the way down.’
They had all been talking in low voices and the crackling of the fire was now the loudest sound, for the rain seemed to be stopping. Cautiously, like troops who fear the eye of the enemy, they began to skirt the lip of the hollow, stealing from tree to tree.
‘Stop!’ whispered Jane suddenly.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s something moving.’
‘Where?’
‘In there. Quite close.’
‘I heard nothing.’
‘There’s nothing now.’
‘Let’s go on.’
‘Do you still think there’s something, Jane?’
‘It’s quiet now. There was something.’
They made a few paces more.
‘St!’ said Denniston. ‘Jane’s right. There is something.’
‘Shall I speak?’ said Dimble.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Denniston. ‘It’s just there. Look!–damn it, it’s only an old donkey!’
‘That’s what I said,’ said Dimble. ‘The man’s a gypsy: a tinker or something. This is his donkey. Still, we must go down.’
They proceeded. In a few moments they found themselves descending a rutted grassy path which wound about till the whole hollow opened before them; and now the fire was no longer between them and the tent. ‘There he is,’ said Jane.
‘Can you see him?’ said Dimble. ‘I haven’t got your eyes.’
‘I can see him all right,’ said Denniston. ‘It is a tramp. Can’t you see him, Dimble? An old man with a ragged beard in what looks like the remains of a British Warm and a pair of black trousers. Don’t you see his left foot, stuck out, and the toe a bit up in the air?’
‘That?’ said Dimble. ‘I thought was a log. But you’ve better eyes than I have. Did you really see a man, Arthur?’
‘Well, I thought I did, Sir. But I’m not certain now. I think my eyes are getting tired. He’s sitting very still. If it is a man, he’s asleep.’
‘Or dead,’ said Jane with a sudden shudder.
‘Well,’ said Dimble, ‘We must go down.’
And in less than a minute all three walked down into the dingle and past the fire. And there was the tent, and a few miserable attempts at bedding inside it, and a tin plate, and some matches on the ground, and the dottle of a pipe, but they could see no man.
‘What I can’t understand, Wither,’ said Fairy Hardcastle, ‘is why you don’t let me try my hand on the young pup. All these ideas of yours are so half-hearted–keeping him on his toes about the murder, arresting him, leaving him all night in the cells to think it over. Why do you keep messing about with things that may work or may not?–when twenty minutes of my treatment would turn his mind inside out. I know the type.’
Miss Hardcastle was talking, at about ten o’clock that same wet night, to the Deputy Director in his study. There was a third person present: Professor Frost.
‘I assure you, Miss Hardcastle,’ said Wither, fixing his eyes not on her but on Frost’s forehead, ‘you need not doubt that your views on this, or any other matter, will always receive the fullest consideration. But if I may say so, this is one of those cases where–ah–any grave degree of coercive examination might defeat its own end.’
‘Why?’ said the Fairy sulkily.
‘You must excuse me,’ said Wither, ‘for reminding you–not, of course, that I assume you are neglecting the point, but simply on methodological grounds–it is so important to make everything clear–that we need the woman–I mean, that it would be of the greatest value to welcome Mrs Studdock among us–chiefly on account of the remarkable psychical faculty she is said to possess. In using the word Psychical, I am not, you understand, committing myself to any particular theory.’
‘You mean these dreams?’
‘It is very doubtful,’ said Wither, ‘what effect it might have on her if she were brought here under compulsion and then found her husband–ah–in the markedly, though no doubt temporarily, abnormal condition which we should have to anticipate as a result of your scientific methods of examination. One would run the risk of a profound emotional disturbance on her part. The faculty itself might disappear, at least for a long time.’
‘We have not yet had Major Hardcastle’s report,’ said Professor Frost quietly.
‘No good,’ said the Fairy. ‘He was shadowed into Northumberland. Only three possible people left the College after him–Lancaster, Lyly and Dimble. I put them in that order of probability. Lancaster is a Christian, and a very influential man. He’s in the Lower House of Convocation. He had a lot to do with the Repton Conference. He’s mixed up with several big clerical families. And he’s written a lot of books. He has a real stake in their side. Lyly is rather the same type, but less of an organiser. As you will remember, he did a great deal of harm on that reactionary commission about Education last year. Both these are dangerous men. They are the sort of people who get things done–natural leaders of the other party. Dimble is quite a different type. Except that he’s a Christian, there isn’t really much against him. He’s purely academic. I shouldn’t think his name is much known, except to other scholars in his own subject. Not the kind that would make a public man. Impractical…he’d be too full of scruples to be much use to them. The others know a thing or two, Lancaster particularly. In fact, he’s a man we could find room for on our own side if he held the right views.’
‘You should tell Major Hardcastle that we have access to most of these facts already,’ said Professor Frost.
‘Perhaps,’ said Wither, ‘in view of the late hour–we don’t wish to overtax your energies, Miss Hardcastle–we might go on to the more strictly narrative parts of your report.’
‘Well,’ said the Fairy, ‘I had to follow all three. With the resources I had at the moment. You’ll realise young Studdock was seen setting off for Edgestow only by good luck. It was a bomb-shell. Half my people were already busy on the hospital affair. I just had to lay my hands on anyone I could get. I posted a sentry and had six others out of sight of the College; in plain clothes, of course. As soon as Lancaster came out I told off the three best to keep him in sight. I’ve had a wire from them half an hour ago from London where Lancaster went off by train. We may be onto something there. Lyly gave the devil of a lot of trouble. He appeared to be calling on about fifteen different people in Edgestow. We’ve got them all noted–I sent the next two of my lads to deal with him. Dimble came out last. I would have sent my last man off to follow him, but a call came through at that moment from Captain O’Hara, who wanted another car. So I decided to let Dimble go for tonight and sent my man up with the one he had. Dimble can be got any time. He comes into College pretty regularly every day; and he’s really a nonentity.’
‘I do not quite understand,’ said Frost, ‘why you had no one inside the college to see what staircase Studdock went to.’
‘Because of your damned Emergency Commissioner,’ said the Fairy. ‘We’re not allowed into colleges now, if you please. I said at the time that Feverstone was the wrong man. He’s trying to play on both sides. He’s for us against the town, but when it comes to us against the University he’s unreliable. Mark my words, Wither, you’ll have trouble with him yet.’
Frost looked at the Deputy Director.
‘I am far from denying,’ said Wither, ‘though without at all closing my mind to other possible explanations, that some of Lord Feverstone’s measures may have been injudicious. It would be inexpressibly painful to me to suppose that–’
‘Need we keep Major Hardcastle?’ said Frost.
‘Bless my soul!’ said Wither. ‘How very right of you! I had almost forgotten, my dear lady, how tired you must be, and how very valuable your time is. We must try to save you for that particular kind of work in which you have shown yourself indispensable. You must not allow us to impose on your good nature. There is a lot of duller and more routine work which it is only reasonable that you should be spared.’ He got up and held the door open for her.
‘You don’t think,’ said she, ‘that I ought to let the boys have just a little go at Studdock? I mean, it seems so absurd to have all this trouble about getting an address.’
And suddenly, as Wither stood with his hand on the door-handle, courtly, patient and smiling, the whole expression faded out of his face. The pale lips, open wide enough to show his gums, the white curly head, the pouchy eyes, ceased to make up any single expression. Miss Hardcastle had the feeling that a mere mask of skin and flesh was staring at her. A moment later and she was gone.
‘I wonder,’ said Wither as he came back to his chair, ‘whether we are attaching too much importance to this Studdock woman.’
‘We are acting on an order dated the 1st of October,’ said Frost.
‘Oh…I wasn’t questioning it,’ said Wither with a gesture of deprecation.
‘Allow me to remind you of the facts,’ said Frost. ‘The authorities had access to the woman’s mind for only a very short time. They inspected one dream only–a most important dream, which revealed, though with some irrelevancies, an essential element in our programme. That warned us that if the woman fell into the hands of any ill-affected persons who knew how to exploit her faculty, she would constitute a grave danger.’
‘Oh, to be sure, to be sure. I never intended to deny–’
‘That was the first point,’ said Frost, interrupting him. ‘The second is that her mind became opaque to our authorities almost immediately afterwards. In the present state of our science we know only one cause for such occulations. They occur when the mind in question has placed itself, by some voluntary choice of its own, however vague, under the control of some hostile organism. The occultation, therefore, while cutting off our access to the dreams, also tells us that she has, in some mode or other, come under enemy influence. This is in itself a grave danger. But it also means that to find her would probably mean discovering the enemy’s headquarters. Miss Hardcastle is probably right in maintaining that torture would soon induce Studdock to give up his wife’s address. But as you pointed out, a round up at their headquarters, an arrest, and the discovery of her husband here in the condition in which the torture would leave him, would produce psychological conditions in the woman which might destroy her faculty. We should thus frustrate one of the purposes for which we want to get her. That is the first objection. The second is that an attack on enemy headquarters is very risky. They almost certainly have protection of a kind we are not prepared to cope with. And finally the man may not know his wife’s address. In that case…’
‘Oh,’ said Wither, ‘there is nothing I should more deeply deplore. Scientific examination (I cannot allow the word Torture in this context) in cases where the patient doesn’t know the answer is always a fatal mistake. As men of humanity we should neither of us…and then, if you go on, the patient naturally does not recover…and if you stop, even an experienced operator is haunted by the fear that perhaps he did know after all. It is in every way unsatisfactory.’
‘There is, in fact, no way of implementing our instructions except by inducing Studdock to bring his wife here himself.’
‘Or else,’ said Wither, a little more dreamily than usual, ‘if it were possible, by inducing in him a much more radical allegiance to our side than he has yet shown. I am speaking, my dear friend, of a real change of heart.’
Frost slightly opened and extended his mouth, which was a very long one, so as to show his white teeth.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is a subdivision of the plan I was mentioning. I was saying that he must be induced to send for the woman himself. That, of course, can be done in two ways. Either by supplying him with some motive on the instinctive level, such as fear of us or desire for her; or else by conditioning him to identify himself so completely with the Cause that he will understand the real motive for securing her person and act on it.’
‘Exactly…exactly,’ said Wither. ‘Your expressions, as always, are a little different from those I would choose myself, but …’
‘Where is Studdock at present?’ said Frost.
‘In one of the cells here–on the other side.’
‘Under the impression he has been arrested by the ordinary police?’
‘That I cannot answer for. I presume he would be. It does not, perhaps, make much difference.’
‘And how are you proposing to act?’
‘We had proposed to leave him to himself for several hours–to allow the psychological results of the arrest to mature. I have ventured…of course, with every regard for humanity…to reckon on the value of some slight physical discomforts–he will not have dined, you understand. They have instructions to empty his pockets. One would not wish the young man to relieve any nervous tension that may have arisen by smoking. One wishes the mind to be thrown entirely on its own resources.’
‘Of course. And what next?’
‘Well, I suppose some sort of examination. That is a point on which I should welcome your advice. I mean, as to whether, I, personally, should appear in the first instance. I am inclined to think that the appearance of examination by the ordinary police should be maintained a little longer. Then at a later stage will come the discovery that he is still in our hands. He will probably misunderstand this discovery at first–for several minutes. It would be well to let him realise only gradually that this by no means frees him from the–er–embarrassments arising out of Hingest’s death. I take it that some fuller realisation of his inevitable solidarity with the Institute would then follow…’
‘And then you mean to ask him again for his wife?’
‘I shouldn’t do it at all like that,’ said Wither. ‘If I might venture to say so, it is one of the disadvantages of that extreme simplicity and accuracy with which you habitually speak (much as we all admire it) that it leaves no room for fine shades. One had rather hoped for a spontaneous outburst of confidence on the part of the young man himself. Anything like a direct demand–’
‘The weakness of the plan,’ said Frost, ‘is that you are relying wholly on fear.’
‘Fear,’ repeated Wither as if he had not heard the word before. ‘I do not quite follow the connection of thought. I can hardly suppose you are following the opposite suggestion, once made, if I remember rightly, by Miss Hardcastle.’
‘What was that?’
‘Why,’ said Wither, ‘If I understand her aright, she thought of taking scientific measures to render the society of his wife more desirable in the young man’s eyes. Some of the chemical resources…’
‘You mean an aphrodisiac?’
Wither sighed gently and said nothing.
‘That is nonsense,’ said Frost. ‘It isn’t to his wife that a man turns under the influence of aphrodisiacs. But as I was saying, I think it is a mistake to rely wholly on fear. I have observed, over a number of years, that its results are incalculable: especially when the fear is complicated. The patient may get too frightened to move, even in the desired direction. If we have to despair of getting the woman here with her husband’s good will, we must use torture and take the consequences. But there are other alternatives. There is desire.’
‘I am not sure that I am following you. You have rejected the idea of any medical or chemical approach.’
‘I was thinking of stronger desires.’
Neither at this stage of the conversation nor at any other did the Deputy Director look much at the face of Frost; his eyes, as usual, wandered over the whole room or fixed themselves on distant objects. Sometimes they were shut. But either Frost or Wither–it was difficult to say which–had been gradually moving his chair, so that by this time the two men sat with their knees almost touching.
‘I had my conversation with Filostrato,’ said Frost in his low, clear voice. ‘I used expressions which must have made my meaning clear if he had any notion of the truth. His senior assistant, Wilkins, was present too. The fact is that neither is really interested. What interests them is the fact that they have succeeded–as they think–in keeping the
Head alive and getting it to talk. What it says does not really interest them. As to any question about what is really speaking, they have no curiosity. I went very far. I raised questions about its mode of consciousness–its sources of information. There was no response.’
‘You are suggesting, if I understand you,’ said Wither, ‘a movement towards this Mr Studdock along those lines. If I remember rightly, you rejected fear on the ground that its effects could not really be predicted with the accuracy one might wish. But–ah–would the method now envisaged be any more reliable? I need hardly say that I fully realise a certain disappointment which serious-minded people must feel with such colleagues as Filostrato and his subordinate Mr Wilkins.’
‘That is the point,’ said Frost. ‘One must guard against the error of supposing that the political and economic dominance of England by the NICE is more than a subordinate object: it is individuals that we are really concerned with. A hard unchangeable core of individuals really devoted to the same cause as ourselves–that is what we need and what, indeed, we are under orders to supply. We have not succeeded so far in bringing many people in–really in.’
‘There is still no news from Bragdon Wood?’
‘No.’
‘And you believe that Studdock might really be a suitable person?…’
‘You must not forget,’ said Frost, ‘that his value does not rest solely on his wife’s clairvoyance. The couple are eugenically interesting. And secondly, I think he can offer no resistance. The hours of fear in the cell, and then an appeal to desires that under-cut the fear, will have an almost certain effect on a character of that sort.’
‘Of course,’ said Wither, ‘nothing is so much to be desired as the greatest possible unity. You will not suspect me of under-rating that aspect of our orders. Any fresh individual brought into that unity would be a source of the most intense satisfaction to–ah–all concerned. I desire the closest possible bond. I would welcome an interpenetration of personalities so close, so irrevocable, that it almost transcends individuality. You need not doubt that I would open my arms to receive–to absorb –to assimilate this young man.’
They were now sitting so close together that their faces almost touched, as if they had been lovers about to kiss. Frost’s pince-nez caught the light so that they made his eyes invisible: only his mouth, smiling but not relaxed in the smile, revealed his expression. Wither’s mouth was open, the lower lip hanging down, his eyes wet, his whole body hunched and collapsed in his chair as if the strength had gone out of it. A stranger would have thought he had been drinking. Then his shoulders twitched and gradually he began to laugh. And Frost did not laugh, but his smile grew moment by moment brighter and also colder, and he stretched out his hand and patted his colleague on the shoulder. Suddenly in that silent room there was a crash. Who’s Who had fallen off the table, swept onto the floor as, with sudden swift convulsive movement, the two old men lurched forward towards each other and sat swaying to and fro, locked in an embrace from which each seemed to be struggling to escape. And as they swayed and scrabbled with hand and nail, there arose, shrill and faint at first, but then louder and louder, a cackling noise that seemed in the end rather an animal than a senile parody of laughter.