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Bentiron, Doctor. Doctor Bentiron was created by Ernest M. Poate (Dr. Krook, Dr. Kirke Montgomery, Dr. Aloysius Moran) and appeared in thirty-seven stories and two novels and short story collections from 1919 to 1932, beginning with “Behind Locked Doors” (Street & Smith Detective Story Magazine, Jan. 7, 1919).
Doctor Thaddeus Bentiron is a Freudian psychologist who practices in New York City. He has degrees from Harvard and Heidelberg and is a full professor of abnormal psychology at Columbia. He uses Freudian psychology and modern technological devices like lie detectors in the pursuit of justice, and he is very good at revealing hoaxes designed to seem supernatural.
But Bentiron also has a particularly bad attitude. Despite his use of things like lie detectors he has an almost pathological fear of technological devices and refuses to use so much as a telephone--he hires a nurse to make calls for him. He is full of affectations--of languid exhaustion, of irritation at the petty interruptions of mere mortals, of a general bad attitude. He continually utters the word "Umphf!" as an ejaculation and exclamation. He lectures everyone in a highly condescending manner. He is domineering and arrogant. He is an antisemite. It's a wonder his assistants did not kill him long since.
He is assisted by Dr. Blakeley, a junior psychiatrist who acts as Bentiron's assistant, and Detective Inspector O'Malley, Bentiron's contact on the force.
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