The Law of the Four Just Men · The Man Who Hated Earthworms (2/2)

“I have a theory,” said the doctor. He was calmer now and was wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, “that in cycles every type of living thing on the earth becomes in turn the dominant creature. In a million years’ time man may dwindle to the size of an ant and the earthworm, by its super-intelligence, its cunning and its ferocity, may be preeminent in the world! I have always thought that,” he went on when neither Leon nor Manfred offered any comment. “It is still my thought by day and my dream by night. I have devoted my life to the destruction of this menace.”

Now the earthworm is neither cunning nor intelligent and is moreover notoriously devoid of ambition.

The doctor again went to the cupboard and took out a wide-necked bottle filled with a greyish powder. He brought it back and held it within a few inches of Leon’s face.

“This is the work of twelve years,” he said simply. “There is no difficulty in finding a substance which will kill these pests, but this does more.”

He took a scalpel and tilting the bottle brought out a few grains of the powder on the edge of it. This he dissolved in a twenty-ounce measure which he filled with water. He stirred the colourless fluid with a glass rod, then lifting the rod he allowed three drops to fall upon the mould wherein the little creature was hidden. A few seconds passed, there was a heaving of the earth where the victim was concealed.

“He is dead,” said the doctor triumphantly and scraped away the earth to prove the truth of his words. “And he is not only dead, but that handful of earth is death to any other earthworm that touches it.”

He rang a bell and one of his attendants came in.

“Clear away that,” he said with a shudder and walked gloomily to his desk.

Leon did not speak all the way back to the house. He sat curled up in the corner of the car, his arms lightly folded, his chin on his breast. That night without a word of explanation he left the house, declining Manfred’s suggestion that he should walk with him and volunteering no information as to where he was going.

Gonsalez walked by the cliff road, across Babbacombe Downs and came to the doctor’s house at nine o’clock that night. The doctor had a large house and maintained a big staff of servants, but amongst his other eccentricities was the choice of a gardener’s cottage away from the house as his sleeping place at night.

It was only lately that the doctor had chosen this lonely lodging. He had been happy enough in the big old house which had been his father’s, until he had heard voices whispering to him at night and the creak of boards and had seen shapes vanishing along the dark corridors, and then in his madness he had conceived the idea that his servants were conspiring against him and that he might any night be murdered in his bed. So he had the gardener turned out of his cottage, had refurnished the little house, and there, behind locked doors, he read and thought and slept the nights away. Gonsalez had heard of this peculiarity and approached the cottage with some caution, for a frightened man is more dangerous than a wicked man. He rapped at the door and heard a step across the flagged floor.

“Who is that?” asked a voice.

“It is I,” said Gonsalez and gave the name by which he was known.

After hesitation the lock turned and the door opened.

“Come in, come in,” said Viglow testily and locked the door behind him. “You have come to congratulate me, I am sure. You must come to my wedding too, my friend. It will be a wonderful wedding, for there I shall make a speech and tell the story of my discovery. Will you have a drink? I have nothing here, but I can get it from the house. I have a telephone in my bedroom.”

Leon shook his head.

“I have been rather puzzling out your plan, Doctor,” he said, accepting the proffered cigarette, “and I have been trying to connect those postal bags which I saw being loaded at the door of your laboratory with the discovery which you revealed this afternoon.”

Dr. Viglow’s narrow eyes were gleaming with merriment and he leant back in his chair and crossed his legs, like one preparing for a pleasant recital.

“I will tell you,” he said. “For months I have been in correspondence with farming associations, both here and on the Continent. I have something of a European reputation,” he said, with that extraordinary immodesty which Leon had noticed before. “In fact, I think that my treatment for phylloxera did more to remove the scourge from the vineyards of Europe than any other preparation.”

Leon nodded. He knew this to be the truth.

“So you see, my word is accepted in matters dealing with agriculture. But I found after one or two talks with our own stupid farmers that there is an unusual prejudice against destroying”⁠—he did not mention the dreaded name but shivered⁠—“and that of course I had to get round. Now that I am satisfied that my preparation is exact, I can release the packets in the post office. In fact, I was just about to telephone to the postmaster telling him that they could go off⁠—they are all stamped and addressed⁠—when you knocked at the door.”

“To whom are they addressed?” asked Leon steadily.

“To various farmers⁠—some fourteen thousand in all in various parts of the country and Europe, and each packet has printed instructions in English, French, German and Spanish. I had to tell them that it was a new kind of fertiliser or they may not have been as enthusiastic in the furtherance of my experiment as I am.”

“And what are they going to do with these packets when they get them?” asked Leon quietly.

“They will dissolve them and spray a certain area of their land⁠—I suggested ploughed land. They need only treat a limited area of earth,” he explained. “I think these wretched beasts will carry infection quickly enough. I believe,” he leant forward and spoke impressively, “that in six months there will not be one living in Europe or Asia.”

“They do not know that the poison is intended to kill⁠—earthworms?” asked Leon.

“No, I’ve told you,” snapped the other. “Wait, I will telephone the postmaster.”

He rose quickly to his feet, but Leon was quicker and gripped him arm.

“My dear friend,” he said, “you must not do this.”

Dr. Viglow tried to withdraw his arm.

“Let me go,” he snarled. “Are you one of those devils who are trying to torment me?”

In ordinary circumstances, Leon would have been strong enough to hold the man, but Viglow’s strength was extraordinary and Gonsalez found himself thrust back into the chair. Before he could spring up, the man had passed through the door and slammed and locked it behind him.

The cottage was on one floor and was divided into two rooms by a wooden partition which Viglow had erected. Over the door was a fanlight, and pulling the table forward Leon sprang on to the top and with his elbow smashed the flimsy frame.

“Don’t touch that telephone,” he said sternly. “Do you hear?”

The doctor looked round with a grin. “You are a friend of those devils!” he said, and his hand was on the receiver when Leon shot him dead.

Manfred came back the next morning from his walk and found Gonsalez pacing the lawn, smoking an extra long cigar.

“My dear Leon,” said Manfred as he slipped his arm in the other’s. “You did not tell me.”

“I thought it best to wait,” said Leon.

“I heard quite by accident,” Manfred went on. “The story is that a burglar broke into the cottage and shot the doctor when he was telephoning for assistance. All the silverware in the outer room has been stolen. The doctor’s watch and pocketbook have disappeared.”

“They are at this moment at the bottom of Babbacombe Bay,” said Leon. “I went fishing very early this morning before you were awake.”

They paced the lawn in silence for a while and then:

“Was it necessary?” asked Manfred.

“Very necessary,” said Leon gravely. “You have to realise first of all that although this man was mad, he had discovered not only a poison but an infection.”

“But, my dear fellow,” smiled Manfred, “was an earthworm worth it?”

“Worth more than his death,” said Leon. “There isn’t a scientist in the world who does not agree that if the earthworm was destroyed the world would become sterile and the people of this world would be starving in seven years.”

Manfred stopped in his walk and stared down at his companion.

“Do you really mean that?”

Leon nodded.

“He is the one necessary creature in God’s world,” he said soberly. “It fertilises the land and covers the bare rocks with earth. It is the surest friend of mankind that we know, and now I am going down to the post office with a story which I think will be sufficiently plausible to recover those worm poisoners.”

Manfred mused a while, then he said:

“I’m glad in many ways⁠—in every way,” he corrected. “I rather liked that girl, and I’m sure that impossible person isn’t so impossible.”