"Let me go back a bit," began Kennedy, as in perplexity we turned to him. "Let me repeat how I first entered this case. You will remember it was because of my interest in the dreams of Honora Wilford. I have studied them ever since. My first clue came from them. From them I have worked out my leads."
At the mention of the dreams Honora had drawn away from Shattuck. She was gazing at Kennedy, wide-eyed. Shattuck, too, was following tensely. No less were Doyle and Leslie. Doctor Lathrop leaned forward, his brow wrinkled, as he tugged at his beard, impatiently listening.
"Let us take those dreams, without wasting any more time," continued Kennedy. "I do not know how many of you are acquainted with the Freud theory. Mr. Jameson is, by this time. Also Mr. Shattuck. We've seen some of Freud's books in his library. Doctor Leslie knows it, I am sure, and Doctor Lathrop has told me he reacts against many of Freud's theories seriously.
"I shall not attempt to explain the theory, but [288] shall touch on certain phases of my psychanalysis," he remarked, addressing the remark apparently to Honora. "Recall that Freud tells us that all dreams are primarily about self in some way or interests close to self. Your first dream and each succeeding dream which I learned, Mrs. Wilford, were, I take it then, about your own relations with your husband."
Honora looked startled, not only at having been singled out, but at the mention of the dreams and the vague thought of what might, after all, have been derived from them by this man whom she did not understand.
"The dream of death, the struggle dream, the bull-and-serpent dream, the dream of fire and explosion, all pointed to one thing among others, but one thing that was paramount. Really you did not love your husband—with that deep, passionate love which every woman yearns to possess. It was not your fault. You were the creature of forces, of circumstances, of feelings which were out of your control. I could have told you more about yourself than you would have admitted—half an hour ago," he qualified.
It was a delicate and intimate subject, yet Kennedy handled it without a touch of morbidness.
"From the study of your dreams," he resumed, "as I have already hinted, many other things might have been discovered. One of the next importance to your unconscious feeling toward your husband was shown clearly. It was that you knew that another woman had entered his life."
[289]
Kennedy glanced from her to Doctor Lathrop, and back to Honora.
"Of course, you did not know the whole story—that that woman was merely using your husband as a means to an end. But it would have made no difference if you had. In that she was equally in your way, whether you would have admitted it or not. We can speak frankly on this subject now. Vina Lathrop's death has put a different aspect on that phase of the case."
"Oh, I see," interrupted Shattuck, who had been following carefully up to this point, when it suddenly dawned on him that Kennedy's remarks were converging on himself and the gossip that had flown far and wide regarding Vina and himself. "I see. You have been reading the French detective tales—eh?—Cherchez la femme?"
Kennedy ignored the interruption. He did not intend to let any such aside destroy the thread of either his thought or his argument.
"Let me delve a little deeper in the analysis," he proceeded, calmly. "There was something back of that lack of love, something even deeper than the hurt given by the discovery of his relations with the other woman."
If Shattuck had been minded to pursue the guerrilla conversation in the hope of harassing Kennedy, this remark was like an explosion of shrapnel. He sought cover.
Kennedy was talking rapidly and earnestly now.
"In short," he concluded, "there is something [290] which we call a soul scar here—a psychic wound—a mental trauma. It bears the same relation to the soul that a wound does to the body. And, as in the case of some wounds, muscles and limbs do not function and must be re-educated, so in these mental and moral cases feelings and emotions must be made to function again, must be re-educated. I need not refer to what caused that wound. I think we understand the reaction that almost any girl would experience against one whom she loved but considered unworthy. I saw it the moment I began to analyze the dreams."
In spite of its intimate nature, Kennedy kept his analysis on almost an impersonal level. It was as though he were telling us the results of his study of some new substance that had been submitted to him for his opinion.
"Mrs. Wilford," he went on, speaking rather to us generally now than to her, "married not for love—whatever she may say or even think about it. Yet love—romantic love—was open to her, if she would only let herself go."
I saw that as he proceeded, Shattuck had colored deeply. He knew the origin of this soul wound in her disapproval of the life he had led at the time. He shifted restlessly.
"All my psychanalysis, by whatever means I went at it, whether merely by study of the dreams or by having them written out a second time in order to compare the omissions and hesitations, whether by the association test, the day-dreaming [291] when relaxed, or the Jung association word test, all the psychological expedients I resorted to, now paying out, as it were, a piece of information, now withholding another, and always watching what effect it had upon the various parties to this case, all, I say, tended toward one end—the discovery of the truth that was hidden from us.
"Finally," he exclaimed, "came the time when I allowed Doyle to place a dictagraph in the apartment, where we might overhear the interplay of the forces let loose by the information which I was allowing to leak out in one way or another."
Involuntarily, Honora turned and caught the eye of Shattuck leveled at her. Each looked startled. What had Craig overheard through that dictagraph? The thought was quite evident in both minds.
Honora gripped her chair. Shattuck turned and stared sullenly at the man before him.
"To return to the dreams," resumed Kennedy, apparently not noticing this interchange of looks and byplay. "From the hesitations in telling and retelling the dreams, from the changes that were made, from a somewhat similar process in tracing out the more controlled thoughts of the waking state, I found that everything confirmed and amplified my original conclusion. True, I did not know all. I may not know all yet. But each time I added to my knowledge until there were so many things that joined up and corroborated one another that there was no human possibility left that I was on the wrong track."
[292]
One might have heard a pin drop in the laboratory as Craig held his auditors and carried them along, even after the intensity of feeling that we had witnessed scarcely a few minutes before.
"I wish I had time to go into the many phases of the dream theories of the modern scientists," he hastened. "For hours, with Mr. Jameson, I have patiently tried to interpret and fit together the strange and fantastic conceptions of the mind when the censorship of consciousness is raised in sleep, veiling things which are as little thought of in your philosophies as you could well imagine.
"For example, nothing in modern psychological science is more amazing, more likely to cause violent dissent, than the intimate connection that exists between the fundamental passions of love and hate. There is no need of the injunction to love our enemies—in this sense. Very often it happens that those we love may arouse the most intense hate, and that those we hate may exercise a fascination over us that we ourselves hasten to repress and refuse to admit. It is curious, but more and more it is coming to be recognized.
"And before I go a step farther," he added, "let me forestall what is going to happen in this case as certainly as if I were adding chlorin to sodium and were going to derive salt. When I touch the deep, true 'complex,' as we psychanalysts call it, I shall expect the very idea to be rejected with scorn and indignation. Thereby will the very theory itself be proved. Shattuck, your old rule [293] may work well with the case of a man. But the new rule, the complementary rule, for woman is Cherchez l'homme."
It was not said to Shattuck, however. With clever psychology Kennedy aimed the remark full at Honora. She flushed and her eyes blazed defiance. Scornfully and angrily she cast a withering glance at Craig as she drew herself up with dignity.
"Then—you think, your science teaches—that a woman must be a fool—that she does not know with whom she really is in love—that she can really be in love with one whom she—hates?"
There was a flash of satisfaction in Craig's eyes. "Complex," I read it. As for Shattuck, where a moment ago he had scoffed, he remained to pray, or rather to smile faintly.
"I did not say exactly that," returned Kennedy, "although it may seem that way, if you choose to interpret the intimate relationship of love and hate so. Follow me just a moment. Consciously, she may hate. Education, society, morality, religion—this thing we call civilization—may exert restraints. Unconsciously, though, she may love. The veneer of modern society is very thin. I think the experiences the world is going through to-day demonstrate that. Underneath there are the deep, basic passions of millions of years. They must be reckoned with. It is better to reckon with them than to be wrecked by them. The wonder is, not that they are so strong—but that the veneer covers them so well!"
[294]
Powerfully though as Kennedy was making the presentation of the case, Honora tenaciously refused to admit it. Like her sex, when a general proposition was made she immediately made a personal application, found it distasteful, and rejected the proposition.
Still, Kennedy was not dismayed. Nor did he admit defeat, or even checkmating.
For several seconds he paused, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet in a way that did not call for an answer.
"Could you—be honest, now, with yourself, for you need not say a word aloud—could you always be sure of yourself, after this, in the face of any situation?"
She looked startled at his sudden shift of the argument to the personal ground.
Her ordinarily composed face betrayed everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen only fully by Kennedy.
In the welter of passion, as one fact after another had been torn forth during the moments since she had come to the laboratory, much had happened to Honora which never before had entered her well-ordered, conservative life.
She knew the truth that she strove to repress. She was afraid of herself. And she knew that he knew.
The defiance in her eyes died slowly.
"It is dangerous," she murmured, "to be with a person who pays attention to such little things. If [295] 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 terrible acts of the somnambulist, of temporary insanity, of many deeds of which the doer had no recollection in the waking state, until put under hypnotism.
Could it be such a thing which Kennedy was driving at disclosing?
I cast a hasty glance about at our little audience. Doyle was hushed, now. This was far beyond him. Leslie was deeply interested. Doctor Lathrop had moved closer to Honora on the other side of Shattuck, as if to reassure her.
Kennedy, too, was studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on Honora and the others.
Honora, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the long-suppressed emotion of the examination, called for sympathy.
Shattuck saw it, saw the distress she so plainly showed.
"Kennedy," he exclaimed, unable to restrain himself longer, pushing aside Doctor Lathrop, as he placed himself between her and the man whom he regarded now as her tormentor, "Kennedy—you are a faker—nothing but a damned dream doctor—in scientific disguise."
"Perhaps," smiled Kennedy, unaffected by the [296] threat. "But let me finish. Then you may think differently."
He turned deliberately from Shattuck to the rest of us.
"What happened at that office the fatal night was this," he shot out. "There was a woman there. But from what I deduce, it was not Honora Wilford. It must have been Vina Lathrop!"
I felt a shock of surprise. Yet, after all, I had to admit that there was nothing improbable about it.
"Later," he resumed, "someone else did enter that office. In all probability that person did hold up Vail Wilford, with a gun perhaps, just about as we have heard described. The Calabar bean was cut in half, undoubtedly. You will see from the facts in the case that it must have been so. Probably, too, each wrote a suicide note—on the typewriter—either to save the survivor, or at the dictation of the person who survived. Each must have eaten half of the bean.
"But," added Kennedy, impressively, "it was no duel by poison—really. That other person knew the antidote—knew that the antidote was atropin—came prepared. That other person deliberately put atropin in his own glass of water, knowing that it was the antidote. No, it was no duel. It was murder—plain murder!"
As he finished, Kennedy's voice rang out sharply and decisively in a direct accusation.
"As for you, Doyle," he added, catching the eye of the detective, "you put your money on the wrong [297] horse, as you would say. You thought that in my constant examination of Mrs. Wilford I coincided with your superficial observation. But I had another purpose, a very different purpose."
Kennedy stopped a moment to turn from Doyle to the woman Doyle had persecuted. Honora and Shattuck were again close together, watching Kennedy intently, oblivious of all but themselves and him.
It gave me a start to see them as they were now. Honora and the man she really loved were united at last. In his face I could see a far different kind of Shattuck, as though the fire of the ordeal had purified him.
I caught a look of satisfaction that crossed Craig's face. He had succeeded. Back of all, I now saw that Kennedy had had all along a very human intention.
Quickly I sought to explain what had already taken place only a few moments before. Had Shattuck lied to save her, when he saw that Doyle was framing a case against her? If that were so, then had she, with her quick wit, come to the rescue, with a marvelously constructed story that fitted perfectly with that which he had told and had broken down in telling? Had Shattuck and Honora, cornered, as they thought by Doyle, leaped at any suggestion?
But the truth—what was it?
Kennedy was speaking again, and now all hung on each word.
"The stuff that dreams are made of is very real, [298] after all," he remarked. "Just take this case itself. Suppose some one, who understood better than Honora Wilford, learned of her dreams—interpreted them—found out the truth about her relations with another—found out, as I have done, what she herself did not know—and then acted on the information.
"Suppose that person knew of the soul scar, the old wound, knew from the dreams the conflict between the various persons—and encouraged the dream actors—in real life. Suppose, too, that that person, learning of what Vail Wilford was doing, had a personal grievance—a spite—a desire for bitter revenge."
As Kennedy built up his hypothetical case I became more and more enthralled by it. It was more than hypothesis now.
"The sphygmograph," he resumed, "has told me just what I still needed to know, even while you all have been here, perhaps forgetful of the little telltale that has been attached to your wrists. It is a faithful recorder of emotions, if you know how to study it. What is hidden from the eye the heart reveals. This heart machine will record it, betray the inmost secrets."
Kennedy drew himself up slowly, as though to impress forcefully what he was about to add.
"Psychanalysis," he exclaimed, "has led through Honora's soul scar to the discovery of the truth by the aid of this little lie-detector. It was your revenge on Vail Wilford—Lathrop!"
[299]
Harshly Lathrop laughed, as though he had sensed the coming of the accusation all along.
I took a step toward him, and as I did so something about his eyes almost halted me. The pupils were strangely contracted. I did not recall having noticed it before, certainly not when he came in.
Again he laughed harshly. With a shaking hand he reached into his pocket and drew forth something. I saw instantly that it was a Calabar bean.
He was about to place it in his mouth when Craig leaped and struck it from his hand. Honora screamed as Lathrop reeled back into his chair.
Instantly Shattuck's arm stole about her solicitously as she shrank from the shaking figure in the chair near by. Her hand stole into his.
"No cheating justice, Lathrop!" exclaimed Kennedy, seizing his wrist, which was already clammy.
He smiled faintly, and his lips moved with an effort.
"I did—what I did. It's too late for atropin now!"
THE END