IV THE "HESITATION COMPLEX"

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

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

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

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

"I've been very much interested in those dreams [49] of yours," remarked Kennedy, endeavoring not to betray too much of the source of his information, for obvious reasons. "Doctor Leslie has told me of some of them—and I tried to get Doctor Lathrop to tell me of the others."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My most frequent dream is a horrible one," she began, writing in a firm hand, although she knew that she was observed and was weighing every [50] word and action. "I have dreamed ever so many times that I saw Vail in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled."

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

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

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

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

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

Always I found myself going back again to my original impression of her. Somehow, indefinably, I felt that there was something lacking in this woman's life. Was it, as I had believed at first, "heart"? I wondered whether, after all, there had been lacking in this woman's life some big experience, [51] whether ever she had really loved. I knew well what would have been the answer one might have received if she had been questioned. She would have pointed immediately to her married life as proof that she had loved—at least once upon a time. And yet, was it proof? Had she loved Vail Wilford deeply?

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

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

Kennedy's voice recalled me to the matter of immediate importance before us.
[52]

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There's just another dream, or, rather, two dreams," he said, in a moment, "that interested me [53] almost as much when I heard of them. Doctor Lathrop happened to mention them without telling them and I'd like to get them from you."

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

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

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

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

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

She did not pause, however, except to skip a line, but began writing again:
[54]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wondered what had been the reason of her hesitation and her final decision not to tell us what she had evidently told Doctor Lathrop on the first telling of the dream. Surely, I reasoned, there must be some reason back of this concealment. [55] I was forced to be content to wait in order to question Kennedy to learn what his own impressions were. Any betrayal now, before her, might entirely upset his nicely laid plans, whatever they were.

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

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

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

"There is one other," she replied.

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

"If you really care to have it."

"Very much," he urged.

Again she turned as though escaping something and wrote:

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

Here again she hesitated, then wrote slowly, "Then I seemed to meet—" and stopped.
[56]

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you sure that it was not Vina Lathrop?" he shot out quickly.
[57]

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was startling, dramatic, cruel, perhaps merciless—this dissecting of the soul of the handsome woman before us. But it had come to a point where it was absolutely necessary to get at the truth. At least Kennedy seemed convinced that locked in her heart was the key to the mystery.
[58]

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stopped a moment, looked back, sighed, and added, "It is the penalty I must pay."
[59]

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'd like to see her."

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

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

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

"Oh, these horrible detectives!" she murmured. "It is terrible. They will drive me crazy. Pauvre, pauvre madame!"
[60]

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

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

Celeste shook her head with a na?ve stare.

"Nevair."

"But, madame—did she not know her?"

Celeste merely shrugged.

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

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

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

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

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

It seemed to me to be a purposeless action, but [61] I was not surprised when Kennedy added, "Now tell me what you saw."

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

"Were there any flowers?" asked Kennedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By this time we were on the street and walking slowly back to the laboratory.
[62]

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