"Maybe I'd better explain. He's not only a very brilliant writer of true-fact crime articles for the better magazines, with the stress placed on juvenile delinquency--he happens to be pretty much of a confirmed alcoholic. The wild binge kind--once in every three or four weeks he loses a week-end. Completely, goes absolutely blotto." "Like in that Jackson novel that made such a big splash about twelve or fifteen years ago, you mean? I remember the movie even better than I do the book, but I read the book--" "We seem to be very literary today," Fenton said. "Everywhere we turn in this case we come up against famous novels, or big-name writers or major movies or guys with a grievance against female editors. I suppose that's only to be expected--considering what kind of murder it was and where it took place. But it's hard to understand why so much of it has to drift our way in a single day. To answer your question--yes, he's the _Lost Week-End_ kind of heavy drinker." "Then why did you say 'yes--and no,' when I asked you if he was a psycho?" "Because it's not a term you can use loosely when you're talking about alcoholics. What I guess I should say is--it's not a term you should use _un_ambiguously. It had to be 'Yes--and no,' with a lot of half-way stages in between. There is such a thing as alcoholic insanity, you know--a clear-cut psychosis with very definite symptoms. You can get alcoholic softening of the brain, which is something else again, because it's physical as well as mental and it's usually fatal. You can be just a periodic drinker--not a hopeless alcoholic at all, although you'll be headed that way--and have the D.T.'s occasionally. Or you can be a very heavy, constant drinker and never have the D.T.'s. "It all depends on how alcohol affects you. Just a little alcohol, for instance, could give Edgar Allan Poe the D.T.'s. And when a man has the D.T.'s, he's a psychotic, if only temporarily. Or behaves like one in all respects. And just constant, heavy drinking can make a man behave so erratically at times you could practically call him a psycho. And when a man is dead drunk, under any circumstances, would you say his behavior was merely neurotic? "The thing you've got to remember about heavy drinking--periodic or otherwise--is that one of the things it most often does is bring about memory lapses. Very serious memory lapses--prolonged blackout periods. And that especially applies to the _Lost Week-End_ kind of drinker." "So Willard had a memory lapse and couldn't remember whether he shot her or not. Is that what you're trying to say?" Fenton shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. You're forgetting about the alibi, apparently." "Sorry I interrupted." "Think nothing of it. But I'd be very grateful if you'd listen carefully. I'm just giving you a few simple facts about alcoholism." "Not as a warning, I hope. I hardly ever touch the stuff."