The Soul Scar: Detective Kennedy's Case. Arthur B. Reeve
Craig. "Has she been told all this yet?"
"Not about the atropin, I think. That's just what I wanted to tell you about. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she did not faint or do anything like that."
"Then what was it?" hastened Kennedy, impatiently.
"When we told her," replied Leslie, "she exclaimed: 'I knew it! I knew it!' She stood at the side of the bed where the body had been placed. 'I felt it!' she cried. 'Only the other night I had such a horrible dream. I dreamed I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could not make out who or what it was with which he struggled. I tried to run to him. But something seemed to hold me back. I could not move. Then the scene shifted—like a motion picture. I saw a funeral procession and in the coffin I could see as though by a second sight, a face—his face! Oh, it was a warning to me—to him!'
"I tried to calm her," went on Leslie. "But it was of no use. She kept crying out: 'It has come true—just as I saw in the dream. I feared it—even when I knew it was only a dream.' Strange, don't you think, Kennedy?"
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" asked Craig, impatiently.
"Didn't have a chance. You were studying my rubber heels."
"Well—what then? Is there anything else?"
"I questioned her," went on Leslie. "I asked her about her dreams. 'Yes,' she said, 'often I have had the dream of that funeral procession—and always I saw the same face—Vail's! Oh, it is horrible—horrible!'"
Kennedy was studying Leslie now keenly, though he said nothing.
"There's another thing, too," added Leslie, eagerly. "Although Mrs. Wilford seems to be perfectly normal, still I have learned that she was suffering from the usual society complaint—nervousness—nervous breakdown. She had been treated for some time by Doctor Lathrop—you know, the society physician they all run to?"
Kennedy nodded.
"Then, on a sort of docket, or, rather, calendar for private notes by dates, on the desk of Wilford, I discovered this entry, among others, 'Prepare papers in proposed case of Lathrop vs. Lathrop.' I turned back the calendar. Several times, on previous days, covering quite a period of time, I found entries like this: 'Vina at four,' 'Vina at six,' and other dates."
I glanced over at Kennedy. Vina Lathrop! I knew also of Vina Lathrop, the beautiful wife of the society physician. It was certainly news that a divorce proceeding had even been contemplated. I could imagine how the newspapers would revel in it when they knew.
"Then you'll go?" queried Doctor Leslie, anxiously.
Kennedy completely ignored my earlier objection. "Certainly I'll go," he replied, pulling off his stained smock.
Ten minutes later, with Doctor Leslie, we came to the Wilford apartment, one of those ornate and expensive multiple dwellings that front the river and command a rental that fixes a social station in certain sets.
Following him, we rode up in the elevator, and had scarcely been admitted to the Wilford suite when we were greeted familiarly by a voice.
It was Doyle, of the detective bureau, a sleuth of the old school, but for all that a capital fellow and one with whom we got along very nicely, so long as we flattered him and allowed him a generous share of credit when the rounding out of a case came about.
"What do you really know about her?" he whispered, finally, after a few moments' chat, jerking his thumb ominously as he pointed with it down the hall in the direction of a room where I supposed that Honora Wilford must be.
"Very little, it's true," cut in Leslie. "I think our report said that her maiden name was Honora Chappelle, that her father, Honore Chappelle, made quite a fortune as an optician, that she was an only child and inherited—"
"I don't mean her pedigree," scorned Doyle. "I mean modern history. Now, I've been making some inquiries, from the neighbors and others, and I've had a couple of men out picking up stray bits of information."
Doyle leaned over patronizingly to Kennedy, as much as to say that, with all Craig's science, he couldn't beat the organization of the regular force, a contention Kennedy was always quite willing to admit.
"I have just learned," informed Doyle, "that Wilford had been having her shadowed. They tell me, too, that she has been seen once or twice with an old friend of hers, Vance Shattuck, the broker. They tell me that before she married Wilford she was once engaged to Shattuck. Know him?" he asked, turning to me.
"I've heard of him," I replied. "I guess he's well known on Wall Street—seems to get his name into the papers often enough, anyhow, in one scandal or another."
"Well, I think that dream stuff is all camouflage, just between you and me," nodded Doyle, sagely, drawing a piece of paper from his pocket. "I've been going over things pretty carefully since I've been here. In her desk I found this thing."
He held out the paper to Kennedy. It was a page torn out of a book of poetry, an anthology, I imagined, for on the page was printed the title of a sonnet, "Renouncement," and the name of the author, Alice Meynell. On the wide margin of the page was written in ink, in what Doyle assured us was Mrs. Wilford's own handwriting, the notation, "One of the greatest sonnets of pure emotion."
We all read it and I am forced to admit that, whatever our opinion might have been of Honora Wilford before, we were convinced that her literary judgment was not at fault. I add the sonnet:
I must not think of thee; and tired, yet strong,
I shun the love that lurks in all delight—
The love of thee—and in the blue heaven's height
And in the dearest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden, yet bright;
But must it never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away—
With the first dream that comes, with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
Kennedy folded up the sonnet and its notation, and, without a word, turned from Doyle and looked about the room in which we were, a little reception-room.
On the table before Doyle there were two glasses, as well as some other objects which Doyle had either collected or brought with him from the office.
"I suppose those are the glasses you found at the office," ventured Kennedy. "In one of them I understand that traces of atropin were found."
Doyle nodded.
"What's that?" asked Craig, pointing to a cut-glass-stoppered bottle which was standing by the glasses, empty.
"That? It was found with a vanity-case and some other things on her dressing-table. It once contained belladonna—atropin, you know. I've had her maid, Celeste, cross-examined. Mrs. Wilford used belladonna to brighten her eyes sometimes, as many society women do."
I shot a glance of inquiry at Doyle, who nodded. "So far, we haven't been able to connect Mrs. Wilford directly with the mystery, but we're keeping the evidence," he confirmed.
I must admit that both Doyle's information and his general attitude after what we had heard from Leslie came as a shock.
Yet, try as I might, I had to admit that even if that were the purpose for which Honora Wilford had the belladonna, it need not have been the only use to which she put it. Doyle was raising a very serious presumption, at least. A poison like belladonna was a dangerous weapon, I reasoned, in the hands of a jealous woman. The mere possession of it and the traces of atropin in the glass did, I confessed, look badly.
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