Kings Row by Henry Bellamann

Author:Henry Bellamann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, film adaptation
Publisher: Distributed Proofreaders Canada
Published: 1941-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

The letters from Vienna were in order. There would be some examinations to take, but Dr. Tower had been reassuring about them. Parris placed the letters carefully in his new large billfold. He was about to pack the composition books away when he noticed one, thicker than the others, which looked unfamiliar. He opened it, leafed hurriedly through, read a little, and turned back to the beginning. It was closely written in Dr. Tower’s small, difficult handwriting. It didn’t appear to be a diary, though the entries were dated, but rather a record—disjointed notes—of thinking along some more or less obscure lines.

Parris stared at it for a moment. He wondered if he had a right to read it. It was clearly a sort of confidential record. He decided that Dr. Tower had either forgotten the book in the onslaught of a sudden and violent impulse, or had been indifferent. Certainly, Parris thought, he, more than anyone else, had some right to know what led up to the tragic outcome of that mysterious night.

He turned the lamp up a little. Drake had gone to bed. Then he began to read.

The short, abruptly worded notes were difficult to understand. At first they seemed to make no sense whatever. Gradually Parris perceived some slight connections, a scarcely perceptible thread that led from one cryptic paragraph to the next. None of the entries referred directly to actual, or concrete happenings, but rather to the way Dr. Tower felt about himself. Occasionally a note pointed to some person, or period, but the effect was one of indirection, a slanting glimpse into a mood—hardly more than an overtone.

Little by little it became less vague. Dr. Tower’s familiar elliptical style of utterance was there and the quick, fleeting touches upon widely scattered, but subtly related stations of a subject. Parris was sufficiently familiar with Dr. Tower’s manner of expressing himself to read more on the page than was actually written there. But the effect of the whole was a little dizzying. He leaned closely over the book to follow the tortuous script. Once or twice he put the book down partly to rest his eyes, but also to reassure himself of the actuality of the room and his surroundings. Sometimes the sentences rushed along in a kind of steaming fury; sometimes they dripped slowly, precisely, coldly, like clear drops from an icicle.

Again and again Parris found himself obliged to turn back and reread many pages—to puzzle, and wonder, and guess. But it was beginning to make sense. The very psychological study Dr. Tower had made him do, and the severe discipline he had had in following the confused and confusing processes of unsound minds as revealed in their various expressions, made some understanding of these pages possible. For Parris had no doubt that what he was reading sprang from a mind that had long since gone upon dangerous ways. That Dr. Tower’s mind had been driven willfully upon such journeys was also apparent.

Parris rubbed his eyes, turned back to the beginning of the book and began again.

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