“I want to know all about it,” I said. “All you know. Don’t keep anything back with the idea of sparing my feelings. I have not had a definite talk with Alma, but I have reason to think she cares for me, and I am content to bide my time. But, I propose to do all I can to save her from what I feel sure is a mistaken suspicion of her guilt in the Tracy matter.”
“Very well,” said March, looking at me gravely, “then please understand that the evidence against Miss Remsen is overwhelming. You know most of it, you have heard nearly all the details of the case as they have come to light. Now, try to realize that the cumulation of all these facts is a mountain of proof that will be hard to move.”
“I have heard it stated,” I said, calmly, “that circumstantial evidence, though seemingly convincing, must never be taken as absolute proof.”
Keeley stared at me, as if amazed, but I stood my ground.
“You’ll have to get a human witness before you can declare a certainty.”
“True enough, Mr. Norris,” March agreed. “And we have plenty of human evidence. Mr. Ames’s story of the quarrel between Miss Remsen and her uncle, you have heard. At that time Miss Remsen declared she would do something desperate, if Sampson Tracy persisted in his determination to tell Mrs. Dallas something that Alma wanted kept secret. What could that be, save the fact of her own defective health, or impaired mentality? She said Mrs. Dallas already hated her, and, knowing that, would hate her more. What other construction can possibly be put on those words? Then, we have Jennie’s story of Miss Remsen’s behaviour the night of Mr. Tracy’s death. That girl would never invent a story so wildly improbable as the tale of Miss Remsen jumping from the window into the lake.”
“You’ll have to admit all March says is true, Gray,” Keeley said to me, his fine face drawn with deepest concern. “And also the stories Posy May has told us. They bear the stamp of truth, and they are all human evidence, not merely circumstantial. Now, I will tell you the conclusion that I have been obliged to arrive at. And that is, that Alma Remsen is indeed afflicted. Not with epilepsy but with a far more serious malady. I mean dementia praecox. This is a terrible statement to make, but I am sure it is the only diagnosis that fits the case. As you may or may not know, that condition may be in existence yet remain unknown and unsuspected by those nearest and dearest to the patient.”
“No!” I cried, recoiling from the thought of horrors that this idea conjured up. “That lovely girl——”
“You know nothing about the disease, Gray,” Keeley said, patiently. “I didn’t know much about it myself, until I read it up, which I have just done. It has many forms and phases, but there are some symptoms inseparable from the conditions. For instance, and this is the thing that impressed me from the very first. You remember I said the watch in the water pitcher was the keynote. Well, I had a vague idea, and my recent study has corroborated it, that victims of this dread disease almost invariably throw a watch into a jar or pail of water if they get a chance. That is a common peculiarity, and all the queer work around Tracy’s deathbed points unmistakably to a mind disordered by dementia praecox and nothing else. Epilepsy won’t do. That is a different disease. But the feather duster, the flowers, the waistcoat business, the Totem Pole, and more than all, the fatal nail, all indicate the same thing. Now, this disease has the strange quality of becoming evident at times, and then disappearing so utterly that no one would suspect its presence in the person affected. March and I have concluded that Alma Remsen is a victim of this horrible curse and that her actions are in no way of her own volition during the attacks of the dementia.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said, after a straight glance into Keeley’s sympathetic eyes, “but I suppose I must take your word for it. However, it makes no difference in my love and loyalty to Alma, but I want to get at the truth. Now if it is true, her doctor must know about it. And I can’t think Doctor Rogers would have gone off and left her if there was danger of attacks of such a sort.”