The
“Ta failte romhat, please have a seat.” Professor O’Connell leaned back in his maroon leather-bound chair and observed Frank through the lower halves of his reading glasses. “That’s a form of welcome in our native tongue. Do you have any Irish? You are, I understand, something of a polyglot.”
Frank made a gesture by opening the fingers of both hands slightly, palms upwards as if to suggest that his personal store of language was unfortunately empty of Irish. In fact his mind was taking in the academic paraphernalia that littered the room: heavy tomes in German mostly concerned with behaviour and the physiology of the nervous system, diagrams of the brain and main sensory organs in dissection and most appealingly, the instruments used for carrying out such dissections held in a large case mounted on the wall beside an ill-hung portrait of the British monarch.
“We have been taking a close interest in you, Mr Kørner, for some six weeks now. You are an interesting man, Mr Kørner, an educated man, even a brilliant man; therefore I propose to share my opinions with you. Mr Kørner; this is not something I am in the practice of doing with my patients, and I hope you will soon see why I have chosen to do so.”
“You said ‘we’,” Frank interjected, “To what others are you referring?” He sensed the presence of some kind of forbidden society in the room. This had been Browne’s weakness; but it was not the perverted appetites of the flesh that he felt connected the professor to some others, it was something more structured; there was intellect behind it.
“The police, of course,” replied O’Connell, a little too hastily. “You know that they were sure you were involved with five deaths, including that of the eccentric Browne. That number has, by the way, increased. Two of their officers were examining the cargo that Browne’s barge was carrying and suffered a similar fate to the landlord himself.” Frank tried not to smile “And are they persevering in trying to link me to these unfortunate deaths?”
“Let us just say that they are putting a great deal of time into persuading me to find you dangerously unbalanced. They do not want to see you leaving this institution alive.”
Frank felt the tension leave his body. It was now clear that the professor had it in mind to do more than share opinions with him. An offer was about to be made and since his intuition had already detected some clandestine purpose, O’Connell was about to hand Frank the keys to his soul. The professor bent forward over the desk and lowered his voice, seeking eye-contact above the lenses; man to man without any barrier save the gaseous molecules and microscopic debris that comprised the air. “Mr Kørner; I do not think you have a dangerous mental condition aside from genius and an unfortunate form of hysteria which misguides your affections. You know of what I speak?”
Frank cast his eyes down in a look of shame which he hoped would convince the professor of the accuracy of his diagnosis. O’Connell relaxed; he felt he had discovered a secret which Frank would strive his utmost to keep from general knowledge. “I see we understand each other,” the psychiatrist continued. “Many in the more intellectual or theological levels of society share your weakness Mr Kørner. We regard it as a developmental aberrance caused by trauma in the early years, but we are scientists. Society at large has a more brutal way of characterising your disgusting sexual practices, and punishes your type accordingly. Discretion is a noble quality, do you not think?”
The image of O’Connell being consumed by the bone gas vied in Frank’s mind with that of the former being subjected to a particularly violent anal assault by a memorable performer he had witnessed in Browne’s company in
“Splendid. You are aware. No doubt, that this country has been repeatedly ravished by the British,” said O’Connell, pausing whilst Frank reached for his handkerchief to disguise his humour as he visualised a team of massive British naval personnel buggering the professor serially and without mercy. “Yes, it is a tragedy; and from time to time your European confreres have attempted to come to our aid. Mr Kørner, I believe that the seven deaths I referred to before were indeed caused by you. I believe that the cargo impounded from Browne’s barge by the police constitutes some kind of deadly weapon. I believe that you know how to use this weapon and I further believe that you have the ability to reproduce this weapon, given the appropriate resources. Am I correct?”
The ticking of a pendulum clock filled the hiatus. Frank was impressed by two things: the accuracy of the professor’s grasp of the bone gas, and his stupidity in revealing his knowledge such a naïve manner. If it wasn’t sex that was driving O’Connell it must be politics. The psychiatrist stood and walked to the angled picture of the king. He opened the back of the frame and took out a sheet of paper. “I would like you to read this draft.”
THE PROCLAMATION OF
POBLACHT NA H EIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
TO THE PEOPLE OF
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood,
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations…
He held the text in sightless eyes. This was his freedom, this was his passport, this was his blank cheque. Frank’s immortality was again assured. He looked up. O’Connell’s death was now inevitable, his brain already foam.
