lose all
interest in you and move on to their next victim! That way, all
incentives to murder you will be removed, you see."

She glanced at me dumbfounded:

"That's a wonderful idea, dear! You are so clever, you are so astute
when you put your mind to it! Thank you! You can't imagine what a relief
it is to strike upon the solution to such an impossible situation!"

She sprang from the creaky armchair and extended her hand to fondle my
cheek:

"Thank you, honey. You made me proud."

I felt like a million dollars.

/*2. The Syndrome*/

Milton's eyeglasses glinted unsettlingly as he took in my crumpled
clothes and unruly hair:

"So, you traveled all night, by yourself, in a hired car, to ask me
this? She must mean all the world to you!"

He hasn't changed: cherubic, lecherous, bald, and clad in fading
dungarees and Sellotaped, stapled sandals. Milton smelled of coffee
grounds and incense.

He laid a hirsute hand on my shoulder and I retreated inadvertently and
then apologized. He smiled mischievously:

"You are tired. Let's go to my office. You can refresh yourself there
and I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the Capgras
Syndrome and never dared to ask."

"Capgras Syndrome???"

"Coffee first!" - Milton pronounced and wheeled me forward.

*****

Ensconced in an ancient armchair, steamy libation in hand, I listened
intently, absorbing every word that came out of the mouth of arguably
the world's greatest expert on delusions.

"It's nothing new." - Said Milton, chewing on an ancient, ashen clay
pipe - "It was first described by two French psychiatrists in 1923.
Elderly people believe that their relatives have been replaced by
malicious, conspiring doubles. They lock themselves in, buy guns, change
their wills, complain to the authorities. If not checked with
antipsychotic medication, they become violent. Quite a few cases of
murder, resisting arrest, that sort of thing."

"What goes wrong with these people?"

Milton shrugged and tapped the empty implement on a much-tortured edge
of his desk:

"Lots of speculation around, but nothing definite. Some say it's a
problem with face recognition. You heard of prosopagnosia? Patients fail
to identify their nearest and dearest, even though they react
emotionally when they see them. Capgras is the mirror image, I guess: a
failure to react emotionally to familiar faces. But guess is what we
have all been doing in the last, oh, eight de