"
"How extraordinary."
"Half the murders and suicides are done in temporary fits of insanity,"
went on Chinston, "and if a person broods over anything, his incipient
madness is sure to break out sooner or later; but, of course, there are
cases where a perfectly sane person may commit a murder on the impulse
of the moment, but I regard such persons as mad for the time being;
but, again, a murder may be planned and executed in the most
cold-blooded manner."
"And in the latter case," said Frettlby, without looking at the doctor,
and playing with a paper knife, "do you regard the murderer as mad?"
"Yes, I do," answered the doctor, bluntly. "He is as mad as a person
who kills another because he supposes he has been told by God to do
so--only there is method in his madness. For instance, I believe
that hansom cab murder, in which you were mixed up--"
"I wasn't mixed up in it," interrupted Frettlby, pale with anger.
"Beg pardon," said Chinston, coolly, "a slip of the tongue; I was
thinking of Fitzgerald. Well, I believe that crime to have been
premeditated, and that the man who committed it was mad. He is, no
doubt, at large now, walking about and conducting himself as sanely as
you or I, yet the germ of insanity is there, and sooner or later he
will commit another crime."
"How do you know it was premeditated?" asked Frettlby, abruptly.
"Any one can see that," answered the other.
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