Chapter 2

The contents of this letter inspired me with a vague disquiet. “I hate
blackmail cases,” I said involuntarily. “It’s like digging in pitch.”

“Oh, quite,” said Mme. Storey. “But you must admit this has intriguing
possibilities.”

“We have plenty of other work,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “but we could take this on quite easily. Barney
Craigin is convicted and sentenced. The decks are cleared of that
mess.”

“And now you’re considering dumping a worse mess upon them,” I said.

“Well, that’s our job,” she said, laughing; “cleaning up messes.”

I sighed. I saw she was going to take it. I had a strong premonition
of evil but it would have been useless to speak of it. I reread the
letter. “One who was dear to me,” I quoted musingly.

“Wife is suggested,” said Mme. Storey.

“We could look up the wives of rich men who have died lately,” I said.

“Oh,” said my mistress, “if I find the facts as stated, and if the
money is all right, I’m not going to bother with trying to explode the
anonymity of our client. His reasons for wishing to keep himself in
the dark are perfectly natural.”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, going over the letter. “To make believe
that his records were stolen, then to have the demand for blackmail
seem to come from another source! What infernal cleverness!”

“Ah! we would be up against a very superior antagonist here!” said Mme.
Storey. “One hears about Dr. Jacmer Touchon on every side. He seems
to be the inventor of psycho-synthesis. It is the latest craze.
Psychoanalysis is becoming a little _demode_, you understand; everybody
who has the price has been psychoanalyzed by this time, and Dr. Touchon
catches them on the rebound by going psychoanalysis one better.
‘Soul-building!’ Who could resist it? The phrase was an inspiration.
He must be coining money! … But I never suspected that blackmailing
was a by-product of the institution. He really ought to have stopped
with psycho-synthesis.”

She arose and began to pace the long room with very bright eyes.
“Years ago I used to know Jacmer Touchon,” she went on. “He was
professor of psychology in my university. He had written several books
on the subject which I as a budding psychologist was bound to read.
Very good books, too. In fact, he had an international reputation.
Unfortunately he began to take too warm a personal interest in one of
his students who shall be nameless. In fact, there was a scene and I
was forced to cut his lectures, much as I enjoyed them. Later he
resigned his chair and I heard no more of him. Now he turns up as a
psycho-synthetist. I suppose he found that the big rewards were never
for pure science and so turned crooked. What a strange turn of
fortune. Bella, this man was my master in psychology. I foresee that
we are going to have the fight of our lives!”

Alas! I am not cast in the heroic mould like my beautiful mistress,
and I was filled with a wretched anxiety. By an exceptionally
brilliant piece of work she had just succeeded in convicting the
notorious Barney Craigin of murder. She was at the very summit of her
fame. She had everything to lose and nothing to gain by embarking on
such an adventure.

“Hadn’t you better call up the bank first?” I suggested drily.

“To be sure!” she said, returning to her desk, and taking down the
receiver.

To make a long story short the Duane National confirmed the contents of
our letter. The sum of one hundred thousand dollars had been put in
the hands of the bank to be paid to Mme. Storey’s order upon the
submission of vouchers of expenses. The bank claimed not to know the
name of their client. The business had been effected through an
attorney who likewise claimed to be ignorant of his principal’s
identity. However, the president of the bank (an acquaintance of my
employer’s) assured her that the money was there. An officer of the
bank was to pass on the correctness of the vouchers.

“That appears to be all right,” said Mme. Storey. “You may notify your
client–I assume you have the means of doing so–that I will take the
case.”

When she had hung up I asked, somewhat stiffly I suspect: “What will be
your first move?”

“Obviously,” she said with a provoking smile, “you must go to Dr.
Touchon as a prospective patient. He’s a neighbour of ours. His place
is in the Westmoreland apartments, cater-cornered across the square.”

My heart sank. “But you know,” I said helplessly, “I have no natural
talent for impersonation.”

“You may have no natural talent,” she retorted, “but you have brains,
which is more important. I can’t go myself because he knows me, and
there is no other woman I could trust on so important and so difficult
an assignment.”

I continued to make feeble objections, but she went on as if the matter
were settled: “You must be provided with an absolutely watertight
character. And you must have a story to tell that will bear the
closest examination. Naturally, the doctor will have you looked up
before he commits himself to anything…. I have it!” she cried in
elation. “You shall masquerade as Mrs. Sylvanus Ensor, that poor woman
who comes to me for treatments. She will give her permission. Her
husband is a prosperous manufacturer of Detroit and she’s supposed to
be travelling in Europe while she remains quietly in New York under my
care. Such a story would bear investigation as far as Dr. Touchon
wanted to go. He would be delighted to get such a patient…. I’ll
make you up to resemble Mrs. Ensor as far as I am able.”

“She looks like a walking corpse!” I objected.

Mme. Storey laughed at my expression of offended vanity. “So much the
better!” she said. “A fit subject for the psycho-synthetist!”

_2._

This Mrs. Ensor was an unfortunate woman who believed that she had
promptings to kill her husband. Hers was one of those obscure
borderline cases; she was not mad, she only thought she was. Having
tried everything else, she had come to New York to put herself in Mme.
Storey’s hands for psychological treatments. She already seemed
better. She lived very quietly with her maid in a small hotel near our
office and came in three mornings a week for treatments. Meanwhile, in
order to save the feelings of her family, it had been given out at home
that she was travelling in Europe.