Chapter II: Part 2

"Without a doubt. That is perhaps the part of the theory from which he reacted--or said he did. You see, Freud says that as soon as you enter the intimate life of a patient you begin to find sex in some form. In fact, he says, the best indication of abnormality would be its absence.

"Sex is one of the strongest of human impulses," Craig continued, as impersonally as if he were classifying butterflies, "yet the one impulse subjected to the greatest repression. For that reason it is the weakest point in our cultural development. However, if everything is natural there ought to be no trouble. In a normal life, says Freud, there are no neuroses."

"But how does that all apply in this case?" I asked. "You must mean that we have to deal with a life that is not normal, here in the Wilford case."

He nodded. "I was convinced of it, the moment Leslie called on me here. That was why I was interested. Before that I thought it was just an ordinary case that had stumped him and I was not going to pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him. But what he said put it in a different light. So did what Doyle told me, especially that sonnet he found. They didn't know it--don't know it yet--won't know it until I tell them. That doesn't alter the fact that it promises to be a unique case."

He paced the floor a few moments, as though trying to piece together the fragments he possessed.

"Let me proceed now with a preliminary psychanalysis, as the Freudians call it," he resumed, still pacing thoughtfully, "the soul analysis of Honora Wilford, as it were. I do not claim that it is final. It is not. But on such information and belief, as the lawyers say, as we have already, we are warranted in drawing some preliminary conclusions. They will help us to go on. If any of them are wrong, all we need to do is throw them overboard. Later, I shall add to that stock of information, in one way or another, and it may very greatly modify those conclusions. But, until then, let's adopt them as a working hypothesis."

I could only wonder at him. It was startling in the extreme to consider the possibilities to which this new science of dreams might lead, as he proceeded to illustrate it by applying it directly to a concrete case which I had seen.

"You recall what Leslie told us, what Mrs. Wilford told us, and what Doctor Lathrop later confirmed--her dream of fear?" Craig went on. "At present, I should say that it was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams of fear are always important. Just consider fear for a moment. Fear in such a dream as this nearly always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. Their gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consequently, in her dream, she feared the death of her husband because, unconsciously, she wished it."

I was startled, to say the least. "But, Craig," I remonstrated, "the very idea is repulsive. I don't believe for a moment she is that kind of woman. It's impossible."

"Take this idea of dream-death of one who is living," ignored Kennedy. "If there is sorrow felt, then there is some other cause for the dream. But if there is no sorrow felt, then the dreamer really desires the death or absence of the person dreamed about. Perhaps I did put it a little too sweepingly," he modified; "but when all the circumstances are considered, as I have considered them in this case already, I feel sure that the rule will apply here."

"Better not tell that to Doyle," I remarked. "Judging by his attitude toward Honora Wilford, he'd arrest her on sight, if he knew what you just said."

"I shall not tell Doyle. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing to Doyle. I haven't indicted her--yet."

Turning the thing over in my mind, I found it even more and more distasteful, and I could not resist expressing myself rather strongly to that effect.

"I expected to have you quarrel with that conclusion," smiled Kennedy, calmly. "People always do, until they understand. Let me explain more fully what I mean. Remember, first, that in childhood death is synonymous with being away. And many of our dreams are only survivals of childhood, like the falling dreams. Take the night-shirt dream. I suppose that, in common with some other millions of mortals, you have dreamed of traveling on the Subway, we'll say, lightly clad. No one noticed it."

"Yes," I laughed. "Only, finally I knew it--and how I have sneaked back home by deserted streets, afraid to be seen. Yet, when I met any one, as you say, the person didn't seem to be embarrassed--not a tenth as much as I."

"It speaks well for you," nodded Kennedy, with mock gravity. "If you had felt that others saw and knew your shame, it would mean something entirely different. As it is, it is simply one of those survivals of childhood in which there is no sense of shame over nakedness. Other people don't show it, either. But, later in life, you learned shame. That's where your psychic censor comes in and makes you sneak home by the byways and hedges. And, still, others don't feel as you do about it in the dream. If they did, I'm afraid it might show your moral sense a bit perverted. However, that's just an illustration of what I mean when I say that the death-dream may often be a childhood survival."

I listened without comment, for Craig was interesting, now.

"To get back to the case we have," he resumed. "Take, for example, a girl who sees in her dream that her mother is dead. It may mean many things. But perhaps it means only that she wishes her mother away so that she may enjoy some pleasure that her strict parent by her presence denies. That's a more or less parallel case, you see."

Even though I was now more willing than before to admit the interpretation as applied to Honora Wilford, I was not prepared to admit the theory. Though I said nothing about it, I was afraid that such dream analysis was pointing too strongly to Honora herself as one who unconsciously wished her husband out of the way. The idea repelled me at the same time that it fascinated. I realized what wide possibilities it opened.

"Of all dreams," continued Kennedy, "anxiety-dreams are among the most interesting and important. Anxiety may originate in psychosexual excitement--the repressed libido, or desire, as the Freudians call it. Neurotic fear has its origin in sexual life and corresponds to a libido, or desire, which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied."

"That may be true," I admitted, "but don't you think it's a bit raw to accuse Honora of desiring the death of Vail Wilford just because she didn't love him? I'd hate to be a juryman in a case like that!"

"Raw? Is it?" repeated Kennedy. "That is, is it in a dream? Just dissociate dreams from facts, Walter. Take the case. You see, that fits splendidly so far with what we know of her--her secret regard for Shattuck surviving after the broken engagement; her apparent coldness; her very real lack of feeling for her husband; the superficiality of it all; love not really felt, but shown because the world must see and it was the proper thing for her to show--even if in her heart she did not feel it."

"I know all that," I insisted. "But, perhaps, after all, Lathrop may have some right on his side. Must one incriminate oneself by dreams?"

Kennedy shook his head. "Often dreams that are apparently most harmless turn out to be sinister, if we take the pains to interpret them. All have the mark of the beast. For instance, practically all so-called day dreams of women are erotic in their inception. Those of men may be so, but quite as often are likely to be dreams of ambition more than of love. One cannot say that this distinction will always be. It is hard to predict what may happen in the future. Perhaps modern social conditions may change the very nature of woman--perhaps her ambition for a 'career' may submerge her emotional life. But--well, I doubt it. A few years don't wipe out the evolution and instincts of countless ages. Besides, Nature can be trusted to take care of herself. Sexless women won't have children--then after whom will the next generation after them take?"

"But is that all there is to the dream theory?" I asked, nodding agreement on Kennedy's prediction.

"Not a bit of it. Even those brief dreams that she has told will bear hours of study and analysis. Building up her true, inward character is like laying mosaic. You add here a bit, there a bit, here a stone of one color, there of another. It takes patience and study. When the pieces are all fitted together the picture will be very different from what even an intimate friend thinks; yes, different from what she herself in her own inmost heart thinks herself to be."

He paused a moment, as though turning the dreams over in his mind to see whither they led.

"There's another feature of her dream I want to call your attention to," he went on, "and that is the crowd as she fled from the bull. Crowds in dreams usually denote a secret. Whatever her true feelings toward Shattuck, she believes them to be locked in her own heart. Again, when she was pursued across the field she said she could feel the hot breath of the beast as he pursued her. From that I would assume at least that she knows that Shattuck loves her. Then she stumbled and almost fell. That can have but one meaning--her fear of becoming a fallen woman. But she caught herself and ran on, in the dream. She escaped."

"What of the dream about Lathrop?" I asked.

"We'll take that up later and try to interpret it. I am not sure of that one, myself. As for the others, I don't mean to say that I've put a final interpretation on them, either. Some things, such as I've told you, I know. But there are others still to be discovered. Just now the important thing is to get an understanding of Honora herself."

He took a turn up and down the floor of the laboratory.

"Honora Wilford," he said, slowly, at last, "is what the specialists would call a consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate woman."

He paused significantly, then went on: "I suppose there have been many cases where an intellectual woman has found herself attracted almost without reason toward a purely physical man. You find it in literature continually--in the caveman school of fiction, you know. As an intellectual woman, Honora may suppress her nature. But sometimes, we believe, Nature will and does assert herself."

Kennedy considered the laboratory impatiently.

"No package from Leslie yet. I hardly know what to do--unless--yes--that is the thing, now that I have had time to think this all out. I must see Mrs. Wilford again--and alone."

IV

THE "HESITATION COMPLEX"

Honora Wilford was still in the apartment where we had left her under the watchful care of one of Doyle's men.

Undoubtedly she felt no disposition to stir out, for if she went out it was certain that she would have gone under the most galling espionage. It must have been maddening to a woman of her temperament and station in life to find herself so hedged about by restriction. Doubtless it was just that that Doyle had intended, in the hope that the strain to which he subjected her by it would shake her poise.

Nevertheless, she received us with at least outward graciousness. Perhaps it was that she recognized some difference in the treatment which Kennedy accorded her over that from those whom Doyle had seen fit to place in charge of the apartment where once she had been mistress.

At any rate, I thought she acted a bit weary and I felt genuinely sorry for her as she received us and questioned us with her eyes.

"I've been very much interested in those dreams of yours," remarked Kennedy, endeavoring not to betray too much of the source of his information, for obvious reasons. "Doctor Leslie has told me of some of them--and I tried to get Doctor Lathrop to tell me of the others."

"Indeed?" she queried merely, her large eyes bent on Kennedy in doubt, although she did not betray any trepidation about the subject.

"I wonder whether you would mind writing them down for me?" Craig asked, quickly.

"I've already done so once for Doctor Lathrop," she answered, as though trying to avoid it.

"Yes," agreed Kennedy, quickly; "but I can hardly expect him to let me see them--professional ethics and all that sort of thing, you know, forbid."

"I suppose so," she replied, with a little nervous smile. "Oh, if you really want me to do so, I suppose I can write them out again, of course--write them the best I can recollect."

"It would be of great assistance indeed, I can assure you," encouraged Kennedy.

Honora, without another demur, walked over to a little writing-desk which seemed to be her own. Kennedy followed and placed a chair for her. Then he stepped back, though not so far but that he could watch her.

A moment she paused, toying with her fountain-pen, then began to write.

"My most frequent dream is a horrible one," she began, writing in a firm hand, although she knew that she was observed and was weighing every word and action. "I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled."

At this point she seemed to hesitate and pause. I saw that Kennedy was carefully noting it and every mood and action she exhibited. Then, after a moment, gathering herself together again, she wrote on:

"I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move."

Again she paused, then very slowly began to write on another line.

"Then the scene shifted like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail."

As she finished, she seemed now to be struggling with her emotions. The more I saw of Honora Wilford, the more I was unable to resist the fascination of studying her. She was a woman well worth study--a woman of baffling temperament, high-strung, of keen perception, yet always in the face of even such circumstances as these keeping herself under seemingly perfect control.

Always I found myself going back again to my original impression of her. Somehow, indefinably, I felt that there was something lacking in this woman's life. Was it, as I had believed at first, "heart"? I wondered whether, after all, there had been lacking in this woman's life some big experience, whether ever she had really loved. I knew well what would have been the answer one might have received if she had been questioned. She would have pointed immediately to her married life as proof that she had loved--at least once upon a time. And yet, was it proof? Had she loved Vail Wilford deeply?

The fact was that I did not, could not feel entirely unsympathetic toward her. Somehow, I felt, it could not have been entirely her fault, that she must have been the victim of circumstances or prejudices over which she had no control. At any rate, I determined that whatever lay at the bottom of it all was well worth our study and discovery. I hoped that the case would last. I wanted to see its development, and, if by any chance it was possible, the development of Honora herself, for I felt that once the gap, whatever it was and however it had arisen in her life, was closed she would be a most wonderful woman.

At times when I thought of the manner of Doyle and his men toward her, it made me boil over. As for Kennedy, it was different. I did not understand Craig in this matter. Yet I knew him better than perhaps any one else. Whatever lay back of Craig's actions, always I knew there was sympathy. Some may have thought him cold, but I knew better. Kennedy had always represented to me science with a heart. As for Doyle--he was neither.

Kennedy's voice recalled me to the matter of immediate importance before us.

"There was also that dream of Doctor Lathrop about which you told me, in which he appeared as a lion," suggested Kennedy, as she stopped writing and handed him what she had written. "This is very good--just what I want, as a matter of fact. Won't you write that other dream for me, also?"

With an air of resignation, as though she felt she was in our hands and had determined that her acts would be above criticism, she turned again to her desk, picked up the pen she had laid down, and wrote on a fresh sheet of paper:

"In the dream I seemed to be going along a rocky path. It was narrow, and as I turned a bend there was a bearded lion in the way. I was terribly frightened. I woke up."

She began a new line and added: "The lion seemed to have a human face. It seemed to resemble Doctor Lathrop."

I contrasted the writing of this dream with the other. At least there had been no hesitation in writing this, I observed, whatever that might mean. Already I was coming to have some respect for the dream theory which I would have ridiculed only a few hours before Kennedy began to convince me.

Honora laid down the pen and glanced up rather wearily as Kennedy ran his eye over what she had written. Much as it all aroused her curiosity, plainly the whole proceeding on the part of Craig was a sealed book to her.

"There's just another dream, or, rather, two dreams," he said, in a moment, "that interested me almost as much when I heard of them. Doctor Lathrop happened to mention them without telling them and I'd like to get them from you."

She glanced at him covertly, as much as to say, "So, then, you have been talking about me to him?" but she controlled whatever remark was on her tongue and said nothing.

Instead, obediently again, she picked up the pen and wrote, while we waited and the minutes passed. Only now it seemed that she was writing more carefully, both taking more time over the actual legibility and the choice of words.

"I seemed to be attacked by a bull," she detailed. "It was in a great field and I fled from it over the field. But it pursued me. It seemed to gain on me."

It was evident that she was not writing this dream with the facility with which she had set down the others. She paused as she came to the chase by the bull and seemed to think about what next to say. Then she wrote:

"It was very close. Then, in my dream, in fright, I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on. I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream--with me running and the bull gaining on me."

She did not pause, however, except to skip a line, but began writing again:

"Then the dream changed. I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd. In the place of the bull pursuing me there was now a serpent. It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed. It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My terror was so great that I awoke."

She was about to lay the pen down again, as though glad of the opportunity, when Kennedy asked, with no intention of stopping so soon, "Were there not faces on these animals?"

"The faces seemed to be human," she murmured, evasively, still looking at what she had written for him, and making no effort to amend or correct it.

"Human?" repeated Kennedy. "Did they bear a resemblance to any one you know?"

She looked up from the writing and met his eyes directly in a perfectly innocent stare.

"The faces seemed to be human," she repeated, "but I did not recognize them."

What did it mean? I knew she was not telling the truth. Kennedy knew it. Did she know that he knew it? If she did, it had no outward effect on her.

"It is all very hazy to me," she insisted.

I wondered what had been the reason of her hesitation and her final decision not to tell us what she had evidently told Doctor Lathrop on the first telling of the dream. Surely, I reasoned, there must be some reason back of this concealment. I was forced to be content to wait in order to question Kennedy to learn what his own impressions were. Any betrayal now, before her, might entirely upset his nicely laid plans, whatever they were.

She seemed to expect a further quizzing and to steel herself in preparation for it. Evidently Doyle's manner and methods had taught her that.

"Are those all the dreams you can remember?" Craig asked.

I fancied that there was an air of relief in her manner, though she would not, for the world, have betrayed it before us. For a moment she thought, as if glad to get away from something that had troubled her greatly. When she spoke her voice and manner were subdued.

"There is one other," she replied.

"Will you write it?" asked Kennedy, before she had time to change her mind.

"If you really care to have it."

"Very much," he urged.

Again she turned as though escaping something and wrote:

"I seemed to be walking through a forest with Vail. I don't know where we were going, but I seemed to have difficulty in getting there. Vail was helping me along. It was up-hill. Finally, when we got almost to the top of the hill, I stopped. I did not go any farther, though he did."

Here again she hesitated, then wrote slowly, "Then I seemed to meet--" and stopped.

Honora glanced up, saw Kennedy watching her, and turned hurriedly, adding, "--a woman."

She did not pause after that, but wrote: "Just then she cried that there was a fire. I turned around and looked. There was a big explosion and everybody ran out of the houses, shrieking."

"You say you saw a woman?" asked Craig, almost before she had finished writing. "Who was she?"

"I do not know who she was--a--just a woman."

By this time I, too, was narrowly watching Mrs. Wilford. She seemed to have a most remarkable composure, except for an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation now and then. In fact, the hesitation would have passed unnoticed had not one been on the lookout. I think it was now that she realized that there was something going on in Kennedy's mind and in his method of questioning her that she did not understand. It was as though in taking refuge from answering one question--about the faces on the bull and the serpent--she had run directly into another question which she was equally averse to answering frankly. I was now convinced that a large part of her frankness with us was mere pose, that she knew Kennedy had penetrated it, and that the discovery alarmed her. Kennedy also saw that she had understood. It was as though it had been a cue. Instantly he threw off the mask.

"Are you sure that it was not Vina Lathrop?" he shot out quickly.

For just a fraction of a second she was startled, almost disconcerted. But instantly she regained her control.

"Yes," she answered, positively. "I am sure it was not. It was no one I know."

Yet I was somehow more than ever convinced that she meant Vina Lathrop, after all--Vina, who was of quite a different type from herself. What it all meant was another question. I knew that we should have taken a long step toward the discovery if we could only have got her to admit it. But she was keenly on guard now. There was not a chance of a direct admission strong enough, though the indirect admission was.

"No one?" pressed Kennedy. "Think!"

"No, no one! Oh, why must I be badgered and hounded this way?" she burst forth. "What have I done? Am I not grief-stricken enough as it is?--I hate--you--all!"

It was the first time that she had let this undercurrent of her feelings leap to the surface, beyond control. She seemed to realize it, and instantly to repress it, as she stood there, her great, lustrous eyes fixed upon us--with defiance mixed with fear and doubt.

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 absolutely necessary to get at the truth. At least Kennedy seemed convinced that locked in her heart was the key to the mystery.

Honora, hitherto almost pallid, was now flushed and indignant. For the first time we saw a flash of real feeling and I knew that underneath her conventional exterior a woman existed--very real, capable of the heights of feeling and passion when once aroused. It made me more than ever sympathetic toward her. I longed to help her, yet there seemed no way to do so. Only Honora might work out Honora's salvation.

It was then and later that I realized that the very manner of her indignation showed the truth of the new psychology of dreams, for, as I later learned, people often become indignant when the analyst strikes what is called by the new psychologists the "main complex" of ideas.

Kennedy evidently concluded that his examination had gone far enough, that to pursue it would be only to antagonize her unnecessarily. That would never do so early in the case.

Accordingly he apologized as gracefully as an inquisitor could, and we excused ourselves, though Honora's gaze followed him defiantly to the door.

"Well--we're in bad with her now," I whispered, as we gained the outside, in the private hallway.

"That's most unfortunate," he agreed, though it did not seem to worry him much. "But you know by this time, Walter, that man-hunting is not a popular occupation--and woman-hunting is even less so."

He stopped a moment, looked back, sighed, and added, "It is the penalty I must pay."

In the hall, Craig stopped a moment to speak to Doyle's man, McCabe, a thick-necked fellow, square-jawed and square-toed, of the "flatty" type.

"Mr. Doyle isn't here, I suppose?"

"No, sir. Gone down to Mr. Wilford's office. Telephone call that there's something new there."

"I see. Is the maid, Celeste, here?"

"Yes, sir. Queer girl--pretty--French--but I can't seem to 'make' her."

Kennedy passed over the impertinence of the slang. Evidently McCabe considered flirtations with maids his prerogative.

"I'd like to see her."

McCabe led us down the hall, and soon we found Celeste, a young and remarkably beautiful girl.

One could see traces of sorrow on her face, which was exceedingly, though not unpleasingly, pale. She was dressed in black, which heightened the pallor of her face and excited a feeling of mingled respect and interest. There was, however, a restless brilliancy of her eyes and a nervousness which was expressed by the constant motion of her slender fingers.

She shrank from McCabe, and her confidence was not restored even after Kennedy had ordered him to leave us alone with her so that we might question her.

"Oh, these horrible detectives!" she murmured. "It is terrible. They will drive me crazy. _Pauvre, pauvre madame!_"

Kennedy had sought this opportunity to question her about Vail Wilford alone. But, as he plied her with questions, she had little to say either about him or about her mistress. She was evidently well trained.

"Did you ever see Mr. Wilford or Mrs. Wilford with Mrs. Vina Lathrop?" asked Kennedy, suddenly.

Celeste shook her head with a naïve stare.

"Nevair."

"But, madame--did she not know her?"

Celeste merely shrugged.

"Wasn't she jealous of Mr. Wilford--and some one?"

Celeste regarded him a moment. Her quick mind seemed to race ahead toward the implication of the remark.

"No--no--no!" cried Celeste, vehemently. "She was not jealous. She would never have done such a thing. She might have left monsieur--but--violence--nevair!"

Kennedy continued with a few inconsequential questions. Then from a table in the room he picked up a magazine. As he ran over the pages he stopped before a picture of a dinner in a fashionable restaurant, such as delights the heart of the modern magazine illustrator to portray.

He turned the picture around and held it before Celeste for just a few instants, perhaps ten seconds. Then he closed the magazine quickly.

It seemed to me to be a purposeless action, but I was not surprised when Kennedy added, "Now tell me what you saw."

Celeste by this time was quite overwhelming in her desire to please on anything but the quizzing about her mistress. Quickly she enumerated the objects, gradually slowing down as the number became exhausted.

"Were there any flowers?" asked Kennedy.

"Oh yes--and favors, too, you call them?"

I could see no reason at all in the proceeding, yet I knew Kennedy too well to suppose that he had not some purpose.

The questioning thus strangely over, Kennedy withdrew, leaving Celeste more mystified than ever.

"Well," I exclaimed, "what was all that kindergarten stuff?"

"That?" he explained. "It is known to criminologists as the 'Aussage test.' Just try it sometime when you get a chance. If there are, say, fifty objects in a picture, normally a person may recall perhaps twenty of them."

"I see," I nodded. "A test of memory."

"More than that," he replied. "You remember that, at the end, I suggested that she might have overlooked something? I mentioned an object--the flowers--likely to have been on the table. They were not there, as you might have observed if you had had the picture before you. That was a test of the susceptibility to suggestion of Celeste."

By this time we were on the street and walking slowly back to the laboratory.

"She may not mean to lie deliberately," concluded Kennedy, "but I'm afraid we'll have to get along without her in getting to the bottom of this case. There were no flowers there, yet in her anxiety to please she said there were, and even went farther and added favors, which were not there. You see, before we go any farther, we know that Celeste is unreliable, to say the least."

V

THE PSYCHANALYSIS

Back at the laboratory again, we found that not even yet had the materials arrived from Doctor Leslie with which to make the examination that Craig desired.

It seemed to me that Leslie was very slow, but it didn't worry Craig. Evidently there were other and even more absorbing problems on his mind, problems that pressed for solution even above the discovery of the poison.

"What was your idea in having her write those dreams out again?" I asked.

"Well"--he smiled--"I wanted to see whether she would make any changes. Changes in the telling of dreams over again are often very significant. They indicate what the psychanalysts call the 'complexes,' the root ideas, often hidden away, out of which many actions and feelings spring."

"I see--and did you find anything?"

"A great deal. There are some important changes, some variations between what she told and what she wrote which are very significant. Don't you see? It is one thing to tell a dream in conversation--quite another when you calmly sit down to write it on paper. The words take on an added weight. Now the next problem is to figure out in my psychanalysis just what it is that these changes may mean."

He drew forth the writing she had done and began studying over it carefully for several minutes. Finally, with an air of satisfaction, he looked over at me.

"First of all," he said, "I want to consider that dream of the death of her husband. Just recall for the moment how she told that dream to Leslie."

He took the paper in his hand and began reading.

"Just listen. 'My most frequent dream is a horrible one. I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled.' If you remember, it was at this point that she hesitated in writing. Why did she?

"'I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move.' Why was she unable to go to him? What held her back? There is something strange about it. Could it have been because she did not really want to go to him? Could it have been because she did not love him?"

I said nothing. It had been the thought in my own mind, yet I had not cared to express it.

"At that point," he went on, "she paused again. 'Then the scene shifted, like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail.' There was no hesitation, practically no change in that. I noted that she exhibited considerable emotion--that is, considerable emotion for her. She did not hesitate, because she does not understand the dream. If she did, I think she would hesitate--even refuse to tell it. I think with that dream alone one might get a pretty good inkling of the state of affairs."

I was about to interrupt, but Craig hurried right on and gave me no chance.

"More important, perhaps, take that dream of the bull and the serpent. If you recall, she wrote that more slowly and carefully than the other dream, choosing her words. There's something significant about that fact in itself. Now, let's see.

"'I seemed to be attacked by a bull. It was in a great field and I fled from it over the field. But it pursued me. It seemed to gain on me.' That's where the first hesitation came, and right there we come to a very important 'complex,' I think. There was practically no change until we come to this part where the bull chases her. Did you get that?"

I was forced to confess that I had not understood. It made no difference to Kennedy. Very patiently he proceeded to enlighten me, as if I were one of his pupils.

"She omitted something that may be very important. Don't you remember when Lathrop told us she had told him that the bull was so close to her that she could feel its hot breath?"

"I remember now. What of it?"

"Very much. For some reason--perhaps unknown to herself--she omits all mention of it in writing it for us. I think you'll understand better as we go on with the dream. 'It was very close,' he read, rapidly. 'Then in my dream, in fright I ran faster over the field. I remember I hoped to gain a clump of woods. As I ran, I stumbled and would have fallen. But I managed to catch myself in time. I ran on.'

"I think we discussed that ourselves, once, the fear of being a fallen woman. We need not go over it again, except to point out that her dream shows that, perhaps unconsciously, something restrained her. 'I expected momentarily to be gored by the bull. That seemed to be the end of the dream,' and so forth.

"Now, the next part. 'I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd.' We discussed that, too--about the crowd denoting a secret. Then comes the serpent. 'It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed.' That's a bit different, there, from the way she told it. 'It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My fear was so great that I awoke.' All right. Here's the point--when I questioned her about the faces, the human faces, on those animals. She told Lathrop that the face she saw was that of Shattuck. But to me she absolutely denied it. She said she did not recognize the face. There's the point. Why did she cut out that about the hot breath of the bull? Why did she deny absolutely the face of Shattuck?"

He was pacing up and down as though he had either made or confirmed a discovery.

"Just consider what I told you about the Freud theory again," he went on. "Fear, as I told you, is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. We threshed that all out over my interpretation of the first dream of all--the death-dream. I hope you are beginning to understand, by this time.

"But morbid fear also, as I have said, denotes some sex feeling. Now take the last dreams. In dreams animals are usually symbols. In the two parts of this dream we find both the bull and the serpent. From time immemorial they have been the symbols of the continuing life-force. Such symbolism has been ingrained in literature and thinking, both mystical and otherwise. When she felt the hot breath of the bull, it meant the passion of love in Shattuck, who is pursuing her. Frankly, I do not think he has ever lost his love for her. And she knows it--at least, subconsciously. That's what that means. In her heart she knows it, although she may not openly admit it. Also, she fears it.

"More than that. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. One doesn't always realize how easy that is. A thing dreamed of may have happened years ago. But if one could recall all the thoughts immediately preceding sleep, one would be able to trace out some impelling thought, perhaps on the surface quite unrelated, which brought it up. The more unrelated, the more interesting and important the connecting link. There was every chance, in this case, of Shattuck having been suggested to her any day. Besides, she may be thinking a great deal of him--and not realize it--for her moral censorship is always pushing such thoughts back into the subconscious."

Kennedy regarded me attentively, then added: "She dreamed of a man's face on those beasts--then denied it to me. What's the explanation?"

I suppose Kennedy was handing the explanation to me, but I could not quite understand it, much less express it.

"Easy," he answered to his own question. "She thinks that she hates him. Consciously she rejects. Unconsciously, though, she accepts him. Any of the new psychologists who know the intimate connection between love and hate could understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate, nor hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow. A proper understanding of that would explain many of the anomalies of human nature--especially in the relations of men and women which sometimes seem to be inexplicable."

Since our previous discussion on the subject, I had turned it over many times in my mind. It was surely a new situation to me which this application of the new psychology was unfolding. Yet, under the exposition of Kennedy, I was not so bitterly hostile to it now as I had been before. Plainly enough, nothing that I had been able to offer to myself had fitted in with what I saw in the character of Honora Wilford. At least this seemed to fit.

"You would be surprised to learn how frequently such situations arise," defended Craig. "I suppose, to an analyst, they seem to be common, because it is only such cases that come to his attention. If one treated only red-haired men, one would, no doubt, soon get the idea that the community was composed mainly of the red-haired. That is just as foolish as to go to the other extreme and to deny that there are any red-haired people, just because one has never happened to see one."

The remark was obviously intended for me. I said nothing, but I was really alarmed. For I could see that the case was actually growing very much blacker for Honora as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy practically taxing her with loving another man than her husband? Was he not building up motives?

"The dreamer," he proceeded, "is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centers about the dreamer intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that concern others primarily, but of matters that concern ourselves, either very directly or at least indirectly. So it has been with these dreams of Honora. They concern her intimately.

"Years ago that woman suffered what the new psychologists call a psychic trauma--a soul wound. She was engaged to Shattuck. We know that. But her censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of her fiancé. In pique, perhaps, she married Wilford. It was a wound when she cast aside her first love, a deep wound.

"But Nature always does her best to repair a wound--either a physical wound or a psychic wound. That underlies the psychology of forgetting. Honora thought she had found love again, in the advances of Wilford. But she had not, truly. She never lost her real, now subconscious, love for another--Shattuck. Day by day she tells herself that he is nothing to her, never really was, never again can be. She believes it. She lives it. Yet, when that censorship is raised in sleep, it is different. Then he pursues her, in her dreams. In actuality, too, I don't doubt that he pursues her, and she knows it. I'll wager Shattuck does not dream of her except frankly. He frankly thinks of her. He is still in love with her. It is a tough problem for Honora Wilford."

"I begin to see it more and more clearly," I admitted. "Dreams are very wonderful experiences, when one understands them rightly."

"Her dreams, especially," agreed Craig, fingering the papers. "Now there's that dream of Lathrop. I suspect she thinks of him somewhat as of a social lion. And I suppose he is--popular, a club-man, a lady-killer. Perhaps that is why she dreamed of him as a lion. But it wouldn't explain all. I recall he wore a beard. That may have suggested the tawny mane of a lion, too. The two ideas combined. There is the narrow path, too. A lion stands in the path. I don't quite fathom it yet. But, you see, Walter, of such stuff are dream lions made. This fantasy I must leave open for interpretation until we understand Lathrop himself better."

"About Shattuck," I reverted, not quite prepared to pass that point without clearing it as much as possible in my own mind. "Plainly he cares a great deal for her. I remember seeing one of Freud's books in his library. Suppose he knew her dreams. Would he not be able to discover that secretly she cared really very deeply for him and not for Vail?"

"He might," admitted Kennedy.

"But the problem would be to prove that he did," I supposed, for I was catching at any straw that would save Honora Wilford from the logical outcome of Kennedy's analysis as I saw it.

Craig had come to the last sheet of paper.

"This is my new prize," he exclaimed, waving it. "I had some inkling of what it betrays, but not the certainty this gives. This is an entirely new dream. We have no hastily spoken description with which to compare it. However, that will make little difference. We'll have to treat it as new. Let's go over it very carefully. It may easily prove most important of all."

Slowly he read it. "'I seemed to be walking through a forest with Vail. I don't know where we were going, but I seemed to have difficulty in getting there. Vail was helping me along. It was up-hill. Finally, when we got almost to the top of the hill, I stopped. I did not go any farther, though he did.' That's where her first hesitation-break in writing it occurred. So far, you see, this is a most intimate dream of their relations, as you yourself can interpret readily.

"There were several hesitations grouped here. 'Then I seemed to meet'--there was one--'a woman'--there was another. 'Just then she cried there was a fire.' What does that mean, you ask? Ever hear love described as a fire? Well, next: 'I turned around and looked. There was a big explosion and everybody ran out of the houses, shrieking.'"

"I recall vividly what took place when we reached that point," I put in. "At the time I thought of Vina Lathrop, of what a quite different type of woman Vina is. Vina is none of your consciously frigid, unconsciously passionate women. Vina Lathrop is throbbing with passion, as one can see who has ever met her or heard of her."

"Quite so. In this dream there plainly appears the 'other woman' in the case, the woman who has the passion which Honora herself does not have. Or at least, so she thinks. She seems to recognize in this other woman a woman of a different nature from herself. And yet," added Craig--"and yet, you know, 'The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady--'"

"Are not only the same under the skin, to you psychologists," I supplied, "but in the inner consciousness, too."

"I suppose so," he laughed.

I considered a moment. Was this all confirmation of the rumored relations between Vina Lathrop and Vail Wilford, as Doyle had dug the story up? I recalled the notations that Doctor Leslie had discovered on the desk calendar of Wilford about appointments with Vina and the contemplated divorce.

Had a new scandal been brewing and had the sensational press of the city been deprived of it by some untoward circumstance? At least they had no complaint. A greater piece of news had been created to take its place--a murder case which, now, bade fair to become the celebrated case of the season when it "broke," as they say.

"The reason I've spent so much time analyzing this new dream," Craig continued, "is that there's another very important thing in it--revealed in the hesitation and the changes, the gaps, and the additions. It helps us to reconstruct her inner life, as we could never have got it from herself, as she could never, even at this moment, construct it for herself.

"Into her life--into her dream life, too--there has come 'another woman.' I believe that it is really Vina Lathrop. She betrays it. I hate to admit that either Doyle or Leslie may be right--about anything. But, really, once in a while Doyle does stumble on something--without knowing even remotely how important the thing may be."

"I suppose also that that would account for Mrs. Lathrop's interest in us--and the case," I ventured. "When we were in the doctor's office I thought she was keenly alive to what we were doing and saying."

Kennedy nodded. "It remains to be proved, however. I knew I was on the right track when we visited Lathrop, as you say, and his wife made that remark about Honora. You see, intuitively she knows Honora. She knows her cold nature. Before we get through we shall have some interesting passages at arms between these two, if I am not mistaken. Already their intuitions have given each an estimate of the other. They are opposing lines--between the two, it is No Man's Land."

"Opposites--positive and negative," I tried to express it metaphorically. "And the wires are crossed. Oh, I know this will be a good case--it always is when there is conflict, like this, between two women."

"Speaking of crossed wires reminds me of the telephone," exclaimed Kennedy, energetically. "We need not be inactive just because our good friends, Leslie and Doyle, don't feed grist to our mill. I'm going to see that woman again."

Kennedy hunted up Doctor Lathrop's number in the book and called it.

"The doctor is out just now," answered a woman's voice. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Is this Mrs. Lathrop?" Craig asked.

I saw that she replied in the affirmative.

Kennedy deftly explained who we were and recalled our brief meeting of the morning.

"I'm greatly interested in the Wilford case," he hurried on. "I would like to talk to you about it. May I?"

There was a bit more of conversation, then he hung up with satisfaction.

"She did not welcome it," he reported. "Yet she could scarcely refuse to see us under the circumstances. I have made an appointment to meet her."

There was a noise at the door and I opened it upon Doyle, who entered, his face showing great perplexity.

"What seems to be on your mind. Doyle?" greeted Craig.

"Enough. We've been questioning the night watchman down at the building where Wilford's office is," he informed. "You remember the two glasses on the desk when they found him?"

Kennedy nodded.

"From them," continued Doyle, "I went on the assumption that somebody else had been there at the time. There _was_ a visitor.... We are convinced of it now. The fact is that the building is an old one, built before elevator days, not tall. One can walk up to the office of Wilford easily. People do. And the confounded watchman, a man they call Pete, confesses that he was off the job, at least part of the time, last night. There was plenty of chance for a visitor to have got in and got away."

"Who?" I asked.

Doyle shrugged.

"We can't find out--at least, we haven't found out."

"Was it a man or a woman?" asked Craig.

"We don't even know that," confessed Doyle, in despair. "That fellow Pete is a dub."

"How about your suspects?" prompted Kennedy. "You must have traces of their movements last night."

"I have. I have been questioning Celeste, the maid, for instance. She swears that Mrs. Wilford was at home in the apartment all the evening of the murder. The worst of it is, I can't prove yet that she wasn't. But just give me time--give me time. I'll get something on that maid yet."

I glanced significantly at Kennedy. He nodded back. His "Aussage test" had effectually disposed of any reliance that might be placed on what Celeste might say. However, Kennedy said nothing of that to Doyle. To have done so would have been to invite a tirade of laughter. The only way with Doyle was to let him go along his sweet way of being wrong--then let him in when we were right. Yet, I must say that I liked Doyle in his way, even if he was only a plugger.

"Another thing," brightened Doyle. "I'm getting a line on that business of Wilford's having his wife watched. You know, he did that. He hired a private detective to watch her. If I can get that fellow I may learn something. But that Celeste is clever. She sticks to it that her mistress wasn't out. We'll see if the detective knows when we find him."

"Where were Shattuck and Lathrop last night?" asked Craig, quickly.

"Shattuck has given a detailed account of his doings last night. I'll tell you better about him when it's verified. Doctor Lathrop had two cases that night, which kept him out late. I believe they are bona fide. So far there's been no flaw in either story. That's what perplexes me. I thought I was on the trail of something."

"And when you find yourself up against it, you come to me?"

"Don't get peeved, Kennedy," mollified Doyle, though he himself had winced at the telling thrust of Kennedy.

"What about Lathrop's wife, Vina?" asked Craig. "Is she clear for that night?"

"I hadn't thought much about her," confessed Doyle. "Want me to find out?"

"Never mind. I am going to see her soon. I'll attend to that."

VI

THE "OTHER WOMAN"

Vina Lathrop received us a few moments later with a question in her eyes. Yet she discreetly did not hint at it in anything she said.

I have said that she was a woman of quite opposite type from Honora. Like her, however, she was a woman of rare physical attraction. Yet it needed only a glance to see that men interested Vina, and in that respect she gave one a different impression from Honora. And I am quite sure, also, that few men could have withstood the spell of her interest if she chose to bestow it. There was, no doubt, much in her life that that accounted for.