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 [187] 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.
[188]

"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 [189] 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 [190] 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 [191] 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 [192] 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, [193] 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 [194] 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 [195] 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.'"

"She got back a thrust at Mrs. Lathrop, anyhow," I commented.

Yet I wondered what Vina's motive might be. Was it merely due to her insane infatuation for Shattuck? As for Honora, was she, I kept wondering, after all, the consciously frigid, unconsciously [196] passionate woman? At least, she was a most perplexing "complex."

Doyle had closed his note-book with the remark that his little mechanical eavesdropper had made an excellent start, and now was looking inquiringly at Kennedy.

"Where is Chase?" asked Kennedy. "Have you any idea?"

"McCabe looked up the name and finds that there is a Chase agency on Forty-second Street. You might try it."

Accordingly, we set out for the address of the detective which McCabe had located and found that it was a small office in a building near Fifth Avenue. Chase himself proved to be a rather frank-faced, energetic young fellow, not at all typical of the private detective. In fact, he had had some experience as an operative for one of the big agencies, and, having some money, had achieved the dream of every such operative—an agency of his own, small, but at least his own.

It did not take much questioning to get the main facts out of Chase, who kept repeating that neither he nor Mrs. Wilford had anything to conceal. Anyhow, the mystery of Chase was solved. Chase was a detective whom Mrs. Wilford had retained for her own protection against the unprincipled operatives of her husband.

He proved to be apparently honest and straightforward. Though he could shed very little light on the deeper problems that confronted us, there [197] were many things we had already unearthed which his reports corroborated.

It was apparent that Honora was perfectly aware of what had been going on between her husband and Vina Lathrop. Chase had kept her informed of that.

Yet, no matter how accurate his reports, I reflected, it did not absolve Honora. In fact, the more she knew, the more likely Doyle was to say that the information constituted a motive that would have caused her to act.

"What do you know about Mrs. Wilford's whereabouts on the night Mr. Wilford was killed?" questioned Kennedy, coming finally to the most important point that had been revealed by McCabe's dictagraph records.

Chase looked him straight in the eye and considered a moment before answering.

"It's true, I don't know much. That is one thing I'd rather not talk about until I do."

"But she's your client. Hasn't she told you?"

"There are some communications that are privileged," was Chase's enigmatical answer.

"But can't you see that it's placing her in a wrong light—supposing everything she did that night was innocent? She ought to tell for her own sake—don't you think?"

Chase shrugged. "Perhaps," he added, non-committally.

Kennedy, I thought, had some respect for the young man who was not to be betrayed into dangerous admissions.
[198]

"Then this other woman, Mrs. Lathrop," pursued Kennedy, shifting the subject. "There's a hiatus in the accounts of her doings that night, also."

Chase was more disposed to talk. "Yes," he answered. "I've been trying to trace that out. Haven't succeeded—but have hopes. I tell you what I'll do. If I can reconstruct what both—see? both—of these women did, well, I was going to say I'd give it to you. But I'd have to ask Mrs. Wilford's permission. She's my client, after all."

I tried to reason out what Chase was doing. Did he know something about his client that he must shield her from, or was he just a bit vexed at her himself for a certain lack of frankness? As far as Vina was concerned, I knew he would have no scruples in telling us everything he discovered.

Evidently, Chase saw that he was losing his first good impression with Kennedy. To re-establish himself, he opened a locked steel compartment in his desk and pulled out a small box.

"Here's something that might interest you," he remarked, handing the box to Kennedy. "Ever see one of those?"

Kennedy opened the box. Inside reposed a single Calabar bean!

Craig looked up quickly. "Yes. Where did you get it?"

"If you'll promise to ask me no more—just yet—I'll tell you."

Kennedy nodded and Chase took it as a gentleman.
[199]

"I found it, with some other African souvenirs, in a little cabinet-museum in Mr. Shattuck's apartment. Now don't ask me why I was there or what else I found."

Kennedy smiled, thanked him and handed back the box. It was a perplexing piece of information. If Shattuck was known to have had in his possession some of the fatal Calabar beans, what interpretation could be placed on it? Or was it that Chase was working to protect his client and save her—at any cost and in spite of her own wishes?

We left Chase, and Kennedy hastened back to the laboratory, where at once he set to work with a paper and pencil, writing words that seemed utterly disconnected, while I stood about self-consciously, watching him.

"Please, Walter," he exclaimed at length, a little bit nervously, "you are distracting me. You see," he added, briskly, "that interview with Chase has reminded me of something. Why was he in Shattuck's apartment? For what? When? I don't need his help, of course. But he has made me think that I can't afford to let Mrs. Wilford get out of my sight too long. If I ever get at the bottom of this thing, it must be through study of her, first. I think I shall be ready soon to visit her again. And this time, I'm sure, I shall find out what I want. I've a new plan. Don't disturb me for a few minutes."

I turned my back and pretended to be busy over some work of my own, though out of the corner of my eye I watched him. Craig was at work over [200] a sheet of paper and I saw him writing down one word after another, changing them, adding to them, taking away words and substituting others.

Altogether, it was a strange performance and I had not the faintest idea what it was all about until he was willing to reveal it to me. Meanwhile a thousand ideas whirled through my head. Chase's revelation had put a new face on matters. One by one, we were finding out that each of our suspects knew first of all more about the Freud theory of dreams than we anticipated. Now it would appear that each was more or less familiar with the Calabar bean, or at least with its derivative, physostigmine. Even Vina, being a doctor's wife, might have known. Though we were getting more facts, they were not, so far as I could interpret them, pointing more definitely in any one direction.

When Craig had finished, he copied the words off on my typewriter, in a long column, one word on each line, and, after the long vertical list, he left two columns blank:
1    2    3
foot
gray
dream
struggle
ship
bean
lion
book
false
voyage[201]
money
sad
quarrel
marry
bull
sleep
foolish
despise
finger
friend
serpent
face
chair
bottle
glass

"Now," he remarked, as he finished and saw my questioning look, "let me get my delicate split-second watch from this cabinet, and I'm ready for a new and final test of Honora Wilford. Let's go."