Dr. Rapport was comforted by the certainty that George would find a way to continue making his presence known. If nothing else, the doctor would have the daily crossword as a reminder. The doctor cautioned himself that becoming too involved in a patient's therapy could prove terminal for the psyche of that patient. Going over his notes, Dr. Rapport was pleased to notice that his stellar patient was rapidly coming to terms with the root cause of his problem. His suspicions allayed, the doctor too great delight in the daily occurrences of George Varney's handiwork. As the weeks and months had passed, his puzzles contained fewer sinister allusions. Either Varney was cured or else the good doctor was naive. After fifteen years of practice, he would hardly call himself deficient in worldly wisdom. George now reminded the doctor of the dish that had run away with the spoon, somewhat naughty but not significant in the scheme of things.
In the Varney case, the good doctor imagined that the dynamics between doctor and patient were reminiscent of the Chinese walls created in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. University students smashed more than one little bottle on big character walls. Little bottle corresponded rather conveniently with the given names of Deng Xiao Ping. The Government speedily made such acts illegal but only when the Pings were Xiao. Neither side found it necessary or desirable to converse. Dr. Rapport followed suit. With a professional ear, he listened to George's ramblings and bit his tongue. Every morning, the doctor pored over the Times crossword puzzle to see if George had salted it with clues to his state of mind.
While his patient gathered ammunition for their second-to-last session, the doctor stood at the window, as was his custom and stared blankly down at the pedestrian dots scurrying across Fourth and Frugal. He had made this a ritual in order to benefit from the tabula rasa on which to paint his thoughts and conclusions.
I should have cottoned onto dastardly much sooner, the doctor admonished himself. Some time back, George Varney had taken great pains to elaborate and establish the mean and cowardly nature of his ambition. The doctor could hardly refrain from recalling George's precise phrasing.
"If the term were not archaic, I would consider myself a bogus dastard."
George certainly had a way with words, he decided and let it go at that.
As Dr. Rapport settled into his overstuffed armchair, he made a mental note to listen for keys to the psyche of his patient, undoubtedly the most challenging individual that had ever swum into his ken. George was, in all probability, the most disconcerting patient he would ever likely fall prey to.
As the weeks passed away, the doctor noted that in every puzzle at least one clue was blatantly directed towards a Chinese wall. On the Wednesday in question, the clue for 41 across was so idiosyncratic in nature as to draw puzzlement from fans who naturally would have no way of knowing that George was a little off kilter. Mensa was considered to be an extremely intelligent pineapple. This stemmed from George's delusional phase.
Long a member of Mensa, George had once been adamant that the superior IQ organization represented a rather large pineapple found on a South Pacific isle on which resided the world's last known cannibals, all in an attempt to weave cannibalism into his puzzle. George had now moved safely past his cannibal fixation, Dr. Rapport was pleased to note. The Idiosyncratic pineapple was simply his way of acknowledging his past delinquicies so that the doctor was realize that he had not regressed. It was an in-joke, sine qua non.