The Dream Doctor Read online

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  THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES

  THE DREAM DOCTOR

  BY ARTHUR B. REEVE

  FRONTISPIECE BY WILL FOSTER

  Contents

  CHAPTER

  I The Dream Doctor

  II The Soul Analysis

  III The Sybarite

  IV The Beauty Shop

  V The Phantom Circuit

  VI The Detectaphone

  VII The Green Curse

  VIII The Mummy Case

  IX The Elixir of Life

  X The Toxin of Death

  XI The Opium Joint

  XII The "Dope Trust"

  XIII The Kleptomaniac

  XIV The Crimeometer

  XV The Vampire

  XVI The Blood Test

  XVII The Bomb Maker

  XVIII The "Coke" Fiend

  XIX The Submarine Mystery

  XX The Wireless Detector

  XXI The Ghouls

  XXII The X-Ray "Movies"

  XXIII The Death House

  XXIV The Final Day

  THE DREAM DOCTOR

  I

  THE DREAM DOCTOR

  "Jameson, I want you to get the real story about that friend of yours,Professor Kennedy," announced the managing editor of the Star, earlyone afternoon when I had been summoned into the sanctum.

  From a batch of letters that had accumulated in the litter on the topof his desk, he selected one and glanced over it hurriedly.

  "For instance," he went on reflectively, "here's a letter from aConstant Reader who asks, 'Is this Professor Craig Kennedy really allthat you say he is, and, if so, how can I find out about his newscientific detective method?'"

  He paused and tipped back his chair.

  "Now, I don't want to file these letters in the waste basket. Whenpeople write letters to a newspaper, it means something. I might reply,in this case, that he is as real as science, as real as the fight ofsociety against the criminal. But I want to do more than that."

  The editor had risen, as if shaking himself momentarily loose from theordinary routine of the office.

  "You get me?" he went on, enthusiastically, "In other words, yourassignment, Jameson, for the next month is to do nothing except followyour friend Kennedy. Start in right now, on the first, andcross-section out of his life just one month, an average month. Takethings just as they come, set them down just as they happen, and whenyou get through give me an intimate picture of the man and his work."

  He picked up the schedule for the day and I knew that the interview wasat an end. I was to "get" Kennedy.

  Often I had written snatches of Craig's adventures, but never beforeanything as ambitious as this assignment, for a whole month. At firstit staggered me. But the more I thought about it, the better I liked it.

  I hastened uptown to the apartment on the Heights which Kennedy and Ihad occupied for some time. I say we occupied it. We did so duringthose hours when he was not at his laboratory at the Chemistry Buildingon the University campus, or working on one of those cases whichfascinated him. Fortunately, he happened to be there as I burst in uponhim.

  "Well?" he queried absently, looking up from a book, one of the latestuntranslated treatises on the new psychology from the pen of theeminent scientist, Dr. Freud of Vienna, "what brings you uptown soearly?"

  Briefly as I could, I explained to him what it was that I proposed todo. He listened without comment and I rattled on, determined not toallow him to negative it.

  "And," I added, warming up to the subject, "I think I owe a debt ofgratitude to the managing editor. He has crystallised in my mind anidea that has long been latent. Why, Craig," I went on, "that isexactly what you want--to show people how they can never hope to beatthe modern scientific detective, to show that the crime-hunters havegone ahead faster even than--"

  The telephone tinkled insistently.

  Without a word, Kennedy motioned to me to "listen in" on the extensionon my desk, which he had placed there as a precaution so that I couldcorroborate any conversation that took place over our wire.

  His action was quite enough to indicate to me that, at least, he had noobjection to the plan.

  "This is Dr. Leslie--the coroner. Can you come to the MunicipalHospital--right away?"

  "Right away, Doctor," answered Craig, hanging up the receiver. "Walter,you'll come, too?"

  A quarter of an hour later we were in the courtyard of the city'slargest hospital. In the balmy sunshine the convalescing patients weresitting on benches or slowly trying their strength, walking over thegrass, clad in faded hospital bathrobes.

  We entered the office and quickly were conducted by an orderly to alittle laboratory in a distant wing.

  "What's the matter?" asked Craig, as we hurried along.

  "I don't know exactly," replied the man, "except that it seems thatPrice Maitland, the broker, you know, was picked up on the street andbrought here dying. He died before the doctors could relieve him."

  Dr. Leslie was waiting impatiently for us. "What do you make of that,Professor Kennedy?"

  The coroner spread out on the table before us a folded half-sheet oftypewriting and searched Craig's face eagerly to see what impression itmade on him.

  "We found it stuffed in Maitland's outside coat pocket," he explained.

  It was dateless and brief:

  Dearest Madeline:

  May God in his mercy forgive me for what I am about to do. I have justseen Dr. Ross. He has told me the nature of your illness. I cannot bearto think that I am the cause, so I am going simply to drop out of yourlife. I cannot live with you, and I cannot live without you. Do notblame me. Always think the best you can of me, even if you could notgive me all. Good-bye.

  Your distracted husband,

  PRICE.

  At once the idea flashed over me that Maitland had found himselfsuffering from some incurable disease and had taken the quickest meansof settling his dilemma.

  Kennedy looked up suddenly from the note.

  "Do you think it was a suicide?" asked the coroner.

  "Suicide?" Craig repeated. "Suicides don't usually write ontypewriters. A hasty note scrawled on a sheet of paper in trembling penor pencil, that is what they usually leave. No, some one tried toescape the handwriting experts this way."

  "Exactly my idea," agreed Dr. Leslie, with evident satisfaction. "Nowlisten. Maitland was conscious almost up to the last moment, and yetthe hospital doctors tell me they could not get a syllable of anante-mortem statement from him."

  "You mean he refused to talk?" I asked.

  "No," he replied; "it was more perplexing than that Even if the policehad not made the usual blunder of arresting him for intoxicationinstead of sending him immediately to the hospital, it would have madeno difference. The doctors simply could not have saved him, apparently.For the truth is, Professor Kennedy, we don't even know what was thematter with him."

  Dr. Leslie seemed much excited by the case, as well he might be.

  "Maitland was found reeling and staggering on Broadway this morning,"continued the coroner. "Perhaps the policeman was not really at faultat first for arresting him, but before the wagon came Maitland wasspeechless and absolutely unable to move a muscle."

  Dr. Leslie paused as he recited the strange facts, then resumed: "Hiseyes reacted, all right. He seemed to want to speak, to write, butcouldn't. A frothy saliva dribbled from his mouth, but he could notframe a word. He was paralysed, and his breathing was peculiar. Theythen hurried him to the hospital as soon as they could. But it was ofno use."

  Kennedy was regarding the doctor keenly as he proceeded. Dr. Lesliepaused again to emphasise what he was about to say.

  "Here is anoth
er strange thing. It may or may not be of importance, butit is strange, nevertheless. Before Maitland died they sent for hiswife. He was still conscious when she reached the hospital, couldrecognise her, seemed to want to speak, but could neither talk normove. It was pathetic. She was grief-stricken, of course. But she didnot faint. She is not of the fainting kind. It was what she said thatimpressed everyone. 'I knew it--I knew it,' she cried. She had droppedon her knees by the side of the bed. 'I felt it. Only the other night Ihad the horrible dream. I saw him in a terrific struggle. I could notsee what it was--it seemed to be an invisible thing. I ran to him--thenthe scene shifted. I saw a funeral procession, and in the casket Icould see through the wood--his face--oh, it was a warning! It has cometrue. I feared it, even though I knew it was only a dream. Often I havehad the dream of that funeral procession and always I saw the sameface, his face. Oh, it is horrible--terrible!'"

  It was evident that Dr. Leslie at least was impressed by the dream.

  "What have you done since?" asked Craig.

  "I have turned loose everyone I could find available," replied Dr.Leslie, handing over a sheaf of reports.

  Kennedy glanced keenly over them as they lay spread out on the table."I should like to see the body," he said, at length.

  It was lying in the next room, awaiting Dr. Leslie's permission to beremoved.

  "At first," explained the doctor, leading the way, "we thought it mightbe a case of knock-out drops, chloral, you know--or perhaps chloral andwhiskey, a combination which might unite to make chloroform in theblood. But no. We have tested for everything we can think of. In factthere seems to be no trace of a drug present. It is inexplicable. IfMaitland really committed suicide, he must have taken SOMETHING--and asfar as we can find out there is no trace of anything. As far as we havegone we have always been forced back to the original idea that it was anatural death--perhaps due to shock of some kind, or organic weakness."

  Kennedy had thoughtfully raised one of the lifeless hands and wasexamining it.

  "Not that," he corrected. "Even if the autopsy shows nothing, itdoesn't prove that it was a natural death. Look!"

  On the back of the hand was a tiny, red, swollen mark. Dr. Leslieregarded it with pursed-up lips as though not knowing whether it wassignificant or not.

  "The tissues seemed to be thickly infiltrated with a reddish serum andthe blood-vessels congested," he remarked slowly. "There was a frothymucus in the bronchial tubes. The blood was liquid, dark, and didn'tclot. The fact of the matter is that the autopsical research revealedabsolutely nothing but a general disorganisation of theblood-corpuscles, a most peculiar thing, but one the significance ofwhich none of us here can fathom. If it was poison that he took or thathad been given to him, it was the most subtle, intangible, elusive,that ever came to my knowledge. Why, there is absolutely no trace orclue--"

  "Nor any use in looking for one in that way," broke in Kennedydecisively. "If we are to make any progress in this case, we must lookelsewhere than to an autopsy. There is no clue beyond what you havefound, if I am right. And I think I am right. It was the venom of thecobra."

  "Cobra venom?" repeated the coroner, glancing up at a row of technicalworks.

  "Yes. No, it's no use trying to look it up. There is no way ofverifying a case of cobra poisoning except by the symptoms. It is notlike any other poisoning in the world."

  Dr. Leslie and I looked at each other, aghast at the thought of apoison so subtle that it defied detection.

  "You think he was bitten by a snake?" I blurted out, half incredulous.

  "Oh, Walter, on Broadway? No, of course not. But cobra venom has amedicinal value. It is sent here in small quantities for variousmedicinal purposes. Then, too, it would be easy to use it. A scratch onthe hand in the passing crowd, a quick shoving of the letter into thepocket of the victim--and the murderer would probably think to goundetected."

  We stood dismayed at the horror of such a scientific murder and themeagreness of the materials to work on in tracing it out.

  "That dream was indeed peculiar," ruminated Craig, before we had reallygrasped the import of his quick revelation.

  "You don't mean to say that you attach any importance to a dream?" Iasked hurriedly, trying to follow him.

  Kennedy merely shrugged his shoulders, but I could see plainly enoughthat he did.

  "You haven't given this letter out to the press?" he asked.

  "Not yet," answered Dr. Leslie.

  "Then don't, until I say to do so. I shall need to keep it."

  The cab in which we had come to the hospital was still waiting. "Wemust see Mrs. Maitland first," said Kennedy, as we left the nonplusedcoroner and his assistants.

  The Maitlands lived, we soon found, in a large old-fashioned brownstonehouse just off Fifth Avenue.

  Kennedy's card with the message that it was very urgent brought us inas far as the library, where we sat for a moment looking around at thequiet refinement of a more than well-to-do home.

  On a desk at one end of the long room was a typewriter. Kennedy rose.There was not a sound of any one in either the hallway or the adjoiningrooms. A moment later he was bending quietly over the typewriter in thecorner, running off a series of characters on a sheet of paper. A soundof a closing door upstairs, and he quickly jammed the paper into hispocket, retraced his steps, and was sitting quietly opposite me again.

  Mrs. Maitland was a tall, perfectly formed woman of baffling age, butwith the impression of both youth and maturity which was veryfascinating. She was calmer now, and although she seemed to be ofanything but a hysterical nature, it was quite evident that hernervousness was due to much more than the shock of the recent tragicevent, great as that must have been. It may have been that I recalledthe words of the note, "Dr. Ross has told me the nature of yourillness," but I fancied that she had been suffering from some nervoustrouble.

  "There is no use prolonging our introduction, Mrs. Maitland," beganKennedy. "We have called because the authorities are not yet fullyconvinced that Mr. Maitland committed suicide."

  It was evident that she had seen the note, at least. "Not a suicide?"she repeated, looking from one to the other of us.

  "Mr. Masterson on the wire, ma'am," whispered a maid. "Do you wish tospeak to him? He begged to say that he did not wish to intrude, but hefelt that if there--"

  "Yes, I will talk to him--in my room," she interrupted.

  I thought that there was just a trace of well-concealed confusion, asshe excused herself.

  We rose. Kennedy did not resume his seat immediately. Without a word orlook he completed his work at the typewriter by abstracting severalblank sheets of paper from the desk.

  A few moments later Mrs. Maitland returned, calmer.

  "In his note," resumed Kennedy, "he spoke of Dr. Ross and--"

  "Oh," she cried, "can't you see Dr. Ross about it? Really I--I oughtn'tto be--questioned in this way--not now, so soon after what I've had togo through."

  It seemed that her nerves were getting unstrung again. Kennedy rose togo.

  "Later, come to see me," she pleaded. "But now--you must realise--it istoo much. I cannot talk--I cannot."

  "Mr. Maitland had no enemies that you know of?" asked Kennedy,determined to learn something now, at least.

  "No, no. None that would--do that."

  "You had had no quarrel?" he added.

  "No--we never quarrelled. Oh, Price--why did you? How could you?"

  Her feelings were apparently rapidly getting the better of her. Kennedybowed, and we withdrew silently. He had learned one thing. She believedor wanted others to believe in the note.

  At a public telephone, a few minutes later, Kennedy was running overthe names in the telephone book. "Let me see--here's an ArnoldMasterson," he considered. Then turning the pages he went on, "Now wemust find this Dr. Ross. There--Dr. Sheldon Ross--specialist in nervediseases--that must be the one. He lives only a few blocks furtheruptown."

  Handsome, well built, tall, dignified, in fact distinguished, Dr. Rossproved to b
e a man whose very face and manner were magnetic, as shouldbe those of one who had chosen his branch of the profession.

  "You have heard, I suppose, of the strange death of Price Maitland?"began Kennedy when we were seated in the doctor's office.

  "Yes, about an hour ago." It was evident that he was studying us.

  "Mrs. Maitland, I believe, is a patient of yours?"

  "Yes, Mrs. Maitland is one of my patients," he admittedinterrogatively. Then, as if considering that Kennedy's manner was notto be mollified by anything short of a show of confidence, he added:"She came to me several months ago. I have had her under treatment fornervous trouble since then, without a marked improvement."

  "And Mr. Maitland," asked Kennedy, "was he a patient, too?"

  "Mr. Maitland," admitted the doctor with some reticence, "had called onme this morning, but no, he was not a patient."

  "Did you notice anything unusual?"

  "He seemed to be much worried," Dr. Ross replied guardedly.

  Kennedy took the suicide note from his pocket and handed it to him.

  "I suppose you have heard of this?" asked Craig.

  The doctor read it hastily, then looked up, as if measuring fromKennedy's manner just how much he knew. "As nearly as I could makeout," he said slowly, his reticence to outward appearance gone,"Maitland seemed to have something on his mind. He came inquiring as tothe real cause of his wife's nervousness. Before I had talked to himlong I gathered that he had a haunting fear that she did not love himany more, if ever. I fancied that he even doubted her fidelity."

  I wondered why the doctor was talking so freely, now, in contrast withhis former secretiveness.

  "Do you think he was right?" shot out Kennedy quickly, eying Dr. Rosskeenly.

  "No, emphatically, no; he was not right," replied the doctor, meetingCraig's scrutiny without flinching. "Mrs. Maitland," he went on moreslowly as if carefully weighing every word, "belongs to a large andgrowing class of women in whom, to speak frankly, sex seems to besuppressed. She is a very handsome and attractive woman--you have seenher? Yes? You must have noticed, though, that she is really frigid,cold, intellectual."

  The doctor was so sharp and positive about his first statement and socareful in phrasing the second that I, at least, jumped to theconclusion that Maitland might have been right, after all. I imaginedthat Kennedy, too, had his suspicions of the doctor.

  "Have you ever heard of or used cobra venom in any of your medicalwork?" he asked casually.

  Dr. Ross wheeled in his chair, surprised.

  "Why, yes," he replied quickly. "You know that it is a test for blooddiseases, one of the most recently discovered and used parallel to theold tests. It is known as the Weil cobra-venom test."

  "Do you use it often?"

  "N--no," he replied. "My practice ordinarily does not lie in thatdirection. I used it not long ago, once, though. I have a patient undermy care, a well-known club-man. He came to me originally--"

  "Arnold Masterson?" asked Craig.

  "Yes--how did you know his name?"

  "Guessed it," replied Craig laconically, as if he knew much more thanhe cared to tell. "He was a friend of Mrs. Maitland's, was he not?"

  "I should say not," replied Dr. Ross, without hesitation. He was quiteready to talk without being urged. "Ordinarily," he explainedconfidentially, "professional ethics seals my lips, but in thisinstance, since you seem to know so much, I may as well tell more."

  I hardly knew whether to take him at his face value or not. Still hewent on: "Mrs. Maitland is, as I have hinted at, what we specialistswould call a consciously frigid but unconsciously passionate woman. Asan intellectual woman she suppresses nature. But nature does and willassert herself, we believe. Often you will find an intellectual womanattracted unreasonably to a purely physical man--I mean, speakinggenerally, not in particular cases. You have read Ellen Key, I presume?Well, she expresses it well in some of the things she has written aboutaffinities. Now, don't misunderstand me," he cautioned. "I am speakinggenerally, not of this individual case."

  I was following Dr. Ross closely. When he talked so, he was a mostfascinating man.

  "Mrs. Maitland," he resumed, "has been much troubled by her dreams, asyou have heard, doubtless. The other day she told me of another dream.In it she seemed to be attacked by a bull, which suddenly changed intoa serpent. I may say that I had asked her to make a record of herdreams, as well as other data, which I thought might be of use in thestudy and treatment of her nervous troubles. I readily surmised thatnot the dream, but something else, perhaps some recollection which itrecalled, worried her. By careful questioning I discovered that itwas--a broken engagement."

  "Yes," prompted Kennedy.

  "The bull-serpent, she admitted, had a half-human face--the face ofArnold Masterson!"

  Was Dr. Ross desperately shifting suspicion from himself? I asked.

  "Very strange--very," ruminated Kennedy. "That reminds me again. Iwonder if you could let me have a sample of this cobra venom?"

  "Surely. Excuse me; I'll get you some."

  The doctor had scarcely shut the door when Kennedy began prowlingaround quietly. In the waiting-room, which was now deserted, stood atypewriter.

  Quickly Craig ran over the keys of the machine until he had a sample ofevery character. Then he reached into drawer of the desk and hastilystuffed several blank sheets of paper into his pocket.

  "Of course I need hardly caution you in handling this," remarked Dr.Ross, as he returned. "You are as well acquainted as I am with thedanger attending its careless and unscientific uses."

  "I am, and I thank you very much," said Kennedy.

  We were standing in the waiting-room.

  "You will keep me advised of any progress you make in the case?" thedoctor asked. "It complicates, as you can well imagine, my treatment ofMrs. Maitland."

  "I shall be glad to do so," replied Kennedy, as we departed.

  An hour later found us in a handsomely appointed bachelor apartment ina fashionable hotel overlooking the lower entrance to the Park.

  "Mr. Masterson, I believe?" inquired Kennedy, as a slim, debonair,youngish-old man entered the room in which we had been waiting.

  "I am that same," he smiled. "To what am I indebted for this pleasure?"

  We had been gazing at the various curios with which he had made theroom a veritable den of the connoisseur.

  "You have evidently travelled considerably," remarked Kennedy, avoidingthe question for the time.

  "Yes, I have been back in this country only a few weeks," Mastersonreplied, awaiting the answer to the first question.

  "I called," proceeded Kennedy, "in the hope that you, Mr. Masterson,might be able to shed some light on the rather peculiar case of Mr.Maitland, of whose death, I suppose, you have already heard."

  "I?"

  "You have known Mrs. Maitland a long time?" ignored Kennedy.

  "We went to school together."

  "And were engaged, were you not?"

  Masterson looked at Kennedy in ill-concealed surprise.

  "Yes. But how did you know that? It was a secret--only between ustwo--I thought. She broke it off--not I."

  "She broke off the engagement?" prompted Kennedy.

  "Yes--a story about an escapade of mine and all that sort of thing, youknow--but, by Jove! I like your nerve, sir." Masterson frowned, thenadded: "I prefer not to talk of that. There are some incidents in aman's life, particularly where a woman is concerned, that areforbidden."

  "Oh, I beg pardon," hastened Kennedy, "but, by the way, you would haveno objection to making a statement regarding your trip abroad and yourrecent return to this country--subsequent to--ah--the incident which wewill not refer to?"

  "None whatever. I left New York in 1908, disgusted with everything ingeneral, and life here in particular--"

  "Would you object to jotting it down so that I can get it straight?"asked Kennedy. "Just a brief resume, you know."

  "No. Have you a pen or a pencil?"

  "I thin
k you might as well dictate it; it will take only a minute torun it off on the typewriter."

  Masterson rang the bell. A young man appeared noiselessly.

  "Wix," he said, "take this: 'I left New York in 1908, travelling on theContinent, mostly in Paris, Vienna, and Rome. Latterly I have lived inLondon, until six weeks ago, when I returned to New York.' Will thatserve?"

  "Yes, perfectly," said Kennedy, as he folded up the sheet of paperwhich the young secretary handed to him. "Thank you. I trust you won'tconsider it an impertinence if I ask you whether you were aware thatDr. Ross was Mrs. Maitland's physician?"

  "Of course I knew it," Masterson replied frankly. "I have given him upfor that reason, although he does not know it yet. I most strenuouslyobject to being the subject of--what shall I call it?--his mentalvivisection."

  "Do you think he oversteps his position in trying to learn of themental life of his patients?" queried Craig.

  "I would rather say nothing further on that, either," repliedMasterson. "I was talking over the wire to Mrs. Maitland a few momentsago, giving her my condolences and asking if there was anything I coulddo for her immediately, just as I would have done in the old days--onlythen, of course, I should have gone to her directly. The reason I didnot go, but telephoned, was because this Ross seems to have put someridiculous notions into her head about me. Now, look here; I don't wantto discuss this. I've told you more than I intended, anyway."

  Masterson had risen. His suavity masked a final determination to say nomore.