Dick turned his head away slightly, trembling. He clenched his teeth and defended himself. "It was just a means of self-preservation. If I didn't show up at all during the day, it would've been too obvious..."
"Yes, I understand. Then what about afternoon tea?"
Dick couldn't answer. Batman continued to look at him and said, "You could've chosen not to eat. That wouldn't have seemed strange, because there was someone else who didn't touch anything either."
"That Doctor..." Dick ground his teeth.
"What should you call him?"
"Doctor Schiller." For once, Dick met Batman's gaze. Then he said, "Without him, my plan would've gone very smoothly..."
Batman merely looked at him without speaking.
In the end, Dick was the one who couldn't endure the stare. He took a deep breath, still not releasing Batman's arm, only looking away as he said, "I have to admit that my mind was affected to some extent. That isn't an excuse. It really was."
"After my fangs were pulled out, I felt a little dizzy. I thought it was an aftereffect of the pain, but it didn't seem to be. I felt as though some kind of connection had been severed. I'm not sure what it was."
"You can't change the subject by providing clues, Dick. Sometimes I'm a detective, but more often, I'm a father."
Dick seemed not to have expected Batman to say something like that. He glanced up at Batman, then quickly looked away again. "Are you going to accuse me of lying to you?"
"Shouldn't you be accused of that?"
Excellent. A killing blow. Although Batman had no idea where Schiller's understanding of Dick came from, based on his own knowledge of Dick, a clearheaded Dick possessed a normal sense of justice and morality. He absolutely wouldn't be able to