“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 fiance. 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 ‘fingerprints’ 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!”