Arthur B. Reeve

“ 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. ”

“ Honora looked startled, not only at having been singled out, but at the mention of the dreams and the vague thought of what might, after all, have been derived from them by this man whom she did not understand.
"The dream of death, the struggle dream, the bull-and-serpent dream, the dream of fire and explosion, all pointed to one thing among others, but one thing that was paramount. Really you did not love your husband—with that deep, passionate love which every woman yearns to possess. ”

“ It is a faithful recorder of emotions, if you know how to study it. What is hidden from the eye the heart reveals. This heart machine will record it, betray the inmost secrets."
Kennedy drew himself up slowly, as though to impress forcefully what he was about to add.
"Psychanalysis," he exclaimed, "has led through Honora's soul scar to the discovery of the truth by the aid of this little lie-detector. It was your revenge on Vail Wilford—Lathrop!" ”

“ Kennedy and I exchanged glances. I recalled the quarrel we had interrupted on our last visit to them. Evidently that had been the climax. Nor was I surprised. It had seemed inconceivable to me, since my conversation with Belle Balcom, that ever Lathrop could be the kind of man to sit complacently under the growing gossip about Vina. How he had even waited so long was a mystery, unless to assure himself that what he heard was the truth. For men of Lathrop's stamp are the last to condone [219] anything in a wife, no matter what may be their own standards for themselves. ”

“ I've always considered him a sort of society rat."
[4]
"What difference does that make, Walter?" argued Craig, turning on me suddenly. "If a crime has been committed, I must get at it. It is my duty—even if the man is a 'rat,' as you call him. Besides, this promises to be a very interesting case. Where is the body?" he asked, abruptly, in as matter-of-fact a tone as if it had been a wrecked car towed to a garage.
"Removed to his apartment on the Drive," replied Doctor Leslie, now much encouraged and not concealing it. "I've just come from the place. That was where I saw Honora Wilford." ”

“ I was startled, to say the least. "But, Craig," I remonstrated, "the very idea is repulsive. I don't believe for a moment she is that kind of woman. It's impossible."
"Take this idea of dream-death of one who is living," ignored Kennedy. "If there is sorrow felt, then there is some other cause for the dream. But if there is no sorrow felt, then the dreamer really desires the death or absence of the person dreamed about. ”

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

“ Sigmund Freud.
Kennedy continued to pace up and down.
Out in the hall Shattuck was still at the telephone and we could just make out that he was talking in a very low tone, inaudible to us at a distance. I wondered with whom it might be. From his manner, which was about all we could observe, I gathered that it was a lady with whom he talked. Few of us ever get over the feeling that in some way we are in the presence of the person on the other end of the wire. Could it have been with Honora Wilford herself that he was talking? ”

“ Kennedy shrugged. "Cruel fakers, almost invariably," he replied. "This is something entirely different, on an entirely different plane. Dreams are not really of the future, even though they may seem to be. They are of the past—that is, their roots are in the past. Of course, they are of the future in the sense that they show striving after unfulfilled wishes. Whatever may be denied in reality, we can nevertheless realize in another way—in our dreams. ”

“ Somehow I was not pleased at Doyle's discovery. In my heart I was hoping for anything that would relieve the load of suspicion on Honora. This did not.
"You see," went on Kennedy, "it's not always what people know, the facts, that are important. Quite as important, oftentimes, are the things that they think they know, what they believe. People act on beliefs, you know." ”

“ THE "NEW MORALITY" I was rather glad of the commission Kennedy had given me. Belle Balcom had a keen and sprightly mind. She was the typical newspaper woman, it is true, who often would sacrifice accuracy to cleverness. Yet there was not much to condemn her in that, for she was so undeniably clever. Contact with her was stimulating. Besides, it was just on such a quest as this that a girl of her type was invaluable.
Accordingly, I set out immediately down-town for The Star. Fortunately, I found Belle finishing her stint of society gossip for the day. ”

“ As Honora grew to womanhood and tasted the advantages of the not small fortune her father had piled up, the social life appealed to her. And yet, in the girlhood days, who shall say she did not learn something of the Calabar bean, of the drug, and of its properties? It would be most unlikely if she did not."
Kennedy paused for a moment, leaving Shattuck almost speechless and hiding a secret fear.
"You can draw your own conclusions from what I have just said," finished Craig. "Sometimes, you know, actions speak louder than words." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mere possession of it and the traces of atropin in the glass did, I confessed, look badly.
A moment later, with the physician and the detective, we entered the room where the body lay.
Wilford had been a large and rather forceful figure in life. I knew him as a man of unusual ability, though I despised the direction in which his legal talents had been diverted. Perhaps, I thought, unusual talents had brought unusual temptations. For, whatever we may have thought of people in life, our judgments are necessarily softened by death. ”

“ Shattuck had made himself particularly obnoxious to Doyle and I fancied that Doyle would take a particular pleasure in this errand, especially as it might lead to the humiliation, or worse, of Shattuck.
"You, Leslie, as a doctor, I think would be the best to go after Doctor Lathrop," ordered Kennedy. "And all of you are to remember you are not to talk of the case, but merely to compel the attendance of the persons you are sent after. If they refuse or resist, you know where to get the authority to coerce them. ”

“ Facts may be ugly things, we may not like them. Just the same they have to be faced. It won't do just cavalierly to reject things as Doctor Lathrop does with the Freud theory, which he does not like, for instance. ”

“ There was a flash of satisfaction in Craig's eyes. "Complex," I read it. As for Shattuck, where a moment ago he had scoffed, he remained to pray, or rather to smile faintly.
"I did not say exactly that," returned Kennedy, "although it may seem that way, if you choose to interpret the intimate relationship of love and hate so. Follow me just a moment. Consciously, she may hate. Education, society, morality, religion—this thing we call civilization—may exert restraints. Unconsciously, though, she may love. The veneer of modern society is very thin. ”

“ I exclaimed, "do you recall that Doctor Lathrop said he had no use for the bean itself, but that naturally in his medicine-chest he had the drug? She heard us talking the thing over that time when we visited them. Without a doubt it was where she got it—that is," I corrected, "where she might have got it."
Kennedy nodded.
"No doubt you are right. It's a case of suicide by suggestion. She heard of the drug—and tried it. It's the way they all do. Suicide is a sort of insanity. If one person uses bichloride tablets, you find that a dozen, learning of it, do the same. ”

“ Wilford told us, and what Doctor Lathrop later confirmed—her dream of fear?" Craig went on. "At present, I should say that it was a dream of what we call the fulfilment of a repressed wish. Dreams of fear are always important. Just consider [42] fear for a moment. Fear in such a dream as this nearly always denotes a sexual idea underlying the dream. In fact, morbid anxiety means surely unsatisfied love. The old Greeks knew it. Their gods of fear were born of the goddess of love. Consequently, in her dream, she feared the death of her husband because, unconsciously, she wished it." ”

“ When I touch the deep, true 'complex,' as we psychanalysts call it, I shall expect the very idea to be rejected with scorn and indignation. Thereby will the very theory itself be proved. Shattuck, your old rule [293] may work well with the case of a man. But the new rule, the complementary rule, for woman is Cherchez l'homme."
It was not said to Shattuck, however. With clever psychology Kennedy aimed the remark full at Honora. She flushed and her eyes blazed defiance. Scornfully and angrily she cast a withering glance at Craig as she drew herself up with dignity. ”

“ THE ORDEAL BEAN Wilford's office was in an old building of the days when a structure of five or six stories, with a cast-iron, ornamented front, was considered a wonderful engineering achievement. It was down-town, in the heart of the financial district, and had been chosen by Wilford, without a doubt, to convey an impression of solidity and conservatism, a useful camouflage to cover the essential character of his law practice as scandal attorney. ”

“ Tell me what it is that the modern dream-books have to say about them, then."
"Don't be frivolous, Walter," Craig frowned. "Dreams used to be treated very seriously, it is true, by the ancients. But, as I just said, until recently modern scientists, rejecting the beliefs of the dark ages, as they thought, scouted dreams as senseless jumbles of ideas, uncontrolled, in sleep. That's your class, Walter," he replied, witheringly, "with the scientists who thought that they had the last word, just because it was, to them, the latest." ”

“ If Shattuck had been minded to pursue the guerrilla conversation in the hope of harassing Kennedy, this remark was like an explosion of shrapnel. He sought cover.
Kennedy was talking rapidly and earnestly now.
"In short," he concluded, "there is something [290] which we call a soul scar here—a psychic wound—a mental trauma. It bears the same relation to the soul that a wound does to the body. And, as in the case of some wounds, muscles and limbs do not function and must be re-educated, so in these mental and moral cases feelings and emotions must be made to function again, must be re-educated. ”