“I didn’t know.” Hardanger turned back to Gregori. “Please go on.”
“That’s all.” Gregori shrugged. “A desperate man. A man in a great hurry. The key to the locker—just wood and glass—I have in my hands here. See? He would have to break in. In his haste and with the use of force who knows what damage he may not have done, what virus containers he might not have knocked over or broken? If one of those had been a Satan Bug container, and there are but three in existence … Maybe it’s only a very remote chance. But I say to you, in all sincerity and earnestness, if there was only one chance in a hundred million of a Satan Bug container having been broken, there is still more than ample justifcation for never opening that door again. For if one is broken and one cubic centimetre of tainted air escapes—” He broke off and lifted his hands helplessly. “Have we the right to take upon ourselves the responsibility of being the executioners of mankind?”
“General Cliveden?” Hardanger said.
“I’m afraid I agree. Seal it up.”
“Colonel Weybridge?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Weybridge took off his cap, ran his hand through the short dark hair. “Yes, I do now. Seal the damn’ place up.”
“Well. You’re the three men who should really know what they are talking about.” Hardanger pursed his lips for a moment, then glanced at me. “In the face of expert unanimity, it should be interesting to hear what Cavell thinks.”
“Cavell thinks they’re a pack of old women,” I said. “I think your minds are so gummed up with the idea of the Satan Bug on the loose that you’re incapable of thinking at all, far less thinking straight. Let’s look at the central fact—central supposition, rather. Dr. Gregori bases all his fears on the assumption that someone has broken in and stolen the viruses. He thinks there’s one chance in a thousand that one of the containers may have been broken, so if that door is opened there’s one chance in a thousand of menace to mankind. But if he has actually stolen the Satan Bug, then the menace to mankind becomes not one in a thousand —but a thousand to one. For heaven’s sake take the blinkers off for a moment and try to see that a man on the loose with the viruses presents an infinitely greater danger than the remote chance of his having broken one inside those doors. Simple logic says that we must guard against the greater danger. So we must get inside the room—how else can we begin to get any trace of the thief and killer, to try to guard against the infinitely greater danger? We must, I say.
“Or I must. I’m dressing up and taking that hamster in there. If the hamster survives, good and well. If he doesn’t I don’t come out. Fair enough?”
“Of all the damned arrogance,” Cliveden said coldly. “For a private detective, Cavell, you have an awful lot of gall. You might bear in mind that I’m the commandant in Mordon and I take all the decisions.”
“You did, General. But not any more. The Special Branch has taken over—completely. You know that.”
Hardanger ignored us both. Grasping at straws, he said to Gregori, “You mentioned that a special air filtration unit was working inside there. Won’t that have cleared the air?”
“With any other virus, yes. Not with the Satan Bug. It’s virtually indestructable, I tell you. And it’s a closed circuit filtration unit. The same air, washed and cleaned, is fed back in again. But you can’t wash away the Satan Bug.”
There was a long pause, then I said to Gregori, “If the Satan Bug or botulinus is loose in this lab, how long would it take to affect the hamster?”
“Fifteen seconds,” he said precisely. “In thirty seconds it will be in convulsions. In a minute, dead. There will be reflex muscle twitchings but it will be dead. That’s for the Satan Bug. For botulinus only slightly longer.”
“Don’t stop me from going in,” I said to Cliveden. “I’ll see what happens to the hamster. If he’s O.K., then I’ll wait another ten minutes. Then I’ll come out.”
“If you come out.” He was weakening. Cliveden was nobody’s fool. He was too clever not to have gone over what I had said and at least some of it must have made sense to him.
“If anything—any virus—has been stolen,” I said, “then whoever stole it is a madman. The Kennet, a tributary of the Thames, passes by only a few miles from here. How do you know that madman isn’t bent over the Kennet this instant, pouring those damned bugs into the water?”
“How do I know you won’t come out if that hamster does die?” Cliveden said desperately. “Good God, Cavell, you’re only human. If that hamster does die, do you expect me to believe that you’re going to remain in there till you die of starvation? Asphyxiation, rather, when the oxygen gives out? Of course you’re going to come out.”
“All right, General, suppose I come out. Would I still be wearing the gas-suit and breathing apparatus?”
“Obviously.” His voice was curt. “If you weren’t and that room was contaminated—well, you couldn’t come out. You’d be dead.”
“All right, again. This way.” I led the way out to the corridor, indicated the last corridor-door we’d passed through. “That door is gas-tight. I know that. So are those outside double windows. You stand at that corridor door—have it open a crack. The door of number one lab opens on it— you’ll see me as soon as I begin to come out. Agreed?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This.” I reached inside my jacket, pulled out the Hanyatti automatic, knocked the safety catch off. “You have this in your hand. If, when the lab door opens, I’m still wearing the suit and breathing apparatus, you can shoot me down. At fifteen feet and with nine shots you can hardly fail to. Then you shut the corridor door. Then the virus is still sealed inside ‘E’ block.”
He took the gun from me, slowly, reluctantly, uncertainly. But there was nothing uncertain about eyes and voice when finally he spoke.
“You know I shall use this, if I have to?”
“Of course I know it.” I smiled. But I didn’t feel much like it. “From what I’ve heard I’d rather die from a bullet than the Satan Bug.”
“I’m sorry I blew my top a minute ago,” he said quietly. “You’re a brave man, Cavell.”
“Don’t fail to mention the fact in my obituary in The Times. How about asking your men to finish off printing and photographing that door, Superintendent?”
* * *
Twenty minutes later the men were finished and I was all ready to go. The others looked at me with that peculiar hesitancy and indecision of people who think they should be making farewell speeches but find the appropriate words too hard to come by. A couple of nods, a half wave of a hand, and they’d left me. They all passed down the corridor and through the next door, except General Cliveden, who remained in the open doorway. From some obscure feeling of decency, he held my Hanyatti behind his body where I couldn’t see it.
The gas-suit was tight and constricting, the closed circuit breathing apparatus cut into the back of my neck and the high concentration of oxygen made my mouth dry. Or maybe my mouth was dry anyway. Three cigarettes in the past twenty minutes—a normal day’s quota for me, I preferred to take my slow poisoning in the form of a pipe—wouldn’t have helped any either. I tried to think of one compelling reason why I shouldn’t go through that door, but that didn’t help either, there were so many compelling reasons that I couldn’t pick and choose between them, so I didn’t even bother trying. I made a last careful check of suit, mask and oxygen cylinders, but I was only kidding myself, this was about my fifth last careful check. Besides, they were all watching me. I had my pride. I started spelling out