The Handshaker by David Robinson Read Free Book Online

looked at each other. Millie fidgeted with her pen. “What?”
    Croft, much calmer, more in control, concentrated on her. “Have you ever studied The Heidelberg Case?”
    “I’ve never even heard of it,” she admitted.
    That came as no surprise to Croft. “Most people haven’t,” he said. “It’s very obscure and took place in pre-war Germany. By the time the culprit was caught and jailed, the Nazis were in power. They kept meticulous records on everything as a means of maintaining absolute control, but by 1945 they were burning those records by the ton to cover their war crimes, which probably explains why the trial transcripts have never been found. I first came across the case when I was studying hypnosis, and that was in a book entitled Hypnotism and Crime by Dr Heinze Hammerschlag, a Swiss psychiatrist. I still have a copy of it somewhere.”
    “Sorry to butt in, Mr Croft,” Millie apologised, “but where is all this leading.”
    Croft suppressed his irritation at her interruption. “In order to understand what I’m getting at,” he told her, “you need to understand something of the background to The Heidelberg Case. Essentially, a man named Franz Walter, a hypnotist and homeopath, met a young woman on a train. She was only ever identified as Mrs E and Walter managed to hypnotise her. That was in 1927. In 1934, her husband complained to the police that this man had been defrauding his wife of thousands of marks. She was sent to Doctor Ludwig Meyer who hypnotised her and got to the truth. Over seven years Walter had not only taken money from her for treatments she never needed, but he raped her, sold her into prostitution, and when her husband got suspicious, he ordered her to murder him. She made six attempts and it was only by good fortune that she failed. Then Walter ordered her to commit suicide and she almost did. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of a housemaid, the woman would have thrown herself in the river and drowned.”
    Croft paused a moment so they could take in the welter of detail. Judging by the irritation in Shannon’s eyes, he was not endearing himself.
    The superintendent confirmed it. “All very interesting, but what does this have to do with The Handshaker?”
    “I’m coming to that,” Croft replied. “Heidelberg blew away the notion that a hypnotised subject cannot be made to do something which goes against his or her moral standards.”
    “But everyone connected with hypnosis says that it’s true,” objected Millie.
    Alongside her, Croft noted, Shannon looked away briefly and irritably. He was obviously becoming more frustrated with what he saw as an unnecessary diversion.
    Croft maintained his focus on Millie. “Of course they do, and every soap powder manufacturer tells you their powder will get your clothes cleaner, but that doesn’t make it true.”
    Now Shannon, unable to hold himself back any longer, butted in. “That’s hardly the same thing.”
    “No, it isn’t, but it is a valid analogy because it demonstrates that we are all suggestible,” said Croft. “The soap powder adverts work on precisely that principle, and hypnotherapy is nothing more than suggestion using direct access to the subconscious mind granted by hypnosis. It’s generally accepted that about five percent of the population are susceptible to rapid, deep hypnosis. I’m convinced that The Handshaker is using hypnosis, if only to subdue his victims. Counting this morning’s victim, he’s killed eight women, and there are about fifty thousand women in this town. That’s…” Croft paused to do the mental arithmetic. “Slightly over one hundredth of one percent. If he’s seeking his victims at random, it’s a safe average.”
    Shannon appeared befuddled. “And the reason he wrote to you?”
    “Murdering these women is his, er,” Croft groped for the words. “ Pièce de résistance ,” he said in an almost perfect French accent. “His magnum opus. He has you running in