THEFORBIDDENGARDEN

by The Forbidden Garden(Lit)

  "One of those rhythmic abilities – or excellences, if you like, gave me the clue. From the earliest times, occasionally skipping a generation or two, the Brassey family has reckoned among its distinguished members one or two daring adventurers, notable investigators or great explorers, in every century. The spirit of discovery, whether of unknown countries or of obscure facts of nature, is inherent in the very cells of their bodies. To one of these daring explorers the misfortune of the Brasseys is due.

  "Late in the eleventh century one of these adventurous Brasseys, in a journey of exploration which was remarkable for that time, penetrated the decadent countries of the Far East, making extensive collections of seeds and animals, which he brought back with him to England. The botanical interest, you observe, was already implanted in the Brassey blood.

  "More important to us, that Brassey brought back with him an Eastern bride, a girl of rare beauty and sparkling mind. She first gave evidence of insanity after the birth of her fourth child, a son, and the direct lineal ancestor of the present Charles Brassey. Medicine in those days was a tissue of harmful superstitions. The young wife was accused of being possessed by a devil which had failed to be cast out at the time of her baptism into the faith of her husband. According to the Brassey history, she denied this charge, confessing – or acknowledging – what to her was the cause of her illness. Before losing the last remnants of her intelligence, she declared that her delusions were the inevitable heritage of all her kin. They, she said, were a sacred race who, ages in the past, had tasted 'forbidden fruit in the garden', and whose eyes, therefore, were opened to the truth. She lived long and happily in her madness, for to the insane madness is truth.

  "The Brassey historians comment on this pathetic explanation with a singularly obtuse but rational gloss. The poor wife, they aver, accounted for her own sin of madness by linking it to the legend of the Garden of Eden, which her patient husband had taught her and which she, as an infidel born, was incapable of comprehending. More pertinently they preserved a careful record of her delusions with a precision remarkable for that time. The Brasseys, as I have said, are an inherently gifted family.

  "Here was the clue I sought. Without difficulty my army of trained searchers uncovered the persistent legend to which the unhappy wife had referred. It is indeed a commonplace to our antiquarians, and I am sure some of you must already be familiar with it. Many of the mad fakirs who infest our villages and cities claim a lineage for their madness as honorable as that which the young Mrs. Brassey gave. They also are seers descended from an ancient line. Their apparently arrogant story places their origin also in a garden, where their remote forefathers boldly ate forbidden fruit and had their eyes opened everlastingly – for generation after generation – to the supreme truth. As in that forlorn bride's case, so in theirs; madness is truth. And why not? They live without sweating for their bread, and they dream their idle happy lives away in visions of an impossible Nirvana. Were they as other men, they would be embroiled all their lives in lies and strife.

  "All this was but a clue to the weapon I sought. For all I knew, it might be generations before members of our great Society of Liberators might be able to complete my work. Nevertheless I persevered. As I have said, if that inbred, ineradicable insanity is one of nature's works, it must be possible to discover its cause, to hasten or retard it, in a word to control it and make it our slave, as our oppressors made us their slaves.

  "In my scientific training, particularly in Germany, I had learned to appreciate the tremendous power of a Slow, minutely organized, patient investigation which subjects all facts to the closest scrutiny, tabulates them, classifies the results, and stores them away for possible use in the final assault upon an unsolved mystery. Thus, again drawing heavily on the resources placed without stint at my service, I organized an archeological division to unravel our tangled histories and legends, in the hope of tracing to its ultimate source, if any, the superstition of that caste of mad fakirs.

  "Ten years of this work by my corps of historians and linguists yielded precisely one fact of significance. There was a legend, as they asserted, which seemed to recede into the mists of antiquity of a forbidden feast. But, and here is the significant fact: as the search receded in time, the legend slowly chanted into another. The original madmen had not eaten forbidden fruit; in the early form of the legend they had entered a forbidden garden, and possibly had lived there for generations.

  "Like the traditions of Eden, this legend also recorded a 'fall'. Some disaster, its precise nature unspecified, had thrust the happy madmen out of their garden. Certain fragments of the story in our oldest mythologies assert that a sudden flood, occasioned by the collapse of a mountain barrier, drowned all but a few of those in the garden, washed the others to safety, and sealed the entrance permanently against their return. In others, a circular valley, deeply hidden in all but inaccessible mountains, is described as the location of this mad paradise. Caves are mentioned in another, and in all there are echoes of a strange, cold, perpetual fire. The last seemed at the time so preposterous that I dismissed it as a myth. My arrogant skepticism may be pardoned, however, when you recall that I am speaking of a time a full quarter century before the first hint of radioactivity startled the scientific world no less than laymen. Even the X-ray, at that time, was an undreamed-of possibility.

  "The net results of these researches was negative but significant. From all the evidence I concluded that such a garden as was described in the traditions had existed, and might still exist; that at least a half of the population of the valley, or garden, had suffered from hereditary insanity, and finally that the insanity was induced by certain unknown features of their natural surroundings, much as cretinism and goitre are in part due to a lack of iodine in the soil or water of some localities. There was the obvious distinction, however, that goitre is not transmitted, as was this madness, from generation to generation. Nevertheless I believed I was on the right track. I must first trace the madness of the Brasseys and of our own fakirs to its source, when I. or my successors, could learn to induce it wholesale, hastened, possibly, in a given population.

  "My next natural move was to seek to rediscover the forbidden garden of the legends. Once more our generous supporters poured out their treasure when I assured them that, for reasons which I could not divulge at the time, the proposed explorations were of the highest importance. The explorers had only the vaguest hints upon which to work. They were to look for a valley, in the mountains to the north, almost circular in shape, practically inaccessible from above, and showing evidences of some catastrophe which had flooded a part of it and cut off egress, more or less permanently, to the outside world. Under the guise of scientific explorations to aid the unselfish advancement of knowledge, we enlisted the services of some of the most daring explorers of modern times. Scientific Academies and Learned Societies were generously subsidized to undertake extensive explorations in certain regions which we specified. Their reports, unknown to them, would give me all the information needed. If they were unconsciously successful – from my point of view – trusted agents of our own could complete their work in detail with but one object before the eyes. None of these expeditions gave me anything of value.

  "All this time, no matter whether one of my forays in my vast campaign proved fruitless, I worked steadily at my biology, striving to master the mystery of heredity and to direct it to my own ends. My guiding star, as I have said, was Mendel's great discovery. Yet I found nothing of fundamental importance for my project, except one dim guess. Since sunlight and the whole intricate scale of radiations composing it are necessary for plant and animal life, could it be that the secret of evolution and of heredity was bound up with that of other harder or softer radiations, unperceived by our senses and as yet undiscovered? Following this up, I had some minor successes with infrared and ultra violet light. Then, over, night almost, in 1895, the sensation of X-rays burst upon the world. The time was propitious; in my middle forties, I was fully
mature scientifically.

  "I at once began experimenting with these rays on living matter. By the end of two years of incessant labor I had sufficiently perfected my technique to obtain my first definite results. Thinking that small animals would be most easily affected, I first used the common green aphis that infests roses. I proved definitely, by hundreds of controlled experiments, that it was possible, by subjecting living aphis to X-rays, to modify permanently the structure of their germ cells, so that their offspring were new insects, different species capable of transmitting their changed structure of eye, wing or leg indefinitely. These new insects 'bred true' for scores of generations.

  "The next step was to repeat these experiments on larger insects and even on small mammals. Again I was successful. Beyond my expectations I bred mice capable of transmitting a certain important defect of the brain. Then, while these experiments were at their height, a third great discovery took the world by surprise. With the early work in radioactivity it was learned that the very atoms of which matter is made can disintegrate. I looked to the process of disintegration as a possible source of more penetrating radiations to be used in my efforts to change permanently the smallest particle of matter that can be called living. In this I had but little success.

  "Accident, so called, has initiated more than one scientific discovery of the first magnitude. To those who have not made a profession of science, most discoveries seem to be made this way. The fortunate accidents happen, however, only to those who are prepared by a lifetime of hard labor to appreciate them, and whose inner eye is subconsciously peering into the future. This was the case, for example, with the X-rays and with radioactivity.

  "The accident which found me prepared, and which delivered the final key to victory into my hand, was of a different kind. It was human. Certain microscopic spores collected by James Brassey contain the solution. Of this I am convinced. How I have reached this conviction is a long story, and I shall not live to tell it all to the end. I would not have told this much did I not know that I am about to die. What I have revealed is necessary for the continuance of my work and for your victory. One man only knows the continuation of what I have told you. Believe what he tells you, and act upon it according to your best judgment."

  "Who is it?" one ventured to ask.

  "It is both unnecessary and dangerous to him and to yourselves that you should know his name."

  "But how shall we recognize him?"

  "He will tell you where James Brassey's seeds were found.

  Your biologists must do the rest. I have instructed them. It may take generations, but complete victory is in your hand."

  "What if a spy tries to trap us? We must know the man's name.

  "Don't argue!" Zanetti snapped, with a last flash of his old fire. "I tell you this man will offer incontrovertible evidence. Believe him. He is one of us, (although at first you may mistake him for one of the enemy) and has been for nearly twenty years. The success or failure of his present mission means complete freedom or a degrading slavery of the mind for our people. I have said enough. Is that the sun?"

  "It is rising."

  Annibale Zanetti sank into unconsciousness, perhaps voluntary. When his friends at last stole from the room he was dead. The autopsy assigned the cause of death as heart failure aggravated by senile decay. He himself might have said that he died of disgust.

  CHAPTER 18

  UNMASKED

  "May i ask what you are doing in my garden without my permission?" the madman repeated with a rising inflection when neither Vartan nor Marjorie replied at once.

  In spite of the unkempt gray beard and matted tangle of hair, Marjorie observed a family likeness immediately. Going up to him frankly, she extended her hand as if she were greeting an acquaintance at an afternoon tea.

  "How do you do, Mr. Brassey? I am your brother's confidential secretary, Marjorie Driscott. I have held the position a little over six years."

  James Brassey, who might have posed for a portrait of the mad Nebuchadnezzer, eyed her with crafty hostility. Except for a filthy breech clout he was naked. His finger nails, like his hair and beard, apparently had not been trimmed for years. Combing his beard reflectively with his twisted talons, he directed his attention to Vartan.

  "And who the devil may you be?" he drawled.

  "My name is Vartan. I am an associate in the Geological Exploration Society of America, with headquarters in New York. At present I am on a mission for Mr. Charles Brassey who, according to Miss Driscott, is your brother."

  James stopped combing his whiskers, and thoughtfully regarded his black, curling nails.

  "Travelling together?" he asked pleasantly, but with an unmistakable twist.

  Marjorie flushed to the roots of her hair, and Vartan's jaw set ominously.

  "We are," he asserted, "but not in the way you mean. Miss Driscott is your brother Charles' confidential observer on this expedition."

  "No offense, old chap. I understand perfectly. Though you might not think it," he continued with a diffident glance at the one article of clothing which he boasted, "I'm still an English gentleman. Dress for dinner every evening. You'll stay of course?"

  "We shall be charmed," Marjorie accepted eagerly. If James considered himself an English gentleman, he thought it wise to treat him as one.

  "Capital," James replied drily. "Because you will jolly well have to, whether you like it or not. So you are observing, are you, Miss Driscott? Noticed anything particular?"

  "Your botany is rather weird."

  "Ah, I see. A botanical observer. Used to do quite a bit in that line myself. By the way, did you notice any of those fat fellows on the way down here?"

  "The things like squids? Yes, we saw several. Are they human?"

  "Human?" Brassey repeated, lowering his voice confidentially. "As human as you are, and more human than I am. You see," he explained affably, "I have no mind. I'm mad as a hatter, or the March Hare, or whoever it was. Those black bags of jelly have minds. I'm convinced of that. They do the same thing, day after day, in the same way. Therefore they're human. Good workmen, and all that. Now, whenever I try to do a consecutive piece of work, forget what it is all about after the first hundred years or so. Never seem to get anywhere. Although, he added with a flash of pride, "I still have my microscope. Brought it with me, you know. I can use it, too." For some moments he stood silently tugging at his beard. "Lord," he broke out inconsequentially, "I'd sell my microscope and my immortal soul for a walk down Piccadilly again, when the lights are just coming on."

  "You may not need to," Marjorie suggested softly. "Why not leave this horrible place and come back with us?"

  "And be locked up in Colney Hatch till death do us part? Really, Miss Driscott, I prefer my own society. I'm not quite right, you know."

  "If you are not feeling well," Vartan suggested tactfully, "I know your brother Charles would think it a privilege to have you stay at his house and be taken care of till you get well."

  "Charles? You don't know brother Charles as I do. He's a damned hypocrite. Pretends he isn't crazy, and all that, and made me leave England to protect himself."

  "I'm sure you are mistaken," Marjorie said gently. "Your brother thinks the world of you."

  "Then why doesn't he drop me a card once in a while? Christmas or New Year's would do. He hasn't answered a single one of my letters, and I'm always writing."

  "Yes, he has," Vartan countered boldly. "Miss Driscott and I are Charles' answer to all of your letters. Some must have been lost in the mail."

  James eyed them cunningly. His moods, they observed, were as changeable as summer winds on a take.

  "The other man is just a sort of postscript to dear Charles' letter?"

  "You mean our interpreter?" Vartan asked. "I should rather call him a badly misspelled word that Charles forgot to erase."

  "Not trustworthy, eh?" James remarked. "Just what I thought myself when I shaved him. Never shave myself, any more. Beastly bore, you know, when one is roughi
ng it as I am. But I do like to see my friends as they are. That's why I still hang onto my razor, I suppose. Or perhaps," he chuckled grimly, "I shall have sense enough some day to cut my silly throat."

  "You shaved our friend Ali Baba?" Vartan asked, ignoring James' cynical pleasantry.

  "Why not? Didn't do it myself, of course. My servants induced him to shave. You suggested it yourself, you know. A guest's wish is his host's command. Who was it that said that? Shakespeare? Never mind. I helped your tertium quid to doff his beard."

  "I see," Vartan replied. "You overheard my conversation with Miss Driscott last night before I went to bed?"

  "Not at all," James retorted with dignity. "I do not spy on my guests."

  "Then how did you come to think of shaving Ali Baba?"

  "The servants suggested it. Highly intelligent persons, some of those servants. Learn languages as easily as breathing. To kill time I've taught some of them French, German and English. Queer thing, isn't it, that they should speak French better than I do? They get the 'ongs' and 'oils' perfectly."

  "Where is Ali now?" Marjorie ventured to inquire.

  "Setting the table. Told me he had been a butler in England."

  "In England?" they exclaimed together.

  "Why not? He seems to have fooled you once, so why shouldn't he do it again? It's an art that becomes perfect with practice. By the way, what was he doing with that bottle of black dust tied about his waist? I threatened to shave him again myself, but he simply would not tell me. Said he realized it was all a mistake, after seeing this place, and he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. Did he steal it from one of you?"

  Vartan briefly explained the circumstances. James followed with the closest attention. For the moment his flickering sanity seemed to burn steady and bright.