“Doctor Fitch is taking an entirely proper attitude,” Pottgeiter said, “in pointing out that abnormal psychology is a specialized branch, outside his own field. I wouldn’t dream, myself, of trying to offer a decisive opinion on some point of Roman, or Babylonian, history. Well, if the question of Doctor Chalmers’ sanity is at issue here, let’s consult somebody who specializes in insanity. I don’t believe that anybody here is qualified even to express an opinion on that subject, Doctor Whitburn least of all.”
Whitburn turned on him angrily. “Oh, shut up, you doddering old fool!” he shouted. “Look; there’s another of them!” he told the trustees. “Another deadhead on the faculty that this Tenure Law keeps me from getting rid of. He’s as bad as Chalmers, himself. You just heard that string of nonsense he was spouting. Why, his courses have been noted among the students for years as snap courses in which nobody ever has to do any work. …”
Chalmers was on his feet again, thoroughly angry. Abuse of himself he could take; talking that way about gentle, learned, old Pottgeiter was something else.
“I think Doctor Pottgeiter’s said the most reasonable thing I’ve heard since I came in here,” he declared. “If my sanity is to be questioned, I insist that it be questioned by somebody qualified to do so.”
Weill set his recorder on the floor and jumped up beside him, trying to haul him back into his seat.
“For God’s sake, man! Sit down and shut up!” he hissed.
Chalmers shook off his hand. “No, I won’t shut up! This is the only way to settle this, once and for all. And when my sanity’s been vindicated, I’m going to sue this fellow. …”
Whitburn started to make some retort, then stopped short. After a moment, he smiled nastily.
“Do I understand, Doctor Chalmers, that you would be willing to submit to psychiatric examination?” he asked.
“Don’t agree; you’re putting your foot in a trap!” Weill told him urgently.
“Of course, I agree, as long as the examination is conducted by a properly qualified psychiatrist.”
“How about Doctor Hauserman at Northern State Mental Hospital?” Whitburn asked quickly. “Would you agree to an examination by him?”
“Excellent!” Fitch exclaimed. “One of the best men in the field. I’d accept his opinion unreservedly.”
Weill started to object again; Chalmers cut him off. “Doctor Hauserman will be quite satisfactory to me. The only question is, would he be available?”
“I think he would,” Dacre said, glancing at his watch. “I wonder if he could be reached now.” He got to his feet. “Telephone in your outer office, Doctor Whitburn? Fine. If you gentlemen will excuse me. …”
It was a good fifteen minutes before he returned, smiling.
“Well, gentlemen, it’s all arranged,” he said. “Doctor Hauserman is quite willing to examine Doctor Chalmers—with the latter’s consent, of course.”
“He’ll have it. In writing, if he wishes.”
“Yes, I assured him on that point. He’ll be here about noon tomorrow—it’s a hundred and fifty miles from the hospital, but the doctor flies his own plane—and the examination can start at two in the afternoon. He seems familiar with the facilities of the psychology department, here; I assured him that they were at his disposal. Will that be satisfactory to you, Doctor Chalmers?”
“I have a class at that time, but one of the instructors can take it over—if holding classes will be possible around here tomorrow,” he said. “Now, if you gentlemen will pardon me, I think I’ll go home and get some sleep.”
Weill came up to the apartment with him. He mixed a couple of drinks and they went into the living room with them.
“Just in case you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Weill said, “this Hauserman isn’t any ordinary couch-pilot; he’s the state psychiatrist. If he gets the idea you aren’t sane, he can commit you to a hospital, and I’ll bet that’s exactly what Whitburn had in mind when he suggested him. And I don’t trust this man Dacre. I thought he was on our side, at the start, but that was before your friends got into the act.” He frowned into his drink. “And I don’t like the way that Intelligence major was acting, toward the last. If he thinks you know something you are not supposed to, a mental hospital may be his idea of a good place to put you away.”
“You don’t think this man Hauserman would allow himself to be influenced. … ? No. You just don’t think I’m sane. Do you?”
“I know what Hauserman’ll think. He’ll think this future history business is a classical case of systematized schizoid delusion. I wish I’d never gotten into this case. I wish I’d never even heard of you! And another thing; in case you get past Hauserman all right, you can forget about that damage-suit bluff of mine. You would not stand a chance with it in court.”
“In spite of what happened to Khalid?”
“After tomorrow, I won’t stay in the same room with anybody who even mentions that name to me. Well, win or lose, it’ll be over tomorrow and then I can leave here.”
“Did you tell me you were going to Reno?” Chalmers asked. “Don’t do it. You remember Whitburn mentioning how I spoke about an explosion there? It happened just a couple of days after the murder of Khalid. There was—will be—a trainload of high explosives in the railroad yard; it’ll be the biggest non-nuclear explosion since the Mont Blanc blew up in Halifax harbor in World War One. …”
Weill threw his drink into the fire; he must have avoided throwing the glass in with it by a last-second exercise of self-control.
“Well,” he said, after a brief struggle to master himself. “One thing about the legal profession; you do hear the damnedest things. … Good night, Professor. And try—please try, for the sake of your poor harried lawyer—to keep your mouth shut about things like that, at least till after you get through with Hauserman. And when you’re talking to him, don’t, don’t, for heaven’s sake, don’t, volunteer anything!”
The room was a pleasant,
