Dr. Wilde

Dr. Wilde is the Salinas physician whose medical authority and trusting nature are exploited by Kate in her campaign to murder Faye and inherit her brothel. A country doctor of the old school, he combines genuine compassion with a fatal credulity that allows a patient's lies to override his clinical instincts. His role in the story is that of an honest man whose honesty becomes a weapon in the hands of a monster.

Identity and Professional Character

Dr. Wilde is a good and honest man, a combination doctor, priest, and psychiatrist to the town of Salinas. He is accustomed to saying of his profession that all he is sure of is that sulphur will cure the itch. He never learns to take death easily; the death of a patient always gives him a sense of failure and hopeless ignorance. He is not a bold man and uses surgery only as a last and fearful resort. Many years of overwork and interrupted sleep have made him a little vague and preoccupied. He maintains his own dispensary and compounds his own prescriptions, a practice that gives Kate access to the medicines she needs for her plot.

Encounter with Cathy Trask

When Cathy nearly dies from a self-induced abortion using a knitting needle, Dr. Wilde is called to her bedside in the King City hotel. He makes a quick examination, inserts a packing, and sends Adam out of the room. His face is red with anger as he confronts Cathy. "Why did you do it?" he demands. He picks up the knitting needle from the bureau and shakes it in her face. "The old offender—the old criminal," he says. "You're a fool. You've nearly killed yourself and you haven't lost your baby." When Cathy refuses to speak, he talks rapidly on, dreading the sick silence between his sentences. This woman puzzles him; there is something inhuman about her. He tells her that the baby is safe and warns her that if she loses this baby and he has any reason to suspect monkey business, he will charge her, testify against her, and see her punished. Cathy then lies to him, claiming epilepsy runs in her family and that she could not bear to bring that to her husband. Dr. Wilde's anger disappears like mist. "Poor child," he says. "My poor child." He reassures her and promises not to tell Adam what she did. He puts the knitting needle in his pocket and leaves, having been completely deceived.

Role in Faye's Illness and Death

Months later, after Kate has begun poisoning Faye with croton oil, Dr. Wilde is called to the brothel. He finds both Faye and Kate weak from vomiting and diarrhea. He notices the trays and demands whether the string beans are home canned. When told they are, he orders every jar broken. "Goddam the string beans!" he says, and unpacks his stomach pump. He tells the two pale women they are lucky to have survived botulism. He never suspects the truth. As Faye's health continues to decline, Dr. Wilde listens a long time through his stethoscope. He tells Kate that Faye's heart just cannot take the strain. "I thought it would be better to tell you so you can prepare yourself," he says lamely and puts his hand on her bony shoulder. "Not many people have such loyalty." He is completely taken in by Kate's performance of devoted care.

Unwitting Complicity

Dr. Wilde's dispensary becomes a source for Kate's poisons. When Kate visits his office for more pills, she finds the dispensary door unlocked and surveys the lines of bottles and containers. She later takes five small bottles and a strip of scribbled paper from her handbag, hiding them in her room. Dr. Wilde, preoccupied and trusting, never notices anything amiss. His professional authority and his good name serve to shield Kate from suspicion. When he diagnoses botulism from home-canned string beans, the explanation is accepted by everyone, and no one questions why only Faye and Kate were affected. His honest error becomes the cornerstone of Kate's successful murder.

Thematic Significance

Dr. Wilde embodies the failure of conventional goodness and professional competence to recognize evil. His compassion makes him vulnerable to manipulation; his trust in a patient's word overrides his own unease. He represents the world of decent, hardworking people who cannot conceive of the kind of calculated malevolence Kate represents. His role in the story demonstrates how evil can operate not by defeating good but by using it as a shield. The honest doctor, by believing a lie, becomes an accessory to murder without ever knowing it.