Rainy Night Mystery (Part 2)

When he returned to the interrogation room, only Schiller remained. He had not let Gordon or Batman follow him.

By then, the water on Cobblepot had been wiped dry, and his soaked coat had been removed. Mrs. Mona was closing the interrogation room door when she saw Schiller arrive. "You’re a doctor, aren’t you, sir? This child seems badly frightened. I tried to change his clothes just now, but he struggled so violently that he nearly bit me."

"Thank you, ma’am. You’ve done more than enough. He’s somewhat agitated right now. I was just about to send him to the hospital."

"Then hurry along. He’s tired now, so he probably won’t resist as fiercely."

Schiller entered through the iron gate. Cobblepot was still sitting in the corner, draped in a new coat and saying nothing. Schiller called Brand. "Send an ambulance over to pick up a patient."

"What kind of patient needs an ambulance? Doesn’t he have some luxury car of his own?"

"A real patient, not one of those mob bosses who get medical parole and then somehow get prison parole too."

"What condition? I’ll have the nursing station prepare."

"Acute Stress Disorder, perhaps with something else on top of it. Prepare sedatives first. I’ll explain once we get there."

Before long, Cobblepot was strapped to a stretcher and carried into the ambulance. Schiller paid no attention whatsoever to his struggles.

When they arrived at the hospital, Brand came out to meet them. He was wearing a white coat and had clearly been working nonstop until now. "Good Lord, we finally have a real patient. I was starting to think I’d graduated with a degree in finance…"

"Don’t celebrate too soon. If I told you he was a key witness in a case involving an heir of the Falcone family, would you still feel so relaxed?"

Brand’s expression immediately fell. He cursed under his breath, then said, "I knew it. Nothing good ever happens in this damn place."

"He’s in a severe state of motor agitation and is almost impossible to communicate with. Give him sedatives first. We’ll see how he is tomorrow morning."

Schiller returned to his office at Arkham Asylum and changed into his doctor’s attire. When he entered Cobblepot’s ward, Cobblepot’s hands were tied to the rails of the hospital bed. His limbs kept twitching, his face was flushed, his eyes were wide open, and he constantly made harsh exhaling sounds.

A nurse came over and said, "Doctor, his agitation is too severe. We’ve already removed the muscle restraints. If this continues, it’ll cause serious damage to his joints."

"Administer the sedative first." Schiller’s tone remained calm. He bent down and lifted one of Cobblepot’s eyelids, discovering that his gaze was completely unfocused and that the congestion in his face was severe.

Schiller turned and called over two more nurses, telling them to hold Cobblepot down first. Brand also walked in. "I haven’t seen a stress disorder patient with symptoms this severe in a long time. What happened to him?"

Brand examined Cobblepot closely and noticed injuries on his neck and shoulders. "Was he abused?"

"Most likely. And it must have been going on for some time, or it wouldn’t be this severe." Schiller speculated, "He was likely subjected to prolonged abuse and beatings, which led to Acute Stress Disorder."

After the sedatives were injected, Cobblepot’s agitated reaction gradually weakened, but he still twitched constantly and could not focus. Schiller observed his physiological responses and said, "Increase the dosage."

More medication was administered, and Cobblepot finally calmed down before gradually falling asleep. Brand crossed his arms and sighed. "This isn’t a solution either. His mind seems more sensitive than an ordinary person’s, and he’s still underage. If the sedative wears off and his agitation still doesn’t ease, we won’t be able to use such a large dose again."

"What do you plan to do?" Brand asked Schiller.

"This requires a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment." Schiller stared at Cobblepot’s face. "Based on my assessment, he likely has other mental disorders. Otherwise, his reaction wouldn’t be this severe. A hereditary condition is also possible."

"What about his relatives? Is there any medical history we can refer to?"

The moment Brand finished asking, he dismissed the question himself. "Oh, this is Gotham. Finding a genuine mental patient here is like looking for a needle in the ocean."

Schiller said to Brand, "Go get some rest first. I’m on duty tonight, and I’ll draw up a treatment plan while I’m at it."

After Brand left, Schiller returned to his office. Once seated, he took a notebook from the desk drawer and began recalling everything he knew about Penguin’s life.

In the comics, Penguin’s childhood was not described in much detail. It was only mentioned that he carried an umbrella because, after his father died of pneumonia caused by getting caught in the rain, his increasingly unstable mother forced him to carry an umbrella at all times.

In the television series Gotham, Penguin had also entered Arkham Asylum. He was tortured there by the director, Hugo. As for whether he had ever been diagnosed with a genuine mental illness, that was never clearly explained.

From Schiller’s observations so far, at the very least, this Penguin, Cobblepot, truly suffered from a mental illness.

Nights at Arkham Asylum were exceptionally quiet. There were hardly any genuine mental patients here, so there were no sudden episodes causing a commotion.

In the entire doctors’ office, only Schiller’s desk lamp was lit. In the silent room, only the soft scratch of writing echoed.

At daybreak, Victor, dressed in a trench coat, hurried up the steps at the entrance of Arkham Asylum. The rain had just stopped, and the cold wind beneath the overcast sky tossed his hair about.

Schiller came out to meet him in a white coat. Victor said, "I’d just finished teaching over at Living Hell when I heard from that little fat kid that Oswald had been hospitalized."

"Then I learned you’d taken leave too, so I guessed you must have gone to treat him."

"Oh? How did you guess?"

"Didn’t I tell you before? I went to Oswald’s home and met his mother. She seemed to have a tic disorder. You know, I’m not a professional, but even I could tell that there was something wrong with her mental state."

"That matches my assessment. Cobblepot likely has a hereditary mental illness." Schiller hurried up the stairs alongside Victor as he spoke. "Acute Stress Disorder triggered his agitated symptoms. I used an excessive amount of sedatives last night, but there was still no significant improvement this morning."

As they spoke, the two arrived at Cobblepot’s ward. Cobblepot was lying in bed, talking nonstop, but the words spilling from his mouth had no logic to them. It seemed as though he was simply venting.

Victor walked to the bedside, looked down at Cobblepot, and said, "This resembles the symptoms of a student I taught before. Extreme agitation, talking to himself, aggressive tendencies, even injuring classmates."

"What do you intend to do?" Victor asked Schiller. "I think highly of his talent, actually. I know Gotham has too many mentally ill people to save them all, but he’s already here. We have to think of something."

"If I admitted him, that naturally means I intend to treat him. But with symptoms this mixed, the cause may be quite complicated. I still need to investigate."

As they spoke, Brand walked in carrying a stack of reports and handed them to Schiller. "Earlier today, we performed a physical examination on him. The situation isn’t good. Aside from his mental issues, he has injuries all over his body, likely caused by beatings. New and old wounds overlap. This has probably been going on for some time."

"Just as we expected," Brand concluded. "This is Acute Stress Disorder after severe abuse, and that stress response triggered his other mental illnesses, causing him to fall into an uncontrollable state of extreme agitation."

"We can discuss the specific psychiatric treatment plan later. Are his physical injuries serious?"

"His left ankle joint suffered severe trauma, and his right arm is fractured. Treating those injuries alone will take quite a while."

"If his agitation flares up again later, we won’t be able to treat his injuries at all. And I don’t recommend giving him another excessive dose of sedatives. He’s too young; his brain may not be able to handle it."

Schiller rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This is truly troublesome. Can we contact his mother? I want to investigate his medical history."

Victor shook his head. "It’ll be difficult. His mother isn’t mentally well either. The last time I went there, she nearly chased me out with a broom. If we want to investigate, we may have to go to his home."

"Then let’s do this…" Schiller finally arranged, "Brand, hurry and treat his external injuries first. Victor and I will go to his home and see what’s going on."

After leaving, Schiller and Victor sat in the car. As Victor drove, he said, "You actually surprise me a little. I thought you were the kind of doctor who… didn’t like meddling in other people’s business."

"You don’t need to put it so tactfully. I know you think I’m the sort of person who’ll let someone die if the money isn’t right."

Victor coughed awkwardly twice. Sitting in the passenger seat, Schiller placed his umbrella beside him, tightened his trench coat, and said, "Actually, you’re right most of the time."

"Still, Cobblepot is the only person in that entire vocational class who can write words I recognize. If he goes insane, I’ll probably go insane from looking at that chicken-scratch handwriting too."

Victor held the steering wheel and smiled without turning his head. "I think you’re just soft-hearted and stubborn. You make yourself look like a heartless quack, but you actually do have compassion."

"I’ll say it again: I may be heartless, but I’m absolutely not a quack."

The car twisted and turned into a narrow alley beside Living Hell. When they got out, Schiller used the tip of his umbrella to poke at the gravel by the roadside. "Looks like the redevelopment around Living Hell was still too limited. This place is as filthy and chaotic as ever."

"It’s already much better." Victor looked around ahead of him and said, "Before, cars couldn’t even get in here. Now it’s improved a lot."

The two entered another dark stairwell and climbed two floors. Victor knocked on a door and asked, "Mrs. Cobblepot, are you there?"

"Are you sure she’ll answer? As far as I know, some patients with mental disorders can’t take care of themselves."

"She should be able to. When Mrs. Cobblepot isn’t having an episode, she only has some physical tics." Victor explained as he kept knocking, but after a long while, no one answered. Victor frowned. "What’s going on?"

No one answered. Victor could only say, "Something may have happened. We’ll have to go around to the roof across from here and get in through the balcony. There’s no other way."

The two went around through the passageway, exited through a door at the end of the corridor on the same floor, and reached the terrace. After circling around, they arrived at the neighboring balcony and climbed over into the Cobblepot family’s balcony.

Then, through the window, they saw that the Cobblepot family home was in complete disarray, as though a struggle had just taken place, and Mrs. Cobblepot had already vanished without a trace.

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I’ve recently had to get tested and scramble for groceries, so updates may be irregular and sometimes late. Please bear with me.