Encounter with the Enchanter

‘He’s probably the sanest madman you’ll ever meet,’ Heatherwick said. ’Very articulate, very clever – and very manipulative. The staff are terrified of him. Won’t go into his room or anywhere near him. So be on your guard.’

The two of us were sat facing one another in the rich but discreet good taste of his office. A frieze of certificates and diplomas attesting to the Director’s academic and professional achievements ran round its oak-panelled walls. Heatherwick, a tall, athletic-looking man, always reminded me with his bushy but well-trimmed moustache, horn-rimmed glasses and immaculate tweeds of the type of actor chosen by Hollywood to undertake ‘distinguished’ roles – senators, ambassadors and the like. His voice resonated integrity, trustworthiness and the unshakeable confidence that is born of long experience. I could not escape the feeling, though, that Heatherwick did not like me or even trust me, unsurprisingly perhaps in view of my somewhat rocky professional record. The feeling was mutual. Nevertheless he had had a gap needing to be filled at short notice and had no doubt decided I would do, at least for the time being. 

‘Yes, I think it’s time has come for you start doing some one-on-one sessions with patients. I suggest you kick off with Professor Casimir Radziwill. A most interesting case.’ Was I mistaken to detect a touch of malice and even covert complicity behind his words?’

‘By all means. But tell me a bit more about him. What’s his background? You say he’s a professor?’

‘Was. He held the Chair in Experimental Psychology at the University of Cracow. Thirty years ago he wrote what is still accepted as the standard text on neuro-linguistic programming. For some reason or other he resigned or was forced out. There was some sort of scandal – I don’t know the precise details.’

 ‘Since then he has led what is called a “chequered career”, including a spell on the stage earning a living as an illusionist. Heatherwick sniffed. ‘At other times in his life he has been a monk, an explorer and writer, a political consultant and a financial advisor. He is believed to have amassed – and lost – several large fortunes. He is fluent in a dozen languages or more. But trouble has dogged him throughout his career. He’s served spells in prison for fraud and embezzlement. There are also rumours –unproven, I ought to add – that he was involved in several murders but nothing could be proved. 

‘He comes from a very ancient family of Polish aristocrats. His branch of the family used to own extensive estates in the east of the country but they were seized during the communist period. You’d be surprised how many of the great and good – and the not so good – he’s on first name terms with. He gets quite a range of visitors – actors, businesspeople, politicians, underworld figures, a minor royal, a rock dinosaur or two, even a Roman Catholic Cardinal.’ I rather got the impression Heatherwick rather enjoyed the pseudo-contact with celebrities afforded him by the professor’s celebrity guests. But, as I say, be on your guard when you meet him. He likes to play games, mind games – and he’s very, very good at them. The staff is terrified of him, won’t go into his room or anywhere near him.’

‘So, what else is wrong with him apart from being a crook and a star-fucker?’

Heatherwick frowned at my choice of words.

‘My considered diagnosis is severe schizophrenia accompanied by delusions of omnipotence combined unusually with constant, acute paranoia. But he’s not here under any restraint. He came here voluntarily, pays his own fees and would be free to leave at any time’

‘Hmm, I see. And your future prognosis?’

Heatherwick shrugged. ‘Hard to say. None probably. He might respond to medication but I doubt we could ever persuade him to take any drugs. Given his manipulativeness and cunning, the best strategy to deal with him might be one of secure containment combined with unwavering professional detachment.’

‘I see.’

Heatherwick got to his feet. Anyway I’ll take you along to meet him. Please follow me.’

So saying, Heatherwick led me out of his office and through the cavernous Victorian corridors of the clinic to Professor Radziwill’s room. As he said, it would be my first one-to-one with a patient. I had spent most of my first few weeks in the clinic reading up somewhat bland and uninformative case histories, doling out sedatives and organising quizzes, games of bingo and communal sing-songs. I was slightly apprehensive, especially in the light of what he had said about Professor Radziwill. 

I had found the clinic a peculiar institution – it was hardly what you would call ‘cutting edge’ in its approach. But it was the best I could get at short notice, having quitted my previous post rather abrupt, indeed violent circumstances. Founded in the nineteenth-century as the Henry Heywood Greene Home for Mentally Distressed and Infirm Gentlefolk, it had been established to meet the needs of wealthy families who wanted embarrassing or difficult members held in comfortable but secure seclusion. Now more known as as Heywood House, it still in many ways held to its original remit. 

The patients, who were for the most part neurotics or compulsives and phobics of one kind or another along with a sprinkling of ex- alcoholics and drug addicts, were all from affluent backgrounds. I got the impression many of them were simply moneyed inadequates – troubled trustafarians who preferred the padded comfort of Heywood House to the harsh realities of life outside. It contained a handful of serious psychotics but these, including Professor Radziwill were safely and soundlessly housed in a separate modern wing.

The inmates lived well, even luxuriously, and deservedly so given the scale of fees the clinic charged. They all had their own spacious and well-appointed rooms. Their meals were prepared by a team of cordon bleu French chefs who indulged the patients’ every culinary whim. Compared to some of the grim psychiatric lock-ups in which I had served it resembled nothing so much as a four star country club. Set in extensive, well-tended grounds it offered a golf course, tennis courts, a large swimming pool and a state-of-the-art gymnasium. There were frequent picnics, games, amateur theatricals and other entertainments on the lawns and inside, within the spacious reception rooms of the clinic, cocktail parties were regularly held to which patients were invited and where they could freely imbibe so long as it did not interfere with their medication.

The staff lived well too. Dr Heatherwick, I noted on my first day, owns a car of a size and glossiness that would not look out of place in Bel Air or Cannes. I too was handsomely remunerated – something I had absolutely no objections to.

The tread of his expensive shoes by the institution’s deep carpets, Heatherwick led me to the new wing where he halted in front of Professor Radziwill’s door. ‘You’ll find his room’s a bit bleak compared to our other patients’ rooms. But that’s the way he likes it. Radziwill specifically requested that most of the furnishings and other comforts be removed. Anyway I’ll leave you here. But, as I said be very, very careful.’ With that he unlocked the door of the room and turned and left. Somewhat nervously I tapped on the door and, on hearing a cry of ‘enter’, went in.

The room was, as Heatherwick had said, bare in the extreme, with carpet-less floors and only a small bed and a wardrobe in addition to a table with a single chair. A door opened onto a small functional bathroom. Through a barred window a stretch of sky could be glimpsed. As to its occupant, my first impressions were if anything disappointing. He was at first sight a rather unimpressive individual. Neatly dressed in a simple grey suit, white shirt  and an understated tie, he was of middle height and average build and had white hair cropped close to his scalp. His eyes, though, were truly remarkable, not to say alarming with pupils so large that they reduced the surrounding irises to thin circles of tawny-gold. He stared at me silently for several seconds from behind his table. I found it hard to tear my gaze away from those extraordinary eyes. It was as if you were being watched by some sort of predator, a hawk say, but a hawk possessed of human intelligence.

‘Good morning, Professor,’ I began, somewhat hesitantly, still disconcerted by those strange eyes. ‘I’m Toby. I hope I’m not disturbing you but I’ve been sent along by the Director along to have a little chat with you.’

‘Actually you are disturbing me but never mind. And, oh, if it’s all the same to you I’d prefer to be addressed as count not professor.’ (I made a mental note:  strike one to the Count.)

‘So tell me … er, Count … what exactly is the trouble?’ I stupidly blurted, still disconcerted by those strange eyes. 

‘Trouble? Me?’ he said, apparently mystified. ‘I’m not conscious of any trouble? I feel completely comfortable, I can assure you. Perhaps it’s you who are troubled. You certainly look as if you are.’ (Strike two!)

Feeling more than a little exposed standing in front of him as he sat half concealed behind his table, I found myself unable to frame an adequate reply.

‘Perhaps to put you at your ease I could show you something that might interest you. Would you like me to proceed?’

I nodded, and he held out two clenched fists and slowly opened them. The right one cupped a small bright silver sphere, which he rolled gently from side to side across his palm. The other was empty. He closed both hands. ‘Now tell me, which one holds the ball?’ he asked, fixing his hawk-like gaze upon me.

I pointed somewhat impatiently at his left hand, annoyed at having to participate in such a childish charade.

He opened his hands one after the other, and predictably enough both were empty.

‘Really, Radziwill, I expected more of you than slight of hand. That’s a cheap trick I’ve seen performed a dozen times on the stage!’

‘All right but what about this then? Look up over your head!’ he shouted. I looked up and to my astonishment the silver ball suddenly materialised out of the ceiling plaster and came hurtling down towards the top of my head. I ducked and it bounced harmlessly off my back, but left a sting I felt for several minutes.

‘How on earth did you …?’

He gave a tight smile. ‘Actually it was another of what you call my “cheap tricks”. You see, from the very first moment you came through that door I recognised that you were unusually susceptible – what is called in the trade a “sensitive”. Concentrating on a bright moving object can be a helpful first step in the process of hypnosis. As I rolled the silver ball to and fro in my hand I cast you into a light trance. Then I simply hurled the ball up to the ceiling, and brought you out of your trance by commanding you to look up over your head. To you it must have looked as if the ball magically sprang out of the ceiling. Am I right?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted reluctantly. I felt out-manoeuvred and resolved somehow to seize back the initiative. 

‘So then what are you, Count Radziwill, some sort of magician? Is that what you call yourself?’

He paused and steepled his long bony fingers. ‘I’m afraid we are here confronted with an issue of some lexical inexactitude. “Magician” just won’t do. It smacks too much of theatrical legerdemain, although I must confess that at certain points in my career penury has compelled me to earn a pittance on the stage. For the same reason we must reject “conjuror”, although it might be acceptable in its original sense of “spirit conjuration”. “Sorcerer” won’t do either. Coming from the Latin for “sortes” or “fates”, it refers to the practice of consulting the viscera of chickens in order to determine the success of particular actions. Now I ask you, can you honestly see me poring over the innards of dead poultry? “Enchanter? Too fey. “Wizard”. Sounds like something out of a fantasy novel. No, I plump for the good old English word “witch”. I am a witch, one who unashamedly practises the ancient and noble trade of witchcraft.

‘And it is indeed a craft, one that has to be mastered slowly and painfully. As they say, no pain, no gain. Witchcraft is the loneliest of trades, at once intensely personal and utterly impersonal. You have to be prepared to commit yourself utterly and at the same time transcend your ego. To learn it you can forget about covens and sorcerers’ apprentices and the like. What you have to learn you must learn by yourself. Ancient books of spells and rituals are worthless – all that Alastair Crowley nonsense. Pure hocus pocus! And you can forget drugs too. They’re a short cut to nowhere. It is a harsh demanding discipline, treading a tightrope over a pit. For there are dangers. None who embark on it return unchanged. But, it works, I can assure you, magic really works.’

‘So magic trumps rational objective enquiry? Do you totally discount conventional science?’

‘Far from it. Science works too. Vaccines work, planes stay up – at least most of the time. It is a question of applying different tools to manipulate reality. You need to alternate between the two as circumstances demand. Science calls my craft superstition – a fog of ignorance and darkness from which it gradually freed itself. Thus, in science’s view, ancient alchemy gave way to modern chemistry. But in the end the two routes meet at the same single point. It’s happening already. If alchemy yielded to chemistry, classical physics has been overturned by quantum physics. What after all is matter? The deeper you probe the more vague and indeterminate the universe becomes – and the more interconnected. It has been posited that a change in the state of one particle will instantly change that of another, even it is at the far end of the universe! We talk as if mind and mater are two separate things – as “mind over matter”. But they are not. Ultimately they are one and the same. Everything is plugged into the same circuit board – or if that metaphor is too hard and tangible, silk in the same spider’s web.’

‘But tell me, how did it all begin?’

‘Like most things, in a small, almost trivial way. I began to notice things almost out of the corner of my eye. Silly little things: glitches, accidents, patterns of ill  or even good luck, coincidences and synchronicities. It gradually became aware of an underlying pattern rather like a palimpsest pressing or pricking through the surface of everyday reality.

‘At first I semi-humorously identified these little events as the work of creatures I called “gremlins”. And indeed there are such imps of mischief, and they have plagued and frustrated me all my life. They sense that like you I’m a sensitive. But then I realised there are other greater forces – spirits, daemons, powers and principalities. If you are strong and bold enough you can use them to bend the pattern to your purposes. I say “bend” but that is not really the right word. It is more a matter of alignment with forces than manipulating them.’

Play him, I thought. Play the fish.

‘Fascinating! But do tell me, Count Radziwill, what is it like being a witch? On a day-to-day basis, I mean.’

‘You patronise me, I think. But I do not mind rising to your bait. How can you describe in words something that lies outside the realm of language.  It is unlike anything you could ever imagine. Can a blind man envisage colour? Imagine if your eyes were open not just to that tiny fraction of the electro-magnetic spectrum we call visible light but its full rainbow. What colours would you see, what shapes and patterns – what strange and wonderful forces at play! It is ecstatic, liberating, empowering. Why do you think witch after witch in former centuries chose to go to the stake rather than recant. You would endure the worst agony the world could inflict to forgoing even the briefest moment of that glorious, perilous bliss. For make no mistake, it is also dangerous, terribly dangerous.’

‘Is what you do black magic?’

He snorted. ‘White, black – pah! – what do these words mean or add? Such simplistic moral values are irrelevant and inappropriate to the mystery of the craft – they are category mistakes!’

‘Have you ever cursed people?’

‘From time to time. But I would not recommend it to the inexperienced. There are no free lunches even in the world of the occult. There is always a price to be paid. Somewhere and sometime along the line they can boomerang back on you. You yourself will have a bad accident, say, or lose all your money or get cancer. There seems to be some cosmic law of balance at work. Even if you take the most elaborate precautions they may get you in the end.’

‘But you have killed men, I understand.’

He shot a look at me out of his weird eyes. ‘Who told you that? But, yes, I will openly hold up my hand to that. But I should add my victims all heartily deserved it.  ‘As they say in the Mafia, there was nothing personal in it, it was strictly business. They were all dangerous, destructive individuals – loose cannons who had to be seen to.’ I was struck by how seamlessly Radziwill could switch from the dialect of the senior common room to that of the underworld.

‘Anyway I am through with all of that now. I’m just a quiet inoffensive old man. Mild weather control, finding the odd lost object and a little gentle treasure hunting are all I attempt nowadays.’ For some reason I did not entirely believe him.

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘Ringed by the ignorant, the obtuse and the demented, what better concealment and protection? No, I’m afraid I pushed things too far, trailed my coat, took to many chances. Now there are certain quarters that want me seen to.’’

‘So you’re in hiding here then? But what about all those visitors of yours. Aren’t they any danger?’

‘No, flunkeys and followers, the whole pack of them No, they’re no threat.’

‘Isn’t there another quarter you should fear? The flames of hell, I mean, eternal damnation in view of what you’ve done? Are you quite happy to ignore traditional religious warnings?’

Radziwill shook his head. ‘No those warnings don’t trouble me. You could say organised religion is a step in the right direction in that it addresses the world of the spirit. But what a hesitant blundering step it is. Blind faith – how true that phrase is! And how constricting. Joining a church is a bit like signing up as deckhand on a supertanker with no say over its destination when you’d be better off in your own craft exploring all the interesting little coves and gullies on your own. . By the way I object on the same grounds to the cult of Satanism. It’s simply the same in reverse, Stalinist, another form of control imposed on one. Or, to change the metaphor, Christianity and Satanism are fundamentally the same: huge monoliths, statist and corporate – the Fords and Microsofts of the spiritual sphere. Whereas I am a like a small businessman a start-up entrepreneur who forges his own destiny by experiment and innovation.’

‘Do I still fail to convince you? Well, let me try something more personal. Let me tell you a bit about you. Your earliest memory, from the age of three, is of a shaggy white pony galloping round and round the small field next to your parents’ house. Before you fell asleep as a little boy you were often scared by face you thought you detected in the grain of your wardrobe. And you were right to be scared. It bore a striking resemblance to the face of a little-known minor demon. Perhaps, accidently in passing he may have placed a curse on the tree from which the wood of the wardrobe was cut, Although as I know to my cost he  rarely does anything accidently in passing. 

‘Or a more recent detail then: you abruptly left or were forced out from from your previous post after head-butting a senior consultant in a dispute over a diagnosis. In my view you were very lucky to get away with a resignation and not a charge of assault. Or even more recently: this morning you had a boiled egg for breakfast and two pieces of toast, one of which got burnt and which you hurled into the waste bin in a fit of pique. More? You have precisely twenty-eight pounds on you at the moment, two ten pound notes, one five and three one pound coins. One of the notes is Scottish and if you look carefully at the coins, you will find one is a forgery.’

‘Have I not embarrassed you enough yet? Well then, your first successful attempt at masturbation – successful in the sense of resulting in a small emission – was at age thirteen fantasising about the naked body of your art teacher, Miss Tillotson. My, my, the things you had her get up to in the privacy of your bedroom! Your latest romantic liaison if I may so describe it ended with Jenny walking out on you and slamming the door behind her. I think I can quote her exact words: “ You’re a nothing but a wanker and total narcissist, a Peter Pan who won’t grow up, a frozen child, utterly irresponsible, feckless and shiftless!’

By now my face was beetroot red and my fists balled in fury. ‘How do you know all this? Wait, I know how you did it. When you put me under you interrogated me and somehow delved into my subconscious. (Truth to tell I had forgotten several details myself, including Miss Tillotson.)  Some items you must have picked up from gossip in the clinic, others you arrived at by cold reading.’

Radziwill laughed. ‘Not guilty. I couldn’t possibly have unearthed all that detail in the short time I put you under. And I haven’t practised cold reading for years. As to listening to gossip, no-one ever says a solitary social word to me in this institution. But there are none so blind as those who will not see. Anyway enough of this. I have given you freely of my time and attention. In return I want to ask a favour of you.’

‘What kind of favour?’

‘The kind of favour that is also a challenge. I want you to be my postman and to deliver this note to the address written on the back.’

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was covered with cabalist symbols arranged in an intricate pattern. On the back was scrawled an address: ’14 Ranleigh Lane, D—-.’

‘What the devil is this?’ I exclaimed.

‘Let’s say it’s a sort of release request or an application for a passport, a laissez passer. If you accept the mission when you get to the house, you will find the door opens at your touch. Go up one flight of stairs and turn to the third door on your left. It too will open at your touch. Inside, you will find yourself in a tall red painted chamber lit by a single black candle on a table in the centre of the room, the far end of which is hidden behind a black velvet curtain. The first thing that you will notice is a strong hot scent, both sweetish and foetid. You may hear some faint scratching and snuffling. Do your best to ignore it. Walk over to the table, counting your steps as you go – that is most important. Place the note on the table with characters face up. Then turn and leave. 

‘At some point the candle may go out and you may hear the swish of the curtain being drawn back. This, for you, will be the moment of maximum terror but whatever you do, do not look round or utter a sound. Continue to the door, counting off your steps, and leave, closing it behind you. If you these instructions you should come to no harm. Your own ignorance and naivety will furnish additional layers of protection.’

‘And why on earth should I do this for you?’

‘Well, and why not? Why not satisfy the whims of a harmless old man. Besides, it will be a valuable educational experience and also a test of a kind.’Radziwill laughed. ‘Actually I have caught you in a double bind, my friend, trapped you between your scepticism and your fear. If you flunk it can assure you that you will regret it to your dying day. In fact it will end by driving you mad. Either way I win. Either I get my message delivered or you are brought up against the limits of your scepticism.

‘But now you must leave. It is almost time for my afternoon stroll in the grounds. The orderlies will be coming shortly to unlock my door and let me out. Of course I could unlock it myself from here without stirring a muscle but I don’t want to alarm them. I’m considerate that way. Sensitive.’

The hawk’s gaze left me. I felt not so much released as cancelled, annulled. In the corridor I carefully checked my money. It came to exactly twenty-eight pounds and, yes, one of the notes was Scottish and one did look distinctly dubious.

After work that day I decided to take up the Count’s challenge after all. As I drove the twenty miles to D—- I repeatedly asked myself what I was playing at aligning myself with the fantasies of a lunatic. But he had nettled me and I was damned if I was going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded in intimidating me. 

As I arrived dusk was already falling but I found Ranleigh Lane without too much difficulty. I parked, got out and made my way down the lane, a cul-de-sac of nineteenth-century house, many of them dilapidated and some clearly derelict buried behind their dark overgrown gardens. But then a shock – number fourteen no longer existed. In its place was a burnt-out plot, smelling of smoke and damp charred wood. The pungent smell made my eyes water and my nose to tingle. I pulled out the scrap of paper just to check I had the right number and to surprise a gust of wind whisked it out of my hand and onto a patch of smouldering ashes where it at once burst into livid green flames before being consumed.

I stood there stunned for a time, then decided to investigate further. Finding a house that looked as if it was still occupied I knocked on the front door. No answer so I knocked again, this time with considerable force. A pale face, half hidden by a mass of straggly white hair, eventually appeared in one of the windows. I found myself calling her mentally the White Hag. ‘What is it?’ she croaked. 

‘What’s the story next door?’ I shouted.

‘There was a fire. Two nights ago, ‘she replied. ‘No-one knows how it started. The fire brigade came but there was nothing they could do. No-one was in – at least no remains were found.’

‘Maybe you can help me. I had a message I was supposed to deliver there. Who lived in that house?’

‘I’ve no idea. People came and went from time to time – odd-looking people but I kept well out of their way, Sometimes there were noises and strange lights.’

‘Do you happen to know if they kept any animals there?’

‘Animals – I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ With that she withdrew from the window.

Well, thanks a bunch, White Hag, I thought. But she had told me all I needed to know. My errand was ended, mission aborted. I drove back to the Heywood that night generally relieved that I had avoided an ordeal but also strangely frustrated. Now I would never know whether I would have had the nerve to mount the stairs to the Red Chamber and go in.

I lay low for a couple of days after getting back from D—-, not wishing to confront Radziwill with failure of his errand. Then I was unexpectedly summoned to the Director’s office.

‘Oh there you are,’ Heatherwick said. ‘I never asked how you got on with the professor?’

I made some noises about him being a rather unusual and interesting case.’’

‘Yes, he is – or rather was. Anyway I thought I would let you know he checked out this morning. Didn’t say why. Just settled his bill and left. He seemed in a somewhat agitated state but as he was here voluntarily there was nothing I could do to stop him. To be honest I’m rather relieved he’s gone. A potentially disruptive influence.’

I at once sought out Undy, the aged retainer who, as the Heywood joke goes, has been the guardian of the gate since time immemorial, and questioned him about the manner of Radziwill’s sudden departure.

‘He tore right past me,’ Undy reported. ‘Het up, he was. In a right old state. Then off he went scurrying up the road carrying his little suitcase and zigzagging from side to side and looking back over his shoulder. Finally he disappeared over the brow of the hill.’

*

Two days later a body was found about a mile away a short distance from the road in some woods. Dr Heatherwick was called to the morgue by the police and confirmed the body was Radziwill’s. As to the cause of a death, a wound was discovered in the autopsy entering his left shoulder and leaving from his right hip, passing through several vital organs including the heart. His face was contorted apparently in an expression of absolute horror and there were no signs of a struggle – no other bruises or abrasions. There was no trace of a weapon but some branches and foliage apparently snapped off with considerable force lying on or around the body. The police’s theory is that he was killed by a shard of ice falling from a plane that completely melted away after doing its deadly work. Imagine that – a man like that ending up speared by an icicle of frozen urine from a passing plane-load of businessmen and tourists!

Personally, though, I’m not convinced by their theory. The nearest airport is some seventy miles away and I have never spotted a single jet liner in the skies above the Heywood in all the time I’ve been here. So I’m keeping an open mind but also, I might add, a very, very apprehensive one. I often wonder if things would have turned out differently if I had managed to deliver his message. 

Incidentally, I’m still at the Heywood. It’s quite a cushy number after all, extremely well paid and offering ample social opportunities. A few months ago I married one of the patients, Sophie Goldberg of the famous banking dynasty. She’s sweet but a delicate and highly strung creature. I like to think my proximity has added to her stability. Her money has certainly added to mine. We’ve just bought a small manor near the Heywood so I can travel more easily to my duties. My other patients seem to like me, and why not?  As much as possible I leave them to their own devices and I make a point of respecting their privacy. I’m sensitive that way. I’ve also become quite fond of Dr Heatherwick. Such a dear old thing, Walter, a perfect surface whose smoothness is unmarred by so much as a single centimetre of depth! I’m his right hand man nowadays. He doesn’t do a thing without asking me first. In fact we’ve become quite inseparable, perfectly aligned, you could say. It’s assumed that in due course I will succeed him. Certainly that’s my game plan.

Of course I’ve changed myself, as I’ve aged. Some people say that I was always a cold-hearted bastard but now I’ve really gone to the dark side. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I should hold up my hand for that. Maybe I picked up something from old Radziwill or from that face in my boyhood wardrobe? Only joking. Oh, one more thing. I went back to the Professor’s old room after the inquest and there, buried in the dust in a corner, I came across his little silver ball. I still hang on to it as a reminder of him, and it has also come in handy in my hypnosis sessions with patients. Token, tool and talisman, I really treasure it. I can feel its reassuring weight in my pocket even at this moment.