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

by Eden Phillpotts

  “Stop,” he begged. “I’ve heard you say yourself that jealousy and desire for revenge are self-inflicted torments, not worthy of an educated person. Listen a moment, Greta.”

  He then took the opportunity — not to tell her all that was in his mind, but to approach the destiny of her brother upon general principles.

  “This is a unique plight in which you and I find ourselves,” he began. “It is unique, not only for its infernal nature, but by the attributes of the man responsible. Examination might prove your brother sane, and in that case, the face of humanity at large would be saved. I have known things to be done so hideous that all Scotland Yard felt thankful when science affirmed with certainty that the doer was mad. But, though madness and genius are often only separated by a razor’s edge, nobody is going to claim that Faraday is mad, or ever was mad. He is a genius and may be one of the greatest that ever walked this earth. The fate of generations unborn, the increased security of the whole world, may be in his hands.”

  “Would that be likely to influence the Law?” she asked.

  “I am not sure if the Law should be invited to consider it. My idea is that, having regard for our own position, we should bring the matter to pure reasoning and not allow personal feelings to cloud our decisions. Once admit how much may hang upon his life and liberty, then you see how vital becomes the right way to approach him — not only the right, but the righteous way.”

  “And what do you conceive that to be?”

  “For what it is worth, I believe we should face him ourselves and hear his side.”

  “Give him the opportunity to deny the whole horrible story?”

  “He cannot do that, Greta. What he can do is to argue his freedom would be of far greater practical value to the world than his destruction. My instinct is to hear him while taking all necessary precautions that his escape, save by the way of death, is going to be impossible. One cannot say if, in the hopeless position in which he finds himself, he will not choose to commit suicide. The benefit of the future world was never important to him. But, on the other hand, if he really knows all he claims to know, he may calculate that his fellow-man cannot afford to destroy him. That looks to me the ultimate problem and I don’t feel that our personal relations with him qualify us to answer it. If we decided wrongly, or, as you suggested, took the law into our own hands, we might win the curses of the whole earth.”

  Greta reflected before answering.

  “I suppose that’s the argument you would be expected to advance, dear one,” she replied presently, “and no doubt it should make my hot blood more tepid, but it doesn’t, because the man who watched my father die and probably killed my brother won’t live on this earth if I can put him under it. It’s horrible to me that you could even condone such a thing. But you discovered this awful business and you’ve brought it to me and you have a right to ask that I shall be reasonable. I will insist on nothing outside reason and justice.”

  “Don’t think I fail to realize what this must be to you,” he begged. “I have had time to stomach it and digest it; you have yet to do so and who shall blame you if you cannot? It shows how much I love you, how utterly I trust you, to have revealed the crime to you at all; but I could not see myself acting alone. You’re the soul of justice — one of the things that always amazed me about you before I loved you. A sense of justice, or what mankind believes to be justice, isn’t woman’s strong suit as a rule; but I felt sure that even a personal blow like this wouldn’t shake your stability when you looked all round it. You have been wonderful and you must be spared needless pain when he comes home. I shall face him: there is no reason why you should ever see the wretch again.”

  “I certainly never wish to see him again, Ernest, and, until you are called as witness for the Crown against him at his trial, if he ever comes to trial, I cannot see why you should either. Indeed I see every reason why you should not.”

  “We shall never agree there,” he declared. “I do not intend to see him from any cheap wish to triumph over him, but for a very different purpose. First that he may have a chance to prove to me if he can that he is not guilty.”

  “What do you matter? Let him face the Law, not you.”

  “I matter because, once convinced that I stand for the Law, he might take his own life without the publicity a trial at Law brings with it. Suicide, arranged as a fatal accident, would ensure the honour of the family name and obviate any need for the Law. That is all the mercy I feel at present disposed to offer him.”

  With complete confidence that, in any event, he held the whip-hand, Trensham argued, but Greta had more to say.

  “You dwell too much on what you think to do, darling,” she said, “and overlook what may lie in his power to do. There is another side. He might, as you suggest, throw up the sponge and destroy himself. But that is the least likely event of all. If a man attaches enormous importance to his life, as Faraday has always done and never more than now, then, when he finds it suddenly threatened, he will use all his intellect to preserve it. He will probably waste no time denying his crime, but count his continued existence of far greater importance. He wrote in his last letter that he has shortened the Japanese war by six months and will soon have reduced the Japanese population by a million souls. He would not say that if it were not true and we may take it most people would agree with him and hold that his life and what he is going to do with it is of much more importance than the fact that he is a murderer and has incurred the loss of his life.

  “But all that,” she continued, “is how he looks to us. It is quite beyond my power, or yours, to know how we shall look to him when he finds us standing between him and all that he will want to set about when he comes home — one of the most famous and powerful men of science in the world.”

  “Such facts won’t help him escape the Law unless I so will it,” prophesied Trensham. “No doubt the majority would take his side in any case. Human nature can always produce people to whom no crime is so abhorrent or loathsome as capital punishment. The vilest murderer finds fanatics to plead for his life, but in this case there are going to be strong and not unreasonable arguments that such a man as your brother is better alive than dead and his claims outweigh his crimes. That has to be considered, though it may be impossible for us to consider it as yet. His destiny cannot fairly be said to lie in our hands — and I withdraw that, Greta. We are not equal to such an awful responsibility.”

  “I feel equal to it,” she said, “because I am concerned with justice to the dead. The dead never have any friends.”

  “I know, but we must not let justice to the dead tempt us to injustice to ourselves. It lies in our power, no doubt, but would it be fair to ourselves, or true to our own principles, my precious love? I can say that, with my trade behind me and my vast experience of murder, I might kill Faraday and commit the perfect murder, but what sort of foundation would that be on which to build our future? In natures such as ours such an act would go far to poison two lives that yet may be happy and contented enough. He does not know remorse and would be incapable of feeling it; but I know you and I know myself well enough to be positive that this action would rob our own lives of all they had to offer.”

  “And what would life be worth if I knew he shared it and enjoyed glory and fame built upon the work of a devil?” she asked. “Can you imagine my life running parallel with his? I will not live in the same world with him.”

  He perceived that Greta was still far from the standpoint he had long since attained.

  “Much must depend on his reaction when he realizes where he stands,” explained Ernest. “A great deal will turn upon that.”

  He proceeded to describe his intentions; but what he now told Greta by no means chimed with his real purpose, for already a secret design was taking shape in his mind never to be shared with her. It did not clash with their devotion, or throw any shadow on his genuine love for her. Indeed he assured himself it was an evidence of that love and must ultimately lead the way to pe
ace and such happiness as her tormented spirit could enjoy; but the plans moving now towards decision belonged to his character and he knew were not such as could be directly hinted to Greta at present. As he spoke on, however, a certain shadow of them crept into his words and awakened her doubt. She did not glimpse the truth, but pointed out that he appeared to overlook his own danger.

  “You are so brave and have faced death so often in your dreadful work, darling, that you seem to ignore what this may mean,” she said presently. “You talk as though there were only one side to your meeting and that he will listen and make no attempt to oppose your decisions. If you imagine anything like that, or a compromise of any sort or kind, you are not only mistaken but running into terrible personal danger. You are a master of deduction and ought to be able to know what is to be expected from his future when you remember what he has done in the past. You will court utterly needless perils and I still think it would be more reasonable and perhaps more just if you ruled out any approach to him.”

  Ernest perceived that he had been speaking unguardedly and allowing private intentions to influence his utterance. His plans embraced no personal peril and had therefore ignored points vital to Greta. The error was patent and he set about to satisfy her mind.

  “It’s like you to see that,” he said, “and like your wonderful self to feel I may be saner to keep out of it. It might be wiser, but not braver. The question of personal danger never entered my mind. No credit to me — just an accident that physical fear was left out of me. I know he’s dangerous and I know the last thing on earth I want to risk is any danger that could threaten to shorten existence with you. That is the mainspring of my life and I could be as cowardly as any craven on earth before I would risk it. Be very sure nothing that will follow our meeting is going to mean danger.”

  “I am not at all sure,” she answered and went on to raise other questions regarding herself.

  “I am calm now and restrained,” declared Greta. “I withdraw much that I said and come to my own future concerning Faraday with an open mind, so far as it can be open. How best am I to help you? If you won’t keep out of his way, then I cannot. I must watch over you, Ernest, since you don’t see the need to watch over yourself.”

  Gratified by these unexpected concessions, which promised to chime more hopefully with his private plans, he kissed her and praised her.

  “How like you!” he said. “What a mind to work with and what an art to make the difficult comparatively easy! Don’t fear I shall fail to look after myself — for your sake if not for my own. I come to him well trained in the business of handling a trapped rat.”

  He ran on swiftly feeling the moment ripe.

  “Our great question really is how you are going to come to him, and half the answer is to know you are wise enough to decide you can come to him at all. Had I been as wise before the event, any such ordeal should have been spared you and the whole story kept secret until the last of the tale was told; but I couldn’t keep it from you: you seemed such a vital part, so now we have to face the fact that you know everything and consider the courses confronting you as a result.”

  “What are they?” she asked.

  “The two attitudes between which you have to choose as to how you meet your brother, since you are brave enough to meet him. You either meet him, as I shall, with the knowledge laid bare, or you conceal that knowledge and neither do nor say anything to let him imagine you have heard a word about it. To confront him with his crime is to render my battle with him as good as lost; to pretend complete ignorance and let him believe that I am the only one in the world who knows the truth — that assures my victory; but it is far the harder task for you and will need immense self-restraint and wonderful acting on your part to perform it.”

  “It will indeed,” she admitted. “To breathe the same air with him and touch his hand means more to me than I can face in my present frame of mind; but I see your point. Is any such ordeal necessary?”

  “No. You can do what you have always wished to do and never see him again; but that would be to handicap me for this reason. In the ordinary course of events we should both be here to welcome him, though it would not trouble him in the least if you were not here to do so, but when he heard the welcome I had waiting, he would instantly regard your absence with a good deal of suspicion. He knows what we are to each other and might imagine I was safeguarded by you and you were really aware of the truth. There is another very important point. Not only is he going to hear from me where he stands, but first I want to know from him where he stands. I want to hear his news, all this conference in America has taught him, his present outlook, future intentions and the objects on which he is now going to concentrate. There are very sufficient reasons for this and we must get what we can out of him before he listens to me; which will only be done if his mind is at peace. The greatest shock of his life is coming to him, I want to glean everything possible before it does.”

  “I don’t see any particular reason for seeking information from him,” said Greta, “or for believing anything he might say; but I admit every reason for doing nothing that could make him suspicious of me.”

  “If you feel so, it follows you must face the meeting,” he answered. “Gruel though it may be, if you cannot conceal what you must be suffering, better not see him. For me it depends so to act that, even when he learns all I have found out, he does not guess at my intentions, but discovers me not unprepared to be influenced by what he has to say. I shall deceive him as to that. But the first question he is going to ask me is whether you know the truth. As I said just now, he is well aware what we are to each other and will be anxious to know if I have told you the story. Whether he will believe me when I say I have not is a question, but I shall make it sound honest, for it would certainly be the most likely answer in any case to a rational mind such as his. Your attitude must be such as to convince him you know nothing, Greta.”

  “I can understand why you wanted me when faced with such a horrible thing,” she said. “It was too much for one man’s mind to hold. I will think about it, Ernest, and let you know what I decide. My only fear is I might break down. I still feel that I could kill him myself if I thought he was going to escape.”

  “Look farther than that — into the future and the united happiness we ourselves have the right to hope for,” he begged, “but I can leave that to you. Decide entirely on your own judgment and I shall know you will make the right decision.”

  Mystified and weary she made no answer and some days passed before Ernest returned to the subject, waiting for her to do so. Then came the news that Sir Faraday was returning by air and Greta announced her intention.

  “If it were anybody but you,” she told her husband, “I should still feel we were making a mistake about this and would be wiser to leave everything in other hands; but as it is you — then I agree. I will trust myself and stop here. But the ordeal must be as short as you can make it. I desire above everything to get away from Cliff and never see the haunted place again.”

  He assured her of his perfect understanding and they had agreed about every detail before Faraday returned home. Ernest set down a full account of his discovery, lacking nothing, with every date and incident duly recorded for reference, and the history was put into Greta’s hands. Upon this she insisted, since Ernest’s own plan of action made it necessary. She read the report when finished and then dispatched it to her own bankers in London.

  CHAPTER XII

  CERTAIN changes of outlook marked the mind of Faraday Heron on his return to England, and they had been welcome enough under other circumstances, but now tended somewhat to embarrass those awaiting him. He came home in good spirits conscious of outstanding triumph, and his achievements appeared to have softened his usual tough and obdurate mental texture until he could occasionally utter sentiments and express hopes familiar to the ears of humanity, but never in his sister’s recollection as yet heard from him. To Greta’s amazement and confusion he kissed her on arr
ival — a gesture only remembered in their childhood when he was ordered to do so by his mother, but agonizing enough now. He had put on weight in America and a ghostly geniality sounded strange in his cold and measured accents. His first care was his laboratory which had been placed under ceaseless guardianship during his absence. The building he locked up in every particular; but six men were engaged from Cliff to watch over it and never less than four kept duty by day and night. All had gone well with that and not until assured of it did he dwell upon his experiences and reveal a modified attitude to the fate of earth at large.

  His conversation dealt solely with science and those of high standing amongst whom he had recently laboured.

  “Every one of us had a world-wide name,” he said, “and nothing was more disappointing than to find Americans and Canadians numerically superior to ourselves. Against that, however, you can set the fact that Sir John Falconer and myself — British both — took the lead, cut the knot and solved the final problem. There was gigantic plant awaiting us — machinery such has never been created in the history of science — and the material and every gadget ever assembled for experiments on a scale unparalleled; but the extra, vital pinch of human reason and pure inspiration came as our contribution, and Falconer would tell you it was mine. Just a facet of the truth that solved what looked insoluble, but took ultimate shape in the atomic bomb: the first ever manufactured on that gigantic scale but sufficient to shorten the war by half a year, and probably save half a million Allied lives. A thing that one aeroplane can carry packed with power to lay all Devonshire in ruins if need be.”