Blade #30 - Dimension of Horror by Jeffrey Lord

Author:Jeffrey Lord [Lord, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp Adventure
ISBN: 9780523402086
Publisher: Pinnacle Books (Mm)
Published: 1979-06-14T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Dr. Saxton Colby was radical in his willingness to explore the more hidden and occult aspects of the mind, to advance into those shadowed areas normally reserved for quacks, charlatans, fanatics and madmen. In this he followed the example of the great psychologist C.J. Jung. In his therapeutic methods, however, Colby was an archconservative. Thus his office was furnished with an old-fashioned psychoanalytical couch, not unlike the one used by Dr. Freud in Austria in the early years of this century, the favored symbol of cartoonists to this day. The couch was a Victorian antique, armless, raised at one end, deep-tufted, fringed all around, and upholstered in maroon crushed plush. As Richard Blade sat down on it, Colby looked on with ill-concealed agitation.

"Lie back and relax, Richard," the doctor instructed.

Richard obeyed. "Like this?"

"Exactly."

Colby quickly crossed to close the heavy maroon window drapes, plunging the small cluttered room into semidarkness, then returned to seat himself behind the couch on a sturdy Morris chair, outside Richard's field of vision, next to a three-foot-tall pedestal on which rested a lifesize bronze bust of the logotherapist Joseph Fabry.

Colby opened his notepad, and with his faintly gleaming silver ballpoint pen wrote Richard's name and the date at the head of the first blank page he came to. He glanced at Richard, who seemed, in white T-shirt and slacks, almost to be glowing. He thought, Today we'll make some progress. Five daily one-hour sessions had thus far yielded Colby little more than Richard's name, rank and serial number, plus the definite impression that Richard had mislaid ten years and was in no hurry to track them down. Colby pursed his lips and waited. When Richard said nothing, he prompted, "In the dining room you promised me an interesting hour."

"So I did," Richard mused. "I fully intend to keep that promise."

"Have any more memories returned?"

"No, but I am gradually beginning to understand what's happened to me, by detective work rather than recall. You're a detective of sorts, aren't you?"

"One might say that."

"Your job is to unearth all your patients' dirty little secrets. That's detective work. You might do well in my line, doctor. I think I'd do well in yours."

"You don't say. Do you think you could-as you put it-unearth all my dirty little secrets?" Colby had confronted this psychological gambit before. In fact, sooner or later every patient took a turn at trying to switch places with the therapist. They were never very good at it, but the false ideas they came up with were often their own problems projected, and thus worth listening to.

"Nothing profound, of course. Your speech tells me you've lived in London, Scotland and Ireland," said Blade.

"Well, not bad. You're right so far."

"You were educated in the USA, or at least went to a university here."

"Right again. Did you get that from the way I talk?"

"No, but from where I'm lying I can see the books on your shelves. All the college-level texts are from American, not British, publishers."

"Bravo!" Colby was genuinely amused.

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