Chapter V: Part 5

I glanced about hastily and saw that Kennedy's hand was hidden in his pocket, which bulged as if something metallic were held there under cover.

The fellow glanced sullenly from us to the new arrivals, as though in a quandary.

"You got the money with you?" he asked, rather shakily.

"Yes," Kennedy cut short.

"'Cause I'll have to beat it the back way--and we got to work fast," he explained, his eyes roving from the burly bartender, who had just gone out to the couple at the other table, apparently oblivious to us.

"The faster the better. You can make your get-away with the coin as soon as those reports are in my hands."

"All right," he agreed, nervously, then added to me, "and if you fellows see any one try to follow us--you stop 'em. See?"

I nodded for both myself and Brooks.

"Come on," indicated the former crook detective to Kennedy. "Quick!"

Kennedy rose and followed the fellow to a door to a hallway that looked as if it led up-stairs.

No sooner had the two risen than our strangers at the other table were alert. I swung around in my chair suddenly toward them, and as I did so my hand went to my hip pocket, as though in search of a gun. For just an instant they paused in their attention to Kennedy.

Out of the tail of my eye I caught sight of Kennedy and the operative at the hall door. Framed in the doorway now stood our burly waiter, snarling some remark.

"What do youse want?" growled the waiter.

Before there was a change for a reply a shot rang out from the other side of the room and the place was instantly in Cimmerian darkness as the bullet smashed the one light in the room.

There was a rush and a scuffle. I flung one fellow off, only to be tackled in the blackness by some one else. Swiftly thoughts crowded through my mind as the place was in an uproar.

Had we been followed here? Was it a trap? Was Rascon ready to risk anything rather than to have those reports pass into unfriendly hands?

The moment the light winked out, Kennedy had swung on the burly waiter and had sprung back toward us as we fought our way toward where we had last seen him. I did not know whether my second assailant was one of the two strangers at the other table or not. Over and over we rolled, knocking down tables and chairs, the air torrid with oaths from all sides.

What had become of Kennedy and Brooks I didn't know. I am sure that I would have mastered the situation in my own private little fight if, at that moment, there had not been the crash of glass from another door, followed by a shrill cry.

"The bulls!" I heard some harsh voice growl.

It seemed as if new men were coming from all directions. My man squirmed out from my grasp and before I knew it, in the darkness, I found myself in the anomalous position of being held firmly by the collar by a policeman, while all about I could hear the impact of billies on crass skulls, resounding in a manner that was awe-inspiring. My own captor needed only a word to bring his own club down on my head, and, needless to say, I was not going to say that word.

An instant later some one found a wall light and turned it on. In the half-light, I could hear a laugh behind me. I turned.

It was Doyle!

"How did you come here?" I gasped, breathlessly, as Doyle released my collar and I stretched my neck to remove the kinks, in so doing catching sight of Kennedy standing over the unconscious form of the waiter in the doorway as he held the redoubtable No. 6 by the collar.

"Kennedy thought it was a trap--tipped me off," laughed Doyle, swinging his club as he shouted orders to his men to dive into command of each door or window exit.

"Did you locate Rascon?" panted Kennedy, twisting just a bit tighter the collar of the operative whom he was holding.

"Sure," returned Doyle, already beginning to line up his prisoners against a blank wall on one side. "He'll be here in a minute. But don't wait for him, if that's your man. Search the place--and, see here, you," he menaced the former operative, "no monkey-shines. You give Mr. Kennedy them papers--or--" Doyle trailed off in one of his picturesque oaths.

While Doyle's men completed the line-up against the wall, Kennedy led the now quaking No. 6 into the hall, followed by Doyle, Brooks, and myself.

We mounted the stairs, looking into every closet and cranny. Hundreds of cases of "wet" goods must have been concealed in the place, which later we discovered was more than a "speak-easy," for it proved to be a veritable moonshine still almost in the heart of the city.

Our search was not long. The stress of threat and circumstance broke down the former crook detective, who now was as keen to clear himself, gratis, and hang something on Rascon, as before he had been to collect his graft and get away with it.

Directed by him, in a hall bedroom, under the worn carpet, we loosened a board of the floor and took from the lath and plaster of the ceiling below a flat packet done up in oiled silk.

At last we had the purloined Rascon letters.

Doyle's eyes widened at the sight of what Craig had uncovered. Here was a whole set of reports such as that which we had already obtained, only of far greater value.

Kennedy was immersed in reading them already.

"What's in them?" asked Doyle, reaching eagerly for the sheaf of precious tissue-paper carbon copies.

Kennedy did not stop reading, but merely motioned to be let alone, as, quickly, he ran his eye over one after another.

"Honora had evidently been trailed all over the city," he commented, as he read.

It was a few moments later that Kennedy's eyes narrowed as he reached another of the reports.

"Here's one that is very interesting," he muttered, half to himself.

We crowded around and read the report that was rather lengthy, while Kennedy turned the pages slowly.

I shall not attempt to quote it, but rather give the gist of it.

"Starts out as though it were a report on Vina and Shattuck," commented Kennedy, "but as you read on, it seems more as though it were a report on Honora."

It seemed that the events had happened, or were alleged to have happened, in a resort in Greenwich Village, known as the Orange and Blue Tea-room. As we read the name, Brooks nodded wisely.

"I know the place," he remarked, "run by a young lady of very advanced ideas--Zona Dare."

However, none of us paid much attention to the interruption at the time, but kept on reading. For, it seemed that one night, scarcely a fortnight before, Vina Lathrop had arrived at the Orange and Blue, according to Rascon's operative, when shortly afterward Shattuck had dropped in, saw her, and wandered over to her table. Later Honora Wilford came in, observed them, but did not sit with them. Instead, she remained alone at another table watching the couple very jealously.

"There's a queer break in the report at this point," remarked Kennedy, turning the page. "Nothing further is said about this meeting, but see how it resumes."

Apparently, Honora, as she watched, had become more and more nervous, for Rascon went on to detail a stormy meeting between the two women, in which Honora faced Vina with biting sarcasm and at which Vina replied in a manner usually described as "catty."

Shattuck had tried to act as peacemaker and to smooth things over. But evidently explanations were useless and only made matters worse. It seemed that whatever it was he said pleased neither woman, and finally, after Honora, with a parting shot at Vina, had swept out of the tea-room, Shattuck very apologetically placed Vina in a cab, then took another himself, and all three had departed in separate ways.

"Who is this Zona Dare, did you say?" asked Kennedy of Brooks, when we had all finished reading.

"One of the well-known Villagers," returned Brooks. "I believe she has some reputation as an interpreter of Freud--you know, the dream doctor? They put on a one-act play down there last winter that she wrote."

"Indeed?" returned Kennedy, interested, but non-committal.

I could not help but think that we had struck pay dirt in this report, knowing, as I did, Washington Square and its fondness for whatever is "new," like Freud.

Had Vina and Shattuck, as well, been dabbling in the new dream philosophy? I felt sure that Honora knew next to nothing about it. At least, so far, her actions had betrayed little knowledge and less suspicion. Or, it suddenly occurred to me, was Honora deeper than I suspected, and was her seeming ignorance only a pose? Did she know that Kennedy knew, know that to Doyle and the rest Freud was not even a name, and that she must play a clever game to match wits with Kennedy in this matter?

Above all, was the report true? If so, judged by Village standards, was it a hint, a strange example of the so-called "new morality"? On the one side was Shattuck, seeking to break up the relations between Honora and her husband. At the same time was he playing a game with Vina Lathrop? As for Vina, her own relations with her husband were strained. Had she known of Shattuck's regard for Honora and had that aroused in her a desire to break it up, for her own advantage?

To cap it all, what of Honora? Was this the jealous soul mate pursuing her affinity and finding him false?

What, indeed, was the viewpoint--according to the "new morality"? I could not but reflect on what a tangle things had been brought into--once the old morality was thrown overboard and the old immorality renamed.

Suddenly there flashed over my mind the recollection of some of the conversation that had been overheard in Wilford's office with the unknown woman visitor.

"Give her up, Vail. Can't you see she really doesn't love you--never did--never could?"

Had it been said by Vina of Honora--or by Honora of Vina? Either of them, according to her own philosophy of life, might have said it of the other. In the "new morality" there was surely scope for the play of mysterious excuses for passions.

"It's easy to see," I remarked, "that Wilford, through these Rascon reports and in other ways, had been laying a foundation not only for Vina's divorce, but his own."

Kennedy nodded sententiously. "But why did he have Vina shadowed here to the tea-room--that is, if that is the case? Had he some inkling that Vina was merely using him? And what's the reason for that break in the report? I believe there's something more in that three-cornered meeting than appears."

These reports, I reflected, as now we awaited the arrival of Rascon himself, were giving quite another side to the characters of the people concerned in the case from that which had been exhibited hitherto. Were we getting down at last under the surface of their private life and finding it of the same sort as that of the "smart set" and the fringe that apes the smart set?

There was a commotion in the hallway and a moment later Rascon himself entered, accompanied, in answer to the summons of Kennedy through Doyle, by one of Doyle's own men.

At once Doyle took the affair in hand, and Kennedy did not interfere, deeming it best, apparently, to let Rascon gain the impression that the whole matter had originated with Doyle.

Question after question Doyle flung at Rascon without getting an answer that was truly enlightening. Finally, exasperated, as Doyle always became when his rasping third degree did not produce results, Doyle picked up the tissue-paper, typewritten reports and shook them in Rascon's face.

"Then you swear that these reports are true?" Doyle demanded. "Don't stop. The devil with how this fellow Number Six got away with them and we learned they were here. Are they true?"

Rascon was sullenly silent.

"Are they true? Come now, you'll have to answer that sometime, Rascon."

"Yes," replied the crook detective, defiantly.

Doyle turned to us with an air of triumph, as though he had gained a great admission, though I could not see, for the life of me, why he should be so elated at having merely begun.

"I've just read this one," remarked Kennedy, quietly, picking up the report we had all glanced through. "It's true--you say--but it isn't the whole truth, Rascon."

Rascon maintained his sullen silence, but there was a furtive cast in his glance that had not been present in the defiance of Doyle. Evidently in his mind was running the thought, "Just what is it that this man, Kennedy, may know, and how am I going to keep from being too clever and tripping myself up?" I knew it to be a situation in which Kennedy frankly reveled, this interplay of wits.

"There's a break here," prompted Kennedy, with a positiveness that was palpably disconcerting to Rascon.

Kennedy fixed his gaze on Rascon, who fidgeted and finally weakened.

"Well, you see," he admitted, "Mr. Wilford came in at that point--said to watch them--and left. I didn't think that it was necessary to put that in the report--to him."

"Did Mrs. Wilford see him there?" demanded Kennedy, quickly.

"No--I don't think so."

"Well--which were you following?" cut in Doyle, to the vexation of Kennedy, who, until then, had had things going pretty much his own way. "Was it Mrs. Lathrop or Shattuck--or--was it Mrs. Wilford herself?"

Doyle modulated his voice in his craftiest manner, the manner which I hated, for it was so evident that he tended toward hanging the crime ultimately on Honora.

"Why, it was Mr. Shattuck I was following," snapped Rascon, "Mr. Shattuck and Mr. Wilford's wife."

The answer was indeed an answer. I felt that Doyle had furnished Rascon with what was, to the crook detective, a neat way to let himself out of a tight position, and I could see that it had given Rascon a relief from Kennedy's more subtle grilling.

"We'll take that matter up later," was all Kennedy ventured, hiding his chagrin at the interruption of Doyle.

On his part, Doyle seemed to insist on making it evident that he had scored.

"Rascon," he added, extending his fist menacingly at the detective, who by this time seemed to have recovered some of his lost equilibrium as he realized the extent of our "find," due to the unexpected treachery of his operative--"Rascon, did you offer to sell these reports to Mrs. Wilford? I know about that Beach House report. Is that why you left Mr. Wilford's name out? Come--you might as well admit it."

"No--I didn't try to sell them to Mrs. Wilford," defied Rascon, with assurance. "Why should I? Mr. Wilford paid me a bonus for that particular report--not to me, of course, but to the operative I had assigned to the case."

Kennedy, by this time, had given up the further quizzing of Rascon at this time as hopeless, and was preparing to leave.

As for myself, I cannot say that I was entirely uninfluenced by Doyle's apparent estimate of Honora Wilford, in the light of Rascon's report and his ready explanation. Though I would not have admitted it to any one else, I began to wonder whether, if the reports were true and Rascon's explanation held, I had been correct in my estimate of Honora. A word from Kennedy would have set me right. Why had he not spoken it? Moreover, had my own interpretation of his Freudian analysis of her been correct? Was she the marble woman he had made me think her? The more I thought of it, the more I felt that the "new morality" down-town was pretty much the same as the old immorality up-town. I began to wonder whether Honora, in her doubt of the lack of feeling for Wilford, had succeeded in keeping herself from being smirched by either standard. I was frankly at sea.

We left alone, leaving Doyle to handle the product of his raid, including the now intractable Rascon. Craig thanked Brooks for his help and Brooks had scarcely left us. I was about to ask Kennedy his frank opinion of the case for Honora, when he himself forestalled me briskly.

"Walter, I've an angle of this thing I want to go into immediately. Besides, I have some work I must get through at the laboratory. Suppose that, in the mean time, you trace down what truth there may be in that tea-room incident. I think you and your friend, Belle Balcom, could do that."

XII

THE "NEW MORALITY"

I was rather glad of the commission Kennedy had given me. Belle Balcom had a keen and sprightly mind. She was the typical newspaper woman, it is true, who often would sacrifice accuracy to cleverness. Yet there was not much to condemn her in that, for she was so undeniably clever. Contact with her was stimulating. Besides, it was just on such a quest as this that a girl of her type was invaluable.

Accordingly, I set out immediately down-town for _The Star_. Fortunately, I found Belle finishing her stint of society gossip for the day.

I made a quick explanation of what Kennedy wanted and was pleased to see that she was interested.

"I think it's a good idea to visit the tea-room," I explained, then added, doubtfully, "but how are you going to find out whether our people are remembered there--if they don't happen to be remembered by name?"

"Nothing simpler," Belle replied. "Some one there will surely remember faces. We'll settle that in the art department."

Thus, armed with photographs of Shattuck, Vina, Honora, and Wilford which _The Star_ already possessed in its files, Belle and I set out on our quest.

The Orange and Blue Tea-room was not easy to find by one unfamiliar with the Village and its queer twists of streets. But Belle knew it well and I had some slight recollection of it.

It was originally a low-ceilinged basement in an old house not far from Washington Square. The upper floors were now "studios." In the former basement, almost a cellar, were three rows of tables extending the length of the place and overrunning out into the little back yard where one dined in summer _al fresco_.

At the far end, on one side, was a little raised platform, and on it was a piano strummed by a blind player. Opposite was the entrance to the kitchen, which was subterranean.

Belle and I entered, and immediately the highbrow hold-up began, just as up-town, with a coat-and-hat check-boy. We made our way to one of the tables along the wall and seated ourselves. Everywhere orange and blue decorations, true to the name, smote the eye, on walls, on ceiling, on chintzes, on the floor, on everything, it seemed, but the table-cloths and the silverware.

"You know, orange stands for temperament," chatted Belle, as she saw me marveling at the color riot. "New art, I guess."

"Insanity art," I replied, with a smile. "Don't mistake me, I enjoy it, though. It's atmosphere--especially when that kitchen door is open."

Belle looked about, as a woman will, at once attentive to our conversation, taking in whatever was happening within the range of two ordinary men's vision, now and then nodding to some acquaintance, sweeping a glance at the menu and tucking in a stray wisp of black hair, all at once and each without in the least interfering with the other.

"I suppose the 'Villagers' are here in force," I suggested, noting as best I could all her simultaneous actions and probably missing the other half which I have not recorded.

Belle smiled. "Villagers don't come here much. The place is too well known. Besides, there are not so many 'Villagers' as you would think. No doubt most of them are up-town. No, most of these people are skirmishers from the highbrow and curious up-town and out-of-town. You see, there's a sort of reciprocity about it."

However that might have been, there was enough that was picturesque and one felt sure that one was really in an environment of the bobbed hair and maiden names for wives--that is, assuming that the words maiden and wives were still in the vocabulary.

"All parlor socialists?" I inquired, looking about.

"Have your little joke," frowned Belle. "We all have to, I suppose. But really, down here, after all, there are people who think, who _do_ things."

I had been waiting for that expression, "do things." They all "do things" down in Greenwich Village, even if it is only to compose music for the zither or publish one's own amateur magazine on butcher paper from hand-set type. Evidently Belle took the Village more or less seriously, after all.

"Besides," she faltered, "there are no parlor socialists, any more, anyhow. That belongs to the old muck-raking magazine days."

"I see--limousine liberals now--or boudoir Bolsheviki."

"Maybe you'd better eat," suggested Belle, sarcastically.

"It's a tea-room," I parried, glancing down at the menu. "I suppose it's orange pekoe--although they don't seem to be drinking it. Perhaps they're all smoking it. Now that we're all supposed to be so good, I hear that tobacco will be replaced by dried powdered tea leaves and coffee grounds. They say a caffein jag or a thein jag has merits. Passing by the paraldehyde cocktail, what's good?"

Belle's good humor was restored, and with her help I managed to order everything from soup to nuts--and I am sure that there were a good many fugitives from the squirrels in the room, whether from up or down town.

I was really enjoying myself, so much so that for the moment I almost forgot the purpose of our visit, when it was recalled to me by Belle, who spoke in French to the waiter, rather gross and greasy but answering to the compensating name of Hyacinthe.

"_Où est Ma'm'selle Zona?_" she asked.

The waiter actually understood, and, though it would have been so much easier in English, Belle conveyed the idea that she would like to talk to Miss Dare and the waiter agreed to get her, though I felt he restrained himself with difficulty from replying in good Manhattanite, "Sure, miss, I'll dig her up"--meaning from the olfactory Hades beneath us.

Zona Dare proved to be a slender youngish lady, with the conventional shock of dark bobbed hair--with a dilettante exterior but a very practical secret self, I am sure. Even a mere introduction to her told me she was a member of that curious "third sex" that evolution is giving us. I can't exactly describe it. It is not "she" or "he" exactly, neither he-woman nor she-man. Certainly it is not neuter. Maybe when nature, or whatever it is that is operating, gets through we may be able to classify it.

Belle knew her, of course. Belle knew everybody. In fact she knew her so well that Zona, on urging, consented to sit down with us awhile and actually ordered tea--in a pot, too, though whether Russian, English or Scotch or Rye I am not sure. At any rate, it seemed to promote conversation and confidence and I covered my raillery with protective coloring.

What I enjoyed was the utter freedom of the conversation. We had soon progressed to bolshevism and the government ownership and operation of women. Finally the conversation put into the ultimate port of the "new morality."

"One must live one's life," seemed to be the burden of the philosophy, and I did not quarrel with the 1919 model of hedonism, for by this time I began to see a ray of hope that finally I might learn something about those whom Kennedy and I had been studying. I recalled Vina's remark to us over her contemplated divorce, "I believe every woman should live her own life as she sees fit." Doubtless she had absorbed it here.

It was evident, however, that there could only be so many triangles a week--and besides, "the eternal triangle" was in itself condemned by its mere ancient origin. What next? I guessed right--bolshevism, of course.

I found I had dropped right into the intelligenzia--the very sovietment of society, where _The Nation_ and _The New Republic_ were considered hide-bound conservatives. I did not quarrel even at the addition of red to the orange-and-blue color scheme, though I adopted the attitude of one mildly seeking the truth.

"Perhaps Freud can explain," I suggested, after one passage at arms with Zona, ably seconded by Belle, "why it is that a prosperous aristocratic feminist should enjoy contemplating casting her rope of pearls before the proletariat. What do these comfortable nibblers at anarchy expect to get out of it?"

There was an answer. I have forgotten it, but it was clever and convincing. It always is, just as glib sophistry and specious phrases are. The gist was that all psychology, science, the history of the human race, had been superseded by some quite indefinite idea originated in a land with problems about as much related to us as the dredging of Martian canals would relate to Suez and Panama.

However, the purpose was accomplished, and Belle, with her human point of view, which one gets from seeing this corrupt old world from a newspaper office, saw it. Gradually, the conversation had drifted about to Freud.

I was glad that I had learned so much about him from Kennedy, for I was surprised at the knowledge that Zona really had of him. Was it superficial--as so much of that little world into which Kennedy had plunged me? I am not sure. At least, Zona posed as a Freudian interpreter. I was sorry Kennedy was not present, for I was inclined to accept her as such. The fact was that it set me thinking that perhaps she had educated in the theory many to whom a little knowledge is dynamite.

Belle's keen mind seemed to read my thoughts, even to leap ahead of me. She reached into her bag and drew forth some photographs.

"Oh, Zona, by the way," she rattled on, "that reminds me. Did you ever see this man here--or this woman?"

Zona took the photographs of Shattuck and Vina, and with just a glance answered, "Indeed I have!"

"Do you recall a night when there was a scene here--another woman?" went on Belle, producing the photograph of Honora.

"Yes--I remember her. I know them all. They're in this case that's in the papers now. The lawyer who was killed was that woman's husband," she added, pointing to Honora. "Why? Are you writing them into your column?"

"Yes," confessed Belle. "That is, if I can get a good enough story out of the incident here."

At once Zona's keen, practical mind leaped to the bait of publicity held out by Belle. What could be better advertising than for the celebrated case in the news to be connected with the tea-room? It would crowd the place.

"What is it you want to know?"

"Just what happened."

"I didn't see it all. As nearly as I can recall that man--Mr. Shattuck, his name is--was at a table with Mrs. Lathrop when Mrs. Wilford approached. You see, I knew them all slightly. I know so many people who come here from up-town. It flatters them--and I have a good memory for names. I had seen Mrs. Wilford here several times before with Mr. Shattuck--and once I think with Mr. Wilford--I'm not sure. Anyhow, I knew her--I think I sold her a box for our Freud play last year--I'm not sure. I'd have to look that up. Well, there was quite a scene when Mrs. Wilford stopped and faced Mrs. Lathrop at her table. But here's the strange part of it. I don't know whether you know it or not. But just before that, while Mrs. Wilford was sitting at the table just back of us--the two were down there near the piano--Mr. Wilford himself came in. He was about to give his hat and stick to the check-boy when he caught sight of the back of his wife's head. She was alone--right there--then. He spoke a few words to a man near the street door. I don't know _him_. He never came here before and I haven't seen him since. But, at any rate, Mr. Wilford spoke to him, then turned and left in a great hurry. I wasn't here through it all. Just a moment, Pedro!" she called to a waiter who was passing at the moment.

Pedro completed his service at another table, then came over to Zona.

"Did you ever see these people here?" asked Zona, turning over the photographs of Vina and Shattuck.

Pedro was at first suspicious, and, in fact, I do not believe that he would have told us a thing had it not been Zona herself who questioned him.

"Yes," he admitted, finally, "I remember one night they were here."

"Did you serve them?" asked Zona.

"Yes," he replied, apparently reluctant to be drawn into anything.

"Do you remember anything that happened?"

"I was very busy," he evaded. "The woman came in first alone, I remember, and said she was waiting for a friend. Then the man came in. I thought she was surprised to see him--but I thought it was all right. She had said she was going to meet a friend."

I shot a quick glance at Belle, who nodded. It was evident that Vina had not expected to meet this friend.

"Do you remember anything that was said?" I ventured.

Pedro looked at me suspiciously. "I was too busy serving," he replied. "It was the busy time."

"What seems to be the trouble?" I asked, not cross-questioningly, but more as if merely for information. "You don't seem to want to answer. Are you afraid of something?"

Pedro regarded me a moment, then looked at Zona.

"It's all right," she reassured.

"Well--you see--once I was in a divorce suit--in court--I lose t'ree, four days' pay--the boss he fire me. Are you detective?"

I smiled and evaded the question, under cover of Zona's presence, and again reassured him.

"There was another woman came in, wasn't there?" I asked, as Belle produced the photograph of Honora.

"Yes--that's her."

"She didn't sit with them," I prompted.

"No," he replied, "over there," pointing to the table Zona had already indicated.

"Did you wait on her?"

"No--Louis."

"But you saw her?"

"But yes--every one did--one could not help. She came in as though she was looking for some one."

"And then what?"

"I was serving the fish. This woman, she get up quickly and come down to the table. Oh--but she was angry--at the man--at the woman."

"Did she make a scene--I mean did every one see it?"

"I should say! I had just left the table--but every one see it--yes--and hear, too, I think."

"What did you hear?"

"I? Nothing. I was by that time at the door to the kitchen. But she was angry--the color in her cheeks--the voice. I think she must be the wife of the man--she seem so angry at him, also."

Discreet Pedro, I reflected. He was making everything as indefinite as possible to render himself less liable to be called to court in case of trouble. However, he was telling me just what I wanted to know. It was already sufficiently evident that Vina had actually had the appointment first with Wilford himself, that she had got there early, that he had been late, perhaps purposely, due to some suspicion, or perhaps to make sure of covering himself, for he must have provided for Rascon's operative in case of trouble.

Piecing the thing together, I was convinced that, in some way, Honora had learned of the appointment and that Shattuck had learned of it, too--though it must have been independent, else why their encounter?

Shattuck had come--perhaps to face Wilford. At any rate, he had been sitting with Honora when Wilford's wife, of all persons, came in and saw him with Vina.

There my deductions broke down. What were her emotions? Was she jealous of Shattuck paying attentions to the woman who had so fascinated her own husband? How far was she piqued at the thought of not having hold enough over Shattuck, also, to keep him from Vina? As for Shattuck, was he really fascinated by Vina, after all? I did not try to pursue that line of analysis farther, yet.

At any rate, Honora had seen them and in turn had herself been seen by her own husband, who had stopped only just long enough to give his detective instructions, then had departed unobserved by the other three as he entered. Whatever Shattuck's attempt at explanation, when faced by Honora, it had not been convincing, at least to her. They had left together, parted at the door. But I knew that the misunderstanding must have been patched up later, for they had been together since that time.

A few more questions showed that Pedro had nothing to add, and I let him go. Zona told me what little she had observed. From the other waiter, Louis, I learned one thing, however, about Honora and her actions before she rose and made the little scene at the other table. She had come in rather pale and agitated. As she sat there, having ordered, but with her food untouched, she had seemed to get much calmer, though her face became more and more flushed and her eyes animated as she missed no movement of the other couple. It was that very absorption that probably had been the cause of her missing the very man she sought, her husband. But it meant more than that. It told me something of her nature, that this woman was of the sort that, when a crisis approached, instead of going to pieces, like many others, was able to keep such a grip on herself that she swept ahead through the crisis coolly and clearly, in spite of the suppressed excitement. That spoke volumes. No doubt when the relaxation came she was on the verge of collapse. But as long as the need lasted she had complete control. Did that mean that at the present moment, as she faced Kennedy, she was repeating the same performance?

Louis had gone, and Zona turned to Belle and myself as if to ask whether there was anything else she might do for us, at the same time looking at her watch and fingering her cup as a hint that she was a busy woman and must get away.

"Why did Shattuck meet her here?" I thought aloud, wondering if, perhaps, Zona herself might not know them and betray something.

She shrugged, and I was morally certain that she did know them both, and well. But evidently, as to bringing herself personally or her theories directly into the case, there was a barrier.

"Mr. Shattuck seemed to be interested--but--you can never tell. He is one of those men who have the faculty of making every woman think she is the only woman."

"Did he ever discuss things with you--I mean Freud--current topics of conversation?" I ventured, covering my interest as best I could.

"Oh yes, in a general way. Almost everybody who comes here does. They all know my hobbies. That's why they come here, I guess. Isn't it, Belle?"

"To see you, dear--yes. I know _I_ do. Without Zona--there are a dozen places one might go. They lack something."

"He seemed interested in Freud?" I pursued.

"Y-yes--but so are we all down here, just now."

Evidently Zona was hedging. I gathered that Shattuck's interest had been rather more than ordinary.

"And Vina Lathrop--was she interested, too? You must have known her."

"Yes, I knew her. Vina _was_ interested--of course. But, then, who is not, just now? A few years ago only a few had read Freud. Even after he was translated, still there were only a few. But now--since my play--we have other plays, books, stories, articles--even Freud doctors, who before were unknown to the public, have come outside of the medical press with their names and work. Of course Vina Lathrop was interested. All women are interested in Freud. Don't you think it concerns us--just a bit more intimately than it does men?"

For the moment Zona had forgotten her haste to get away and was leaning forward earnestly over the empty tea-caddy.

"Most assuredly," I agreed, realizing suddenly one reason why Freud is taken up so readily in a circle such as that which I was now tangent to. He offers an easy, scientific highroad to the discussion of intimate sex--and that is, after all, under the veneer, the middle name of Greenwich Village, as it is of all "highbrows" when one comes to get under their skins and truly understand what secretly is back of their "uplifts" and "reforms" in social evils and hygiene.

"But what of Honora?" I asked, loath to lose the piquant assistance of Zona, once I had it. "Why was she here? Had she come to watch Shattuck? Or was it to watch Vina? Or was it really to watch her husband? Her husband or Shattuck--I wonder which?"

"Suppose it was either?" shrugged Zona, nonchalantly. "What of it?"

Evidently the spell of her interest in the Freud discussion had broken when she finished her last sentence.

"In the former case she is merely old-fashioned," added Zona, "in the latter merely foolish."

With this typical meaningless cleverness that in reality hides the shallowness of our advanced "thinkers" Zona bade us adieu. Belle and I chatted a few moments, when she suddenly discovered she was half an hour late for an engagement. I settled the check, and we tipped our way out and into a cab that whirled us up-town, while Belle poked fun at my benighted conservatism, which I did not mind in the least. I left her at her hotel, with hearty thanks for the great help she had been in the case, and sincerely happy, in addition to that, for a pleasant couple of hours at dinner with a girl with whom one might disagree yet still regard highly.

A few minutes later I was at the laboratory, full of a new-born theory that Shattuck, down in the Village, had studied Freud more than we had suspected merely from finding Freud's books in his library--that he must have known Honora's dreams, interpreted them, and found out secretly she still loved him, as her open jealousy had, perhaps, showed in the incident I had unearthed.

Craig was already there, and at work. He listened attentively and without comment to what I had to report.

"What have _you_ found?" I asked, finally, when I had finished with my own facts and theories.

"Oh, I've been down to Shattuck's office in Wall Street," he answered, rather absently.

"And you saw him? How did he take it?"

"He was very angry. Asked me if I was going to try my case in the newspapers--was very sarcastic. I was just about leaving when I met Doctor Lathrop coming in."

"Doctor Lathrop--coming in!" I exclaimed. "How was that? How was Lathrop--and why there?"

"I saw him alone first. He was very much upstage with me. I thought there was something brewing, so I stayed--that is, went back with him. I'm glad I did. I think I narrowly averted a fight. Lathrop threatened Shattuck--that is, I mean, all in a very polite way--but it practically amounted to telling him to stop seeing his wife, to have no more business relations with her, and all that. It was in the nature of serving notice. Shattuck is very high-spirited. I think if I had not been there there would have been trouble. But Lathrop was very suave and diplomatic."

"I'm wondering about this man Shattuck," I put in. "Is he woman-crazy?"

The laboratory door was suddenly flung open and Doyle burst in.

"_Some_ news!" he exclaimed, excitedly. "The dictagraph works."

"I should expect it to do so," calmed Kennedy. "It has never failed me yet, when properly used, like all science and invention, at the right time and place."

"Say--you're a cold shower. Listen--I'm getting closer to her!"

XIII

THE MECHANICAL EAR

"Then it was Honora you overheard over the dictagraph?" I asked, quickly.

"Not at first," replied Doyle. "I'll come to that later. Let me give it all to you first."

He pulled from his pocket a set of typewritten notes and excitedly began to condense what McCabe had just heard over the dictagraph in the Wilford apartment, sometimes giving it to us from memory, then refreshing his mind from what McCabe had transcribed.

"It seems that the maid, Celeste, had a visitor," began Doyle.

"Who was it?" hastened Kennedy, impatiently.

"A man named Chase."

"Who's he?"

"Another detective."

"Like Rascon?"

Doyle nodded doubtfully. "I don't seem to know him," he remarked, sententiously, though in a tone that was prejudiced.

To Doyle all private detective agencies were as the scum of the earth. I know Kennedy made mental note to look the man up, unprejudiced.

"What do you know about him?" asked Craig.

"Very little--except that from what Celeste said Mrs. Wilford herself must have employed him at one time or another--perhaps even now. I guess that woman knew more about what was going on than we think."

I glanced from Doyle to Kennedy. Could it be possible that we ourselves, in turn, were being watched by her? And was Honora not the simple, unsophisticated woman I had thought?

"Evidently," went on Doyle, "Celeste was trying to fasten the crime on Vina Lathrop."

"How's that?" queried Kennedy, sharply.

"Well," returned Doyle, running his eye over the transcribed conversation to pick out that part which substantiated the statement, "it seems as though Celeste was trying to tell Chase something that Chase didn't accept. Here it is. Chase's remark was lost--but it must have been about Mrs. Wilford's actions that night of the murder.

"'No, no, no--she was not out of this apartment that night.' That was what Celeste said in answer to him.

"'Come, come, now,' Chase said, 'what's the use of that? You might tell that to Doyle--but why tell me? Where was she?'

"You see, they're all trying to put it over on me," interjected Doyle, apoplectically.

"She might have been out--and still not have been near Mr. Wilford or his office," I returned.

Doyle gave me a withering glance and did not even deign to reply to a mere reporter.

"Here's the other thing, Kennedy," ignored Doyle. "I mean about trying to put it on Vina Lathrop--to save Mrs. Wilford.

"'Wasn't _she_ at Mr. Wilford's office?' That's a return question from Celeste to Chase to divert attention, I tell you."

"What was Chase's answer?"

Doyle ran his eye down the page. "'I've traced pretty nearly everything Mrs. Lathrop did that night--except for a couple of hours after she left the Gorham Hotel, where she had dinner. If I could locate the driver of the cab that took her away, I'd get a clue. But it was a passing taxi the doorman hailed, and there doesn't seem to be any trace of him--yet.' There--don't you see? They're trying to get something on Mrs. Lathrop. It's plain. I ask you--why?"

Doyle leaned back and regarded us with an air of conscious triumph.

"Cost what it will," he added, "it's apparent that Celeste is devoted and loyal to Honora Wilford, too. I tell you they're covering up something," he emphasized, waving the notes, "and I intend to uncover it."

However, Kennedy did not seem to attach much importance to what either Celeste or Chase had said. Evidently he had a pretty clear idea already of what had happened.

I recalled Celeste and the "Aussage test." Was Celeste to be trusted--even over a dictagraph?

Doyle seemed to read in Kennedy's face what I had already seen, and hastened on to new points in his arguments from the notes.

"That's all very well about Celeste," he continued, excitedly, "but here's the real news, after all. The most important thing was what happened an hour or so later, after Chase had gone. McCabe picked up the voice of a woman. It was Mrs. Lathrop herself calling on Mrs. Wilford. How about that?"

"What!" I exclaimed, involuntarily, I suppose, because of Kennedy's continued silence. "Vina called on Honora Wilford? Why, man, I should have thought the wires would have fused!"

"Well, that's what she did," asserted Doyle, "and you'll be more surprised when I tell you what happened."

Doyle was enjoying the suspense he himself had created. Still Kennedy said nothing, not so much, I think, because he would not give Doyle the satisfaction of observing his interest as because his mind was at work piecing into his own theories the new facts that were being brought out. For that has always been Kennedy's method--the gathering of facts, fitting them together, like a mosaic, with fragments missing, and then with endless patience fitting the new fragments as they are discovered into the whole picture of a crime until the case was completed and he was ready to act with relentless and unerring precision.

As for myself, I listened to what Doyle had to reveal with amazement. Here was a meeting, separated only by hours, if not merely by minutes, from another in which Vina's own husband had called on Shattuck.

"As nearly as I can make out from McCabe's notes," began Doyle, "Mrs. Lathrop must have been seeking this meeting and Mrs. Wilford avoiding it for some time. You see, the interview was so passionate that often the voices were indistinct and his notes are fragmentary in spots. However, there's enough to show what it was all about."

Doyle turned a page. "It started with Mrs. Lathrop accusing Mrs. Wilford of avoiding seeing her. When Mrs. Wilford pleaded the tragedy and the surveillance she is under, Mrs. Lathrop hinted that she was using these things to shield herself.

"Here's where Mrs. Lathrop began to let something out. 'Your maid, Celeste, I hear, has been talking about me. And I know, also, Honora, that you've had a private detective, a man named Chase. You've had him following me!'

"McCabe tells me that the tone of this was very accusing, and that Mrs. Wilford did not make any attempt to answer. I only wish we had something like a dictagraph--detectavue, I'd call it--that would let us look at the faces of some of these people as we hear them over this mechanical ear--a mechanical eye, understand? I'll wager Mrs. Wilford's face was a study. She's a match for any man. But I'd like to see her matched against a woman like Mrs. Lathrop. She's clever, Kennedy, clever."

Kennedy nodded, but without enthusiasm over the proposition. Rather it was an invitation to Doyle to go on.

"There's a lot more," continued Doyle, hurriedly. "Here's what I want. Listen to this. If it's true, we've got something. Mrs. Wilford hadn't said much and it seemed to arouse Mrs. Lathrop to go farther. Listen. 'I hadn't intended to say this, Honora,' she burst out, 'but you were at his office--that night. Come--own up, dear.' Get that 'dear' at the end? I don't know where Mrs. Lathrop got her information. I wish I did. But at least she seems to me to know something."

"Or else she's very clever at fishing for information," I interrupted, for I was not able to restrain it.

Doyle was so cocksure of his deductions that it antagonized me. On his part, I am sure, while he may not have had much respect for my profession, he had a wholesome fear of it, as many detectives have. For, after all, we newspaper men have the key that unlocks the door to everything.

On the other hand, I must admit that I was not at all positive in my own mind. Was Vina fishing--or did she really know something? Was that why Honora was silent? Or was Honora contemptuous of a woman of Vina's type and was silence without any admission her sweetest revenge? What was the purpose that lay back of this visit?

For one thing, the silence of Honora, whether it spelled guilt or mere contempt, had its effect on Vina and made her more daring.

"'Then this Professor Kennedy,' continued Doyle, reading from the notes. 'With that Mr. Jameson he has been finding out things at the Orange and Blue Tea-room and other places. They've got a woman working for them, too, I imagine. I tell you, Honora, _they know_.'

"'Know what?' Honora answered, and McCabe thought she wasn't quite as cold and calm as usual.

"Then Mrs. Lathrop went a little bit farther--oh, I'll say that these women are clever--both of them. On the whole, now I'm not so sure which of them carried off the honors. Come to think of it, Mrs. Wilford was clever, too. She has to be. Anyhow, Mrs. Lathrop went a step farther. 'They know about the Greenwich Village stuff, now.' What's that, Kennedy? You never told me that."

There was something reproachful in Doyle's voice, assumed, no doubt, but still there, as much as to say that he was taking Kennedy into his confidence and expected a return.

Kennedy stole a glance at me and I understood.

It was just this that had impelled Doyle to come to us. He had not understood it himself and, in order to keep up with us, was obliged to take us into his own confidence. Briefly Kennedy related, with an occasional word from me, what had happened since the river-front-saloon raid.

"Oh, I see," remarked Doyle, though any one could tell that he really did not see. "That's what she meant when she went on and said, 'About Freud and all that, Honora. Zona Dare told me, over the 'phone. That's why I came over.'

"'Indeed, Vina, you needn't have troubled yourself,' was Mrs. Wilford's reply. 'It's a matter of perfect indifference to me how much or how little Professor Kennedy and Mr. Jameson know or find out.'

"McCabe says she was very cutting in her remarks there. But he also says he thought she was weakening. Anyhow, it had its effect on Mrs. Lathrop. She flared right up.

"'Don't care?' she cried. 'You don't care if Kennedy finds out about your interest in the play, about your life, about Freud, the "soul scar" theory, and all that? I may not know much about science and especially this new psychology, but I'm blessed, Honora, if I'd want any one raking up the past.'

"'I should say not--Vina.' Pretty pointed, wasn't it? These two love each other like a German and a Frenchman."

Doyle paused, then went on reading and summarizing. It was as I had been suspecting for several moments. In an instant the two women were on the dangerous ground of Honora's early engagement to Shattuck. What they said did not seem so very important and I omit this part of it. However, I knew it would lead to something.

"'You broke off the engagement, Honora, because of his escapades,' finally hinted Mrs. Lathrop, with claws behind the velvety tone of the remark. 'And yet--'

"Mrs. Wilford interrupted here. 'It is a far more important thing, Vina, that a woman should keep herself clean than for a man--far more important for the race. Not that I would excuse things in _any_ man.' McCabe says that remark went right home to Mrs. Lathrop. She flared up.

"'Oh, tush, Honora--more of your highbrow philosophy. _You_ talking about the race! Where are _your_ children? I've been studying you, Honora. You may think you're a highbrow. I guess you are. They all--you--are like the rest of us, with the same passions--no better, no worse. Remember--it's you have the soul scar--you!'"

"The cat," I could not help but mutter.

Again, recalling Kennedy's instructions, I wondered whether consciously Honora had rejected Shattuck while at the same time she unconsciously accepted him as a lover?

Evidently now each was accusing the other--and over Shattuck. I recalled Honora's dreams which she had told willingly. There was the dream of the bull and the serpent. That was sex. Again I recalled the dream of the forest and the hill she had been struggling to get up. In this dream I recalled the fire, the climbing, the explosion, and her dream of the other woman, with her unwillingness to admit to us that the other woman might be no other than Vina. Then there was the unexplained dream she had about Doctor Lathrop, the lion in the path. Evidently Honora had been betrayed into some dangerous admissions in her dreams, I thought.

"What's next?" came Kennedy's voice. "I get the drift of what was really back of it all. Let's go on."

Doyle eyed Kennedy quizzically for a moment. Kennedy's explanation of the psychology of the thing had been much over Doyle's head and had left him in doubt. He turned back to McCabe's notes.

"It's Mrs. Lathrop speaking next, and she was very angry. 'If you don't leave him alone, Honora--I'll tell Kennedy all that I know.'"

Doyle shot a glance of inquiry.

"She hasn't told it yet," answered Kennedy. "What next?"

"I guess it got under Mrs. Wilford's skin. 'I don't understand men,' she cried. 'But I understand you. It is revenge--revenge on me that you want, Vina.'"