Second opinion
'HOW often have I said to you that When you have eliminated the impossi- ble, whatever remains, however improba- ble, must be the truth?'
I quoted the great Holmes to a prison Officer last week when he expressed astonishment at a deduction I had made. To me it appeared less than brilliant, even ordinary; but to him it was either a stroke of genius or a manifestation of the power of the occult.
He had come to me with a bag of pills Which a newly convicted prisoner had brought with him into the prison straight from the dock. I looked at them for a moment and said, 'He is a sex offender, I perceive.'
The officer took a step backward. 'How did you know, doctor?' he asked. Are they drugs to take away the Urges?' `No, not at all,' I replied, anxious to Prolong the explanation of my deduction as long as possible. 'How did you know, then?' 'It's really quite simple,' I replied. These drugs are prescribed for high blood pressure and angina. High blood pressure and angina are predominantly diseases of those who have passed mid- dle age. Virtually all new prisoners over the age of 50 are sex offenders. There- fore this prisoner is a sex offender.'
The officer looked at me open- mouthed. He recognised at once the truth of what I had said. He did not ask me the next question, which is why men over the age of 50 go to prison only for sex offences. As a friend of mine put it when he heard the story, 'Don't 60-year- olds steal? Don't they beat their wives? Aren't they human?' Whether the fact that all elderly pris- oners, give or take one or two, are sex offenders reflects the true pattern of geriatric offending, or whether it reflects the prejudices of the judges who sen- tence geriatrics, I cannot say. I went on to make another observation which astounded the officer.
'And I shouldn't be at all surprised', I said, 'if this prisoner had a walking-stick.'
This was a deduction too far: it caused frank disbelief.
'You must've seen him already, doc- tor,' said the officer. 'You must've.'
'No, I assure you, I haven't.' 'How did you know he's got a stick, then?'
'Well,' I replied, 'all prisoners with walking-sticks are sex offenders, and the great majority of sex offenders over the age of 50 carry walking-sticks.'
Why's that, doctor?'
'I'm not sure. Most of them don't need a stick to walk with — they can manage quite well without. I suspect it is to estab- lish their frailty in the eyes of the prison staff, so that they have to be accommo- dated in the hospital wing.' I paused for a moment. 'On the other hand, I have known prisoners in wheelchairs, crippled by arthritis and heart failure, who have committed rape. It's a question of mind over matter, I suppose.'
It was night when I left the prison. Loitering in a dark alleyway nearby were two shadowy youths, who made a theatri- cally loud spitting noise as I passed — great expectorations. I heard the phlegm hit the ground with a splat.
At moments like this, I feel as if I'm the last defender of civilisation. I feel, as one patient put it to me earlier in the day, like the little boy with his finger in the dyke, crying wolf.
Theodore Dalrymple
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