Pity Him Afterwards

Behind the administration building were three other buildings, all the same two stories in height, and connected by covered walkways amid more landscaping. One of these buildings was the infirmary, where the physical sicknesses of the mentally ill were cared for. One housed the non-violent patients, those well enough to be allowed freely to walk the grounds; the doors of this building were never locked, and the rocking chairs on the veranda were full throughout these soft spring days. Only the third building, farthest back, most hidden from the sight of the casual visitor, bore the physical appearance of the stock asylum. Somehow, the brick of this building seemed dingier and darker. The windows were smaller, and all were heavily barred. The door was stout, and always locked. Spotlights at the corners of the roof gleamed down at night, washing over the walls and the near grounds.

Standing in his office in the administration building, Dr. Edward Peterby gazed out his window at the maximum-security building. It was from that building that the madman had escaped, killing two male nurses on the way.

“He has a high degree of intelligence,” said Dr. Peterby, still looking out the window. Behind him, the police officers and the newsmen shifted position, cleared their throats, made small noises. Dr. Peterby nodded at the maximum-security building. “No one has ever escaped from there before. We would have said it was impossible. But he did it. With a combination of great intelligence and a capability for direct incisive action, he managed to get away.”

Dr. Peterby turned away from the window at last, and faced the roomful of men. “Before his sickness,” he said, “his IQ was rated at 168. That puts him in genius class. Economic pressures had forced him into a job that would have frustrated an IQ of 120. That was one of the reasons he eventually wound up here.”

Dr. Peterby paused. He felt this was important, though he knew it wasn’t the part these men had come to hear. But he wanted them to understand. “This man,” he said, “is more to be pitied than hated. I can say that although he has murdered at least five times that we know of, twice before being sent here, and three times on the way out. If we are to include the young man murdered by the hitchhiker.”

One of the police officers cleared his throat and said, “We include him, Doctor. The timing is right, the method is right, the descriptions from the other drivers are right.”

“Well, then.” Dr. Peterby sat down at his desk, spread his hands flat on the warm wood. This crowding of his office had unnerved him somewhat; extra chairs had been brought in, and the room was full of his visitors. He was used to the warmth and spaciousness of this office, and now it was cool and crowded, the coolness emanating from the cold faces of the police officers and newsmen. He was used to dimness and silence in this room, and now the overhead light was on — which it never was when he was in it; he only used the desk lamp, even at night — and there were constant small noises from the waiting group of men.

Dr. Peterby made a tent, joining the fingertips of both hands together, analyzed it as symbolic of a desire to crawl away into a small dim place away from all these faces, and broke the tent apart. “Well, then,” he said again. “You all have photos of Robert Ellington; you know what he looks like. You know, to a certain extent, what he has done. Now, as I understand it, you want to know what he is, what sort of man he is, what we can expect him to do.”

He paused. They waited. He said, “Robert Ellington is, as I said, a highly intelligent man. He is also an extremely cunning man, an admission which I make with some regret. He was not a cunning man when he came here. We strove to cure him when he first came here, and in so doing we were striving to force him to understand himself, and to understand the enormity of what he had done. To understand that he had been wrong, and that he had been wrong in a terrible and inhuman way. He resisted us, as of course he must. If he is to retain his own regard, his own self-respect, he cannot believe that his actions were anything less than proper and necessary and inevitable. When he came to us, he was a violent man, but an open man, revealing himself completely, revealing himself far more than he knew. But in our attempt to hold up a mirror before his gaze, to reflect back to him the insights he had given us about himself, we only succeeded in teaching him how to avoid giving us any more revelations. We underestimated him — more than once, as you can see; he got away — but we underestimated him, and we only made matters worse.”