Mrs. Lathrop did that night--except for a couple of hours after she
left the Gorham Hotel, where she had dinner. If I could locate the
driver of the cab that took her away, I'd get a clue. But it was a
passing taxi the doorman hailed, and there doesn't seem to be any trace
of him--yet.' There--don't you see? They're trying to get something on
Mrs. Lathrop. It's plain. I ask you--why?"
Doyle leaned back and regarded us with an air of conscious triumph.
"Cost what it will," he added, "it's apparent that Celeste is devoted
and loyal to Honora Wilford, too. I tell you they're covering up
something," he emphasized, waving the notes, "and I intend to uncover
it."
However, Kennedy did not seem to attach much importance to what either
Celeste or Chase had said. Evidently he had a pretty clear idea
already of what had happened.
I recalled Celeste and the "Aussage test." Was Celeste to be
trusted--even over a dictagraph?
Doyle seemed to read in Kennedy's face what I had already seen, and
hastened on to new points in his arguments from the notes.
"That's all very well about Celeste," he continued, excitedly, "but
here's the real news, after all. The most important thing was what
happened an hour or so later, after Chase had gone. McCabe picked up
the voice of a woman. It was Mrs. Lathrop herself calling on Mrs.
Wilford. How about that?"
"What!" I exclaimed, involuntarily, I suppose, because of Kennedy's
continued silence. "Vina called on Honora Wilford? Why, man, I should
have thought the wires would have fused!"
"Well, that's what she did," asserted Doyle, "and you'll be more
surprised when I tell you what happened."
Doyle was enjoying the suspense he himself had created. Still Kennedy
said nothing, not so much, I think, because he would not give Doyle the
satisfaction of observing his interest as because his mind was at work
piecing into his own theories the new facts that were being brought
out. For that has always been Kennedy's method--the gathering of facts,
fitting them together, like a mosaic, with fragments missing, and then
with endless patience fitting the new fragments as they are discovered
into the whole picture of a crime until the case was completed and he
was ready to act with relentless and unerring precision.
As for myself, I listened to what Doyle had to reveal with amazement.
Here was a meeting, separated only by hours, if not merely by minutes,
from another in which Vina's own husband had called on Shattuck.
"As nearly as I can make out from McCabe's notes," began Doyle, "Mrs.
Lathrop must have been seeking this meeting and Mrs. Wilford avoiding
it for some time. You see, the interview was so passionate that often
the voices were indistinct and his notes are fragmentary in spots.
However, there's enough to show what it was all about."
Doyle turned a page. "It started with Mrs. Lathrop accusing Mrs.
Wilford of avoiding seeing her. When Mrs. Wilford pleaded the tragedy
and the surveillance she is under, Mrs. Lathrop hinted that she was
using these things to shield herself.
"Here's where Mrs. Lathrop began to let something out. 'Your maid,
Celeste, I hear, has been talking about me. And I know, also, Honora,
that you've had a private detective, a man named Chase. You've had him
following me!'
"McCabe tells me that the tone of this was very accusing, and that
Mrs. Wilford did not make any attempt to answer. I only wish we had
something like a dictagraph--detectavue, I'd call it--that would let
us look at the faces of some of these people as we hear them over
this mechanical ear--a mechanical eye, understand? I'll wager Mrs.
Wilford's face was a study. She's a match for any man. But I'd like
to see her matched against a woman like Mrs. Lathrop. She's clever,
Kennedy, clever."
Kennedy nodded, but without enthusiasm over the proposition. Rather it
was an invitation to Doyle to go on.
"There's a lot more," continued Doyle, hurriedly. "Here's what I want.
Listen to this. If it's true, we've got something. Mrs. Wilford hadn't
said much and it seemed to arouse Mrs. Lathrop to go farther. Listen.
'I hadn't intended to say this, Honora,' she burst out, 'but you were
at his office--that night. Come--own up, dear.' Get that 'dear' at the
end? I don't know where Mrs. Lathrop got her information. I wish I did.
But at least she seems to me to know something."
"Or else she's very clever at fishing for information," I interrupted,
for I was not able to restrain it.
Doyle was so cocksure of his deductions that it antagonized me. On
his part, I am sure, while he may not have had much respect for my
profession, he had a wholesome fear of it, as many detectives have.
For, after all, we newspaper men have the key that unlocks the door to
everything.
On the other hand, I must admit that I was not at all positive in my
own mind. Was Vina fishing--or did she really know something? Was that
why Honora was silent? Or was Honora contemptuous of a woman of Vina's
type and was silence without any admission her sweetest revenge? What
was the purpose that lay back of this visit?
For one thing, the silence of Honora, whether it spelled guilt or mere
contempt, had its effect on Vina and made her more daring.
"'Then this Professor Kennedy,' continued Doyle, reading from the
notes. 'With that Mr. Jameson he has been finding out things at the
Orange and Blue Tea-room and other places. They've got a woman working
for them, too, I imagine. I tell you, Honora, _they know_.'
"'Know what?' Honora answered, and McCabe thought she wasn't quite as
cold and calm as usual.
"Then Mrs. Lathrop went a little bit farther--oh, I'll say that these
women are clever--both of them. On the whole, now I'm not so sure which
of them carried off the honors. Come to think of it, Mrs. Wilford was
clever, too. She has to be. Anyhow, Mrs. Lathrop went a step farther.
'They know about the Greenwich Village stuff, now.' What's that,
Kennedy? You never told me that."
There was something reproachful in Doyle's voice, assumed, no doubt,
but still there, as much as to say that he was taking Kennedy into his
confidence and expected a return.
Kennedy stole a glance at me and I understood.
It was just this that had impelled Doyle to come to us. He had not
understood it himself and, in order to keep up with us, was obliged
to take us into his own confidence. Briefly Kennedy related, with an
occasional word from me, what had happened since the river-front-saloon
raid.
"Oh, I see," remarked Doyle, though any one could tell that he really
did not see. "That's what she meant when she went on and said, 'About
Freud and all that, Honora. Zona Dare told me, over the 'phone. That's
why I came over.'
"'Indeed, Vina, you needn't have troubled yourself,' was Mrs. Wilford's
reply. 'It's a matter of perfect indifference to me how much or how
little Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson know or find out.'
"McCabe says she was very cutting in her remarks there. But he also
says he thought she was weakening. Anyhow, it had its effect on Mrs.
Lathrop. She flared right up.
"'Don't care?' she cried. 'You don't care if Kennedy finds out about
your interest in the play, about your life, about Freud, the "soul
scar" theory, and all that? I may not know much about science and
especially this new psychology, but I'm blessed, Honora, if I'd want
any one raking up the past.'
"'I should say not--Vina.' Pretty pointed, wasn't it? These two love
each other like a German and a Frenchman."
Doyle paused, then went on reading and summarizing. It was as I had
been suspecting for several moments. In an instant the two women were
on the dangerous ground of Honora's early engagement to Shattuck. What
they said did not seem so very important and I omit this part of it.
However, I knew it would lead to something.
"'You broke off the engagement, Honora, because of his escapades,'
finally hinted Mrs. Lathrop, with claws behind the velvety tone of the
remark. 'And yet--'
"Mrs. Wilford interrupted here. 'It is a far more important thing,
Vina, that a woman should keep herself clean than for a man--far more
important for the race. Not that I would excuse things in _any_ man.'
McCabe says that remark went right home to Mrs. Lathrop. She flared up.
"'Oh, tush, Honora--more of your highbrow philosophy. _You_ talking
about the race! Where are _your_ children? I've been studying you,
Honora. You may think you're a highbrow. I guess you are. They
all--you--are like the rest of us, with the same passions--no better,
no worse. Remember--it's you have the soul scar--you!'"
"The cat," I could not help but mutter.
Again, recalling Kennedy's instructions, I wondered whether consciously
Honora had rejected Shattuck while at the same time she unconsciously
accepted him as a lover?
Evidently now each was accusing the other--and over Shattuck. I
recalled Honora's dreams which she had told willingly. There was the
dream of the bull and the serpent. That was sex. Again I recalled the
dream of the forest and the hill she had been struggling to get up.
In this dream I recalled the fire, the climbing, the explosion, and
her dream of the other woman, with her unwillingness to admit to us
that the other woman might be no other than Vina. Then there was the
unexplained dream she had about Doctor Lathrop, the lion in the path.
Evidently Honora had been betrayed into some dangerous admissions in
her dreams, I thought.
"What's next?" came Kennedy's voice. "I get the drift of what was
really back of it all. Let's go on."
Doyle eyed Kennedy quizzically for a moment. Kennedy's explanation of
the psychology of the thing had been much over Doyle's head and had
left him in doubt. He turned back to McCabe's notes.
"It's Mrs. Lathrop speaking next, and she was very angry. 'If you don't
leave him alone, Honora--I'll tell Kennedy all that I know.'"
Doyle shot a glance of inquiry.
"She hasn't told it yet," answered Kennedy. "What next?"
"I guess it got under Mrs. Wilford's skin. 'I don't understand men,'
she cried. 'But I understand you. It is revenge--revenge on me that you
want, Vina.'"
"She got back a thrust at Mrs. Lathrop, anyhow," I commented.
Yet I wondered what Vina's motive might be. Was it merely due to
her insane infatuation for Shattuck? As for Honora, was she, I kept
wondering, after all, the consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate
woman? At least, she was a most perplexing "complex."
Doyle had closed his note-book with the remark that his little
mechanical eavesdropper had made an excellent start, and now was
looking inquiringly at Kennedy.
"Where is Chase?" asked Kennedy. "Have you any idea?"
"McCabe looked up the name and finds that there is a Chase agency on
Forty-second Street. You might try it."
Accordingly, we set out for the address of the detective which McCabe
had located and found that it was a small office in a building near
Fifth Avenue. Chase himself proved to be a rather frank-faced,
energetic young fellow, not at all typical of the private detective.
In fact, he had had some experience as an operative for one of the big
agencies, and, having some money, had achieved the dream of every such
operative--an agency of his own, small, but at least his own.
It did not take much questioning to get the main facts out of Chase,
who kept repeating that neither he nor Mrs. Wilford had anything to
conceal. Anyhow, the mystery of Chase was solved. Chase was a detective
whom Mrs. Wilford had retained for her own protection against the
unprincipled operatives of her husband.
He proved to be apparently honest and straightforward. Though he could
shed very little light on the deeper problems that confronted us,
there were many things we had already unearthed which his reports
corroborated.
It was apparent that Honora was perfectly aware of what had been going
on between her husband and Vina Lathrop. Chase had kept her informed of
that.
Yet, no matter how accurate his reports, I reflected, it did not
absolve Honora. In fact, the more she knew, the more likely Doyle was
to say that the information constituted a motive that would have caused
her to act.
"What do you know about Mrs. Wilford's whereabouts on the night Mr.
Wilford was killed?" questioned Kennedy, coming finally to the most
important point that had been revealed by McCabe's dictagraph records.
Chase looked him straight in the eye and considered a moment before
answering.
"It's true, I don't know much. That is one thing I'd rather not talk
about until I do."
"But she's your client. Hasn't she told you?"
"There are some communications that are privileged," was Chase's
enigmatical answer.
"But can't you see that it's placing her in a wrong light--supposing
everything she did that night was innocent? She ought to tell for her
own sake--don't you think?"
Chase shrugged. "Perhaps," he added, non-committally.
Kennedy, I thought, had some respect for the young man who was not to
be betrayed into dangerous admissions.
"Then this other woman, Mrs. Lathrop," pursued Kennedy, shifting the
subject. "There's a hiatus in the accounts of her doings that night,
also."
Chase was more disposed to talk. "Yes," he answered. "I've been trying
to trace that out. Haven't succeeded--but have hopes. I tell you what
I'll do. If I can reconstruct what _both_--see? _both_--of these women
did, well, I was going to say I'd give it to you. But I'd have to ask
Mrs. Wilford's permission. She's my client, after all."
I tried to reason out what Chase was doing. Did he know something about
his client that he must shield her from, or was he just a bit vexed
at her himself for a certain lack of frankness? As far as Vina was
concerned, I knew he would have no scruples in telling us everything he
discovered.
Evidently, Chase saw that he was losing his first good impression with
Kennedy. To re-establish himself, he opened a locked steel compartment
in his desk and pulled out a small box.
"Here's something that might interest you," he remarked, handing the
box to Kennedy. "Ever see one of those?"
Kennedy opened the box. Inside reposed a single Calabar bean!
Craig looked up quickly. "Yes. Where did you get it?"
"If you'll promise to ask me no more--just yet--I'll tell you."
Kennedy nodded and Chase took it as a gentleman.
"I found it, with some other African souvenirs, in a little
cabinet-museum in Mr. Shattuck's apartment. Now don't ask me why I was
there or what else I found."
Kennedy smiled, thanked him and handed back the box. It was a
perplexing piece of information. If Shattuck was known to have had in
his possession some of the fatal Calabar beans, what interpretation
could be placed on it? Or was it that Chase was working to protect his
client and save her--at any cost and in spite of her own wishes?
We left Chase, and Kennedy hastened back to the laboratory, where at
once he set to work with a paper and pencil, writing words that seemed
utterly disconnected, while I stood about self-consciously, watching
him.
"Please, Walter," he exclaimed at length, a little bit nervously, "you
are distracting me. You see," he added, briskly, "that interview with
Chase has reminded me of something. Why was he in Shattuck's apartment?
For what? When? I don't need his help, of course. But he has made me
think that I can't afford to let Mrs. Wilford get out of my sight too
long. If I ever get at the bottom of this thing, it must be through
study of her, first. I think I shall be ready soon to visit her again.
And this time, I'm sure, I shall find out what I want. I've a new plan.
Don't disturb me for a few minutes."
I turned my back and pretended to be busy over some work of my
own, though out of the corner of my eye I watched him. Craig was
at work over a sheet of paper and I saw him writing down one word
after another, changing them, adding to them, taking away words and
substituting others.
Altogether, it was a strange performance and I had not the faintest
idea what it was all about until he was willing to reveal it to me.
Meanwhile a thousand ideas whirled through my head. Chase's revelation
had put a new face on matters. One by one, we were finding out that
each of our suspects knew first of all more about the Freud theory of
dreams than we anticipated. Now it would appear that each was more or
less familiar with the Calabar bean, or at least with its derivative,
physostigmine. Even Vina, being a doctor's wife, might have known.
Though we were getting more facts, they were not, so far as I could
interpret them, pointing more definitely in any one direction.
When Craig had finished, he copied the words off on my typewriter, in a
long column, one word on each line, and, after the long vertical list,
he left two columns blank:
1 2 3
foot
gray
dream
struggle
ship
bean
lion
book
false
voyage
money
sad
quarrel
marry
bull
sleep
foolish
despise
finger
friend
serpent
face
chair
bottle
glass
"Now," he remarked, as he finished and saw my questioning look, "let me
get my delicate split-second watch from this cabinet, and I'm ready for
a new and final test of Honora Wilford. Let's go."
XIV
THE "JUNG" METHOD
On the way to the Wilford apartment, which was not very far away, Craig
explained briefly what it was that he wanted me to do for him.
"You saw that list of words?" he asked.
"Yes, and the columns opposite."
"Precisely. I want you to write in them the answers that I get.
You will understand as we go on. I'll hold this watch and note the
time--and then we can put the two together, the answers and the
reaction time."
It seemed simple enough and we chatted about other things connected
with the case as we walked along to the apartment.
Honora Wilford showed some surprise at seeing us again, yet I fancied
she was in a better mood than previously, since the obnoxious McCabe
was no longer so much in evidence.
"What is it that I can do for you now?" she asked, rather abruptly,
though her manner showed that her surprise was, after all, very mild.
Evidently Doyle had accustomed her to being quizzed and watched. It was
not a pleasant situation, even to be watched and quizzed by Kennedy,
yet she seemed to realize that he was making it as easy as possible.
"Just another little psychological experiment," Craig explained, trying
to gloss it over. "I thought you wouldn't mind."
Honora looked at him a moment doubtfully.
"Just why are you so interested in studying me, Professor Kennedy?" she
asked, pointedly, yet without hostility in her tone.
It was a rather difficult question to answer, and I must admit that I
could scarcely have met it adequately myself. However, it took more
than that to give Kennedy a poser.
"Oh," he replied, quickly, with an engaging airiness, "as a
psychologist I'm interested in all sorts of queer things--things that
must often seem strange to other people. Perhaps it's highbrow stuff.
But for a long time--and not in connection with you at all, Mrs.
Wilford--I've been interested in dreams."
He paused a moment, moving a chair for her, and I could see that he was
observing the effect of the statement on her. She did not seem to show
any emotion at all over it, and Kennedy went on.
"Often I've studied my own dreams. I find that if, when I wake in the
morning, I immediately try to recollect whether I have dreamed anything
the night before or not, I invariably find that I have. But if I do
something else--even as simple a thing as take a bath or shave--unless
the dreams were especially vivid, they are all gone when I try to
recollect them. I'm almost convinced that we dream continuously in
sleep, that more often we don't recollect the dreams than we do. Your
dreams interested me at the very start. I guess that was why Doctor
Leslie repeated them to me. He knew that I was a crank, if you may call
it that, on dreams. As for detective work of the old kind--that sort of
thing Doyle does and--well--I leave that to Doyle." He shrugged.
As Kennedy rattled on, I could see or fancy that Honora was becoming
more reassured.
"What is it you want me to do now?" she asked, her reluctance
disappearing.
"Nothing very difficult--for you," he flattered. "You see, I have
here a list of words, selected at random. I don't suppose it will
mean anything. Yet there are lots of things these strange people, the
modern experimental psychologists, do that seem perfectly foolish until
you understand them. If we can once get at the bottom of your dreams,
find out what causes them, I mean, I feel sure that we can make that
nervousness of yours vanish as a prestidigitator will cause a card to
vanish into thin air."
She nodded. At least on the surface, she seemed satisfied, though I
could not be sure but that beneath the surface it was really that she
was shrewdly convinced that it was necessary to make the best of a bad
situation.
"You see," Craig pursued, seizing whatever advantage he might have, "as
I read off from the list of words, I wish that you would repeat the
first word, anything," he emphasized, "that comes into your mind, no
matter how trivial it may seem to you. Perhaps it is not so trivial,
after all, as you think. It may be just the thing that will lead to
helping you."
She nodded dutifully, but her attitude did not seem to please Kennedy
thoroughly.
"Don't force yourself to think," he hastened. "Let your ideas flow
naturally. It depends altogether on your paying attention to the words,
undivided attention, and answering as quickly as you can. Remember--the
first word that comes into your mind. Don't change it--no matter what
it is, even if it seems trivial and of no consequence. It's very easy
to do and it won't take long. Call it a game if you will. But take it
seriously."
"Suppose I refuse to do it?" she suggested.
Kennedy merely shrugged. "I hardly think you will do that," he smiled
quietly. "Besides, it will be over soon."
She leaned back in the easy-chair in which she had been sitting, and
Kennedy took it as a tacit consent to the test.
From the paper, as I placed myself at a table, with the list of words
and the blank columns before me, he read the first word, quickly and
incisively, "Foot."
"Shoe," countered Honora quickly, then gazed at him to see whether she
had caught the idea of what it was he wanted her to do.
"Very good," nodded Kennedy, reassuringly. "That's the thing."
I wrote down the word and when I had finished I could see from the
corner of my eye that Kennedy also had noted the time, marking down
"2-5," which I took to mean two-fifths of a second.
"Gray," he repeated next.
"Black."
Again I noted the answering word in the second column, while again I
saw him put down another "2-5."
I began to see dimly what his method was. Evidently Kennedy had chosen
colorless words at the start to reassure her. And the fact was that
they did reassure. She saw immediately that there was nothing very
terrifying about what he wanted her to do.
"Dream," Craig added, from the list.
Flashed through my mind, as I prepared to write, the thought that he
was now coming to the words more significant.
"Lathrop," she answered.
I saw that Kennedy had noted a longer reaction time by some fifths of
a second than before. Was it because she had checked a first thought
suggested by the word and had taken extra time to substitute something
for it? And why had she made the substitution that she did? It was a
natural thing to mention the doctor's name in that connection. Had she
rejected one word to cast about for another equally natural?
I scarcely think it necessary to follow the whole thing through,
question and answer, word by word. Instead I have appended a list of
the words and the answering words as we got them first, and suggest
that they will bear careful study:
1 2 3
foot shoe
gray black
dream Lathrop
struggle escape
ship ocean
bean baked
lion path
book newspaper
false true
voyage Europe
money poor
sad myself
quarrel Vail
marry Vail
bull breath
sleep dream
foolish wise
despise love
finger hand
friend none
serpent hiss
face man
chair sit
bottle stopper
glass empty
Kennedy finished and glanced hastily over the list of words that I had
written, as well as the fractions of seconds which he had jotted down
on his own sheet of paper. Honora, unable to make out quite what was
the reason back of all these enigmatical proceedings, watched his face
narrowly.
"Did I do all right?" she asked, with just a trace of anxiety in her
tone.
"Very fine, thank you," assured Kennedy. "It wasn't such a terrible
thing, after all, was it?"
"N-no," she admitted, reluctantly.