"I don't call that bad condition, Mr.—Wardrop," the doctor said. "You are nervous, and you need a little more care in your habits. You want to exercise, regularly, and you will have to cut out everything in the way of stimulants for a while. Oh, yes, a couple of drinks a day at first, then one a day, and then none. And you are to stop worrying—when trouble comes round, and stares at you, don't ask it in to have a drink. Take it out in the air and kill it; oxygen is as fatal to anxiety as it is to tuberculosis."
"How would Bellwood do?" I asked. "Or should it be the country?"
"Bellwood, of course," the doctor responded heartily. "Ten miles a day, four cigarettes, and three meals—which is more than you have been taking, Mr. Wardrop, by two."
I put him on the train for Bellwood myself, and late that afternoon the three of us—the doctor, Burton and myself—met in my office and went over the doctor's record.
"When the answer comes in four-fifths of a second," he said, before we began, "it is hardly worth comment. There is no time in such an interval for any mental reservation. Only those words that showed noticeable hesitation need be considered."
We worked until almost seven. At the end of that time the doctor leaned back in his chair, and thrust his hands deep in his trousers pockets.
"I got the story from Burton," he said, after a deep breath. "I had no conclusion formed, and of course I am not a detective. Things looked black for Mr. Wardrop, in view of the money lost, the quarrel with Fleming that morning at the White Cat, and the circumstance of his leaving the club and hunting a doctor outside, instead of raising the alarm. Still, no two men ever act alike in an emergency. Psychology is as exact a science as mathematics; it gets information from the source, and a man can not lie in four-fifths of a second. 'Head,' you noticed, brought 'hair' in a second and three quarters, and the next word, 'ice,' brought the 'blood' that he had held back before. That doesn't show anything. He tried to avoid what was horrible to him.
"But I gave him 'traveling-bag;' after a pause, he responded with 'train.' The next word, 'lost,' showed what was in his mind; instead of 'found,' he said 'woman.' Now then, I believe he was either robbed by a woman, or he thinks he was. After all, we can only get what he believes himself.
"'Money—letters,'—another slip.
"'Shot—staircase'—where are the stairs at the White Cat?"