The Window at the White Cat Part 32

Neither of which explanations sufficed for the little sc.r.a.p found in Miss Jane's room. What connection, if any, had it with her flight? Where was she now. What was eleven twenty-two? And why did Miss Let.i.tia deny that she had lost the pearls, when I already knew that nine of the ten had been sold, who had bought them, and approximately how much he had paid?

CHAPTER XX

a.s.sOCIATION OF IDEAS

I ate a light lunch at Bellwood, alone, with Bella to look after me in the dining-room. She was very solicitous, and when she had brought my tea, I thought she wanted to say something. She stood awkwardly near the door, and watched me.

"You needn't wait, Bella," I said.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but--I wanted to ask you--is Miss Fleming well?"

"She was not very well this morning, but I don't think it is serious, Bella," I replied. She turned to go, but I fancied she hesitated.

"Oh, Bella," I called, as she was going out, "I want to ask you something. The night at the Fleming home, when you and I watched the house, didn't you hear some person running along the hall outside your door? About two o'clock, I think?"

She looked at me stolidly.

"No, sir, I slept all night."

"That's strange. And you didn't hear me when I fell down the dumb-waiter shaft?"

"Holy saints!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Was _that_ where you fell!"

She stopped herself abruptly.

"You heard that?" I asked gently, "and yet you slept all night? Bella, there's a hitch somewhere. You didn't sleep that night, at all; you told Miss Fleming I had been up all night. How did you know that? If I didn't know that you couldn't possibly get around as fast as the--person in the house that night, I would say you had been in Mr. Fleming's desk, looking for--let us say, postage stamps. May I have another cup of coffee?"

She turned a sickly yellow white, and gathered up my cup and saucer with trembling hands. When the coffee finally came back it was brought grumblingly by old Heppie. "She says she's turned her ankle," she sniffed. "Turned it on a lathe, like a table leg, I should say, from the shape of it." Before I left the dining-room I put another line in my note-book:

"What does Bella know?"

I got back to the city somewhat late for my appointment with Burton. I found Wardrop waiting for me at the office, and if I had been astonished at the change in him two nights before, I was shocked now. He seemed to have shrunk in his clothes; his eyeb.a.l.l.s were bloodshot from drinking, and his fair hair had dropped, neglected, over his forehead. He was sitting in his familiar att.i.tude, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his palms.

He looked at me with dull eyes, when I went in. I did not see Burton at first. He was sitting on my desk, holding a flat can in his hand, and digging out with a wooden toothpick one sardine after another and bolting them whole.

"Your good health," he said, poising one in the air, where it threatened oily tears over the carpet. "As an appet.i.te-quencher and thirst-producer, give me the festive sardine. How lovely it would be if we could eat 'em without smelling 'em!"

"Don't you do anything but eat?" Wardrop asked, without enthusiasm.

Burton eyed him reproachfully. "Is that what I get for doing without lunch, in order to prove to you that you are not crazy?" He appealed to me. "He says he's crazy--lost his think works. Now, I ask you, Knox, when I go to the trouble to find out for him that he's got as many convolutions as anybody, and that they've only got a little convolved, is it fair, I ask you, for him to reproach me about my food?"

"I didn't know you knew each other," I put in, while Burton took another sardine.

"He says we do," Wardrop said wearily; "says he used to knock me around at college."

Burton winked at me solemnly.

"He doesn't remember me, but he will," he said. "It's his nerves that are gone, and we'll have him restrung with new wires, like an old piano, in a week."

Wardrop had that after-debauch suspicion of all men, but I think he grasped at me as a dependability.

"He wants me to go to a doctor," he said. "I'm not sick; it's only--" He was trying to light a cigarette, but the match dropped from his shaking fingers.

"Better see one, Wardrop," I urged--and I felt mean enough about doing it. "You need something to brace you up."

Burton gave him a very small drink, for he could scarcely stand, and we went down in the elevator. My contempt for the victim between us was as great as my contempt for myself. That Wardrop was in a bad position there could be no doubt; there might be more men than Fleming who had known about the money in the leather bag, and who thought he had taken it and probably killed Fleming to hide the theft.

It seemed incredible that an innocent man would collapse as he had done, and yet--at this minute I can name a dozen men who, under the club of public disapproval, have fallen into paresis, insanity and the grave. We are all indifferent to our fellow-men until they are against us.

Burton knew the specialist very well--in fact, there seemed to be few people he did not know. And considering the way he had got hold of Miss Let.i.tia and Wardrop, it was not surprising. He had evidently arranged with the doctor, for the waiting-room was empty and we were after hours.

The doctor was a large man, his size emphasized by the clothes he wore, very light in color, and unprofessional in cut. He was sandy-haired, inclined to be bald, and with shrewd, light blue eyes behind his gla.s.ses. Not particularly impressive, except as to size, on first acquaintance; a good fellow, with a brisk voice, and an amazingly light tread.

He began by sending Wardrop into a sort of examining room in the rear of the suite somewhere, to take off his coat and collar. When he had gone the doctor looked at a slip of paper in his hand.

"I think I've got it all from Mr. Burton," he said. "Of course, Mr.

Knox, this is a little out of my line; a nerve specialist has as much business with psychotherapy as a piano tuner has with musical technique.

But the idea is Munsterburg's, and I've had some good results. I'll give him a short physical examination, and when I ring the bell one of you may come in. Are you a newspaper man, Mr. Knox?"

"An attorney," I said briefly.

"Press man, lawyer, or doctor," Burton broke in, "we all fatten on the other fellow's troubles, don't we?"

"We don't fatten very much," I corrected "We live."

The doctor blinked behind his gla.s.ses.

"I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money," he said.

"Look at the way a doctor grinds for a pittance! He's just as capable as the lawyer; he works a d.a.m.n sight harder, and he makes a tenth the income. A man will pay his lawyer ten thousand dollars for keeping him out of jail for six months, and he'll kick like a steer if his doctor charges him a hundred to keep him out of h.e.l.l for life! Which of you will come in? I'm afraid two would distract him."

"I guess it is Knox's b.u.t.t-in," Burton conceded, "but I get it later, Doctor; you promised."

The physical examination was very brief; when I was called in Wardrop was standing at the window looking down into the street below, and the doctor was writing at his desk. Behind Wardrop's back he gave me the slip he had written.

"Test is for a.s.sociation of ideas. Watch length of time between word I give and his reply. I often get hold of facts forgotten by the patient. A wait before the answering word is given shows an attempt at concealment."

"Now, Mr. Wardrop," he said, "will you sit here, please?"

He drew a chair to the center-table for Wardrop, and another, just across for himself. I sat back and to one side of the patient, where I could see Wardrop's haggard profile and every movement of the specialist.

On the table was an electric instrument like a small clock, and the doctor's first action was to attach to it two wires with small, black rubber mouthpieces.

"Now, Mr. Wardrop," he said, "we will go on with the test. Your other condition is fair, as I told you; I think you can dismiss the idea of insanity without a second thought, but there is something more than brain and body to be considered; in other words, you have been through a storm, and some of your nervous wires are down. Put the mouthpiece between your lips, please; you see, I do the same with mine. And when I give you a word, speak as quickly as possible the a.s.sociation it brings to your mind. For instance, I say 'noise.' Your first a.s.sociation might be 'street,' 'band,' 'drum,' almost anything a.s.sociated with the word.

As quickly as possible, please."