“The points at issue being my duty to my conscience and the world at large, and your need to wait upon my conclusions?” asked Ernest.
“Exactly. You spoke of hearing me before you decided; but it is quite as important that I should hear you. You are all-powerful and need not fear that I shall make any effort to escape, or evade your decision. Where should I escape? What value could existence offer me as a criminal flying from the law? I can only take my secret with me — nothing else — and it really remains for you to determine whether your discovery denies my discovery to human civilization, or your ethical principles vote for the more rational course.”
“Conscience and duty are not lightly to be weighed,” replied Ernest. “One may say ‘not selfishly to be weighed,’ when they may involve the welfare of future generations. God knows I do not want to make a mistake.”
“It is not a moment to be impulsive,” agreed Faraday, “and you doubtless feel the demand for a little time as much as I do. Your dilemma is the harder since you come to it with these grave questions of public duty and private conscience. Neither delays me, for the only duty I ever recognized was that required by eternal and dogged search for truth. I never had what is understood by conscience. But yours I admit, and we can push the matter a little farther before we part to consider it — each from his own point of view.”
The speaker had passed through a tremendous experience, and pure, unclouded intelligence it was that helped him to do so, for, from the moment the detective’s challenge developed, its form had inspired Faraday’s own line of response. Not thus would Ernest have attacked had his duty and conscience directed him. He was already manœuvring for position and believed himself in reach of it, while a mind, swifter and far subtler than his own, imparted the necessary impetus and encouragement. Now indeed the scientist continued along this line.
“Conscience is only another name for what we may believe is our duty,” he said, “and in your case, as I see it, two courses lie open between which any moral impulses you possess must decide. You have either to give me up and leave public opinion, through our Home Office, to operate, or you can determine the question for yourself, trust your own judgment and so obviate all the business of publicity and a trial at law. I should guess your intelligence would be well able to decide that I am better alive than dead and leave me to proceed with my enterprises on behalf of humanity, rather than suppress them for the inadequate reason that, technically, I merit capital punishment. I should assume so much from my knowledge of your character. Those two dead men derive no advantage from my destruction, while myriads of living men are likely to lose immeasurably by it. To demand a universal verdict is therefore needless and for many reasons most undesirable. There remains your own brilliant achievement, which I have been the first to learn and acclaim, and your right to recognition for it. Here I feel a personal responsibility.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the other.
“A matter of justice. I am identified with the situation somewhat closely, but not too closely to lose my sense of proportion. With my arrest you receive such distinction as falls to the lot of very few men and a place on the roll of fame; while should you decide otherwise, then it appears only just that some other distinction should befall you from those who are in a position to bestow it. Being myself in that position, the idea naturally occurred to me.”
“The sense of duty done might be its own reward,” said Trenshaw, and Faraday uttered his rare laugh to mark the hypocrisy he expected.
“There is a rather significant point, which you fail to note, being no cynic at any time,” he answered. “But as a matter of fact, the reward you achieve by announcing your triumph and handing me to justice would lie on a very different plane from that which might result if you permit me to go my way. Applause and some appreciation from the authorities at Scotland Yard, perhaps a knighthood and your photograph in the newspapers will await you in the one case, together with Greta’s eternal downfall; while, in the other, you have to deal with one who possesses a tangible form of gratitude within his power alone to furnish. The simplicity and convenience of this course are so obvious that they need hardly be pointed out. To a man of your attainments and native energy, the new life, upon which you and Greta are about to launch, must naturally depend upon what you are able to bring to it as backbone and background. She has plenty of money; but you have none, and should your sense of duty make it possible to start your future life well equipped in that particular, then I am here, both ready and willing to assure it. You can envisage the future from the standpoint, not of a few thousands a year in addition to your wife’s money, but a genuine fortune. To have presented you with a million of money under ordinary circumstances would have been difficult if not impossible; but no difficulties in reality exist now. Being your wife’s brother, there is nothing to challenge criticism in presenting you with what I please. For myself, the big money I needed to do what I wished to do and obtained for that purpose is no longer necessary. It has accomplished its end and my future cares relating to research will be provided by public money. The State has no choice. In that event you and Greta can decide whether you care to make Cliff your home, or start elsewhere. For my part I shall reside in or near London. That is all I have to say for the moment and, as Greta will be wondering what has become of you, you had better return to her.”
They rose and left the belvedere together.
“Twenty-four hours should be long enough to decide,” suggested the scientist. “If you feel you need more time, don’t hesitate to say so, and accept my assurance of one thing: I shall not attempt to destroy myself. Life is too interesting for the moment.”
“That will be long enough,” answered the other. “We will meet again here to-morrow, Faraday. I am, of course, quite conscious that your life must lie outside any question of money value. I don’t like regarding the future as a bargain in any case and the less we dwell on that side, the better for our self-respect.”
“Doubtless you feel so and, after to-morrow night, you need not think of it again, my dear fellow. I shall inform you and Greta shortly that I design to simplify my life in certain directions and resign various interests that only combine to waste my time. I shall then explain that I propose to make you a present of a million of money, while still in a position to do so, and leave you both to decide whether Cliff shall be sold, or you prefer to remain here after I take my leave of it.”
“I think she will prefer to go,” answered Ernest. “Indeed I feel sure she will.”
They parted amicably five minutes later, Trensham returning to the house and the other going to his laboratory. Each was satisfied in his own way: Faraday glad to have judged his brother-in-law correctly, and not astonished to prove him venal, while Ernest found his hopes assured, his genius recognized, his power granted. Indeed the prospect offered only one difficulty. Greta remained to hear what he had just learned; but when they met again and retired together, her husband’s story differed both in substance and spirit from the truth of his recent interview. He related such facts as appeared to support his intentions, but was dumb as to many details. He spoke with utmost assurance as to his own command of the situation and gave it as his opinion her brother would probably decide for self-destruction; but he was careful to say nothing else that his wife, with her knowledge of Faraday, could be expected to discredit.
“All is well,” he said, “and better than I expected. I struck a firm note from the first, swept aside his sophisms and endeavours to assume any equality between us and, if such a thing were possible, put the fear of God into him. He heard me out and was impressed by the way I marshalled the facts and knit the case against him. He considered all the time I spoke what sort of chance he might have to deny everything and fight for it, but, as my tale unfolded, he saw his position and, when it came to his turn to talk, owned up frankly that I had got him. He was rather marvellous. His nerve never shook. I don’t suppose the Judgment Day would put him out of his stride. He beg
an by praising me and my extraordinary feat of detection. He saw all the beauties of it and was quick to point them out. He threw up the sponge in a manner of speaking and then addressed himself to his own position. I gave him to understand that my mercy could take one shape alone and that I was prepared to hear him before proceeding. He thanked me for that and begged to learn what shape my mercy might take after he had spoken. ‘I will agree to you committing suicide,’ I said, ‘and for the sake of your sister and your father’s memory, direct that the suicide shall be declared an accident. Nothing will be easier than for a man who deals in your dangerous researches to destroy himself.’“
“You said that to him, Ernest?”
“I did indeed and he admitted it was true. ‘Thus your family’s good name is preserved and your infamy will never be known on this side of the grave,’ I told him. He inquired more than once if anybody but myself was aware of the truth, and I asserted that I alone knew the facts and had kept them secret until his return. Then he specially asked if I had confided in you, and I lied as to that and told him of all others you must be the last to know. ‘Destroy yourself and this horrible business will never reach her,’ I said. ‘She need not remember anything that matters but your greatness.’“
Greta sighed.
“I wish that had been true,” she said, “for more reasons than my own peace of mind, or self-respect.”
“So do I — now. But I had to tell you. You were a safety-valve in a sort of way. I’ve often looked back and regretted being so impulsive. If you’d loved him — if you’d cared for him a quarter as much as you cared for Alfred — I could not have told you; but you always felt in a subconscious sort of way, as I always felt myself, that he was abnormal and something of a monster. What would have been astounding to discover about anybody else, never staggered me so utterly to discover about him. He is the only human being I ever met to my knowledge who created that impression and I have known many evil men.”
“How are things left between you? You have put yourself in a very dangerous position, Ernest. Is it likely that such a man, with what lies before him, is going to commit suicide at your orders?”
“Not for an instant. Nobody is more determined to carry on and complete his present task, or undertake even greater ones. He now began to argue on his own behalf and set out what he regards as the situation. You can guess at the line he took. He painted with a broad brush, reduced our personal standpoints to utter trivialities, declared that only two things mattered — one to me and one to him. ‘You have Greta’s future happiness and her family’s honour to consider,’ he said, ‘while upon my life largely may turn the future of civilization’.”
“I expected that,” she answered. “Now you see the folly of your plan to listen to him, or ever to see him again, darling. Something always told me that was wrong. His arguments should have been advanced at his trial, not to you — never, never to me. What matters to me if he can save the world? All I know is that he murdered my father and my brother. The last hope has gone now, because he admits it.”
“There is more to tell you, Greta. And first fear nothing. He understands that I am obdurate and knows well enough that a thousand good intentions could not alter what you would feel about him, if you knew it; but he argued from the definite understanding that you do not know it. That he believes, and it is the only believable thing, because neither he, nor any other man, would have imagined I could take my wife — his own sister — into my confidence. It needs our own perfect understanding of each other to explain that. Faced with the infernal truth, bewildered, unnerved, I turned to my second self as I always do, and I see the madness of that — too late. But — ”
“Leave it,” she said. “I understand: perhaps nobody else would. I can keep up the pretence until I get out of his sight. But the point is that he believes I know nothing. You feel positive as to that, for all depends on it.”
“Absolutely; we went far beyond any question of the kind. I took the lead and crushed the least suggestion on his part that dictation lay with him. I made it clear my duty and my conscience were the paramount matters. He pointed out the significance of his life. I insisted that weighed nothing with me.”
Trensham then detailed with reasonable accuracy further conversation and came to a conclusion.
“So it stands; but you have to remember that his whole argument was based on an assumption. Once convinced that you and the rest of the world know nothing, he had leisure to reflect on me and weigh what it meant to me to conceal my remarkable achievement, or make it public. He admitted that, should duty finally decide me to conceal it for the common good, there was only himself to take cognizance of the fact and that, in such a case, it would become his duty to reward my decision in his own way. Needless to tell you I anticipated this, but I believed him none the less. Money has ceased to mean what it did for him, Greta. Once his discoveries are made known, the Government will not deny him money any more than it did for the war. What he contemplates will be far better worth paying for and may amount to the death of war, by banishing off the earth those things that breed war. He sees, however, that money will continue to have its value for a poor man in my position with my future opening out before me, and since, as your husband, there would be nothing questionable in making me a very rich man, he is prepared to do so. It sounds crude, but not as he put it before me. His own future activities will no longer depend upon wealth: he has only to ask to receive; but mine to a great extent may, and he appreciates the fact that, if I allow him to live, he can acknowledge my gesture in that way and no other. These obvious facts he did not of course stress, but I perceived his drift and, looking further for your sake as well as my own, could not fail to contrast such an arrangement with what results if I hand him over to the Law.”
“A matter for your conscience if you like to put it so.”
“For far more than that: for your future. Not because of his material offer, but because of what your future must inevitably be if the truth is published to the world. In that case, whether he were executed as a homicide, or spared for his powers, your position and mine become common knowledge. It is terrible enough to know what we know with only each other to support us; but if the world knew — what sort of a world would it be for us then?”
“How have you left it?” she asked.
“I left it at his wish, that both he and I might have time to consider. To-morrow I shall meet him again. His intention was definite enough and he is very anxious to go on living — not, I think, for himself so much as for what he is about to accomplish. One has to grant that, with the backing of our common humanity, he can make a good case, and that is where, for me, conscience comes in. Duty for the policeman who discovers a criminal is simple enough; but here is something that opens a vastly wider vista. To begin with one has to remember that I did not make this discovery as a servant of the Law, but as a private individual.”
“You will not be invited to determine the issue in any case.”
“The question is shall the issue be ever raised? Once revealed it may go far beyond the Law.”
Greta, not without a pang, looked into her husband’s mind and saw the truth of him as her brother had done. Then she spoke concerning the immediate future.
“You have no watch upon him? He may have vanished to-morrow.”
“He is quite aware that he cannot vanish. Men of his importance do not disappear and become anonymous if they would. His name will be written in history, Greta.”
“You can contemplate doing nothing and letting the innocent dead go unavenged?”
“In any case revenge is a worthless luxury and in this case must do far more harm to the living than good to the dead. Faraday is quite willing to leave us Cliff and all that pertains to it, if you choose to stop here.”
“Thank God it is only a matter of days now before I leave it. Let me forget the name of Cliff if I can and only remember the names of my father and my brother.”
He comforted her to the best of
his power and was thankful enough when she passed into silence and sleep; while elsewhere Faraday spoke with one of the laboratory’s night watchmen, an old, retired police constable deputed to the task.
“You and the rest of you will soon be finished with this business, Cousins,” he said. “And very well you have done it.”
“With good money for a soft job, Sir Faraday; but we shan’t be sorry to slip another winter. Do you ordain to drop your work, Sir?”
The Fall of the House of Heron (Prologue Science Fiction) Page 18