THE room was hot, almost stifling. A faint acrid smell mingled coyly with the scent of apple wood on the fire, the stale reek of a burnt-out cigar in an ash tray, the hot, heady tang of whisky. A single desk light glowed on the table, casting a bright pool of light where it fell on the scattered sheaves of paper that littered the table. The only sound in the room was a nervous tapping; then even that ceased and the man at the table gave a deep sigh.
“It works,” he muttered. “It works; but what in heaven’s name will it lead to?” His eyes were fixed on the small, still carcase of a guinea pig lying motionless on the littered table. Another creature, identical in appearance, squeaked and scampered uneasily across the papers before him.
The man stared at the living pig with fascinated eyes. This was something more than creation, he thought. But he needed time to think out all the possibilities, to complete his experiments. Above all, he must go ahead with the utmost caution. And then there was the major difficulty of finding a human being willing to take a chance on the full-scale experiment. That would not be a simple thing.…
He looked again at the yellow guinea pig. The live one… The dead one.… Yes, the ray worked well enough. He sighed and reached out for another cigar, cutting the end with care. Then he rose from his chair and stood in front of a mirror above the fireplace, examining his face, his hands, the rest of the room.
“Norrenson,” he mused. “That’ll be the greatest name in scientific circles when this is known. Perhaps, though it would be better if it never was known.” He tried to smile at his own reflection, but there was something gigantic in what he had recently achieved. The smile stuck half-formed on his tight-lipped mouth. He shrugged and turned away, examining the room, a big room, littered and crowded with all manner of paraphernalia, scientific and otherwise. There was even a dusty skull on the shelf over his books. Smoke from the fire and his innumerable cigars had yellowed the once white bone of the cranium. A microscope … slides … all the odds and ends that had kept him company from his student days, And now this, he thought, glancing once more at the guinea pig as it squeaked in alarm at finding itself marooned on the island of the table. It ran back and forth several times peering stupidly over the edge of the table to the distant floor. Once it sniffed at its motionless counterpart, but death—even this new, queer variety of death—seemed to cause it less alarm than the fact of its isolation. Its black, expressionless little eyes sought Norrenson as he watched it.
“You’d better go to bed in your hutch, Sebastian,” he said aloud. “You’re a highly honoured animal, idiotic as you undoubtedly are.”
He moved across and scooped the indignant guinea pig up in his hand, slipping it deftly into a wooden case with a wire front. It ran round a few times then disappeared into the closed off section where it slept. Norrenson glanced at the body on the table, picked it up and placed it carefully in a drawer. He stood looking down at it for a full minute before closing the drawer. There were tired lines on his face, lines which gave him a markedly sinister appearance; but his tiredness meant nothing now. Had he not worked day and night to this end? He glanced at his watch. Three a.m. The curtains were drawn tightly across the low lattice windows. For the first time in several days he wondered what the night air smelt like. The big room was hot, its low ceiling and age-blackened beams discouraging air circulation. The man walked slowly to the door and listened with it held ajar. Only the creak of timbers and the distant murmur of the sea broke the silence. Norrenson closed the door again and went to the window, drawing back the curtain quietly.
A cold moon spread its unearthly glow across the marshes, shimmering on flood water some distance behind the bulk of the sea wall. He opened the window and leant out, breathing slowly. The air was keen and frosty. Somewhere, a very long way off, a curlew was crying its mournful mew. Further off still, an owl hooted eerily. A thin curtain of mist drifted wraith-like across the flood water.
Norrenson shivered uncontrollably for an instant. What a dismal, magic place these marshes were, he thought. Yet he loved them passionately.
The hoot of a ship’s siren as the vessel moved in towards the estuary brought him back with a jolt. He could sleep now, he realised. All the months and weeks of unremitting toil were over. Locked securely in the safe was the result of that seemingly wild idea that had dawned on him one day in the summer as he walked the marshland road after lunch. He could still not fully appreciate his monumental achievement, yet the two guinea pigs were proof enough.
He shut the window firmly, locking it and drawing the heavy curtains across it once more. A human must surely react to the Norrenson ray. There was no earthly reason why the result should not be the same as in the case of the guinea pig. He brooded on it continuously so that in the end he knew he would never be satisfied till he had proved his theory to the full. After that.… There was such a vast extent to the innumerable possibilities that his mind literally boggled at them.
He made his way slowly up the great oak stairway pausing to listen for a moment at the door of Karen’s room, then on to his own, and finally the luxury of bed.
Birds sang shrilly in the leaf-bare orchard at the back of the farmhouse when Karen made her way downstairs and entered the kitchen. Seven o’clock was striking, there was a crispness in the air, and she was intending to drive into Colchester for the weekly shopping expedition. There was as yet no sign of her uncle, but that was not unusual, especially of late. She had grown distinctly worried about the long hours he kept himself shut away in that dreadfully untidy study of his.
The kitchen was warm with that all-night smell that was such a welcome on an autumn morning. The girl began to hum a tune as she busied herself getting breakfast, feeding the hens and collecting eggs. The house cow could wait till after breakfast for its milking, she decided.
Walking back to the house, she looked with affection on the rambling pile of rose coloured brick, dark timber and tile that had been her home for so long—the only home she remembered, in fact. And Uncle Jack, even if he was an odd kind in many ways, was not such a bad old thing. Admittedly no one liked him in the neighbourhood, but that was because they didn’t really know him. If one overlooked his dabbling in scientific affairs, all his sinister little tricks, his talk of poison injections and such-like, he was not so bad.
Yet for all her cheerful thoughts, Karen was at heart not as contented as she tried to make out to herself. There was a great deal she missed in life, and she knew it.
Breakfast was ready by the time her uncle came down.
“Hello, my dear,” he said. He stood in the doorway of the big kitchen for a moment, sniffing appreciatively. But she saw that his eyes were tired and his whole face more lined and drawn than ever.
“You were late again last night, weren’t you?” she said accusingly. “You’ll crack up if you keep on like that.” She studied him critically as she spoke, taking in his lean frame, restless hands, dark featured face and iron grey hair. There were streaks of white at the temples now; they had not shown six months before.
A subtle change of expression crossed his saturnine face.
“You weren’t spying on me, I hop?” he snapped. “If——”
She flushed angrily. “Don’t be a fool!” she said. “Of course I wasn’t spying on you! I don’t care what you do at night in that den of yours. All I know is that it ought to be cleared out and tidied? It’s like a pigsty!”
He relaxed a little, smiling again. The way his eyes dwelt on her gave Karen a momentary sense of disquiet, but she thrust it aside. She knew her uncle was slightly eccentric anyway. Spying on him indeed! The very idea of it! Did he have something to hide? He’d certainly never made a remark like that before. Vague curiosity entered her feminine mind.
“Go on in,” she told him impatiently. “I’ll bring the breakfast in just a moment.”
He nodded and turned away, moving off towards the front of the house with a curiously weary step. But although she could not see his face there was a brightness in the way his dark eyes glinted. Had Karen noticed it she might have been more disturbed. As it was she shrugged and dismissed the subject of her uncle in the business of getting breakfast and making out a list for shopping in Colchester.
Norrenson smiled at her in his most friendly manner when she joined him in the dining room, a place of warm light and comfortable antique furniture.
“Sorry I snapped you up a while ago,” he said.
“You’re tired,” she replied. “Forget it, Uncle. Here you are.”
The meal went through in silence. Karen’s mind was busy and she knew she must get a move on if she was to do all the things that had to be done before leaving the house. On one occasion, however, she happened to glance up, to find Norrenson watching her narrowly. There was a swift gleam in his eyes that she could not translate, but it was gone in an instant. She finished her breakfast hurriedly, a first vague shadow casting itself on her equanimity.
“I’m going to milk Clara,” she said. “You can leave the table; I’ll clear it presently.”
Norrenson nodded. “You’re going into town, aren’t you, my dear?” he said quietly. “I might want you to get me a few things.”
“Make a. . .
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