THEFORBIDDENGARDEN

by The Forbidden Garden(Lit)

  When they were all comfortably seated before the cheery blaze in Ransome's sitting room, with the lights low, Marjorie asked if she might be allowed to tell her story.

  "I should like to explain some things that you do not know, perhaps. Of course I cannot account for everything on this strange expedition from a scientific standpoint, because I am not as well trained as some of the rest of you. But Mr. Vartan probably can help me out. Mr. Brassey, too, has theories as to the origin of these plant-animals, which Mr. Shane, I believe, shares at least partly. The spores did not originate on our earth. You are more competent than I am to discuss these questions, so I shall attend only to the human side which, perhaps, I knew better than any of you."

  "I thought so," Jamieson muttered.

  "Shall I go on?" Marjorie hesitated.

  "Please, Miss Driscott," Ransome answered for them all. "Jamieson told me on the way here that he is still in the dark about the origin of what he and I have come to call the 'Brassey Case'. Possibly you can enlighten us?"

  "I can. Please don't ask me how I know all that I am going to tell you. It will be clear enough, I hope, as I go on. Until very recently I did not guess any more than the rest of you, who these spies are who have made Mr. Brassey's life miserable for the past thirteen years. Nor do I know yet," she confessed, seeing a questioning look in Ransome's eyes, "who they are. My main purpose in 'confessing' – as Mr. Vartan might say – is to clear up this point. When I have finished, I hope it will be plain to you all who is guilty, or at least not entirely innocent.

  "My story begins many years back. Let me first recall the leading dates. James Brassey left England in 19I7. His brother did not begin to experiment with the spores till 1931. The first spies appeared at Brassey House in 1933 or 34. The last date is the most important of all for my theory – as Mr. Ransome or Mr. Jamieson might say.

  "You, I believe," she continued with a questioning glance at Jamieson and Ransome, "have tried to trace the spies from England. That, if you will let me say so, is where you made your greatest mistake."

  "But, Miss Driscott," Ransome protested, "we had only English clues to go on."

  "I am not criticizing you," she replied. "I was merely trying to point out that a solution from the English end alone is impossible. Perhaps the facts I shall now tell you will show why your sphere of investigation must be considerably enlarged if you are finally to catch the guilty.

  "In the spring of 1934 an unaccountable illness suddenly broke out among the professional gardners employed by one of the largest seed – growing companies in Holland. I need not tell you the name of the company, or that of the town near which their seedgardens are located. All that is necessary for you to know, will come out as I tell the rest. Doubtless all of you are aware that Holland before the last war was one of the leading countries of the world in the propagation of bulbs, garden shrubs and flowering perennials. Its only serious rival in this hemisphere was England. The great establishment to which I referred was probably the leading garden firm in Holland, and hopes to be again, but recovery is slow.

  "In England, you know, the corresponding high position is still filled by Brassey House. It was inevitable that there should be a certain amount of competition and trade rivalry between the two great firms. This rivalry, unfortunately, was not always limited to the fair play of reputable business methods."

  "On our side it was," Brassey interrupted quietly. "Surely you know that, Marjorie?"

  "I do," she admitted. "But, to return to the illness of which I spoke. About eighty of the gardeners, all on one particular seed farm, isolated by tulip fields from the rest, were affected. The onset of the disease was sudden, like an epidemic of influenza. Its symptoms were, first, a loss of memory; second, a partial paralysis of the legs, which, however, lasted but a day or two; and third, the last, incurable stage."

  "Which was?" Jamieson prompted.

  "A gradual and complete destruction of the reasoning faculties. In short, insanity of the non-violent type, which left its victims as helpless as imbeciles. This, as I have indicated, did not develop all at once. From the first attack to the final stage took about four months."

  "They recovered ultimately, of course?" Jamieson hazarded.

  "No. When I stated that the last stage was incurable, I meant what I said."

  "How do you know it was incurable?"

  "Eight of the victims lived but six or seven months. The rest seemed to grow stronger, bodily. The eight who died were minutely dissected. It was found that numerous brain cells had been completely destroyed, and the general structure of the nerve tissue was also profoundly affected. Such a condition, according to the physicians who performed the autopsies, is beyond human aid. Their opinion was confirmed by the few victims who survived the destruction of the war, scattered in various asylums throughout Holland and Belgium. It is agreed by the authorities in charge of these asylums that these few survivors are the lowest imbeciles they have ever seen."

  "All right," Jamieson said. "I accept the incurability of the disease. Please go on."

  "Not to alarm people unnecessarily," she continued, "the medical authorities suppressed all news of the outbreak as far as was possible. The families of the victims of course spread the news among their immediate friends, but it was kept completely out of the press.

  "Soon the physicians in charge realized that they were dealing with a disorder totally new to medical science. They appealed for help to the faculties of the great medical schools, and to the medical divisions of the leading Dutch Academics of the Sciences.

  "I need not go into detail on the simple investigation which discovered the probable source of the disease. From the beginning it had been singularly localized. Only the gardeners on a particular seed farm were attacked. This farm was segregated and watched by experts. No outsiders were admitted.

  "Soon three of the investigating experts became ill. They are today confined in asylums, mere lumps of vegetating life.

  "This new disaster roused our biologists and medical experts as the first had not. Concentrating all their forces on the problem they finally solved it by a quite simple process of elimination. On those who worked near a certain seed plot were attacked. By microscopic examination, the soil was discovered to he seething with what, at first, looked like millions of green bacteria of a novel kind. These were seized upon as a possible source of the disease.

  "It soon developed that the supposed bacteria were microscopic plants of extraordinary vitality. Those who investigated them, also became ill and were sent to asylums. New investigators took up the work, with greater precautions. It began to appear that the rapidly growing spores emitted highly dispersed clouds of still smaller spores – ultramicroscopic, in fact – which were responsible for the disease. By a simple means of filtering the air from the growing plants, which I need not go into, it was proved that this invisible exhalation was indeed at the root of the evil. Further, it was shown that the exhalations consisted, as had been suspected, of an invisible dust of sub-spores that had many of the properties of a filterable virus.

  "The next step was to trace the origin of these multitudes of living organisms. The botanist declared that they were not true plants, and the biologists were equally positive that they were not true animals. They compromised by calling them plant-animals.

  "Where had they come from? The head of the great seed firm concerned, on being convinced of the extreme gravity of the danger, made a full confession. I alluded, when I began, to the long rivalry between this firm and Brassey House. The firm had not scrupled to bribe weak employees of Brassey House to pick up trade secrets from their superiors and sell them to the Dutch firm. In this way many valuable new varieties, that might have been issued by Brassey House first, were anticipated by their dishonest rivals.

  "You guess the rest. James Brassey's remarkable seeds were wholly new in horticulture. The first experiments at Brassey House revealed this at once. After the first plant bloomed, and failed to produce seeds, one of the
Dutch spies stole a pinch of spores and sold it to the Dutch representative who had been detailed to work on him.

  "With more insight, perhaps, than the experts at Brassey House, the Dutch seed growers tried to raise the new varities in natural surroundings and in full sunlight. They were sown outdoors on a carefully prepared plot of ground.

  "Only one plant sprang from the stolen seeds. Not one of the other spores even germinated. The single plant grew rankly and flowered. Then, overnight, when the men in charge least expected it, the flowers suddenly and simultaneously went to seed. Not only that, but the seed capsules had burst, evidently explosively, and dispersed their priceless seeds for perhaps a radius of fifty feet. None were discovered on the ground, although a microscopic search was made. Two days later came the first outbreak of the incurable disease.

  "When the investigators found that the exhalations of the germinating spores were the true cause of the madness, they set about discovering the reason. The investigation, of course was one of great danger. In transferring a specimen of the tainted soil from one flask to another, as was frequently necessary in the experiments, there was the constant risk, in spite of all precautions, of letting some of the subtile exhalations escape.

  "It was decided that one man alone should undertake this investigation, so as not to peril more minds than was necessary. Several volunteered. One was chosen by lot.

  "Before beginning his work, this man assured himself that a sufficient supply of the virulent soil was in the laboratory, and then advised the sterilization of the entire source of infection. For a radius of a mile from the spot where the plant had seeded, the soil was first drenched with petrol – by volunteers who subsequently lost their sanity – and fired. Then other volunteers worked over every inch of the condemned territory with oxyacetylene torches, till the soil was baked to brick dust for a depth of a foot. These second volunteers were more fortunate than the first. Out of twenty, only seven lost their minds. Their work finally destroyed the spores, as was conclusively proved by other volunteers who lived on the baked soil for six months. None of them became ill."

  "But why," Brassey expostulated when Marjorie paused, "did not these men warn us at Brassey House?"

  "They should have done so at once," she admitted. "Their slight delay was an error of judgment. They argued thus: it would be useless for Brassey House to destroy the rest of James' spores while their source was still undiscovered. The source must be found and destroyed. This, however, only on the hypothesis that the spores were indeed as virulent as the first experiments seemed to show. Scientific caution – the cold conservatism of the well-trained investigator which forbids him to express an opinion which he cannot back with proof – was responsible for the fatal delay of three weeks. That, and the possibility of making themselves ridiculous, held back our investigators when they should have acted.

  "They planned eventually to ask your cooperation in discovering and destroying the source of James' spores. When finally they had convinced themselves of the truth of their first experiments, it was too late to act. The mischief had been done. Some incautious biologist had let slip a vague hint of the truth. Whose ears heard it, we do not know to this day."

  "Sure of that?" Jamieson demanded sharply.

  "She says she is," Shane interrupted when Marjorie started to reply. "Now, Horse Face, I told you I dislike you. Shut up, unless I tell you to speak."

  "Mr. Shane!" Ransome protested.

  "Oh, it's all right, I know," Shane grumbled. "Only I didn't like his tone. Go ahead, Marjorie. We may take it as said that you are sure of what Arbold asked you."

  "The chief of the guilty firm," Marjorie continued, "whose inspired theft had caused all the misery, swore to spend his last guilder, if necessary, to undo his folly. He instructed his agents to keep the sharpest watch on the Brassey seed laboratories."

  "H'm," Jamieson grunted.

  "And what did they observe, Miss Driscott?" Vartan asked significantly.

  "That our intentions were already frustrated. Desperate spies, who had wormed their way into Brassey House as truck drivers, or janitors, or men of all work, were using every means known to dishonesty to steal more of the spores and to learn where James had found them. Every move they made was met by one of ours. It became a battle between us and the unknown enemy to prevent the fertile propagation of those spores and the discovery of their source. Backed by the money of our great firm, we matched their spies, man for man, and woman for woman."

  "You were one of the women, I presume?" Jamieson sneered.

  "Yes. But not in the earlier stages. You know perfectly well," she flashed out suddenly, "when I joined. And you also know when the spying began. Your question is silly."

  "Go on, Marjorie," Brassey said softly, ignoring Jamieson's taunt. She turned to the Inspector.

  "What would you say, Mr. Ransome," she demanded, a dangerous glint in her eyes, "if a man, or men, knowing the full evil of these spores, should seek to obtain more like them by dishonest means?"

  "Why, Miss Driscott," Ransome smiled, "the question is quite too elementary for even such a slow-witted detective as you seem to, think I am."

  "That is not an answer," she objected, with delicately veiled contempt.

  "If you insist," he retorted in a cold, impersonal tone. "I should say the man, or men, you describe were almost certainly actuated by evil motives."

  "Their purpose might conceivably be to use those spores of madness as a new weapon of warfare?"

  "It is not impossible," he admitted. "What about it, Jamieson?"

  "I should say it would be a fair working hypothesis," Jamieson agreed. "Especially when we consider the apparently unlimited sums of money that have been expended by our enemies to obtain – or try to obtain – the desired information. But," he concluded sourly, "I fail to see what these remarks have to do with Miss Driscott's very interesting and – pardon me – plausible narrative."

  "Careful, White Horse," Shane admonished softly. Jamieson turned on him with a show of temper.

  "You told me before that you are in love with Miss Driscott," he said with acid emphasis. "Please don't repeat yourself so often, or I shall ask Mr. Brassey to tell you to go home as a common, public, damned, impertinent young nuisance."

  "Easy, Jamieson!" Ransome warned. "This is my apartment. I shall ask both of you to avoid embarrassing my guest. Miss Driscott, continue, if you please."

  "You have broken my thread," she began in confusion. "Oh yes. I must go back to what that solitary investigator, chosen by lot, found in his researches. He was a member of the Haarlem Academy, not a university professor, or a physician, but a great amateur who had devoted his wealth, his talents and his life to biology. It was fortunate for science that chance elected him to solve the puzzle of that madness.

  "The medical reports aided him. The lesions of brain and nerve tissue that accompanied the disease went even deeper. They persisted in the very germ plasm of the victims. And they were curiously like the degenerations of living tissue that are produced by long exposure to X-rays or to radioactive materials."

  "Ah," Vartan exclaimed. "Pardon me. Go on."

  "That great investigator found that the invisible spores, absorbed into the blood stream through the lung tissue, multiplied in the blood and muscles of the victim like bacteria until, having done the utmost of destruction, they warred upon themselves and expired, leaving the cells which they had attacked permanently changed.

  "It was natural to ask whether the degeneration of brain and nerve was heritable. By rigidly controlled experiments on mice it was proved that the defects of brain and nervous tissue of the first tainted generation were transmitted indefinitely to the offspring for generation after generation.

  "The next step was to prove that the ultramicroscopic spores were indeed highly radioactive. This was the fatal turning point of the whole investigation. To conduct the proper experiments the teeming virus, multiplying upon itself like arithmetic gone mad, had to be distributed once more ov
er an open seed bed in the full sunlight. The experimenter wore a diver's suit, air tight, of course, and made his observations clumsily as best he could.

  "The result justified his daring. He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these mad plant-animal spores have the power of collecting to themselves, absorbing and storing up permanently the radioactive emanations which stream up constantly from the surface of the earth and which, ordinarily, are dissipated into space. Just as some plants, notably beets, can extract the iron from the soil, so it was proved that the plant-animals, of all living things, can hoard the radioactive elements in their own cells. The mystery was solved. As they had anticipated, they found the solution entirely reasonable. They knew, of course, that X-rays, the emanations discharged from radium, and cosmic rays can permanently transmute one species of living plants or animals into another – a degenerated race from their pure parents, we rather presumptously think. So the final mystery found its complete and simple explanation in the undiscovered harmony of nature. But I am trespassing on Mr. Vartan's territory," she continued with a smile at his fascinated face, "and I must hurry on.

  "The next, and last, act in this tragedy put an abrupt end to the play. The daring investigator who had risked his sanity lost it through a trivial accident. The new experimental plot was sterilized; a sufficient sample of the infected earth was sealed off in a glass flask for further work. The flask slipped from the experimenter's hand, and was shattered. He also became a casualty. But, thank Heaven, he lived only a little over two months after he lost his mind. It was decided to make a complete end of this dangerous work, and concentrate all of our energies on locating the source of James Brassey's seeds.

  "Shortly before the last experimenter died, the Academy of Sciences in his native town received a generous gift 'for biological explorations in Central Asia'. The donor remained anonymous. Certain members of the Academy advised against accepting the money, believing it to be a clever move by the enemy to discover our plans, by foisting spies of their own on any expedition we might undertake. The majority however voted to use the money for the purpose for which it had been given. I need hardly say that all the information our agents had gained at Brassey House was used to the full in directing the expedition. Our preparations doubtless were effective, for no spies, we feel sure, accompanied the explorers, Heindricks and Van Sluys."