The Fall of the House of Heron (Prologue Science Fiction)

by Eden Phillpotts

  “I am his friend: never think I’m not. I feel nothing but friendship as far as it can go without being returned.”

  “He might have made you come to look on Cliff as home,” she said, “and he never tried to. The idea never occurred to him that a man of your sensibilities depends on his environment largely for his comfort and happiness. He knows you are my life and, where you are, there is my home, but he long ago ruined my old home for me.”

  “Such subtleties are beyond him,” said Ernest, “and don’t let them trouble you, darling. Every word you say is true; but the end will soon be in sight. Your place here he can never fill again, but there will be thousands of good men equal to the filling of mine.”

  “Have you ever thought what you will do when you are free to do it?” she asked. “I often have. There will be no need for you to do anything except love me; but you are not the man to dawdle into middle-age with no hobby but your old business. You should be turning things over, my treasure.”

  “Curious you should say that,” he replied. “Very much more curious than you can imagine, Greta. But the snag is that I can’t tell you how curious. Seldom enough that any problem rises in my mind you don’t share instantly, but this one cannot be shared — for the reason that its exact terms of reference don’t yet exist. The challenge — so to call it — may evaporate and vanish. Only time can throw any light on that. That it will vanish I hope and believe, and then nothing remains for your attention; while, on the other hand, I may find something face me not to be ignored, in which case you’ll have to know.”

  “What have I said that brought such a mystery to your mind?” she asked, and he hesitated so long before answering that she repeated her question. Then he laughed and replied.

  “You suggested the grim idea that I might dawdle into middle-age with no more laudable hobby than criminal investigation. That was a deplorable picture yet, by a freak of chance, only too apposite to the passing moment. For this reason, because just now a strange and exceedingly horrible mystery is concerning me. Nothing to do with my work at Scotland Yard, though there are plenty of mysteries beggaring our combined wits in London; but a queer thing that has come to my notice entirely outside daily routine.”

  “Here? But, darling! How extraordinary!” cried Greta.

  “So extraordinary that I am not going to think of it again while in your blessed company,” he promised. “The result of any future investigation will doubtless be good riddance to the whole matter; but should the result prove otherwise, then, of course, I’ll bring it to you.”

  “I never heard of anything so mad,” she said.

  “I certainly never thought of anything so mad,” he assured her.

  “And where will these future investigations take place?”

  Again he took some time to decide his answer, then begged her not to put any more questions.

  “Leave it,” he said. “The moonshine must have affected me to have said even this much, but it arose so naturally out of our talk concerning the future. Be sure of this: the moment there is anything further to say that looks as though you should hear it, I shan’t need to come down but will write to you fully and at length. If there is nothing to say and the phantom has disappeared, then we need never return to it; if I must speak, then it will only be to you.”

  “Very fantastic and far-fetched, dearest.”

  “I hope so. A fantasy is all I could wish for, and in that case a fantasy you can no more share than a nightmare.”

  “Do say a little more, since you’ve said so much. I hate secrets. Tell me at least that it has nothing to do with us.”

  “Probably nothing to do with us, or anybody else — just a twopenny-halfpenny legacy left by the dead and of no earthly interest to anybody alive.”

  “Impossible to concern us in any case?”

  He shook his head.

  “Under certain conditions abominably certain to concern both of us.”

  Disturbed, but too proud to probe for an answer he was unprepared to give, Greta changed the subject and many months passed before her husband returned to it. His holiday ended, he went back to London next morning and, after he was gone, Faraday heard another complaint from his sister and a wish that he would show somewhat more consideration for Ernest’s feelings.

  “He is more sensitive than you appear to think,” she said, “and, while so indifferent to other people’s emotions, you might, for my sake, remember he is my husband and not a piece of household furniture.”

  Surprised at the rebuke he made an apology.

  “Getting too self-centred I fear. The work on my hands makes me forget my obligations and everything else, including my fellow-creatures, seems of such minor importance. Ask him down again when he can come and I’ll try to be more considerate.”

  Gratified by this urbane response, she informed Ernest of it and resolved to remind Faraday before they met again; but six months later, at the moment when Ernest could return for a day or two, he found himself alone at Cliff, for Faraday was suddenly summoned to London, and Greta also unexpectedly called to the bedside of a sick friend by telegram. The nature of their friendship was such that she could suffer nothing to stay her. She left a letter declaring her grief at missing Ernest and her hope to meet him instead later in London. She dwelt on the dire peril in which her friend lay and that her chance of recovery was small; while, finally, she mentioned a trifle bearing on his comfort at Cliff and her assurance that he would not mind it. To her this accident was unfortunate, but meant nothing; while for the man it signified much. Greta’s words found themselves strangely linked into other matters beyond her ken — the mystery to which he had alluded in time past.

  Ernest kept in touch by telephone daily with his wife, remained at Cliff for three days and lingered long enough to spend an evening with Faraday on his return from town. He found himself greeted with increased amity and responded to it gladly enough. Indeed, he displayed sympathy at his brother-in-law’s news, for the date of Faraday’s departure to America was fixed.

  “One hoped to dodge it when victory drew near in Europe.” he said, “but America doesn’t yet see victory in sight on the Pacific. It’s just as certain there as here, and she thinks to hasten it materially, given a little more united brain power as to details. But I should be far better employed in my own workshop.”

  “The change of air will be worth while anyway and you look as though you needed a change,” suggested Ernest.

  “Atomic bombs should shorten this war and perhaps prevent all future wars,” said Faraday. “I would rather see them fall on the Hun than the Jap, if they have to fall; but exactly what they are going to do remains a question. What looks prodigious in mathematical terms on paper may confound our calculations in practice. Some very clever men think it quite possible the mountain may produce a mouse. Only actual experiment can show. For my part I believe that, if we use them, they will do all that is hoped. In any case, they won’t be on a very colossal scale — merely feelers to learn the extent of the energy’s destructive power. We don’t yet know how hard it can hit.”

  “Do you remember those curious explosions on Dartmoor some years ago now?” asked Trensham. “If they represented experiments on a small scale, is it possible to suppose that they had anything to do with atomic energies?”

  “I remember them and felt interested in them at the time,” replied the other. “It was a nice riddle for a scientist and I took some pains to solve it, but failed. They might have been the result of bombs dropped by aeroplanes flying beyond our eyesight, or they might have been laid by night and exploded with electricity. I sometimes thought our own War Office was behind the experiment and purposely kept it dark. As to whether atomic energy in some shape, and bottled by some means unknown to British science, was involved, I should say that was out of the question. A new explosive might have been tried, but why in England if not by English?”

  “And were any such explosive in the wind, you would have heard of it?”

 
; “Most certainly. Science must have been concerned in the experiment, and if our science, then I should have heard all about it.”

  “One of those queer things only to be explained when the war is over perhaps,” suggested Ernest.

  He left Cliff early on the following morning and, before she returned home, Greta spent a day with him in London and heard of her brother’s approaching journey.

  “They go by air,” so her husband told her, “and you will probably have to see to respectable clothes for him to go in. I never met a man of science yet who thought of what he looked like.”

  CHAPTER X

  HER friend out of danger and promising to make recovery, Greta, home again, was concerned to dispatch Sir Faraday adequately attired to meet his distinguished companions; but further time had yet to pass before he travelled by air to America. Allied victory crowned the European war and Trensham’s term of service came to an end. He was a free man again and able to rejoin his wife; but he did not return to Cliff until some weeks after Faraday had gone, for his own activities now brought a private challenge impossible to escape and he felt no wish to appear before Greta until a very dreadful story could be related complete in every particular. To his secret researches he brought great concentration and his own exceptional talents; but while many doubtful questions yielded their answers to him, the nearer he reached conclusions of utmost magnitude, a challenge, scarcely felt in the ardour of the chase, loomed large for Ernest as the end came in sight. The detective felt no fear for himself and no great regret at what he regarded as a professional masterpiece of achievement; but it involved his wife, and his subsequent actions could not fail to depend on her reactions when she learned where now they stood. First, indeed, rose the tremendous problem as to whether he should tell her at all. Before he returned to Cliff, he had reached a stage where he found himself reflecting on the personal effect of his discovery. This was no situation created by his work at Scotland Yard and it depended on others whether any approach to the Law would be necessary. The reality for himself emerged and he felt in no mind to miss the opportunity of a lifetime offered him at this critical moment of his career; but he assumed that the others involved must think as he did and troubled not to consider what would happen if they differed. Only his wife and her brother need ever know what he now knew beyond any rational possibility of doubt, and while there appeared no likelihood of Faraday taking another line than Ernest already foresaw, Greta promised also to follow. Here, however, he built on less sure ground than during the course of his long and patient researches, for, when speculation depends on character, every man must offer wide margins for uncertainty and surprise. The greater any shock, the stronger the probability of deviation from character in those never called to face such upheaval until its impact.

  Something in the nature of this commonplace drifted through Trensham’s mind when he returned to Cliff, and he postponed his story for a few days, slowly awaking to the doubtful nature of his wife’s response. Faraday was gone and his laboratory locked up and guarded by day and night during his absence. Greta told of his departure and of his tailor’s struggle to furnish new clothes within the limits of lawful permission.

  “He knows we are going away now,” said his wife to Ernest, “and has found time to think of you, if you can believe it! He wants us to stay with him until his discoveries are proclaimed and considers, after that, it should be in his power to secure you a distinguished appointment among the new enterprises that are likely to arise.”

  These unexpected words introduced another element into the mingled currents now sweeping through her husband’s mind, but it was not of a sort to detain him long. He had, as it were, compounded a dish of many flavours, yet overwhelmed by one overmastering ingredient. Ernest was not a man lacking in self-esteem and now, though competent in his own opinion to master any challenge, yet felt at times almost bewildered by the enormous power his recent industries had placed in his hands. The ordeal that confronted him was tremendous and laden with disaster, but for himself he felt no fear. His sole personal calculations were as to the terms he would be able to impose on the vanquished.

  In a fool’s paradise his wife lived a little longer and then, by her own action, heard all that he had to tell. Day after day he postponed his revelation for, knowing her as well as he loved her, he mourned the tremendous shock lying before Greta now. But convinced that he must take her into his confidence and unequal to realizing his own complications afterwards, he spoke when the opportunity came.

  Sitting beside him with her hand in his, as she liked to do, his wife suddenly asked a question.

  “What became of your mystery?” she inquired. “It had rather a portentous sound I remember and, in certain events, neither of us could hope to escape from something you suggested might be rather dreadful. But I hope it all vanished into air and you have forgotten it.”

  “I wish to God it had,” he answered jumping at the chance she gave him. “I’ve delayed to mention the thing — you may say almost funked to do so, my blessed girl, because the phantom has persisted and grown into something with flesh upon its bones — something exceedingly alive and very much more than a ghost. Something so damnable that I still wonder how I can believe it.”

  “Yet you have not said a syllable about it since you came back to me! Why didn’t you, darling?”

  “I couldn’t. We were having such a good time in returned peace, looking so far forward and feeling so thankful the infernal war was over that I didn’t feel equal to bringing down all our happiness and gratefulness like a pack of cards; yet I knew it must be. Now it has got to be and I can’t keep the abortion to myself any longer. I’m thankful for that, yet it’s only a new misery that you are the first one to hear it and share it.”

  Greta looked grave.

  “If you can stand up to trouble, then I can,” she said. “Is anything to be gained by waiting for Faraday’s return and letting him hear it, too?”

  “You will be the best judge of that. Hear it he certainly must. But I’m afraid you need to know everything first.”

  “Don’t spoil the sunset with it,” she sighed, grown sad and her voice reflecting the sorrow. “If bad things have to be told me, keep them until after dinner, Ernest.”

  Three hours later he began his story. The interval was not long, yet long enough to make him doubt, too late, the sanity of such a confession to her.

  “I’m going to tell you the most ghastly thing you have ever heard,” he said abruptly, “and show you the most ghastly thing you have ever seen, Greta, so nerve yourself, my girl. You will demand abundant evidence, for it is an axiom at Scotland Yard never to interfere with the liberty of man, or woman, until we can produce massive support for such a measure. Nothing the Law resents more savagely than being made a fool of, or finding its solemnities confounded by facts.

  “There’s another preliminary,” he went on, “that I should like to impress upon you: the amazing minute seed from which even such a case as this may spring. Many of the biggest discoveries made by man were an accident. Science teems with them and I’ve heard Faraday advance the fact as an argument for research. Now that has happened to me and I only wish my discovery had occurred in a happier field of action than my own.”

  “What a preface!” exclaimed Greta. “Now come to the tale, dearest.”

  “All too soon, beloved; but note one interesting though commonplace fact first: the critical part that character plays in events and how their sequel turns upon it. Should a thing happen to one sort of character, the results may be utterly different from what they would have been if it had happened to another. Incidents, of crucial importance in themselves, will go for nothing if they confront a mind incapable of appreciating them; but they will speak a language instantly understood by any intellect trained to grasp their implication. In this case it is not too much to say that the eyes of a thousand people might have fallen on the trifle which met mine without creating any reaction whatever, yet, by the accident of having
eyes to note what they fall upon from the angle of my own professional business, to me something unlikely to have arrested any passing glance awakened a line of thought — you may say reawakened it, for the idea belonged to the past and had long since been dismissed.”

  “Get on with the story, you wordy creature,” she said, “else the prelude will take longer than the play.”

  “The incident needs very few words indeed,” he replied, “but while I was spending my long leave with you, when Faraday had been called to another conference in London, you were just starting on the indoor work at home and getting a number of the rooms done up. You were incidentally lamenting the scarcity of wall-papers and the poverty of available patterns. Now, a year after your father died, you may remember that your brother changed his bedroom and established himself in Sir Hector’s. He deserted his former room, which adjoined your father’s on the north side, and took from it all his chemical apparatus, his books and everything. His clothes and many of his books he transferred to his bedroom; but his instruments and machines he took to the laboratory, which was now ready for him. Then, among the first apartments you insisted on getting cleaned and garnished happened to be Faraday’s old bedroom, which he had inhabited all his life when at Cliff. He told me it had been his play-room and his sanctum as a boy and his workshop in his early days as a young man.”

  “Yes. He defied us to investigate his secret studies and always locked up the room even as a schoolboy, when away in term time. I was thankful to make a clean sweep there and get my chance at last, because it interests him no longer.”

  “Well, one day when he was in London, I strolled into that room to look at the view. The place was already in the hands of the workmen, but empty during their dinner hour. Their task looked about half-done. The walls were stripped of the old paper; the ceiling was white-washed and the woodwork all repainted, the furniture heaped together under dust sheets in the middle of the room, the window open and rather a keen east wind blowing through it. But the wind had brought up a haze, as an east wind will, and that grand coastline you get from Faraday’s old room was not to be seen. So turning to depart and escape the unpleasant smell of mingled paint and size, I saw the writing on the wall. Not writing really but an insignificant daub on the south side of the room revealed by the stripping of the paper. The wall was of smooth mortar laid in a fine sheet to take the paper. For the most part the ancient distemper made the walls grey and they were mottled to some extent, being still damp from the soaking and scraping received to remove the old paper. But on the south wall appeared a dab of lighter colour — not white, but of sufficient paleness to contrast with the body of the wall. It was about a foot square and of smooth surface awaiting the new wall-paper destined to cover it on the following day.”