on the way to the wilford apartment, which was not very far away, craig explained briefly what it was that he wanted me to do for him.
"you saw that list of words?" he asked.
"yes, and the columns opposite."
"precisely. i want you to write in them the answers that i get. you will understand as we go on. i'll hold this watch and note the time—and then we can put the two together, the answers and the reaction time."
it seemed simple enough and we chatted about other things connected with the case as we walked along to the apartment.
honora wilford showed some surprise at seeing us again, yet i fancied she was in a better mood than previously, since the obnoxious mccabe was no longer so much in evidence.
"what is it that i can do for you now?" she asked, rather abruptly, though her manner showed that her surprise was, after all, very mild.
evidently doyle had accustomed her to being quizzed and watched. it was not a pleasant situation, [203] even to be watched and quizzed by kennedy, yet she seemed to realize that he was making it as easy as possible.
"just another little psychological experiment," craig explained, trying to gloss it over. "i thought you wouldn't mind."
honora looked at him a moment doubtfully.
"just why are you so interested in studying me, professor kennedy?" she asked, pointedly, yet without hostility in her tone.
it was a rather difficult question to answer, and i must admit that i could scarcely have met it adequately myself. however, it took more than that to give kennedy a poser.
"oh," he replied, quickly, with an engaging airiness, "as a psychologist i'm interested in all sorts of queer things—things that must often seem strange to other people. perhaps it's highbrow stuff. but for a long time—and not in connection with you at all, mrs. wilford—i've been interested in dreams."
he paused a moment, moving a chair for her, and i could see that he was observing the effect of the statement on her. she did not seem to show any emotion at all over it, and kennedy went on.
"often i've studied my own dreams. i find that if, when i wake in the morning, i immediately try to recollect whether i have dreamed anything the night before or not, i invariably find that i have. but if i do something else—even as simple a thing as take a bath or shave—unless the dreams were [204] especially vivid, they are all gone when i try to recollect them. i'm almost convinced that we dream continuously in sleep, that more often we don't recollect the dreams than we do. your dreams interested me at the very start. i guess that was why doctor leslie repeated them to me. he knew that i was a crank, if you may call it that, on dreams. as for detective work of the old kind—that sort of thing doyle does and—well—i leave that to doyle." he shrugged.
as kennedy rattled on, i could see or fancy that honora was becoming more reassured.
"what is it you want me to do now?" she asked, her reluctance disappearing.
"nothing very difficult—for you," he flattered. "you see, i have here a list of words, selected at random. i don't suppose it will mean anything. yet there are lots of things these strange people, the modern experimental psychologists, do that seem perfectly foolish until you understand them. if we can once get at the bottom of your dreams, find out what causes them, i mean, i feel sure that we can make that nervousness of yours vanish as a prestidigitator will cause a card to vanish into thin air."
she nodded. at least on the surface, she seemed satisfied, though i could not be sure but that beneath the surface it was really that she was shrewdly convinced that it was necessary to make the best of a bad situation.
"you see," craig pursued, seizing whatever advantage he might have, "as i read off from the list [205] of words, i wish that you would repeat the first word, anything," he emphasized, "that comes into your mind, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. perhaps it is not so trivial, after all, as you think. it may be just the thing that will lead to helping you."
she nodded dutifully, but her attitude did not seem to please kennedy thoroughly.
"don't force yourself to think," he hastened. "let your ideas flow naturally. it depends altogether on your paying attention to the words, undivided attention, and answering as quickly as you can. remember—the first word that comes into your mind. don't change it—no matter what it is, even if it seems trivial and of no consequence. it's very easy to do and it won't take long. call it a game if you will. but take it seriously."
"suppose i refuse to do it?" she suggested.
kennedy merely shrugged. "i hardly think you will do that," he smiled quietly. "besides, it will be over soon."
she leaned back in the easy-chair in which she had been sitting, and kennedy took it as a tacit consent to the test.
from the paper, as i placed myself at a table, with the list of words and the blank columns before me, he read the first word, quickly and incisively, "foot."
"shoe," countered honora quickly, then gazed at him to see whether she had caught the idea of what it was he wanted her to do.
[206]
"very good," nodded kennedy, reassuringly. "that's the thing."
i wrote down the word and when i had finished i could see from the corner of my eye that kennedy also had noted the time, marking down "2-5," which i took to mean two-fifths of a second.
"gray," he repeated next.
"black."
again i noted the answering word in the second column, while again i saw him put down another "2-5."
i began to see dimly what his method was. evidently kennedy had chosen colorless words at the start to reassure her. and the fact was that they did reassure. she saw immediately that there was nothing very terrifying about what he wanted her to do.
"dream," craig added, from the list.
flashed through my mind, as i prepared to write, the thought that he was now coming to the words more significant.
"lathrop," she answered.
i saw that kennedy had noted a longer reaction time by some fifths of a second than before. was it because she had checked a first thought suggested by the word and had taken extra time to substitute something for it? and why had she made the substitution that she did? it was a natural thing to mention the doctor's name in that connection. had she rejected one word to cast about for another equally natural?
[207]
i scarcely think it necessary to follow the whole thing through, question and answer, word by word. instead i have appended a list of the words and the answering words as we got them first, and suggest that they will bear careful study:
1 2 3
foot shoe
gray black
dream lathrop
struggle escape
ship ocean
bean baked
lion path
book newspaper
false true
voyage europe
money poor
sad myself
quarrel vail
marry vail
bull breath
sleep dream
foolish wise
despise love
finger hand
friend none
serpent hiss
face man
chair sit
bottle stopper
glass empty
kennedy finished and glanced hastily over the list of words that i had written, as well as the fractions of seconds which he had jotted down on his [208] own sheet of paper. honora, unable to make out quite what was the reason back of all these enigmatical proceedings, watched his face narrowly.
"did i do all right?" she asked, with just a trace of anxiety in her tone.
"very fine, thank you," assured kennedy. "it wasn't such a terrible thing, after all, was it?"
"n-no," she admitted, reluctantly.
craig continued to look over the list, talking about all sorts of perfectly unrelated subjects with her, as though to remove from her mind as much is possible the memory of what had been said and done.
"there is just one other thing i want," he added, as he picked up the list again and handed it to me, his finger significantly on the third column that he had laid out. "it won't take long, mrs. wilford, now that you understand the game. walter, take that other column. i am merely going through the list rapidly again. don't try to recollect the answers you gave—but then, on the other hand, don't try to make them different. do you get what i mean? don't force your ideas. just remain relaxed, easy, natural. let me have just what comes into your mind, the moment it occurs to you—please don't try to change it."
"i see," she murmured, but i thought in a manner that showed she was just a little bit on her guard, and determined, if she made any slips before, not to repeat them.
in quick staccato kennedy repeated the words [209] from the list, beginning with "foot," to which again, almost mechanically, she responded with "shoe." i noted the answering words, as before, while he recorded the time.
it did not take me long to see that what kennedy was after was to discover whether, on the second trial, she would make any very significant changes in the words.
nor was he giving her a chance to cover up. the words came so fast that even i had no time to dwell on them. i shall not pause to do so here, for later kennedy analyzed them carefully. here is our third list, complete:
1 2 3
foot shoe shoe
gray black black
dream lathrop lathrop
struggle escape escape
ship ocean ocean
bean baked white
lion path beard
book newspaper newspaper
false true true
voyage europe europe
money poor poor
sad myself myself
quarrel vail words
marry vail vail
bull breath field
sleep dream dream
foolish wise wise
despise love like
finger hand hand
friend none none[210]
serpent hiss crowd
face man stranger
chair sit sit
bottle stopper stopper
glass empty empty
even as i was going along under kennedy's high pressure, i mentally noted that there were some remarkable similarities in the answers that honora gave, but, more particularly, that there were also some significant changes, although neither so far conveyed much information to me. i knew that even to kennedy the process would most likely require analysis in the quiet of the laboratory and i refrained absolutely from comment, though i could see that honora would have liked to appeal to me, had it not been for the restraining presence of kennedy.
"thank you very much, mrs. wilford," said kennedy, when he had finished with both his words and reaction times and was putting away the papers in his pocket.
"is that all?" she asked.
"i think so."
a look of relief passed over her face. quite naturally, she was growing tired of always being forced to play a part, whether before doyle and mccabe or before us.
i had rather expected that kennedy would take the occasion to make some reference to the recent discoveries we had made both in greenwich village and over the dictagraph, more especially as they [211] concerned shattuck and herself. but he did not. nor did she show any anxiety or make any inquiry herself. it seemed to me that, perhaps, honora and kennedy were themselves playing a game, a war of wills, as it were. at any rate, the test over, there was a truce.
some time later we returned to the laboratory and there kennedy set to work carefully comparing the lists of words and his own records of time.
"what was that test?" i asked, at length, seeing that a question would not disturb him. "what do you call it and what was it really for?"
"that," he explained, "was the jung association word test. doctor jung, who developed it, was, i think, a swiss. you'll notice that on the words of little or no significance there was no hesitation, and the second time practically no change, either. but when the significant words came out she took just a fraction of a second longer before she answered. i find that her average reaction time for the innocuous words was somewhere about two-fifths of a second. she answered very quickly.
"but, take her reply when i said the word 'bean.' it was nearly a second—to be exact, four-fifths, or twice her average on the words of no consequence. don't you think that significant?"
i nodded reluctantly. "y-yes. i suppose she knows—something."
"the same thing was the case," he continued, "on such words as 'bull,' 'serpent,' and 'face,' all of which, you recollect from her dreams, were [212] significant words. even on the words which she did not change the second time there was frequently a marked hesitation. thus, on the word 'dream' the first time she hesitated a fraction of a second before answering 'lathrop,' whose name evidently was suggested to her by his treatment of her nervous troubles and asking her about her dreams. but the second time there was no hesitation when she answered 'lathrop' to the word 'dream.' the same thing was true of other words which she did not change. she hesitated the first time, but not the second. they were such groups as 'money-poor-poor,' 'friend-none-none,' 'bottle-stopper-stopper,' and 'glass-empty-empty.'"
"what do you think it indicates?" i asked.
"from some you can draw your own conclusions," he replied. "they are perfectly evident. she feels alone, friendless, and almost penniless. as to the bean sequence, i am inclined to think she knows much about the calabar bean—both before and after the use in this case. perhaps even she knows of the drug from it. but whether that knowledge is such that it has given her a first-hand direct acquaintance with the use of it—well, that is another question.
"so, also, she was guarded in her reply to the words 'bottle' and 'glass.' she remembered the belladonna bottle and eagerly seized on the innocuous word, 'stopper,' referring to the ground-glass stopper, no doubt. as to the glass, or glasses, found on wilford's desk, which must have been in [213] her mind, because by the words i was planting and leading up to that, she was equally guarded. to reply 'empty,' could certainly not be construed as anything but innocuous, she probably thought."
"how about the changes?" i questioned. "do they show anything that is evidential?"
craig considered a moment. "they are, of course, the most important of all, those changes," he replied, taking the list and checking off the words at the third column. "she actually changed her answers seven times, and there was hesitation each time, both on the original answer and the change in this third column."
kennedy studied the list before him for some minutes.
"let's run down this list," he said, finally. "take the first—'foot-shoe-shoe.' nothing there, of course. wasn't intended to be. here—'dream-lathrop-lathrop.' we have already discussed that. consciously, she refuses to tell me anything in 'struggle-escape-escape' with reference to that dream of hers of her husband. 'ship-ocean-ocean'—i put that word in for camouflage and she seizes it eagerly, falling over herself to answer in her best reaction time, thus helping me to locate her hesitations.
"now we come to the crucial word, 'bean.' she hesitated, and in that moment of hesitation she probably reasoned something like this: 'i must just get as far from the calabar bean which they tell me he has discovered as i can.' so she answered 'baked.' yet that did not satisfy her. it [214] wasn't definite enough. any bean could be baked. so to make it absolutely explicit she corrected that to 'white bean.' she knows, all right."
i said nothing, and kennedy resumed. "'book' was also to disarm her and she quickly replied in both cases, 'newspaper.' but 'lion' was different. i'll wager she thought first of doctor lathrop, for she went right back to the dream and answered 'path'—then, the second time, perhaps before she knew it, she answered 'beard'—which lathrop has—when in fact i'll bet that if we tried it over again the answer she would give to cover it up would be 'mane.'
"'false-true-true' and 'voyage-europe-europe' need not be discussed. 'money-poor-poor' we've already touched on and 'sad-myself-myself' falls into the same class—showing her despondency. with 'quarrel-vail-words' her mind shows all is still fresh in her recollection. we know pretty well now what her inner feelings were toward him. however, quite naturally and stereotyped comes the next—'marry-vail-vail.' of course. consciously she would never think of herself marrying any one else—until there is a new deal, so to speak.
"but now we come to the most significant parts of all—the 'bull' sequence. the moment she heard that she hesitated, realized that she must not hesitate, and in a sort of mental panic answered the thing that came crowding into her mind, the pursuit by the bull and its hot 'breath,' which, you remember, we have already discussed. she must [215] have regretted allowing herself to say it. that was one reason why i wanted to try the test over. sure enough, the second time she corrected it to something quite innocent connected with the dream—'field.' whether she realized it or not, it confirms what the freud analysis showed us.
"then," he went on, quite enthusiastic over the progress of his association test, "i reassured her by the next words and did not expect to obtain anything—'sleep-dream-dream' and 'foolish-wise-wise.' the next brings us squarely back to the subject that interests me most in my study of her, her real feelings toward shattuck. i said 'despise.' at once, instead of associating, she sought the opposite—'love.' yet that seemed, perhaps unconsciously, a bit strong. so she softened it next to 'like.' she did that for her own benefit. she herself would never betray to the world her own emotions. therefore 'like' was a better word to use than 'love.' she has been trying to make them synonymous—with poor success."
i nodded. somehow i felt that in her heart of hearts honora had found love, whether she admitted it to herself or not. but i realized that even if she had, she would be the last to betray it to the outside world if she could help it.
"'finger-hand-hand'—another of the off-guard words," continued kennedy, quickly. "'friend-none-none'—we have touched on this idea already. but now we come again to something very important—'serpent.' at once she answered 'hiss.' [216] then she changed it and the thought uppermost was the recollection of the 'crowd' in her dream. remember freud?—a crowd, something secret?
"the most important change of all, though, is the next—'face.' she knew that already i had questioned her on that point in the dream—the attributing of human faces to the animals that appeared to her in her dreams. perhaps she recollected that she had told doctor lathrop once that the face in the dream resembled that of shattuck. but she never would admit that to me. i fenced about with her on that point, both in the spoken and written dream, without getting a bit of satisfaction from her. she simply would not admit a thing. yet i'm convinced that she told the truth first, that the face was that of shattuck. however, with that still in her mind, she hesitates in recalling the dream. i'm sure her first thought was 'shattuck.' but she put that out of her mind in the fifths of a second that elapsed. instead, she answered just as quickly as she could, in the hope she had betrayed nothing, the colorless, 'man.'"
i said nothing. i was always fearful of whither kennedy's psychanalysis was tending.
"even the general 'man' was not explicit enough for her," he proceeded. "she meant that there should be no mistake as far as i was concerned. 'man' might include shattuck. so, on the second questioning she became more particular in her identification of the 'face.' this time it was 'stranger.' doubtless she felt that it would eliminate [217] both herself and shattuck from consideration. but she was mistaken," he concluded, triumphantly. "instead, it really points to shattuck—and to herself, too. unconsciously now, she is really trying to eliminate both herself and her lover—and she knows that he is that."
kennedy flipped the list, as he added: "'bottle-stopper-stopper' and 'glass-empty-empty.' an effort to get away from anything incriminating. clever, too."
i said nothing. what did it mean? was she, after all, guilty—or at least a party to the crime? the very idea was repugnant to me. i knew it was of no use to quiz craig. he was still non-committal and impartial. at least i hoped he was still impartial to her.
