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Roy Glashan's Library
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Cosmopolitan, April 1918, with "The Psychic Scar"
It has been said that Freud, by means of psychoanalysis, has reduced the workings of the soul to an exact science. However that may be, the versatile and up-to-date Craig Kennedy has mastered the technique of the method, realizing that it is a surer and quicker way of getting at the truth in many of the mysteries he is called upon to solve than the methods generally used in crime investigation.
"WOULD you mind telling that dream over again while Mr. Jameson takes it down? I can hardly read the writing of these notes."
Sylvia Woodworth was indeed, I thought, a very beautiful woman as she turned her large, lustrous gray-blue eyes toward me. From her carefully dressed chestnut hair to her fashionable footwear she was "correct." Her face had what people call "character." Yet, as I studied it and the personality it expressed, I had an indefinable feeling that there was something wrong. Her beauty was that of a splendid piece of sculpture—cold, marble. There seemed to be something lacking. I wondered whether it was that elusive thing we call "heart."
It was the second visit that Mrs. Woodworth had paid to Kennedy in a week, and if she had been very much worried the first time, she was even more so now.
Her original appeal had been a naive request for Kennedy to shadow her husband, Carroll Woodworth, as though Craig were an ordinary detective agent. Kennedy had been on the point of advising her to consult one of the regular agencies when she had told him of having had a dream the night before in which her husband had disappeared. For the moment, she seemed to show more real feeling than at any other period of her recital, even when she had hinted that there was, perhaps, another woman. The dream seemed to have affected her very much, without her realizing it, or I am sure that her very correctness would have suppressed the exhibition of emotion.
Kennedy at once began to be interested, and he became even more so when she told of another dream in which she had seen her husband dead from some mysterious cause. Instead of sending her to a detective agency, Kennedy had asked her to write down her dreams. It was a novel request which did not entirely satisfy her, but she said nothing. I knew at once, however, that the interest Kennedy had shown in the case arose not from the fact that the people concerned were persons of prominence and wealth but purely from science itself, for he was a keen student of the Freudian theory of the interpretation of dreams.
"Well," she replied slowly, with a little nervous laugh at Kennedy's request to repeat the dream which she had already written out for him, "I seemed to be at a house-party somewhere. I was there with my sister, Mrs. Bannister. There were several ladies and gentlemen present whom we both knew. The faces are not all distinct, yet I recall that Carroll was there, and Irma and Merle and Bennett Brown and some others."
She paused a moment, as though there had been some break in the continuity of the dream almost at the start. Kennedy, I saw, was watching her attentively as I scratched away, endeavoring to transcribe faithfully every word.
Mrs. Woodworth, it will be remembered, was one of the two famous beauties, the Gildersleeve twins, heiresses to several millions. She had married Carroll Woodworth shortly after the death of his mother, through which event Woodworth had himself come into several millions. Just before that, her sister Bella had married Blair Bannister.
"There seemed to be a dangerous errand," she resumed, and I noticed that again she laughed a bit nervously as she strove to recollect. "I don't know how it was, but there was some danger attached to it—" Again she hesitated-"I chose one of the men to do it," she continued, "and I remember I put it up to him that here was a chance to make a man of himself—" Again she paused, and I was about to note it when Kennedy interrupted.
"Who was it—do you recall?"
"N-no," she replied. "It seemed strange, as though the faces were blended. I should say that it was a handsome man—with dark hair and deep-brown eyes. The hair and the eyes are all that I remember of him."
"Yes—go on."
"After that, I seemed to be walking through a wood with another man—a lighter man—more like Carroll. Yes—it was Carroll. Wherever it was I was going, it seemed that I had difficulty in getting there. He seemed to help me along, Finally, when we had got almost to the top of the hill I stopped. I did not go any further. Somehow, I seemed to meet Irma. Just then, she cried that there was a fire. I turned round, and looked in time to see a big explosion. Then everyone ran out of their houses, shrieking...." Her voice trailed off as she added, "It is all blank after that."
Fantastic as it was, I could see nothing very remarkable about the dream. Nevertheless, it seemed to interest Kennedy deeply.
I had hardly completed my writing and Kennedy was evidently prepared to ask some questions when the telephone-bell rang. He answered it.
"It is for you, Mrs. Woodworth—from your sister, Mrs. Bannister," he said, handing the instrument to Sylvia.
She took it with every indication of surprise.
"I told her I might be here. Yes, Bella; what is it? There has been a message—to me—at the hotel?... What?... Carroll—found in the den. Something is——"
The instrument clattered to the floor from her nerveless hands as she sank back in the chair, staring at us wildly.
"The dream!" she gasped. "Carroll is dead! Shot—just as I dreamed before I came to you—before!"
Kennedy had anticipated no such dénouement as this in his psychic study, nor was he prepared for it. Yet here was indeed a mystery thrice confounded before he had even started on it.
"I must get there—his—our own house—the den!" she cried, rising wildly and appealingly.
There was no need for her to appeal to us to take her home. Kennedy summoned a cab.
THE ride across the city with Svlvia Woodworth I shall never
forget. She seemed torn by conflicting emotions, quite different
from the marble woman I had at first taken her to be. And yet,
when I came to analyze it all, I was amazed to find myself still
in doubt as to whether her feelings sprang from grief more than
from fear of what people would think of the tragedy.
Kennedy had need of all his tact and sympathy during the ride. Apparently, the dream had all been forgotten. Often Sylvia talked wildly, incoherently. It seemed as if she were actually accusing herself, though of what did not appear for some time. Finally, under stress of her emotions and gentle urging from Kennedy, her reserve broke down.
"Professor Kennedy," she confided, "I have a confession to make to you. I have been concealing something. When I left you last week, I was dissatisfied. I went to another detective."
Kennedy did not betray any surprise.
"And what did he tell you?" he asked simply, without reproach.
"I told him I had some suspicions of another woman. He has found out nothing yet—directly. But, as I suspected, there has been some gossip—oh, you cannot, in this Freemasonry of men, ever find out the truth! They will not tell you. Last night, I could stand it no longer. We quarreled. I left him and went to live in a hotel. Of course he denied everything. I expected that. I don't know what to do—which way to turn."
Kennedy had been listening, intent and silent
"Who is the detective, may I ask?"
"The Ransom Agency—Mr. Ransom himself. He cleared up nothing—at least, not yet—no one has. Everyone is against me."
Evidently there was no getting anything like a coherent story from her now. Just then our cab pulled up at a large, old-fashioned brownstone house, cold and formal. Sylvia sprang up the steps, and we followed her in.
"Oh, Bella, Bella, it can't be true—tell me—it can't!"
Mrs. Bannister had received word first and had arrived before us. She said nothing, but gently supported her sister into an inner room on the first floor toward the rear.
As we followed into the "den," overlooking a back yard with an alleyway beside it, there, on a divan, lay the body of Carroll Woodworth. His face still was set grimly, although his handsome curly light hair was undisturbed. It did not seem as though any physical violence had been done. Yet in his chest was an ugly bullet-wound.
Sylvia dropped on her knees beside the divan, sobbing and murmuring inaudibly.
I looked about hastily. The room itself was in disorder. Evidently Woodworth had been packing up, as though going away. In the grate still smoldered a fire, and it seemed that he had been burning up letters and papers.
Beside the divan, Sylvia sobbed convulsively. For a moment, Kennedy left her alone with her grief. Involuntarily I recalled the ostensible reason for her first visit to us and for that which had followed. I thought of my own observation of her marble nature. What was it that actuated her now—real grief, nervousness, or was it plain acting?
Aside, Craig talked rapidly in low tones with Mrs. Bannister, and I saw at once that the dream was still on his mind.
"Who is Irma?" he asked quickly.
"'Irma?'" she replied, with an unconscious glance at the dead man which was not lost on Craig, "Why, you must mean Irma Macy. Why?"
"Never mind. There is something I must get straight immediately. And Merle—who is Merle?"
"Oh, Merle Burleigh, you must mean," she replied. "It has been the talk of our set. I suppose he has proposed to Irma Macy a dozen times. Is that what you mean?"
"Perhaps. And Bennett—who is he?"
"Bennett Brown, brother of Carroll, I suppose. He is not really a brother—not even any relation. You know, Carroll's mother married again, Bennett Brown, senior. After she died, Brown, senior and his son went abroad, and, a short time after, Brown, senior, as we used to call him, died, and Bennett returned to this country. Carroll, you know, had inherited quite some money from his mother. I do not know about Bennett, though. Perhaps the father had gone through what they had. Anyhow, when he came back, Carroll introduced him into society, and he has been very popular, though in a quiet way."
"Did he live here in this house?"
"Oh, no, of course not! He was no relation, you know."
BY this time the police had arrived. Kennedy stepped forward
and gently raised Sylvia to her feet, whispering to her to be
calm.
She struggled with herself, and her sister and I succeeded in leading her to another room across the hall. Kennedy joined the city detective and the coroner's physician, who also had arrived.
"Tell me, Bella, how did it happen?" murmured Sylvia. "Do they know?"
Mrs. Bannister shook her head.
"The servants heard no shot, they say. He had left orders to be let alone, and he was alone for some hours. They found him on the floor before the grate. As nearly as we can make out, he must have been cleaning a gun—when it exploded."
It was an old story. In my newspaper experience, I had heard it often before. Besides, there were other circumstances that aroused in my mind the ugly suspicion that it had not been an accident but a suicide—that perhaps the beautiful young wife might have more knowledge of it than appeared.
"But the gun," I asked, "where is it?"
"They found his revolver on the table. Didn't you see it?"
I went across the hall again to look. Kennedy already had found it and picked it up. As I told him what I had just heard, he broke it open. One cartridge had been fired. He looked down the barrel, and his faced clouded.
"Why was it on the table—not on the floor?" he muttered, more to himself than to me.
I had no answer, and stood aside as he re-joined the group of officers about the body. Several minutes later, he came back, a peculiar look on his face.
"You don't think it was an accident?" I queried eagerly. He shook his head. "Suicide?" I asked doubtfully.
He looked at me searchingly for a moment.
"Neither. The caliber of the bullet which was probed from the wound is forty-two, different from that of this gun, which is thirty-eight. Besides, this gun has not been fired recently."
I gazed at him, speechless. There was a greater tragedy than even I had guessed.
"He must have been lying here some time," he went on, "perhaps two or three hours before he was discovered."
"Then he was already dead before Mrs. Woodworth came to us in the laboratory?" I queried.
"Long before."
The city detective, Doyle, joined us a moment later.
"What do you know about her?" he asked, with an ominous nod across the hall to where Mrs. Woodworth was. "Ransom told me, as soon as the news was out, that she had had him doing a bit of work for her. She was very suspicious of him, wasn't she?"
Kennedy shrugged. I knew what his opinion of private-detective agencies was, but he was not going to tell it to Doyle. It was plain, though, that Doyle was deeply suspicious, for some reason or other, of Mrs. Woodworth herself. A moment later, he shouldered his way across the hall, and Kennedy followed quickly.
"I understand," questioned Doyle, in his favorite gruff manner, "that you had employed detectives to shadow your husband, madam, and that last night you quarreled with him and left him."
"Yes?" Sylvia parried,
"From the time you left until now, you did not enter the house or see him again?"
He said it with an air of conviction as if he knew both statements to be untrue, but she did not flinch as she answered,
"No."
Try as he might, Doyle could not shake her story. Finally, as though preparing a refinement which had worked in other cases, he bellowed out,
"We shall have to require you to remain here in this house until further notice—where we can find you."
There was a noise at the door. A rather handsome man entered, a man of dashing, debonair ways, one could see, but now sobered by the tragedy. By his look, as he angrily pushed back his dark hair from his forehead and shot a glance of scorn at Doyle, I saw that, in the instant in the hall, he had heard all that had taken place.
"Bennett Brown," murmured Mrs. Bannister to us.
Before anyone could speak, he strode forward angrily.
"Sylvia," he ground out, "the suspicions of the detectives are preposterous. I am not wealthy, but you may count on every dollar I have and every moment of my time to defend you if they carry this ridiculous thing further."
For the moment, I fancied that Sylvia's color mounted a bit in her now pale face. Craig was observing her sharply.
"And who may you be?" scorned the detective. "For two cents I'd order you out of this house faster than you came in."
Brown smiled quietly, controlling his temper.
"I'm no relation—except by marriage—but I have a natural interest. He and I were boys together. You have no objection to my taking a look at my brother, I suppose?"
Doyle ground his teeth helplessly as Bennett nodded reassuringly again at Sylvia, then, coolly ignoring Doyle, tiptoed across to the den, followed by another Central Office man.
Doyle stamped out in a rage which Kennedy secretly enjoyed, though he did not relish the staccato orders that made Sylvia a virtual prisoner in the house, full of associations that might tend to break her down.
As Doyle left, Sylvia's glance roved across the hall where now and then floated out sharp words between Bennett and the police. She strained her ears to catch them, no longer emotionless.
"You think a great deal of him, do you not?" shot out Kennedy, who had been watching her closely. She turned on him in indignant surprise.
"I care for no one now," she shot back, with a glance that meant much.
Almost, I felt, Craig had accused her of being in love with this other man, and that when the body of her husband was scarcely cold.
"Mrs. Woodworth," he hastened, before she could recover, "may I ask you a straight question?"
"Why—yes," she answered, taken back.
"Did you ever tell anyone else what you had dreamed?"
"Why—I guess so."
"Who?"
"My sister and Irma Macy—no one else—not to them lately."
Doyle was still hanging about, and, after a few moments, it became evident that we would have little more chance to talk privately with Sylvia. Brown left the house finally, storming.
"I must have a talk with Irma Macy," concluded Craig, as we, too, left and hailed a passing cab.
TEN minutes later, we pulled up before a fashionable
apartment-house on the Drive, and were fortunate enough to find
Irma at home. Kennedy made no concealment of his mission, and she
received him almost as if he had not been a total stranger.
As we talked, it came to me that here was a woman who seemed more deeply affected than even Sylvia herself. I would have thought it strange if I had not guessed that, somehow, she was suspected of being the "other woman."
Irma was of quite the opposite type from Sylvia, a woman of rare physical attractions. It needed but a glance to tell that men interested Irma, and I am quite sure that few men could have withstood the spell of her interest—-if she chose.
"Did Mrs. Woodworth ever talk to you about her dreams?" finally asked Kennedy.
"Yes—but not lately."
"Not lately?"
"No. We—she hasn't been very friendly lately."
"How is that?"
Irma met Craig's gaze squarely.
"I don't know."
As they talked, Kennedy seemed to watch her as he might a strange element in a chemical reaction. On her part, she seemed intuitively to recognize a challenge in Craig's very personality. Arts which she might have tried on another seemed not to impress this man. Actually, I felt that she was piqued.
"You knew Carroll Woodworth very well?" interrogated Craig.
."Y-yes," she hesitated, as though unwilling to go too far or not far enough. What she did not say, however, was far more important than what she did. There could be no doubt, from the suppressed emotion, that her very breathing showed that the dead man had inspired a deeper feeling than she could conceal.
"Have you ever told anyone else what she told you?"
"What do you mean?"
"The dreams, of course," insisted Craig. "Have you?"
"Of what interest is it to me what that woman dreams?" she parried angrily. "Are you trying to third-degree me? You are not working for that Ransom Agency—are you?"
It was meant to be a direct thrust at Kennedy, but he took it with a disconcerting smile.
"Then you know?"
"How could I help it? Carroll Woodworth was a fool to stand it—that's all!"
The quick change in her opened my eyes. I remembered what a thin line there may be between love and hate. Why, in her philosophy, was Carroll a fool? Was it because he had resisted the spell of her? Whatever the answer, it was evident that now she was on guard. Rather than antagonize her further, Kennedy excused himself, and we slowly continued up-town to the university.
BACK in the laboratory, Craig began keenly studying the
original notes of the dream which Sylvia had brought to him.
"Of course," he remarked, as he looked over what I had written, "you understood that I could read what she had written all right?"
I had not, and I did not hesitate to confess it.
"Well," he smiled, "I wanted to see whether she would make any changes. Changes in telling dreams are often very significant."
What she had written was as follows:
I was at a house party somewhere, last year, with my sister, and Irma and Carroll were there. There were other men. Merle and Bennett. There seemed to be a dangerous errand. How it was dangerous is not quite clear. But I chose a man—a dark man—of rather bad reputation to do it, and put it up to him to do the work and redeem himself.
Afterward I seemed to be walking through a wood with Carroll. I don't know where we were going, but I seemed to have difficulty in getting there, and Carroll was helping me along. Finally, when we got almost to the top of the hill, I stopped. I did not go any further, though he did.
Then I seemed to meet Irma. Just then, she cried that there was a fire. I turned round and looked. There was a big explosion, and everybody ran out of the houses, shrieking.
FOR some moments Craig continued comparing the two versions of
the dream.
"There are some important variations between what she wrote calmly on paper and what she spoke under more or less excitement later," he remarked. "I wish I could have reversed the process. I fancy the variations would have been more significant."
"Then you regard the dreams as important?" I asked.
"'Important!' Indispensable. If I can get at the truth of the situation, it must be through these dreams. I am sure that it will be impossible otherwise with these sophisticated, rapid society members. It may be that I can solve that which otherwise would be insoluble."
I did not follow him, but that was not strange for me, for his mind worked so rapidly.
"You know," he soliloquized, "Freud tells us that as soon as you enter the intimate dream-life of a patient, you find sex in some form or other. The best indication of abnormality is its absence. Sex is one of the strongest impulses, the one subjected to the greatest repression, and, for that reason, the weakest point in our cultural development. The dream is not senseless, but has a definite meaning always.
"There are certain things to keep in mind. Morbid anxiety means unsatisfied love. The gods of fear are born of the goddess of love. Sex-life possesses a far higher significance in our mental household than traditional psychology is willing to admit. Thus, why John Doe doesn't get along with his wife has always been a matter of absorbing interest to the neighborhood. Now, psychology—and mainly dreams—can explain the trouble.
"I can't go into the Freud theory now. But here we are dealing with two opposite types of woman. In one, I fancy I see a wild, demi-mondaine instinct that slumbers at the back of her mind, all unknown to herself. She does not know what love is yet—until she feels the wild passion. The other type knows well what love is—too well—she has had many experiences and is always seeking——"
"Craig," I remonstrated, "you do not mean to tell me that you believe you can sit here in a laboratory and analyze love as if it were a chemical in a test-tube!"
"Why not?" he returned. "Love is nothing but a cold, scientific fact. You ask me to explain it, and I tell you I cannot. But there is an attraction—that is a cold, scientific fact—which two people feel for one another. Society may have set up certain external standards. Love knows nothing of them. Our education has taught us to respect them. But, from this veneer, every now and then crop out impulses, the repulsions and attractions which nature, millions of years back, implanted in human hearts and handed down. I know nothing more interesting than to put this thing you call love under the microscope and dissect it."
I regarded Craig with amazement.
"You mean that?" I queried. "Why, Craig, some day you will meet your fate—you, the cold, calm, calculating man of science. Like as not she will be some fluffy little creature from the 'Midnight Frolic.' It would be poetic justice if she were. And what a race she would lead you—with your microscope and test-tubes!"
Kennedy smiled indulgently.
"If it should be the case, it would only prove my theory," he replied coolly. "Two atoms are attracted like the electrically charged pith balls—or repulsed. All your fine-spun traditions of society and laws do not then count for the weight of a spider-thread. That is precisely what I mean.
"To get back to the case: Here are two women who no more understand the impulses that sway them than do the moon and sun in their courses. Deep, fundamental forces of sex are at play here. It is for me to unravel what is a closed book to them all. And the Freud theory will do it. Already I know more than even you suspect——"
A rap at the door interrupted him, and a young man shouldered his way in. He was a slender, fashion-plate type, close-cropped of hair, dark, slim, tall.
"I am Merle Burleigh." he announced.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" asked Craig quietly.
"Yes," blustered the other; "I understand that you have been talking with Miss Irma Macy. Professor Kennedy, I want to tell you that you are treading on dangerous ground. I know the slanders and innuendos that are flying about," went on the young man. "Let me warn you that you will pursue your hounding of that girl to a dangerous point if it is not stopped immediately. You detectives are too clever by half."
The young man turned sharply on his heel, and a moment later was gone. I looked at Craig.
"I think," he remarked, reaching for his hat, "that we had better pursue the remainder of our investigations as rapidly as possible. I am going down to see that detective, Ransom. You, I think, had better go to the Star. Perhaps some of the society reporters may give you an earful."
ACCORDINGLY, I rode down to the Star office, where I
was agreeably surprised to learn, after a talk with one of the
women reporters assigned to cover society news, that the gossip
that had been hinted at by Mrs. Bannister and, later, by Burleigh
himself, had attained quite sizable proportions regarding Carroll
Woodworth and Irma Macy.
It had been an open secret before his marriage that Carroll had been much in her company, and, indeed, his marriage to the beautiful Sylvia Gildersleeve had been a great surprise. The busybodies had never ceased to talk, and lately there had been a revival of gossip.
As for Merle Burleigh, he was what might be called a "society ass." To no one had the gossip been more galling than to Burleigh, whose idea, evidently was that, if Carroll Woodworth would only let matters alone, he might win Irma himself.
Not a week before, there had actually been an encounter between Carroll and Merle at the hunt club, in which Merle had not come out with flying colors. In general opinion, it was about Irma Macy.
Burleigh, clearly, was jealous. But had it been Irma who had egged him on? Or was it his own irresponsible, quixotic self?
At any rate, when the story had come down to the Star office, it had been suppressed, owing to the prominence of the people involved. Now, however, in the light of what had happened, the story became very important.
This was all I could discover, and I returned to the laboratory to wait for Kennedy.
"Did Ransom have anything to say?" I inquired, when he came in and I had retailed to him what I had learned.
"Not very much." he replied, his mind evidently on something else. "I saw the reports which the agency handed to Mrs. Woodworth—at least," he corrected, "the reports they said they handed her."
"Evidently you haven't a high opinion of Ransom."
"At the best, I don't think much of these detectives who make a specialty of divorce-cases. And, in this instance, I am quite convinced that Ransom was serving some one else, too."
"How's that? Who?" I inquired.
Kennedy shook his head as though to discourage questioning.
"Whatever we may think of this particular stratum of society," he remarked, changing the subject, "I think it will come as a distinct surprise to most people that Carroll Woodworth, in spite of all the stories about him, has absolutely left not a blot on his reputation since his marriage. Yet there are plenty of evidences that he was not without his temptations."
I wondered whether he meant that Irma had actually been as he had pictured her, whether, finally, with the fury of a woman scorned, she had turned on Carroll. In her sudden flash of passion at our interview, there had been a hint of it.
But before I could put the question, Kennedy had drawn from his inside pocket a revolver and was closely examining the barrel, using first a pocket-lens, then swabbing it out and examining the marks on the while cloth.
"Box of cartridges—forty-twos," he muttered to himself. "But this gun hasn't been fired since it was cleaned last."
He appeared to be in a brown study as he contemplated the two revolvers that had figured in the case.
"Where did you get this?" I ventured.
Craig apparently heard me, but the question did not make any impression.
"Just an idea I had," he answered absently. "After I left Ransom. I paid a visit and did a little sneak-thieving—in the interest of science. By George, what an idiot I am! Why didn't I think of that before? Papers burning in the grate—yes—yes. Walter, I must get over to Woodworth's den immediately. Hurry!"
At the house we were admitted by Doyle himself, and the noise which we made entering the hall was enough to apprise Sylvia Woodworth of our presence. She came down the stairs eagerly, and it was easy to see that the strain was telling on her.
"I was afraid that you had deserted me," she whispered almost plaintively. "No one has called except Bennett—and every time he sees these detectives they almost have a fight. Tell me—has anything new been discovered?"
"I think so," returned Kennedy, watching her
"Tell me," she repeated, meeting his eyes frankly.
She was either sincere or a great actress. For a full minute Kennedy and she faced each other, but she never wavered.
"I cannot," he said finally, turning toward the den. "Has the room been disturbed?"
"Only when the undertaker——" She shuddered and left the sentence unfinished.
Just then Doyle reappeared.
"Well," he rasped brusquely, "is there any change, anything you want to add to what you have told? My men are gradually piecing the truth together."
Sylvia flashed a quick glance at Craig, and I knew she knew Doyle was bluffing.
"You have no objection to my examining the den again?" asked Kennedy.
Doyle shrugged, and together we moved down the hall.
The body had been removed, but, as Sylvia had said, the room had been left in the same state as when we first saw it.
Immediately, Kennedy began poking about in the fireplace among the charred papers. At first I thought that he might be attempting to find one which would have some bearing on the case, and the same idea was evidently in the mind of Doyle, who smiled quietly. He was satisfied that the papers were thoroughly consumed.
The fire had long since burned itself out and was cold. As Kennedy poked at it, I recalled that once he had used a process by which he had read what was written even on a charred bit of paper. Neither quest seemed to be in his mind just at present for he continued poking at the ashes and actually breaking up what charred and unrecognizable bits there might be.
A sudden exclamation from him brought us crowding about him. There, fallen now underneath, and in back of the cinders was a blackened and distorted cartridge shell. He examined it closely.
"A forty-two," he muttered to himself, a smile of satisfaction on his face. "The last link. Some one put it there, knowing that Carroll would light the fire and——"
He did not need to finish. The mystery of the shooting was now plain—the bullet from the forty-two, while there was a thirty-eight on the table, unused.
"Doyle," forestalled Kennedy, seeing that the detective was getting restive, "you have the requisite authority. Call Ransom and have him come up here immediately. Then I want you to send out and find Irma Macy, Merle Burleigh, and Bennett Brown—that man who was here. Meanwhile, Mrs. Woodworth is in my charge. I will be responsible for her."
Doyle obeyed reluctantly, not because he believed in Kennedy but rather for fear of criticism if he refused, for Kennedy had a way of making Central Office men feel mighty uncomfortable.
While we waited Sylvia Woodworth tried frantically to maintain her grip upon herself. As the moments sped, I went over in my mind all the actors in this tangled case, beginning with Sylvia herself and my original estimate of her. Then there was Bennett Brown. He was the first to arrive. If he was in love with her, and he made no effort to conceal it—to what might that lead? I was frankly suspicious of him.
As for Irma, who came next, there was equal certainty that to her Carroll had meant much. He had refused her love. What might that mean?
Merle Burleigh arrived, blustering as usual. We had already plenty of evidence of his jealousy of Carroll Woodworth's hold upon Irma. Merle's infatuation for the girl was marked.
None of them seemed to take much pains to conceal their feelings, yet they were all the more baffling for that.
"This is a strange affair," began Kennedy, as the private detective, Ransom, was announced, and entered, to the startled gasp of Sylvia. "If I told you that it had all grown out of a dream, out of my psychoanalysis, rather, of a dream, you would most certainly doubt it. Yet that is precisely the situation."
Briefly, Kennedy sketched the Freud theory while I watched the faces before me. As he did so, repeating the dream of Sylvia Woodworth, Doyle's lips were curling in a superior smile. Ransom listened, but with a skeptical silence. As for Sylvia, the color had mounted again in her cheeks. She was on the qui-vive. Irma watched Sylvia covertly, as did Bennett Brown openly. Merle was almost insulting as he fidgeted in his chair.
"Let us take the dream itself, without wasting any more time," concluded Kennedy, satisfied that nothing would convince them quicker than a concrete example. "It opens at a house-party. Why did Mrs. Woodworth, in her dream, place the time as last year? I asked myself. Why was she so specific? Because, that was the time when she married—last year.
"Now, recall that Freud tells us that all dreams are about self in some way, or about interests close to self. This dream, I take it then, was about her own relations with her husband."
It was a delicate and intimate subject, yet Kennedy handled it in a most impersonal way.
"Another point," he resumed: "What is the concept of Irma in the dream? Remember that the dream is almost entirely a dream of sex, as so many are, when you analyze them down. Is it not that she represents, rightly or wrongly, the 'other woman?' Remember, Sylvia Woodworth was going somewhere—up a hill—almost at the top—stopped—did not go any further. At that point in her subconsciousness, Irma seems to have entered. Why? She answers it herself in the dream—the fire. Love is often spoken of as a fire. Irma's passionate nature seemed to her like a fire. She herself had never really felt that burning fire—the dream shows it."
"Oh, I see!" interrupted Burleigh flippantly. "You have been reading the French detective-tales—Cherchez la femme!"
"Wait a moment." cautioned Craig with the utmost patience, keeping his temper. "Not too fast. I will answer that directly. Let me go on with my analysis as I see it. At the luncheon there were 'other men we knew'—so she writes. She tells it, 'There seemed to be ladies and gentlemen there whom we knew.'
"Now, as I delve deeper in my psychoanalysis, I fancy I detect something peculiar. From the very way in which the dream unfolded, clearly Sylvia Woodworth believed that Irma Macy was capable of a far different passionate love for her husband than she herself.
"Yet had she herself no longing for such a passion? Clearly she had—but suppressed. There is something indicated which she repressed consciously but the dream-censor released.
"Let us go back again to the written version. Here I find an important variation from the way in which she later told it. It seems that there was some pressing errand with danger from start to finish, something that had to be done. Doubtless that is the concept of passionate love. For, listen: 'I chose a man—a dark man—of rather bad reputation to do it, and put it up to him to do the work and redeem himself.' So she wrote first. Later, when she told it, it was considerably softened down for us."
Kennedy was talking rapidly now, excitedly.
"In short, there is something which we call a 'psychic scar' here, some soul-wound, a mental trauma. I recognized it the moment I began to analyze the dream. She married not for love—whatever she may say about it. Yet love, romantic love, was open to her, if she would only let herself go and snatch it as it was offered. But it was dangerous. She may not have realized it all—probably did not—possibly does not yet.
"And, before I go one step further, let me forestall what is going to happen by saying that when I touch the deep, true complex, as we psychoanalysts call it, I shall expect it to be rejected with scorn and indignation—thereby proving that I have probed down in this soul-wound and found the encysted bullet, so to speak." He paused a moment, then added: "I saw the true state of affairs early in the case. I knew that if I could only get a few more facts on which to base my interpretation of the broad, general lines clearly shown in the dream. I might solve this mystery, which would forever be closed to the police. In short," he added, turning to Merle Burleigh, "there is a new rule here—Cherchez l'homme!"
Sylvia was now facing him in scornful anger as she realized at what he was driving.
"Then you think that a woman must be a fool—that she does not know with whom she really is in love—that she can really be in love with one she—she hates?"
I do not know that anyone else caught the flash of Kennedy's eyes toward me, in triumph at having touched at last the real complex.
"I did not say that," he hastened. "All that I implied was that, consciously, she may not love. That is the product of education, of society, of morality, of religion, the church, training—this thing we call 'civilization,' But unconsciously, still, she may love. Back of all the veneer of modern society lie those deep, basal, primal passions which millions of years of evolution have implanted. The wonder is not that they are so strong but that the veneer of a few hundred years covers, represses them so well."
Eagerly now, Kennedy pressed home his point.
"The stuff that dreams are made of is very, very real. Suppose some one—who understood better than Sylvia did—learned in some way of her dreams—interpreted them—even recognized in her, without that, the type of woman she was. Suppose that person acted on the suggestion in the dreams—encouraged the dream-actors in real life each in his part to act as she fancied in her dreams—knew that, in time, she would quarrel—that her husband would leave her to work out her own destiny—placed the cartridge in the grate, knowing that it would explode like a trap."
Kennedy caught the eye of Ransom, the detective, who nodded involuntarily. Blasé though the group was, they were now as open-eyed as children at a picture-thriller.
"Suppose that person," raced on Kennedy, facing Sylvia, "suppose that person, knowing better than you that you were primally in love with him, saw the psychic scar that suggested to him a way to get both the Gildersleeve and Woodworth millions by marrying you, took advantage of the situation, promoted the coldness toward your husband, played on the passion of Irma, committed a clever murder that never under any ordinary circumstances would likely be traced to him?"
Kennedy flung down the exploded cartridge, the bullet, the box of forty-twos, and the pistol on the table.
"Psychoanalysis has led me through Sylvia's soul-wound to Ransom and to the evidence in your own room that the exploded shell in the grate was yours—Bennett Brown!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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