THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES
THE DREAM DOCTOR
BY ARTHUR B. REEVE
FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER
Contents
CHAPTER
I The Dream Doctor
II The Soul Analysis
III The Sybarite
IV The Beauty Shop
V The Phantom Circuit
VI The Detectaphone
VII The Green Curse
VIII The Mummy Case
IX The Elixir of Life
X The Toxin of Death
XI The Opium Joint
XII The “Dope Trust”
XIII The Kleptomaniac
XIV The Crimeometer
XV The Vampire
XVI The Blood Test
XVII The Bomb Maker
XVIII The “Coke” Fiend
XIX The Submarine Mystery
XX The Wireless Detector
XXI The Ghouls
XXII The X-Ray “Movies”
XXIII The Death House
XXIV The Final Day
THE DREAM DOCTOR
I
THE DREAM DOCTOR
“Jameson, I want you to get the real story about that friend of yours,
Professor Kennedy,” announced the managing editor of the Star, early
one afternoon when I had been summoned into the sanctum.
From a batch of letters that had accumulated in the litter on the top
of his desk, he selected one and glanced over it hurriedly.
“For instance,” he went on reflectively, “here’s a letter from a
Constant Reader who asks, ‘Is this Professor Craig Kennedy really all
that you say he is, and, if so, how can I find out about his new
scientific detective method?’”
He paused and tipped back his chair.
“Now, I don’t want to file these letters in the waste basket. When
people write letters to a newspaper, it means something. I might reply,
in this case, that he is as real as science, as real as the fight of
society against the criminal. But I want to do more than that.”
The editor had risen, as if shaking himself momentarily loose from the
ordinary routine of the office.
“You get me?” he went on, enthusiastically, “In other words, your
assignment, Jameson, for the next month is to do nothing except follow
your friend Kennedy. Start in right now, on the first, and
cross-section out of his life just one month, an average month. Take
things just as they come, set them down just as they happen, and when
you get through give me an intimate picture of the man and his work.”
He picked up the schedule for the day and I knew that the interview was
at an end. I was to “get” Kennedy.
Often I had written snatches of Craig’s adventures, but never before
anything as ambitious as this assignment, for a whole month. At first
it staggered me. But the more I thought about it, the better I liked it.
I hastened uptown to the apartment on the Heights which Kennedy and I
had occupied for some time. I say we occupied it. We did so during
those hours when he was not at his laboratory at the Chemistry Building
on the University campus, or working on one of those cases which
fascinated him. Fortunately, he happened to be there as I burst in upon
him.
“Well?” he queried absently, looking up from a book, one of the latest
untranslated treatises on the new psychology from the pen of the
eminent scientist, Dr. Freud of Vienna, “what brings you uptown so
early?”
Briefly as I could, I explained to him what it was that I proposed to
do. He listened without comment and I rattled on, determined not to
allow him to negative it.
“And,” I added, warming up to the subject, “I think I owe a debt of
gratitude to the managing editor. He has crystallised in my mind an
idea that has long been latent. Why, Craig,” I went on, “that is
exactly what you want—to show people how they can never hope to beat
the modern scientific detective, to show that the crime-hunters have
gone ahead faster even than—”
The telephone tinkled insistently.
Without a word, Kennedy motioned to me to “listen in” on the extension
on my desk, which he had placed there as a precaution so that I could
corroborate any conversation that took place over our wire.
His action was quite enough to indicate to me that, at least, he had no
objection to the plan.
“This is Dr. Leslie—the coroner. Can you come to the Municipal
Hospital—right away?”
“Right away, Doctor,” answered Craig, hanging up the receiver. “Walter,
you’ll come, too?”
A quarter of an hour later we were in the courtyard of the city’s
largest hospital. In the balmy sunshine the convalescing patients were
sitting on benches or slowly trying their strength, walking over the
grass, clad in faded hospital bathrobes.
We entered the office and quickly were conducted by an orderly to a
little laboratory in a distant wing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Craig, as we hurried along.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied the man, “except that it seems that
Price Maitland, the broker, you know, was picked up on the street and
brought here dying. He died before the doctors could relieve him.”
Dr. Leslie was waiting impatiently for us. “What do you make of that,
Professor Kennedy?”
The coroner spread out on the table before us a folded half-sheet of
typewriting and searched Craig’s face eagerly to see what impression it
made on him.
“We found it stuffed in Maitland’s outside coat pocket,” he explained.
It was dateless and brief:
Dearest Madeline:
May God in his mercy forgive me for what I am about to do. I have just
seen Dr. Ross. He has told me the nature of your illness. I cannot bear
to think that I am the cause, so I am going simply to drop out of your
life. I cannot live with you, and I cannot live without you. Do not
blame me. Always think the best you can of me, even if you could not
give me all. Good-bye.
Your distracted husband,
PRICE.
At once the idea flashed over me that Maitland had found himself
suffering from some incurable disease and had taken the quickest means
of settling his dilemma.
Kennedy looked up suddenly from the note.
“Do you think it was a suicide?” asked the coroner.
“Suicide?” Craig repeated. “Suicides don’t usually write on
typewriters. A hasty note scrawled on a sheet of paper in trembling pen
or pencil, that is what they usually leave. No, some one tried to
escape the handwriting experts this way.”
“Exactly my idea,” agreed Dr. Leslie, with evident satisfaction. “Now
listen. Maitland was conscious almost up to the last moment, and yet
the hospital doctors tell me they could not get a syllable of an
ante-mortem statement from him.”
“You mean he refused to talk?” I asked.
“No,” he replied; “it was more perplexing than that Even if the police
had not made the usual blunder of arresting him for intoxication
instead of sending him immediately to the hospital, it would have made
no difference. The doctors simply could not have saved him, apparently.
For the truth is, Professor Kennedy, we don’t even know what was the
matter with him.”
Dr. Leslie seemed much excited by the case, as well he might be.
“Maitland was found reeling and staggering on Broadway this morning,”
continued the coroner. “Perhaps the policeman was not really at fault
at first for arresting him, but before the wagon came Maitland was
speechless and absolutely unable to move a muscle.”
Dr. Leslie paused as he recited the strange facts, then resumed: “His
eyes reacted, all right. He seemed to want to speak, to write, but
couldn’t. A frothy saliva dribbled from his mouth, but he could not
frame a word. He was paralysed, and his breathing was peculiar. They
then hurried him to the hospital as soon as they could. But it was of
no use.”
Kennedy was regarding the doctor keenly as he proceeded. Dr. Leslie
paused again to emphasise what he was about to say.
“Here is another strange thing. It may or may not be of importance, but
it is strange, nevertheless. Before Maitland died they sent for his
wife. He was still conscious when she reached the hospital, could
recognise her, seemed to want to speak, but could neither talk nor
move. It was pathetic. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she did
not faint. She is not of the fainting kind. It was what she said that
impressed everyone. ‘I knew it—I knew it,’ she cried. She had dropped
on her knees by the side of the bed. ‘I felt it. Only the other night I
had the horrible dream. I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could not
see what it was—it seemed to be an invisible thing. I ran to him—then
the scene shifted. I saw a funeral procession, and in the casket I
could see through the wood—his face—oh, it was a warning! It has come
true. I feared it, even though I knew it was only a dream. Often I have
had the dream of that funeral procession and always I saw the same
face, his face. Oh, it is horrible—terrible!’”
It was evident that Dr. Leslie at least was impressed by the dream.
“What have you done since?” asked Craig.
“I have turned loose everyone I could find available,” replied Dr.
Leslie, handing over a sheaf of reports.
Kennedy glanced keenly over them as they lay spread out on the table.
“I should like to see the body,” he said, at length.
It was lying in the next room, awaiting Dr. Leslie’s permission to be
removed.
“At first,” explained the doctor, leading the way, “we thought it might
be a case of knock-out drops, chloral, you know—or perhaps chloral and
whiskey, a combination which might unite to make chloroform in the
blood. But no. We have tested for everything we can think of. In fact
there seems to be no trace of a drug present. It is inexplicable. If
Maitland really committed suicide, he must have taken SOMETHING—and as
far as we can find out there is no trace of anything. As far as we have
gone we have always been forced back to the original idea that it was a
natural death—perhaps due to shock of some kind, or organic weakness.”
Kennedy had thoughtfully raised one of the lifeless hands and was
examining it.
“Not that,” he corrected. “Even if the autopsy shows nothing, it
doesn’t prove that it was a natural death. Look!”
On the back of the hand was a tiny, red, swollen mark. Dr. Leslie
regarded it with pursed-up lips as though not knowing whether it was
significant or not.
“The tissues seemed to be thickly infiltrated with a reddish serum and
the blood-vessels congested,” he remarked slowly. “There was a frothy
mucus in the bronchial tubes. The blood was liquid, dark, and didn’t
clot. The fact of the matter is that the autopsical research revealed
absolutely nothing but a general disorganisation of the
blood-corpuscles, a most peculiar thing, but one the significance of
which none of us here can fathom. If it was poison that he took or that
had been given to him, it was the most subtle, intangible, elusive,
that ever came to my knowledge. Why, there is absolutely no trace or
clue—”
“Nor any use in looking for one in that way,” broke in Kennedy
decisively. “If we are to make any progress in this case, we must look
elsewhere than to an autopsy. There is no clue beyond what you have
found, if I am right. And I think I am right. It was the venom of the
cobra.”
“Cobra venom?” repeated the coroner, glancing up at a row of technical
works.
“Yes. No, it’s no use trying to look it up. There is no way of
verifying a case of cobra poisoning except by the symptoms. It is not
like any other poisoning in the world.”
Dr. Leslie and I looked at each other, aghast at the thought of a
poison so subtle that it defied detection.
“You think he was bitten by a snake?” I blurted out, half incredulous.
“Oh, Walter, on Broadway? No, of course not. But cobra venom has a
medicinal value. It is sent here in small quantities for various
medicinal purposes. Then, too, it would be easy to use it. A scratch on
the hand in the passing crowd, a quick shoving of the letter into the
pocket of the victim—and the murderer would probably think to go
undetected.”
We stood dismayed at the horror of such a scientific murder and the
meagreness of the materials to work on in tracing it out.
“That dream was indeed peculiar,” ruminated Craig, before we had really
grasped the import of his quick revelation.
“You don’t mean to say that you attach any importance to a dream?” I
asked hurriedly, trying to follow him.
Kennedy merely shrugged his shoulders, but I could see plainly enough
that he did.
“You haven’t given this letter out to the press?” he asked.
“Not yet,” answered Dr. Leslie.
“Then don’t, until I say to do so. I shall need to keep it.”
The cab in which we had come to the hospital was still waiting. “We
must see Mrs. Maitland first,” said Kennedy, as we left the nonplused
coroner and his assistants.
The Maitlands lived, we soon found, in a large old-fashioned brownstone
house just off Fifth Avenue.
Kennedy’s card with the message that it was very urgent brought us in
as far as the library, where we sat for a moment looking around at the
quiet refinement of a more than well-to-do home.
On a desk at one end of the long room was a typewriter. Kennedy rose.
There was not a sound of any one in either the hallway or the adjoining
rooms. A moment later he was bending quietly over the typewriter in the
corner, running off a series of characters on a sheet of paper. A sound
of a closing door upstairs, and he quickly jammed the paper into his
pocket, retraced his steps, and was sitting quietly opposite me again.
Mrs. Maitland was a tall, perfectly formed woman of baffling age, but
with the impression of both youth and maturity which was very
fascinating. She was calmer now, and although she seemed to be of
anything but a hysterical nature, it was quite evident that her
nervousness was due to much more than the shock of the recent tragic
event, great as that must have been. It may have been that I recalled
the words of the note, “Dr. Ross has told me the nature of your
illness,” but I fancied that she had been suffering from some nervous
trouble.
“There is no use prolonging our introduction, Mrs. Maitland,” began
Kennedy. “We have called because the authorities are not yet fully
convinced that Mr. Maitland committed suicide.”
It was evident that she had seen the note, at least. “Not a suicide?”
she repeated, looking from one to the other of us.
“Mr. Masterson on the wire, ma’am,” whispered a maid. “Do you wish to
speak to him? He begged to say that he did not wish to intrude, but he
felt that if there—”
“Yes, I will talk to him—in my room,” she interrupted.
I thought that there was just a trace of well-concealed confusion, as
she excused herself.
We rose. Kennedy did not resume his seat immediately. Without a word or
look he completed his work at the typewriter by abstracting several
blank sheets of paper from the desk.
A few moments later Mrs. Maitland returned, calmer.
“In his note,” resumed Kennedy, “he spoke of Dr. Ross and—”
“Oh,” she cried, “can’t you see Dr. Ross about it? Really I—I oughtn’t
to be—questioned in this way—not now, so soon after what I’ve had to
go through.”
It seemed that her nerves were getting unstrung again. Kennedy rose to
go.
“Later, come to see me,” she pleaded. “But now—you must realise—it is
too much. I cannot talk—I cannot.”
“Mr. Maitland had no enemies that you know of?” asked Kennedy,
determined to learn something now, at least.
“No, no. None that would—do that.”
“You had had no quarrel?” he added.
“No—we never quarrelled. Oh, Price—why did you? How could you?”
Her feelings were apparently rapidly getting the better of her. Kennedy
bowed, and we withdrew silently. He had learned one thing. She believed
or wanted others to believe in the note.
At a public telephone, a few minutes later, Kennedy was running over
the names in the telephone book. “Let me see—here’s an Arnold
Masterson,” he considered. Then turning the pages he went on, “Now we
must find this Dr. Ross. There—Dr. Sheldon Ross—specialist in nerve
diseases—that must be the one. He lives only a few blocks further
uptown.”
Handsome, well built, tall, dignified, in fact distinguished, Dr. Ross
proved to be a man whose very face and manner were magnetic, as should
be those of one who had chosen his branch of the profession.
“You have heard, I suppose, of the strange death of Price Maitland?”
began Kennedy when we were seated in the doctor’s office.
“Yes, about an hour ago.” It was evident that he was studying us.
“Mrs. Maitland, I believe, is a patient of yours?”
“Yes, Mrs. Maitland is one of my patients,” he admitted
interrogatively. Then, as if considering that Kennedy’s manner was not
to be mollified by anything short of a show of confidence, he added:
“She came to me several months ago. I have had her under treatment for
nervous trouble since then, without a marked improvement.”
“And Mr. Maitland,” asked Kennedy, “was he a patient, too?”
“Mr. Maitland,” admitted the doctor with some reticence, “had called on
me this morning, but no, he was not a patient.”
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“He seemed to be much worried,” Dr. Ross replied guardedly.
Kennedy took the suicide note from his pocket and handed it to him.
“I suppose you have heard of this?” asked Craig.
The doctor read it hastily, then looked up, as if measuring from
Kennedy’s manner just how much he knew. “As nearly as I could make
out,” he said slowly, his reticence to outward appearance gone,
“Maitland seemed to have something on his mind. He came inquiring as to
the real cause of his wife’s nervousness. Before I had talked to him
long I gathered that he had a haunting fear that she did not love him
any more, if ever. I fancied that he even doubted her fidelity.”
I wondered why the doctor was talking so freely, now, in contrast with
his former secretiveness.
“Do you think he was right?” shot out Kennedy quickly, eying Dr. Ross
keenly.
“No, emphatically, no; he was not right,” replied the doctor, meeting
Craig’s scrutiny without flinching. “Mrs. Maitland,” he went on more
slowly as if carefully weighing every word, “belongs to a large and
growing class of women in whom, to speak frankly, sex seems to be
suppressed. She is a very handsome and attractive woman—you have seen
her? Yes? You must have noticed, though, that she is really frigid,
cold, intellectual.”
The doctor was so sharp and positive about his first statement and so
careful in phrasing the second that I, at least, jumped to the
conclusion that Maitland might have been right, after all. I imagined
that Kennedy, too, had his suspicions of the doctor.
“Have you ever heard of or used cobra venom in any of your medical
work?” he asked casually.
Dr. Ross wheeled in his chair, surprised.
“Why, yes,” he replied quickly. “You know that it is a test for blood
diseases, one of the most recently discovered and used parallel to the
old tests. It is known as the Weil cobra-venom test.”
“Do you use it often?”
“N—no,” he replied. “My practice ordinarily does not lie in that
direction. I used it not long ago, once, though. I have a patient under
my care, a well-known club-man. He came to me originally—”
“Arnold Masterson?” asked Craig.
“Yes—how did you know his name?”
“Guessed it,” replied Craig laconically, as if he knew much more than
he cared to tell. “He was a friend of Mrs. Maitland’s, was he not?”
“I should say not,” replied Dr. Ross, without hesitation. He was quite
ready to talk without being urged. “Ordinarily,” he explained
confidentially, “professional ethics seals my lips, but in this
instance, since you seem to know so much, I may as well tell more.”
I hardly knew whether to take him at his face value or not. Still he
went on: “Mrs. Maitland is, as I have hinted at, what we specialists
would call a consciously frigid but unconsciously passionate woman. As
an intellectual woman she suppresses nature. But nature does and will
assert herself, we believe. Often you will find an intellectual woman
attracted unreasonably to a purely physical man—I mean, speaking
generally, not in particular cases. You have read Ellen Key, I presume?
Well, she expresses it well in some of the things she has written about
affinities. Now, don’t misunderstand me,” he cautioned. “I am speaking
generally, not of this individual case.”
I was following Dr. Ross closely. When he talked so, he was a most
fascinating man.
“Mrs. Maitland,” he resumed, “has been much troubled by her dreams, as
you have heard, doubtless. The other day she told me of another dream.
In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull, which suddenly changed into
a serpent. I may say that I had asked her to make a record of her
dreams, as well as other data, which I thought might be of use in the
study and treatment of her nervous troubles. I readily surmised that
not the dream, but something else, perhaps some recollection which it
recalled, worried her. By careful questioning I discovered that it
was—a broken engagement.”
“Yes,” prompted Kennedy.
“The bull-serpent, she admitted, had a half-human face—the face of
Arnold Masterson!”
Was Dr. Ross desperately shifting suspicion from himself? I asked.
“Very strange—very,” ruminated Kennedy. “That reminds me again. I
wonder if you could let me have a sample of this cobra venom?”
“Surely. Excuse me; I’ll get you some.”
The doctor had scarcely shut the door when Kennedy began prowling
around quietly. In the waiting-room, which was now deserted, stood a
typewriter.
Quickly Craig ran over the keys of the machine until he had a sample of
every character. Then he reached into drawer of the desk and hastily
stuffed several blank sheets of paper into his pocket.
“Of course I need hardly caution you in handling this,” remarked Dr.
Ross, as he returned. “You are as well acquainted as I am with the
danger attending its careless and unscientific uses.”
“I am, and I thank you very much,” said Kennedy.
We were standing in the waiting-room.
“You will keep me advised of any progress you make in the case?” the
doctor asked. “It complicates, as you can well imagine, my treatment of
Mrs. Maitland.”
“I shall be glad to do so,” replied Kennedy, as we departed.
An hour later found us in a handsomely appointed bachelor apartment in
a fashionable hotel overlooking the lower entrance to the Park.
“Mr. Masterson, I believe?” inquired Kennedy, as a slim, debonair,
youngish-old man entered the room in which we had been waiting.
“I am that same,” he smiled. “To what am I indebted for this pleasure?”
We had been gazing at the various curios with which he had made the
room a veritable den of the connoisseur.
“You have evidently travelled considerably,” remarked Kennedy, avoiding
the question for the time.
“Yes, I have been back in this country only a few weeks,” Masterson
replied, awaiting the answer to the first question.
“I called,” proceeded Kennedy, “in the hope that you, Mr. Masterson,
might be able to shed some light on the rather peculiar case of Mr.
Maitland, of whose death, I suppose, you have already heard.”
“I?”
“You have known Mrs. Maitland a long time?” ignored Kennedy.
“We went to school together.”
“And were engaged, were you not?”
Masterson looked at Kennedy in ill-concealed surprise.
“Yes. But how did you know that? It was a secret—only between us
two—I thought. She broke it off—not I.”
“She broke off the engagement?” prompted Kennedy.
“Yes—a story about an escapade of mine and all that sort of thing, you
know—but, by Jove! I like your nerve, sir.” Masterson frowned, then
added: “I prefer not to talk of that. There are some incidents in a
man’s life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that are
forbidden.”
“Oh, I beg pardon,” hastened Kennedy, “but, by the way, you would have
no objection to making a statement regarding your trip abroad and your
recent return to this country—subsequent to—ah—the incident which we
will not refer to?”
“None whatever. I left New York in 1908, disgusted with everything in
general, and life here in particular—”
“Would you object to jotting it down so that I can get it straight?”
asked Kennedy. “Just a brief resume, you know.”
“No. Have you a pen or a pencil?”
“I think you might as well dictate it; it will take only a minute to
run it off on the typewriter.”
Masterson rang the bell. A young man appeared noiselessly.
“Wix,” he said, “take this: ‘I left New York in 1908, travelling on the
Continent, mostly in Paris, Vienna, and Rome. Latterly I have lived in
London, until six weeks ago, when I returned to New York.’ Will that
serve?”
“Yes, perfectly,” said Kennedy, as he folded up the sheet of paper
which the young secretary handed to him. “Thank you. I trust you won’t
consider it an impertinence if I ask you whether you were aware that
Dr. Ross was Mrs. Maitland’s physician?”
“Of course I knew it,” Masterson replied frankly. “I have given him up
for that reason, although he does not know it yet. I most strenuously
object to being the subject of—what shall I call it?—his mental
vivisection.”
“Do you think he oversteps his position in trying to learn of the
mental life of his patients?” queried Craig.
“I would rather say nothing further on that, either,” replied
Masterson. “I was talking over the wire to Mrs. Maitland a few moments
ago, giving her my condolences and asking if there was anything I could
do for her immediately, just as I would have done in the old days—only
then, of course, I should have gone to her directly. The reason I did
not go, but telephoned, was because this Ross seems to have put some
ridiculous notions into her head about me. Now, look here; I don’t want
to discuss this. I’ve told you more than I intended, anyway.”
Masterson had risen. His suavity masked a final determination to say no
more.
II
The Soul Analysis
The day was far advanced after this series of very unsatisfactory
interviews. I looked at Kennedy blankly. We seemed to have uncovered so
little that was tangible that I was much surprised to find that
apparently he was well contented with what had happened in the case so
far.
“I shall be busy for a few hours in the laboratory, Walter,” he
remarked, as we parted at the subway. “I think, if you have nothing
better to do, that you might employ the time in looking up some of the
gossip about Mrs. Maitland and Masterson, to say nothing of Dr. Ross,”
he emphasised. “Drop in after dinner.”
There was not much that I could find. Of Mrs. Maitland there was
practically nothing that I already did not know from having seen her
name in the papers. She was a leader in a certain set which was
devoting its activities to various social and moral propaganda.
Masterson’s early escapades were notorious even in the younger smart
set in which he had moved, but his years abroad had mellowed the
recollection of them. He had not distinguished himself in any way since
his return to set gossip afloat, nor had any tales of his doings abroad
filtered through to New York clubland. Dr. Ross, I found to my
surprise, was rather better known than I had supposed, both as a
specialist and as a man about town. He seemed to have risen rapidly in
his profession as physician to the ills of society’s nerves.
I was amazed after dinner to find Kennedy doing nothing at all.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Have you struck a snag?”
“No,” he replied slowly, “I was only waiting. I told them to be here
between half-past eight and nine.”
“Who?” I queried.
“Dr. Leslie,” he answered. “He has the authority to compel the
attendance of Mrs. Maitland, Dr. Ross, and Masterson.”
The quickness with which he had worked out a case which was, to me, one
of the most inexplicable he had had for a long time, left me standing
speechless.
One by one they dropped in during the next half-hour, and, as usual, it
fell to me to receive them and smooth over the rough edges which always
obtruded at these little enforced parties in the laboratory.
Dr. Leslie and Dr. Ross were the first to arrive. They had not come
together, but had met at the door. I fancied I saw a touch of
professional jealousy in their manner, at least on the part of Dr.
Ross. Masterson came, as usual ignoring the seriousness of the matter
and accusing us all of conspiring to keep him from the first night of a
light opera which was opening. Mrs. Maitland followed, the unaccustomed
pallor of her face heightened by the plain black dress. I felt most
uncomfortable, as indeed I think the rest did. She merely inclined her
head to Masterson, seemed almost to avoid the eye of Dr. Ross, glared
at Dr. Leslie, and absolutely ignored me.
Craig had been standing aloof at his laboratory table, beyond a nod of
recognition paying little attention to anything. He seemed to be in no
hurry to begin.
“Great as science is,” he commenced, at length, “it is yet far removed
from perfection. There are, for instance, substances so mysterious,
subtle, and dangerous as to set the most delicate tests and powerful
lenses at naught, while they carry death most horrible in their train.”
He could scarcely have chosen his opening words with more effect.
“Chief among them,” he proceeded, “are those from nature’s own
laboratory. There are some sixty species of serpents, for example, with
deadly venom. Among these, as you doubtless have all heard, none has
brought greater terror to mankind than the cobra-di-capello, the Naja
tripudians of India. It is unnecessary for me to describe the cobra or
to say anything about the countless thousands who have yielded up their
lives to it. I have here a small quantity of the venom”—he indicated
it in a glass beaker. “It was obtained in New York, and I have tested
it on guinea-pigs. It has lost none of its potency.”
I fancied that there was a feeling of relief when Kennedy by his
actions indicated that he was not going to repeat the test.
“This venom,” he continued, “dries in the air into a substance like
small scales, soluble in water but not in alcohol. It has only a
slightly acrid taste and odour, and, strange to say, is inoffensive on
the tongue or mucous surfaces, even in considerable quantities. All we
know about it is that in an open wound it is deadly swift in action.”
It was difficult to sit unmoved at the thought that before us, in only
a few grains of the stuff, was enough to kill us all if it were
introduced into a scratch of our skin.
“Until recently chemistry was powerless to solve the enigma, the
microscope to detect its presence, or pathology to explain the reason
for its deadly effect. And even now, about all we know is that
autopsical research reveals absolutely nothing but the general
disorganisation of the blood corpuscles. In fact, such poisoning is
best known by the peculiar symptoms—the vertigo, weak legs, and
falling jaw. The victim is unable to speak or swallow, but is fully
sensible. He has nausea, paralysis, an accelerated pulse at first
followed rapidly by a weakening, with breath slow and laboured. The
pupils are contracted, but react to the last, and he dies in
convulsions like asphyxia. It is both a blood and a nerve poison.”
As Kennedy proceeded, Mrs. Maitland never took her large eyes from his
face.
Kennedy now drew from a large envelope in which he protected it, the
typewritten note which had been found on Maitland. He said nothing
about the “suicide” as he quietly began a new line of accumulating
evidence.
“There is an increasing use of the typewriting machine for the
production of spurious papers,” he began, rattling the note
significantly. “It is partly due to the great increase in the use of
the typewriter generally, but more than all is it due to the erroneous
idea that fraudulent typewriting cannot be detected. The fact is that
the typewriter is perhaps a worse means of concealing identity than is
disguised handwriting. It does not afford the effective protection to
the criminal that is supposed. On the contrary, the typewriting of a
fraudulent document may be the direct means by which it can be traced
to its source. First we have to determine what kind of machine a
certain piece of writing was done with, then what particular machine.”
He paused and indicated a number of little instruments on the table.
“For example,” he resumed, “the Lovibond tintometer tells me its story
of the colour of the ink used in the ribbon of the machine that wrote
this note as well as several standard specimens which I have been able
to obtain from three machines on which it might have been written.
“That leads me to speak of the quality of the paper in this half-sheet
that was found on Mr. Maitland. Sometimes such a half-sheet may be
mated with the other half from which it was torn as accurately as if
the act were performed before your eyes. There was no such good fortune
in this case, but by measurements made by the vernier micrometer
caliper I have found the precise thickness of several samples of paper
as compared to that of the suicide note. I need hardly add that in
thickness and quality, as well as in the tint of the ribbon, the note
points to person as the author.”
No one moved.
“And there are other proofs—unescapable,” Kennedy hurried on. “For
instance, I have counted the number of threads to the inch in the
ribbon, as shown by the letters of this note. That also corresponds to
the number in one of the three ribbons.”
Kennedy laid down a glass plate peculiarly ruled in little squares.
“This,” he explained, “is an alignment test plate, through which can be
studied accurately the spacing and alignment of typewritten characters.
There are in this pica type ten to the inch horizontally and six to the
inch vertically. That is usual. Perhaps you are not acquainted with the
fact that typewritten characters are in line both ways, horizontally
and vertically. There are nine possible positions for each character
which may be assumed with reference to one of these little standard
squares of the test plate. You cannot fail to appreciate what an
immense impossibility there is that one machine should duplicate the
variations out of the true which the microscope detects for several
characters on another.
“Not only that, but the faces of many letters inevitably become broken,
worn, battered, as well as out of alignment, or slightly shifted in
their position on the type bar. The type faces are not flat, but a
little concave to conform to the roller. There are thousands of
possible divergences, scars, and deformities in each machine.
“Such being the case,” he concluded, “typewriting has an individuality
like that of the Bertillon system, finger-prints, or the portrait
parle.”
He paused, then added quickly: “What machine was it in this case? I
have samples here from that of Dr. Boss, from a machine used by Mr.
Masterson’s secretary, and from a machine which was accessible to both
Mr. and Mrs. Maitland.”
Kennedy stopped, but he was not yet prepared to relieve the suspense of
two of those whom his investigation would absolve.
“Just one other point,” he resumed mercilessly, “a point which a few
years ago would have been inexplicable—if not positively misleading
and productive of actual mistake. I refer to the dreams of Mrs.
Maitland.”
I had been expecting it, yet the words startled me. What must they have
done to her? But she kept admirable control of herself.
“Dreams used to be treated very seriously by the ancients, but until
recently modern scientists, rejecting the ideas of the dark ages, have
scouted dreams. To-day, however, we study them scientifically, for we
believe that whatever is, has a reason. Dr. Ross, I think, is
acquainted with the new and remarkable theories of Dr. Sigmund Freud,
of Vienna?”
Dr. Ross nodded. “I dissent vigorously from some of Freud’s
conclusions,” he hastened.
“Let me state them first,” resumed Craig. “Dreams, says Freud, are very
important. They give us the most reliable information concerning the
individual. But that is only possible”—Kennedy emphasised the
point—“if the patient is in entire rapport with the doctor.
“Now, the dream is not an absurd and senseless jumble, but a perfect
mechanism and has a definite meaning in penetrating the mind. It is as
though we had two streams of thought, one of which we allow to flow
freely, the other of which we are constantly repressing, pushing back
into the subconscious, or unconscious. This matter of the evolution of
our individual mental life is too long a story to bore you with at such
a critical moment.
“But the resistances, the psychic censors of our ideas, are always
active, except in sleep. Then the repressed material comes to the
surface. But the resistances never entirely lose their power, and the
dream shows the material distorted. Seldom does one recognise his own
repressed thoughts or unattained wishes. The dream really is the
guardian of sleep to satisfy the activity of the unconscious and
repressed mental processes that would otherwise disturb sleep by
keeping the censor busy. In the case of a nightmare the watchman or
censor is aroused, finds himself overpowered, so to speak, and calls on
consciousness for help.
“There are three kinds of dreams—those which represent an unrepressed
wish as fulfilled, those that represent the realisation of a repressed
wish in an entirely concealed form, and those that represent the
realisation of a repressed wish in a form insufficiently or only
partially concealed.
“Dreams are not of the future, but of the past, except as they show
striving for unfulfilled wishes. Whatever may be denied in reality we
nevertheless can realise in another way—in our dreams. And probably
more of our daily life, conduct, moods, beliefs than we think, could be
traced to preceding dreams.”
Dr. Ross was listening attentively, as Craig turned to him. “This is
perhaps the part of Freud’s theory from which you dissent most
strongly. Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a
patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, the best
indication of abnormality would be its absence. Sex is one of the
strongest of human impulses, yet the one subjected to the greatest
repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural
development. In a normal life, he says, there are no neuroses. Let me
proceed now with what the Freudists call the psychanalysis, the soul
analysis, of Mrs. Maitland.”
It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which
this new science might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it.
“Mrs. Maitland,” he continued, “your dream of fear was a dream of what
we call the fulfilment of a suppressed wish. Moreover, fear always
denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety
means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. The gods of fear
were born of the goddess of love. Consciously you feared the death of
your husband because unconsciously you wished it.”
It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps, merciless—this dissecting
of the soul of the handsome woman before us; but it had come to a point
where it was necessary to get at the truth.
Mrs. Maitland, hitherto pale, was now flushed and indignant. Yet the
very manner of her indignation showed the truth of the new psychology
of dreams, for, as I learned afterward, people often become indignant
when the Freudists strike what is called the “main complex.”
“There are other motives just as important,” protested Dr. Boss. “Here
in America the money motive, ambition—”
“Let me finish,” interposed Kennedy. “I want to consider the other
dream also. Fear is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. It
also, as I have said, denotes sex. In dreams animals are usually
symbols. Now, in this second dream we find both the bull and the
serpent, from time immemorial, symbols of the continuing of the
life-force. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the
day preceding the dreams. You, Mrs. Maitland, dreamed of a man’s face
on these beasts. There was every chance of having him suggested to you.
You think you hate him. Consciously you reject him; unconsciously you
accept him. Any of the new psychologists who knows the intimate
connection between love and hate, would understand how that is
possible. Love does not extinguish hate; or hate, love. They repress
each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow.”
The situation was growing more tense as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy
actually taxing her with loving another?
“The dreamer,” he proceeded remorselessly, “is always the principal
actor in a dream, or the dream centres about the dreamer most
intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that
really concern others, but ourselves.
“Years ago,” he continued, “you suffered what the new psychologists
call a ‘psychic trauma’—a soul-wound. You were engaged, but your
censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of your fiance. In
pique you married Price Maitland. But you never lost your real,
subconscious love for another.”
He stopped, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet
which did not call for an answer, “Could you—be honest with yourself,
for you need say not a word aloud—could you always be sure of yourself
in the face of any situation?”
She looked startled. Her ordinarily inscrutable face betrayed
everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen
only by Kennedy. She knew the truth that she strove to repress; she was
afraid of herself.
“It is dangerous,” she murmured, “to be with a person who pays
attention to such little things. If every one were like you, I would no
longer breathe a syllable of my dreams.”
She was sobbing now.
What was back of it all? I had heard of the so-called resolution
dreams. I had heard of dreams that kill, of unconscious murder, of the
terrible acts of the subconscious somnambulist of which the actor has
no recollection in the waking state until put under hypnotism. Was it
that which Kennedy was driving at disclosing?
Dr. Ross moved nearer to Mrs. Maitland as if to reassure her. Craig was
studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on her and on
the other faces before him.
Mrs. Maitland, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the
long-suppressed emotion of the evening and of the tragic day, called
for sympathy which, I could see, Craig would readily give when he had
reached the climax he had planned.
“Kennedy,” exclaimed Masterson, pushing aside Dr. Ross, as he bounded
to the side of Mrs. Maitland, unable to restrain himself longer,
“Kennedy, you are a faker—nothing but a damned dream doctor—in
scientific disguise.”
“Perhaps,” replied Craig, with a quiet curl of the lip. “But the
threads of the typewriter ribbon, the alignment of the letters, the
paper, all the ‘fingerprints’ of that type-written note of suicide were
those of the machine belonging to the man who caused the soul-wound,
who knew Madeline Maitland’s inmost heart better than herself—because
he had heard of Freud undoubtedly, when he was in Vienna—who knew that
he held her real love still, who posed as a patient of Dr. Ross to
learn her secrets as well as to secure the subtle poison of the cobra.
That man, perhaps, merely brushed against Price Maitland in the crowd,
enough to scratch his hand with the needle, shove the false note into
his pocket—anything to win the woman who he knew loved him, and whom
he could win. Masterson, you are that man!”
The next half hour was crowded kaleidoscopically with events—the call
by Dr. Leslie for the police, the departure of the Coroner with
Masterson in custody, and the efforts of Dr. Ross to calm his now
almost hysterical patient, Mrs. Maitland.
Then a calm seemed to settle down over the old laboratory which had so
often been the scene of such events, tense with human interest. I could
scarcely conceal my amazement, as I watched Kennedy quietly restoring
to their places the pieces of apparatus he had used.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, catching my eye as he paused with the
tintometer in his hand.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “that’s a fine way to start a month! Here’s just
one day gone and you’ve caught your man. Are you going to keep that up?
If you are—I’ll quit and skip to February. I’ll choose the shortest
month, if that’s the pace!”
“Any month you please,” he smiled grimly, as he reluctantly placed the
tintometer in its cabinet.
There was no use. I knew that any other month would have been just the
same.
“Well,” I replied weakly, “all I can hope is that every day won’t be as
strenuous as this has been. I hope, at least, you will give me time to
make some notes before you start off again.”
“Can’t say,” he answered, still busy returning paraphernalia to its
accustomed place. “I have no control over the cases as they come to
me—except that I can turn down those that don’t interest me.”
“Then,” I sighed wearily, “turn down the next one. I must have rest.
I’m going home to sleep.”
“Very well,” he said, making no move to follow me.
I shook my head doubtfully. It was impossible to force a card on
Kennedy. Instead of showing any disposition to switch off the
laboratory lights, he appeared to be regarding a row of half-filled
test-tubes with the abstraction of a man who has been interrupted in
the midst of an absorbing occupation.
“Good night,” I said at length.
“Good night,” he echoed mechanically.
I know that he slept that night—at least his bed had been slept in
when I awoke in the morning. But he was gone. But then, it was not
unusual for him, when the fever for work was on him, to consider even
five or fewer hours a night’s rest. It made no difference when I argued
with him. The fact that he thrived on it himself and could justify it
by pointing to other scientists was refutation enough.
Slowly I dressed, breakfasted, and began transcribing what I could from
the hastily jotted down notes of the day before. I knew that the work,
whatever it was, in which he was now engaged must be in the nature of
research, dear to his heart. Otherwise, he would have left word for me.
No word came from him, however, all day, and I had not only caught up
in my notes, but, my appetite whetted by our first case, had become
hungry for more. In fact I had begun to get a little worried at the
continued silence. A hand on the knob of the door or a ring of the
telephone would hare been a welcome relief. I was gradually becoming
aware of the fact that I liked the excitement of the life as much as
Kennedy did.
I knew it when the sudden sharp tinkle of the telephone set my heart
throbbing almost as quickly as the little bell hammer buzzed.
“Jameson, for Heaven’s sake find Kennedy immediately and bring him over
here to the Novella Beauty Parlour. We’ve got the worst case I’ve been
up against in a long time. Dr. Leslie, the coroner, is here, and says
we must not make a move until Kennedy arrives.”
I doubt whether in all our long acquaintance I had ever heard First
Deputy O’Connor more wildly excited and apparently more helpless than
he seemed over the telephone that night.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Never mind, never mind. Find Kennedy,” he called back almost
brusquely. “It’s Miss Blanche Blaisdell, the actress—she’s been found
dead here. The thing is an absolute mystery. Now get him, GET HIM.”
It was still early in the evening, and Kennedy had not come in, nor had
he sent any word to our apartment. O’Connor had already tried the
laboratory. As for myself, I had not the slightest idea where Craig
was. I knew the case must be urgent if both the deputy and the coroner
were waiting for him. Still, after half an hour’s vigorous telephoning,
I was unable to find a trace of Kennedy in any of his usual haunts.
In desperation I left a message for him with the hall-boy in case he
called up, jumped into a cab, and rode over to the laboratory, hoping
that some of the care-takers might still be about and might know
something of his whereabouts. The janitor was able to enlighten me to
the extent of telling me that a big limousine had called for Kennedy an
hour or so before, and that he had left in great haste.
I had given it up as hopeless and had driven back to the apartment to
wait for him, when the hall-boy made a rush at me just as I was paying
my fare.
“Mr. Kennedy on the wire, sir,” he cried as he half dragged me into the
hall.
“Walter,” almost shouted Kennedy, “I’m over at the Washington Heights
Hospital with Dr. Barron—you remember Barron, in our class at college?
He has a very peculiar case of a poor girl whom he found wandering on
the street and brought here. Most unusual thing. He came over to the
laboratory after me in his car. Yes, I have the message that you left
with the hall-boy. Come up here and pick me up, and we’ll ride right
down to the Novella. Goodbye.”
I had not stopped to ask questions and prolong the conversation,
knowing as I did the fuming impatience of O’Connor. It was relief
enough to know that Kennedy was located at last.
He was in the psychopathic ward with Barron, as I hurried in. The girl
whom he had mentioned over the telephone was then quietly sleeping
under the influence of an opiate, and they were discussing the case
outside in the hall.