"Reid," said I, "I have to say to you that I regret forcing that matter on you the other night; and if you'll give me a little time, I want to tell you why. It will end in our pulling more or less together, instead of fighting each other."
His face set for an instant, then he made up his mind. "Very well. I'm free for a while. Come in. No occasion perhaps for an apology: spoke too hastily myself. No sense in being emotional." He threw open the door and stepped back. "My digestion wasn't normal that day, you see. Fermentation. Generally a physical basis for those things. Alcohol besides."
I preceded him into a sudden blaze of air and sunlight, a first impression of wide space and staring cleanliness. While I blinked, Reid swung a leather covered chair toward me, with a word of hasty excuse.
"Just been exercising, you see, and I've got to take my shower. Great mistake sitting down without. I'll be with you in half a moment," and he vanished behind a rubber curtain that ran on a nickeled rod before an alcove at the back, leaving me to look about the room. It was very large, occupying the whole breadth of the building, and fitted up with an astonishing combination of convenience and hygiene. Dull red tiles covered the floor and rose like a wainscot half way up the walls. Above that ran a belt of white, glazed paper enameled to represent tiling; and the ceiling was of corrugated metal, also enameled white. Two large windows in front, and one on either side, wide open behind wire screens, and uncurtained, let in a flood of light and air which somehow in entering seemed to exchange its outdoor freshness for the sterilized, careful purity of a laboratory. Between the front windows a large glass-topped table bore a microscope and microtome covered by glass bells, a Bunsen burner, and a most orderly collection of bottles and test-tubes. On one side of this was a porcelain sink, and on the other a heavy oak desk with a telephone and every utensil in place. Steel sectional bookcases along the walls displayed rows of technical books and gleaming instruments. In one corner stood an iron bed, with a strip of green grass matting before it, and in the other a pair of Indian clubs and a set of chest-weights flanked an anthropometric scale. The only decorations were a large print of Rembrandt's Anatomy, two or three surprisingly good nudes, and a few glaring French medical caricatures. And everything possible about the room was covered with glass—tables, desk, bookcases, the shelves above the sink, and the very window-sills. If ever a room did so, this one declared the character of its inhabitant; and looking upon its comfortless convenience, I caught myself wondering how any normal woman could endure marriage with such an antiseptic personality. Then as Reid issued from his bath, glowing and alert with vivid energy and contagiously alive, the idea seemed not inconceivable after all.
"Pretty comfortable place, eh?" he burst forth. "Fine. Fine. All my own idea. Fitted it up according to my own notion. Everything I need right here, nothing useless, plenty of light and ventilation. Have a cigarette? I don't smoke often myself, but I keep 'em at hand. Best form to take tobacco, if you don't inhale. Popular idea all rot."
I lit one and settled back. "I've just asked Lady to marry me," I said, as quietly as I could. "She says that the only reason she won't is her mother. And I understand why."
His face lighted for a moment. "I told Tabor you'd be at the bottom of it eventually. As for the other matter—well, it has to be reckoned with. Strongest motive we have. The race has got to go on." He frowned suddenly: "How much do you know?"
"I know that Carucci lied; I know that Mrs. Tabor is out of her mind; I know that her delusion takes the form of a horror of marriage, because—" I stopped, searching for a softened form of words; but Reid took up the broken sentence and went evenly on, as impersonally scientific as if we had been speaking of strangers.
"Because of my wife's death. Hysteria aggravated by introspection. Fixed idea of Miriam's continual presence—what's that line?—'the wish father to the thought'— The psychic element in these things, you know, does react on the physical. Whole thing moves in a circle. Then paranoia."
"She's got to get well," I said. "What's the best chance? What can we do?"