with mental problems?”
“Negative. Oh, you know as well as I do there’s bound to be something in everyone’s family closet, but that would be stretching it too far. All the patients in question—victims as well as survivors—were mentally sound. A few neurotics and insomniacs, but that’s about it. Among the men, that is. Among the women patients we found one case of melancholia, one case of depression associated with menopause, and one suicide attempt.” “A suicide attempt, you say?”
“One of those false alarms on the part of a typical neurotic. Poisoned herself under circumstances where she was sure to be saved. With the others it was just the opposite: not one of them had gone around proclaiming a suicidal mania. On the contrary, the repeated attempts give evidence of a ruthless determination.” “Why only in Naples?” Barth asked. “Weren’t there any cases reported in places like Messina or Etna?”
“No. Naturally we couldn’t check out every sulfur spring in the world, but a special group was assigned to investigate the ones in Italy. An absolute blank. There was a case of someone dying of a shark attack, another in a drowning accident.”
“Coburn died in a drowning accident, too, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but while temporarily deranged.”
“Has that definitely been proved?”
“Almost. We know relatively little about the man. Only that when he was served breakfast that time in his room, he hid his toast, butter, and eggs in an empty cigar box, and later put some food on the window sill before going out.”
“Of course! He suspected poison and wanted to see if the birds…”
“And he probably wanted to take the box to a toxicologist but drowned before he had a chance to do so.”
“What about the experts’ reports?”
“Two thick, typewritten volumes. We even resorted to the Delphi method of polling the experts.”
“Well?”
“The majority argued in favor of some unknown psychotropic drug similar in its effect to LSD, though not necessarily having a similar chemical composition.”
“An unknown drug? What a strange diagnosis.”
“Not necessarily unknown. These same experts believe it might be a combination of several known substances, since the symptoms of a synergy can seldom be deduced from the effects of its individual ingredients.”
“What was the minority opinion?”
“An acute psychosis of unknown etiology. You know how loquacious doctors and specialists can be when they’re in the dark about something.”
“Only too well. Would you mind giving me another rundown based on the typology of cause of death?”
“Not in the least. Coburn died an accidental or premeditated death by drowning. Brunner jumped from a window but survived it—”
“Excuse me, but whatever became of him?”
“He’s back in the States, in bad health but still alive. He has a vague recollection of certain things but doesn’t like to be reminded of them. All he can remember is having taken a waiter for a member of the Mafia and the feeling of being constantly shadowed. Shall I go on?”
“Please do.”
“Osborn was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. The driver of the car has never been found. Emmings twice tried to commit suicide. Died of a self-inflicted gun wound. Leyge, the Swede, drove to Rome and fell from the Colosseum. Schimmelreiter died in the hospital of natural causes, of a lung tumor, after going berserk. Heyne nearly drowned, then slashed his wrists in the hospital. Pulled through but later died of pneumonia. Swift escaped injury. Mittelhorn also tried to commit suicide twice—once with an overdose of sleeping pills, the second time by consuming iodine. Died of internal burns. Titz was killed in a highway accident. Lastly, Adams died in his hotel room at the Hilton in Rome, apparently from suffocation of unknown cause. The Brigg case is still a mystery.”
“Thank you. Of those who escaped alive, do any remember the initial symptoms?”
“Yes. One symptom was a trembling of the hands and a noticeable change in the taste of food. We found that out from Swift. Brunner definitely recalls the food’s having an ‘off taste’ but remembers nothing about any trembling of the hands. His testimony is probably the result of a residual psychic effect. At least that was the opinion of the medical experts.”
“The cause of death covers quite a spectrum, and the suicide victims always seemed to resort to whatever means was available at the time. Did you conduct an investigation based on the
“You mean did we investigate those who stood to gain financially? That would have been pointless, since there was nothing in the way of evidence to connect any of the heirs with the individual deaths.”
“Any press coverage?”
“A total news blackout. Of course the local papers ran obituaries on each of the fatalities, but these got lost among all the other accident reports. We were worried they might interfere with the investigation. Only one paper in the States, the name of which escapes me, made any mention of the tragic fates met by the patients of Dr. Stella. Stella himself insisted it was the work of some unscrupulous competitor. Even so, last year he didn’t send a single patient to Naples.”
“So he stopped! Doesn’t that look suspicious?”
“Not necessarily. One more incident and the publicity could have cost him more than he stood to make on the deal. He couldn’t have been making very much on the kickbacks.”
“I now propose we play the following game,” suggested Barth. “We’ll call it ‘How to die a mysterious death in Naples.’ The purpose of the game will be to find out how one qualifies for such a death. Will you help me out?”
“By all means. The list of qualifications will include a person’s sex, age, build, physical disabilities, financial status, plus some other characteristics that I’ll try to specify. To qualify one would have to be a male in his fifties, rather tall, the athletic or the pyknic type, a bachelor, a widower, or divorced, but in any case single during the time spent in Naples. As is evident from the Schimmelreiter case, financial prosperity is not an absolute requirement. Nor should one know any Italian, or if so, only a smattering.”
“None of the victims was fluent in Italian?”
“Not one. Now for the more specific characteristics. To be a candidate one should not be a diabetic.”
“Is that so?”
“There wasn’t a single diabetic in the whole series. On the other hand, there were five known diabetics among the rheumatic patients sent to Naples by Dr. Stella, all of whom returned home safely.”
“How do your experts explain that?”
“I’m not really sure I can answer that. Some ascribed it to the patient’s metabolism, to the formation of acetone derivatives that might possibly have acted as an antidote, though this was challenged by some of the less distinguished—but in my opinion more honest—experts. Acetone derivatives form in the blood when an organism begins to suffer the effects of an insulin deficiency. But nowadays every diabetic is warned to take his prescribed medicine regularly. The next requirement is an allergy. Hypersensitivity to grass, hay fever, asthma. But then there were people who met all of the above conditions and still managed to escape unharmed. Take the patient with the strawberry allergy, or the one with hay fever.”
“Single, well-to-do men who took the mineral baths, were athletic in build, suffered from an allergy, and didn’t know Italian?”
“They even used the same antihistamines as the others, in addition to Plimasine.”
“What’s that?”
“An antihistamine with the added ingredient Ritalin. Ritalin is ?-phenyl-?-piperidineacetic acid methyl ester hydrochloride. The first substance in Plimasine, Pyribenzamine, neutralizes the symptoms of allergic reaction but causes drowsiness and a diminution of the reflexes. That’s why drivers are advised to take it in combination with Ritalin, which is classified as a stimulant.”
“You’re quite a chemist, I see!”
“I’ve been taking Plimasine for years. Anyone who has an allergy is to some extent his own doctor. In the States I used to take an equivalent medication, since Plimasine is manufactured in Switzerland. Charles Decker, the
