The Soul Scar: Detective Kennedy's Case. Arthur B. Reeve
consulted Doctor Lathrop, I believe. Are you acquainted with the nature of the dreams?"
Shattuck eyed him in silence. It was evident that he realized that the only refuge from the quizzing lay in that direction.
"Really, sir," he said, at last, "I don't care to discuss a thing I know nothing about any further."
He turned, as though only by a studied insult could he find escape. I expected Kennedy to flare up, but he did not. Instead, he was ominously polite.
"Thank you," he said, with a mocking sarcasm that angered Shattuck the more. "I suppose I may reach you at your place of business, later, if I need?"
Shattuck nodded, but I knew there was a mental reservation back of it and that his switchboard operator would be given instructions to scrutinize every call carefully, and that, should we call up, Mr. Shattuck would have "just stepped out." As for Kennedy's tone, I was sure that it boded no good for Shattuck himself. Perhaps Kennedy reasoned that there would be plenty of other interviews later and that it was not worth while fighting on the first.
On his part Shattuck could do no less than assume an equal politeness as he bowed us out, though I know that inwardly he was ready to consign us to the infernal regions.
Kennedy was no sooner in the street than he hastened to a near-by telephone-booth. Evidently the same thought had been in his mind as had been in mine. He called up Doyle at the Wilford apartment immediately and inquired whether Honora Wilford had made any telephone calls recently. To my surprise, though I will not say to his own, he found out that she had not.
"Then who was it called Shattuck?" I queried. "I could have sworn from his manner that he was talking to a woman. Could it have been to the maid?"
He shook his head. "Celeste is watched, too, you know. No, it was not Celeste that called up. He would never have talked that long nor as deferentially to her. Never mind. We shall see."
Back on the Drive again, we walked hastily up-town a few squares until we came to another apartment, where, in a first-floor window, I saw a little sign in black letters on white, "Dr. Irvin Lathrop."
Fortunately it was at a time when Lathrop was just finishing his office hours, and we had not long to wait until the last patient had left after a consultation.
As we waited I could see that even his waiting-room was handsomely furnished and I knew that it must be expensive, for our own small apartment, a little farther up-town and around the corner from the Drive, cost quite enough, though Kennedy insisted on keeping it because it was so close to the university where he had his laboratory and his class work.
As Lathrop flung the door to his inner office open I saw that he was a tall and commanding-looking man with a Vandyke beard. One would instinctively have picked him out anywhere as a physician.
Lathrop, I knew, was not only well known as a specialist in nervous diseases, but also as a man about town. In spite of his large and lucrative practice, he always seemed to have time enough to visit the many clubs to which he belonged and to hold a prominent place in the social life of the city.
Not only was he well known as a club-man, but he was very popular with the ladies. In fact, it was probably due to the very life that he led that his practice as a physician to the many ills of society had grown.
"I suppose you know of the suicide of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, as he explained briefly, without telling too much, our connection with the case.
Doctor Lathrop signified that he did know, but, like Shattuck, I could see that he was inclined to be cautious about it.
"I've just been talking to Honora Wilford," went on Craig, when we were settled in the doctor's inner office. "I believe she was a patient of yours?"
"Yes," he admitted, with some reluctance.
"And that she had been greatly troubled by nervousness—insomnia—her dreams—and that sort of thing."
The doctor nodded, but did not volunteer any information. However, his was not the hostility of Shattuck. I set it down to professional reticence and, as such, perhaps hard to overcome.
"I understand, also," pursued Kennedy, affecting not to notice anything lacking in the readiness of the answer, "that Vance Shattuck was friendly with her."
The doctor looked at him a moment, as though studying him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, evasively. "What makes you say that?"
"But he was, wasn't he? At least, she was friendly with him?" Kennedy repeated, reversing the form of the question to see What effect it might have.
"I shouldn't say so," returned the doctor, slowly, though not frankly.
Kennedy reached into his pocket and drew forth the sonnet which he had taken from Doyle back at the Wilford apartment.
"You will recognize the handwriting in that notation on the margin," he remarked, quietly. "It is Mrs. Wilford's. Her sentiment, taken from the poem, is interesting."
Lathrop read it and then reread it to gain time, for it was some moments before he could look up, as though he had to make up his mind just what to say.
"Very pretty thought." He nodded, scarcely committing himself.
Lathrop seemed a trifle uneasy.
"I thought it a rather strange coincidence, taken with the bit I learned of her dreams," remarked Kennedy.
Lathrop's glance at Kennedy was one of estimation, but I saw that Kennedy was carefully concealing just how much, or rather at present how little, he actually knew.
"Ordinarily," remarked Lathrop, clearing his throat, "professional ethics would seal my lips, but in this instance, since you seem to think that you know so much, I will tell you—something. I don't like to talk about my patients, and I won't, but, in justice to Mrs. Wilford, I cannot let this pass."
He cleared his throat again and leaned back in his chair, regarding Kennedy watchfully through his glasses as he spoke.
"Some time ago," he resumed, slowly, "Mrs. Wilford came to me to be treated. She said that she suffered from sleeplessness—and then when she slept that her rest was broken by such horrible fantasies."
Kennedy nodded, as though fully conversant already with what the doctor had said.
"There were dreams of her husband," he continued, "morbid fears. One very frequent dream was of him engaged in what seemed to be a terrific struggle, although she has never been able to tell me just with what or whom he seemed to struggle. She told me she always had a feeling of powerlessness when in that dream, as though unable to run to him and help him. Then there were other dreams that she had, especially the dreams of a funeral procession, and always in the coffin she saw his face."
Kennedy nodded again. "Yes, I know of those dreams," he remarked, casually. "And of some others."
For a moment Kennedy's manner seemed to take the doctor off his professional guard—or did he intend it to seem so?
"Only the other day," Lathrop went on, a moment later, "she told me of another dream. In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull. She fled from it, but as it pursued her it seemed to gain on her, and she said she could even feel its hot breath—it was so close. Then, in her dream, in fright, as she ran over the field, hoping to gain a clump of woods, she stumbled and almost fell. She caught herself and ran on. She expected momentarily to be gored by the bull, but, strangely enough, the dream went no farther. It changed. She seemed, she said, to be in the midst of a crowd and in place of the bull pursuing her was now a serpent. It crept over the ground after her and hissed, seemed to fascinate her, and she trembled so that she could no longer run. Her terror, by this time, was so great that she awoke. She tells me that as often as she dreamed them she never finished either dream."
"Very peculiar," commented Kennedy. "You have records of what she has told you?"
"Yes. I may say that I have asked her to make a record of her dreams, as well as other data which I thought might be of use in the diagnosis and treatment of