“Yes, my duck, I do,” she replied dreamily.
“But to imagine this is the only good thing in the world, where there are millions and millions of people just like us, all with their own particular bits of happiness, their own hopes and dreams, honestly, Andrea, that’s so self-centred and egoistical—why—it’s diseased—sheer megalomania—a sort of madness. And don’t tell me that’s really you. Never! You’d never have thought like that, left to yourself. You’re quite different, really. This is just a foul lesson you’re repeating. It was taught you by your father—and your two uncles.”
“What if it was?”
“Andrea,” he said solemnly, “you’ve got to tell me what those three are doing.”
She gave a sharp exclamation, and then was silent, determinedly silent.
“I’ll tell you this. I’m not the only one who’s worrying about them. There are two other men—one of them is that scientist, Hooker—who have been trying to puzzle out what they’re doing.”
She shook her head.
“That’s not why I’m here,” he continued, trying to make her look at him. “You know why I’m here, because I fell in love with you. I don’t care tuppence about your father or your uncles—they can do what they like, so long as it doesn’t interfere with our happiness. But then it seems it does. They’ve made you believe life’s hopeless. You talk as if this were the only time we could have together. You know something, and you won’t tell me what it is.”
“I can’t,” she gasped.
“If it didn’t affect us, I wouldn’t ask you,” he went on, pressing her. “But it does, and you know it does. It makes all this—I mean, everything between us—a mockery, a bit of faked-up happiness snatched-at for a day——”
“No, it doesn’t,” she protested. “Just the opposite. Something perfect that nothing can spoil.”
“That’s not true. How can it be perfect when you’re thinking one thing and I another, when you have a secret, big enough to cast a shadow over all your life, that you hide from me, when we’re not really sharing our thoughts, when I regard to-day as a beginning and you talk of it as an end? That’s just playing at love, just pretending for a few hours——”
“No, no, no, Malcolm—please!” And she wept, clinging desperately to him.
He waited, then asked quietly: “What is it, Andrea?”
She looked at him very earnestly, took his hand and put it against her cheek and then kissed it quickly. “This is real, isn’t it? I mean, you and me?”
“Yes,” he replied, rather sadly, “I know it’s real with me. Nothing like it before, and there’ll be nothing like it again.”
She nodded. “Same here,” she said slowly. “And you’re right—I see it now—I must tell you. My father—and my two uncles—are planning—something.”
“I thought they were. But what?”
“They want to end the world.”
He stared at her. She looked perfectly serious, even tragic. “Wait a minute,” he stammered in his bewilderment, “you don’t mean, literally, they want to end the world?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied hastily. “They want to destroy everything, everything—and you know why, because I’ve told you already
—they believe life’s hopeless, that it’s gone all wrong, that it would be better if people were no longer born, just to suffer pain and misery—so they want to end it all. They’d destroy the whole earth, if they could——”
“I dare say,” he retorted grimly, “but that’s simply ridiculous. And I don’t see what they can do.”
“They think they can destroy every living thing,” she told him gravely, “almost in a flash. I don’t understand it, but I know they think they can wipe out all the surface of the world, even if they can’t blow up the whole earth. And they’ve been working at it now for several years.”
“But, Andrea, it’s—it’s—preposterous.”
“I knew you’d say that, but you don’t know them. And don’t forget that Uncle Paul is a great scientist.”
He was busy now remembering things that Hooker had said, and was silent for several moments. When he spoke again, they had reversed the roles in which they found themselves that morning, for then he had been uncertain and indecisive, rather helpless, and she, in her deeply feminine, maternal, urge and will towards their happiness, had known her own mind exactly and had been sharply decisive; but now she was uncertain and rather helpless, not knowing what should be done next, whereas he was now sure, curt, commanding, and she found herself compelled to accept his decision without protest.
“We must go back,” he announced. “And I’m going there with you.”
Never in Malcolm’s experience had there been—and he felt there could never be again—a sunset like that they saw on their return to Lost Lake. It was as if the world was already ending. The whole western sky was swept with brooms of fire; the furnace doors of Heaven were flung open; the horizon was one huge conflagration; red-gold castles flamed and melted on burnished peaks of gold; islands of violet and palest green came through a dissolving fiery mist; the clouds to the north were like black guttering torches; the eastern sky had been sprayed with rose and amethyst; the south glowed orange and then paled to an egg-shell green; and at last the west forgot its anger and streamed out into blanched and tender night; and that was the end of the day’s vast heroic death. When they were riding down the last slope the earliest stars were twinkling, though faint light from beyond the horizon still caught the pale stretched silk of the sky. The hills huddled down, their edges blunted, and the valley’s length was lost in soft shadow. Angry little lights, like angry little questions, spluttered from the grouped buildings and the white tower, but above them the night arched itself, immense and ancient and still at peace. Without another word Andrea and Malcolm rode through the gateway, side by side.
CHAPTER NINE
THE THREE DESTROYERS
The room they had given Hooker was perhaps the most handsome and costly apartment he had ever owned, even if only for a day; although it was only one of many guest rooms, and of no importance in the establishment. The floor was covered with coloured and highly-polished tiles, with two fine Oriental rugs over them; the chairs and the bed were old Spanish, carved in dark wood; the curtains were of the best Italian weaving; there were some valuable pictures on the creamy walls, and a well-stocked scarlet bookcase; everything there was pleasant, instantly gratifying, to the sight or the touch; a sumptuous and staggeringly expensive room. And Hooker had hardly noticed it, though he had already spent some time within its charming walls. Outside, reached through the two long windows, was a broad balcony, running the length of the front of the house and looking down the valley; all tiled and polished and artfully coloured too, with magnificent fat lounging chairs and convenient low tables scattered about on it. Hooker had spent most of his time up there either wandering round and round his room or going out on to the balcony and moving restlessly between his window and the stone balustrade. He was trying to put his thoughts in order, to collect and weigh evidence, to make reasonable deductions from the evidence, to arrive at some conclusion. It just couldn’t be done.
Ever since his session with Paul MacMichael that morning, when MacMichael had asked him to run his eye over some calculations, had then made various strange remarks, boastful in tone but mysterious in content, and had promised to show him a certain curious experiment before the day was out, Hooker had been trying to make up his mind about his fellow scientist. It amounted to this. Either MacMichael had resigned and disappeared and finally settled himself in this remote place because he was now so far ahead of his colleagues in physics that he could only work independently, had, in short, outdistanced the rest of them completely. Or MacMichael was going quietly mad, and had taken himself away, or had been removed by his wealthy brother, in order to play at being the greatest physicis
t on earth, here in this wilderness. Hooker was convinced there was no other adequate explanation of his behaviour and talk. Either he had left them all standing, or he was mad; though it was just possible, if not at all likely, that he had kept his scientific wits and was losing all his others, in short, that he was a great man going mad.
On arriving this morning, Hooker had been taken straight up to Paul MacMichael’s study, and had begun to talk by asking his host what the devil he meant by playing him that stupid dirty little trick in England. But MacMichael had instantly pooh-poohed all such talk, and not like a man trying to rid himself of an embarrassing topic but quite genuinely, as if they had no time to waste on such trivialities. Indeed, he said as much. He was in a queer, nervous, jerky, excited state, as if he had been working too much and sleeping too little for months, a condition Hooker had encountered before in men who were at the end of a long piece of close hard research. But he had never seen any fellow scientist in quite the state of mind MacMichael appeared to be in now. One minute he would be biting his nails, muttering doubts, and cursing to himself; and the next minute he would be striding about and shouting, gleefully and boastfully, like a conqueror crazy with victories. The vast and intricate piece of calculation that he had allowed Hooker to run an eye over, the greatest privilege, he declared, that young man had ever enjoyed, was a sound mathematical edifice, as Hooker acknowledged; but the formulas and symbols had no reference, so meant nothing. And Hooker had not liked the way MacMichael had looked when he had told him so. Either the fellow had really something tremendous that he was keeping to himself, or he was going off his head. Then there was the experiment, which Hooker would have the supreme privilege of witnessing. It could not be performed yet; something was missing, some essential piece of apparatus, Hooker gathered; and MacMichael was dancing on red-hot pins and needles, it seemed, because the apparatus had not yet arrived. Several times during the morning he had called his brother John on the house telephone to ask about this missing apparatus. What brother John had to do with it, Hooker could not imagine. Finally, Hooker had been told, rather peremptorily, to go up to his room and wait there until he was wanted. MacMichael had also hinted, rather grimly, that if Hooker had so little genuine scientific curiosity that he would rather not wait, would rather leave the place altogether, he might find it difficult to get away. It was annoying, of course, being talked to and treated in this high-handed fashion, and Hooker had been annoyed, but unless he could prove to himself that MacMichael was simply going mental, he had not the least intention of leaving the place, would not for the world have been anywhere else.
So he had had a late lunch served up in his room, and there he had stayed ever since, trying to make head or tail of the business. He remembered Malcolm Darbyshire’s talk of the previous night, and wished now he had not taken it so lightly. This was Mystery Number Two with a vengeance! He had decided then, rather reluctantly, that what these MacMichaels were up to here, with their secrecy and guards and guns and nonsense, must be something that had a commercial value, they were fooling about with gold or with the idea of a new precious metal; but now, after talking to Paul MacMichael again, he could not believe it even possible. The brothers, of course, might have their separate whims or lunacies, so that Paul knew nothing about John’s murderous fanatics; but that too was hard to believe. What, then, was the answer? He covered a mile or two round his room and out on to the balcony and back again, trying to find that answer. Even when he stood outside, leaning on the balustrade, watching one of the most gorgeous sunsets he ever remembered seeing, he was still attempting to come to a decision about Paul MacMichael. He remained where he was, even when the light had faded, trying to recall every encounter he had had and everything he had ever been told about MacMichael, and was still in a maze when he heard the clatter of horses below, and looked down. The lights at the front gateway had now been turned on. There was a girl, probably the one Darbyshire had raved about. But who was this, coming along with her, now on foot?
He leaned far over. “Darbyshire, Darbyshire,” he called. “I’m up here. Hooker.”
“Stay there,” the girl called up, softly but clearly. “I’ll bring him.” There were one or two men down there, but not one of the brothers came out. They were probably conferring together, up in the tower, Hooker decided. He knew they were all here, but so far he had only actually seen Paul.
The girl did not bring Darbyshire along the corridor but along the balcony, and there they all met in front of Hooker’s room, and Hooker was briefly introduced by his friend to Andrea MacMichael.
“Andrea,” said Malcolm, speaking very quickly, “I think you’d better keep out of this, and the less you know about us the better. So I’ll stay here with Hooker. Where will you be?”
She pointed to the end of the balcony. “In that little sitting-room we just came through. I think my father and the others must be in the tower. If you’re still up here in two hours’ time I’ll have some dinner sent up. And—please——” But whatever she was about to implore him to do or not to do, she suddenly changed her mind about saying it, and giving him a rather wan little smile, she nodded, then hurried away.
Malcolm hastily dragged Hooker indoors, and closed the long windows.
“I’ve found out what it’s all about,” he began hurriedly, “though it still doesn’t make any sense. These people must be quite mad. But Andrea told me what they’re planning to do, and obviously she believes it, and they must believe it themselves. Hooker, they’re trying to bring the world to an end.”
Hooker had to laugh. “Is that all?”
“Oh—I know, it sounds absolutely barmy. But let me tell you what she said.” And Malcolm, omitting the more intimate and tender passages, recounted what he and Andrea had said to one another, dwelling carefully on her revelation of the secret. “And whatever you may think about it all,” he concluded earnestly, “I do assure you of this, Hooker, that Andrea was dead serious—as a matter of fact it completely explains her; you remember, my Mystery Number One—and she knows what she’s talking about, and I believe that whether these three brothers are sane or mad—and I suppose, anyhow, they can’t be quite sane—that really is their plan. It can’t be done, I suppose.”
“What? Bring the world to an end? Of course not,” said Hooker easily. “You might manage it if you could steer a comet this way, but I don’t imagine they think they can do that. This planet may be a comparatively small and insignificant celestial object, but nevertheless it’s a tidy lump of matter.”
“But supposing it wasn’t a question of destroying the whole earth, but only its surface, where there’s life—could that be done?”
“Quite impossible. Of course, if you could make the earth crust shift everywhere, that would make a mighty nice wreck of us. Or if you contrived a simultaneous explosion of interior gases everywhere, like the one at Martinique, we’d soon be done for, but that’s not on the cards either. If you brought the moon down, as the cosmic ice people argue—they say an earlier one did come down—we might soon be all tied in knots.” Hooker was enjoying himself. It was a pleasant change from his recent bewilderment.
Malcolm still looked and sounded unconvinced. “Didn’t they used to say something about splitting an atom?” he ventured.
Hooker laughed again. “You’ve been reading the back numbers of Sunday supplements, old son. We’ve been splitting atoms for years. Nothing happens that you’d be interested in. You don’t even get a Nobel Prize for it any more. No, you’d have to do a bit more than that, to be dangerous. Now if all the electrons took it into their heads to be positive instead of negative, then there would be an almighty crack-up.”
“That couldn’t happen, I suppose?”
“Not a chance!”
Malcolm was persistent. “Look here, I’m completely ignorant about this atom and electron stuff. I can’t imagine how you even start knowing they’re there at all—�
��”
“You can photograph their tracks. I could show you dozens of ’em.”
“All right. I’ll take your word for it. But isn’t it just possible that this uncle of Andrea’s, Paul, who’s a scientist, and you say yourself a good one, isn’t it just possible that he’s got on to something you don’t know about, something”—he gave a vague wave in the air—“that if you let it loose, full blast, might make a mess of everything?”
Hooker suddenly looked grave. “Quite apart from the sheer damned lunacy of the idea itself,” he said slowly, “he’d certainly have to know a lot more than I do about atomic structure and behaviour even to dream of such a thing. Curiously enough, Darbyshire, that’s just what I’ve been wondering all afternoon—whether he’s just going quietly off his head or he really has something.”
“It might be both, y’know,” said Malcolm. “That would explain it.”
“I’ve thought of that, but he’d have to keep pretty sane and have all his wits about him to work out a really long jump like that in atomic physics, though I don’t say one part of him couldn’t keep fairly steady on the job and the other part be going mad.”
The Doomsday Men Page 23
