Sweet Danger (11 page)

The conversation was very general. The doctor was surprisingly uninformed upon most present-day subjects. Politics had passed him by and the only names which interested him were those of a bygone era.

Once they touched upon the architecture of the church opposite, however, and he blossomed out immediately, displaying a wealth of archaic knowledge backed up by sound original thought which astounded them.

Gradually, as the evening wore on, the light failed and the shadows at the back of the room deepened until the baroque bureau had melted into the background. The three young men became aware that the indefinable something about the little doctor they had noticed all the evening was growing stronger and had become recognizable. The man was waiting for something. He was quite evidently marking time, waiting for some psychological moment which must now surely be close at hand.

The talk became uneasy and fitful and Guffy had glanced at his wrist-watch once or twice with pointed interest.

Their host stirred finally, hopping up from his seat with
a birdlike agility which was vaguely disconcerting. He moved to the window and looked up at the sky.

‘Come,' he said. ‘Come. You must see my garden.'

Why he should have waited until it was almost dark to display this part of his establishment he did not explain, but he seemed to take it for granted that there was nothing odd in his behaviour and led them out of the room, down a passage to a side door and out into the tangled wilderness of flowers and herbs whose scent in the late evening air was almost overpowering.

‘These are all plants under the government of the Moon, Venus, and Mercury,' he remarked casually. ‘It's rather a quaint conceit, don't you think? The flowers of the Sun, Mars, and Jupiter are in the front garden. I think my garden is my only hobby. I find it very interesting. But that isn't what I brought you out here for. I want you to come along to the end of the garden, right up here on the mound. It's a barrow, you know. It's never been opened and I don't see why it ever should. I don't believe in prying about in graves, even in the service of science.'

He went on ahead of them, scrambling up the round artificial hillock, the burial mound of some prehistoric chieftain, hopping through the trees and looking more gnome-like than ever.

‘What the hell are we up to now?' muttered Guffy under his breath to Eager-Wright as they brought up the rear of the little procession. ‘Going to see a poppy under the influence of Neptune?'

‘Going to be seen by a poppy under the influence of drink,' said the other softly. ‘Or there may be fairies at the bottom of the garden, of course.'

Guffy snorted and they ploughed on until, upon reaching their host's side on the top of the mound, they found themselves looking down upon a wide-sweeping valley. Pontisbright lay like a cluster of doll's houses in the southern extremity, and, among the uncultivated fields which
followed the winding valley, little dwellings nestled snugly. Even Guffy was partially mollified.

‘A wonderful view, sir,' he said. ‘By jove! You can see the whole of the Bright Valley, nearly.'

The little doctor looked at him sharply, and when he spoke his voice had an unexpected gravity which startled them.

‘The Bright Valley,' he said. ‘No, my dear young sir, I see you don't know the local name. In these parts we call it Cain's Valley.'

The phrase brought them back to the business in hand with a jerk. It seemed strange to hear the ancient title from this little man in his queer clothes, standing on the top of a barrow at the end of his garden.

But this was only the beginning of the oddness of Dr Edmund Galley.

‘The Valley of the Accursed,' he repeated. ‘And that, alas! my friends, is what it is.'

He stretched out his hand and his voice sank to a whisper.

‘See?' he said. ‘See the little lights coming out?'

They did, and it was a very pretty sight. In one cottage after another the lights sprang out, making little sick yellow patches against the fading sky.

‘Look,' he said, ‘there are very few of them. Every year they get fewer and fewer. There's a blight on this land that we can never shake off, a curse from which we can never escape.'

Guffy opened his mouth to remonstrate, but there was something in his host's expression which silenced him. The little man had changed. Eager-Wright could not be sure if the shadows were responsible for the transformation, but the puckered face seemed to be altered completely by some giant emotion. The eyes looked strangely fixed and the lips were drawn back over the gums like the lips of a maniac.

But in an instant the expression had faded, and when he
spoke again it was in his normal conversational tone, save that it now carried a little more of solemnity than usual.

‘This is a great responsibility I take upon myself,' he said slowly. ‘A serious responsibility. But if I don't tell you I don't know who will. And if I tell you, it may be too late. Still, a doctor has a public duty as well as a private one, and I think perhaps in these circumstances the course I am taking is the only one open to me.'

He turned to them and addressed them collectively, his little bright eyes watching their faces anxiously.

‘I am a good deal older than any of you,' he said, ‘and when I heard you'd come here this morning I made up my mind that, whatever the risk of appearing a mere busybody, I would do my best to have a chat with you and put the facts before you; and when you answered my invitation – rather an odd one from a complete stranger – I realized that my task would not be as difficult as it had seemed at first. I saw that you were sensible, courteous men, and after talking to you this evening I am more than convinced that I should have been a positive villain had I neglected this self-imposed duty.'

The young men had stood looking at him while he made this extraordinary announcement with a mixture of curiosity and polite astonishment in their eyes. Guffy, who had privately decided that a man who could drink '78 port without recognizing it was a lunatic and not fit for human society anyway, was inclined to feel uncomfortable, but Eager-Wright was plainly interested. The doctor continued:

‘My dear young people,' he said, ‘you must get away from here as soon as you possibly can.'

‘Really, sir!' expostulated Eager-Wright, who had been completely taken aback by the culmination of the harangue. ‘I believe in keeping the country for country folk, but after all . . .'

‘Oh, my boy, my boy,' protested the little doctor sadly, ‘I'm not thinking of anything of that sort. I'm thinking of
you, of your safety, your health, your future. As a medical man I
advise
your instant departure; as a friend, if you will allow me to call myself one, I
insist
upon it. Look here, suppose you come back to the house. I can tell you about it better there. But I brought you up here because I wanted you to see the valley. Now, come along, and I will try to justify myself for what must have seemed to you a very inhospitable outburst.'

Back in the baroque sitting-room, with a paraffin lamp at his elbow, Dr Galley surveyed the three young men in front of him thoughtfully. He had lost much of the dignity and impressiveness which he had displayed in the garden, but, nevertheless, he spoke as a man in authority and his quick, bright eyes took in each face in turn.

The three young men responded according to their temperaments. Guffy was inclined to be irritated, Eager-Wright was puzzled, and Mr Campion apparently concentrated with great difficulty.

The little doctor spread out his stubby hands. ‘You see how difficult it is for me to say all this,' he said. ‘The place is my home, the people are my friends and patients, and yet I find myself reluctantly compelled to tell you a secret. But first I must beg that none of you will ever think of giving these facts to any newspaper. We don't want any Royal Commissions, any gigantic hospital, to rob us of our freedom.'

He wiped his forehead, which had been glistening. There was no doubt that he was suffering under some great emotion, and their curiosity was roused.

‘Has it occurred to you,' said the doctor with sudden deliberation, ‘has it occurred to you that there's something queer about this village – about the whole valley, in fact? Haven't you noticed anything?'

Eager-Wright spoke without glancing at Campion. ‘There was the mark on the gate,' he ventured.

The little doctor seized upon his words. ‘The mark on the
gate,' he said. ‘Exactly. The ancient God-help-us mark, no doubt. You recognized it? Good. Well, let me explain that. When I told you that this village was under a curse I said no more than the literal truth. I suppose the thought that ran through your minds when you first heard me use the word was of something supernatural, something fantastic. Well, of course, that is not so. The curse that lies over Cain's Valley and the village of Pontisbright is a very real scourge; something that no exorcism can destroy; something from which there is only one escape, and that – flight. That curse, gentlemen, is a peculiarly horrible form of skin disease akin to lupus. I will not worry you with its medical name. Let it be sufficient to say that it is mercifully rare but absolutely incurable.'

They stared at him.

‘Oh, don't think me a crank,' he said. ‘I'm not the man to advise you to leave a delightful holiday spot because two or three people have contracted a contagious disease in this district. When I said a curse I meant a curse. The place is poisoned. The air you breathe, the soil you walk upon, the water you drink is impregnated, soaked, drenched with the poison. There is no escape from it. If the facts were broadcast what would happen? Our county council would be forced to take action, people who have lived here all their lives would be driven from their homes, and the place would become a hunting ground for bacteriologists and no good purpose would be served. I ask you to leave here immediately, for your own sakes.'

Guffy rose to his feet. ‘But this is incredible, sir,' he said with more brusqueness in his tone than ever. ‘I beg your pardon, of course, but what about the Miss Fittons? What about Miss Huntingforest?'

The little doctor sighed. He seemed to find Guffy extraordinarily dense.

‘I should have explained myself more fully,' he said patiently. ‘I thought you understood. As is usual in cases of
this sort, the natives of the poisoned area are rarely, if ever, affected. Nature provides their blood with a natural antitoxin. The Miss Fittons are Pontisbrights also, and one of the peculiarities of that family has always been immunity from this disease. As a matter of fact, I believe Behr mentions it in his treatise on the subject. Miss Huntingforest is also a member of the family, and so far she, too, has escaped.'

He sat there regarding them solemnly, the beads of sweat still standing out on his forehead, his hands folded in his lap.

‘The legend hereabouts is that one of the early Pontisbrights brought the disease with him from the Crusades, and that it is his poor skeleton mouldering in the churchyard over here which still infects the whole valley. But, of course, that is a fairy story.'

Guffy wandered up and down the room in perplexed silence. Mr Campion leaned back in his chair in the darkest corner and peered at the proceedings through his spectacles, while Eager-Wright kept his eyes fixed upon Dr Galley.

‘May I ask, sir,' he said quietly, ‘how you have managed to escape all these years?'

‘I wondered if you'd ask me that,' said the little man triumphantly. ‘I made an experiment on myself when I first came here. I've often considered it was quite the most remarkable thing I've ever done. I inoculated myself before the serum had been located and officially recognized by the B.M.S.' He grimaced. ‘I nearly killed myself, but I was successful in the end. It was not a pleasant business, and I will not bore you with a description of my procedure. But in the end it was successful, and here I am probably the best authority on the disease in the world. By the way, I must ask you not to mention our conversation this evening to the good people at the mill. Poor young people! I'm afraid the shoe pinches sometimes. My behaviour this evening has been a tremendous breach of etiquette, as I'm sure you have
noticed, but in the circumstances I do not see what other course there was to take. I hope I have persuaded you to go back to London.'

‘I'm afraid you haven't,' said Guffy stoutly. ‘After all, I'm determined to do my bit of holiday-making, and here I stay.'

It was evident that Dr Galley did not approve of this decision, and he spread out his hands.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I'm sure if you could see some of my patients in my more westerly districts you'd change your mind. They are not a very pleasant sight. Still, the affair is your own. I'm sure you will understand I was only doing what I considered my duty in warning you.'

‘Oh, quite right, quite,' said Mr Campion's foolish voice out of the dusk. ‘But my friend Mr Wright has made up his mind to write his book here. You know how difficult authors are – temperament and that sort of thing. It puts us in rather an awkward hole, don't you see? What do we do to protect ourselves from this – er – frightfully unpleasant complaint you've got about? I'm sure Wright and I would do anything within reason. Cold baths are very beneficial, aren't they?'

The little doctor peered through the gloom at his third visitor and appeared to consider Mr Campion's odd enquiries for some moments.

‘Well,' he said at last, ‘there's really very little you can do. If you took my advice, of course, you would leave in your car this evening; but as far as protection is concerned, I don't know what to suggest. Unless, of course, you'd care for some of the stuff I made up for my own use. This isn't an injection – merely an ointment. You smear it on the palms of your hands, behind the ears and in the elbow crease, in the evening before going to bed.'