The bloodless Dr. Skyro looked intently at Cantwell and added quietly: “You’re guilty as hell, Cantwell, and very likely of a murder you’ve been committing in the recesses of your psyche.”
“A murder!” Cantwell mopped his dark face. “That’s absurd.”
“Is it?” Skyro mused. “Is it, really?” He chuckled, winked at me, and went on, “Notice the enlargement of your friend’s eye pupils. And the contraction of his vocal cords, resulting in hoarsened, difficult speech. In a few minutes I could knock his voice out entirely, if I wanted to. Notice also the perspiring palms. From here you can see that his pulse has jumped to at least a hundred. All those are symptoms of guilt. An accomplished murderer with a genuine corpse on his hands suffers less than your friend does in his phantom abattoir. For which statement we move from the Bible to Shakespeare: Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. Are you dining at home tonight?” he asked Cantwell suddenly.
Mark nodded.
“I’d like to be your guest.” Skyro beamed and, turning to me, added, “You’re invited.”
The Cantwells live in a house beyond New York in one of those suburbs to which all the virtues and lawn mowers seem to have retired. There were three Cantwells — Mark; his soft-spoken and pretty wife, Ruth; and his calliope of a mother, Margot. They lived in a colonial house full of old rugs, old books, and old anecdotes — all the property of Madam Margot, For that shapely, black-satined beldam not only lived in the house, she flooded it from cellar to attic with her personality. She was that most triumphant of females, the wife-obliterating mother. For her part, Ruth bore up silently and sweetly, winning my own sympathy at all times, although I did yearn for the day when she would assert herself in some way.
The prospect of Dr. Skyro turned loose in such a bed of psychological catnip almost kept me from dinner. I dreaded his effect upon the mild-mannered Ruth, but I was curious to witness Madam Margot’s response to our little know-it-all. She was a woman of powerful aversions. The evening, I felt certain, would be one of those social blitzes in which cannons roar and homes are wrecked. Yet it turned out to be nothing of the sort. Our browbeating savant struck his colors on arrival and sat smirking at his case-history hostess without firing a diagnosis.
And I had never seen the queen-mother gayer or heard her more sprightly. She owned a stilted sort of wit, full of heavy cuteness. Aware that the wispy fellow at her right was somehow investigating Mark’s inner life, she offered numerous anecdotes about her son in which he starred always as an incompetent hero guided by a whimsical and doting mama. It was all rather nauseating — but endurable in the absence of counterblasts.
Ruth, as was her way, deferred in everything to the terrifying dowager, and for her pains was awarded the negligence and disregard of one and all. Cantwell seemed scarcely aware of her presence.
After dinner Madam Margot was persuaded by the conquered Skyro to show off the rooms which she had recently redecorated. And here, for the first time, I sensed that our sage was mysteriously at work behind his sycophantic front. He pranced along beside the mother, cooing over her achievements and throwing chummy little queries at her. But his manner had become as alert as that of a burglar “casing” a house.
“And this is Mark’s room.” Madam Margot stopped in front of a door. “It hasn’t been remodeled yet.”
“I’d love to see it,” Skyro purred. “Just to see what the house looked like before you took it in hand.”
Mark opened the door for us. It opened slowly, brushing over the carpet with difficulty. We looked into a skimpily furnished bedroom. While it was clearly a refuge which he shared with Ruth, I noticed that it was called “Mark’s room” and that no one else even seemed conscious of the reference.
“I suppose you’re going to change this fireplace, too.” Skyro pointed at a gas-log grate. “It’s rather out of place in such a palace of antiques as your home really is.”
“I’ve insisted for months on turning that into a real, cozy fireplace,” Madame Margot sighed with a pout at her son. “I think gas logs are utterly without mood.”
“But Mark likes it,” Skyro said, “and, of course, a man is always boss in his own bedroom.” Looking down, he added tenderly, “May I ask who bought this rug? It doesn’t seem your taste at all, Mrs. Cantwell.”
“Another of poor Mark’s efforts at decoration,” his mother answered. “It’s an awful thing, isn’t it? The auctioneer’s delight, I call it. Much too thick a pile, and such a bilious color!”
“I like it,” Mark said.
His wife Ruth smiled loyally. “It makes the room look very manly.”
“Dear little Mark.” Madam Margot slid her arm under her son’s. “He was always an unmanageable brat. But I always forgave him — everything. Horrid rugs, wrong fireplaces and all.”
And she kissed her frowning son tenderly.
Dr. Skyro greeted me the next day with a limp but friendly handshake.
“I sent for you,” he said, “because we are approaching the third step in your friend’s cure.”
“I was unaware of any progress,” I said.
Skyro rolled his beetle eyes behind the thick lenses. He was being rollicking.
“There will be five steps in all,” he said. “You witnessed step number one last night. I doubt, however, if you were aware of it.”
I shook my head.
“The gas log,” Skyro beamed.
“What about the gas log?”
“The gas log is responsible for Mark’s loss of voice,” Skyro said. “I knew your friend was guilty of plotting a murder, as I told you yesterday. And that this inner guilt deprived him of his voice in the courtroom. But I saw last night that Mark has not only dreamed subconsciously of murdering his wife; he has—”
“His wife!” I interrupted. “You must mean his mother!”
“But no. Your tormented friend feels he must murder his wife as a love sacrifice to his goddess-mother; he has also rigged up the mechanics of that phantom crime. And the mechanics are by no means phantomish. He has refused to have his gas log turned into a genuine and cozy fireplace, because the gas log is the murder weapon. And he has insured the efficiency of his weapon by laying down that hideous carpet. You see, when he finally decides to murder Ruth and when he turns on the gas and leaves it escaping, there will be no chance of the gas leaking out through any cracks under the door.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” I said. “Mark is incapable of plotting so ugly and stupid a business as all that.”
“Go on,” Skyro beamed.
“He would obviously not have come to you for help,” I continued, “if he knew he were at work on a crime. A criminal doesn’t call on the police to advertise the crime he’s going to commit.”
“A crude analogy,” Skyro said. “Mark is not a criminal. He is only a half-criminal. His personality is split. What says the Bible — about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? Mark’s left hand is his subconscious. It is very busy buying rugs, rigging up gas logs, and preparing a crime. His right hand knows nothing of these activities. Hence his recourse to the police, as you call me.”
“I’ve always found it hard to believe in the Jekyll-Hyde idea,” I said. “But granting that a man may be blind to the things he is doing, your deductions still seem a bit arbitrary. How do you know it’s the gas log?”