Chapter III: Part 3

"I've been thinking of what you said about Mrs. Wilford this morning," began Kennedy, after a few remarks that explained our interest in the case, without telling her anything that would put her too much on guard.

"My remark about Mrs. Wilford?" she repeated, naïvely.

"Yes. You remember when you were talking to Doctor Lathrop about the case, you said, 'I don't think that Honora is capable of either deep love or even deep hate'? I've been wondering just what you meant by it."

Vina seemed to be careful lest an unwary word might escape.

"Why, really," she murmured, as though feeling that the question called for an answer she did not wish to give. "I don't think that Honora--well--understood Vail Wilford, if you get what I mean. He was not difficult to understand. He would have been devoted to her--if only--"

She paused and stopped.

"If only what?"

"You wouldn't understand," she answered, quickly, shaking her head.

To me it seemed as though the implication she wished to convey was the usual specious refuge of the "other woman," when cornered, that it was she, not the wife, who really understood the man in the case.

"You see, I don't know Honora Wilford well," encouraged Kennedy. "I can't say that I do understand. I guess that's just it. I thought perhaps you might enlighten me."

Vina gave a pretty little shrug to her attractive shoulders, then leaned forward, as if suddenly deciding to become confidential with Craig.

"It's a long story," she replied. "I don't know how to tell it. Honora was like her father--in fact, her family are all the same--always seeking the main chance. You remember old Honore Chappelle? No? Out of even the business of an oculist he managed to make a tidy fortune. She was ambitious--ambitious in marriage, ambitious to get into 'society,' you know. Don't you see now what I mean? Besides, you know, daughters, they say, inherit from their fathers--and she seems to have been no exception. I think Mr. Wilford came to realize why it was she married him, only, of course, in such cases, it comes too late."

I set the remark down as that of a "catty" woman. Yet there was something to think about in it. For, at the time of Wilford's marriage, the young lawyer was already wealthy and in the smart set, while Vance Shattuck had not inherited the fortune of his uncle, who had often threatened to cut him off without a penny as a reward for his numerous escapades. There could be no doubt that, at the time, Wilford was the greater "catch" of the two.

As we talked with Vina about the death of Wilford, she spoke with ill-concealed emotion. I could not escape the impression that she seemed to be more deeply affected by it than even Honora herself had been. Was it due to her more emotional nature?

I would have thought it strange, even though Kennedy had not already surmised from his psychanalysis of Honora that Vina was the "other woman" in the case.

It was apparent that, whatever might be Vina's own story, she reacted sharply against the very type of woman that Honora was. There was plainly some rivalry between them, some point of contact at which there had been friction. It was most assuredly Kennedy's job to find out what that was.

"I don't know whether you are aware," he suggested, taking a slightly different angle, "but in Mr. Wilford's office they found evidence that you yourself were preparing a divorce suit."

The transition from Honora to herself was sudden. Yet Vina did not seem confused by it. She did not deny it, or even attempt to deny it. Perhaps she realized that it was of no use, that her best defense was, as the lawyers would say, confession and avoidance.

"Oh," she replied, airily, "the suit was never started, you know--just talked about."

I could not but wonder at her callousness. Evidently this woman was of a type all too common in a certain stratum of society, to whom marriage is a career to be entered into either for the sake of bettering oneself or for the sake of variety.

"What, may I ask, were the grounds?" probed Kennedy, growing bolder as he saw how frankly she elected to discuss the subject when cornered.

She colored a bit, as she strove to decide whether to get angry or to answer, then chose the latter course.

"Incompatibility, I suppose you would call it--at least that's what I call it. I believe every woman should live her own life as she sees fit. I hadn't even decided what state I would acquire residence in, in order to bring the suit, if I decided to go on with it. Nothing was settled, you know."

"And now you are going to--?" inquired Kennedy, stopping to let her fill out the answer.

"Drop it, of course," she supplied. "I suppose the doctor and I shall continue to agree to disagree."

"Had Mrs. Wilford contemplated similar action on her part, do you think?"

Vina avoided answering, but Kennedy pressed for a reply, asserting that Vail Wilford must have given some hint of it, either by his words or actions.

"I don't know," she repeated, firmly.

"Did she know of your--er--acquaintance with Mr. Wilford?"

If looks had been poisonous, Kennedy must have been inoculated with venom right there. He paid no attention to her scornful glances as, again, there was no avoidance of an answer, no matter how much she tried.

"Why do you think you know so much?" Vina veiled her sarcastic reply.

"Mrs. Wilford had been having her husband watched, I learn," prodded Kennedy, with brutal directness.

I glanced covertly over at him. Doyle had told us Wilford was watching his wife. But no one, as I recalled, had given us an inkling of a reverse state of affairs. I realized that Kennedy had made it up out of whole cloth. He was trying it out to see its effect. At any rate, there was nothing unreasonable about it. It might have been true, whether it actually was or not.

For a moment Vina was sorely tried to hold back a quick reply. Then she shrugged again.

"Most women of the sort have to do that," she snapped.

It was a mean remark, besides being glaringly untrue, except in the limited ken of certain New-Yorkese women. Moreover, I saw that Kennedy had slipped past her guard. Each sentence she replied betrayed the keen feeling between the two.

Kennedy seemed to be observing Vina as he might a strange element in a chemical reaction. On her part she seemed intuitively to recognize that there was a challenge to her in Craig's very personality.

Arts which she might have tried with success on another seemed not to impress this man. He seemed to penetrate the defenses which she had against most men. And I could not help seeing that she was piqued by it.

While they were fencing in their verbal duel, Craig had casually drawn a pencil from his pocket. A moment later I saw that he had begun scribbling some figures, apparently aimlessly, on a piece of paper.

From where I was sitting beside him I could see that he had written something like this:

5183
47395
654726
2964375
47293825
924783651
2146063859

For some time he regarded the figures that he had written as the conversation went on.

"Here's a little puzzle," he remarked, offhand, breaking into the chat. "Did you ever try it?"

Vina looked at him in surprise at this unexpected turn of the conversation. I am sure that she was in doubt as to the man's sanity. However, there was a certain relief in the new turn of the conversation. At least he was not treading on the dangerous ground which he had trod upon.

"Er--no," she answered, doubtfully. "That is--I don't know what you mean. What are the numbers?"

"Oh, it's nothing much," he disarmed. "It's simply a matter of seeing whether a person can repeat numbers. I've found it rather interesting at times."

Without waiting for either comment or excuse from her he said, quickly: "For instance, take the first one--five, one, eight, three. See if you can repeat that."

"Of course--five, one, eight, three," she replied, mechanically.

"Fine--four, seven, three, nine, five," came in rapid succession.

To it she replied, perhaps a little slower than before, "Why, four, seven, three, nine, five."

"Good! Now, six, five, four, seven, two, six."

"Er--six, five, four, seven, two, six," she repeated, I thought, with some hesitation.

"Again--two, nine, six, four, three, seven, five," he shot out.

"Two, nine, six"--she hesitated--"four, three, seven, five."

"Try again--four, seven, two, nine, three, eight, two, five," he read.

"Four--two--seven," she returned, slowly, then stopped, "three--nine--what was the next one?--er--two--two--"

It was evident that she was hopelessly muddled. It was not because she had not tried, for the diversion had come as a welcome relief from the quizzing on delicate subjects and she had seized upon it. She had reached the limit.

Kennedy had smiled and was about to go on, although it was evident that it was useless, when there was a noise in the hall, as though some one had been admitted by the maid and had entered. It seemed to be a man's voice that I heard and I wondered whether it was Doctor Lathrop himself.

A moment later the door opened and disclosed, to my astonishment, not Lathrop, but Shattuck.

If he was embarrassed at finding us there he did not betray it in the least. Quite the contrary. He greeted Vina Lathrop cordially, then turned to us.

"Oh, by the way," he began, "you're just the man I wanted to see, Kennedy."

I thought that there was a note of indignant protest in his voice as he said it, then, before Kennedy could make reply, went on, rapidly: "About Mrs. Wilford--it's an outrage. Doyle and McCabe and the rest of that precious crew are thugs--thugs. I called there to express my sympathy. Of course she couldn't say much--but I have eyes. I could see much, without being told. There she is, harassed and hounded and practically a prisoner in that place--no one to go to--her husband foully murdered--at least that's what _they_ say. I don't know. She's spied on, listened to--I tell you, it's a shame. They're driving that poor woman insane--nothing short of it."

Shattuck was evidently genuinely angry and, indeed, I felt that he was making a good case of it. I looked toward Vina. She merely tossed her head. Evidently she was piqued that Shattuck should think so much of "that woman," as she doubtlessly would have liked to refer to her.

I wondered what might have been the connection between Vina and Shattuck, and determined to watch. More than that, I wondered what could be his purpose in bringing up the name of Honora before Vina. Had he a reason?

"Did you finally sell the stock?" inquired Vina of him, abruptly, as though wishing to change the subject.

"Of course," he returned. "Only to complete the thing you will have to indorse this paper," he added, drawing a document from his pocket for her to sign.

I wondered whether this reference to a business transaction was a blind to make us believe their relations were merely those of a broker and client.

Shattuck excused himself to us while Vina signed with his fountain-pen and as they talked in a low tone I saw that she was appealing to him with all her feminine arts.

Was Shattuck proof? Or was he dissembling so as not to betray anything to us? I remembered the old gossip about Shattuck. Was he still woman-crazy? Had Vail Wilford stood in his way with both women? It was a queer tangle at best. Anything, I felt, might prove to be the case.

At any rate, I was sure that the transaction covered their embarrassment at meeting us. More than that, it convinced me that there was some connection between Shattuck and Vina all along. I had wondered whether it had been she who had telephoned to him while we were at his place that morning. I had not thought of the possibility at the time. But now I was sure of it.

Kennedy rose to go, and at the same moment Shattuck also excused himself. We departed, leaving Vina, I am positive, still all at sea as to the purpose of our visit.

We departed, and at the street corner stood talking for a moment with Shattuck. Again, as though taking the thing up just where he had left it off, he complained about the shame of the persecution of Honora.

Kennedy was non-committal, as indeed he was forced to be over Doyle's work, and after promising nothing, we parted.

In fact, Craig said very little even to me as we started around the corner for the laboratory.

"What was all that rigmarole of the numbers?" I inquired, finally, my curiosity getting the better of me, as we entered the Chemistry Building and Craig turned the key in the lock of his private laboratory, admitting us.

"Part of the Binet test," he answered. "It is seeing how many digits one can remember. You're not acquainted with the test? It's used commonly in schools and in many ways. Well, an adult ought to remember eight to ten digits, in any order. A child cannot, ordinarily. Between these, there are all grades. In this case, I do not think we have to deal with a mentality quite up to the intellectual standard."

"It's well Vina Lathrop isn't here to hear you say it," I commented.

Kennedy smiled. "True, nevertheless, whatever outward looks may show. To tell you the truth, Walter, here we have to deal with two quite opposite types of women. One, intellectual, as we know, does not yet know what love really is. In the other I fancy I see a wild, demi-mondaine instinct that slumbers at the back of her mind, all unknown to herself. She knows well what love is--too well. She has had many experiences and is always seeking others--perhaps the supreme experience."

He paused a moment, then added, estimating: "Vina is beautiful, yet without the brain that Honora has. She is all woman--physical woman. That was what probably attracted Wilford, what she meant by saying that I wouldn't understand, although I did. In Wilford's case it may have been the reaction from the intellectual woman. She knows that power which her physical charms give her over men; Honora does not--yet."

"But, Craig," I remonstrated, "you do not mean to tell me that you believe that you could sit here in a laboratory and analyze love as if it were a chemical in a test-tube."

"Why not?" he replied. "Love is nothing but a scientific fact--after all."

"Then explain it."

He shrugged. "True, you ask me to explain love and I must tell you that I cannot. For the moment it looks as though you had me beaten. But think a moment. I cannot tell you why a stone falls or a Morse signal flashes over a wire. Still, they do. We know there is a law of gravitation, that electricity exists. We see the effects gravity and electricity produce. We study them. We name them--though we do not understand them. You would not say they were not scientific facts just because I cannot explain them."

I nodded, catching his idea.

"So with love," he went on. "We know that there is an attraction--that is a scientific fact, isn't it?--which two people feel for each other. Society may have set up certain external standards. But love knows nothing of them. Our education has taught us to respect them. But above this veneer every now and then crop out impulses, the repulsions and attractions which nature, millions of years back, implanted in human hearts as humanity developed. They have been handed down. Yes, Walter, I know nothing more interesting than to put this thing we call love under the microscope, as it were, and dissect it."

I regarded Craig with amazement. Was he inhuman? Had he suddenly taken leave of his senses?

"You mean it?" I queried. "Really?"

"Certainly."

"Why, Craig," I exclaimed, "some day you, too, will meet your fate--you, the cold, calm, calculating man of science who sits here so detached, analyzing other people's emotions!"

"Perhaps," he nodded, absently.

"Like as not she will be some fluffy little creature from the Midnight Frolic," I added, sarcastically. "It would be poetic justice if she were. And what a life she would lead you--with your confounded microscope and your test-tubes!"

Kennedy smiled indulgently. "If it should be the case," he replied, coolly, "it would only prove my theory. It's very simple. Two atoms are attracted like the electrically charged pith-balls--or repulsed. In love very often like repels like and attracts unlike--the old law, you know, as you saw it in the physics laboratory. We see it in this case, with these very people. All your fine-spun theories and traditions of society and law do not count for the weight of a spider thread against nature. That is precisely what I mean by my theory. We are concerned with deep fundamental human forces."

"You talk as though you had been reading some of the continental writers," I remarked.

"Perhaps. It makes no difference. Often much of our own Puritanism in literature covers a multitude of facts, as Puritanism does in life. Here's a case in point. Facts may be ugly things, we may not like them. Just the same they have to be faced. It won't do just cavalierly to reject things as Doctor Lathrop does with the Freud theory, which he does not like, for instance. And who is he that he should set himself up to determine fact and fake? Maybe, if we studied him we'd find he was no different from anybody else. I'll warrant it."

"I don't care about him," I hastened. "But it does rather jar on me to have you speak so positively on affairs of the heart," I protested.

"You think I can't observe them without experiencing them? I don't have to commit a murder in order to study and understand the murderer, you know. The fact is I am perhaps a better judge of some subjects for the mere fact that I can observe them from the outside, as it were. I am not grinding my own ax."

I shook my head at Kennedy's, to me, novel theories of love. In fact, the whole thing, from his dream interpretation down through each step he took in the case, seemed almost revolutionary. Convinced against my will, I was of half, at least, my own opinion still. Yet I did not feel in any position to combat him. The case would ultimately speak for itself, anyhow, I reflected.

"Now," he concluded, before I could think of a retort, "to get back to the case. Here are two women who no more understand the impulses that sway them than do the moon and sun in their courses. As I said, fundamental forces of sex are at play here. Perhaps even if you were able to get the truth from the various actors in this little drama they themselves could not tell you. Therefore, it is for me to unravel what is a closed book, even to them.

"And, strange as you may think it, Walter," he concluded, "the Freud theory will do it. Already I know more than even you suspect. There remains, however, the working out of the drama to its climax before I can be sure I have the truth, beyond mistake."

VII

THE CROOK DETECTIVE

We were interrupted by the arrival of Doyle at the door. With him was a stranger whom he seemed to be virtually forcing along ahead of him.

As they entered, I regarded the man carefully. He seemed to have a sort of hangdog look.

Doyle led him over beside the laboratory table, near which Kennedy was standing, and Kennedy glanced at Doyle questioningly.

"This is Mr. Rascon, a private detective," growled Doyle, stressing the Mister insultingly, and continuing to push the man forward. "Meet Mr. Kennedy, Rascon."

Doyle had evidently the official contempt for the very breed of private detectives. The man bowed stiffly and nervously to Craig, who extended his hand, which the man took rather spiritlessly. Altogether I thought it a very peculiar circumstance.

"Meet Mr. Jameson, of _The Star_," added Doyle. "It might be well for you to have a few newspaper friends. They might come in handy some day. They tell me a press agent's job is to keep things _out_ of the papers as well as to get them in."

Rascon smiled weakly as he shook my hand, and by the clammy touch of his hand I knew that he was either very nervous or very ill--perhaps both.

"Tell Mr. Kennedy what you've been doing, Rascon," commanded Doyle in his best gruff manner.

Rascon hesitated, but Doyle repeated his command, and in the repetition there was a thinly veiled threat that at once aroused the interest of both of us. What could be the purpose of bringing the stranger to us now?

Rascon cleared his throat.

"I've been employed by Mr. Wilford," he remarked a bit huskily, "to watch Mrs. Wilford."

"What--to trail her?" asked Kennedy with increased interest.

"Yes," admitted the man, reluctantly.

As I watched him I could see that he was of the type that is all too common. His shifty eye, never meeting yours for any considerable length of time, made a very unfavorable impression on me. It is not that all private detectives, or perhaps even a considerable number, in view of the many in the profession, are of this class. But there are altogether too many of his type and they are a decided menace to their branch of the profession and to society in general. I refer to the type that euphoniously "furnishes" evidence--but unscrupulously goes to the length, if necessary, of actually manufacturing it. They are to their profession what the yellow journalist is to mine, the quack doctor to the medical profession--pariahs.

"Well," prodded Doyle, "tell us what you found."

Again there was no answer.

"Come--speak up. Tell us. You might as well tell now as to do it later."

Still he said nothing. Slowly Rascon drew from his breast pocket a tissue-paper flimsy sheet, a carbon copy of some typewriting, such as some agencies frequently use on which to make their reports to their clients.

"Read it!" demanded Doyle.

Slowly Rascon read:

"June 20. Wilford case. Operative No. 1.

"I picked up Mrs. Wilford at the door of the apartment at
11:15 A.M. She took a taxi to the Piccadilly Hotel.

"There she went in and I followed her to the telephone. I
got into the next booth and tried to listen through the
partition, but I was too late. She left immediately.

"From the Piccadilly I trailed her to the Plaza, just above
Fifty-ninth Street, on Fifth Avenue. There was a touring-car
waiting by the curb. In it she met Mr. Shattuck.

"I had time to hail a taxi as they were preparing to drive
away and followed. They turned and went down-town. I followed
through traffic across the Bridge and through Brooklyn. On
the Parkway the touring-car pulled away from me, but not
before I was convinced it was headed for the Beach. I had the
number, 97531, and the description.

"At the Beach House I picked the car up again. Located the
parties at luncheon. I waited about. They did not start back
until four o'clock. I followed and he left her at the Subway
at the Grand Central.

"She returned to the apartment, about quarter to six.

"I waited outside until relieved by operative No. 6."

"Was that all that happened?" I asked quickly. "They merely rode down to the beach and had lunch together?"

Rascon again did not reply. I could not even catch his eye as I asked the question.

"Just a moment, Jameson," interrupted Doyle. Then, leading the detective on, "Now, Rascon, what did your employer, Mr. Wilford, say when that report was presented to him?"

Rascon colored at the question, as Doyle had evidently intended that he should.

"He never saw it."

Doyle glowed with satisfaction, as though he were a lawyer bringing out the facts by cross-examination. He nodded to Kennedy and me as if we were a jury. Doyle was merely getting his facts into the record, as it were. Already he had quizzed Rascon into a state of anger and resentment out of which the truth might be expected to slip unaware.

"Never saw it?" thundered Doyle. "What do you mean?"

There was only silence from Rascon. Then, as Doyle threatened, he answered, surlily, "Mrs. Wilford paid me for the report--that is, for the copy of it."

A moment Doyle regarded him, then his virtuous ire rose into towering wrath, even as though he had just heard the thing now for the first time.

"She paid you for it! You dirty hound--that's blackmail!"

Kennedy interrupted. "Is it true?" he demanded, tapping the sheet of paper which he had taken and read hastily to make sure that nothing had been omitted in the first reading. "Did she meet Shattuck?"

The detective scowled to himself.

"Is it true--tell him," shouted Doyle, brandishing a menacing fist in Rascon's face.

The detective, himself a bulldozer when he had the chance, was bulldozed, even as a German might be frightened by a taste of his own frightfulness.

"N-no," he stammered.

"But had you made similar reports to Mr. Wilford?" persisted Kennedy, with some purpose.

"Oh yes--but not this one. She paid me for this. I played fair--I did," he almost whined.

"Hm! I see," measured Kennedy. "Mr. Wilford got similar reports--and believed them?"

Rascon nodded a deprecating acquiescence. "I suppose so. He never kicked or asked questions. I guess it was what he wanted to know--eh?"

It was not the flash of the detective's cynical lying that surprised me, but Craig's remark and what might be implied in it by the narrowing of Craig's eyes as he asked it and received the answer that he had apparently expected.

I glanced at Craig hastily. What did he mean by the inflection of his voice and by the look?

Hastily I tried to make it out. If the report of this Rascon had been true, did it not seem to explain and motivate Honora? But, I reasoned immediately, even if it were untrue and if Wilford believed those reports he received and wanted to believe, was there not just as compelling a situation?

The thing was important and dangerous for her, either way one looked at it.

A few more questions and it was evident that Rascon, in spite of the baiting that Doyle had given him, was pretty well on guard and in control of himself and would admit nothing unless Doyle had documentary proof or something just as good. Doyle, not wishing to disclose the limit of his information, turned the interview short.

"That'll do," dismissed Doyle. "You may go, Rascon. I'll have more from you later."

Rascon backed out, sheepishly, eager to get away.

"I'll have his license revoked," muttered Doyle, calming down after the stormy quizzing.

Doyle's contempt for Rascon knew no bounds. As for Rascon, I knew the method he had adopted. Once Rascon, or any of that breed, had a case involving clients with money, he proceeded to nurse the case along, to play one party to the case against the other. But I had not often run across cases where the crooked detective, who is a pest despised by all honest detectives even more than by other people, had been so brazen about collecting all the traffic would bear from each side, indiscriminately.

"Why not ask Mrs. Wilford herself about it?" I suggested, as neither Kennedy nor Doyle said anything.

"Better not--yet," objected Doyle, hastily. "I want to watch her a little herself. I particularly bluffed Rascon into not telling her a word of this."

"Oh, that's all right," acquiesced Craig.

I understood. It was Doyle's clue. He had been honest about it. He had not held back the information from us. But it was his to pursue, he figured. As for Craig, I knew that he would gladly keep his hands off the thing. Besides, there was plenty for us to do in carrying out the line of action which Kennedy had adopted, leaving the less subtle things to Doyle.

"How did you find out about this fellow?" asked Craig, after a little while.

"You remember Celeste?" answered Doyle, as though he had not yet finished telling us what he had come to tell.

"The maid? Yes?"

"I saw Rascon hanging about the apartment--trying to see Celeste. I watched. The dirty dog was trying to sell some more of the stuff to Mrs. Wilford, the whole thing--make a final clean-up under threat of handing it over to me if she didn't come across. Well," he laughed, "I got it, anyhow. She ought to thank me. I saved her some money."

I did not like his tone toward Honora.

"Well," he went on, "as soon as I got the lead I investigated. Now I'm convinced that Celeste was the go-between in the transactions. I've made Celeste confess. She paid him the money for Mrs. Wilford. He handed her copies of the fake reports which he agreed to 'kill' if enough was paid for them. Oh, it was a slick game, taking advantage of a situation."

I glanced at Kennedy. "Do you think Celeste can be relied on?" I asked.

He saw that I meant the test of her susceptibility to suggestion and her inaccuracy.

"Ah, very true, Walter," he remarked. "But the reports themselves are incontrovertible. True or false--they were made. Some of them Wilford must have seen. Others she must have paid for. But the fact remains, no matter what Celeste may be."

Doyle had been waiting impatiently for us to finish. Finally he nodded mysteriously, then stepped to the door. He opened it, and there in the hall I saw Celeste herself, with McCabe. The detective and the girl entered. Celeste stared about, not quite knowing what to make of the whole affair.

"Celeste," began Doyle, with an easy familiarity which I knew the French maid resented deeply, "you saw that man who was here and went away?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know him?"

"I have met the gentleman--two or three times."

"What happened on one of these occasions?"

Celeste paused. But Doyle was a forceful persuader to those who hesitated. Celeste evidently considered that she had best say something. That I knew was the danger--her readiness to say something, no matter what, to follow out some purpose in her own mind. However, knowing her attachment to Honora, I felt sure, as she went on, that what she was telling us was wrung from her by compulsion and was not said merely as so many words.

"Madame she asked me to hand him an envelope."

"And what then?"

"In return I was to get one."

"Did you get one?"

"Yes, sir."

Celeste was saying no more than necessary.

"What was in it?"

The girl shrugged in her best Parisian. I may have been convinced that she did know what was in the return envelope. But there was clearly no way to prove it. We were forced to take her word on the matter. Doyle himself realized that handicap.

"Now, Celeste," began Doyle again, passing over that uncompleted phase, as though there was much he could have said, only refrained from doing so to go on to the next point, "what about the belladonna?"

"She used it to brighten her eyes," returned the maid, as glibly as if she had practised the reply.

"I mean--when did she use it last? Be careful. I know more than you think."

"Yesterday," she replied, in a low voice, somewhat startled at Doyle's assumption of omniscience.

"Why?"

"Her eyes were dull."

"She had been crying the night before--eh?"

There was no answer.

"Ah--then there had been a quarrel between Mrs. Wilford and her husband the day before?"

Doyle's assurance, like a clairvoyant having struck a profitable lead, overwhelmed Celeste. She said nothing, but it was evident that Doyle had hit upon something at least approximating the truth.

"Did she threaten again to leave him?" persisted Doyle, now taking further advantage.

"Oh--no--no--no! Madame would not quarrel. She would not leave monsieur--I know it."

I glanced again at Kennedy. I saw that he placed no great reliance on what Celeste said, unless it were substantiated in some outside manner.

It seemed to be about all we could get out of her, at least at this time. Moreover, following Doyle's wishes, we decided to let him handle both the Rascon affair and such watching and questioning of Celeste as may seem necessary. Kennedy was not unwilling. To tell the truth, the Rascon affair was indeed unsavory and a mess we could afford to let alone.

"That's all, my girl, for the present," concluded Doyle. "Oh--by the way--not one syllable of this to Mrs. Wilford. And if you breathe a word I shall know it. It will go hard with you, you understand?"

She bowed and McCabe took her away. It had been all right while she was with us. But the moment McCabe loomed up on the scene, it was different. She tossed her head with offended dignity and marched off.

For some moments longer Doyle and we discussed the new phase of the case. It was greatly to Doyle's satisfaction that we allowed him to be unhampered in what he had unearthed. It had evidently worried him to think of having us two amateurs dragging across the trail he had uncovered.

Finally he left us, satisfied that he had done a great stroke of work. For some moments after he was gone Kennedy was silent and in deep study.

"What do you make of it all?" I asked, breaking in on his thoughts, for fear something might interrupt before I could obtain Craig's personal impression.

"Very important, perhaps--not for any evidence it may furnish in itself regarding what happened, for Rascon confessed that it was all faked, but important for its effect upon the minds of those concerned."

Somehow I was not pleased at Doyle's discovery. In my heart I was hoping for anything that would relieve the load of suspicion on Honora. This did not.

"You see," went on Kennedy, "it's not always what people know, the facts, that are important. Quite as important, oftentimes, are the things that they think they know, what they believe. People act on beliefs, you know."

Much as I hated to admit it in this instance, I was forced to grant that it was true.

"That may be," I confessed, "but why did she pay? Isn't it likely that it was a frame-up against her?"

Kennedy smiled as he realized I was defending her. "Quite the case," he argued. "I suppose you know that some of these private detectives are really scandalous in their operations?"

"Indeed I do."

"Then can't you understand how a woman who knows might be driven desperate by it? Honora was well informed in the ways of the world. She knew that people would say, 'Where there's so much smoke, there's fire.' I'll wager that you've said the same thing, yourself, about articles in your own paper."

I nodded reluctantly. It was a fact.

"Why, this private-detective evil is so bad," he went on, vehemently, "that judges ordinarily won't take the testimony of a private detective in this kind of case unless it is corroborated. And yet, in spite of that fact, you can always find some one to believe anything, especially in society, provided the tale is told circumstantially. She knew that, as I say. And it must have been exasperating. It must have preyed on her mind. No doubt, if you sift the matter down you'll find that it was just this move on the part of her husband that killed whatever spark of love there might have been glowing in her heart. Suspicion does that."

I decided not to pursue my own argument. I felt that the more I attempted to defend or excuse Honora, the more Kennedy bent and twisted the thing to some other purpose of his own. I could only trust that something would come to the surface that would set things in a different light.

Doyle had been gone some time and Kennedy was beginning to get a little nervous over what was delaying Doctor Leslie with the materials from the autopsy from which he expected to discover much that would straighten out the tangle of what it really was that had occurred in Wilford's office on that fatal night.

We had about decided to take a run over to the city laboratories to find out, when the door opened and a hearty voice greeted us.

It was no other than Doctor Leslie himself, with an assistant carrying the materials from the autopsy, as he had promised. The fact was that he had not been so very long. Events had crowded on one another so fast that we had not appreciated the passage of time.

As the attendant laid the jars down on Craig's laboratory table, Leslie seemed to have almost forgotten about them himself.

"I've made a discovery--I think," he announced, eagerly. "Perhaps it's gossip--but at any rate, it's interesting."

"Fire away," encouraged Kennedy, listening, but at the same time preparing impatiently to plunge into the deferred analysis might now be made.

"I stopped at the Medical Society," hastened Leslie. "Do you know, it seems to be the gossip of the profession, under cover, about Lathrop and his wife. News spreads fast--especially scandal, like the talk of her knowing Wilford, which, thanks to some of Mr. Jameson's enterprising fraternity, the papers have already printed. Well, from what I hear, I don't believe that she really cared for Vail Wilford at all. It seems that she was using him just because he was a clever lawyer. As nearly as I can make it out, she had set herself to secure the divorce and capture Shattuck--wealthy, fascinating, and all that, you know."

"Shattuck--she!" I exclaimed.

Kennedy, however, said nothing, but shot a quick glance at me, recalling by it our still fresh meeting with both Vina and Shattuck, as well as the visit from Rascon. I remembered also that it had been evident at our first meeting with Doctor Lathrop that he had shown a keen interest in what his wife was doing. Had it been really jealousy--or was it merely wounded pride?

Kennedy still did not venture to comment, but I saw that he was very thoughtful and that his eyes were resting on the book of Freud which we had been discussing some time before. What was passing in his mind I could not guess, but would have hazarded that it had something to do with Honora's dreams. At least the recollection of them flashed over me. Had Doctor Lathrop been the lion in her path, in some way? What had that dream meant? So far it had not been explained.

Little more was said, but after a few moments' chat with Doctor Leslie, Craig set determinedly to work, making up for the time that had passed without any laboratory addition to his knowledge of the case.

Leslie waited awhile, then excused himself. He had hardly gone when Craig looked up from his work at me.

"Walter," he said, briskly, "I wish that you would try to find out more about that story of Leslie's."

Seeing that I was merely in the way, as he worked, now, I was delighted at the commission. I left him as he returned to the work of analyzing the materials Leslie had brought. For, I reasoned, here was a new angle of the case--Vina as the cause of all the trouble--and I was determined to find something bearing on it to add as my contribution to the ultimate solution.

VIII

THE POISONED GLASS

I went out, at Craig's suggestion, eager to discover something more of the interesting bit of gossip which Leslie had hinted at about Vina and Doctor Lathrop. In fact, the relations of this pair interested me only slightly less than those of Honora and Vail Wilford.

Just where to go I was in some doubt, for I had not an extensive acquaintance in the medical profession of the city, in which both Doctor Lathrop and Doctor Leslie stood high in their respective fields. However, I reasoned that Lathrop's social position offered a more promising approach than even his professional connections. Thus, I determined to reassume the rôle of reporter for _The Star_ which I had often used before with success in ferreting out odd bits of information of use to Kennedy.

Accordingly, I soon found that the best point of departure was _The Star_ itself and to the office I went, hoping to find our society reporter, Belle Balcom, whom I knew to be a veritable Social Register and _Town Topics_ combined into one quick-witted personality.

"I suppose, Miss Balcom," I began, as I found her finishing a spicy bit of copy in the reporters' room, while I sat on the edge of her typewriter table--"I suppose you're following this Wilford case closely?"

She nodded vivaciously. "There hasn't been much to follow yet," she replied, eager to get whatever inside news she might for her society column. "Professor Kennedy is on the case, isn't he? You ought to know more about it than I do."

"Yes, he's on it," I replied, trying to head off any inquiry on her part that might be embarrassing. "And already we know that it will be quite involved."

"I know it," she asserted, and, as we chatted, I found, to my surprise, that she did know about the people concerned in the case. "You see," she explained, when I ventured to express my astonishment, "it's my business to be acquainted with what passes as 'news' to the readers of the society page. And then, too, you know that scandal and gossip constitute much of the small talk of the social set which figures in the society notes. By the way, I suppose you know about that little affair between Mrs. Wilford and Mrs. Lathrop out at the Brent Rock Country Club?"

I was at once interested. It was exactly the sort of thing I had sought.

"No," I confessed. "But I can quite appreciate that an encounter between Honora and Vina would be likely to be spirited--and add to our knowledge of the case. What was it?"

Belle Balcom smiled breezily. For, whatever she might say about the smart set, she had been writing their gossip so long that she, too, quite appreciated a choice morsel of scandal. I have noticed that none of my profession ever gets so blasé that a new piece of "inside" news loses its charm--and I confess that in that respect I am quite like my fraternity.

"It seems," she retailed, "that the Wilfords and the Lathrops were at the club at a Saturday-night dance two or three weeks ago. Of course, you know, the attentions that Mr. Wilford had been paying to Mrs. Lathrop had been noticeable for some time, then, and had been the source of a good deal of discussion and comment among various members of their set."

"Of course," I encouraged.

"Well, it was just a bit more noticeable that night than at other times. Mr. Wilford was with her practically all the time. Of course, Honora Wilford had noticed it, not only that night, but many times before. This time, though, she overheard one of the other women who didn't know that she was so near, talking about it and laughing with her partner."

"That was the last straw," I anticipated.

"Exactly. She waited until she saw Vail Wilford for a moment alone. As luck would have it, he was going for a sherbet for Mrs. Lathrop at the time. Mrs. Wilford was cutting. 'I suppose you realize that your wife is present to-night,' she said, icily. 'At least one dance is customary to let the world know that a husband and wife are on speaking terms.'"

"What did he say to that?"

"Oh, of course he mumbled that he had intended to dance with her next--but he went on and got the sherbet. The next dance he was too late."

"Then Hades popped loose," I ventured.

"You might say that. In the middle of the dance, Honora Wilford, who had declined more partners during the evening than most of the other women at the club had accepted, rose and deliberately walked across the dancing-floor, ostentatiously bowing good night to every one as she passed. You couldn't help noticing it. Even if any one had missed it, the summoning of her car would have been enough. It pulled up at the door of the club, with the cut-out open. It was scarcely eleven o'clock, too, and no one was thinking of going home at that time. Not a word was said. There was no scene. Yet that dance almost stopped."

It was interesting, perhaps important for the case, yet not precisely what I had started out to find. "What of Doctor Lathrop?" I asked. "What did he do?"

"He wasn't in the room at the time. He was down in the café. Wilford tried to brazen it out and Vina acted properly surprised. She can be quite an actress, too, when she wants to be. No, Doctor Lathrop didn't pay any attention to it--that is, not so any one saw it. But Vance Shattuck did. I remember him particularly that evening. Of course I know many of the stories back in his life--and a good deal of what they say about him now. He had been one of the partners Honora had persistently refused, but they did sit out a dance together and I'm sure it was she that ended the tête-à-tête, not he. He seemed to have very little interest in any one else there, and I saw him taking in the whole affair. Once he started forward, as if to offer to escort her home, then checked himself. I think he seemed to be rather pleased than otherwise at the turn of events in that little affair."

"Playing a deep game?" I suggested.

Belle Balcom shrugged. "I don't know--perhaps. Really, I thought at the time that this was not a triangle, but the making of a fine quadrangle--that is," she laughed breezily, "if you include Vance Shattuck, I guess you would call it a pentangle."

"At any rate, all grist for the society-news mill," I smiled. "Doctor Lathrop really knew of the incident, didn't he?--at least, learned of it afterward?"

"I imagine so."

"You know the talk about the Lathrops?" I hinted.

"I think I do--and I knew it long before this case started people's tongues wagging, too."

"I understand it wasn't Wilford, after all, that Vina was interested in--but Shattuck himself."

"So they say. Society gets its geometry pretty mixed in some of these angles," she laughed.

"But do you think there is anything in the story about them?" I asked.

"You're a very persistent interviewer," she returned.

"Perhaps--but like the honest Japanese schoolboy, 'I ask to know.' It isn't interviewing for publication, you know. Really, I feel that if you do know anything, it is your duty to tell it. You can never know how valuable it may be to the case."

"Of course--if you put it on a high ethical ground, that's different," she temporized.

"I do. Listen. A crime has been committed. You have no more right to hold back one fact that may help to clear it up than you would to shield the person who committed it, in law, you know."

"You're right. Yes--I'm convinced that it was the case--that she was merely playing with Vail Wilford, using him to get her freedom from the doctor, and that she was convinced that all she needed to do was to set herself to capture Vance Shattuck and he was as good as hers. That might be true of some men--sometimes," she added, "but Mr. Shattuck is too--too sophisticated to fall an easy prey to any one. You know, no woman can pursue him. He is a born pursuer."

She paused a minute and nodded frankly at me. "No woman should trust him--yet many have. Some day, I really believe, such men always meet a woman who is more than a game-fish to an angler. Between you and me, I think Vance Shattuck has met her--and that there is nothing he would stop at to get her. But Vina is not that woman--nor can she understand. Yes, you are absolutely right in what you hinted at regarding Vina. I think you'll do well to watch the Lathrops--but mostly watch Vance Shattuck. There--I've said more than I intended to say, already. And remember, this is not a woman's intuition. I've been watching little things, here and there, and putting what I know together. Now--I've some more items to add to my column--it's short to-day."

"Really, you ought to be a detective," I thanked her, as I turned from the desk. "You've helped me a great deal."

"Flatterer," she returned, picking up a galley proof. "Come back again. If I hear anything more I'll let you know. I like Professor Kennedy."

"Then it's to him you've been talking--not to me?" I asked, quizzically. "Or am I like John Alden--not speaking enough for myself, Priscilla?"

"Please--I must read this proof. No--you're not talking for Miles Standish. Still, I consider you quite harmless. If you don't go now, I'll make you write the notes to take the place of these turned slugs in the proof."

I departed in better humor, as I always was after a verbal encounter with Belle Balcom. More than that, she had given me enough to put some phases of the case in an entirely new light.

As I hastened back to the laboratory I realized that the scheming of Vina had given an entirely new twist to the case, one which was beyond my own subtlety to interpret.

On the way out of the city room I ran into Brooks, whose assignment was the Police Headquarters.

"Great case your friend Kennedy's on now," he paused to comment, and I knew that he was hinting for information.

"Yes. By the way," I replied, determined not to give it to him, but to sound him before he had a chance to do the same to me, "what do you fellows up at Headquarters know about the Rascon Detective Agency?"

"Rascon?" he answered, quickly, and I could see his mind was working fast and that if we needed any assistance in hounding that gentleman, Brooks would give it voluntarily, hoping to get his own story out of it. "Why, Rascon has a reputation. They say he has pulled some pretty raw deals. The city force doesn't think much of him, I can tell you. Is he mixed up in it?"

"Yes--indirectly," I admitted. "I thought perhaps you might keep an eye on him. There may be a story in him. Only, your word on one thing: Not a sentence is to go into _The Star_ about him until you've got my O. K."

"I'll promise. What's he done? He does a good deal of shady business, I know."

I was not averse to telling Brooks a bit, for I knew I could trust him. Besides, if the truth is to be told, on a big case it is the newspaper men who do quite as much of the digging out the facts as the police do. The most efficient detectives in the world are the newspaper men--and the regular detectives get a great deal of credit for what the newspaper men do.

"He has been up to a fine piece of double crossing," I replied. "Now all I can tell you is that Wilford hired him to watch Mrs. Wilford. He faked a good deal--meetings with Vance Shattuck and that sort of thing. She gave up to him to suppress some of the fakes. But--well, I'd like to know more. Doyle, I think, has the fellow right. Now be careful. Don't let either of them know I tipped you off--and remember, your typewriter is broken until I tell you it's all right to go ahead."

"Thanks for the tip, Jameson," said Brooks, as I bustled away. "I'll look it up--and let you know."

"Have you found anything yet?" I inquired, half an hour later, as I entered the laboratory and found Kennedy still deeply engaged in the study of the materials which had been brought over by Doctor Leslie.

As I watched him I saw that he was at work over a quantitative analysis, rather than searching blindly for something as yet unknown.

"Yes," he replied, frankly, to my surprise, though, on second thought, I recalled that only when he was in doubt was Kennedy secretive. "I have. What about you?"

"The hint from Leslie was right," I replied, and as briefly as I could I repeated what Miss Balcom had told me.

Kennedy listened attentively, and when I had finished merely remarked, "That explains some things that I haven't cleared up yet."

"Now tell me what you have found," I urged. "I'm very eager to know."

"It was as I thought," he replied, slowly, "when I talked first with Leslie and Doyle. Wilford was not killed by atropin."

"Then what was it?" I asked, mystified.