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

by Eden Phillpotts

  Ernest broke off.

  “There again,” he said, “note what a hair’s breadth of chance the thing turned upon. Consider the million to one odds that this incident should have brought together a man destined to think twice about it and with sufficient time to do so. Had I gone into the room before the old paper was stripped, or after the new paper was hung, then you would never have heard this story and I should never have learned it; but, just during those few vital hours, the writing on the wall remained uncovered, and during that time came along a mind and powers of observance to question its possible meaning.”

  “The significance of a dab of paint, or some discoloration that must have gone on the wall before the original paper went on it? How absurd, darling!”

  “More than absurd: inconceivable to anybody but myself, Greta. Absurd is exactly what any other sane person would say; but just to me — what I called it before — a reawakening. My mind worked with great swiftness and clarity. That smudge reminded me of something I had thought when your father’s life ended so tragically. At the time I never mentioned my surprise to a soul: it astonished me that it should have entered my head, yet, seeing my mind was a successful detective’s mind, I could not blame that sinister line of approach, for I was only being myself. Remember that, during Sir Hector’s illness, medical science was confronted with a man dying for reasons beyond the knowledge of science. No light ever shone upon his cruel affliction and no treatment proved able to cure him; so what more reasonable than for detective science to envisage the possibility of some secret, damnable, deliberate cause responsible for so strange a death?”

  “Never — never in connection with a man like father,” declared Greta. “No devil would have planned to murder such a man, and what conceivable motive could exist for such a thing?”

  “To ask such questions is to answer them. I felt almost ashamed of myself that even such an idea had entered my mind, for it entered no other. I felt that my old business must have brought with it a vitiating, ignoble habit of looking at life. To be for ever suspicious of events and imagine that chance mysteries are all more likely to spring out of evil than good — such a habit makes you feel you are libelling your own species and suffering your trade to make you mean and odious. But during Sir Hector’s illness my unpleasant suspicions stuck to me for a time and I surprised myself elaborating theories of how a murder might actually be in course of commission under our eyes. This nightmare didn’t last long, however. It faded out and I felt glad when the end came that I had kept such a horrible notion to myself. Then, suddenly, in that room it returned and I found myself tempted by purely professional instincts which prompted me to action. Under this overpowering stimulation, the detective conquered.”

  “What on earth had you to detect in Faraday’s old bedroom?” asked Greta with genuine wonder.

  “I should not perhaps have used the word,” he replied. “One seeks evidence of innocence as eagerly as proof of crime if you are a humanist, as I claim to be. Similarly rare, distinguished barristers there still are: advocates who will defend but never prosecute.”

  “And what has defence or prosecution to do with father’s death?”

  “Let me tell this damnable story my own way, darling, and get clear of it, because there is plenty to answer your question. At any rate the detective conquered in me, as I have said, and I did two things on the spur of the moment that only I could have thought upon and nobody else found a shadow of reason for doing. The impulse which prompted me was on Faraday’s account and I hoped that what I now proposed to do would settle for ever certain vague possibilities long dismissed from my detective mind. That you must believe. At this stage, my one intense desire was to gather proofs that should leave not so much as a shadow on his good and great name.”

  Greta showed amazement.

  “What steps did you take then?” she asked. “Granted that what you had seen was only a shadow on a wall, why should Faraday enter your mind?”

  He made a roundabout answer. Greta’s many questions he anticipated and the vital necessity that his story must be without flaw before being brought to her.

  “Nobody respected your brother, or recognized his genius more than I have,” he replied, but she cut him short.

  “Never mind about that. Go on with what you did when you saw the smear on the wall and how you could connect a dab of distemper with Faraday.”

  “The men were due back to their work in the room, so I only had a moment for my operations, which I employed in the following manner,” he explained. “Looking back afterwards I felt astounded to see the way my mind had worked — like a perfect piece of mechanism without volition. First I took a yard measure from a workman’s bench and made two measurements; then I cut a small length off one of the rolls of paper presently to be hung in the room. I took a straight cut, one foot deep and the breadth of the roll, which would not be missed when the paper came to be used.”

  “You looked ahead and imagined you might need a piece?”

  “Exactly. I hoped and believed that what I might presently do would clear up everything; but something else would then remain to be cleared up afterwards: my own activities. Not only had this foul spectre to be laid in the future, but the means I must take to lay it concealed from every eye.”

  “And the measurements? What did you measure?”

  “Two things. By the way it was not a ‘smear’ on the wall as you describe it, Greta, but a well-defined square foot of colour differing from the space surrounding it. A foot both ways, and I measured its height above the wainscot and the distance between it and the angle of the wall. It stood, not at the centre of the wall, but nearer the east angle than the west.”

  His wife nodded.

  “That would bring it behind the big wardrobe in Faraday’s old room,” she said.

  “That is where it was, and the furniture being all restored to its former place again after the room was finished, that is where it is now.”

  “I see no earthly reason for what you did, darling,” said Greta, “but I see this much, that you would never have mentioned the matter to me at all if your measurements had not led to something further. Why did you take them? Some reason existed of course.”

  “That wall separates your father’s room, in which Faraday now sleeps, from the one in which he used to sleep, and the thing I desired to learn was where, if carried through the wall to the other side, this square patch would emerge. The nature of the wall and what it might be built of I could not tell without examination; but whether any further steps at all would be demanded from me depended on those measurements. Your father’s room was lined with fine wood and the panelling could not be invaded in any case; but, given time and privacy, it would be possible to investigate from your brother’s old rooms. All turned on the measurements for the moment.”

  “And what did they tell you?”

  “The one thing I hoped and prayed they were not going to tell me: the necessity for further inquiry. I went on with the investigation the next day when you were at the village. That part of the house was empty in the afternoon save for the workmen and the new paper was already up and the square patch concealed in Faraday’s old bedroom, but I went into his present room and measured, first the height from the wainscot, then the distance from the east wall. This gave me to an inch the place I wanted to find. It lay immediately behind the pillow of the bed. I tapped to right and left of the spot and the panelling emitted two sounds. For nine inches the note was distinctly hollow to right and left; but, above and below, it sounded dull and without any resonance. The wall was solid save an aperture in the midst evidently filled with different and lighter material at this particular spot. The possibility of connection between the marking on the wall in the adjoining room and Sir Hector’s old bedchamber had therefore to be faced if I was prepared to face it. I am assuming Sir Hector’s bed stood in the alcove raised by a step from the rest of the room, as it still stands.”

  “Yes, it was never moved. Faraday made
no changes.”

  “Well,” he continued, “that is the first act of this drama, and it remained for me to tear up the play, or proceed with it. At first sight it appeared so monstrously unreal that my instinct rebelled. I asked myself, in any case what such a matter had to do with me; but destiny was not going to be put off by evasions on my part. For the time I easily convinced my conscience that no direct action on my part could be attempted. To proclaim a wish for examination of that wall would be to declare a doubt as to Sir Hector’s end, and much worse than that, for it amounted to suspicion being cast on his own son, the brother of my own wife. You can guess how my soul shrank from a challenge so dreadful; but what happened? The way was made clear and the task actually thrust upon me until nothing stood between me and the next step. On a future visit, when you were suddenly called to your sick friend and Faraday again to town, I returned to Cliff and found myself alone here for a few days. Nor was that all. The time had come to put our own suite of rooms into the painter’s and decorator’s hands and you had consigned me to Faraday’s old bedroom. Fate never played such a clear and decisive hand. At my leisure and in absolute secrecy I could now investigate without fear of any interruption, penetrate the wall by night and make good my depredations afterwards. Everything in the room was as it had been and the big wardrobe covered the point of attack.”

  “You did it, opened the wall and satisfied yourself?”

  “Yes, Greta. Those former mysterious impulses were explained now and the strange way I had anticipated needs still hidden in a far future.”

  “It must have felt like that. And when you went to bed in that room you set to work?”

  “Yes. It didn’t take long. I moved the wardrobe, used the tools I had brought and a box for the debris when I opened the wall. I found that a hole a foot square had been bored through it and refilled with broken mortar. The wall that separated the rooms was rather more than a foot thick and built of stone, but the stones for this little tunnel were removed and not returned and I could easily extract the soft rubble without making a mess or any noise. The whole business only took half an hour and I found the hole extended through the entire thickness of the party wall until it reached the wooded panelling of your father’s room at a point about three or four inches from the centre of the pillow of his bed.”

  “You could be positive of that, Ernest?”

  “Quite positive. The hole was a foot square all through. Next I carefully refilled it with the loose stuff I had taken out, and applied a smooth, firm surface to the end of the room where I had been working. I dusted the floor very carefully and pushed back the wardrobe into its place. That was the first night’s work and, on the second, I moved the wardrobe again and pasted my piece of wall-paper over the wound, leaving all exactly as I had found it. Your brother came back on the following day. Now ask me any questions that occur to you.”

  “You left not a trace of anything in Faraday’s old room to show you had been so busy there?”

  “Not a speck. You will wish to see the place itself and I can open it up again.”

  “I take your word for it,” said Greta, “and I can see that this discovery meant you had to go on.”

  “I had to go on. The road was a long one and still I hoped that the journey might end in some definite block that would put Faraday out of the running. I could leave the situation involving him as now I found it, for here at last was a possible explanation of Sir Hector’s death — horrible, but possible.”

  “How possible, Ernest?”

  “I am no doctor but the possibility was evident even to a lay mind. I’ll come to that. It took me into deep water and the need to consult experts. But that was a long way ahead yet.”

  “What was there for you to do next?” she asked.

  “Eliminate Faraday from any suspicion whatever if in my power,” he answered.

  “Obviously impossible unless you reached the truth and found him innocent. Failing that he will always be under suspicion to us. It seems inconceivable, but if this was not his work, who can be responsible?”

  “Motive and opportunity challenged me grimly enough,” he admitted, “but I was thorough. I ignored them both to begin with. I studied only your brother’s character — that relentless concentration — his ability and his history as a physician and physicist. I made complete inquiry into his past life — his career — long before I knew him, before I was a policeman, or he a medical student. It is extraordinary how much you can learn about a fellow-creature’s existence if you have the patience and facility to do so. Those advantages my business affords. From his early manhood, year by year, I was able to build up a dossier of his movements, his interests and his progress. The story is one of successive distinctions and a life of tremendous application without incidents of any kind except his steady advance. Not until he had left the hospital did I find an occurrence to arrest me. On the face of it this has nothing to do with him and no circumstantial evidence can connect it with him — none at least that would be accepted in a court of law — but, with my knowledge of his father’s death, I found in this event a reason for hope, because if certain facts emerged, one suspicion at least was removed.”

  “What was that?”

  “A long time ago your brother Alfred told me the story and it was your father who made good what amounted to a considerable disaster at the time. Do you remember that their store of radium was stolen from them at St. Luke’s Hospital some years ago? After Faraday brought the news to Cliff on a subsequent visit, explained the details and the grave nature of the loss, Sir Hector, with amazing generosity, made it good. Your doctor brother happened to be one of the three men who had access to that radium.”

  “But was out of England when it was stolen.”

  “That is the whole point, Greta. When I came to the incident as happening during his work at St. Luke’s, I remembered that Faraday was abroad when the loss had been discovered and I felt a snag removed from my task. But a moment’s thought convinced me to the contrary. Whether the radium was stolen after he left England yet remains to be proved: all we knew for a fact was the theft had been discovered after he left England. I felt confident that evidence must exist at the hospital on this point and planned a visit to St. Luke’s designed to satisfy my mind while creating no suggestion as to my real object in making the inquiry.”

  “How could you do that?” she asked.

  “By taking advantage of certain war regulations. When war broke out it was directed that all radium in this country should be buried to a depth of fifty feet, so that no danger of its destruction from the air need be feared. On my own initiative, but with my credentials from Scotland Yard, I took advantage of this enactment, visited St. Luke’s and asked to be shown where their radium was secreted. Everything proceeded smoothly enough. The stuff was deep in the underground regions of the building; I got friendly with the curator, proclaimed my personal knowledge of the Heron family, heard again the story of the past abduction and was able to ask certain questions naturally arising from it. Many details were not generally reported and, though they must have been familiar to Faraday, it does not appear that he let you know them. If he did, be sure to tell me when you hear them now.”

  Greta made no answer and her husband proceeded.

  “The significant points to me were two. First that the receptacle for the radium at St. Luke’s was of exact shape to fit the hole in the wall at Cliff and, secondly, that when the thief stole the original stuff, he left the original container behind and therefore had used another for his purpose. A radium container is made of lead four inches thick to prevent the emanations — the radio energy — from escaping, and they still use the original container at St. Luke’s. Now it holds the precious stuff for which the hospital had to thank your father. But to remove it the thief had to furnish a similar leaden box, which he doubtless did, and this care for detail unfortunately defeats any such alibi as I thought Faraday’s absence on the Continent furnishes. The robber, having removed the radiu
m, put in its place a small amount of material exactly resembling radium to the eye, and it was not until the box was opened after a failure to extract emanations for medical purposes, that the radium was found to be gone. Experts quickly discovered the loss of the radium and inquiries showed that Faraday was the last to have employed it professionally before he left England. That the radium was gone became clear enough, but nobody could say exactly when the theft had been committed. Naturally a man of his standing and eminence was never associated with the crime from first to last; but there is no cast-iron alibi to protect him.”

  “That was all so long ago before this discovery.”

  “Yes, but not until he had his father’s final and definite refusal ever to help him. I am not asserting that the theft of radium was connected with Faraday yet; but there is much more to make it possible. He looked far ahead and, being a medical man, might be supposed to know that radium, if so exhibited that its radioactive elements played every night upon the head of a sleeping man, would ultimately be mortal. Probably nobody yet knows exactly what a form a victim’s sickness would take, under such treatment, but doctors, familiar with the potency and possible peril, would probably expect the result of such an experiment to be fatal. A stone wall would have blocked the emanations; but a panel of wood was powerless to do so and, once the leaden box was in place and its aperture opened to throw the radioactivity in the necessary direction to Sir Hector’s pillow, then the murderer had only to seal up the stuff and let it do its nightly work. Recollect also when the fatal illness began. It was a week or ten days after Faraday had last been at Cliff before he went to North Africa for a conference, and not until your father’s malady was well advanced were you able to get in touch with him and bring him home. To sum up, Greta, we cannot possibly prove that your brother killed his father with radium, though much points to it, but he knew of other radioactive things. I myself have heard him hint long before those days, that he was on the track of material as yet unknown to any scientist but himself. He spoke of a synthesis, and if something other than radium killed Sir Hector, who but Faraday could have been responsible? At any rate he returned to see him die; he spent much of the waiting time in his own room and may then have removed the lethal stuff from the wall, its work done, put all in order, left nothing but a smudge on the walls, applied a piece of the old paper, no doubt, as I applied a piece of the new, and made the place shipshape as I did.”