The Stratagem and Other Stories

widow of the late Professor Blair. Her mind undoubtedly became unhinged through grief at her husband's death; the medical man who at- tended him in his last illness grew alarmed at her condi- tion, and had her watched. She tried (fruitlessly) to pur- chase dynamite at several shops, but on her going to the laboratory of her late husband, and attempting to manufacture Chloride of Nitrogen, obviously for the pur- pose of suicide, she was seized, certified insane, and placed in my care. The case is most unusual in several respects. (1) I have never known her inaccurate in any state- ment of veritable fact. (2) She can undoubtedly read thoughts in an aston- ishing manner. In particular, she is actually useful to me by her ability to foretell attacks of acute insanity in my patients. Some hours before they occur she can predict them to a minute. On an early occasion my disbelief in her power led to the dangerous wounding of one of my attendants. (3) She combines a fixed determination of suicide (in the extraordinary manner described by her) with an intense fear of death. She smokes uninterruptedly, and I am obliged to allow her to fumigate her room at night with the same drug. (4) She is certainly only twenty-four years old, and any competent judge would with equal certainty declare her sixty. (5) Professor von Buehle, to whom the note-books were sent, addressed to me a long and urgent telegram, begging her release on condition that she would promise not to commit suicide, but go to work with him in Bonn. I have yet to learn, however, that German professors, however eminent, have any voice in the management of a private asylum in England, and I am certain that the Lunacy Commissioners will uphold me in my refusal to consider the question. It will then be clearly understood that this document