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

by Eden Phillpotts

  “In Devonshire, yes. I shall finish here in another week or two and start again nigh London.”

  “ ’Twould be more like the old, peaceful days of Sir Hector if the works was pulled down, no doubt.”

  “They will disappear, Cousins, after I do. You can all knock off now. We’re safe for to-night and I shall be here for some hours.”

  “Don’t you blow yourself up, Master. That’s the only harm we count to befall. Germans — yes — and Japs — yes; but not Cliff.”

  • • •

  So stood Greta Trensham, her husband and her brother on that night, and upon a falsehood the fortunes of the trio turned. Ernest had spoken it and Faraday believed it. He laughed now at the revelation of Ernest’s character; while Greta — concerned with herself and troubled at her husband’s unconscious betrayal of himself — only needed time and thought to perceive its implication and immediate peril. As for Trensham he felt more than content that a situation so full of difficulties promised to clear in a manner to satisfy his hopes. He found conscience condoned, for it was from Faraday had come suggestions for the future in keeping both with rectitude and common sense.

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE three met at breakfast and Faraday gave no hint of his recent tremendous experience. He was taciturn as usual, but the letters that awaited him loosened his tongue and he spoke to Greta and Ernest as they ate their meal.

  “In the present confusion of interests represented by politics it will be hard to establish a firm foundation for the Commission on Atomic Energy ordained by the United Nations,” he said. “But one thing is certain: those representing Science should insist on having a paramount position upon it and future international agreements must respect the liberty of the individual demanded by men like myself. The traditions and rights as well as the obligations of science have to be considered and no curb for a moment set upon its freedom. We have always honoured our rights and duties, and no return to collective security, as a way out of the problem confronting all sovereign States, can for a moment be tolerated by us in future. The myth of collective security must never be revived again.”

  He went on to say that it was his intention to place his discoveries before the world at a very early date.

  “Everything is done and I am now actually composing my announcement,” he told them. “A communication to The Times may be the better course; but the Royal Society is anxious that I shall address the nation through them in person.”

  After breakfast was ended Greta disappeared as swiftly as she might and an hour later, being invited to do so, her husband accompanied Faraday to the laboratory. None was working there now but the director himself, for what remained to be done needed no assistants. The great place streaked with morning sunshine stretched empty save for machines and scientific appliances that caught the light in a maze of glass or polished steel. Faraday pointed to the vast domes of metal that rose through the roof.

  “These are midgets compared with the machinery in America. My laboratory is like a tiny model of what stands there,” he explained, “but it cost a million, has answered its purpose, and enabled me to reach my goal.”

  “More than a million,” answered Trensham. “Two innocent and worthy lives.”

  His desire was to convince the other that a decision had yet to be made; but Faraday showed no vexation.

  “We can leave that until we meet to-night, Ernest,” he answered. “For the moment I only desired to give you a glimpse of my workshop, which I have never done since it was completed and at work. Very few human eyes have looked upon this strange scene and I shall probably get it photographed as an historical document before I pull it down. Much has been accomplished here — much of more lasting value to humanity than the creation of the atomic bomb. Years of personal and concentrated labour have taught me how to create this terrific power, how to harness it and how to derive it from sources unguessed. That is my master achievement: the discovery of a synthesis of elements utterly unimagined.”

  “And controllable?”

  “As controllable as steam, or gas, or the electric current, yet atomic in their immensity.”

  A little later he did an extraordinary thing: he unlocked the drawer of a stout chest and lifted from it for a moment a square block of heavy metal.

  “Lead,” he told his companion. “The receptacle which contains the radium I stole from St. Luke’s hospital. It will be here, to prove a valuable piece of evidence against me in a certain event.”

  Faraday then returned the object and locked it up, while his companion remained silent and too astonished to utter any comment.

  “I am not showing you my materials,” continued the other, “because obviously no detail concerning them will ever reach you, or anybody else, should you decide that my discoveries shall not be made public. In that case neither shall I speak or write concerning them, nor leave a clue of any sort behind me. It is important, therefore, that I hear to-night where I stand. Our conclusion may be described as ‘a gentleman’s agreement.’ I realize my position and you feel no difficulty in doing the same, no doubt.”

  “The Crown would be final arbiter, not I,” said his brother-in-law.

  “We may assume I should be allowed to live: a disappointing sequel for you, Ernest, because, in that case my life would represent no return whatever for you and I should not be called to thank you for it.”

  Faraday amused himself with remarks of this kind and presently dismissed the other.

  “Now I must go to work,” he said, “and I shall do so on the assumption that my news is to be made known and the world soon the wiser. If otherwise, then considerable details have yet to be planned that all may be neat and orderly. My bargaining counters must be sorted out and my bequests considered. I have enough atomic energy bottled up here to separate Devon from Cornwall if liberated improperly, and the disposal of this hurricane would seem to be largely a matter for your decision. You will tell me what I must know to-night at the belvedere.”

  The other did not believe this statement, but was none the less glad to be gone. He had kept up his pretence of an open mind with a conclusion yet to reach, but he well knew that Faraday was aware of what he would say that night. For the moment his thoughts ran on the laboratory. There was nothing sinister about it, but he guessed that his invitation to see it might be a prelude to the suggestion that the final meeting should take place there — a course common caution urged him to decline.

  They did not meet at lunch, for the scientist telephoned, as he often did about midday, that a meal should be sent to him; and when Greta was alone with her husband, she submitted another cause for care and opened a new line of thought.

  “Thank God I need not see him again now,” she said, “for I shall not be home for tea and can say I have a headache and avoid dinner; but, though you feel no danger and would admit none, remember this when you meet him up there. You know where you stand and are bringing him what, of course, will ease his mind and clear the future for him. But, against that, you have to remember he may have made his own plans too. He faces what he knows to be a doubtful situation and you have to ask yourself how he may decide to act in that situation. We know the truth of the situation, but he does not. You lied and he believed you, assuming the facts must be as you stated. It was natural that he should believe you. But, believing you, we have to see how he may be thinking now.”

  “He and I think alike, Greta. I know him well enough to see that.”

  “Know him? What ordinary human being, moved and actuated by ordinary human impulses, knows him? God forbid you should know him, so listen to me and don’t assume for a moment you and he think alike, or view the position alike.”

  “I only told one falsehood, but it was largely spoken to save you the fate of having to face him again after he was aware you knew what he had done.”

  “I felt thankful to avoid that; but, when I could see straight this morning and use my brains, something which looked equally horrible appeared and no lie will
save me from it. I have his blood in me and some of his power to look through a thing; so I looked through this. It offered no flaw from your point of view; you listened and it was reasonable that he should argue for the greater issues. It looks all right now; but how can things ever be right? What is truth to him, though he swears only by truth to your face? How shall you trust a man that could do what he has done?”

  “Failure on his part to keep faith would mean his instant exposure.”

  “Not instant exposure but long delayed exposure, Ernest, and how would you explain your delay?” she answered. “But now do see how he must view his position from a different standpoint than you can. It wanted no diplomacy or cunning to make him believe you when you said that nobody on earth but yourself knew the facts. Had you confided in others, he would have found a different welcome on reaching England. But how does he stand now? He is convinced that one person only knows what he has done, and if he would rather kill you than present you with a fabulous sum of money — if he decides that it would be simpler to murder you than pay for your silence — what more likely than that he will try to do so? That is how I feel now, beloved, and I cannot see why this final meeting should be made at all, or why you should see him again. I would feel a thousand times happier if you got into your car at once and never stopped driving until you were safe in London.”

  He shook his head.

  “This is a bad dream,” he told her. “Just your love for me building up imaginary perils for me. But no need to fear any more violence, or imagine he is thinking like that. He wants peace and a free hand to proceed on his way. If you had been able to hear us talking, you would have seen everything that occupied his mind. He could find means to kill me, no doubt; any resolute and intelligent man can kill a fellow-creature if determined to do so; but my death would only complicate his life for the moment and he knows I should not be easy to liquidate. We cannot be sure that he does believe me so completely as you imagine. He may suspect I have a secret security and that any sudden end to me would let loose the truth in some quarter vital for him. It would be elementary to assume a man with my vast experience of crime is not going to take this line unprotected. He probably argues that even, while none at the moment knows the truth, it is contained in documentary evidence, to be opened in the event of any mystery overtaking me. No, he is trustable, just as he knows I am trustable. We have in fact to admit the element of trust.”

  His wife, however, renewed her entreaties, but found him convinced that, once safe himself, Faraday was not going to plan danger for others.

  “If he ever did take any subject on a higher plane than his personal welfare, it is the subject of his discovery,” Ernest told her. “In all concerning that he is to be relied upon with absolute confidence, and now, at the summit of his hopes, he will have no thought for any lesser thing until his proclamation is made. Then he will turn to me, keep his promises and regard the whole dreadful matter as an incident of no significance in his story. He will not waste any hatred on me. Indeed I don’t think, as I have heard you say, he can hate any more than he can love. He is the robot sort of man that he would like us all to be. I have never denied his genius, or the splendour of his goal. This he knows and will not misjudge my motives. To let him go on with his life is justified by my belief in what he is going to do with it, and therefore the ethical conclusion for me to come to. Your favourite author, George Sand, says, ‘Ask from no man what he was, or what he wanted yesterday.’ What we are and what we want to-day will not be what we are and what we want a year hence.”

  “If you have already forgotten how to hate,” answered Greta, “then perhaps to-morrow you will have forgotten how to love.”

  “All the love I ever had, or shall have, is yours and I would never do anything to lose one heart-beat of your love,” he answered. “If I love you, it follows that I hate him; but because I love you and your security and happiness I take this course. Hate him I must for the abomination he is. The devil hasn’t made me forget he is one.”

  His wife interrupted.

  “Leave all that now and think of your security as well as my own. Anybody can see that he might think it vital to destroy you. If his own flesh and blood, why not you?”

  “Don’t go over the old ground,” he begged. “We view him alike, but I look farther ahead than you and read him a little deeper. He would never waste time and thought, or court personal dangers, or commit a needless crime. Our understanding is founded on a rational basis that satisfies us both.”

  She shook her head.

  “I leave you to your wishful thinking, darling, but I shall not be content until we are both in another air than this.”

  “That will be very soon now,” he promised.

  Faraday reappeared at dinner declaring himself weary.

  “To leave everything safe and orderly is a great task,” he said. “Above all to leave it safe. I am surprised myself at the immense amount of priceless but highly dangerous material accumulated here. Ignorance might play the deuce with it.”

  “You’ll come back to dismantle it yourself, no doubt,” suggested Ernest, but the other thought that improbable.

  “Wiser to dispose of the peril before I leave,” he answered. “I shall convey certain material to London for exhibition purposes, but all that really matters is in my head and only safe there. My synthesis remains unknown until the world is more trustworthy than at present, and I may yet change my mind and deny this knowledge even to our own Government.”

  Greta was not with them at dinner and Faraday continued to keep up the farce of conversation during the meal. When it was ended he prepared to return to the laboratory.

  “I shall work there until a quarter to eleven,” he said. “I shall then shut up and ascend to the gazebo. You can count on me there at twelve and we will come down together. There is going to be nothing in writing, but a formal declaration, first from you and then from me. Deeds are better than words and, in the event of an understanding, within a few months I make the transfer. Meantime, if you and Greta want to buy a big place and launch out, an estate can be acquired. If I may advise you will do no such thing, because, should the Coalition go out of office at the next general election and the nation find socialism at the helm, then big estates may be cheap; but they will probably prove costly to run and your boot-black demand more money than your butler gets at present. No red rebellion, no guillotines and tumbrils for our sort; but extermination by the gentle means of confiscation, starvation and nationalization. The middle-classes will become museum specimens and, in their turn, the socialists find communism win the masses and hear our philosophers explain that evolution is inevitable and eternal.”

  “And where will atomic energy come in?” asked Ernest.

  “On the side of the truth — truth meaning everlasting change,” declared the other. “We shall always advance, but never arrive.”

  The time was now near nine o’clock and the night very dark and rough, with promise of rain from the sea. Trensham spent an hour with his wife and strove to abate her anxiety, but she made no attempt to conceal it, inquired as to why they could not come to a conclusion at Cliff and what was the point of climbing to the belvedere, or leaving the house again.

  “It is all so unreal and theatrical and utterly unlike Faraday,” she said. “Another man might plan this mystery and secrecy, but not him. Then why these silly solemnities and rubbish about nothing in writing? Heaven knows what he may have in writing, or in his head either. He may have police hidden up there to arrest you for blackmail. He may be going to fight you and declare your charges false in every particular.”

  He deplored her attitude.

  “I’ll protect myself and go armed to please you,” he promised. “It has been my business to watch my step on many an occasion and I never did so in vain. We cannot see him with the same eyes, my treasure, but I have seldom failed to read character and, if ever there was a man who desires nothing but peace at present and no complications in his life, it is h
e. One must allow even such a self-contained creature to be thrown out of his stride by an awful upset like this, but his purpose is as clear as crystal to me. He is a realist and, after the first shock, quickly grasped that only one hope remained for him. I had never thought of such a way out myself, needless to tell you; but when he submitted it and I put it to the needful tests, being also a realist and having to admit the weight and even justice of what he suggested I decided finally as I have done. To destroy himself he would consider a crime against science and recognizes no other judge.”

  “Leaving me to destroy him single-handed.”

  Her husband made no answer to that.

  “Expect me back again soon after midnight,” he told her. “We shall return together, for the interview will not occupy five minutes. Silly, I grant you, but he wished it so.”

  “Why?” she asked. Then Greta’s heart turned solely to him. “Can’t you even now feel that he had a reason? Does he ever plan silly things? I have always believed your word like the gospel, but for the first time in our lives, I feel nothing, nothing is right with it. Oh, my dearest, cannot you believe me and admit how much there is on my side? Have you ever found my intuitions mistaken? They are rare enough; but they were never wrong.”

  “Nor can you say that mine are. Why doubt where my mind is so clear, Greta? First and above all else you are safe. Even if anything happened to me, he could have no quarrel with you.”

  “If anything happened to you, I shall kill him,” she answered. “Remember that. As surely as evil overtook you, Ernest, so surely will the truth of him be known; and if the State were to decide for him to live, then I myself shall end his life.”

  He kissed her and left her then, his mind occupied with the last thing she had said to him. Her ferocity impressed him, for she had uttered these words without passion or rise of voice. ‘If she were right, which happily she is not, she would spend the balance of her widowed life hunting down that man,’ he reflected.