The Greatest Sci-Fi Books of Erle Cox. Erle Cox

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СКАЧАТЬ way. Jove! But it must have been a pretty conspicuous object in the landscape in those days."

      Barry nodded. "No wonder she was surprised in that first interview when you told her you didn't know that her residence was a sphere. What else?"

      "Oh! nothing much," was the somewhat evasive reply, and Barry, wise in his generation, forebore to press the question, but turned again to his former proposition. "Anyhow, Dun, I don't think there would be much risk in your taking a day off and showing up at the club. I don't think anything would be likely to happen to Earani."

      "Quite so. I'm sure there would be no danger for Earani. But I'm not so sure about the safety of the intruder, or at any rate of the effect Earani might have on a visitor. Suppose, for instance, John Harvey Pook turned up while I was away. You can imagine the trend of thoughts. Then, again, suppose a swaggie put in an appearance, and turned nasty, finding he had only a woman to deal with?"

      "Well," replied Barry, "I'd back Earani to take care of herself."

      "Right, but I don't fancy having to explain away a dead swaggie. Between ourselves, Dick, Earani has on occasion hinted at the value of a certain kind of human life as being less than nothing. I've explained our present-day view of the matter pretty clearly, but all the same, I think she looks on our regard for the sanctity of human life as a weak kind of sentimentalism."

      Barry nodded. "It would be rather awkward. Still, you can tell her you wish to go to town, and ask her not to show up during your absence. However, I don't want to push in my oar, Dun, only I thought I'd let you know how the wind is blowing."

      Alan thought the matter over long after Barry had left him. He paced the drive before the house in the hope that he would gain inspiration from a visit from his Lady of Dreams, but though he waited long his hopes were unrewarded.

      However, next day Dundas told Earani that there were reasons why he should leave her to herself occasionally, so that he might attend to his affairs away from the vineyard. Whereat she showed such sweet contrition at what she called her selfishness in keeping him so much with her, that Alan felt inclined to refuse to take the liberty she offered so freely and fully. He told her of his fears of intruders, and she smilingly promised not to face the light of day during his absence unless with his permission. Indeed, it was her own suggestion that he should lock the shed door while he would be away.

      So next day Billy was requisitioned, none the more tractable from his long holiday, to take the dogcart and the dogcart's owner to Glen Cairn. Alan greeted those whom he met with the casual greeting of every day, as though a three or four month's absence were a matter not worthy of comment. He dropped in on Rickardson at his office, and badgered the lawyer into breaking his own rules, and strolling down to the club. There they flushed MacArthur from a couch, where he was taking forty winks. MacArthur, taking his cue from Rickardson asked no questions, too pleased to see Dundas come to light to care about causes. They told him of Mac's latest war with John Harvey Pook. Pook had indiscreetly made an unmistakable reference to MacArthur from the pulpit. The town hummed with joy. Mac waited his time, and Pook gave him the chance. The vicar, puffed up with earthly pride, had attached a brass nameplate to his gate, bearing the legend "The Gums," as if the whole town did not know the vicarage. Then Mac stepped in, and bought the adjoining house, without a word to anyone. A week later on the gate adjoining that of the vicarage appeared an identical brass plate bearing the legend "The Teeth." John Harvey Pook hauled down his colours and his plate, and the town hummed again.

      Afterwards Alan and MacArthur played a hundred up, and Rickardson criticised cheerfully and caustically, and the two players retaliated by charging the table up to his account. Then, as the afternoon was closing, they strolled across to the tennis courts, where Alan was promptly captured by Doris Bryce, and carefully placed on the feminine rack. Doris flattered herself she was wily and diplomatic, and she probed scientifically for information. Alan flattered himself he was more wily and more diplomatic. The result of the contest was somewhat of a draw. Doris obtained nothing that could satisfy her curiosity, but Alan found himself cornered, so that he was obliged to promise to play in a tournament on the following Saturday. He would gladly have avoided the engagement, but it would have taken a more clever man than he to do it gracefully. Doris was a little nettled at her failure to solve the mystery of Alan's disappearance, and promised herself to deal more fully with her victim at her leisure. She felt he owed an explanation to herself in the first place, and also to Marian Seymour. Moreover, she determined that Alan should be picked to play with Marian in the tournament, and that both should spend the evening at the bank afterwards. Who was this man, Alan Dundas, that he should turn aside from the eminently desirable fate that she had in store for him?

      MacArthur had sat listening with mischievous amusement to the verbal duel between the two, and had, with malice aforethought, given deliberate assistance to Mistress Doris in cornering Alan for the tournament. Inwardly Alan called him anything but blessed, and finally resigned himself to what he now regarded as a wasted afternoon, for all time that was not spent in the society of Earani he looked upon as so long unlived. He had grudged his present visit to Glen Cairn, and more so he grudged the prospective one. In the end he hailed with pleasure the advent of Barry, who passed on his way from the hospital, and gave Dundas the excuse for taking his leave.

      As the two men strolled away from the courts, Alan turned to Barry. "Dick, what's happened? You look elated about something."

      "Lord forgive me, Alan, but I ought to look jolly well ashamed of myself, and I'm not. I've been guilty of rank professional misconduct. I've risked an act of manslaughter, morally at any rate, and I've got Walton into a condition of mental collapse. The worst of it is that I couldn't confess to Walton even if I were allowed to."

      "Pretty good record for one day, Dicky. How did you do it all?"

      "Well, you remember the yabber I had with Earani yesterday afternoon?"

      "I remember you were discussing some of your usual objectionable subjects with her. The details were beyond me."

      "Humph! Well, I discussed that particular subject because we had a case in the hospital. Characteristic and very clearly defined. Absolutely hopeless–at least, I said so, and I never heard of its yielding to treatment."

      Alan laughed. "I remember that part of it, and Earani's mild contradiction of your statement. I got lost afterwards in the blaze of verbal fireworks that you both exhibited."

      "Dun, do you notice that when she has absolutely pulverised one in an argument, Earani doesn't gloat? It's a most unfeminine characteristic."

      Alan nodded. "I never argue with her now on matters of fact; it's no use; she is always right. What about your hopeless case?"

      "Just this. She gave me a fluid of some sort, and told me to inject it, and guaranteed that so long as the patient were not dead, her treatment would wipe out the disease in six hours. She holds that where the organs are not actually destroyed no disease should be fatal."

      "Well?"

      "Just this, Dun; and this is where the professional misconduct comes in. The woman is Walton's patient. I slipped into the hospital this morning. Got the nurse out of the way and injected the stuff. Remember, I've not the faintest idea what it was I used, so if she had died I would have been morally guilty of her death. Though, mind you, Dun, she was moribund when I did it, and to all appearances had about two or three hours to live. Still, there would be the devil of a row if it were known.

      "When I came in this evening I found Walton half off his head with bewilderment. The woman took a turn about ten, and Jove! when I left her half an hour ago, although she was weak and very low with what she'd been through, there was absolutely no indication of the disease. Walton doesn't know whether we were wrong in our diagnosis (and СКАЧАТЬ