The Unbegotten Read online

  The man’s hand touched his wrist, a lean, strong, browned hand.

  ‘How long?’ he repeated.

  ‘Long enough for me to call the police and charge you with assault.’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Dr. Maddern. How long?’

  Maddern was seething with anger. There was something at the back of his mind which told him these men were only doing their job, but that did not still his fury. They seemed to act as if they were a law unto themselves and talked with an arrogance he would take from no man, and while the girl had been the assailant, they had dealt with her as if she were a puppet; made of plastic rather than flesh and blood.

  How dare they behave like this anywhere; more particularly, how dare they in his house?

  The brown fingers tightened round his wrist, as if to make sure Maddern could not thrust the needle into the girl’s arm. He stared at Maddern, accusingly. Maddern, almost choking with anger, let his arm go slack, and then with the other’s grip easing, he pulled himself free and jabbed the needle into the lower part of the man’s forearm.

  The man caught his breath. Maddern jammed the plunger home and then withdrew the needle.

  ‘You’ll soon find out how long,’ he said harshly.

  The man stared at him in utter disbelief. His colleague, just behind him, called out, ‘What’s going on?’ The man whom Maddern had jabbed tried to speak, but suddenly crumpled up. Maddern, syringe in hand, found himself looking into the gap where he had been; and into the face of the other, who was at one side.

  Maddern growled, ‘This girl needs sedation, her pulse is far too high and she was hysterical before she flopped out. I am going to give her an injection of Ephregen. Don’t try to stop me.’

  He recognised the man whom he had thrown with judo that morning, lean-faced, with glittering grey eyes. Maddern himself, looked angry, dangerous. He was quivering all over, suffering from a kind of shock.

  The sleeve had fallen over the girl’s arm, and he pushed it up, noticing how light it was; more like a skin than a fabric. He cleaned the spot again, plunged the needle into the ampoule and drew half of the contents into the syringe. The moment he turned towards the girl, he expected the man to stop him.

  Instead, the other asked, ‘Is that what you gave Childers?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My colleague.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he tried to prevent me from giving this girl an injection.’ With his left hand Maddern pinched the flesh above the spot he had cleansed and plunged in the needle. The girl showed no sign of feeling or awareness. He pulled the sleeve down and then drew a blanket up from the foot of the couch. ‘She can stay there until my housekeeper comes,’ he stated with a clear finality and turned to face the second man.

  He was surprised by a faint smile at the other’s eyes.

  ‘You make up your mind what you want to do and go ahead and do it, don’t you?’

  ‘If I think it’s the right thing,’ Maddern replied flatly.

  ‘How long will Childers be out?’

  ‘Five or six hours, I should imagine.’

  ‘My goodness! Dr. Palfrey will be pleased!’

  ‘Do you work for Dr. Palfrey?’ remarked Maddern.

  ‘In a way. Yes.’

  ‘Surely you either do or you don’t.’

  ‘I have been assigned to help and protect him,’ the other answered. ‘I’m Special Branch, C.I.D.’ He drew a card from his ticket pocket and handed it to Maddern, who read:

  James Arthur Smith

  Criminal Investigation Department,

  New Scotland Yard, S.W. 1.

  (Special Branch)

  Maddern lowered the card.

  ‘May I keep this?’

  ‘As a souvenir, yes. Did you realise that you had given knock-out drops to a policeman?’

  ‘I do now. And I would again in the same circumstances.’

  The other’s eyes positively glowed.

  ‘I’d better watch out!’ He glanced at the girl and went on in a wondering tone, ‘She really is a little beauty, isn’t she?’

  Maddern thought, yes. He looked at her again, and marvelled at the perfection of her features, so small and gentle-seeming, pale cheeks swept by lashes a little darker than the fairness of her hair. Her clothes were of some shiny material, sheathlike on her provocative figure. She was breathing now, easily and softly, completely relaxed.

  In a very gentle voice, he asked, ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Susan We-don’t-know-who,’ answered Smith.

  ‘Why should she attack your colleague?’

  ‘I’m sure Palfrey will tell you all he wants you to know,’ interrupted Smith. ‘He’s coming here at half past two, and it’s two fifteen now. Should we stay in here, or can we leave our Sue?’

  Maddern led the way out of the surgery across the hall and into a long, narrow room with an inglenook fireplace and massive oak beams.

  ‘I’ll let him in when he comes,’ he said pointedly.

  Smith laughed.

  ‘I can take a hint!’ He moved towards the door, and then went on, ‘I’ll be outside with several others, but first, with your permission, I’ll search the house. May I?’

  ‘I’m damned if you may!’

  ‘I do have a search warrant,’ said Smith mildly. ‘But it would be much nicer if you didn’t make me use it.’

  ‘Why on Earth do you want to search my house?’

  ‘Because Dr. Palfrey is coming here,’ answered Smith simply. ‘And my colleagues and I are Dr. Palfrey’s bodyguards. He is living under constant threat of assassination, you see. Sue was going to try to kill him. Other young women have tried, and I would hate one of Sue’s little friends to be lurking upstairs ready to shoot the great Palfrey. Wouldn’t you?’

  Heavily, Maddern said, ‘I hope Palfrey will make sense out of this nonsense for me. Do whatever you like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Smith warmly, and stepped into the hall.

  Suddenly, Maddern thought: But why should I trust him? He strode out, said, ‘I’ll come with you,’ pushed past Smith and led the way. He opened every cupboard, every wardrobe, every place where a man or even a child could possibly hide and then went upstairs. Everywhere the brasses and the copper shone and the woodwork had the soft glow of centuries of polishing, while there was no dust, no place which needed cleaning.

  ‘Beautiful place,’ Smith remarked. ‘A real gem.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace now,’ Smith went on with that faint smile. ‘You have a whole five minutes on your own!’

  He went downstairs and let himself out by the front door. Maddern bent down and looked out of a tiny window into the front garden. Only a few fading pink blooms were left on the ramblers, but the dahlias, in small round beds, were at their best. On one side was a shrubbery, and from this height he saw the heads of two men, lurking.

  Neither was Smith.

  He straightened up and went downstairs, frowning. So many things had happened that it was difficult to see them all in the right perspective. He did what he always did when he could not make up his mind about the diagnosis of a patient: he dropped the secondary things out of his mind and considered the major ones.

  Two stood far out above the others: first, the barrenness of women in three different areas of Great Britain, and second, the threat against Palfrey’s life.

  It didn’t take a genius to realise that Palfrey was in danger because he was investigating the fertility phenomenon, nor to realise that he knew much more than he had yet admitted. Maddern sat back in a winged armchair and delved with his mind for what he knew of Palfrey. He had a particularly retentive mind, especially about things and people who particularly interested him, and Palfrey ha
d always been one of these.

  That was hardly surprising.

  The world they lived in, Maddern thought sourly, was a strange one; in fact for several generations past mankind had lived in a state of crisis. War among nations, civil wars, threats from nuclear weapons, threats from bacteriological warfare, famine and natural pestilence and—in the opinion of many people, the most serious—the population explosion, threatened life on Earth. These threats were often made by individuals or groups of individuals who had acquired some single weapon with which they could attack the world.

  If one looked back over the newspapers of the past ten years, stories of such threats had been legion. And in these stories the name of Dr. ‘Sap’ Palfrey—what were his Christian names? Maddern paused in his thoughts, making his mind almost a vacuum until the answer filled the vacuum. Ah: Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey, or Sap for short. Every kind of absurd joke and pun had been made around that nickname. Never mind the trivia, Maddern rebuked himself. Palfrey was due to arrive at any moment.

  What time was it?

  He glanced at his wristwatch, saw that it was three minutes after two thirty and reflected that three minutes was hardly late. Back to Palfrey. There had been a great variety of such threats, from megalomaniacs who saw the world as theirs, to idealists who believed only they could guide mankind to happiness. And Palfrey had been the one who organised the resistance to such threats. He had this organisation called Z5, a kind of supra-national espionage department which served not one country nor any group of countries but the world. Suddenly, Maddern had a mental picture of Palfrey on television at the end of a particularly frightening crisis. He had said, in that quiet, matter-of-fact voice, ‘Every nation, without exception, contributes funds to Z5. Every nation, not just one, demands and receives our loyalty. Every nation helps when help is needed. There are so many dangers today, dangers which can confront one, or many, or all, nations at the same time. The task of my organisation is to co-ordinate all defences against such dangers. Nation may fight nation, and although I may deplore and, as an individual, condemn, my task is not to interfere or to help in such conflicts. To do either would be to lessen each nation’s confidence in Z5. My task—our task—is to protect all nations and so all humankind against threats which may come from all corners of the globe—’

  Palfrey had paused.

  Maddern, astonished by the vividness with which he remembered these words, as accurately as if he had learned them off by heart and repeated them time after time, was held by the steadiness of those eyes, and marvelled that even for a moment he had thought there was weakness in this man.

  Then Palfrey had added, very quietly, ‘—and from all corners of the globe and beyond. For this is the space age and we face dangers far greater than our forefathers conceived. Yet I believe that the weapons with which we can fight such dangers are the old-fashioned ones of truth, honesty, integrity and courage.’

  His voice had fallen silent. The picture of his face had faded, and the screen went blank.

  There wasn’t a screen, Maddern reminded himself almost savagely. That had been recollected vision, held fast in his mind for months, perhaps years. He shook himself. He felt almost as if he had been asleep; dreaming. Suddenly, he was alarmed. What time was it? How late was Palfrey? It was nearly a quarter to three, and a quarter of an hour was late.

  As he stepped towards the passage there was a clanging of a bell from the old-fashioned bell-pull at the side of the front door. He hurried forward, eager and anxious at the same time.

  This must be Palfrey, unless something had happened to the man of such renown.

  Maddern opened the door, and Palfrey stood there.

  Chapter Five

  REQUEST

  Maddern marvelled yet again that he had not realised how big a man Palfrey was, especially noticeable as he stood framed against the low doorway with its centuries-old beams.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Palfrey. ‘Nice of you to wait.’

  ‘Your men would have kept me in, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I trust not,’ said Palfrey, with a wry smile. ‘Although I confess these particular men are certainly behaving in a somewhat arbitrary way.’ He had to stoop because the ceiling was so low, and he looked apologetic. ‘You may not believe it but they are frightened about the future of man.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Do come in,’ went on Maddern. ‘Will you have some coffee? Tea? Anything?’

  ‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ said Palfrey. ‘And are you fairly free for time this afternoon?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then a cup of tea and some aspirins—I’ve picked up a very nasty headache.’ He put his hand to his head and winced. ‘In fact, I did pretty badly on my way here.’

  Maddern was suddenly, firmly, a doctor again.

  ‘Let me have a look,’ he ordered, and as Palfrey obediently bent his head, his pale fingers probed. ‘Hmm—you’ve a nasty graze. Did someone hurl a brick at you?’

  ‘No. I thought I saw Sue, and dodged—and fell on to a rockery stone.’

  ‘Oh. Tell me if this hurts—Ah. Sorry—Nothing serious but you ought to have it washed and cleaned. I’ll do it in my surgery while the kettle’s boiling for tea.’ He led the way out and Palfrey followed, quite meekly. In fact the first sign Palfrey showed of any resistance was when he saw the man on the couch.

  ‘Good Lord!’ he exclaimed. ‘Childers as well as the girl! Your work?’

  ‘Yes. I got mad.’

  Palfrey gave a snort of a laugh, but the laugh was cut short by a wince; it did his head no good at all.

  ‘Like you got mad with Smithy this morning?’ he asked.

  ‘If the man at the door was Smithy, yes. Sit down,’ Maddern ordered. ‘I can boil the kettle here—’ He was at a sink, filling the kettle.

  ‘How often do you get as mad as that?’ Palfrey asked.

  Maddern plugged the kettle in, and turned to Palfrey, whose back was to the porcelain sink and who was looking at an anatomical chart fastened to the wall, over the couch. He parted Palfrey’s hair again, grunted, and then draped a towel over shoulders which, although they sloped, were very wide indeed. Maddern picked up a wad of gauze and held it under the tap. Before he answered, water dripped on to the back of Palfrey’s neck.

  ‘Not often.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Occasionally, I suppose, if it matters.’

  ‘Say once a month?’

  ‘Oh, nothing like as often as that! Two or three times a year—hold tight, I’m going to sponge that bump—Nothing like as often as I used to in fact—Hmm—More blood and dirt than damage, I think.’

  ‘Good,’ said Palfrey, feelingly. ‘So you used to get mad much more often. Why?’

  It was really none of his business, Maddern thought, but the conversation had led to this subject quite naturally. It crossed his mind that Palfrey was using his headache and his bumped cranium as an excuse to sound a little ingenuous and to get information without appearing too inquisitive. Did that matter? Maddern had been angry a dozen times today, but now he felt comparatively at peace. Certainly there was no point in picking a quarrel with this man, who had enough to worry about already. And in any case he had recalled Lilian more often, today, than for a long time past.

  He said simply, ‘My wife died, ten years ago.’

  ‘What angered you?’ asked Palfrey, gently.

  ‘Losing her.’ Maddern was very busy, using a diluted antiseptic on the raw patch then parting the fair silky hair to look for other bruises. There was only the one, but there was much more grey hair than there had seemed to be from a distance or even standing by him.

  ‘Losing her,’ Palfrey echoed.

  Maddern said gruffly, ‘I suppose the truth is that I was so angry because there was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. It was leukaemia. My God!’
A stirring of anger came again. ‘Here we spend tens, hundreds of millions of pounds on researching into weapons, or into industry, but when it comes to research for medicines no government really takes any trouble or spends more than pin money. It made me mad then and it makes me mad whenever I think of it. And in any case—’ Maddern’s voice changed and grew stronger. He picked up a tin of antiseptic spray and hissed it over the patch in Palfrey’s head. ‘Be careful how you comb your hair today then you’ll be all right.’ He turned round to the kettle, which was on the boil. ‘In any case,’ he repeated, ‘I am by nature a cantankerous and rebellious individual except where my work is concerned. I hate being pushed about by anyone, whether they are policemen, secret service agents, or what.’ He was making the tea. ‘I hope you don’t mind tea bags.’

  ‘I shall judge by the taste,’ replied Palfrey.

  Maddern found himself laughing.

  ‘Here are a couple of Phenotabs,’ he said. ‘They’ll act quicker than aspirins. If you’ll sit back for ten minutes, I’ll come and join you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Palfrey murmured.

  Maddern led him into the big room, and started out as Palfrey put his legs up on a pouffe. He went back to the surgery and tidied up, then put a pillow under the girl’s head. Doing so, he turned her head towards the window and light shone on her lovely face; a face of delicate colours and a rare beauty. She looked like a doll. Nonsense. She looked like a beautiful woman; but a miniature woman. He checked her pulse; it was steady and slow now, as he would expect.

  And she had tried to kill Palfrey’s man.

  His ten minutes were nearly up when the telephone bell rang, and he answered it at once.

  ‘Dr. Maddern.’

  A man said, softly, ‘Dr. Maddern, you have a young woman in your house.’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Maddern.

  ‘She is known as Sue or Susan,’ the man answered.