I was laughing at him.
āThese ālittle menāĀ āĀ why did you say they hire you to do all these peculiar things?ā
He reached for another cigarette and fumbled again with my
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The Deadly Percheron lighter. Most of my patients smokeĀ āĀ I encourage them to because it makes them feel at easeĀ āĀ and it gives me an opportunity to watch their reactions to a petty annoyance if my cigar-lighter is balky. Often a man or woman who is superficially calm will reveal an inner nervousness by getting disproportionately aggravated at the futile spark. But not Jacob Blunt, he spun the tiny wheel patiently and phlegmatically until the unwilling flame appeared. Then he answered me.
āTheyāre leprechauns. Came originally from Ireland, but now theyāre all over the world. Theyāve had a tremendous treasure for all eternity and until recently they guarded it jealously. Now, for reasons of their own that I canāt get Eustace to tell me, theyāve started to distribute it. Joe says theyāve got hundreds of men working for them all over the country. Some pretty big men, too, Joe says. People youād never guess.ā
āYou mean they are fairies, like gnomes or elves?ā Sometimes if you can show a patient the infantile level of his obsession, you can give him a jolt that will start him back on the road to reality. āDonāt tell me you believe in fairies!ā I scoffed.
āTheyāre not fairies,ā he protested. āTheyāre little men in green and purple suits. Youāve probably passed them on the street!ā
I was getting nowhere. Soon I would be arguing with my patient on his terms.Ā I had to find a way to change the direction of the conversation. As it was, he was leading it, not I.
āSuppose you arenāt mentally ill, Mr Blunt, what then?ā
He grew serious. For the first time he seemed sick, anxious.
āThatās what has me worried, doc! What if Iām not crazy?ā
āThen the ālittle menā are real,ā I said. āThen there are such things as leprechauns. You donāt really believe that, do you?ā
He was silent, undecided. Then he shook his head violently, āNo, I wonāt believe it! It couldnāt be! I must be crazy!ā
I thought it was about time to reassure him. āLet me decide
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John Franklin Bardin
that,ā I said. āThatās my job. People who suffer from hallucinations such as yours usually defend them rigorously. They never entertain the possibility of a doubt as to the reality of their imagined experiences. But you do. That is encouraging.ā
āBut what about the money, doc? The quarters? Theyāre real enough, arenāt they?ā
āLetās not consider that part of it now. Suppose you tell me a little about yourself. Talk to me about your childhood, your youth, your girlĀ āĀ you have a girl, havenāt you?Ā āĀ whatever comes first to your mind.ā
I was hopelessly confused. Usually a psychiatrist can see the flaw in the logic of a schizoidās dream world. It is patently an irrational mechanism. The difficulty normally lies in getting the patient to talk about his inner life. Here, however, this was not the case. Jacob seemed eager to confide the details of his ālittle menā and their āeasy moneyā to me; but, besides doing that, he had presented a certain amount of evidence that at least some of his experiences were true, and if this were so he might not be insane. All I could do was to urge him to talk some more, hoping that he would say something that would help me help him.
āWhat will telling you the story of my life have to do with Eustace and Joe?ā he asked.
āTake my word for it that it may have a great deal of bearing on your problem,ā I said.
He was reluctant to begin. Nor was he as much at ease as he had been before. He had stopped smiling, and his eyes were dull.
āIām a Dead-End Kid,ā he said, āwho was raised on Park Avenue. You probably know all about my old man, John Blunt. He had more money than was good for him. Just about the time of the First World War he sold his carriage-making business to one of the big automobile companies and from then on he was rolling in dough. He bought himself a seat on the Exchange and
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The Deadly Percheron kept right on making money until he died of apoplexy a few years back. He left all his dough to me, but he tied it up in a trust so I canāt get at it until Iām twenty-five.ā
āHow old are you now?ā
āIām twenty-three. Iāve got two more years to go. But that isnāt what worries me. Iāve got plenty of dough.ā
āYes,ā I said, āI know.ā
āI really was a hell-raiser when I was a kid. I wore out two or three governesses a year. My mother died when I was a brat, thatās why I had the governesses. My old man never paid much attention to me. I used to run wild. I made friends with all sorts of kids. I always had more money than any of the others, and I was so much trouble to have around that none of the servants minded much if I didnāt come home for days at a time.ā
āHow old were you when you started running away from home?ā
āNine or ten.ā He dug into his coat pocket and took out his wallet. From it he drew a well-thumbed photograph which he handed to me. āThatās a picture of me at about that time,ā he said. āThe kid with me was a friend of mineĀ āĀ the ugliest little shrimp I ever did see. I called him Pruney.ā
I looked at the photograph. It was the kind a strolling photog rapher makes. Jacob looked surprisingly the sameĀ āĀ even as a child he had that lopsided grin. But it was the image of his small companion that held my eye. He was a small boy dressed in a dirty sailor suit, yet his face was uglier than I have ever seen on a child other than a cretin. It was an ugliness you would expect to find in a man of forty or more, not a young boy. And on the back of the photograph were scrawled the initials: E.A.B.
āWhat do these stand for?ā I asked.
Jacob looked at them, shrugged. āI donāt know. I had even forgotten about Pruney and this old picture untilĀ āĀ after my old
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John Franklin Bardin
manās deathĀ āĀ I was going through his desk one day and found this in a cubbyhole. I guess it meant something to him.ā
I stuck the photograph in my pocket. I wanted to see if my patient would resent this act of possession. But he did not seem to notice it. Baffled, I tried another tack: āWhere did you sleep when you were away from home?ā
āIn hotels. In the Park. I spent a lot of time around Central Park. Sometimes at the houses of friends. I always had a lot of friends.ā
āHardly a normal childhood,ā I said. āWhy didnāt your father stop you? Didnāt he know what you were doing?ā
Jacob laughed. He threw back his head and laughed loudly, a harsh, cynical laugh. āI tell you my old man didnāt give a damn,ā he said, āabout me, or anybody! He hired people to look after meĀ āĀ why should he bother?ā
I said nothing. Jacob stopped laughing. He did not go on. I did not know what to think. He had obviously had an extraordinary life so far, and not a healthy one. I was not surprised that he was neurotic. He had never had a family, no one had ever loved him. Or had there been someoneĀ . . . ?
āWhen did you first fall in love?ā I asked. Perhaps, the clue lay thereĀ . . .
āWhen I was fourteen. With the cigarette girl at the St Moritz. She was a blonde and she had nice legs. I remember I bought her a black silk nightgown for Christmas. Did you ever buy a girl a black silk nightgown?ā
His grin was contagious. āWhy, yes, I suppose so,ā I said.
āWho?ā
āMy wife, I guess.ā
āOh.ā He was disappointed. Then he said, āWell, I suppose we all do that at one time or another.ā
āBut not at fourteen. Thatās a rather tender age, donāt you think?ā
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