The Journal Of Edwin Gray

by Scott A Johnson

  Apparently, Edwin Grey was not always the philanthropist the city knew and loved. He was, in fact, a reclusive hermit, held fast in the throws of a deep melancholy that seemingly had neither cause nor cure. This was, Molen pointed out, several years ago, when Edwin still maintained a household staff of twelve and never once thought about giving any of his money to the poor. He would call his doctor on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis to help him with phantom ailments that, in truth, arose from his depression. Exasperated and without further recourse, his doctor had recommended keeping a journal in which he could document all his aches and pains and possibly discover a cause to the profound misery that so tormented him.

  Edwin had thought the idea grand and inspired, and immediately set off into town, the first such excursion he'd taken in months, in search of what he called a “proper journal.” Molen had driven him about town searching for his prize to no avail, until they came to a district with which he was unfamiliar, and was uncertain he could find again. It was there that Edwin entered a curious shop. Above its door hung a shingle bearing Chinese symbols, alongside a notation that designated the establishment as importers. The windows, he said, were full of wondrous and terrible things, masks that resembled demon heads and carved monkeys. He cautioned his employer against entering such a bizarre place, but Edwin was determined. Such an establishment, he reasoned, might just have that which he sought.

  What transpired inside, Molen could not say, but when Edwin had returned to the car, he was giddy and holding a package beneath his arm. In it, he later told Molen, was his salvation: a proper journal and a fountain pen.

  Edwin had retired early that night to his study, almost the moment they arrived back to Grey House, and wrote his first entry, full of hope for release against this disease of the mind that so gripped him. He followed a for several days, his mirth and joy waning little by little every day until he'd slipped back into the same melancholy from which the journal was to be his savior. It was two weeks when Edwin had awakened and exclaimed with such joy that he alerted the entire house. The servants gathered at the source of the noise, the outer door of his study. The master appeared, his eyes alight with fires of giddy inspiration, filling his servants with fear that he'd lost his senses, only to have him explain his wonderful plan of helping his fellow man.

  Over the following weeks, Molen related, my uncle continued his pattern of writing in his journal, each time coming away with more wonderful ideas of how to make himself more useful to his fellow man. Then, one morning, there came an awful shriek from the study. Molen and the other servants had come to the door in time to see Edwin locking it, his eyes wide and crazed with a fear that none of them could fathom or reason. He instructed that no one was to enter the room again, and he stayed away himself, for a few days. But then he would steal in, as if it were forbidden from even him in his own house. Then the screaming would begin anew, and his disposition went from melancholy to fearful and erratic. In less than a month, he'd driven off all the staff but Molen, whose reasons for staying he never made clear, only saying that he could not leave his longtime employer in such a state.

  He raised his eyes to me with a look of great sorrow and gravity and told me he felt the journal had somehow been at the root of it all.

  Such a statement, I need not say, struck me as the most preposterous notion ever conceived in man's imagination, and I told him as such. He took no offence, only shook his head sadly. I further informed him that I believed that this journal did, in fact, hold the key to the cause of my uncle's suicide, and it was my full intention to read every page to piece together what clues lay inside. At this, he stood as though he'd been shocked, his face taut with dread, and he again pleaded with me not to read the thing and to let him dispose of it. I could not be dissuaded, especially by superstitious drivel, and I stood fast to my word. As he saw that he could not sway me of my opinion, Molen bade me good night and left me in the nearly empty room.

  Alone now, I again opened the volume and turned to the first entry, which was dated the fifteenth of August, 1921. This first entry, true to the description that Molen had provided, was full of hope and joy, as though Edwin had dreamt of liberation of his burden of depression for many months and had, at that time, found his deliverance.

  August 15, 1921

  I returned home today with the most amazing sense of hope and anticipation, as though the melancholy with which I've been afflicted of late has taken leave, full knowing that this journal is the key to its dismissal and to my salvation. What wonders shall I uncover in my explorations of my own mind, I wonder, and will those discoveries make me again a whole man? I scarcely feel that I can bear waiting, as I am anxious to begin my journey.

  I sat reading the entries of nearly thirty days, longer than Molen had indicated, until my eyes could no longer focus on the pages. I recognized the pattern the old servant had mentioned, that my uncle's mood had grown increasingly dark during that time, when he, no doubt, began to realize that such a cure was not to happen over the course of one night. I felt a great swell of pity for my uncle, who wanted nothing more than to be useful and remembered, and could not fathom such a way on his own. Still, there was no indication of suicidal thoughts. The answer, I concluded, must lay deeper within the volume.

  I rose from my chair and left the journal on the table, taking care to lock the door as my uncle had done, in the case that Molen, meaning well in his superstitious nature, take advantage of my rest and spirit the journal away. I should, I confess, have taken the book with me to my room, where it would have been easier for me to guard it, but I could still feel the presence of my uncle, his screaming madness, all around the tome, and, to be quite honest, the thing set my skin prickling. A single thought that troubled me did occur, however. Why had Molen acted so strangely at seeing the book, and what was it that he did not wish for me to read? Perhaps my uncle did not commit suicide at all and his death lay in the hands of another. Perhaps my uncle had named his killer before he died, and his name was Molen's.

  During the next day, my time was occupied with other affairs concerning the estate of Edwin Grey, and now my own estate, as it seemed the town was in no shortage of those in need. My sleep from the night previous had not been at all restful, as my mind continuously puzzled over Molen's possible motives, or if he were, indeed, a murderer.

  By day's end, I was thoroughly exhausted, and was quite thankful to find that old habits died hard in the old manservant, who still had set the sideboard for supper. I, ignoring his protestations, helped him tidy up afterward, reminding him that he was not my servant, nor was he actually in my employ, and retired to the study to continue my sleuthing. As I unlocked the door, I felt a flutter in my stomach, as though I could actually be afraid of such a thing as an empty room and a book. I brushed the feeling aside and assumed my place in the great leather chair and opened to where I'd left off the night previous. It was nearly a month after the first entry that I read, and the signs of my uncle's insidious condition were evident in the text.

  September 11, 1921

  Is it not meant for man to achieve joy? Is man not a creature of happy thoughts and dreams? Why, then, is there no relief? Why, then, can a man of apparent wealth and means find no source of delight amid his world of finery and comfort? What shall I do? How shall a man, without whom he feels the world would function adequately, find fulfillment?

  The tone of the letter dripped of such hopelessness, that it caused me pain to read it. Though I'd not known my uncle for any great length of time, and though he did indeed have his eccentricities, he was, after all, still my uncle. So deep was the wretched feeling that washed over me that I very nearly mistook the scribbled pen lines below as just that. On closer inspection, I saw the lines had shape and formed words. Help your fellow man. I sat confused, as the handwriting, if such scrawl could be referred to as such, was clearly not my uncle's neat, right-handed script. The author, if not for the syntax, might have been wholly illiterate. But the words were there, none
theless. Such vague advice, obviously not by the same hand, seemed an intrusion on my uncle's most private thoughts, for who would be possessed of such audacity as to write in the journal of another man? My thoughts immediately flashed to Molen, who, meaning well and to soothe the melancholy of Edwin's humor, might have stolen in and given what he thought to be a way to lift the spirits of his employer.

  The next entry was again in the hand of my uncle, and showed the success of following the cryptic instructions of the book, though he knew not the author.

  September 12, 1921

  Where shall I begin? On the advice found in these pages, I ventured forth from my home this morning. Of course, this is not entirely true, as I ventured forth in an attempt to get away from this journal and the strange writings I found upon its pages. But as I found a man and his son in need, I heard the words of the book in my ears as if buzzing. I took the two to dine. Oh! How they ate! The man ate more than I'd ever seen one man consume in one sitting, and the boy ate nearly twice that amount! And such a wondrous feeling I had, to be able to help my fellow man in such a way, that I was nearly giddy with joy. They thanked me as we parted ways, and, rather than send them back out on the street to beg for their next meal, I gave the father money, making him promise to do the same for another some day! They looked upon me as though I, Edwin Grey, were the Savior himself! Hooray, for the curse of melancholy has lifted!

  There was, in my uncle's style, a giddiness that seemed to border on intoxication with the generosity that he'd just discovered possible. I continued to read the passing pages, each entry showing a bit more wear on the joyous outlook that so possessed him of generosity, until, at last, Edwin Grey was again in the throws of a deep depression. Again he wrote of his despair, and again he begged some unseen sage for guidance, and again, the scrawling hand provided answers.

  September 28, 1921

  I have become, of late, something of a vigilante, though my works of good will toward my fellow man are aimed toward easing the strain of hunger and poverty of those stricken rather than the apprehension of criminals. But, for all my good deeds, it is not enough. I am greeted with smiles among the downtrodden, with the hope that today will be their day, but there are still so many more. So many more. It grieves me to think that for all my wealth, I am still useful to a very few, and that I remain clueless as to how to give genuine aid. I leave my home each day with a dread, a terrible dread, of seeing those that I cannot help, and I see those to whom I have lent aid again in the streets pandering for coins. It seems that all I have done is futile, and that history will forget Edwin Grey, or remember him as a man who did nothing of significance. How then shall I help my fellow man, not just to feed him for one meal, but to help him feed himself in perpetuity? This hateful feeling of obsolescence burns within my heart. What can I do?

  Beneath his carefully written right-handed script, the unseen had responded with scrawling advice no longer in a single sentence. What followed, I shall provide in its entirety to the best of my memory, as it had great bearing on the life that my uncle was to make his own.

  There are those whose lives are unfortunate, through no fault of their own. These are the tired denizens of the city whose lives have been touched. The key to their salvation is simply a chance, an opportunity. Such a thing is rare for those in need. The place of congregation is where to start, as it is there they shall find their footing and become, again, proud men.

  How my uncle interpreted such advice, I could scarcely imagine, but interpret he did, and with a grander scheme than my own faculties could have contrived. As newspaper reports now confirm, Edwin Grey began, first with poor houses in his own locality, to donate great sums of money, with which clothing and food was to be bought to bring those so unfortunate as to need them the means to seek work.

  And so it continued in this fashion. Edwin Grey would find tiny crumbs of happiness, but would eventually fall again into disparity. His reason clouded, he would write questions while in the throws of a particularly deep melancholy, and the unseen would respond with vague suggestions. It is true that at this point I suspected that the unseen was, in fact, Molen, who would steal in after his employer had retired for the evening and read his tortured thoughts. And though such actions were the deepest sort of betrayal, his motives were noble, and I felt a warmth toward him for his treatment of my uncle.

  I continued my investigation, only skimming the entries to which the strange hand had not replied, and found the tone of the hand to grow darker with each entry. There was no place to which I could point for the source of this opinion, but perhaps it was the way the scrawl became slightly neater, or that the words became less of scratches and more of deep slashing lines in the paper. Whatever the case, I do know for certain that my skin crawled at the sight of the writing that did not belong to my uncle.

  Over the next few days, my time was spent almost exclusively in that dark chamber perusing the thoughts of the dead master of Grey House. I must confess, often in my thoughts I could see his body twitching on his bed with deep crimson staining his pillow. Such a sight is not something that one is soon to forget. It may have been this memory that prickled my mind, spurring me to read on the journal, which, for the most part, was quite ponderous in nature.

  It wasn't until I'd almost lost interest that I came upon a page that was marked by a morbid clipping from the city newspaper, one which told of the gruesome death of a street-woman. At first, I thought nothing of it, as such things were, as terrible at it may sound, almost commonplace. My eye happened to glance, however, at the date on top of the clipping and discovered it to be the day after that of the entry it marked. It seemed odd to me, although no more odd than a randomly misplaced scrap of newspaper, until I read the journal entry. In it, my uncle spoke of wondrous feelings toward his fellow man and the respect his philanthropy had brought him thus far. He had ended his entry with a broad question: “What will tomorrow bring?” In answer, the scrawling hand had replied in a most dreadful manner. For the first time, it spoke not in riddles or vague references, but was concisely to the point.

  Tomorrow, it said, shall bring the murder of Mary Harper.

  On closer inspection of the news clipping, I discovered that, indeed, the slain woman's name was Mary Harper, and that she'd been murdered in a most brutal fashion in the back lot of the mission on 34th Street. Whether my uncle knew or did not know the woman in the article was far from my mind as I stared at the slashed and scratched ink with growing revulsion. It was painfully obvious that the entry had come from the night before. I can only imagine my uncle staring, much the same way I now was, at the great leather volume, trying to puzzle out why it had told him what was going to transpire. Even now, with the more than two years past, I felt my stomach clench with the knowledge that somehow, my uncle had prior knowledge, warning. What did he do, I wondered, at the shocking revelation? Or, more precisely, what could he have possibly done? I imagine he went mad for a time, cursing himself that he could not have somehow sought out this woman, this stranger, and warned her, protected her in some fashion. But, as the clipping told, he was unable to stem the flow of death.

  It occurred to me that the hand that wrote such vague passages must have been the same who committed the crime, as I could figure no other way for the unseen to obtain such grizzly knowledge. Even now, with the more than two years past, I felt my stomach clench with the knowledge that somehow, my uncle had foreknowledge of the unfortunate woman's demise. And if, as I surmised, it was Molen who advised my uncle unseen, was it not possible that he had committed the heinous crime, leaving a scrawled confession on the page for my uncle to read?

  My distrust and suspicions about the quiet manservant grew, for though he spoke affluently enough, it seemed reasonable to me that penmanship might have been ignored, his sole purpose that of keeping the appearance of a cultured man. Though he seemed kind, the model of the modern manservant, it was possible that he wore a mask of gentility over his animal's soul.

  Upon my arri
val several months before, I'd taken it upon myself to have a telephone installed in my chambers as there were none in the house. My uncle seemed to have no use for them, preferring to make use of Molen as a personal messenger. I used the telephone to contact the local magistrate and voice my suspicions, taking great care to leave the matter of the journal out of the situation. While it is true that the book fanned the embers of distrust toward Molen, I'd long suspected him of murdering my uncle. It was he, after all, who'd been first at my uncle's bedchamber the night he died. It was he, also, who'd stayed to torment my uncle while the rest of the staff sought richer fields. And although his name was not mentioned anywhere in the book in less than kindly terms, had he not tried to snatch it from my grasp? Clearly he had something to hide from me, from the world, concerning the death of Edwin Grey.

  The magistrate came and, upon agreeing with my estimation, arrested Molen. He, of course protested, asking how I could think him capable of such things, and claiming true friendship with my uncle, but in the end they took him away. It did not strike me as odd at the time, that even in his moment of incarceration, he shrieked for me to burn the book. His protestations seemed to only confirm my suspicions that he was trying to destroy the evidence that would prove his guilt.

  Here, I must pause, for such memories cause me terrible pain, and I must account for myself as well as my actions. Where most would probably have skipped to the end of Edwin's journal, my thought was not originally to unveil a murderer. I had thought simply to unravel the mystery of his suicide. I thought it necessary to follow his thoughts from the beginning to glean insight to a despair so deep that his only recourse for escape was to end his own torment. The further I read, the more engrossed I became, so compelling was the mind behind the pages. Often, while reading, I could almost feel shadows of my uncle's affliction, their weight dragging my soul downward until I pried my eyes away from the book.