several hours—to allow the psychological results of the arrest to mature. I have ventured . . . of course, with every regard for humanity . . . to reckon on the value of some slight physical discomforts—he will not have dined, you understand. They have instructions to empty his pockets. One would not wish the young man to relieve any nervous tension that may have arisen by smoking. One wishes the mind to be thrown entirely on its own resources.”
“Of course. And what next?”
“Well, I suppose some sort of examination. That is a point on which I should welcome your advice. I mean, as to whether I, personally, should appear in the first instance. I am inclined to think that the appearance of examination by the ordinary police should be maintained a little longer. Then at a later stage will come the discovery that he is still in our hands. He will probably misunderstand this discovery at first—for several minutes. It would be well to let him realise only gradually that this by no means frees him from the—er—embarrassments arising out of Hingest’s death. I take it that some fuller realisation of his inevitable solidarity with the Institute would then follow. . . .”
“And then you mean to ask him again for his wife?”
“I shouldn’t do it at all like that,” said Wither. “If I might venture to say so, it is one of the disadvantages of that extreme simplicity and accuracy with which you habitually speak (much as we all admire it) that it leaves no room for fine shades. One had rather hoped for a spontaneous outburst of confidence on the part of the young man himself. Anything like a direct demand——”
“The weakness of the plan,” said Frost, “is that you are relying wholly on fear.”
“Fear,” repeated Wither as if he had not heard the word before. “I do not quite follow the connection of thought. I can hardly suppose you are following the opposite suggestion, once made, if I remember rightly, by Miss Hardcastle.”
“What was that?”
“Why,” said Wither, “if I understand her aright she thought of taking scientific measures to render the society of his wife more desirable in the young man’s eyes. Some of the chemical resources . . .”
“You mean an aphrodisiac?”
Wither sighed gently and said nothing.
“That is nonsense,” said Frost. “It isn’t to his wife that a man turns under the influence of aphrodisiacs. But as I was saying, I think it is a mistake to rely wholly on fear. I have observed, over a number of years, that its results are incalculable: especially when the fear is complicated. The patient may get too frightened to move, even in the desired direction. If we have to despair of getting the woman here with her husband’s goodwill, we must use torture and take the consequences. But there are other alternatives. There is desire.”
“I am not sure that I am following you. You have rejected the idea of any medical or chemical approach.”
“I was thinking of stronger desires.”
Neither at this stage of the conversation nor at any other did the Deputy Director look much at the face of Frost; his eyes, as usual, wandered over the whole room or fixed themselves on distant objects. Sometimes they were shut. But either Frost or Wither—it was difficult to say which—had been gradually moving his chair, so that by this time the two men sat with their knees almost touching.
“I had my conversation with Filostrato,” said Frost in his low, clear voice. “I used expressions which must have made my meaning clear if he had any notion of the truth. His senior assistant, Wilkins, was present too. The truth is that neither is really interested. What interests them is the fact that they have succeeded—as they think—in keeping the Head alive and getting it to talk. What it says does not really interest them. As to any question about what is really speaking, they have no curiosity. I went very far. I raised questions about its mode of consciousness—its sources of information. There was no response.”
“You are suggesting, if I understand you,” said Wither, “a movement towards this Mr. Studdock along those lines. If I remember rightly, you rejected fear on the ground that its effects could not really be predicted with the accuracy one might wish. But—ah—would the method now envisaged be any more reliable? I need hardly say that I fully realise a certain disappointment which serious-minded people must feel with such colleagues as Filostrato and his subordinate, Mr. Wilkins.”
“That is the point,” said Frost. “One must guard against the error of supposing that the political and economic dominance of England by the N.I.C.E. is more than a subordinate object: it is individuals that we are really concerned with. A hard unchangeable core of individuals really devoted to the same cause as ourselves—that is what we need and what, indeed, we are under orders to supply. We have not succeeded so far in bringing many people in—really in.”
“There is still no news from Bragdon Wood?”
“No.”
“And you believe that Studdock might really be a suitable person?”
“You must not forget,” said Frost, “that his value does not rest solely on his wife’s clairvoyance. The couple are eugenically interesting. And secondly, I think he can offer no resistance. The hours of fear in the cell, and then an appeal to desires that undercut the fear, will have an almost certain effect on a character of that sort.”
“Of course,” said Wither, “nothing is so much to be desired as the greatest possible unity. You will not suspect me of underrating that aspect of our orders. Any fresh individual brought into that unity would be a source of the most intense satisfaction—to—ah—all concerned. I desire the closest possible bond. I would welcome an interpenetration of personalities so close, so irrevocable, that it almost transcends individuality. You need not doubt that I would open my arms to receive—to absorb—to assimilate this young man.”
They were now sitting so close together that their faces almost touched, as if they had been lovers about to kiss. Frost’s pince-nez caught the light so that they made his eyes invisible: only his mouth, smiling but not relaxed in the smile, revealed his expression. Wither’s mouth was open, the lower lip hanging down, his eyes wet, his whole body hunched and collapsed in his chair as if the strength had gone out of it. A stranger would have thought he had been drinking. Then his shoulders twitched and gradually he began to laugh. And Frost did not laugh, but his smile grew moment by moment brighter and also colder, and he stretched out his hand and patted his colleague on the shoulder. Suddenly in that silent room there was a crash. Who’s Who had fallen off the table, swept onto the floor as, with sudden, swift convulsive movement, the two old men lurched forward towards each other and sat swaying to and fro, locked in an embrace from which each seemed to be struggling to escape. And as they swayed and scrabbled with hand and nail, there arose, shrill and faint at first, but then louder and louder, a cackling noise that seemed in the end rather an animal than a senile parody of laughter.
III
When Mark was bundled out of the police waggon into the dark and rain and hurried indoors between two constables and left at length alone in a little lighted room, he had no idea that he was at Belbury. Nor would he have cared greatly if he had known, for the moment he was arrested he had despaired of his life. He was going to be hanged.
He had never till now been at close quarters with death. Now, glancing down at his hand (because his hands were cold and he had been automatically rubbing them) it came to him as a totally new idea that this very hand, with its five nails and the yellow
