“Enough for what?”
“Reward for murder,” Nora said. “Unless some tramp killed her. But so many of us had motives that it seems redundant to consider outsiders.”
“Quite redundant,” Prye said gravely. “There are no tramps around here and tramps don’t often kill. Besides, no average-sized man would have stood a chance of overpowering Joan.”
“She was very strong,” Nora said, nodding.
“Most of them are.” He was quiet a moment and Nora looked up, puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“An uninhibited person has much more strength and energy than a conventional and sane person of the same stature.”
“Are you really telling me that strength, ordinary physical strength, is partly mental?” she asked.
“I believe so,” Prye said, smiling. “You are holding to the layman’s rigid distinctions between mind and body. The distinction is fine for philosophers, but it’s anathema for psychologists. I consider the mind and the body so much of a unit that I believe the muscles themselves have the power to remember, to think, if you will. But to go back to the strength exhibited by a manic-depressive, for instance, in his manic phase.
“His activity is superhuman, and if you have never seen it, unbelievable. He moves constantly, tearing his clothes or his mattress, talking or swearing or singing at the top of his lungs, not taking time off even to eat, and sleeping almost not at all. It is violent and undirected activity. He performs the first thing that comes into his mind, heedless of the consequences to himself, to others, or to the objects he handles. In a word, he is thoroughly uninhibited.
“In a sane person much of the body’s energy is taken up by the inhibitory processes. The sane man hesitates, ponders, makes a decision, and perhaps changes it. His whole being is not behind the deeds he does. If a man goes swimming immediately after eating the conviction that he should have waited for half an hour will tug at him, will help to dissipate the energy that would ordinarily be going into his stroke. But to the manic tearing at his clothes, what he is doing is right, is the only thing to do, in fact. No inhibitions are dissipating his strength. He becomes, temporarily, a physical superman.”
The room suddenly lit up as if a sun had fallen through the roof. The thunder tore the air and left a hole of silence.
In the next cottage Mary Little raised her head from the pillow and cried: “Jennie! Wake up, Jennie! Something’s been hit!”
Jennie opened her eyes and mumbled a reply. Her head was sunk on her breast.
“Go downstairs and get Tom. I’m nervous. Wake up, Jennie!”
Jennie got up and tottered into the hall, yawning. She came back in a minute, fully awake now and frightened.
“Mr. Little isn’t here,” she cried.
“He must be here! He couldn’t be out in this storm.” Mary reached for her water glass. “He must be here.” Her fingers were shaking and the water dribbled down her chin and the glass fell from her hands.
The army of clouds scattered across the sky in retreat, their ammunition spent. At midnight a star appeared, impaled on a sliver of moon, and still Tom Little did not come home.
Chapter Ten
At ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, August the third, a young woman in Toronto was telephoning a wireless message to Dr. Prescott, Clayton, Muskoka.
Regarding jute bag and contents. Bag contains numerous bloodstains type AB and several pieces of skin from scalp. Rocks similarly stained. Adhering to bag many small hairs, ash blonde and curly. Fibers indicate bag soaked from twelve to twenty hours. Letter follows.
In Flint, Michigan, the chief of police was composing a telegram to Inspector White.
John Wayne Smith, owner of two independent drugstores. No police record in Michigan but am investigating. Married a year ago and divorced in Florida shortly afterward. Ex-wife’s address unknown. Smith reputed well off and of excellent character. Left Flint last January ostensibly to travel.
Dr. Hartford, superintendent of the Mercy Sanctuary in Chicago, replaced in the files the case history he had been studying, read once more the telegram from Dr. Prye, and took up a pen.
Marion Allen released seven years ago after six months’ observation period. Present whereabouts unknown. Immediately after entrance her symptoms obviously faked. Would have been released sooner if she had not engineered an escape by injuring an attendant and stealing his keys. Allen clearly a conspiratorial type. Her history filled with babblings but gives us no information regarding her family and personal life. I.Q. listed as 96 but she was uncooperative and I would add twenty at least. Have a good multiple-personality case I'd like you to see. Drop in when you can.
Dr. Hartford could afford to be more verbose than the others. He added “Collect” at the bottom of the telegram form.
In cottage number four Susan Frost was packing a picnic basket. Not, of course, for a picnic, with Joan barely cold in her grave. Susan liked to think of Joan in a quiet coffin, looking serene and saved, rather than on the autopsy table in Dr. Prescott’s office.
The wild-strawberry jam, the calves’ foot jelly, and the invalid soup were going to Mary Little. The whole community knew that Tom had run away and that poor Mary was very ill. Susan hummed a little song, whisked a snowy napkin over the basket, and went out.
There was a speedboat out on the lake, a red boat with a broad young man bent over the wheel. She shaded her eyes and watched for a minute. Ralph was going too fast, circling the lake as if it were too small to hold him. Her hand dropped to her side and she walked hurriedly past Prye’s cottage, a slow blush spreading across her face even to the tip of her nose. But she was quite composed again when Jennie answered her knock.
“I’ve brought something for Mrs. Little,” Susan said shyly. “I wonder if I could go up and see her for a minute.”
“The Lord bless you,” Jennie said fervently. “I can’t do a thing with her. Mr. Little didn’t come home all night and she’s thinking he’s dead like — like the other one. And the doctor’s bringing a baby and can’t come until after lunch.”
The situation was made to order for Susan. She gave Jennie the basket and a reassuring smile, pushed up her sleeves, and went upstairs with brisk, firm footsteps. The door of Mary’s room was open, and she tapped softly on the wall and went in.
“Why, hello, Mary,” she said cheerfully. “What’s this I hear about you being a naughty girl and imagining things?”
The woman on the bed opened her eyes, and if there was any expression in them it was one of faint distaste. The two devout ladies of the community did not, in fact, care for each other.
“Have they found Tom?” Mary asked, scarcely moving her lips.
Susan sat down on the edge of the bed. “Found Tom? What nonsense, Mary! You’re not to bother your head about other people right now. I’ve brought you some delicious wild-strawberry jam. I picked the strawberries with my own hands.”
Why this should impart a special flavor to the jam Mary did not know and she was too polite to ask.
“They’re not looking for him,” she said. “They think because I’m sick that I’m not rational, that I’m imagining things.”
Susan smiled gayly. “Well, you are just a teeny weeny bit, aren’t you?” She took one of Mary’s hands and then dropped it suddenly. It was ice-cold. “Has Dr. Prye been here?”