The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
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Doyle >> The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
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Whilst this was going on, Lord John leaned forward and told me
some interminable story about a buffalo and an Indian rajah
which seemed to me to have neither beginning nor end. Professor
Summerlee had just begun to chirrup like a canary, and Lord John
to get to the climax of his story, when the train drew up at
Jarvis Brook, which had been given us as the station for
Rotherfield.
And there was Challenger to meet us. His appearance was
glorious. Not all the turkey-cocks in creation could match the
slow, high-stepping dignity with which he paraded his own
railway station and the benignant smile of condescending
encouragement with which he regarded everybody around him. If he
had changed in anything since the days of old, it was that his
points had become accentuated. The huge head and broad sweep of
forehead, with its plastered lock of black hair, seemed even
greater than before. His black beard poured forward in a more
impressive cascade, and his clear grey eyes, with their insolent
and sardonic eyelids, were even more masterful than of yore.
He gave me the amused hand-shake and encouraging smile which the
head master bestows upon the small boy, and, having greeted the
others and helped to collect their bags and their cylinders of
oxygen, he stowed us and them away in a large motor-car which was
driven by the same impassive Austin, the man of few words, whom
I had seen in the character of butler upon the occasion of my
first eventful visit to the Professor. Our journey led us up a
winding hill through beautiful country. I sat in front with the
chauffeur, but behind me my three comrades seemed to me to be
all talking together. Lord John was still struggling with his
buffalo story, so far as I could make out, while once again I
heard, as of old, the deep rumble of Challenger and the
insistent accents of Summerlee as their brains locked in high
and fierce scientific debate. Suddenly Austin slanted his
mahogany face toward me without taking his eyes from his
steering-wheel.
"I'm under notice," said he.
"Dear me!" said I.
Everything seemed strange to-day. Everyone said queer,
unexpected things. It was like a dream.
"It's forty-seven times," said Austin reflectively.
"When do you go?" I asked, for want of some better observation.
"I don't go," said Austin.
The conversation seemed to have ended there, but presently he
came back to it.
"If I was to go, who would look after 'im?" He jerked his head
toward his master. "Who would 'e get to serve 'im?"
"Someone else," I suggested lamely.
"Not 'e. No one would stay a week. If I was to go, that 'ouse
would run down like a watch with the mainspring out. I'm telling
you because you're 'is friend, and you ought to know. If I was
to take 'im at 'is word--but there, I wouldn't have the 'eart.
'E and the missus would be like two babes left out in a bundle.
I'm just everything. And then 'e goes and gives me notice."
"Why would no one stay?" I asked.
"Well, they wouldn't make allowances, same as I do. 'E's a very
clever man, the master--so clever that 'e's clean balmy
sometimes. I've seen 'im right off 'is onion, and no error.
Well, look what 'e did this morning."
"What did he do?"
Austin bent over to me.
"'E bit the 'ousekeeper," said he in a hoarse whisper.
"Bit her?"
"Yes, sir. Bit 'er on the leg. I saw 'er with my own eyes
startin' a marathon from the 'all-door."
"Good gracious!"
"So you'd say, sir, if you could see some of the goings on. 'E
don't make friends with the neighbors. There's some of them
thinks that when 'e was up among those monsters you wrote about,
it was just `'Ome, Sweet 'Ome' for the master, and 'e was never
in fitter company. That's what _they_ say. But I've served 'im
ten years, and I'm fond of 'im, and, mind you, 'e's a great man,
when all's said an' done, and it's an honor to serve 'im. But 'e
does try one cruel at times. Now look at that, sir. That ain't
what you might call old-fashioned 'ospitality, is it now? Just
you read it for yourself."
The car on its lowest speed had ground its way up a steep,
curving ascent. At the corner a notice-board peered over a
well-clipped hedge. As Austin said, it was not difficult to
read, for the words were few and arresting:--
|---------------------------------------|
| WARNING. |
| ---- |
| Visitors, Pressmen, and Mendicants |
| are not encouraged. |
| |
| G. E. CHALLENGER. |
|_______________________________________|
"No, it's not what you might call 'earty," said Austin, shaking
his head and glancing up at the deplorable placard. "It wouldn't
look well in a Christmas card. I beg your pardon, sir, for I
haven't spoke as much as this for many a long year, but to-day my
feelings seem to 'ave got the better of me. 'E can sack me till
'e's blue in the face, but I ain't going, and that's flat. I'm
'is man and 'e's my master, and so it will be, I expect, to the
end of the chapter."
We had passed between the white posts of a gate and up a curving
drive, lined with rhododendron bushes. Beyond stood a low brick
house, picked out with white woodwork, very comfortable and
pretty. Mrs. Challenger, a small, dainty, smiling figure, stood
in the open doorway to welcome us.
"Well, my dear," said Challenger, bustling out of the car, "here
are our visitors. It is something new for us to have visitors,
is it not? No love lost between us and our neighbors, is there?
If they could get rat poison into our baker's cart, I expect it
would be there."
"It's dreadful--dreadful!" cried the lady, between laughter and
tears. "George is always quarreling with everyone. We haven't a
friend on the countryside."
"It enables me to concentrate my attention upon my incomparable
wife," said Challenger, passing his short, thick arm round her
waist. Picture a gorilla and a gazelle, and you have the pair of
them. "Come, come, these gentlemen are tired from the journey,
and luncheon should be ready. Has Sarah returned?"
The lady shook her head ruefully, and the Professor laughed
loudly and stroked his beard in his masterful fashion.
"Austin," he cried, "when you have put up the car you will
kindly help your mistress to lay the lunch. Now, gentlemen, will
you please step into my study, for there are one or two very
urgent things which I am anxious to say to you."
Chapter II
THE TIDE OF DEATH
As we crossed the hall the telephone-bell rang, and we were the
involuntary auditors of Professor Challenger's end of the
ensuing dialogue. I say "we," but no one within a hundred yards
could have failed to hear the booming of that monstrous voice,
which reverberated through the house. His answers lingered
in my mind.
"Yes, yes, of course, it is I.... Yes, certainly, _the_ Professor
Challenger, the famous Professor, who else?... Of course, every
word of it, otherwise I should not have written it.... I
shouldn't be surprised.... There is every indication of it....
Within a day or so at the furthest.... Well, I can't help that,
can I?... Very unpleasant, no doubt, but I rather fancy it will
affect more important people than you. There is no use whining
about it.... No, I couldn't possibly. You must take your
chance.... That's enough, sir. Nonsense! I have something more
important to do than to listen to such twaddle."
He shut off with a crash and led us upstairs into a large airy
apartment which formed his study. On the great mahogany desk
seven or eight unopened telegrams were lying.
"Really," he said as he gathered them up, "I begin to think that
it would save my correspondents' money if I were to adopt a
telegraphic address. Possibly `Noah, Rotherfield,' would be the
most appropriate."
As usual when he made an obscure joke, he leaned against the
desk and bellowed in a paroxysm of laughter, his hands shaking
so that he could hardly open the envelopes.
"Noah! Noah!" he gasped, with a face of beetroot, while Lord
John and I smiled in sympathy and Summerlee, like a dyspeptic
goat, wagged his head in sardonic disagreement. Finally
Challenger, still rumbling and exploding, began to open his
telegrams. The three of us stood in the bow window and occupied
ourselves in admiring the magnificent view.
It was certainly worth looking at. The road in its gentle curves
had really brought us to a considerable elevation--seven hundred
feet, as we afterwards discovered. Challenger's house was on the
very edge of the hill, and from its southern face, in which was
the study window, one looked across the vast stretch of the
weald to where the gentle curves of the South Downs formed an
undulating horizon. In a cleft of the hills a haze of smoke
marked the position of Lewes. Immediately at our feet there lay
a rolling plain of heather, with the long, vivid green stretches
of the Crowborough golf course, all dotted with the players. A
little to the south, through an opening in the woods, we could
see a section of the main line from London to Brighton. In the
immediate foreground, under our very noses, was a small enclosed
yard, in which stood the car which had brought us from the
station.
An ejaculation from Challenger caused us to turn. He had read
his telegrams and had arranged them in a little methodical pile
upon his desk. His broad, rugged face, or as much of it as was
visible over the matted beard, was still deeply flushed, and he
seemed to be under the influence of some strong excitement.
"Well, gentlemen," he said, in a voice as if he was addressing
a public meeting, "this is indeed an interesting reunion, and it
takes place under extraordinary--I may say
unprecedented--circumstances. May I ask if you have observed
anything upon your journey from town?"
"The only thing which I observed," said Summerlee with a sour
smile, "was that our young friend here has not improved in his
manners during the years that have passed. I am sorry to state
that I have had to seriously complain of his conduct in the
train, and I should be wanting in frankness if I did not say
that it has left a most unpleasant impression in my mind."
"Well, well, we all get a bit prosy sometimes," said Lord John.
"The young fellah meant no real harm. After all, he's an
International, so if he takes half an hour to describe a game of
football he has more right to do it than most folk."
"Half an hour to describe a game!" I cried indignantly. "Why, it
was you that took half an hour with some long-winded story about
a buffalo. Professor Summerlee will be my witness."
"I can hardly judge which of you was the most utterly wearisome,"
said Summerlee. "I declare to you, Challenger, that I never wish
to hear of football or of buffaloes so long as I live."
"I have never said one word to-day about football," I protested.
Lord John gave a shrill whistle, and Summerlee shook his head
sadly.
"So early in the day too," said he. "It is indeed deplorable.
As I sat there in sad but thoughtful silence----"
"In silence!" cried Lord John. "Why, you were doin' a music-hall
turn of imitations all the way--more like a runaway gramophone
than a man."
Summerlee drew himself up in bitter protest.
"You are pleased to be facetious, Lord John," said he with a
face of vinegar.
"Why, dash it all, this is clear madness," cried Lord John.
"Each of us seems to know what the others did and none of us
knows what he did himself. Let's put it all together from the
first. We got into a first-class smoker, that's clear, ain't
it? Then we began to quarrel over friend Challenger's letter in
the Times."
"Oh, you did, did you?" rumbled our host, his eyelids beginning
to droop.
"You said, Summerlee, that there was no possible truth in his
contention."
"Dear me!" said Challenger, puffing out his chest and stroking
his beard. "No possible truth! I seem to have heard the words
before. And may I ask with what arguments the great and famous
Professor Summerlee proceeded to demolish the humble individual
who had ventured to express an opinion upon a matter of
scientific possibility? Perhaps before he exterminates that
unfortunate nonentity he will condescend to give some reasons
for the adverse views which he has formed."
He bowed and shrugged and spread open his hands as he spoke with
his elaborate and elephantine sarcasm.
"The reason was simple enough," said the dogged Summerlee. "I
contended that if the ether surrounding the earth was so toxic
in one quarter that it produced dangerous symptoms, it was
hardly likely that we three in the railway carriage should be
entirely unaffected."
The explanation only brought uproarious merriment from
Challenger. He laughed until everything in the room seemed to
rattle and quiver.
"Our worthy Summerlee is, not for the first time, somewhat out
of touch with the facts of the situation," said he at last,
mopping his heated brow. "Now, gentlemen, I cannot make my point
better than by detailing to you what I have myself done this
morning. You will the more easily condone any mental aberration
upon your own part when you realize that even I have had moments
when my balance has been disturbed. We have had for some years
in this household a housekeeper--one Sarah, with whose second
name I have never attempted to burden my memory. She is a woman
of a severe and forbidding aspect, prim and demure in her
bearing, very impassive in her nature, and never known within
our experience to show signs of any emotion. As I sat alone at
my breakfast--Mrs. Challenger is in the habit of keeping her
room of a morning--it suddenly entered my head that it would be
entertaining and instructive to see whether I could find any
limits to this woman's inperturbability. I devised a simple but
effective experiment. Having upset a small vase of flowers which
stood in the centre of the cloth, I rang the bell and slipped
under the table. She entered and, seeing the room empty,
imagined that I had withdrawn to the study. As I had expected,
she approached and leaned over the table to replace the vase. I
had a vision of a cotton stocking and an elastic-sided boot.
Protruding my head, I sank my teeth into the calf of her leg.
The experiment was successful beyond belief. For some moments
she stood paralyzed, staring down at my head. Then with a shriek
she tore herself free and rushed from the room. I pursued her
with some thoughts of an explanation, but she flew down the
drive, and some minutes afterwards I was able to pick her out
with my field-glasses traveling very rapidly in a south-westerly
direction. I tell you the anecdote for what it is worth. I drop
it into your brains and await its germination. Is it
illuminative? Has it conveyed anything to your minds? What do
_you_ think of it, Lord John?"
Lord John shook his head gravely.
"You'll be gettin' into serious trouble some of these days if
you don't put a brake on," said he.
"Perhaps you have some observation to make, Summerlee?"
"You should drop all work instantly, Challenger, and take three
months in a German watering-place," said he.
"Profound! Profound!" cried Challenger. "Now, my young friend,
is it possible that wisdom may come from you where your seniors
have so signally failed?"
And it did. I say it with all modesty, but it did. Of course,
it all seems obvious enough to you who know what occurred, but it
was not so very clear when everything was new. But it came on me
suddenly with the full force of absolute conviction.
"Poison!" I cried.
Then, even as I said the word, my mind flashed back over the
whole morning's experiences, past Lord John with his buffalo,
past my own hysterical tears, past the outrageous conduct of
Professor Summerlee, to the queer happenings in London, the row
in the park, the driving of the chauffeur, the quarrel at the
oxygen warehouse. Everything fitted suddenly into its place.
"Of course," I cried again. "It is poison. We are all
poisoned."
"Exactly," said Challenger, rubbing his hands, "we are all
poisoned. Our planet has swum into the poison belt of ether, and
is now flying deeper into it at the rate of some millions of
miles a minute. Our young friend has expressed the cause of all
our troubles and perplexities in a single word, `poison.'"
We looked at each other in amazed silence. No comment seemed to
meet the situation.
"There is a mental inhibition by which such symptoms can be
checked and controlled," said Challenger. "I cannot expect to
find it developed in all of you to the same point which it has
reached in me, for I suppose that the strength of our different
mental processes bears some proportion to each other.
But no doubt it is appreciable even in our young friend here.
After the little outburst of high spirits which so alarmed my
domestic I sat down and reasoned with myself. I put it to myself
that I had never before felt impelled to bite any of my
household. The impulse had then been an abnormal one. In an
instant I perceived the truth. My pulse upon examination was ten
beats above the usual, and my reflexes were increased. I called
upon my higher and saner self, the real G. E. C., seated serene
and impregnable behind all mere molecular disturbance. I
summoned him, I say, to watch the foolish mental tricks
which the poison would play. I found that I was indeed the
master. I could recognize and control a disordered mind. It was
a remarkable exhibition of the victory of mind over matter, for
it was a victory over that particular form of matter which is
most intimately connected with mind. I might almost say that
mind was at fault and that personality controlled it. Thus, when
my wife came downstairs and I was impelled to slip behind the
door and alarm her by some wild cry as she entered, I was able
to stifle the impulse and to greet her with dignity and
restraint. An overpowering desire to quack like a duck was met
and mastered in the same fashion.
"Later, when I descended to order the car and found Austin
bending over it absorbed in repairs, I controlled my open hand
even after I had lifted it and refrained from giving him an
experience which would possibly have caused him to follow in the
steps of the housekeeper. On the contrary, I touched him on the
shoulder and ordered the car to be at the door in time to meet
your train. At the present instant I am most forcibly tempted to
take Professor Summerlee by that silly old beard of his and to
shake his head violently backwards and forwards. And yet, as you
see, I am perfectly restrained. Let me commend my example to
you."
"I'll look out for that buffalo," said Lord John.
"And I for the football match."
"It may be that you are right, Challenger," said Summerlee in a
chastened voice. "I am willing to admit that my turn of mind is
critical rather than constructive and that I am not a ready
convert to any new theory, especially when it happens to be so
unusual and fantastic as this one. However, as I cast my mind
back over the events of the morning, and as I reconsider the
fatuous conduct of my companions, I find it easy to believe that
some poison of an exciting kind was responsible for their
symptoms."
Challenger slapped his colleague good-humouredly upon the
shoulder. "We progress," said he. "Decidedly we progress."
"And pray, sir," asked Summerlee humbly, "what is your opinion
as to the present outlook?"
"With your permission I will say a few words upon that subject."
He seated himself upon his desk, his short, stumpy legs swinging
in front of him. "We are assisting at a tremendous and awful
function. It is, in my opinion, the end of the world."
The end of the world! Our eyes turned to the great bow-window
and we looked out at the summer beauty of the country-side, the
long slopes of heather, the great country-houses, the cozy
farms, the pleasure-seekers upon the links.
The end of the world! One had often heard the words, but the
idea that they could ever have an immediate practical
significance, that it should not be at some vague date, but now,
to-day, that was a tremendous, a staggering thought. We were all
struck solemn and waited in silence for Challenger to continue.
His overpowering presence and appearance lent such force to the
solemnity of his words that for a moment all the crudities and
absurdities of the man vanished, and he loomed before us as
something majestic and beyond the range of ordinary humanity.
Then to me, at least, there came back the cheering recollection
of how twice since we had entered the room he had roared with
laughter. Surely, I thought, there are limits to mental
detachment. The crisis cannot be so great or so pressing after
all.
"You will conceive a bunch of grapes," said he, "which are
covered by some infinitesimal but noxious bacillus. The gardener
passes it through a disinfecting medium. It may be that he
desires his grapes to be cleaner. It may be that he needs space
to breed some fresh bacillus less noxious than the last. He dips
it into the poison and they are gone. Our Gardener is, in my
opinion, about to dip the solar system, and the human bacillus,
the little mortal vibrio which twisted and wriggled upon the
outer rind of the earth, will in an instant be sterilized out of
existence."
Again there was silence. It was broken by the high trill of the
telephone-bell.
"There is one of our bacilli squeaking for help," said he with
a grim smile. "They are beginning to realize that their
continued existence is not really one of the necessities of
the universe."
He was gone from the room for a minute or two. I remember that
none of us spoke in his absence. The situation seemed beyond all
words or comments.
"The medical officer of health for Brighton," said he when he
returned. "The symptoms are for some reason developing more
rapidly upon the sea level. Our seven hundred feet of elevation
give us an advantage. Folk seem to have learned that I am the
first authority upon the question. No doubt it comes from my
letter in the Times. That was the mayor of a provincial town
with whom I talked when we first arrived. You may have heard me
upon the telephone. He seemed to put an entirely inflated value
upon his own life. I helped him to readjust his ideas."
Summerlee had risen and was standing by the window. His thin,
bony hands were trembling with his emotion.
"Challenger," said he earnestly, "this thing is too serious for
mere futile argument. Do not suppose that I desire to irritate
you by any question I may ask. But I put it to you whether there
may not be some fallacy in your information or in your
reasoning. There is the sun shining as brightly as ever in the
blue sky. There are the heather and the flowers and the birds.
There are the folk enjoying themselves upon the golf-links and
the laborers yonder cutting the corn. You tell us that they and
we may be upon the very brink of destruction--that this sunlit
day may be that day of doom which the human race has so long
awaited. So far as we know, you found this tremendous judgment
upon what? Upon some abnormal lines in a spectrum--upon rumours
from Sumatra--upon some curious personal excitement which we have
discerned in each other. This latter symptom is not so marked
but that you and we could, by a deliberate effort, control it.
You need not stand on ceremony with us, Challenger. We have all
faced death together before now. Speak out, and let us know
exactly where we stand, and what, in your opinion, are our
prospects for our future."
It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that stanch and
strong spirit which lay behind all the acidities and
angularities of the old zoologist. Lord John rose and shook him
by the hand.
"My sentiment to a tick," said he. "Now, Challenger, it's up to
you to tell us where we are. We ain't nervous folk, as you know
well; but when it comes to makin' a week-end visit and finding
you've run full butt into the Day of Judgment, it wants a bit of
explainin'. What's the danger, and how much of it is there, and
what are we goin' to do to meet it?"
He stood, tall and strong, in the sunshine at the window, with
his brown hand upon the shoulder of Summerlee. I was lying back
in an armchair, an extinguished cigarette between my lips, in
that sort of half-dazed state in which impressions become
exceedingly distinct. It may have been a new phase of the
poisoning, but the delirious promptings had all passed away and
were succeeded by an exceedingly languid and, at the same time,
perceptive state of mind. I was a spectator. It did not seem to
be any personal concern of mine. But here were three strong men
at a great crisis, and it was fascinating to observe them.
Challenger bent his heavy brows and stroked his beard before he
answered. One could see that he was very carefully weighing his
words.
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