Louis spoke. “I have endangered my position by showing you these affidavits, Jon. I have done it out of regard for you, in spite of our past—differences. We have all endangered ourselves, with, perhaps, the exception of Father McNulty, whom I consulted long ago when I first heard of the plot against you. For this is confidential. None of it should have been shown to you, to your lawyer, or anyone else until after the hearing before the State Medical Board. Now you understand the gravity of the situation. You understand how we have jeopardized ourselves. For you to do anything, to say anything, of what you have read, and what you will read, or to name any names, or seek a private revenge on anybody— before the time is ripe—then you will have destroyed us. Have I made this clear, desperately clear?”
“You have,” said Jonathan. He was beginning to sweat again.
Louis looked at the others. “I have shown these things to Father McNulty and to your friend, Robert Morgan, your replacement. I have consulted them all and asked their advice, especially Howard’s. They said in all fairness—though it is very dangerous—I should show the affidavits to you, for they know your character. They wished you to read what you have read, and now this, so that an interval can pass so you can calm and prepare yourself and think clearly. If you should appear before the State Medical Board members and your enemies in a state of passion—as you should if you had not known all this—and with your usual recklessness and fury, you would be exonerated of the alleged crimes, but you would make such a vile impression on the members of the Board that you would be in disgrace for the rest of your life. The State Medical Board does not like physicians who lose their heads, and threaten, and rage. Your reputation would be irretrievably lost. Is that clear, Jon?”
“Louis,” said Jonathan, and he was visibly moved. “I will do nothing to hurt anyone here. No one will ever know, before Tuesday, or even afterward, that you have shown me these things beforehand.” He suddenly grinned, for the tension was growing. “I kiss your hand, Louis.”
“I don’t know which is more distasteful, your rages, your sarcasms, or your humor, Jon, if you can call it humor.” But Louis smiled, also, and shook his head.
“The best thing, of course,” said Howard, “would be to gag him right here and tie him up and hide him in that closet until Tuesday, allowing him out, still gagged and tied, for only strictly sanitary purposes.”
“Excruciatingly funny,” said Jonathan. He was white again. “Now may I read?”
“With compassion,” said Father McNulty. “The man was weak and tragically foolish.”
Jonathan made an unpleasant grimace. “I never had compassion for such men, Frank,” he said. “Except for my father. He cured me of sentimentality because he was the most sentimental of creatures. I see these papers are typewritten. I thought you said they were in the man’s own handwriting.”
“The original is,” said Louis. “But we have a reason, which no doubt you will understand after you’ve read the affidavit, to keep the original from you as of now.”
Jonathan frowned at him, but Louis only nodded at the papers, and Jonathan began to read. After a moment, when he saw that this was the last affidavit of Martin Eaton, he uttered a loud and contemptuous curse and then was still.
They all watched Jonathan, and now no man smoked but sat very stiff and rigidly in his chair. They were like men watching a powerful but unpredictable lion, waiting for
a
movement of its eyes, a bristling of the mane,
a
twitch of
a
muscle, to inform them in which direction he was about to leap. By a flick of his lashes, the tightening of his mouth, the raise of his brows, and by his color, they knew almost exactly the paragraph he was reading. Amazement, hatred, repulsion, scorn, disbelief, somber melancholy, fury, even surprise: they saw them all.
They knew when he came to the account of Mavis’ death, for every muscle in his body straightened and his mouth became ugly and hard. When he uttered one foul expletive, they knew he had come upon his brother’s name. It was then that he looked up at them, and yet did not see them. He was looking inward, not outward, and there was an ominous expression about his eyes and mouth. He was too quiet. They watched him tautly, leaning toward him. The silence in the room became unbearable. They wanted him to speak, to swear, even to rave. That would have been more normal than this quietude, this glittering reflectiveness, this pallid lack of emotion.
Then he laid the papers on his knee and lit a cigarette and he smoked
a
little, still staring blindly at each face, then at the walls, then at the ceiling and the floor. They knew he was not conscious of smoking, and that in himself something very dire was going on, something so profound and explosive that it could not reach the ear or any other sense. His emotions were beyond human expression, too turbulent for speech. His nostrils were flared as if he were lacking oxygen, and then his eyes narrowed and he picked up the papers again and resumed reading.
I asked for calm, thought Louis Hedler, but I’d prefer raving to this. I’d almost prefer that he’d lose his mind—temporarily, of course.
Then he had finished. Very slowly and carefully he put the papers on Louis’ desk and crushed his cigarette in the tray. He watched the last smoke curl up as if it were of the most intense importance. He finally said. “You have the original, in his own writing?”
“I have,” said Louis.
“Where is it?”
“In a very safe place.” Then Louis knew he had been very discreet, indeed, in having copies made by a trusted clerk and not giving Martin Eaton’s affidavit to Jonathan.
“It must be destroyed.” Nothing could have been more indifferent than Jonathan’s voice.
“I thought you’d think that,” said Louis. “But no. I am not going to ask you for your reasons. I suspect them. Your pride. The pride that kept you silent in the courtroom. Jonathan, you are not the first man whose wife betrayed him, nor will you be the last. In
a
way, you may have saved your life by your silence, for then there was no motive for any alleged crime.”
Jonathan said,
“I
was trying to protect that old bugger, Eaton—his dream of Mavis. I remembered how it was between us when I was a kid and how he helped me all the years of my— He knew all the time! He knew the truth. Yet, he never said a word except to scream ‘No, no!’ when the verdict came in.”
“Remember,” said Father McNulty, “he did, in his grief and pain, believe that you were in part guilty of your wife’s death. It was insane and twisted thinking, but who has not been guilty of that? Not you, Jon?” The priest smiled sadly. “I know it will take much understanding on your part to feel pity for that distraught father.”
But Jonathan had relapsed into his profound meditation again and was lost to them. Robert Morgan was somewhat relieved, being still young and uncomplicated, at Jonathan’s apparent control of himself when he had expected madness and terrible rage. But Howard Best and the priest and Louis Hedler knew Jonathan much better, and now they were greatly alarmed and very uneasy and disturbed as they watched the silent man.
“No one else must see Eaton’s letter,” said Jonathan, after long minutes.
“Jon,” said Louis Hedler, “I’m not interested as to your reasons for asking that. I know it is the one thing that can lift the libel and hostility and hate this town feels for you. You must be exonerated from even the suspicion that you injured, killed, Mavis.
“There is another matter,” said Louis, and now the froggy eyes glistened with inner excitement. “Brinkerman must not only have his license revoked, but he must be prosecuted for the crime he committed against your wife and those two other girls. God knows how many others he has maimed, caused to die, or aborted. I know his wife is the apple of his eye, and she is wildly extravagant. This has probably been going on for a long time. He must be exposed and punished, and prevented from other crimes.
“There is also Senator Campion. I have not yet fully planned how to approach him and expose him for instigating this plot against you.”
“His son, Francis, will arrive tomorrow,” said the priest. “I have sent for him to help you. But, as it is, his help may not be needed except as a point against the Senator.”
“By precipitating a crisis,” said Howard Best with satisfaction, but still watching Jonathan uneasily, “Senator Campion has done you a wonderful turn. You could never have lived with the knowledge that Hambledon, and perhaps the whole state of Pennsylvania, and probably other cities, believed you guilty of your wife’s murder. You’ve been acting, since the trial, like a man without a care in the world, but I know you
better, Jonathan. I know that you don’t want to leave Hambledon, where you were born—”
Jonathan stood up slowly, and then in a most casual tone he told them what they should do with Hambledon and everyone in it. He expounded on the matter with easy eloquence, as if he were amused. But they saw his eyes. He was only half aware of what he was saying. The inner black turbulence was gathering force in him.
Louis interrupted. “You have forgotten that there is a clergyman present, Jon.”
“Oh, I’ve heard all the words before,” said young Father McNulty, whose rosy face now had no color at all, and though he smiled he looked a little sick. Robert Morgan was tremendously embarrassed and he had flushed. Howard Best pretended not to have heard.
“I think,” said Louis, “that as it is nearly midnight, that we should disband.” He looked at Jonathan who had gone to an open window and was looking through it, his hands in his pockets.
“Jon?” said Louis Hedler, and struggled to keep the pity from his voice. “I want you to think of this: In a month you will recall this night only occasionally. In a year you will not think of it at all. In two years it will be like a bad dream, almost forgotten entirely. You are still young. Your whole life is before you now, cleared, clean, ready.” He hesitated. “Jon, would you consider becoming chief of surgery here?”
Jonathan said, as if he had not heard at all, “I have things to consider.” He turned. The sallow calm was fixed on his face. He looked at each man separately. “I suppose I should thank you. Howard, send me a bill.”
“Go to hell,” said Howard Best.
“And Louis,” said Jonathan, “I haven’t any words.
I
still don’t believe it.” He actually smiled.
But Louis, studying him closely, did not smile. “Jon,” he said. “You have given us your solemn promise, and you were never a man to go back on your word, for good or evil. You must not do anything—rash—or violent. We have put our own safety in your hands, our own reputations. You have promised.”
“I don’t break my word,” said Jonathan. Then it Was as if an inner and fierce convulsion ran through him and he shivered, and clenched his fists at his sides, and closed his eyes for a moment. “I leave Brinkerman and Campion to you, at least for the first attack. I will meet with you here at St. Hilda’s, in the conference room, at what time on Tuesday morning?”
Louis exchanged a glance with Howard Best and said smoothly, “I will let you know the exact time later.”
He stood up. “I think you can have that drink you wanted now.” He went to a cabinet and brought out a bottle of brandy and several glasses. “I think we all need this.”
Jonathan said, “No.”
“I will drive you home,” said Robert Morgan.
But the priest said, “I’d prefer to do that, Dr. Morgan.
I
want to have a word with Jonathan, probably about Francis.”
To the surprise of everyone Jonathan said nothing more. He had relapsed into his inner dream again. He did not even remember to shake hands with the men who had saved him, and they understood. They shook hands with each other, murmuring in low voices, as if there were a corpse in the room or something that must not be aroused to some towering and fatal detonation. Then the priest touched Jonathan’s arm and they left together, and the others watched them go, thankful that Jonathan was leaving, yet more anxious than ever.
“I don’t like it,” said Howard to Louis Hedler.
“Disliking it is putting it very mildly,” said the doctor. “I’ve seen Jonathan in some dangerous moods before but nothing like this.”
The priest drove his buggy through the dark and silent city, very dim now and asleep. The heat lightning still snaked and forked over the black mountains. There was a dry and burning scent in the air of withered leaves and dust and heated stone.
Jonathan did not speak. He swayed in the buggy as loosely as if he were unconscious, and the priest drove slowly, praying for words. He knew that Jonathan was not aware of being in the buggy or even that it was night, and he was afraid. He said, “Francis came at once when I cabled him.”
Jonathan did not reply. He fumbled for his cigarettes, lit one, stared at it and the priest could see the ghastliness of his face by the instant flare of the match. Then the night took it again, and the priest felt a hard pressure in his chest and new fear. He spoke slowly and quietly.
“Jon, we are only fallible men, and so it is that often we are very wrong. It is possible, perhaps probable, that we erred in talking to you as we did tonight, urging you to walk
and speak more discreetly in the future, and even implying that much of the tragedy which has come to you lies in your own nature. How dared we be so smug and so sure and so superior?” He sighed. “I think it was concern for you that made us speak so, for none of us meant that you should sacrifice principle, employ some hypocrisy, and be smilingly discreet in most situations. That is the way of cowardice, and you were quite right to rebuke us. It is the discreet man who, by his silence, or his smiles, or his prudence, is the cause of much evil in the world, for he who does not actively oppose it gives at least a tacit assent.”