“THE DEATH DOCTOR”

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 11092, 18 April 1933, Page 4

“THE DEATH DOCTOR”

by Bernard Cronin

CHAPTER II. — (Continued)

Coraery pondered this. He said presently; “Aren’t you ignoring the aestheltic side of food? A palate is common to all. The world won’t dine on a tabloid if there’s the chance of a roast. Besides, you have to consider the digestive processes. If those atrophy you will have sickness and death.’’ “I don't suggest that the change will be, or could be, wholly complete,” van Drift said. “But it will be sufficiently in evidence radically to alter conditions, as we know them. The enjoyment that goes with eating is not an essential to life, except in so far as it aids digestion. One such meal a day, or every two or three days, would conserve body-functions. The remaining meals would be purely on the lines of nutrition, at infinitesimal cost. Earnings would be spent elsewhere. Agriculture and commerce would suffer enormously. The factories of the world would be paralysed. Fully half of them would close down in the first six months. Present foodstuffs would be relegated to—in the main—a luxury for the few.”

"Surely we are a little previous.,” Cordery said. “You don’t know that man, Garner, has made this discovery. You have only his word for it. Probably it is merely a wild claim of a half-mad enthusiast. I find it impossible to conceive of such a thing. By what imaginable process could food be taken from the air?” van Drift, lighting his after-dinner cigar, shrugged his broad shoulders.

“I know no more than you. No doubt Garner will tell us. He spoke quite openly on the subject. He has even given the,stuff a name; he calls it ‘Atmosoupe’. I gathered that it was in the form of a liquid.” “Why is he coming here to-night?” Cordery asked, after a brief silence. “I made a point of it,” van Drift said. “Use your imagination, man! Would you have the working-classes learn the secrat of such easy existence? There is, at present, a strike among the waterside workers. What’s the remedy? If you don’t know. I’ll tell you. It’s hunger. When their bellies are empty their brains call a halt; but not before. Shout Atmosoupe into their ear% and you give them a weapon that labour has never before known; nor ever will know, as long as the world lasts. They’d laugh in your face and let your ships rot at the wharves. They’d wreck society. Our kind couldn’t exist.” “You’d tie Garner’s hands?” Cordery exclaimed. “But how? Suppose he won’t listen? He's old. Money won’t tempt him.” For the first time van Drift showed anxiety.

He said: “Don’t ask me how. I don’t know yet; but I shall. I tell you .there is scarcely any length I would not go to keep this discovery from the masses. I don’t know what Garner’s views are. He may already have made known his process. We’ve got to find that out. We’ve got to find out all we can. Watch yourself, Cordery. Your role is one of tremendous enthusiasm. Give him a single hint that you’re antagonistic and he’ll close up. I know that much of him. This was his life-work. Draw him out. At present we’re in the dark, beyond a single fact. When we know more ...”

van Drift broke.off abruptly as a maid entered.

She said: “Mr Duran is here, sir.” “Send him in,” van Drift said. He bit on his cigar amhgave Cordery” a queer look. I’ve had to finesse a little, as it is. I’m not sure where I stand with Duran., He’s ambitious, but he lacks business guts. His conscience is on the raw side.” Cordery stared.

Duran’s entry checked the question on his lips. The secretary had a parcel of papers under his arm. He laid this on the table at van Drift’s elbow.

“The debentures, Mr van Drift.” van Drift said: “Ah, . . .of course! We meant to run through them together, didn’t we? They must wait. I shall want you to take some notes of a conversation that will presently take place.” Duran nodded and drew a chair to the table.

“Not there. You’ll be in the inner room,” van Drift said carelessly. “The door will bo ajajr, and the screen will be set to cover it. This is a confidential matter, Charlie.” Duran appeared to bejembarassed. He said slowly; “I’m to take notes under the lap?”

“That’s it,” van Drift assented', with heartiness. "Fve got to the age, you see, when I don’t trust to my memory. I want to refer back to what I said.” &

"I see,” Duran said. His manner was a little stiff. Cordery said suavely: “Any objections, Duran?” "If I had,” the young fellow replied, sharply, “they’d be, given to Mr van Drift.”

They exchanged a of dislike. Cordery continued to smile, but he said nothing. Duran .was frowning, as he moved away.

van Drift affected not to notice the brief passage at arms. He rose and helped Duran to place the serfeen in position. The inner room, to which he had referred was in darkness. Duran went to switch on the light, but his employer checked him. “You- don’t need it, Charlie. We’ll set this small table right in the doorway. The light comes nicely over the top of the screen. I might say that I don’t expect>a verbatim report. The talk will touch on certain scientific data. The elements and ingredients necessary to support life, and the source from which we draw them. That’s our point. I’ll leave it to your discretion.” “I understand, sir.” As van Drift passed into the library the maid again appeared. “Mr John Garner, sir.” “Show Mr Garner in.” Cordery stood up as the door opened to admit their visitor. He was prepared to see an extremely old and presumably, enfeebled man, on more or less conventional lines. Garner’s appearance, however, gave him a queer sense%f shock. As he told van Drift later, it was like coming face to face with a corpse, or mummy. He found it incredible that life clung to flesh so grotesquely unvital.

(To be continued,)

(Author or “Timber Wolves" “White Gold;" “Salvage; •’ “Toad;" etc., etc.)

John Semple Garner was slightly below average height, with a body so thin as to be scarcely more than skin and bone. He wore a profusion of white hair and beard, and his eyes were shielded by blue horn-rimmed glasses. The flesh of his face, so iar as might be seen, was unhealthily white and clammy-looking. He moved with the unnatural precision of an automaton, and his voice was hollow sounding and distinct. Cordery noticed that the lips barely moved to accompany speech, so that the whole effect was likened to a feat of ventriloquism. He was absurdly relieved that the scientist made no attempt to shake hands, but merely bowed his response to their greeting. Somehow Cordery felt a horror of the small quiet hands, with their bluetinged, spatulate fingers. van Drift said, easily: "This is good of you, Mr Garner. I feel almost guilty of having prevailed upon you ...” He turned to Cordery, as if in explanation. ‘“I told Mr Garner of the negro-head idols I picked up when in Mexico. He wants to compare them with a head he found, himself, at Vera Cruz.” “You’re possibly interested in Maya archaeology?’’ Garner suggested. The tones of his voice if dismal, were jastonishingly clear. "I always verify my theories, Mr Cordery, whenever possible. Since negroes have never been a sea-going race, the presence of these negroid faces among Central American antiquities, suggests that negroes came as slaves to America at a much ealier date than is generally allowed.”

van Drift offered his cigar-case. Garner declined, politely. “I don’t smoke at all, now. Nor drink . . .I’m an old man, you see, Mr van Drift.” “We’ll have a look at the idolheads presently,” van Drift promised, “I've got them in a case in the morn-ing-room. By the way, I’ve been telling Cordery about your discovery of Atmoeoupe. I hope I haven’t been indiscreet. It occurred to me afterwards that it mightn’t do, perhaps, to have it become general knowledge. But you can rely on Cordery, in that case. Eh, Wally?" “Of course.” Cordery said. "To be frank,” Garner said. “It isn’t wholly to see your negroids that I came here to-night, Mr van Drift. The indiscreetnees was my own; when I met you to-day I had come from my laboratory with my success in my hands. I was more excited than I have ever been in my life. I spoke without reflecting. I shall be greatly obliged, gentlemen, if you will honour the confidence.”

Cordery said: You do not intend, then, to make use of the discovery, Mr Garner?”

“I do not know. I have yet to decide that. I have your promise that, in the meantime, you will say nothing?”

van Drift, with a look at his partner said: “We promise you that, readily. I suppose there can he no harm in asking, under the unusual circumstances, a few details of your discovery. Not the actual secret, naturally ...” “No, Mr \an Drift—decidedly" not the formula, itself. If general principles Interest you, you are welcome to hear them. It is probable, however, that you know them already. They.are taught in every school.” “Still . . .if you don’t mind,” van Drift said. Hitherto he had felt nothing of Cordery distaste for the looks of his visitor. He had thought Garner’s appearance bizzare, but not actually repugnant. For the first time, now, a sense of uneasiness possessed him. The old man was smiling stiffly, van Drift saw that the lips revealed, beyond the curtain of beard, were white as the hair itself. They seemed to have become shrunken and snarled, as from long disuse. The nose, too, was curiously pinched. The fore head was waxen.

"Briefly then ..." Garner said, in his oddly, hollow voice. "The substance which I have called Atmosoupe contains ■ all the essentials to life, drawn direct from the atmosphere. Man and animal are dependent on plant life for their food, since it is the green leaf of the plant that has the power of decomposing certain elements in the air, and building some of. those, units into its organic form; thus storing up what we call energy. Possibly you know that there are three physical entities; beyond which the physical world contains nothing. There are matter, ether, and energy . . .a triune that we may*-' suspect are, after all, but forms ol| an underlying unity. To return —the chief item in this plant process is the decomposing of carbon dioxide; the oxygen is set'free, the carbon is absorbed and is stored in various forme, such as starches, sugars, and so on .... But, I weary you?" Cordery thought to sense a hint of amusement in the interpolated question, j He said: "Far from it. Please continue."