The Flood Read online

  He couldn’t afford to rest.

  He lugged Lidgett into the gas-trap, then opened the inside door. He didn’t stay more than a second, but nipped outside, and the transparent plastic of the trap fell into position. He could see Lidgett lying on the floor, his lips parted; he would be dead in a few minutes.

  Seconds.

  Woburn turned away.

  He felt the coldness of death on him, and a kind of guilt. For a few seconds he could not move. Then, he let his gaze fall on the transmitter. He moved towards it, and couldn’t go quickly enough now. He stood in front of it, and checked the panel, the instruments, the whole apparatus. He put a pair of earphones on, then pulled up a small metal stool and sat down, crouching. This was set to a wavelength which London had been able to pick up. He began to put out his first message, a simple: “This is Ronoch Castle calling. Ronoch Castle. I have an urgent message for Dr. Palfrey. Will anyone who hears this message telephone the nearest police station at once?”

  Woburn paused, then went on: “This is an urgent message for Dr. Palfrey, from Ronoch Castle. Please telephone the police and ask them to tell Dr. Palfrey that cyanide of potassium will kill the octi”

  He paused again; sweating.

  “This is an urgent message for Dr. Palfrey from Ronoch Castle. Telephone the police and ask them to tell Dr. Palfrey that cyanide of potassium will kill the octi. I’ll repeat that. Cyanide of potassium will kill the octi. Also, malic acid is used in their growth - malic acid. And Dr. Palfrey should ignore the threat, Davos is going to act in any case. Dr. Palfrey should raid the Castle. And warn the authorities that extensive flooding is probable on the East Coast and in Holland”

  He repeated the gist of all this twice.

  He did not know whether the message had gone out or not.

  He got up and looked round.

  Everything that mattered was here. In ten minutes he could wreck the place; but if he did that, when the next research worker came down, the alarm would be raised and he would never have a chance to get out, to make sure his news was spread.

  He daren’t wreck the laboratory.

  He went to the door marked ‘Sir Gabriel’, and tried the handle. The door was locked. He studied the lock, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to force it easily, and if he shot it apart, then the alarm would be raised, too. But unless he knew where the cultures had been spread, all the information he had would lose its importance.

  He was taken by a sudden fit of shivering.

  Then he looked at Lidgett; or rather, at Lidgett’s body. It was possible that one of Lidgett’s keys fitted that lock. Was it worth trying?

  He had less than twenty minutes.

  Let well alone, and leave now. During the night he might find a chance to get into the laboratory again, and force that door.

  Could Eve swim to the mainland, or get a boat and go there during the night? She could tell Palfrey just as well as he, and he could stay to find where else in the world those cultures were.

  He took off the mask.

  He saw that Lidgett’s body had already turned colour; that hardly affected him. He opened the incubators, one after the other, and took out some of the fungi. He found small plastic containers, scraped some tiny octi off and into them, then wrapped these in some white typing paper, and slid the packet into his pocket.

  He moved the stool.

  With his finger on the handle of the door, he had his first real twinge of fear. If anyone were in the passage now, then he would have to kill again - or be killed.

  He opened the door boldly, and stepped outside.

  No one was there.

  As far as he knew, no one saw him when he stepped out of the lift on the bedroom floor, and walked to his own room. It was then twenty-five minutes to eight; he had ten minutes to spare. He remembered that Eve had warned him of some kind of trouble, but didn’t give that a second thought. He went to his bed, and dropped on to it. He didn’t lie down, but sat upright, shivering, feeling terribly burning hot or very cold. It was nervous reaction, of course, better to let it run. He needed a drink, desperately. He stared blankly ahead of him, but there were images on his mind’s eye.

  Reggie.

  Jenny.

  Floating bodies against the wreckage of walls.

  Ruby, with her swollen throat.

  Lidgett, with the terror in his eyes.

  Against his side, the octi seemed to burn. They seemed huge, too, as if they pushed out the side of his clothes, as if they were growing. In a flash of near panic, he jumped up and looked into the mirror.

  His coat fitted normally.

  He went to the hand-basin, filled it with cold water, and doused his hands and face, then dabbed with a towel. Yes, he felt better. He lit a cigarette. He wished that his teeth wouldn’t start chattering; that he could control the shivering which took possession of his body, but that would pass, it would have to.

  He wanted a drink.

  It was eighteen minutes to eight.

  He went out. He smoothed his forehead as he neared the lift, and the palm of his hand came away damp. The lift had no lighted sign until he pressed. Lift Ascending. He would be late, but only minutes late, they wouldn’t start suspecting him until ten to eight, would they? Or even later? Damn the blasted lift, why didn’t it move? It crawled. He heard the click as they passed one floor.

  The one thing of importance was to keep cool. To behave normally. To be upset, aggrieved, even angry, but quite normal. Outraged. There was room for a little resignation, perhaps, an attitude which almost admitted that he knew he was lucky to be here. Remember, Faversham hadn’t yet said that he was suspected of anything, it was at least possible that Faversham and Davos believed that he had come to see Eve, and hadn’t been able to get away.

  No, get it straight; the portcullis had been dropped to keep him in.

  If they didn’t know, or guess, that he had come from Palfrey, why had they troubled to keep him? That was something he hadn’t thought about before. There had been so little time to think about anything, just the situations to face and to. overcome.

  The lift stopped.

  As he stepped out he gritted his teeth to try to repress a fit of shivering; no one could shiver on a hot night and get away with it. There was to be a kind of family gathering, they would all be there - all except Ruby, of course. He wondered whether it was about Ruby’s death, and whether her body had been found, and who had killed her.

  There was a frail old man in the passage, dressed in black, white-haired, and not unlike the butler, but much less pompous. He had a fresh, baby-pink face and bright blue eyes, which were turned inquiringly towards Woburn. He stood outside the closed door of a room as Woburn looked about him.

  He smiled.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Ah, yes,” Woburn said, “I’m looking for the drawing- room.”

  “Then you haven’t far to go,” said the old man, with a charming smile; a benign smile. “I am right outside the doors.” He moved forward and opened one of the doors, then inclined his head with a courtliness which carried Woburn back over the years, to faintly remembered days of his own family, of visiting great houses.

  Woburn found himself smiling, grateful because of the help the old man had given him; how he had calmed him.

  “Thank you.”

  “A pleasure,” said the old man.

  Woburn went in. The old man followed him. Everyone looked their way - including Faversham, who was standing by a great window which overlooked the front of the Castle and the portcullis. Eve was here; Adam, too, and a middle- aged man whom Woburn hadn’t seen before.

  Davos.

  Who else dould it be?

  The man was disappointing. Stocky, dressed in an ill- fitting suit, with wiry hair which rose straight from his forehead, and thick-lensed glasses, he was hardly an impressive figure; hardly believable as Eve’s father.

  “Now I think we’re all here,” said the old man from behind Woburn. “All except poor Ruby
, of course. Poor Ruby. Eve, my dear, get Mr. Woburn a drink, please. I wanted just a word with all of you, but it needn’t take long.”

  He stopped.

  Woburn swung round, to look at him - at Davos. At ‘the devil himself’! At a benevolent-looking old man with snow-white hair and a baby-pink face and a pleasant smile, a voice so soft and gentle that at times it was difficult to hear.

  Sir Gabriel Davos smiled at him.

  “And I suppose you should introduce us, Eve,” he said, “but never mind, perhaps I shall introduce myself. I am Sir Gabriel Davos, Mr. Woburn. I am very glad to have this opportunity of expressing my deep personal thanks for your gallant, yes, gallant and courageous rescue of my daughter. Rescue, yes.” He glanced at Eve, who was pouring out a drink. “You rescued more than you know Mr. Woburn, much, much more than you know. Including yourself!”

  He beamed.

  He talked as an old man might, rambling and almost inconsequential; like someone whose mind was going.

  “Ah, Eve my dear, Mr. Woburn’s drink - and mine, how thoughtful. Yes. Thank you.” He took a glass of sherry, peered at it against the light as if approving the colour, waited until Woburn had taken a glass from Eve, and then raised his own again.

  He smiled.

  “Now we shall drink a toast,” he said. “We shall drink a toast to the old world, and to the dead and gone, and we shall drink a toast to the health and the happiness and the future, ah, yes, the future, of everyone here tonight. Except, of course” - his smile was bland, he seemed to purr - “except, of course, the representative of the irresponsible Dr. Palfrey.”

  18

  Woburn thought: “If I can get out of the room, how can I get over the wall?”

  There was hardly time to think, just time to feel. Shock, first; it was like a slap across the face, worse because it came so mildly. Davos glanced at him, but that was all; he looked round at all the others, as if he were really enjoying his own little sensation.

  Shock, then.

  Next, a kind of desperation, a swift appraisal of the room itself, with the huge, leaded window and single massive door. Woburn was nearer the door, but supposing he did get out now. He couldn’t turn the key in it, and would probably not get as far as the front door. If he did, what chance was there of getting across the yard?

  Were these men armed?

  Even if they weren’t, Adam would outpace him; he could picture the ‘perfect’ man’s rippling muscles.

  All this went through Woburn’s mind in a matter of seconds. He didn’t move. He was conscious of Eve’s swift, fearful glance; and then, out of some hidden strength, she managed to turn away, to show neither suspicion of him nor sympathy. Was that a mistake? Surely they all suspected him.

  “I really must congratulate him,” Davos went on in that mildest of voices, “because—”

  I must run for it, Woburn thought wildly; I can’t give up without trying.

  “. . . he has been with us for so long,” Davos finished, and gave his little smile again; a nice, kindly old man enjoying his little joke.

  Woburn stood stock still.

  Eve shot a swift, incredulous look at him; another at her father.

  “In fact he deceived us for so long that when I first heard of it - only this morning, just before the— ah— beginning of the flood,” Davos said, “I found it very hard to believe. However, I now have all the evidence I require. It isn’t really surprising, I suppose, and the truth is that Palfrey has suspected that I was interested in the octi for a longer time than I realised. So he was able to place this man among us.”

  A man.

  “This— ah— viper in our bosom,” Davos said, as if mildly amused. “However—”

  Adam Reed took his right hand from his pocket. Woburn hadn’t seen him put it there; but now he saw that it was out, and in it was a small automatic; it wasn’t like Woburn’s, but had a bulbous end. Woburn could remember seeing it in the keeper’s hand when the panther had been about to leap. That extract of curare! The ‘perfect man’ held it lightly in his golden-skinned hand. What he lacked in brain he balanced in reflexes, because from the moment he had realised that there was a traitor, he had taken the gun out.

  “Adam,” Davos said, “that won’t help you. Nothing will.”

  No one else spoke.

  No one else moved.

  Woburn, glancing first at Eve, felt his gaze wrenched away as if by physical force. “Adam, that won’t help you. Nothing will.” The short sentence, dropped out so gently into the room, contained everything that mattered; accusation, verdict, punishment.

  Eve gave a strangled: “Adam!”

  “Yes,” said her father, “you will remember that we enlisted Adam when we were first in New England some years ago. He was hunting in the Adirondacks, and fitted in so perfectly to the general picture. I don’t think there has ever been a more perfect physical specimen! True, there were times when I feared that his mental equipment wasn’t quite good enough, but I told myself that he had the essential qualities of honesty and frankness, and that he had the necessary temperament And I felt sure that my Eve would provide all the intellectual qualities that would be needed in her children! So - I proceeded. Tell me, Adam, when you first joined us, did you serve Palfrey? Or did he find a way of corrupting you afterwards?”

  Adam Reed was smiling. He still held the gun, ignoring the cryptic: ‘That won’t help you.’ He had backed away from the others, so that he was close to the wall and no one could get behind him. The blank look on his face had gone completely, and the change in his expression made it hard to realise that he was the same man.

  “I was in from the start,” he said.

  “Well, well. Knowing I was looking for a perfect man? What remarkable self-confidence!”

  “I didn’t know what you were looking for,” Adam said mildly. “You were spending a lot of time diving off the coast of Maine and you did a bit of research in some of the Adirondack lakes. You took me on as a guide who could swim and who knew the district inside out. I’d spent most of my summers there.”

  Davos shrugged.

  “Very interesting, Adam. Well, now, let us be sensible about this. You know now, of course, that you can’t escape.” His smile was so benign; angelic. “And you cannot be rescued. Palfrey will not attack while he thinks negotiation possible, and we need so little time. So we are in no urgent danger of attack. You see, I have said that we have the octi in many strategic points throughout the world, as indeed we have. We have our allies, who share our dreams! I have also told Palfrey that if they should try violent methods against us the octi will be brought quickly to maturity, and the ‘flooding’ will be very serious. What he doesn’t know” - Davos gave a little, dry laughing sound - “is that the maturing process has begun, and there is only one way to prevent the full growth of billions upon billions of octi in all the main centres of population, including those on high ground as well as near the coastal waters. Once the octi are moving freely they will multiply themselves a millionfold, living on the earth, as it were. When Dr. Palfrey and his friends in Downing Street realise that the country is being submerged, it will dawn on them that they held off drastic reprisals too late. But they would have been too late, anyhow, because I have been ready for some time.

  “It was so very easy.”

  “Now, Adam!” Davos’s voice grew more brisk. “I did not know you were Palfrey’s agent until today - just before we isolated ourselves. However, I made it impossible for you or anyone else to get into the laboratory without my knowledge, until the isolation was complete. In desperation because of what is happening, you tried to get in twice, early today. You were seen. That is why I dropped the portcullis and made sure you were kept inside. Doubtless you nurse some foolish notion of swimming to the mainland, but you can put it behind you. No one can get outside these walls. The one matter that really interests me is how much you know, and how much you have been able to tell Palfrey. Not very much, I imagine, or things would not have worked out
quite as they have.”

  Adam said: “I think you’d better guess how much Palfrey knows.” He smiled again, easily. “And it’s time this place—”

  He squeezed the trigger, and a little cloud of gas billowed out. It touched Davos and the stocky man, and Faversham as he struck at Adam’s hand; and it also touched Woburn. It had a slightly sweetish smell, and should work instantaneously; it had on the panther.

  Woburn knew that.

  He knew that there were only split seconds left to think, for he would soon collapse. He might be able to help Adam. A single blow, a shot at Faversham or Davos, might give Adam a chance to get out; once he was outside he might get away. He would know any weaknesses in the walls, and might have friends among the servants.

  Davos chuckled.

  “Don’t be silly, Adam,” he said. “I had the pellets removed, all you have in there is a little gasified eau de Cologne. In fact it is quite pleasant! I assure you that I have taken every precaution to make sure that you can’t get out, and—”

  Adam was standing motionless.

  Davos was smiling genially.

  Eve cried: “Adam, get away, get away!”

  She flung herself at Faversham, who was closest to Adam, struck at his face and clutched at his arms. Faversham backed away, helpless under her fury, and that gave Adam Reed the second’s respite that he needed. He could try the door or the window. For a split second, he seemed undecided; like Woburn. A false move now might wreck all hope. Adam Reed surely knew as much as he did, if he could escape then he, Woburn, could stay here as a spy, safer than he’d ever been.

  Adam jumped.

  Davos tried to get out of the way and stumbled. Adam struck at him, and sent Davos reeling. Woburn saw Adam move towards the door, open it and step outside.

  There was no sound.

  The door closed.

  Faversham was pushing Eve away, holding her right wrist and twisting. Woburn kept still. He mustn’t help Adam; he must appear to have given up hope. His chance would come later, would have to. Davos was shouting something unintelligible. The stocky man was at the door now. Faversham turned and rushed towards the window, opened one section and climbed out. He blew a whistle. Davos was on his feet, and going towards the window - and as he neared it, Adam appeared, running towards the wall, the cages, and the glen.