were the one who wanted the prisons to pay their way, sir.’
‘This is really no time to bring up old election promises.’
The three man lapsed into moody silence. At last a clear way showed itself, and the car swept into the front square and round beyond the bright lights and marquees to the Governor’s house. As they hurried up the steps, blaring loudspeakers carried music and a nasal voice droned:
Eva Bardy’s doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it,
Eva Bardy’s doin’ it …
It was good to get inside. Quadroon showed them into his study and summoned a servent to fetch Mark Miller.
Impatiently, the PM looked about the solid dingy room. Trophies, lowering photographs, handcuffs, an amateur pencil portrait of John Reginald Halliday Christie, certificates, maps, a death-mask, and a pokerwork legend bearing the words, ‘Stone walls do not a prison make,’ surrounded them on all sides. The smell was one of the tapioca with vegetable additives. Reluctantly, the PM selected the less horsy-looking of two horsehair chairs and gave it the benefit of his posterior.
‘Interesting place,’ Watts-Clinton said, in the manner of one volunteering information.
The Colonel himself looked shrunken by his surroundings.
‘I could put the fire on,’ he said. He coughed, rubbed his hands together and added, ‘I ought to warn you, gentlemen, first you may find him a little – ah, ha, ha, ah, Miller, there you, ah, are! Come in.’
Miller was in. He swept in with his arms wide, smiling broadly, and shook hands with them all before he was introduced.
‘So, gentlemen, you’re in at the birth of a new nation, in on the ground floor, eh? In fact, you’re in before the birth – on the underground floor, you might say. We’re all set to go polyannamine, the new wonder drug that makes your body works for you instead of against you.’
Introductions were belatedly performed. Miller shook hands again exuberantly, remarked how tired the PM looked and admired the quality of Watts-Clinton’s suiting. He was a tall man – almost as given to bony protuberances as the Colonel – with tufts of hair on his fingers and from beneath the sheltering foliage of his eyebrows. Not, one would have estimated, a man given to mirth; yet his geniality flowed through the room like champagne into a footsore slipper.
‘The Government is very interested in your formula, Mr Miller,’ the PM said, ‘but we should naturally require a conclusive test, under proper surveillance, of your discovery.’
Miller winked conspiratorially.
‘It’s in the bag. You’re laughing – or you will be. Why don’t you let me give you an injection? How about going down in history as Sir Herbert Macclesfield, the smiling Prime Minister – no the Primed Prime Minister? Don’t mind me, I’m only being funny. Believe me, I’ve never felt so good. Fallen arches? I’ve still got them; they still pile up; they don’t bother me. I just don’t let the worries worry me, thanks to polyannamine.’
‘Can you control your obvious ebullience enough to tell us roughly how the stuff works?’
‘Tell you roughly? Nay sire, as I hope for an OBE, I will tell you gently. My prescription may be applied orally or intravenously or by inhalation; 10 c.c. only needed. Infallible! Guaranteed to cheer up even a TV comedian. No harmful side effects. No dimming of intelligence – I always looked this stupid, ha ha!’
‘I have a question to put you, Mr Miller,’ said Watts-Clinton, seeming to offer it transfixed on one stabbing finger. ‘You make large claims for this – er, medicament. Personally, I should be grateful if you would explain how it differs in any appreciable way from the tranquillisers and euphorics which have been on the market for some years.’
Miller squeezed his cheeks and mouth into a lemon face that aped the Foreign Secretary’s features with considerable success.
‘I have an answer to put to you, Mr Clotts-Winton – er, Witts-Clunt –, er, Watts-Clinton, that I trust will answer your question. Polyannamine is permanent! It does not act directly on the endocrines. It goes straight to the kidney and there establishes a respective area which begins immediately to secrete its own supply of polyannamine. From then on, the process is irreversible. It becomes part of the natural function of the kidney. Without impairing its other functions to any noticeable extent, the kidney will continue to secrete polyannamine until death does it part, and that polyannamine does its part in the endocrines from then on without stopping. In other words, one injection only of the synthetic solution is needed – for life.’
‘I see,’ said Watts-Clinton. Then his face burst into a slow smile. ‘By God, Herbert, if this is true. …’
‘Just what I was thinking …’ said the PM. ‘We’ve got to face the House with this second reading of the Capital Punishment Bill in the morning. If only. …’
Bowing low, Miller produced a small object from a waist-coat pocket. It looked like an anemone bulb, a cushion with a small spike on it. It was made of glass and contained a clear liquid.
‘If I catch your meaning, sir, you need a few dozen of these. If you sit on this, you get an injection of polyannamine – no trouble.’
The PM looked at Watts-Clinton. He looked at Quadroon. He looked at the pencil portrait of Christie. Then he looked back at Miller.
‘It’s worth a knighthood,’ he breathed.
Quadroon moved restlessly.
‘Two knighthoods,’ he corrected.
‘Two knighthoods,’ the PM agreed.
They all walked back together to the car. A bevy of convicts in evening dress were writhing to the voice of Johnny Earthquake.
In the big wide world I’m all alone,
They gone and left me on my own,
I’m shedding tears on tears to be
A Teenage Divorcee.
The PM looked up at the slow-moving grey smog of London overhead.
‘Beautiful evening,’ he said. ‘Beautiful evening. The prospect is distinctly rosy.’
Next day, Lady Elizabeth – wearing a tailored Italian costume that fitted her with mathematical exactitude – stood in her cosy room in Downing Street looking down pensively at the TV announcer.
The announcer, whose eyes were of an irreproachable blue, looked pensively back at Lady Elizabeth and said, ‘… case of horse-doping at Newmarket this month. Scotland Yard has been called in. This morning, the so-called M1 Massacre Man, Gulliver McNoose, was executed at Pentonville Prison. Under the new dispensation, his girl friend was allowed to be with him in the condemned cell; she held his hand till the last, singing “Rock of Ages Rock”, the new religious pop song which was McNoose’s favourite tune. We hope to have pictures on our later bulletin. Meanwhile, capital punishment was the subject of debate in the House of Commons this morning.’
A view of Parliament came on to the screen as the announcer’s head dissolved;
