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

by Eden Phillpotts

  CHAPTER IV

  TO Germany went Faraday Heron and his experiences were summed up in a letter after his return. Sir Hector learned what he had to say, which was little, but decisive.

  “The Teuton scientists are much like those within the experience of my friends who have visited the East,” he wrote. “Jap and German resemble each other in being most amiable, but while silent as the grave about what they know, are intensely inquisitive to learn what we know. Ready and willing to take with both hands, they profit from such information as they can squeeze out of us, but are quite unprepared to reply in kind. To any questions you may put they turn a deaf ear, or declare absolute ignorance, but one thing the German savants could not conceal, even though some attempted to do so, and that was their profound interest in my own subject. It occupies them actively and I found it easy enough to see why. War is in this people’s blood. They have smarted for a generation under their last defeat and are bending all their power and ingenuity to the task of wiping it out. They protest at the suggestion and some resent it; but there it lies, behind the façade of friendship. Knowing that if they go to war with their neighbours and our friends, they will again go to war with us, they understand what they must do and will leave no stone unturned next time, being made of just the stuff for such a purpose. They worship their army and are ready and willing to gamble again as they did before; and if they are equipped with a weapon such as now they seek and can use against those who have it not, then their future efforts will be triumphant. I could not find out how far they have got, but suspect it is much farther than they pretend. When driven to speak on the subject, or show themselves actually discourteous, they made light of it and declared their researches to be disappointing; but this was a childish falsehood, because I can read German and understand German speech, though I do not speak it, and I knew, from what I had read in their journals that they are certainly not behind us. My belief is that they are ahead of us, but their scientists are under strict orders to keep the fact a secret. Which, of course, means that they will try to develop the destructive powers resulting from nuclear fission and not trouble about any other aspect of it until we are down and out.”

  When Faraday came home again at the end of that year, he reported regular work at Cambridge and a professorship in sight. Once more, with admirable lucidity, he set his ambitions before his father, only to find Sir Hector without sympathy; yet he succeeded in a minor ambition and extracted money from him for a good cause for which he spoke during dinner on Christmas evening.

  “It happened after I had gone to Germany,” he said, “and they wrote to me about it from St. Luke’s. The hospital was in the proud possession of holding radium — the genuine thing. Fifteen grains of this tremendous treasure was ours and, as you may imagine, guarded with far more diligence than gold would have been. Yet I learned to my dismay that our radium was gone. Three people and only three possessed the right of entry to it: myself and two others; and, when I went abroad, my successor took my place. We were all well-known men with no question marks against us, for it is obvious, in our respective positions and with our future prospects, none of us would play thief. Nor could we derive any personal benefit from it if we did. The value of the stuff was, of course, tremendous, but nobody can hawk radium as though it were diamonds and the total amount at present in human hands is known to a grain. So the prime mystery remains to learn why such an extraordinary and difficult theft was committed. It argued knowledge, opportunity, the possession of two keys and understanding of the peril incidental to approaching radium at all. But the unknown brought it off and the radium in its heavy, leaden receptable, had gone.”

  “When did you yourself see it last?” asked Alfred.

  “A day or two before I left England. I wanted some emanations from it and collected them.”

  “And when was it lost?” inquired Greta.

  “Not until some weeks later. Two of the three with access to it — myself and another doctor — were away on holiday when the third of us found that it had gone. There was no evidence of any rough entry or trouble of any kind; but when he went there on his just occasions, the cupboard was bare.”

  “Ernest Trensham would have liked that case,” declared Greta.

  “Scotland Yard was called in at once and was still busy working on the mystery when I came home,” answered her brother. “They wanted me and I spent a morning with them. Clever detectives but incapable of seeing any light. A crime without apparent motive is the most difficult to solve they told me. Which, of course, is obvious.”

  “And you cannot see any motive yourself, or associate anybody with the business?” asked Sir Hector.

  “I certainly cannot, or imagine any man or woman at St. Luke’s capable of such a thing. Those who had the power to commit it are absolved and I defy the wits of any policeman to find an unknown who possessed that power. Their theory appeared to be that one of us three, who knew the secret, must have unconsciously revealed it to somebody else — a rascally student, or a nurse, or some official. But that strikes me as nonsense, being the responsible men we are. Is it likely that one of us would have chattered to underlings about it?”

  They discussed the problem and then Faraday confessed his reason for mentioning it.

  “Perhaps you’ve guessed it already why I’ve told you of our misfortune at such length, Father,” he said. “This is a real and most grievous loss to one of your pet charities. It cuts out a valuable possession which was increasing our knowledge in a practical way and helping to lessen the suffering of many sick people. Nobody has every connected radium with evil and its applications are for humane purposes alone. One needn’t bore you with details, but if you want them, you need only write to the hospital. Then chapter and verse can be sent to you. It’s special pleading, because St. Luke’s will always mean such a lot to me personally; but — if you saw your way — you could do them a rare good turn by making their loss good.”

  Sir Hector considered.

  “The suggestion appeals to me, and the more so coming from you, Faraday,” he replied. “I find myself hoping sometimes that you may yet live to return to your real, life-saving trade, which I shall always regard as pathology. What would be the value of such radium as has been stolen? And is it in the market to purchase?”

  “We might have to wait for it, but if the money were forthcoming, should be able to count upon it fairly soon. It was valued at fifteen thousand pounds. The world is still very short of radium and production tremendously expensive.”

  His father nodded but showed no astonishment at the figure named. Indeed, he declared it reasonable.

  “When one reads the price asked for old pictures and masterpieces of art, or the money your dear mother spent on her china, Faraday, a sum such as you name is little to demand for any element so rare. Remind me before you go.”

  So spoke Sir Hector and Faraday declared his gratitude. Then their conversation turned to Alfred, who was about to undertake an adventure long talked about and now in hand. For some years he had designed a big game expedition and postponed it for one reason or another; but now the time was come and, with half a dozen other wealthy and independent young sportsmen, Alfred put the finishing touches to his preparation.

  “It’s now or never,” he told Faraday. “I’m marrying Nancy in a year’s time and when the deed’s done, there won’t be a dog’s chance, so I’ve fixed up with pals and we are pooling the needful and putting ourselves in the hands of Sam Balmane. He’s an old hunter and knows the ropes. It’s quite simple. Among other beasts, we have permission to shoot a certain number of elephant, so I shall bring back ivory to make Nancy and Greta the best set of hair-brushes that ever were made. If there is any trifle you happen to want from central Africa, now’s the time. Plenty of antlers hang in the hall here, but nothing to show that a Heron has yet shot anything greater than a stag. This is a slur on the family name. Therefore, I shall slay something more heroic and dangerous — elephant, buffalo, rhino, gorilla perh
aps.”

  Faraday examined his preparation for slaughter.

  “I was wondering what I could buy you to support this horrible enterprise,” he said, “but, as you know, killing things was never in my plan of living. I could only think of those huge knives full of gadgets that father used to give us when we were young. Not much use against a gorilla.”

  He took up a heavy rifle.

  “How are you going to carry this mass of metal through the jungle?” he asked. “Or does some unfortunate black man lug it along until you want to fire it?”

  The scientist examined various details without comment, but soon declared that he had seen enough. Then his brother urged him to join the hunting party as their medical man, and while admitting the prospect attracted him, Faraday declared that six months away from Cambridge would now be impossible.

  “Only you rich wasters can do that sort of thing and get away with it,” he told Alfred.

  Then came the carol singers gathered in the great forecourt of Cliff, and another Christmas ended with sundry ancient rites that Sir Hector loved to preserve.

  Two days later he presented Faraday with a cheque for St. Luke’s and his son thanked him with an approach to warmth before driving away.

  “I have another useful matter in hand, though that will not appeal to you so much,” declared his father. “I’m building a church, Faraday. This is a huge parish and our present edifice lies beyond reach of a great many parishioners.”

  The other nodded and made an oblique reply as he drew on his motor gloves and adjusted his glasses.

  “Pasteur says, Sir, that all our future churches will be laboratories,” he answered.

  “A bleak prospect, my boy, and a prophecy unworthy of the great man,” replied Sir Hector.

  So Faraday returned to his labours. He had anticipated no personal success from this visit, but it cleared his mind to follow a course long considered and upon which he had now actually taken first steps. An efficient observer had guessed that the young man would not concentrate upon his quest without wasting more time in false hopes of assistance from elsewhere; but none could foretell events, or those driving forces now destined to cloud the house of Heron.

  A trifling shadow almost immediately appeared with the new year and Greta quickly observed it; but to Ernest Trensham, not Faraday, she confided on the subject, feeling ere now that he understood her better than anybody else and was more capable of serving her than could her brother. She considered the detective as one well conversant with human nature, while Faraday lacked any such gift, or any desire to attain it. Therefore, she wrote to the new friend without reserve, explained that it was her desire to see him and added much she had long wished to say.

  “If you can manage to get off for a short while, do come down,” she wrote. “It is on Sir Hector’s account, for I feel rather bothered about him. One never imagined the departure of Alfred for half a year was going to try him so much and I’m sure he never imagined it would himself, for he approved the adventure; but Alfred is really the mainspring of father’s life and, now that he has gone, he finds this huge place practically empty. Father, as you have seen for yourself, belongs to the old dispensation. He was born tremendously rich, but also tremendously capable and energetic, and so bettered his inheritance and by sheer hard work reached genuine fame. It all just happened and now his way of life is part of himself. He likes a horde of servants round him and sees nothing absurd in three people being waited upon hand and foot by twenty others. He likes powdered footmen and expert gardeners and his herd of fallow deer and his annual salmon fishing in Scotland, or Norway, and his retinue when he goes there and all the rest of it. He is not a snob, but used to attention and has a good conscience about it, because his wealth enables a great number of other people to enjoy their ways of life, earn their living and exist in security. You know what the world thinks of him and all he does for others. He’s probably told you of his own opinions sometimes, his respect for his own generation of workers and his doubts about this generation. He considers that the quality of manual work and craftsmanship has suffered badly under increased education and machinery and modern facilities for leisure and pleasure. He says the handicraft of the Middle Ages will never be reached again and believes that our labouring classes, though far cleverer than they used to be, are also far lazier than of old and lack any pride in their achievement, apparently regarding all work as an evil to be remedied by socialism, not a vital part of human well-being. For the new shibboleths he has no use. He says that liberty is impossible to any honest man, or nation, and service much to be exalted above it; while, as for equality, he argues that it never existed in Nature and never can exist for us. ‘As well grant that the giant carnivora will eat grass with the flocks and herds as suppose the classes can ever merge,’ he says. ‘Class will continue to assert itself in every stratum of human society. Rulers must always appear and the norm of men will ever run to follow them!’ That’s father. He does not think democracy a very grand ideal and finds that good brains can be very doubtfully employed. as in the case of my brother, Faraday; so when it comes to the point in his own family, he much prefers Alfred, but feels suspicious of his really brilliant son. Father has spoiled Alfred, as rich fathers do often spoil their children, and let my brother become the very contrary of what he was himself in his own working days. And now that brings me back to the point where I started, because Sir Hector misses dear Alfred dreadfully, and none of his staff, least of all myself, can take my brother’s place. I quite understand that, because I, too, feel what a gap Alfred leaves. Though bone idle he is always bursting with energy and human kindness. He fills this great house when he happens to be in it. He seems to be everywhere, always joyous and sanguine and big-hearted. Everybody adores him and assists father to spoil him, and everybody misses him and his endless requirements. He has only been gone a month and father already counts the days to his return. I’m rather sick of the subject of dear Alfred myself, though nobody loves him better, for, since his departure, father appears to have no other topic and is now developing a new phase very unlike him: an anxiety on Alfred’s physical behalf and a hope that he is courting no needless peril! As though Alfred’s whole salt of existence was not courting utterly needless peril. Danger is the only fun a rich man can get if he’s built like Alfred.

  “And now, dear Ernest, I come to you and do beg you will pay us a visit. Father is fond of you. You suit him. Your ways and opinions suit him. You understand sport and he knows you are a brilliant worker, in your horrid business. You would distract his mind, give him something to talk about and think about and cheer him up. He goes on his rounds and sees his friends and sits on the bench of the great unpaid and we have the usual luncheons and dinners; but at this time of year his cronies keep by their firesides for the most part. So you in the house — ready for bridge or billiards after dinner and patient and kindly and witty and considerate — would be a godsend both to him and, on his account, to me.”

  There was more in this than the appeal for Greta’s parent and the detective knew that well enough. She had never written in a strain quite so confidential, and she would have been gratified to learn her letter’s reception, for it came at a critical moment when Ernest was much concerned with thoughts of her and in some doubt of his next move. Of one thing he had long been satisfied: that he was genuinely welcome at Cliff and could command the friendship of both Sir Hector and Alfred. He also knew that Greta cared for him and believed it lay in his power to win her; but that was not enough and what he did not know, yet feared, concerned the attitude of her father to any such engagement. He had now visited the family on several occasions and heard enough in the old iron-master’s opinions to feel certain that, if archaic in a changing world, they were unalterable. That Sir Hector could smile on the engagement of his only daughter to a police officer, however promising and well-mannered the man might be, was the challenge for Ernest himself. He honestly loved Greta and believed that no dictation from her father wo
uld lessen her affection for him when he told her so, but parental opposition, if it made no difference to her, might make a great deal of difference to the affluent future young Trensham proposed for himself. Greta, though born to wealth and its advantages, was not enamoured of money and had assured him in the past that she often felt weary of the splendours of Cliff and would exchange them readily enough for a home of her own, where she might rule as well as reign. It was a gamble, for success with Greta would mean an obligation from which he could not escape even if failure with her father followed; but her letter decided him to take the bull by the horns and trust Sir Hector’s friendship to stand the challenge. He had long since carefully weighed the relations between father and daughter and was of opinion that a happy marriage for Greta would not mean any sense of irreparable loss to her parent. She was not to him what some daughters become to a widowed father and he had heard Alfred Heron say that the old man actually wanted Greta to marry for her own happiness. This recollection fortified Ernest and now helped to decide him. A day later he dispatched one of his sympathetic and understanding letters, told how exactly he comprehended the situation and believed that he might be useful. “I will see what can be done and how soon it is possible to get a short leave,” he wrote, “then I shall write to Sir Hector and beg for the privilege of a few days at Cliff.”

  In due time he did so and, to Greta’s satisfaction, found his suggestion welcomed.

  “He will distract our minds and bring my international knowledge a little up to date,” declared her father. “I am conscious of somewhat losing touch with the world of affairs under present preoccupations.”

  So Ernest arrived and employed all his usual tact and consideration, striking the right note and winning gratitude in the vital quarter. His preliminary task proved easier than he expected and he knew from Greta’s eyes on their meeting that the main adventure was as good as accomplished. Plenty of opportunities availed, and before he had been at Cliff forty-eight hours, with all due humility he asked her to marry him. They were sitting together in the gazebo on the hill-top when he did so and looking out upon a stormy Channel with a south wind shouting in the naked trees above them and foam-beaten seas running far below.