II
THE MARBLE HEART

"I'm going to get acquainted with the people in this case," remarked Kennedy, as he left the Wilford apartment, "and first of all it will be with Vance Shattuck."

We found that Shattuck lived in a rather sumptuous bachelor apartment farther up the Drive, to which we were admitted by his Japanese valet, who led the way into a sort of den, then disappeared to summon his master.

As we waited in the den I glanced about. It was a most attractive and fascinating place. There were innumerable curios that seemed to have been gathered from all over the world. Nor were they merely thrown together in a jumble. It was artistic, too, with a masculine art.

From the manner of the valet, though he had said nothing, I somehow gathered that Shattuck had been waiting for something or somebody. It was no longer early in the morning and I knew that he must have been neglecting his business, that is, if he really had any to neglect. I wondered why he should be doing so.

A few minutes later Shattuck himself appeared, a slim, debonair, youngish-old man, with dark hair of the sort that turns iron-gray in spots even in youth. Somehow he gave the impression of being a man of few words, of being on guard even thus early in our meeting.

"You have evidently traveled considerably," commented Kennedy, as he entered and we introduced ourselves.

"Yes, a great deal, before the war," replied Shattuck, guardedly watching.

"In Africa, I see," added Kennedy, who had been examining some striking big-game photographs that hung on a side wall.

"Once I was in Africa—yes. But I contracted a fever there. It has left me unable to stand the fatigue I used to stand. However, I'm all right—otherwise—and good for a great many years in this climate—so my doctor tells me."

"Doctor Lathrop?" suggested Kennedy, quickly.

Shattuck evaded replying. "To what am I indebted for the honor?" he queried, coldly now, still standing and not offering us seats.

"I suppose you have heard of the death of Vail Wilford?" asked Kennedy, coming directly to the point.

"Yes. I have just learned that he was found dead in his office, the lights turned on, and with a note left by him to his wife. It's very sudden."

"You were acquainted with Honora Wilford, I believe?"

Shattuck flashed a quick glance sidewise.

"We went to school together."

"And were engaged once, were you not?"

Shattuck looked at Kennedy keenly.

"Yes," he replied, hastily. "But what business of yours—or anybody's, for that matter—is that?" A moment later he caught himself. "That is," he added, "I mean—how did you know that? It was a sort of secret, I thought, between us. She broke it off—not I."

"She broke off the engagement?"

"Yes—a story about an escapade of mine, and all that sort of thing, that kind mutual friends do so well for one in repeating—but! by Jove, I like your nerve, sir, to talk about it—to me. The fact of the matter is, I prefer not to talk about it. There are some incidents in a man's life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that are a closed book."

He said it with a mixture of defiance and finality.

"Quite true," hastened Kennedy, briskly, "but a murder has been committed. The police have been called in. Everything must be gone over carefully. We can't stand on any ceremony now, you know—"

At that moment the telephone rang and Shattuck turned quickly toward the hall as his valet padded in after having answered it softly.

"You will excuse me a moment?" he begged.

Was this call what he had been waiting for? I looked about, but there was no chance to get into the hall or near enough in the den to overhear.

While Shattuck was at the telephone, Kennedy paced across the room to a bookcase. There he paused a moment and ran his eye over the titles of some of the books. They were of a most curious miscellaneous selection, showing that the reader had been interested in pretty nearly every serious subject and somewhat more than a mere dabbler. Kennedy bent down closer to be sure of one title, and from where I was standing behind him I could catch sight of it. It was a book on dreams translated from the works of Dr. Sigmund Freud.

Kennedy continued to pace up and down.

Out in the hall Shattuck was still at the telephone and we could just make out that he was talking in a very low tone, inaudible to us at a distance. I wondered with whom it might be. From his manner, which was about all we could observe, I gathered that it was a lady with whom he talked. Few of us ever get over the feeling that in some way we are in the presence of the person on the other end of the wire. Could it have been with Honora Wilford herself that he was talking?

A few moments later Shattuck returned from the telephone.

"Have you met Mrs. Wilford recently?" asked Kennedy, picking up the conversation where he had been interrupted by the call.

Shattuck eyed Kennedy with hostility and grunted a surly negative. I felt that it was a lie.

"I suppose you know that she has been suffering from nervous trouble for some time?" he continued, calmly ignoring Shattuck's answer, then adding, sarcastically, "I trust you won't consider it an impertinence, Mr. Shattuck, if I ask you whether you were aware that Doctor Lathrop was Mrs. Wilford's physician?"

"Yes, I am aware of it," returned Shattuck. "What of it?"

"He is yours, too, is he not?" asked Kennedy, pointedly.

Shattuck was plainly nettled by the question, especially as he could not seem to follow whither Kennedy was drifting.

"He was once," he answered, testily. "But I gave him up."

"You gave him up?"

It has always been a source of enjoyment to me to watch Kennedy badgering an unwilling and hostile witness. Shattuck was suddenly finding himself to be far from the man of few words he thought himself. It was not so much in what Kennedy asked as the manner in which he asked it. Shattuck was immediately placed on the defensive, much to his chagrin.

"Yes. I most strenuously object to being the subject of—what shall I call it—perhaps—this mental vivisection, I suppose," he snapped, vexed at himself for answering at all, yet finding himself under the necessity of finishing what he had unwillingly begun under the lash of Kennedy's quizzing.

Kennedy did not hesitate. "Why?" he asked. "Do you think that he sometimes oversteps his mark in trying to find out about the mental life of his patients?"

Shattuck managed to control a sharp reply that was trembling on his tongue.

"I would rather say nothing about it," he shrugged.

"I see you are a student of Freud yourself," switched Kennedy, quickly, with a nod toward the bookcase.

"And of many other things," retorted Shattuck. "You'll find about a ton of literature in that bookcase."

"But it was about her dreams," persisted Kennedy, "that she consulted Doctor Lathrop, I believe. Are you acquainted with the nature of the dreams?"

Shattuck eyed him in silence. It was evident that he realized that the only refuge from the quizzing lay in that direction.

"Really, sir," he said, at last, "I don't care to discuss a thing I know nothing about any further."

He turned, as though only by a studied insult could he find escape. I expected Kennedy to flare up, but he did not. Instead, he was ominously polite.

"Thank you," he said, with a mocking sarcasm that angered Shattuck the more. "I suppose I may reach you at your place of business, later, if I need?"

Shattuck nodded, but I knew there was a mental reservation back of it and that his switchboard operator would be given instructions to scrutinize every call carefully, and that, should we call up, Mr. Shattuck would have "just stepped out." As for Kennedy's tone, I was sure that it boded no good for Shattuck himself. Perhaps Kennedy reasoned that there would be plenty of other interviews later and that it was not worth while fighting on the first.

On his part Shattuck could do no less than assume an equal politeness as he bowed us out, though I know that inwardly he was ready to consign us to the infernal regions.

Kennedy was no sooner in the street than he hastened to a near-by telephone-booth. Evidently the same thought had been in his mind as had been in mine. He called up Doyle at the Wilford apartment immediately and inquired whether Honora Wilford had made any telephone calls recently. To my surprise, though I will not say to his own, he found out that she had not.

"Then who was it called Shattuck?" I queried. "I could have sworn from his manner that he was talking to a woman. Could it have been to the maid?"

He shook his head. "Celeste is watched, too, you know. No, it was not Celeste that called up. He would never have talked that long nor as deferentially to her. Never mind. We shall see."

Back on the Drive again, we walked hastily up-town a few squares until we came to another apartment, where, in a first-floor window, I saw a little sign in black letters on white, "Dr. Irvin Lathrop."

Fortunately it was at a time when Lathrop was just finishing his office hours, and we had not long to wait until the last patient had left after a consultation.

As we waited I could see that even his waiting-room was handsomely furnished and I knew that it must be expensive, for our own small apartment, a little farther up-town and around the corner from the Drive, cost quite enough, though Kennedy insisted on keeping it because it was so close to the university where he had his laboratory and his class work.

As Lathrop flung the door to his inner office open I saw that he was a tall and...