"It's the most perplexing case I've been up against, Kennedy, for a long time."
Doctor Leslie, now medical adviser to the district attorney, had dropped in at the laboratory, and, to tell the truth, I was glad of the interruption. For from a retort Kennedy was evolving an olfactory offense which was particularly annoying to me, especially as I was struggling with an article on art for The Star. The things were incongruous, and the article suffered.
"A case?" repeated Kennedy, mechanically. "Here—stick your foot up. That's fine," he added, as he scraped the sole and heel of Leslie's shoe, while Leslie fidgeted impatiently. "This is new."
Apparently Leslie's case was forgotten before it was begun.
"You know," Craig went on, eagerly, "the use of all these new leather substitutes is opening a new field for detectives in the study of foot marks. I've just been analyzing the composition of some of the products. I'll soon be able to identify them all. A case, you say—eh?"
"Yes. You know the lawyer, Vail Wilford? Well, they found him in his office—this morning—dead—the lights on; a suicide—that is, it looked like a suicide at first. I don't know. The thing's a mystery to me."
"Oh—a suicide?" Craig frowned, as though such a thing was entirely too trivial to interrupt his analysis of rubber heels.
"He left this letter—to his wife," persisted Leslie.
We read the note.
Honora (it began)—Don't think I am a coward to do this, but things cannot go on as they have been going. It is no use. I cannot work it out. This is the only way. So I shall drop out. You will find my will in the safe. Good-by forever.
Vail.
The peculiarly pungent smell of burning rubber had by this time completely filled the laboratory. It was stifling, sickening.
"There—you made me forget that test, with your confounded suicide," reproached Kennedy. "That sample's ruined."
"Glad of it," I snorted. "Now I won't need a gas-mask."
However, in curiosity I looked at the note again. It was, strangely enough, written on a typewriter.
"Hm!" exclaimed Kennedy, with mild interest. "Suicides don't usually write on typewriters. A hasty scrawl—that's what you usually find."
"But Wilford was an unusual man," I suggested. "You might look for almost anything from Wilford."
I read the note again. And as I did so I asked myself whether it was a suicide note, after all. To me, now, it seemed too calmly composed and written for that, as Kennedy had suggested.
I knew Wilford as a lawyer, still comparatively young and well known almost to the point of notoriety, for of late he had taken many society divorce cases. Altogether, his office had become a sort of fashionable court of domestic relations.
"Here's the strange thing," hastened Leslie, taking advantage of Kennedy's momentary interest before he could return to another retort laden with some new material. "We found in the office, on the desk, two glasses. In one there seemed to be traces of nothing at all—but in the other I have discovered decided traces of atropin."
"That looks promising," remarked Kennedy, his analysis now entirely forgotten.
"That's why I decided to call you in. Will you help me?"
"Craig," I interrupted, "I don't know much about Vail Wilford, but he has had such an unsavory reputation that—well, I'd hesitate. I've always considered him a sort of society rat."
"What difference does that make, Walter?" argued Craig, turning on me suddenly. "If a crime has been committed, I must get at it. It is my duty—even if the man is a 'rat,' as you call him. Besides, this promises to be a very interesting case. Where is the body?" he asked, abruptly, in as matter-of-fact a tone as if it had been a wrecked car towed to a garage.
"Removed to his apartment on the Drive," replied Doctor Leslie, now much encouraged and not concealing it. "I've just come from the place. That was where I saw Honora Wilford."
"How did Mrs. Wilford take it?" asked Craig. "Has she been told all this yet?"
"Not about the atropin, I think. That's just what I wanted to tell you about. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she did not faint or do anything like that."
"Then what was it?" hastened Kennedy, impatiently.
"When we told her," replied Leslie, "she exclaimed: 'I knew it! I knew it!' She stood at the side of the bed where the body had been placed. 'I felt it!' she cried. 'Only the other night I had such a horrible dream. I dreamed I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled. I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move. Then the scene shifted—like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see as though by a second sight, a face—his face! Oh, it was a warning to me—to him!'
"I tried to calm her," went on Leslie. "But it was of no use. She kept crying out: 'It has come true—just as I saw in the dream. I feared it—even when I knew it was only a dream.' Strange, don't you think, Kennedy?"
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" asked Craig, impatiently.
"Didn't have a chance. You were studying my rubber heels."
"Well—what then? Is there anything else?"
"I questioned her," went on Leslie. "I asked her about her dreams. 'Yes,' she said, 'often I have had the dream of that funeral procession—and always I saw the same face—Vail's! Oh, it is horrible—horrible!'"
Kennedy was studying Leslie now keenly, though he said nothing.
"There's another thing, too," added Leslie, eagerly. "Although Mrs. Wilford seems to be perfectly normal, still I have learned that she was suffering from the usual society complaint—nervousness—nervous breakdown. She had been treated for some time by Doctor Lathrop—you know, the society physician they all run to?"
Kennedy nodded.
"Then, on a sort of docket, or, rather, calendar for private notes by dates, on the desk of Wilford, I discovered this entry, among others, 'Prepare papers in proposed case of Lathrop vs. Lathrop.' I turned back the calendar. Several times, on previous days, covering quite a period of time, I found entries like this: 'Vina at four,' 'Vina at six,' and other dates."
I glanced over at Kennedy. Vina Lathrop! I knew also of Vina Lathrop, the beautiful wife of the society physician. It was certainly news that a divorce proceeding had even been contemplated. I could imagine how the newspapers would revel in it when they knew.
"Then you'll go?" queried Doctor Leslie, anxiously.
Kennedy completely ignored my earlier objection. "Certainly I'll go," he replied, pulling off his stained smock.
Ten minutes later, with Doctor Leslie, we came to the Wilford apartment, one of those ornate and expensive multiple dwellings that front the river and command a rental that fixes a social station in certain sets.
Following him, we rode up in the elevator, and had scarcely been admitted to the Wilford suite when we were greeted familiarly by a voice.
It was Doyle, of the detective bureau, a sleuth of the old school, but for all that a capital fellow and one with whom we got along very nicely, so long as we flattered him and allowed him a generous share of credit when the rounding out of a case came about.
"What do you really know about her?" he whispered, finally, after a few moments' chat, jerking his thumb ominously as he pointed with it down the hall in the direction of a room where I supposed that Honora Wilford must be.
"Very little, it's true," cut in Leslie. "I think our report said that her maiden name was Honora Chappelle, that her father, Honore Chappelle, made quite a fortune as an optician, that she was an only child and inherited—"
"I don't mean her pedigree," scorned Doyle. "I mean modern history. Now, I've been making some inquiries, from the neighbors and others, and I've had a couple of men out picking up stray bits of information."
Doyle leaned over patronizingly to Kennedy, as much as to say that, with all Craig's science, he couldn't beat the organization of the regular force, a contention Kennedy was always quite willing to admit.
"I have just learned," informed Doyle, "that Wilford had been having her shadowed. They tell me, too, that she has been seen once or twice with an old friend of hers, Vance Shattuck, the broker. They tell me that before she married Wilford she was once engaged to Shattuck. Know him?" he asked, turning to me.
"I've heard of him," I replied. "I guess he's well known on Wall Street—seems to get his name into the papers often enough, anyhow, in one scandal or another."
"Well, I think that dream stuff is all camouflage, just between you and me," nodded Doyle, sagely, drawing a piece of paper from his pocket. "I've been going over things pretty carefully since I've been here. In her desk I found this thing."
He held out the paper to Kennedy. It was a page torn out of a book of poetry, an anthology, I imagined, for on the page was printed the title of a sonnet, "Renouncement," and the name of the author, Alice Meynell. On the wide margin of the page was written in ink, in what Doyle assured us was Mrs. Wilford's own handwriting, the notation, "One of the greatest sonnets of pure emotion."
We all read it and I am forced to admit that, whatever our opinion might have been of Honora Wilford before, we were convinced that her literary judgment was not at fault. I add the sonnet:
Kennedy folded up the sonnet and its notation, and, without a word, turned from Doyle and looked about the room in which we were, a little reception-room.
On the table before Doyle there were two glasses, as well as some other objects which Doyle had either collected or brought with him from the office.
"I suppose those are the glasses you found at the office," ventured Kennedy. "In one of them I understand that traces of atropin were found."
Doyle nodded.
"What's that?" asked Craig, pointing to a cut-glass-stoppered bottle which was standing by the glasses, empty.
"That? It was found with a vanity-case and some other things on her dressing-table. It once contained belladonna—atropin, you know. I've had her maid, Celeste, cross-examined. Mrs. Wilford used belladonna to brighten her eyes sometimes, as many society women do."
I shot a glance of inquiry at Doyle, who nodded. "So far, we haven't been able to connect Mrs. Wilford directly with the mystery, but we're keeping the evidence," he confirmed.
I must admit that both Doyle's information and his general attitude after what we had heard from Leslie came as a shock.
Yet, try as I might, I had to admit that even if that were the purpose for which Honora Wilford had the belladonna, it need not have been the only use to which she put it. Doyle was raising a very serious presumption, at least. A poison like belladonna was a dangerous weapon, I reasoned, in the hands of a jealous woman. The mere possession of it and the traces of atropin in the glass did, I confessed, look badly.
A moment later, with the physician and the detective, we entered the room where the body lay.
Wilford had been a large and rather forceful figure in life. I knew him as a man of unusual ability, though I despised the direction in which his legal talents had been diverted. Perhaps, I thought, unusual talents had brought unusual temptations. For, whatever we may have thought of people in life, our judgments are necessarily softened by death.
As I looked at him now, I could not escape the feeling that his peculiar kind of success somehow would afford the basic reason which would prove to be the solution of the mystery before us.
At length Kennedy straightened up and turned to us, a peculiar look on his face.
"What is it?" I queried, impatiently. "Have you discovered something already?"
Without replying for the moment, Kennedy glanced down significantly at the eye of Wilford as he held the lid with his finger.
"Atropin, you know, would dilate the pupil," he remarked, simply.
We took a step closer and looked. The pupils of both eyes were contracted.
"I know," remarked Doyle, wisely, "but there may have been something else. You remember the Buchanan case?"
Before any one could answer, he went on: "Remember when the Carlyle Harris case was going on, the testimony showed that Helen Potts's eyes had been contracted to a pin-point? Well, at that time Doctor Buchanan, a dentist down on Staten Island, I think, was talking to a patient. He said that Harris was a fool—that all he needed to have done was to have put some atropin in the capsule with the morphine—and her pupils would have expanded—and thus covered up the morphine clue. Later, when he himself was accused of murder, the patient recollected what the doctor had said, and it was found that he had tried the very thing himself. It was proved against him. Perhaps there is something like that."
Kennedy nodded sententiously at Doyle's wisdom, but did not betray what his real opinion was, if indeed he had formed any so soon.
"You have examined the contents of the stomach?" asked Craig of Leslie.
Doctor Leslie shook his head. "Not yet. I have not had time. Remember, it is only a couple of hours since this case was handed over to me and it has been only a matter of minutes since I learned that there was anything suspicious."
"Then I suppose you have no objection to my sharing the examination with you?"
"None whatsoever. In fact, I should welcome it. Leave it to me. I will arrange for samples of everything to be sent to you at your laboratory at the very first opportunity."
"Very well, then," thanked Kennedy. "Now I should like to see Mrs. Wilford, if she is here."
"You bet she's here," ejaculated Doyle. "You don't suppose I'd let her get away, do you?"
He led the way down the hall to a sort of drawing-room.
Honora Wilford was a tall, perfectly formed woman, a beautiful woman, too. At first glance she gave one an impression of youth, though soon one saw that she was mature. I think that for that very reason she was fascinating. There was something baffling about her.
Remembering what Leslie had said about the dream, I was surprised to see she was of anything, apparently, but a hysterical nature. One would not have thought her to be the type subject to hallucinations of any nature.
Honora had large, lustrous, gray-blue eyes.
From her carefully dressed chestnut hair to her dainty, fashionable foot-gear she was "correct." Her face had what people call "character." Yet, as I studied it and the personality it expressed, I had an indefinable feeling that there was something wanting.
It was some time before I was able to catch it, much less express it. But as she talked I realized what it was. Her beauty was that of a splendid piece of sculpture—cold, almost marble.
There seemed to be something lacking. I could not at first define it, yet I felt that it was lacking, nevertheless. The very perfection I saw fell short of some quality. It was that elusive thing we call "heart."
As we entered with Doyle, Honora seemed to ignore him. Once I saw her covertly eying Kennedy, after our introduction, as though estimating him. Doyle had glossed the introduction over by saying that we were a "couple of scientists." What idea it conveyed to Mrs. Wilford I do not know. It meant nothing to me, except that Doyle suffered from either secret jealously or contempt.
"I understand," questioned Doyle, in his best third-degree, hammer-and-tongs method, "that some time ago you had a disagreement with Mr. Wilford and even threatened to leave him."
"Yes?" parried Honora, without admitting a syllable. "I didn't leave him, though, did I?"
I watched her closely. She did not flinch from the questioning, nor did she betray anything. Her face wore an expression of enforced calmness. Had she steeled herself for this ordeal, as merely the first of many?
Try as he might, Doyle could not shake her calmness. Yet all the time he gave the impression that he was holding something in reserve against her.
"We shall have to require you to stay here, for the present," added Doyle, ominously, as his man summoned him outside for some message from headquarters.
I saw what his idea was. It was a refinement of torture for her—in the hope that, surrounded by things that would keep the tragedy constantly in her mind, she might break down. Honora, on the other hand, did not seem to me to be entirely frank with the detective. Was it that Doyle, by his manner, antagonized her? Or was there some deeper reason?
For a moment we were alone with her. If I had expected any appeal to Kennedy, I was mistaken.
"I understand that you have been under the care of Doctor Lathrop," hazarded Craig.
"Yes," she replied; "I've been so run down and miserable this season in town that I needed some treatment."
"I see," considered Kennedy. "Doctor Leslie has told me. He also told me about your dreams."
She averted her eyes. "They have made me even more nervous," she murmured, and I now noticed that it was quite true that her apparent placid exterior was merely a matter of will-power.
"Do you dream more—or less, lately?" Craig asked. "That is, I mean since you have been consulting Doctor Lathrop. Has his treatment done you any good?"
I wondered whether, beneath her nervousness, she was on guard always.
"I think I have been getting more and more nervous, instead of less," she answered, in a low tone. "So many dreams of Vail—and always dreams of warning—of death. My dreams are so peculiar, too. Why, last night I dreamed even of Doctor Lathrop. In the dream I seemed to be going along a path. It was narrow, and as I turned a corner there was a lion in the way. I was horribly frightened, of course—so frightened that I woke up. The strange part of it was that, as I recollected the dream, the face of the lion seemed to be that of Doctor Lathrop."
"Have you told him? What does he say?"
"I haven't had a chance to see him—though by the way I feel after this tragedy I shall need a physician—soon. He tells me that I am run down, that I need a complete change of surroundings."
It was evident that, whatever the reason, her nervous condition was quite as she described it. Kennedy evidently considered that nothing was to be gained by questioning her further just at that moment, and we left her.
Outside we were joined by Doctor Leslie.
"What do you think of it?" he asked.
"A most peculiar tangle, to say the least," remarked Kennedy. "Just consider it. Here are two couples—Wilford and Honora, Doctor Lathrop and his wife, Vina. We may suspect, from what you found at the office, something in the relations of Wilford and Vina. As to the doctor and Honora—we don't know. Then, into the case seems to have entered a fifth person, Vance Shattuck. Really, Leslie, I cannot say anything now. It seems as though it might be quite complicated. I shall have to visit them, talk with them, find out. You and Doyle will keep me informed?"
"Certainly. And I will let you have the materials for your tests as soon as possible."
As we left the apartment, Kennedy appeared preoccupied.
"Those dreams were peculiar," he remarked, slowly, almost to himself.
I glanced at him quickly.
"You don't mean to say that you attach any importance to dreams?" I remarked.
Kennedy merely shrugged.
But I knew from his actions that he did.
"I'm going to get acquainted with the people in this case," remarked Kennedy, as he left the Wilford apartment, "and first of all it will be with Vance Shattuck."
We found that Shattuck lived in a rather sumptuous bachelor apartment farther up the Drive, to which we were admitted by his Japanese valet, who led the way into a sort of den, then disappeared to summon his master.
As we waited in the den I glanced about. It was a most attractive and fascinating place. There were innumerable curios that seemed to have been gathered from all over the world. Nor were they merely thrown together in a jumble. It was artistic, too, with a masculine art.
From the manner of the valet, though he had said nothing, I somehow gathered that Shattuck had been waiting for something or somebody. It was no longer early in the morning and I knew that he must have been neglecting his business, that is, if he really had any to neglect. I wondered why he should be doing so.
A few minutes later Shattuck himself appeared, a slim, debonair, youngish-old man, with dark hair of the sort that turns iron-gray in spots even in youth. Somehow he gave the impression of being a man of few words, of being on guard even thus early in our meeting.
"You have evidently traveled considerably," commented Kennedy, as he entered and we introduced ourselves.
"Yes, a great deal, before the war," replied Shattuck, guardedly watching.
"In Africa, I see," added Kennedy, who had been examining some striking big-game photographs that hung on a side wall.
"Once I was in Africa—yes. But I contracted a fever there. It has left me unable to stand the fatigue I used to stand. However, I'm all right—otherwise—and good for a great many years in this climate—so my doctor tells me."
"Doctor Lathrop?" suggested Kennedy, quickly.
Shattuck evaded replying. "To what am I indebted for the honor?" he queried, coldly now, still standing and not offering us seats.
"I suppose you have heard of the death of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, coming directly to the point.
"Yes. I have just learned that he was found dead in his office, the lights turned on, and with a note left by him to his wife. It's very sudden."
"You were acquainted with Honora Wilford, I believe?"
Shattuck flashed a quick glance sidewise.
"We went to school together."
"And were engaged once, were you not?"
Shattuck looked at Kennedy keenly.
"Yes," he replied, hastily. "But what business of yours—or anybody's, for that matter—is that?" A moment later he caught himself. "That is," he added, "I mean—how did you know that? It was a sort of secret, I thought, between us. She broke it off—not I."
"She broke off the engagement?"
"Yes—a story about an escapade of mine, and all that sort of thing, that kind mutual friends do so well for one in repeating—but! by Jove, I like your nerve, sir, to talk about it—to me. The fact of the matter is, I prefer not to talk about it. There are some incidents in a man's life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that are a closed book."
He said it with a mixture of defiance and finality.
"Quite true," hastened Kennedy, briskly, "but a murder has been committed. The police have been called in. Everything must be gone over carefully. We can't stand on any ceremony now, you know—"
At that moment the telephone rang and Shattuck turned quickly toward the hall as his valet padded in after having answered it softly.
"You will excuse me a moment?" he begged.
Was this call what he had been waiting for? I looked about, but there was no chance to get into the hall or near enough in the den to overhear.
While Shattuck was at the telephone, Kennedy paced across the room to a bookcase. There he paused a moment and ran his eye over the titles of some of the books. They were of a most curious miscellaneous selection, showing that the reader had been interested in pretty nearly every serious subject and somewhat more than a mere dabbler. Kennedy bent down closer to be sure of one title, and from where I was standing behind him I could catch sight of it. It was a book on dreams translated from the works of Dr. Sigmund Freud.
Kennedy continued to pace up and down.
Out in the hall Shattuck was still at the telephone and we could just make out that he was talking in a very low tone, inaudible to us at a distance. I wondered with whom it might be. From his manner, which was about all we could observe, I gathered that it was a lady with whom he talked. Few of us ever get over the feeling that in some way we are in the presence of the person on the other end of the wire. Could it have been with Honora Wilford herself that he was talking?
A few moments later Shattuck returned from the telephone.
"Have you met Mrs. Wilford recently?" asked Kennedy, picking up the conversation where he had been interrupted by the call.
Shattuck eyed Kennedy with hostility and grunted a surly negative. I felt that it was a lie.
"I suppose you know that she has been suffering from nervous trouble for some time?" he continued, calmly ignoring Shattuck's answer, then adding, sarcastically, "I trust you won't consider it an impertinence, Mr. Shattuck, if I ask you whether you were aware that Doctor Lathrop was Mrs. Wilford's physician?"
"Yes, I am aware of it," returned Shattuck. "What of it?"
"He is yours, too, is he not?" asked Kennedy, pointedly.
Shattuck was plainly nettled by the question, especially as he could not seem to follow whither Kennedy was drifting.
"He was once," he answered, testily. "But I gave him up."
"You gave him up?"
It has always been a source of enjoyment to me to watch Kennedy badgering an unwilling and hostile witness. Shattuck was suddenly finding himself to be far from the man of few words he thought himself. It was not so much in what Kennedy asked as the manner in which he asked it. Shattuck was immediately placed on the defensive, much to his chagrin.
"Yes. I most strenuously object to being the subject of—what shall I call it—perhaps—this mental vivisection, I suppose," he snapped, vexed at himself for answering at all, yet finding himself under the necessity of finishing what he had unwillingly begun under the lash of Kennedy's quizzing.
Kennedy did not hesitate. "Why?" he asked. "Do you think that he sometimes oversteps his mark in trying to find out about the mental life of his patients?"
Shattuck managed to control a sharp reply that was trembling on his tongue.
"I would rather say nothing about it," he shrugged.
"I see you are a student of Freud yourself," switched Kennedy, quickly, with a nod toward the bookcase.
"And of many other things," retorted Shattuck. "You'll find about a ton of literature in that bookcase."
"But it was about her dreams," persisted Kennedy, "that she consulted Doctor Lathrop, I believe. Are you acquainted with the nature of the dreams?"
Shattuck eyed him in silence. It was evident that he realized that the only refuge from the quizzing lay in that direction.
"Really, sir," he said, at last, "I don't care to discuss a thing I know nothing about any further."
He turned, as though only by a studied insult could he find escape. I expected Kennedy to flare up, but he did not. Instead, he was ominously polite.
"Thank you," he said, with a mocking sarcasm that angered Shattuck the more. "I suppose I may reach you at your place of business, later, if I need?"
Shattuck nodded, but I knew there was a mental reservation back of it and that his switchboard operator would be given instructions to scrutinize every call carefully, and that, should we call up, Mr. Shattuck would have "just stepped out." As for Kennedy's tone, I was sure that it boded no good for Shattuck himself. Perhaps Kennedy reasoned that there would be plenty of other interviews later and that it was not worth while fighting on the first.
On his part Shattuck could do no less than assume an equal politeness as he bowed us out, though I know that inwardly he was ready to consign us to the infernal regions.
Kennedy was no sooner in the street than he hastened to a near-by telephone-booth. Evidently the same thought had been in his mind as had been in mine. He called up Doyle at the Wilford apartment immediately and inquired whether Honora Wilford had made any telephone calls recently. To my surprise, though I will not say to his own, he found out that she had not.
"Then who was it called Shattuck?" I queried. "I could have sworn from his manner that he was talking to a woman. Could it have been to the maid?"
He shook his head. "Celeste is watched, too, you know. No, it was not Celeste that called up. He would never have talked that long nor as deferentially to her. Never mind. We shall see."
Back on the Drive again, we walked hastily up-town a few squares until we came to another apartment, where, in a first-floor window, I saw a little sign in black letters on white, "Dr. Irvin Lathrop."
Fortunately it was at a time when Lathrop was just finishing his office hours, and we had not long to wait until the last patient had left after a consultation.
As we waited I could see that even his waiting-room was handsomely furnished and I knew that it must be expensive, for our own small apartment, a little farther up-town and around the corner from the Drive, cost quite enough, though Kennedy insisted on keeping it because it was so close to the university where he had his laboratory and his class work.
As Lathrop flung the door to his inner office open I saw that he was a tall and commanding-looking man with a Vandyke beard. One would instinctively have picked him out anywhere as a physician.
Lathrop, I knew, was not only well known as a specialist in nervous diseases, but also as a man about town. In spite of his large and lucrative practice, he always seemed to have time enough to visit the many clubs to which he belonged and to hold a prominent place in the social life of the city.
Not only was he well known as a club-man, but he was very popular with the ladies. In fact, it was probably due to the very life that he led that his practice as a physician to the many ills of society had grown.
"I suppose you know of the suicide of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, as he explained briefly, without telling too much, our connection with the case.
Doctor Lathrop signified that he did know, but, like Shattuck, I could see that he was inclined to be cautious about it.
"I've just been talking to Honora Wilford," went on Craig, when we were settled in the doctor's inner office. "I believe she was a patient of yours?"
"Yes," he admitted, with some reluctance.
"And that she had been greatly troubled by nervousness—insomnia—her dreams—and that sort of thing."
The doctor nodded, but did not volunteer any information. However, his was not the hostility of Shattuck. I set it down to professional reticence and, as such, perhaps hard to overcome.
"I understand, also," pursued Kennedy, affecting not to notice anything lacking in the readiness of the answer, "that Vance Shattuck was friendly with her."
The doctor looked at him a moment, as though studying him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, evasively. "What makes you say that?"
"But he was, wasn't he? At least, she was friendly with him?" Kennedy repeated, reversing the form of the question to see What effect it might have.
"I shouldn't say so," returned the doctor, slowly, though not frankly.
Kennedy reached into his pocket and drew forth the sonnet which he had taken from Doyle back at the Wilford apartment.
"You will recognize the handwriting in that notation on the margin," he remarked, quietly. "It is Mrs. Wilford's. Her sentiment, taken from the poem, is interesting."
Lathrop read it and then reread it to gain time, for it was some moments before he could look up, as though he had to make up his mind just what to say.
"Very pretty thought." He nodded, scarcely committing himself.
Lathrop seemed a trifle uneasy.
"I thought it a rather strange coincidence, taken with the bit I learned of her dreams," remarked Kennedy.
Lathrop's glance at Kennedy was one of estimation, but I saw that Kennedy was carefully concealing just how much, or rather at present how little, he actually knew.
"Ordinarily," remarked Lathrop, clearing his throat, "professional ethics would seal my lips, but in this instance, since you seem to think that you know so much, I will tell you—something. I don't like to talk about my patients, and I won't, but, in justice to Mrs. Wilford, I cannot let this pass."
He cleared his throat again and leaned back in his chair, regarding Kennedy watchfully through his glasses as he spoke.
"Some time ago," he resumed, slowly, "Mrs. Wilford came to me to be treated. She said that she suffered from sleeplessness—and then when she slept that her rest was broken by such horrible fantasies."
Kennedy nodded, as though fully conversant already with what the doctor had said.
"There were dreams of her husband," he continued, "morbid fears. One very frequent dream was of him engaged in what seemed to be a terrific struggle, although she has never been able to tell me just with what or whom he seemed to struggle. She told me she always had a feeling of powerlessness when in that dream, as though unable to run to him and help him. Then there were other dreams that she had, especially the dreams of a funeral procession, and always in the coffin she saw his face."
Kennedy nodded again. "Yes, I know of those dreams," he remarked, casually. "And of some others."
For a moment Kennedy's manner seemed to take the doctor off his professional guard—or did he intend it to seem so?
"Only the other day," Lathrop went on, a moment later, "she told me of another dream. In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull. She fled from it, but as it pursued her it seemed to gain on her, and she said she could even feel its hot breath—it was so close. Then, in her dream, in fright, as she ran over the field, hoping to gain a clump of woods, she stumbled and almost fell. She caught herself and ran on. She expected momentarily to be gored by the bull, but, strangely enough, the dream went no farther. It changed. She seemed, she said, to be in the midst of a crowd and in place of the bull pursuing her was now a serpent. It crept over the ground after her and hissed, seemed to fascinate her, and she trembled so that she could no longer run. Her terror, by this time, was so great that she awoke. She tells me that as often as she dreamed them she never finished either dream."
"Very peculiar," commented Kennedy. "You have records of what she has told you?"
"Yes. I may say that I have asked her to make a record of her dreams, as well as other data which I thought might be of use in the diagnosis and treatment of her nervous troubles."
"Might I see them?"
Lathrop shook his head emphatically.
"By no means. I consider that they are privileged, confidential communications between patient and physician—not only illegal, but absolutely unethical to divulge. There's one strange thing, though, that I may be at liberty to add, since you know something already. Always, she says, these animals in the dreams seemed to be endowed with a sort of human personality. Both the bull and the serpent seemed to have human faces."
Kennedy nodded at the surprising information. If I had expected him to refer to the dream of Doctor Lathrop which she herself had told, I was mistaken.
"What do you think is the trouble?" asked Kennedy, at length, quite as though he had no idea what to make of it.
"Trouble? Nervousness, of course. I readily surmised that not the dreams were the cause of her nervousness, but that her nervousness was the cause of her dreams. As for the dreams, they are perfectly simple, I think you will agree. Her nervousness brought back into her recollection something that had once worried her. By careful questioning I think I discovered what was back of her dreams, at least in part. It's nothing you won't discover soon, if you haven't already discovered it. It was an engagement broken before her marriage to Wilford."
"I see," nodded Kennedy.
"In the dreams, you remember, she saw a half-human face on the animals. It was the face of Vance Shattuck."
"I gathered as much," prompted Kennedy.
"It seems that she was once engaged to him—that she broke the engagement because of reports she heard about his escapades. I do not say this to disparage Mr. Shattuck. Far from that. He is a fine fellow—an intimate friend of mine, fellow-clubmate, and all that sort of thing. That was all before he made his trips abroad—hunting, mostly, everywhere from the Arctic to Africa. The fact of the matter is, as I happen to know, that since he traveled abroad he has greatly settled down in his habits. And then, who of us has not sown his wild oats?"
The doctor smiled indulgently at the easy-going doctrine that is now so rapidly passing, especially among medical men.
"Well," he concluded, "that is the story. Make the most of it you can."
"Very strange—very," remarked Kennedy, then, changing the angle of the subject, asked, "You are acquainted with the recent work and the rather remarkable dream theories of Doctor Freud?"
Doctor Lathrop nodded. "Yes," he replied, slowly, "I am acquainted with them—and I dissent vigorously from most of Freud's conclusions."
Kennedy was about to reply to this rather sweeping categorical manner of settling the question, when, as we talked, it became evident that there was some one just outside the partly open doors of the inner office. I had seen a woman anxiously hovering about, but had said nothing.
"Is that you, Vina?" called Doctor Lathrop, also catching sight of her in the hall.
"Yes," she replied, parting the portières and nodding to us. "I beg pardon for interrupting. I was waiting for you to get through, Irvin, but I've an appointment down-town. I'm sure you won't mind?"
Vina Lathrop was indeed a striking woman; dark of hair, perhaps a bit artificial, but of the sort which is the more fascinating to study just because of that artificiality; perhaps not the type of woman most men might think of marrying, but one whom few would fail to be interested in. She seemed to be more of a man's woman than a woman's woman.