Dead Woman by Dr. David H. Keller
He was found in the room with his wife, slightly con¬fused, a trifle bewildered, but otherwise apparently normal. He made no effort to conceal his con¬duct any more than he did to the knife in his hand or the pieces in the trunk.
Fortunately the inspector was an officer of more than usual intelli¬gence, and there was no effort made to give the third degree or even se¬cure a written confession. Perhaps the Police Department felt it was too plain a case. At least it was handled intelligently and in a most scientific manner. The man was well fed, carefully bedded, and the next morning, after being bathed and shaved was taken to see a psychi¬atrist.
The specialist in mental diseases had the man comfortably seated. Knowing he smoked, he offered a cigar, which was accepted. Then, in a quiet, pleasant atmosphere, he made one statement and one request.
“I am sure, Mr. Thompson, that you had an excellent reason for act¬ing as you did the other day. I wish you would tell me all about it.”
THE man gazed at the psychiatrist. “Will you believe me if I tell you?”
“I will accept every part of your story with the idea that you are con¬vinced that you are telling me the truth.”
“That is all I want,” whispered Thompson. “If everyone I talked to in the past had done that, if they had even tried to check up on my story, perhaps this would not have happened. But they always thought that I was the sick one, and there was not one who was willing to ac¬cept my statement about the worms.
“I suppose that I was happily mar¬ried. At least as much so as most men are. You know that there is a good deal of conflict between the sexes, and there were a few differ¬ences of opinion between Mrs. Thompson and myself. But not enough to cause serious difficulty. Will you remember that? That we did not quarrel very much?
“About a year ago my wife’s health began to give me considerable cause for worry. She started to fail. If you are a married man, Doctor, you know there is always that anxiety about the wife’s health. You become ac¬customed to living with a woman, having her do things for you, go to places with you and you think about how life would be if she should sicken and die. Perhaps the fact that you are uneasy about the future makes you exaggerate the importance of her symptoms.
“At any rate she became sick, de¬veloped a nasty cough and lost weight. I spoke to her about it and even bought a bottle of beef, wine and iron at the drug store and made her take it. She did so to please me, but she never would admit that she was sick. Said it was fashionable to be thin and that the cough was just nervousness.
“She would not go to see a doctor. When I spoke to her mother about it, the old lady just laughed at me; said that if I tried to make Lizzie a little happier she would soon get fat. In fact, none of our family or our friends seemed to feel that there was anything wrong with Mrs. Thomp¬son, so I stopped talking about it.
“Of course it was not easy on me, the way she coughed at night, and her staying awake so much. I work hard in the daytime and it is hard to lose a lot of sleep. At last I was forced to ask her to let me sleep in the spare bedroom.
“Even that did not help much. I could hear her cough, and when she did fall asleep I would have to tip¬toe into her room and see if she was all right. Her coughing bothered me so much that when she did not cough it worried me more because I thought something had happened to her.
“One night the thing I was afraid of happened. She had a hard spell of coughing and then she stopped. It was quiet in the house. I could hear the clock on the landing tick, and a mouse gnawing wood in the attic. I thought I could even hear my own heart beat, but there was not a sound of any kind from the other bedroom.
“When I went in there and turned on the light I just knew it was all over. Of course I was not sure. A bookkeeper is not supposed to be an expert in such matters, so I went and telephoned for our doctor. On the way to the phone I wondered just what I should say, for he had always insisted that my wife was in grand health. So I simply told him that Mrs. Thompson was not looking well and would he come over. Just like that I told him, and tried to keep my voice steady.
“It was about an hour before he came. He went into the bedroom but I stopped at the doorway. He spent sometime listening to her heart and feeling her pulse and then he straightened up and said to me:
‘“She is fine. Just fast asleep. I wish I could sleep as soundly as that. What did you think was wrong?’