The Great Fog (4 page)

The Sergeant hesitated, “How would I know?”

“You do know,” the Doctor continued. “They would be in the fluid of her semicircular canals, or one of them. They wouldn't corrode—they are, as we surgeons say, ‘inert'—they won't set up any
chemical
reaction. They, therefore, would do her no harm. They wouldn't upset her. She'd probably hardly know she was wearing such a strange interior decoration until—until she should, by chance, bring that right ear within an inch or so of a fairly strong magnet.”

“God have mercy on us,” remarked Sergeant Skillin with some conviction.

“Then she would be seized with violent, irresistible vertigo. Wherever she was, however securely placed, she would have to fall headlong.”

“But how in heaven's name did the fellow find out the diabolical device?”

“Do you remember Calkin's story about the quarrel he overheard—and underlooked?”

“In the lean-to room back there?”

“Yes, with the little aquarium by the window.”

“A quarrel over a shrimp!”

“No; a little more than a shrimp and, as it happens, considerably more significant—a crayfish, to be crustaceanly accurate.”

“Well, what does it matter?—she was crazy anyhow and would have blown up over anything.”

“But he wasn't. It was the crayfish which gave him his big idea and gave me the clue to what that idea was. I even wonder,” he reflected, “whether the wretched woman's outburst, which seemed so absurd, may not have sprung from some deep subconscious sense that he was her enemy and, under the guise of some simple research, was seeking for a way to be rid of her.”

“That's speculation,” corrected Sergeant Skillin. “We've quite enough odd facts to order, without adding any theories. What makes you think that the crayfish gave him an idea—and you a clue?”

“Do you remember,” questioned back the Doctor, “that we found traces that a fairly high voltage wire had been brought up just behind the tank, but not high enough to serve for a lamp above it. That wire served as an electrical magnet.”

“How do you know?”

“Because of the way, according to Calkin's report, Mrs. Smirke spoke of the crayfish's behavior and of how he himself saw it behaving.”

“That's true; he saw it on its side, ‘like a dying fish,' and heard her scream at him that he was torturing it.”

“And then, you recall, it suddenly righted itself.”

“That was the moment Smirke put his hand behind the tank.”

“That's it, and that's why. He switched off the magnet.”

“But still.…”

“Yes,” the Doctor said meditatively, “Smirke's daring thing was to carry over the experiment from fish to man—or woman. For there has been an odd discovery, known for some time, that crayfish balance themselves in the water by a small level in their heads. And when they molt their shells, they themselves actually replace small sand grains in the head, so that the touch of these gives them their poise—as the tipping of the liquid in our semicircular canals gives us our sense of balance. Not long ago it occurred to a researcher to give this crustacean iron filings, instead of ordinary sand, at the time of its shell-casting. Then, when they were all sealed up again in their new shells, he directed the current of a magnet through the water. At once all the crayfish within the field careened at right angles to the earth's gravitational field—but, of course, felt all right. They were straight and on the level with the main pull—that of the magnet. What they felt about it, however, need not, I think, concern us. After all, you are fairly safe whichever way you are up, if you are a fish in water. But …” he paused, “I still think the poor woman was right to feel alarmed at what she saw in that little pool. Like a witch looking into a crystal, she was seeing in symbolic form her own fate pre-enacted.”

“But how the devil did he maneuver everything else?”

“He took his time. He is a cool man. Most murderers, as we know, spoil a good idea by rushing it, by not waiting to bring up enough supports. You remember, he first becomes considerate about her ear irritation. For then he could be considerate, since he had heard of the crayfish peculiarity, and a black hope was rising on the horizon of his mind. He would be patient, for his own irritation would not last much longer. When he looked into her ear with the auriscope”—

“Then the devil whispered into his,” broke in the Sergeant.

“I prefer Shakespeare,” resumed the Doctor. “‘Oh! opportunity, thy guilt is great.' The two things, her ear and the crayfish fact coming together, made him feel he must dare it now. There was, no doubt, incipient pruritis in the middle ear. It's a vexing thing, especially in a nervous person. What's more terribly to the point, it's a condition very easy to inflame. No doubt he did so under the excuse of easing it, and then suggested a small treatment to soothe what he had made acute. Of course, when he gave her the anesthetic for the pretended X ray he made the incision and insertion. Very, very risky, but the devil often helps those he wishes to hang.”

“Yes, I see the rest. He let the place heal and cured the pruritis properly, and then?”

“Why, then he maneuvered for position. The mine was loaded. Now he must fire it—or make her fire it. The steps are—the ladder she is to mount to help the Christmas decorations. It is loaded with a strong ‘permanent' magnet, the ends of which come just to the opening under the top step on the left side. Then comes the rehearsal. He is careful enough for the afternoon trial with the maid Mary. He certainly did not want to bring off his grand slam then, with only one witness. He had six, all chosen. The magnet would then not be in place. He fixed it in its catches between that trial and the dinner hour. With a terrible detachment, he was teaching his victim to play her part—to know exactly how to mount the scaffold and put her head precisely where he could fell her as though with an executioner's ax. Yes, he was patient, resourceful, ready. If he failed on the night of the party, if she fell and didn't die, or didn't fall, he could try and try again, planting magnets and luring her within range, so that she would have falls that could prove fatal. We know he had taken care to tell her that she would next think that he had been hexing her. So, if she felt that at times she was losing control of herself, she would hesitate to consult another doctor. Violent-tempered people often fear that their lack of self control may mean that they may go mad. They fear it greatly, though, of course they are not the sort that do. Neurosis is not often the path to true madness.” He paused again.

“Is that all? Of course, it's enough, the case is clear.”

The Sergeant waited for a moment, for it seemed Dr. Wendover might still have something more to say. He had.

“It is a complete case,” he said slowly. “I believe I can even now interpret the poor woman's last word.”

“You mean what Mrs. Gortch thought she heard her say?”

“Yes, as she felt herself suddenly whirled around on her axis and knew that she must crash, I believe that the scene which had so irrationally but deeply stirred her flashed into her poor panic-stricken brain. She saw why she had been horrified by her husband's small piece of abstract research. She wasn't trying to say ‘Gray.' Her last gasping word was, ‘The CRAYfish.'”

THE GREAT FOG

The first symptom was a mildew.

Very few people have ever looked carefully at such “molds”; indeed, only a specialized branch of botanists knows about them. Nor is this knowledge—except rarely—of much use. Every now and then a low growth of this sort may attack a big cash crop. Then the mycologists, whose lifework is to study these spore growths, are called in by the growers. These botanists can sometimes find another mold which will eat its fellow. That closes the matter. The balance of life, which had been slightly upset, has been righted. It is not a matter of any general interest.

This particular mildew did not seem to have even that special importance. It did not, apparently, do any damage to the trees on which it grew. Indeed, most fruit growers never noticed it. The botanists found it themselves; no one called their attention to it. It was simply a form of spore growth different in its growth rate from any previously recorded. It did not seem to do any harm to any other form of life. But it did do amazingly well for itself. It was not a new plant, but a plant with quite a new power of growth.

It was this fact which puzzled the botanists, or rather that special branch of the botanists, the mycologists. That was why they finally called in the meteorologists. They asked for “another opinion,” as baffled doctors say. What made the mycologists choose the meteorologists for consultation was this: Here was a mildew which spread faster than any other mold had ever been known to grow. It flourished in places where such mildews had been thought incapable of growing. But there seemed to be no botanical change either in the mold or in the plants it grew on. Therefore the cause must be climatic: only a weather change could account for the unprecedented growth.

The meteorologists saw the force of this argument. They became interested at once. The first thing to do, they said, was to study the mildew, not as a plant, but as a machine, an indicator. “You know,” said Sersen the weatherman to Charles the botanist (they had been made colleagues for the duration of the study), “the astronomers have a thing called a thermocouple that will tell the heat of a summer day on the equator of Mars. Well, here is a little gadget I've made. It's almost as sensitive to damp as the thermocouple is to heat.”

Sersen spent some time rigging it up and then “balancing” it, as he called it. “Find the normal humidity and then see how much the damp at a particular spot exceeds that.” But he went on fiddling about far longer than Charles thought an expert who was handling his own gadget should. He was evidently puzzled. And after a while he confessed that he was.

“Queer, very queer,” said Sersen. “Of course, I expected to get a good record of humidity around the mold itself. As you say, it can't grow without that: it wouldn't be here unless the extra damp was here too. But, look here,” he said, pointing to a needle that quivered near a high number on a scale. “
That
is the humidity actually around the mold itself—what we might expect, if a trifle high. That's not the surprise. It's
this
.” He had swung the whole instrument on its tripod until it pointed a foot or more from the mold; for the tree they were studying was a newly attacked one and, as far as Charles had been able to discover, had on it only this single specimen of the mildew.

Charles looked at the needle. It remained hovering about the high figure it had first chosen. “Well?” he queried.

“Don't you see?” urged Sersen. “This odd high humidity is present not only around the mold itself but for more than a foot beyond.”

“I don't see much to that.”

“I see two things,” snapped Sersen; “one's odd; the other's damned odd. The odd one anyone not blind would see. The other one is perhaps too big to be seen until one can stand well back.”

“Sorry to be stupid,” said Charles, a gentle-spoken but close-minded little fellow; “we botanists are small-scale men.”

“Sorry to be a snapper,” apologized Sersen. “But, as I suppose you've guessed, I'm startled. I've got a queer feeling that we're on the track of something big, yes, and something maybe moving pretty fast. The first odd thing isn't a complete surprise: it's that you botanists have shown us what could turn out to be a meteorological instrument more delicate and more accurate than any we have been able to make. Perhaps we ought to have been on the outlook for some such find. After all, living things are always the most sensitive detectors—can always beat mechanical instruments when they want to. You know about the mitogenetic rays given out by breeding seeds. Those rays can be recorded only by yeast cells—which multiply rapidly when exposed to the rays, thus giving an indication of their range and strength.”

“Umph,” said Charles. Sersen's illustration had been unfortunate, for Charles belonged to that majority of conservative botanists to whom the mitogenetic radiation was mere moonshine.

Sersen, again vexed, went on: “Well, whether you accept them or not, I still maintain that here we have a superdetector. This mildew can notice an increase in humidity long before any of our instruments. There's proof that something has changed in the climate. This mold is the first to know about it—and to profit by it. I prophesy it will soon be over the whole world.”

“But your second discovery, or supposition?” Charles had no use for prophecy. These weathermen, he thought; well, after all, they aren't quite scientists, so one mustn't blame them, one supposes, for liking forecasts—forecasting is quite unscientific.

Charles was a courteous man, but Sersen was sensitive. “Well,” he said defensively, “that's nothing but supposition.” And yet, he thought to himself as he packed up his instrument, if it
is
true it may mean such a change that botany will be blasted and meteorology completely mistified. His small private joke relieved his temper. By the time they returned to headquarters he and Charles were friendly enough. They agreed to make a joint report which would stick severely to the facts.

Meanwhile, botanists everywhere were observing and recording the spreading of the mildew. Before long, they began to get its drift. It was spreading from a center, spreading like a huge ripple from where a stone has been flung into a lake. The center, there could be no doubt, was eastern Europe. Spain, Britain, and North Africa showed the same “high incidence.” France showed an even higher one. The spread of the mold could be watched just as well in North or South America. Such and such a percentage of shrubs and trees was attacked on the Atlantic coasts; a proportionately lower percentage on the Pacific coasts; but everywhere the incidence was rising. On every sector of the vast and widening circle, America, Africa, India, the mildew was advancing rapidly.