Arthur B. Reeve Crime & Mystery Boxed Set. Arthur B. Reeve

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "Let me finish," interposed Kennedy. "I want to consider the other dream also. Fear is equivalent to a wish in this sort of dream. It also, as I have said, denotes sex. In dreams animals are usually symbols. Now, in this second dream we find both the bull and the serpent, from time immemorial, symbols of the continuing of the life-force. Dreams are always based on experiences or thoughts of the day preceding the dreams. You, Mrs. Maitland, dreamed of a man's face on these beasts. There was every chance of having him suggested to you. You think you hate him. Consciously you reject him; unconsciously you accept him. Any of the new psychologists who knows the intimate connection between love and hate, would understand how that is possible. Love does not extinguish hate; or hate, love. They repress each other. The opposite sentiment may very easily grow."

      The situation was growing more tense as he proceeded. Was not Kennedy actually taxing her with loving another?

      "The dreamer," he proceeded remorselessly, "is always the principal actor in a dream, or the dream centres about the dreamer most intimately. Dreams are personal. We never dream about matters that really concern others, but ourselves.

      "Years ago," he continued, "you suffered what the new psychologists call a 'psychic trauma'—a soul-wound. You were engaged, but your censored consciousness rejected the manner of life of your fiancé. In pique you married Price Maitland. But you never lost your real, subconscious love for another."

      He stopped, then added in a low tone that was almost inaudible, yet which did not call for an answer, "Could you—be honest with yourself, for you need say not a word aloud—could you always be sure of yourself in the face of any situation?"

      She looked startled. Her ordinarily inscrutable face betrayed everything, though it was averted from the rest of us and could be seen only by Kennedy. She knew the truth that she strove to repress; she was afraid of herself.

      "It is dangerous," she murmured, "to be with a person who pays attention to such little things. If every one were like you, I would no longer breathe a syllable of my dreams."

      She was sobbing now.

      What was back of it all? I had heard of the so-called resolution dreams. I had heard of dreams that kill, of unconscious murder, of the terrible acts of the subconscious somnambulist of which the actor has no recollection in the waking state until put under hypnotism. Was it that which Kennedy was driving at disclosing?

      Dr. Ross moved nearer to Mrs. Maitland as if to reassure her. Craig was studying attentively the effect of his revelation both on her and on the other faces before him.

      Mrs. Maitland, her shoulders bent with the outpouring of the long-suppressed emotion of the evening and of the tragic day, called for sympathy which, I could see, Craig would readily give when he had reached the climax he had planned.

      "Kennedy," exclaimed Masterson, pushing aside Dr. Ross, as he bounded to the side of Mrs. Maitland, unable to restrain himself longer, "Kennedy, you are a faker—nothing but a damned dream doctor—in scientific disguise."

      "Perhaps," replied Craig, with a quiet curl of the lip. "But the threads of the typewriter ribbon, the alignment of the letters, the paper, all the 'finger-prints' of that type-written note of suicide were those of the machine belonging to the man who caused the soul-wound, who knew Madeline Maitland's inmost heart better than herself—because he had heard of Freud undoubtedly, when he was in Vienna—who knew that he held her real love still, who posed as a patient of Dr. Ross to learn her secrets as well as to secure the subtle poison of the cobra. That man, perhaps, merely brushed against Price Maitland in the crowd, enough to scratch his hand with the needle, shove the false note into his pocket—anything to win the woman who he knew loved him, and whom he could win. Masterson, you are that man!"

      The next half hour was crowded kaleidoscopically with events—the call by Dr. Leslie for the police, the departure of the Coroner with Masterson in custody, and the efforts of Dr. Ross to calm his now almost hysterical patient, Mrs. Maitland.

      Then a calm seemed to settle down over the old laboratory which had so often been the scene of such events, tense with human interest. I could scarcely conceal my amazement, as I watched Kennedy quietly restoring to their places the pieces of apparatus he had used.

      "What's the matter?" he asked, catching my eye as he paused with the tintometer in his hand.

      "Why," I exclaimed, "that's a fine way to start a month! Here's just one day gone and you've caught your man. Are you going to keep that up? If you are—I'll quit and skip to February. I'll choose the shortest month, if that's the pace!"

      "Any month you please," he smiled grimly, as he reluctantly placed the tintometer in its cabinet.

      There was no use. I knew that any other month would have been just the same.

      "Well," I replied weakly, "all I can hope is that every day won't be as strenuous as this has been. I hope, at least, you will give me time to make some notes before you start off again."

      "Can't say," he answered, still busy returning paraphernalia to its accustomed place. "I have no control over the cases as they come to me—except that I can turn down those that don't interest me."

      "Then," I sighed wearily, "turn down the next one. I must have rest. I'm going home to sleep."

      "Very well," he said, making no move to follow me.

      I shook my head doubtfully. It was impossible to force a card on Kennedy. Instead of showing any disposition to switch off the laboratory lights, he appeared to be regarding a row of half-filled test-tubes with the abstraction of a man who has been interrupted in the midst of an absorbing occupation.

      "Good night," I said at length.

      "Good night," he echoed mechanically.

      I know that he slept that night—at least his bed had been slept in when I awoke in the morning. But he was gone. But then, it was not unusual for him, when the fever for work was on him, to consider even five or fewer hours a night's rest. It made no difference when I argued with him. The fact that he thrived on it himself and could justify it by pointing to other scientists was refutation enough.

      Slowly I dressed, breakfasted, and began transcribing what I could from the hastily jotted down notes of the day before. I knew that the work, whatever it was, in which he was now engaged must be in the nature of research, dear to his heart. Otherwise, he would have left word for me.

      No word came from him, however, all day, and I had not only caught up in my notes, but, my appetite whetted by our first case, had become hungry for more. In fact I had begun to get a little worried at the continued silence. A hand on the knob of the door or a ring of the telephone would have been a welcome relief. I was gradually becoming aware of the fact that I liked the excitement of the life as much as Kennedy did.

      I knew it when the sudden sharp tinkle of the telephone set my heart throbbing almost as quickly as the little bell hammer buzzed.

      "Jameson, for Heaven's sake find Kennedy immediately and bring him over here to the Novella Beauty Parlour. We've got the worst case I've been up against in a long time. Dr. Leslie, the coroner, is here, and says we must not make a move until Kennedy arrives."

      I doubt whether in all our long acquaintance I had ever heard First Deputy O'Connor more wildly excited and apparently more helpless than he seemed over the telephone that night.

      "What is it?" I asked.

      "Never СКАЧАТЬ