Part 59 (2/2)
”Now, from the tangle of the dream thought, I find that she fears that her husband is too intimate with another woman, and that perhaps unconsciously she has turned to Dr. Maudsley for sympathy. Dr.
Maudsley, as I said, is not only bearded, but somewhat of a social lion. He had called on her the day before. Of such stuff are all dream lions when there is no fear. But she shows that she has been guilty of no wrongdoing--she escaped, and felt relieved.”
”I'm glad of that,” I put in. ”I don't like these scandals. On the Star when I have to report them, I do it always under protest. I don't know what your psycha.n.a.lysis is going to show in the end, but I for one have the greatest sympathy for that poor little woman in the big house alone, surrounded by and dependent on servants, while her husband is out collecting scandals.”
”Which suggests our next step,” he said, turning the subject. ”I hope that Butler has found out the retreat of Veronica Haversham.”
We discovered Miss Haversham at last at Dr. Klemm's sanitarium, up in the hills of Westchester County, a delightful place with a reputation for its rest cures. Dr. Klemm was an old friend of Kennedy's, having had some connection with the medical school at the University.
She had gone up there rather suddenly, it seemed, to recuperate. At least that was what was given out, though there seemed to be much mystery about her, and she was taking no treatment as far as was known.
”Who is her physician?” asked Kennedy of Dr. Klemm as we sat in his luxurious office.
”A Dr. Maudsley of the city.”
Kennedy glanced quickly at me in time to check an exclamation.
”I wonder if I could see her?”
”Why, of course--if she is willing,” replied Dr. Klemm.
”I will have to have some excuse,” ruminated Kennedy. ”Tell her I am a specialist in nervous troubles from the city, have been visiting one of the other patients, anything.”
Dr. Klemm pulled down a switch on a large oblong oak box on his desk, asked for Miss Haversham, and waited a moment.
”What is that?” I asked.
”A vocaphone,” replied Kennedy. ”This sanitarium is quite up to date, Klemm.”
The doctor nodded and smiled. ”Yes, Kennedy,” he replied.
”Communicating with every suite of rooms we have the vocaphone. I find it very convenient to have these microphones, as I suppose you would call them, catching your words without talking into them directly as you have to do in the telephone and then at the other end emitting the words without the use of an earpiece, from the box itself, as if from a megaphone horn. Miss Haversham, this is Dr. Klemm. There is a Dr.
Kennedy here visiting another patient, a specialist from New York. He'd like very much to see you if you can spare a few minutes.”
”Tell him to come up.” The voice seemed to come from the vocaphone as though she were in the room with us.
Veronica Haversham was indeed wonderful, one of the leading figures in the night life of New York, a statuesque brunette of striking beauty, though I had heard of often ungovernable temper. Yet there was something strange about her face here. It seemed perhaps a little yellow, and I am sure that her nose had a peculiar look as if she were suffering from an incipient rhinitis. The pupils of her eyes were as fine as pin heads, her eyebrows were slightly elevated. Indeed, I felt that she had made no mistake in taking a rest if she would preserve the beauty which had made her popularity so meteoric.
”Miss Haversham,” began Kennedy, ”they tell me that you are suffering from nervousness. Perhaps I can help you. At any rate it will do no harm to try. I know Dr. Maudsley well, and if he doesn't approve--well, you may throw the treatment into the waste basket.”
”I'm sure I have no reason to refuse,” she said. ”What would you suggest?”
”Well, first of all, there is a very simple test I'd like to try. You won't find that it bothers you in the least--and if I can't help you, then no harm is done.”
Again I watched Kennedy as he tactfully went through the preparations for another kind of psycha.n.a.lysis, placing Miss Haversham at her ease on a davenport in such a way that nothing would distract her attention.
As she reclined against the leather pillows in the shadow it was not difficult to understand the lure by which she held together the little coterie of her intimates. One beautiful white arm, bare to the elbow, hung carelessly over the edge of the davenport, displaying a plain gold bracelet.
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