V THE PSYCHANALYSIS

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

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

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

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

"I see—and did you find anything?"

"A great deal. There are some important changes, some variations between what she told and what she wrote which are very significant. Don't you see? It is one thing to tell a dream in [64] conversation—quite another when you calmly sit down to write it on paper. The words take on an added weight. Now the next problem is to figure out in my psychanalysis just what it is that these changes may mean."

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

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

He took the paper in his hand and began reading.

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

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

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

"At that point," he went on, "she paused again. 'Then the scene shifted, like a motion picture. I [65] saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see a face. In all my dreams it has been the face of Vail.' There was no hesitation, practically no change in that. I noted that she exhibited considerable emotion—that is, considerable emotion for her. She did not hesitate, because she does not understand the dream. If she did, I think she would hesitate—even refuse to tell it. I think with that dream alone one might get a pretty good inkling of the state of affairs."

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

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

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

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

"She omitted something that may be very important. Don't you remember when Lathrop told [66] us she had told him that the bull was so close to her that she could feel its hot breath?"

"I remember now. What of it?"

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

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

"Now, the next part. 'I seemed to be in the midst of a crowd.' We discussed that, too—about the crowd denoting a secret. Then comes the serpent. 'It reared its head angrily and crept over the ground after me and hissed.' That's a bit different, there, from the way she told it. 'It seemed to fascinate me. I trembled and could not run. My fear was so great that I awoke.' All right. Here's the point—when I questioned her about the faces, the human faces, on those animals. She told Lathrop that the face she saw was that of Shattuck. But to me she absolutely denied it. [67] She said she did not recognize the face. There's the point. Why did she cut out that about the hot breath of the bull? Why did she deny absolutely the face of Shattuck?"

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

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

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

"More than that. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. One doesn't always realize how easy that is. A thing dreamed of may have happened years [68] ago. But if one could recall all the thoughts immediately preceding sleep, one would be able to trace out some impelling thought, perhaps on the surface quite unrelated, which brought it up. The more unrelated, the more interesting and important the connecting link. There was every chance, in this case, of Shattuck having been suggested to her any day. Besides, she may be thinking a great deal of him—and not realize it—for her moral censorship is always pushing such thoughts back into the subconscious."

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

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

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

Since our previous discussion on the subject, I had turned it over many times in my mind. It was [69] surely a new situation to me which this application of the new psychology was unfolding. Yet, under the exposition of Kennedy, I was not so bitterly hostile to it now as I had been before. Plainly enough, nothing that I had been able to offer to myself had fitted in with what I saw in the character of Honora Wilford. At least this seemed to fit.

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

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

"The dreamer," he proceeded, "is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centers about the dreamer intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that concern others primarily, but of matters that concern ourselves, either very directly or at least indirectly. [70] So it has been with these dreams of Honora. They concern her intimately.

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

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

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

"Her dreams, especially," agreed Craig, fingering the papers. "Now there's that dream of Lathrop. I suspect she thinks of him somewhat as of a social [71] lion. And I suppose he is—popular, a club-man, a lady-killer. Perhaps that is why she dreamed of him as a lion. But it wouldn't explain all. I recall he wore a beard. That may have suggested the tawny mane of a lion, too. The two ideas combined. There is the narrow path, too. A lion stands in the path. I don't quite fathom it yet. But, you see, Walter, of such stuff are dream lions made. This fantasy I must leave open for interpretation until we understand Lathrop himself better."

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

"He might," admitted Kennedy.

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

Craig had come to the last sheet of paper.

"This is my new prize," he exclaimed, waving it. "I had some inkling of what it betrays, but not the certainty this gives. This is an entirely new dream. We have no hastily spoken description with which to compare it. However, that will make little difference. We'll have to treat it as [72] new. Let's go over it very carefully. It may easily prove most important of all."

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

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

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

"Quite so. In this dream there plainly appears the 'other woman' in the case, the woman who has the passion which Honora herself does not have. Or at least, so she thinks. She seems to recognize in this other woman a woman of a different nature [73] from herself. And yet," added Craig—"and yet, you know, 'The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady—'"

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

"I suppose so," he laughed.

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

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

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

"Into her life—into her dream life, too—there has come 'another woman.' I believe that it is really Vina Lathrop. She betrays it. I hate to admit [74] that either Doyle or Leslie may be right—about anything. But, really, once in a while Doyle does stumble on something—without knowing even remotely how important the thing may be."

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

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

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

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

Kennedy hunted up Doctor Lathrop's number in the book and called it.
[75]

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

"Is this Mrs. Lathrop?" Craig asked.

I saw that she replied in the affirmative.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kennedy nodded.

"From them," continued Doyle, "I went on the assumption that somebody else had been there at the time. There was a visitor.... We are convinced of it now. The fact is that the building is an old one, built before elevator days, not tall. One can walk up to the office of Wilford easily. [76] People do. And the confounded watchman, a man they call Pete, confesses that he was off the job, at least part of the time, last night. There was plenty of chance for a visitor to have got in and got away."

"Who?" I asked.

Doyle shrugged.

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

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

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

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

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

I glanced significantly at Kennedy. He nodded back. His "Aussage test" had effectually disposed of any reliance that might be placed on what Celeste might say. However, Kennedy said nothing of that to Doyle. To have done so would have been to invite a tirade of laughter. The only way with Doyle was to let him go along his sweet way of being wrong—then let him in when we were right. Yet, I must say that I liked Doyle in his way, even if he was only a plugger.
[77]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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