Doctor Calloway: “Exactly. And as Mary and Alex were lost in abandon, Cyrus pulled out the knife from his gown with his right hand, lifted it up and back, tightly clutched, and drove it into the middle of Alex’s back, with such force, that it pierced his heart. He must have died instantly from that alone. We’ll never know for sure because after the stabbing, Mary ran screaming to get help.
“It was at that point Cyrus opened the floor panel and tossed Alex’s body through it. It fell forty-six feet to the hardwood floor in the recreation room below. Mrs. Dudley was in there at the time. She said the body hit the floor headfirst.
“Cyrus’ first dream began minutes after the murder, when he took over the personality of Alex. You see, Franz, he concocted this whole illusion as an escape. He never recalls the murder because Cyrus is Alex, in his mind, of course; and when he comes out of it, he’s goes into a total collapse, virtually a vegetable, until the next year, for another forty-eight hours. Aggressive electric shock treatment has yielded no significant results, nor has guarded injections of Methyl amphetamine and Pentothal. A lobotomy is out of the question because of his dominant lethargic state all year.
“It is only these two days out of the year that we have to tie him down in his bed, in a straight-jacket. While he is speaking this fantastic story, over and over again, for the forty-eight hours. His bodily movements are violently erratic. There’s a point in the tale where he regurgitates. It’s always at the part where he says Mary said she couldn’t breathe and smelled a pungent vomit. He also uses the word “decomposing.” He’s actually choking on, as well as smelling his own vomit.
“In other parts of his exposition, he talks about falling, not being able to breathe, numbness in his body and not being able to move. I’m sure it is his subconscious mind recalling the fall into the well and the fact there was no air at the bottom. The numbness and not being able to move was caused by the cerebral injury to his head. And the decomposition he smells was most likely from something dead in the bottom of the well, a rat perhaps. And with his constant talk of darkness, the well must have been very dark. If we didn’t keep him bound during that time he would run all over the sanitarium, and probably kill someone else. The rest of the year, he’s completely docile.
“Oh yes, there’s another amazing thing. When his trance commences, as it has for the last six years, he makes one most curious change. He relates the discourse in the actual present year we’re in; it is the only reality he articulates. I have absolutely no explanation for his accuracy of present time. It is the most astonishing case of split personality I’ve ever seen; and we really have no treatment for it.”
Doctor Lederer: “Terrible business. No doubt Cyrus’ psychosis is the result of brain damage due to the accident in the well.”
Doctor Calloway: “Yes, because he was perfectly normal before. Our Nurse Holden witnessed the fatal stabbing, you know. She was only nineteen when she came here. Like Alex she graduated young from high school at fifteen, and got her nursing degree four years later. Mary started working here only one day before Alex came. They soon fell in love with each other. Another thing that makes this so tragic was the fact that Mary Holden was the fiancée of Alex Ramsey; they were going to be married the following week.”
Doctor Lederer: “Horrible.”
Doctor Calloway: “Anyway, it’s good to see you, Franz. I knew you were going to be in San Francisco for the psychiatric convention, and I’m glad I was able to get a hold of you before you returned to Zurich. Because of this case I didn’t go to the convention, the timing wasn’t right and I felt I needed to be here.”
Doctor Lederer: “Yes, the convention terminated on the 30th, the day Mister Ramsey’s other entity steps in for a while. I was going to leave yesterday afternoon, the thirty-first. In fact, I was getting ready to step out the door of my hotel when you called me. So I elected to put off going home and come here at once. After all, I have a personal interest in this case too.”
Doctor Calloway: “That’s funny; this shouldn’t be happening. Patient Ramsey’s pulse, it’s speeding up…rapidly. This shouldn’t be. It should be going down. Nurse Holden injected the sedative. He should be falling into his normal catatonic level. It has always taken no more than fifteen minutes for the patient to come out of the psychotic episode. Franz, now the pulse is exponentially dropping…this can’t be.”
Doctor Lederer: “You’re right, Niles. He’s going into a coma, no it’s cardiac arrest.”
Doctor Calloway: “Nurse Holden. Nurse Holden. Come here at once. Spirits of ammonia. Now.”
Nurse Holden: “No, Insulin a large dose. Over dose. It’s too late, Doctor Calloway. Cyrus Ramsey now lives…because I killed him.”
Doctor Lederer: “It is too late, Niles, Cyrus Ramsey is dead.”
Doctor Calloway: “Why, Nurse Holden? Why? No…I know why.”
Nurse Holden: “Yes, Doctor Calloway. I’ve suffered for six years…Six Years. ‘Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,’ the poet said. He was right, you know. But I also did a humane thing. You see, I’ve put Cyrus out of his hopeless ‘earthly’ misery…As…w-e-l-l…a-s…m-y…o-w-n…”
Doctor Calloway: “Nurse Holden. Nurse Holden. Mary.”
Doctor Lederer: “It’s no use, Niles. She’s dead. Obviously she injected herself with an overdose of insulin too.
Doctor Calloway: “I knew Mary was deeply in love with Alex and I strongly advised her to take a position at another institution. Angnew State Hospital in Napa, California surely would have hired her with my letter of recommendation, but she wouldn’t have it. I shouldn’t have let her talk me into her staying on here…after the murder. I’m just as much to blame.”
Doctor Lederer: “No, Niles, you mustn’t blame yourself. Not trying to sound too philosophical, but maybe everything happens for a reason, even this. I should like to think that all three of them are at peace…now.”
About the Author:
Douglas Howard Strang lives in the Monterey Peninsula. Castle on the Edge is his first book.
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Is the piece cursed, or are the deaths totally unrelated? Detective Clarence O’Day is unwilling to make the connection—until forty years after the first case.
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