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

by Eden Phillpotts

  “The situation, in which I suddenly find myself has challenged me so sharply, that perhaps there lacks time to determine the wisest course. I confess my first impulse has been to escape from England while it was possible to do so, without going farther than to warn my country as I now warn you. But, on a wider survey with recognition of all that is involved, I choose another way. With Science and Reason to support me and the needs of humanity never so exigent as now, all I have to offer must surely challenge the highest instincts of civilization and enable me to live out my life unhampered and unshortened, thus fulfilling its enormous possibilities. Every nation will acclaim this obvious fact, so why should I prefer Russia, the United States, or France to my own country? It is true that none might agree to extradition in light of what I brought with me; but why rate their reasoning powers and intelligence as higher and more trustworthy than those of the British Empire? Why set any other great power greater in good-willing than my own? Common sense and realism are basic ingredients of our character and, albeit we lack that logical clarity of mind to be found elsewhere, I have no massive reason to doubt our quality before such a proposition as lies before us, but choose to leave myself in the hands of my own country-men and feel confidence of the verdict to be expected from those called upon to pronounce it.

  “Ere you read my communication I shall have proceeded to Scotland Yard, my first object being to hasten proceedings to the utmost extent in my power.”

  • • •

  Thus he made an end and wrote with the genuine confidence which inspired all that he had to say. Faraday entertained no doubt as to the future and could only regard the complexities as trivial, since common law in his opinion must prove obviously unequal to determine such a stupendous issue. A mind, never concerned with ethics but trained in the methods of science alone, envisaged all questions from that standpoint and did not imagine, before the challenge he offered, how that many might find direction and come to the business of criticism and judgment from principles he held irrelevant.

  His letter completed, he slept, rose early and read the morning papers while he ate his breakfast. A guarded account of events awaited him, together with the fact that Professor Sir Faraday Heron had disappeared and was being sought. Fears for his life were expressed and some journals hinted at murder.

  CHAPTER XV

  IN the course of the morning his secretary laid Faraday’s communication before the Minister, who perused it with profound interest. He was famous for reaching conclusions and did so now.

  “Good Powers!” he exclaimed, “Professor Heron’s out of his mind! One of the most famous men in the Kingdom for the moment and now obviously mad as a hatter! Too much learning has made hay with his brains!”

  He directed an instant inquiry to Scotland Yard and found the savant had kept his word.

  “He arrived in due course and was detained,” came a voice from Police Headquarters.

  Greta had made her nocturnal journey in safety and reached London friends. Her husband’s name was very familiar at the Yard and after she had left her conference with a Commissioner, laid her long story before him and deposited the documents in his charge, a rumour drifted from that upper chamber and it was whispered how Ernest Trensham, the famous detective, had been murdered. Ere then her brother had already left Cliff and was making his way to London; and now, having left his letter at the Home Office, Faraday Heron sat upon the Thames Embankment for half an hour, smoked his pipe and marked the traffic of the river. Convinced of the sequel, he desired truth to be laid bare as swiftly as possible, the motive for his crimes understood and the case elevated to international importance. He knew that so murky a confession must turn the sympathy of some against him, but felt the gestures of religion and sentiment to be superficial and matter nothing as opposed to triumph of public opinion on his message becoming learned and its values explored. When he entered Scotland Yard, it was with the whole weight of Science behind him.

  When the baronet appeared before those now committed to his capture, their secret satisfaction was great and the official response swift and definite. He was heard with courtesy and the Law proceeded upon its way. Charged soon afterwards, a magistrate committed him for trial and the pending case filtered into the newspapers, enriching them with a unique sensation and awakening from the outset such excitement as only the coming general election could rival. For what the fate of Sir Faraday Heron amounted to was accepted as a primary question destined to implicate far more than his own life and while few, save a body of scientific men, long his enthusiastic supporters, believed in the extent of what he undertook to accomplish, his reputation and record, now published as news in every journal, created a deepening interest that extended to Europe and America as the story spread. From the first many of his kind, who had always detested Faraday, denied his pretensions; but the masses, ever sanguine, favoured his claims. In the West country little support at any time might have been heard and his name was openly cursed by those who had known his father. Cliff loathed the infamy that had caused their home to become a centre of unholy attention. The explosion tore a hideous gap in the countryside’s beauty, and now a plague spot of terror was planted in their midst and denied security to every living soul. Troops were stationed round the laboratory; the local amenities destroyed; highways barred and conditions of fear and suspense created; general exodus already began of younger married folk with children and many old people strove to get beyond reach of the promised disaster, for none could tell when it might overtake them. Some shared the Home Secretary’s original opinion: that the lord of the manor must be mad; many thought that Satan was back on earth in human shape; others took a line less lurid, but judged without doubt that the lord of the manor was a German agent from the beginning and hit upon this far-reaching devilry to turn defeat into victory. Some urged the destruction of the laboratory as the quickest and easiest means of exterminating the woe of the district; some marvelled that science appeared unequal to making the region safe. Meantime no finger was laid upon Cliff and the abler natives argued that Sir Faraday had set his infernal machine for a date as yet far ahead and would use it as a final argument against his own sentence. “Though why such an outcast and friendless and hated creature wants to go on living only the God that made him knows,” said an ancient man.

  Greta Trensham returned to Cliff House for a season that she might order her own affairs before taking leave of it. What she had done was now public knowledge and a few old friends turned against her, holding it an unnatural thing that she should have destroyed her brother; but most people regarded the widowed and orphaned woman as a heroine who had played a brave part and only escaped with her life by a miracle. Only Roger Horn and three women servants remained in the great house with her, for, given the explosion of the laboratory, the mansion, within three hundred yards of it, must surely fall; but Greta spoke with authority and declared herself certain that ample time would intervene before any such thing need be feared. It was believed that science itself would devise means to dispel any such danger. Greta’s personal fears lay in another direction and she dreaded that her brother might escape the gallows.

  But the fate of Cliff troubled the world far less than the destiny of the owner and, as his trial approached, new facts opened fresh channels for argument. Items of intelligence came from his prison. It was known that Sir Faraday had been subjected to scientific tests and declared absolutely sane. Science sounded more loudly on his behalf. It was reported that he had made no effort to secure legal aid, but proposed to defend himself. Then it became understood that he intended to plead guilty, acknowledge his crime and depend entirely on the importance of his life for its continuance. Lawyers argued as to the conduct of the trial under such circumstances, citing rare similar cases. Legal minds maintained, however, that no final issue was likely to be reached in the Law Courts. Time sufficed to awaken international interest in the trial and when at last, after creating widespread anticipation, the actual proceedings were marked by th
eir brevity, a sense of flatness and anti-climax overcame the public mind. The mass of the people found it difficult to realize that an issue so tremendous could be examined and decided within the meagre compass of two hours. British Law, though jealous of its pomp and ritual, its solemnities and trappings, yet persists in strict attention to business. Advocates may emulate the theatre, but judges seldom do and juries to-day are mostly composed of the educated and responsible, who ask only for facts and are seldom influenced by sentiment or rhetoric. The case indeed had lasted even a shorter time but for the prisoner’s long address after verdict and before sentence.

  Sir Faraday stood alert and collected among his fellow-men when at last he entered the dock. No dejection or anxiety marked his features. Extreme animation distinguished them, and his lofty brow was unwrinkled, his eyes unclouded. He gazed upon the crowded court without emotion and, if his expression suggested any reigning impulse, it was confidence. No malefactor ever exhibited less sense of guilt or evidence of remorse. The incarnation of science was what he appeared to imaginative spectators: hard, strong, impervious to the spirits of awe or detestation that animated the company around him, unconscious of his significance, but intensely alive and concerned for his cause. In the seat of judgment appeared one amazingly different in every particular from the prisoner. He was an old man and so small that he seemed to peep out of his scarlet robes as though he did not belong to them, but had crept in for fun, or warmth. His little face was grey and wrinkled, his eyes dim behind their spectacles. His expression suggested weariness and kindness combined, with native humour, restrained as he approached a familiar task.

  The indictment was read and found to be concerned alone with the murder of Sir Hector Heron. Charged with this and asked to plead, Faraday, clearing his throat, replied.

  “I plead guilty,” he said in his usual, slow, clear voice.

  Thereon the Judge spoke in strong accents, penetrating and distinct.

  “I never accept a plea on the capital charge,” he said slowly, “without first assuring myself that the accused thoroughly comprehends what he is saying and what the inevitable and immediate results must be. I invite you now to tell me if you are in complete accord with your legal advisers in the course you have decided to take.”

  “I have no legal advisers, my Lord,” replied the prisoner. “I propose to speak upon my own account after the plea is recorded.”

  “Let the plea be recorded then,” answered the Judge and the Clerk of the Court then told the prisoner that he stood convicted of murder. To this Faraday made no reply and when he was asked if he had anything to say why judgment of death should not be passed upon him according to law, entered upon his defence. He went into no preparatory details concerning his father’s end and was proceeding to dwell on that of his brother when the Judge cut him short.

  “Confine yourself to the murder of Sir Hector Heron and your purpose to extenuate and justify that criminal offence,” he said.

  “My father, possessed of the needful wealth and aware of my activities, by refusing physical means to advance them obstructed the progress of knowledge and stood between the world and truth,” continued Faraday. “It was not as though I came before him empty-handed and without massive support for the research I desired to undertake. Through many channels I had been proclaimed as one destined to advance and enlarge those entrances into a new reading of natural laws already suspected by my great predecessors. Though science was at the root of his own success my father declined to support and assist any progress, indeed actually mistrusted the phenomena awaiting investigation and strove to turn me from my path and confound my destiny. For that reason and, perceiving that only a mistaken will stood between me and the means needful to accomplish tasks of great magnitude, I removed him, that I might employ the wealth denied me, but demanded for my purpose; and once in my possession the money flowed and my goal was reached. My father’s misfortune was to deny sympathy to those inspirations that, through years of toil and concentrated devotion, have put me where I stand, as a repository of new knowledge and a forerunner and herald of a new world.

  “Not one source of increased hope for civilization have I to offer; not a solitary and perhaps doubtful discovery am I now empowered to furnish, but divers departures, all springing from the same origin and extending into regions of human enterprise as yet scarcely explored. While potential activity has been recognized by me, so have I been able to link it with our common needs and requirements and see its bearing upon them until a new world teeming with beneficent possibilities emerges from the clouded future now stultifying hope and stifling good will — the legacy of the World War. Problems seemingly insoluble, lose their complexity in the light I am prepared to throw. It will simplify world politics and world problems; it will strengthen the probability of a world peace, whose victorious dawn has already become overcast by our limited reasoning powers and conflicting interests.

  “These revelations already dovetail and proliferate in my intellect until it needs no prophetic eye to see that a new age must develop with amazing rapidity from their application controlled and directed by Science — each forward step justified by its results. For Science affords a platform and adamant foundation of unassailable truth, on which no petty, passing ideologies, no human rivalries, or battles for power, no clash of opposed religions; no five-year, or fifty-year schemes, can any longer waste time, set back the clock of progress and squander the brief lives of great men. Clean of superstition, dedicated to the service of truth, impatient of fable and all negations of reason, Science sweeps onwards in a cathartic, antiseptic tide, to purify the physical and mental diseases of mankind. It separates the dross from the ore, is a lancet to probe our tumours of ignorance, a tonic to banish our cowardice, quicken our feeble, Laodicean attitude to the clamorous demands of life, clear our myopic eyes, demand our saner education and destroy our lack of mental honesty. The tide-rip and confusion of philosophy’s stormy seas get us nowhere, nor do the stagnant backwaters of metaphysics now intruding on our physics; but, like a lighthouse above all this turmoil, shine out with increasing clarity the beams of steadfast Science, pointing the only sure, safe and trustworthy course for human kind. Falsehood and myth and outworn wisdom will suffice nothing: they are lying prophets retarding all advance and restraining reason from the standards we should have long since attained; but let us surrender to the stern, remorseless, indomitable ways of scientific truth and a goal must come in sight, victory crown our brief existence. I am a servant and disciple of this greatest of all causes and for that reason express my will to live and contribute to our knowledge that prodigious discovery entrusted to my keeping.”

  He spoke in this fashion for the space of an hour or somewhat longer, and a murmur of applause, instantly silenced, greeted his peroration. Faraday had addressed the Court without a single appeal to emotion. As he lectured to his classes of old, so he submitted the argument for his life, only labouring to make his meaning clear and the huge importance of his future activities understood. Many listeners had watched his career and believed in him; many, who had scarcely heard of him before his arrest, already loathed the sight of his stern, marble-white features and the sound of his monotonous voice. It remained only for that crowded company to learn what justice was to reply to the prisoner’s appeal and, after silence had fallen, the little motionless form on the bench quickened into movement and made answer in tones crystal clear, cold and case-hardened.

  “We are not assembled, prisoner at the Bar, to chop logic, or speculate upon the intrusion of metaphysics into the realm of physics,” he began. “Neither are we here to estimate the importance of your future services to civilization, or the significance of the new facts you claim to have wrested from nature. Since, however, your defence lies in their over-mastering value and your conviction that only by and through the ways of Science can man attain salvation, I propose to occupy myself briefly with this irrelevant subject before proceeding.”

  The little man paused, to
ok off his spectacles, wiped them and readjusted them. Then he fixed his eyes on the prisoner and proceeded.

  “A world conducted on scientific lines — a dictatorship of atomic energy — while your ideal, can never prove any Utopia for humanity so long as the nobler aspects of our nature continue to function however faultily, and we remember the faculties bestowed upon us by our Creator. World control may prove vital so long as we scorn jurisprudence and all that it demands for law, order and human dignity; but no sort of surveillance can make a slave of man. Trust and good faith alone will cement mankind and create that unity of purpose upon which his successful future depends; but these can only be achieved by moral acceptance and universal belief in duty, justice and essential demands to obey the law and hold the oath a sacred thing. What has Science to do with this aspect of our relations one with another — man with man, or State with State? A part truly that should advance national self-respect and foster good-willing, but only a minor part, and until Science and Religion unite in one overpowering effort to advance his welfare, increase his too limited happiness and content, trust him and honour him, no genuine progress can be claimed or hoped for. Science must bate its arrogant pretensions; Religion enlarge its borders and restrain its claims within the boundaries of reason. Let these beneficent forces — both greater than atomic energy, or any energy save that vested in the soul of man — cleanse their own tabernacles. Science is not here to dethrone the spiritual; Religion, as I understand it, gains nothing by support of myths and maintenance of miracles. Let the twain combine, concentrate and ally their powers against corruption and all that is base and vile, so exalting our species and making us more worthy to support the burden of consciousness than as yet we have learned to become.”