The War Terror Part 60

"Now," began Kennedy, on whom I knew the charms of Miss Haversham produced a negative effect, although one would never have guessed it from his manner, "as I read off from this list of words, I wish that you would repeat the first thing, anything," he emphasized, "that comes into your head, no matter how trivial it may seem. Don't force yourself to think. Let your ideas flow naturally. It depends altogether on your paying attention to the words and answering as quickly as you can--remember, the first word that comes into your mind. It is easy to do. We'll call it a game," he rea.s.sured.

Kennedy handed a copy of the list to me to record the answers. There must have been some fifty words, apparently senseless, chosen at random, it seemed. They were:

head to dance salt white lie

green sick new child to fear

water pride to pray sad stork

to sing ink money to marry false

death angry foolish dear anxiety

long needle despise to quarrel to kiss

s.h.i.+p voyage finger old bride

to pay to sin expensive family pure

window bread to fall friend ridicule

cold rich unjust luck to sleep

"The Jung a.s.sociation word test is part of the Freud psycha.n.a.lysis, also," he whispered to me, "You remember we tried something based on the same idea once before?"

I nodded. I had heard of the thing in connection with blood-pressure tests, but not this way.

Kennedy called out the first word, "Head," while in his hand he held a stop watch which registered to one-fifth of a second.

Quickly she replied, "Ache," with an involuntary movement of her hand toward her beautiful forehead.

"Good," exclaimed Kennedy. "You seem to grasp the idea better than most of my patients."

I had recorded the answer, he the time, and we found out, I recall afterward, that the time averaged something like two and two-fifths seconds.

I thought her reply to the second word, "green," was curious. It came quickly, "Envy."

However, I shall not attempt to give all the replies, but merely some of the most significant. There did not seem to be any hesitation about most of the words, but whenever Kennedy tried to question her about a word that seemed to him interesting she made either evasive or hesitating answers, until it became evident that in the back of her head was some idea which she was repressing and concealing from us, something that she set off with a mental "No Thoroughfare."

He had finished going through the list, and Kennedy was now studying over the answers and comparing the time records.

"Now," he said at length, running his eye over the words again, "I want to repeat the performance. Try to remember and duplicate your first replies," he said.

Again we went through what at first had seemed to me to be a solemn farce, but which I began to see was quite important. Sometimes she would repeat the answer exactly as before. At other times a new word would occur to her. Kennedy was keen to note all the differences in the two lists.

One which I recall because the incident made an impression on me had to do with the trio, "Death--life--inevitable."

"Why that?" he asked casually.

"Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'One should let nothing which one can have escape, even if a little wrong is done; no opportunity should be missed; life is so short, death inevitable'?"

There were several others which to Kennedy seemed more important, but long after we had finished I pondered this answer. Was that her philosophy of life? Undoubtedly she would never have remembered the phrase if it had not been so, at least in a measure.

She had begun to show signs of weariness, and Kennedy quickly brought the conversation around to subjects of apparently a general nature, but skillfully contrived so as to lead the way along lines her answers had indicated.

Kennedy had risen to go, still chatting. Almost unintentionally he picked up from a dressing table a bottle of white tablets, without a label, shaking it to emphasize an entirely, and I believe purposely, irrelevant remark.

"By the way," he said, breaking off naturally, "what is that?"

"Only something Dr. Maudsley had prescribed for me," she answered quickly.

As he replaced the bottle and went on with the thread of the conversation, I saw that in shaking the bottle he had abstracted a couple of the tablets before she realized it. "I can't tell you just what to do without thinking the case over," he concluded, rising to go.

"Yours is a peculiar case, Miss Haversham, baffling. I'll have to study it over, perhaps ask Dr. Maudsley If I may see you again. Meanwhile, I am sure what he is doing is the correct thing."

Inasmuch as she had said nothing about what Dr. Maudsley was doing, I wondered whether there was not just a trace of suspicion in her glance at him from under her long dark lashes.

"I can't see that you have done anything," she remarked pointedly. "But then doctors are queer--queer."

That parting shot also had in it, for me, something to ponder over. In fact I began to wonder if she might not be a great deal more clever than even Kennedy gave her credit for being, whether she might not have submitted to his tests for pure love of pulling the wool over his eyes.

Downstairs again, Kennedy paused only long enough to speak a few words with his friend Dr. Klemm.

"I suppose you have no idea what Dr. Maudsley has prescribed for her?"

he asked carelessly.

"Nothing, as far as I know, except rest and simple food."

He seemed to hesitate, then he said under his voice, "I suppose you know that she is a regular dope fiend, seasons her cigarettes with opium, and all that."

"I guessed as much," remarked Kennedy, "but how does she get it here?"

"She doesn't."

"I see," remarked Craig, apparently weighing now the man before him. At length he seemed to decide to risk something.

"Klemm," he said, "I wish you would do something for me. I see you have the vocaphone here. Now if--say Hazleton--should call--will you listen in on that vocaphone for me?" Dr. Klemm looked squarely at him.

"Kennedy," he said, "it's unprofessional, but---"

"So it is to let her be doped up under guise of a cure."

"What?" he asked, startled. "She's getting the stuff now?"

"No, I didn't say she was getting opium, or from anyone here. All the same, if you would just keep an ear open---"

"It's unprofessional, but--you'd not ask it without a good reason. I'll try."