'Yes, it struck me like that at the time,' said Miss Hazelstone cryptically. After several weeks of these dreams the doctor had begun to think she would be able to write a monograph on 'The Policeman Archetype in South African Psychology' using this material.
For Miss Hazelstone these interviews provided a break from the boredom of life in Fort Rapier.
'Madness is so monotonous,' she told the doctor. 'You would think that fantasies would be more interesting, but really one has to conclude that insanity is a poor substitute for reality.'
Then again, when she looked around her, there didn't seem to be any significant difference between life in the mental hospital and life in South Africa as a whole. Black madmen did all the work, while white lunatics lounged about imagining they were God.
'I'm sure the Almighty has more dignity,' Miss Hazelstone said to herself, as she watched the shuffling figures moving aimlessly about the grounds. 'And I'm sure He hasn't delusions of grandeur.'
The news that his sister had finally been found and was now an inmate in Fort Rapier Mental Hospital came as no surprise to the Bishop of Barotseland. 'She was never very sane,' he told the Kommandant who came to see him personally to break the news, and demonstrated once more that lack of family loyalty the Kommandant found so deplorable in one who belonged to such an illustrious line, by adding, 'The best place for her. She should have been certified years ago.' The Bishop was shedding all his illusions, it seemed, and certainly he had ceased to feel kindly towards his sister and had stopped thinking she was merely mildly eccentric.
'I have a great admiration for Miss Hazelstone,' said the Kommandant coldly. 'She was a remarkable woman and Zulu-land will be the poorer for her passing.'
'You speak of her as though she were already dead,' said the Bishop, whose thoughts about mortality were markedly more frequent since he had moved into Bottom. 'I suppose in a way she has gone to a better life.'
'She won't be leaving there until she is dead,' said the Kommandant grimly. 'By the way, your trial starts next week so if you have anything to say in your defence you had better start thinking about it now,' and the Kommandant had gone away convinced that Jonathan Hazelstone deserved his fate.
The Bishop, left alone in his cell, decided that there was really nothing he could do to add to the confession he had made. It seemed to him a perfectly adequate defence in itself. Nobody on earth could possibly believe he had committed the crimes he had admitted to, and he doubted if any but an expert on High Church ritual could disentangle criminal offences from ecclesiastical practices. No judge worth his salt could ever condemn him for latitudinarianism. The Bishop lay down on the mat on the floor of his cell which served as his bed and looked forward to the verdict he was sure would free him.
'It probably won't even come to that,' he thought cheerfully. 'The judge will throw the prosecution case out of court.'
As usual with the Bishop of Barotseland's prognostications events were to prove him entirely wrong. The Judge chosen to hear the case was Justice Schalkwyk, whose mother had died in a British concentration camp and who was noted both for his deafness and his loathing for all things British. The attorney for the defence, Mr Leopold Jackson, was likewise handicapped physically by a cleft palate which made his speeches almost inaudible, and who was in any case known for his tendency to defer to the authority of judges. He had been chosen to conduct the defence by the accused man's heirs, distant cousins who lived in a poor section of Capetown and who hoped by speeding the course of justice to avoid any further unwelcome publicity which would besmirch the family name. Mr Jackson was only allowed to see his client a few days before the trial began, and then only in the presence of Konstabel Els.
The interview took place in Bottom and was marked by an almost complete misunderstanding from the start.
'You thay you've thigned a confethion. Motht unfortunate,' said Mr Jackson.
'It was made under duress,' said the Bishop.
'It wasn't,' said Els. 'It was made in here.'
'Under dureth,' said Mr Jackson. 'Then it won't thtand up.'
'I don't expect it to,' said the Bishop.
'It can't,' said Els. 'Confessions never do.'
'How wath it forthed out of you?'
'I was made to stand up.'
'You weren't,' said Els. 'I let you sit down.'
'So you did,' said the Bishop.
'Tho it wathn't made under dureth,' said Mr Jackson.
'I told you just now. It was made in here,' said Els.
'It was partly made under duress,' said the Bishop.
'Don't listen to him,' said Els. 'I know where it was made. It was made in here.'
'Wath it made in here?' asked Mr Jackson.
'Yeth,' said the Bishop, lapsing into legal jargon.
'There you are. I told you it was,' said Els.
'There theemth to be thome confuthion,' said Mr Jackson. 'What did you confeth to?'
'Genuflexion with a rubber prick,' said Els hurriedly forestalling lesser crimes.
'Genuflecthion with a what?' Mr Jackson asked.
'He means a rubric, I think,' said the Bishop.
'I don't. I mean a rubber prick,' said Els indignantly.
'Thoundth a thrange thort of offenth,' said Mr Jackson.
'You're telling me,' said Els.
'I thought thith wath a capital cathe,' said Mr Jackson.
'It is,' said Els, 'I'm enjoying it no end.'
'Genuflecthing ithn't a crime under Thouth African law.'
'It is with a rubber prick,' said Els.
'There were some other crimes in my confession,' said the Bishop.
'Thuthch ath?'
'Murder,' said the Bishop.
'Lesbianism,' said Els.
'Lethbianithm? Thatth impothible. A man can't commit lethbianithm. Are you thure you've got the right cathe?'
'Positive,' said Els.
'Would you mind allowing my client to thpeak for himthelf?' Mr Jackson asked Els.
'I'm just trying to help,' said Els aggrieved.
'Now then,' Mr Jackson went on, 'ith it true that you have admitted to being a lethbian?'
'As a matter of fact, yes,' said the Bishop.
'And a murderer?'
'It does seem strange, doesn't it?' said the Bishop.
'It thoundth fantathtic. What elth did you confeth?'
The Bishop hesitated. He did not want Mr Jackson to object to his confession before it was read out in court. Everything depended on the absurdity of the document and Mr Jackson did not look like a lawyer who would understand that.
'I think I would prefer the case to go forward as it is,' he said, and excusing himself on the ground that he was tired, ushered the attorney out of the cell.
'Thee you on the day,' Mr Jackson said cheerily, and left Bottom.
It was not due to Mr Jackson however, that Jonathan Hazelstone's confession never reached the court in its unabridged version. It was thanks rather to the conscientiousness of Luitenant Verkramp who, eager for praise, had sent a copy of the confession to BOSS in Pretoria. The head of the Bureau of State Security found the document on his desk one morning and read the thing through with a growing sense of disbelief. It wasn't that he was unused to reading extravagant confessions. After all the Security Branch existed to manufacture them and he could boast that it had a reputation in this respect second to none. One hundred and eighty days in solitary confinement and days of standing up without sleep while being questioned had the tendency to produce some pretty damning admissions from the suspects, but the confession that Verkramp had sent him made all previous ones look positively tame.
'The man's out of his mind,' he said after ploughing through a catalogue of crimes that included necrophilia, flagellation and liturgy, but it was not certain which man he was referring to. After a conference with leading members of the Government, BOSS decided to intervene in the interests of Western civilization incarnate in the Republic of South Africa and using the powers bestowed on it by Parliament, ordered the suppression of nine-tenths of the confession. Judge Schalkwyk was to try, convict, and condemn the prisoner, with no opportunity to appeal, on charges of murdering one Zulu cook and twenty-one policemen. No other charges were to be preferred and no evidence prejudicial to State security was to be presented in court. Grumbling furiously, the old Judge was forced in accordance with South African law to obey. Jonathan Hazelstone was to be hanged, there must be no miscarriage of justice, but he was after all to be hanged for a lamb.