Many Dimensions - Charles Williams (books for 9th graders TXT) 📗

Chapter Sixteen

THE DISCOVERY OF SIR GILES TUMULTY

 

The same afternoon while Lord Arglay was hearing at Brighton of the

extraordinary events (so the manager called them) of the previous

night—how someone, so far untraced, must have got into Mr. Montague’s

room, and how Mr. Montague’s mutilated body had been discovered there

in the morning; while he himself was finding that there was no trace of

any Type of the Stone among Reginald’s belongings; while this

separation of a single Type from the rest was proceeding, Lord

Birlesmere and Mr. Garterr Browne sat in a room at the Home Office and

talked. Lord Birlesmere was agitated; Mr. Garterr Browne was calm and

bright.

 

“Tumulty tells me nothing,” the Foreign Secretary was saying. “I tried

to get hold of him yesterday, but I couldn’t. That fellow Palliser who

was with him would only say that he hoped in time to find some way of

control.”

 

“It might be awfully useful if he did,” Mr. Garterr Browne said, “I see

that. But it’s going to take time, and I don’t think at present either

of us can afford the time.”

 

“That’s quite true. I don’t know what’s happened,” Birlesmere answered,

“but there was an unpleasant note in the Persian man’s voice. I’ve just

seen him, and they’re more sure of themselves. He even began to hint at

Geneva and perhaps something more.”

 

“Well,” Mr. Garterr Browne went on, “I think I may say that, as soon as

I heard of it, I saw what would have to be done. One thing, anyhow, I

don’t know about Persia, but I think it’ll quiet things here.”

 

“And what’s that?” Birlesmere asked.

 

Mr. Garterr Browne smiled slyly. “Ask yourself,” he said, “why people—this Mayor, for instance—are making such a fuss about the Stone. Why,

because they think it does things.”

 

“So it does,” Lord Birlesmere said.

 

“Never mind whether it does or not,” Garterr Browne said sharply. “The

point is that they believe it does. Very well. What do we want to do

then? Stop them believing it. How do we do that? Tell them, and show

them, that it doesn’t.”

 

“But it does,” Lord Birlesmere said again.

 

“The first thing I said to myself,” Mr. Garterr Browne went on, “when I

realized it, was—people must simply not be allowed to believe in it.

The second thing was—thank God it’s stone. “

 

Lord Birlesmere sat and stared. Mr. Garterr Browne sat and smiled, then

he resumed.

 

“How can one stop them believing in it? As I’ve just saidtell them it

doesn’t work; show them it doesn’t work. And if it does, show them

something that doesn’t.”

 

“Good God!” Lord Birlesmere exclaimed.

 

“Stone,” the other said, still smiling, “isn’t rare. Marked stone isn’t

rare. Of course, to a shade the markings…. I don’t say that the tints

are exactly…. But near enough. I got hold of a man, and I went over

his place, and I found bits. I’ve known him rather well for years—he

was a contractor for the new Government buildings—and I found a bit of

what I wanted.”

 

He pulled out a drawer and extracted something from it which he threw

across to Lord Birlesmere. It was a fragment of square stone, having a

black streak or two in it. But it was a poor imitation of the Stone of

Suleiman, and so Lord Birlesmere, having considered it, felt compelled

to say.

 

“No one would take it for the same thing,” he said.

 

“No one who hasn’t got the original is likely to be able to compare,”

Garterr Browne said. “And who’s got it? Sheldrake—well, he must keep

his for the present; the Persians—well, if

they know we’ll keep it quiet they won’t want to make a fuss; Tumulty

and Palliser—well, they must be careful in their experiments, but

they’re not likely to act in public; you—that’s

all right; Arglay—that is a little awkward, but he’s a sensible fellow

and we’ll talk to him. I fancy Merridew’s trying to get a bit but I

don’t think he has yet—and anyhow he’ll want it kept quiet; he was here

saying so.”

 

“But, good God,” Lord Birlesmere said, “people won’t believe that these

cures and so on didn’t happen.”

 

“We shan’t ask them to,” Garterr Browne explained. “They may have

happened; they don’t happen now. Something has changed—the Stone has

been exposed to the air or something. Rays… rays might have been

exhausted. Tumulty and—and I’ll manage a convincing statement. just

keep it firmly in your mind that people must not be allowed to believe

in it.”

 

“But then why worry about having this thing?” Birlesmere asked. “You

can tell them all that anyhow.”

 

Mr. Garterr Browne almost winked. “You wait,” he said. “That Mayor’s

coming round here again, and it’ll sound more convincing if I produce

this. Besides—I’m not certain, but I may decide to get a few scientific

opinions on the virtue and age of the thing, a few doctors or

something.”

 

“They certainly won’t believe that that did anything,” Lord Birlesmere

said.

 

“Nor very likely did the other,” Garterr Browne answered. “Think of the

number of people who don’t believe in it now, and those who don’t want

to. All we need for public opinion is a focus.” He got up in great glee

and pointed to the bit of stone. “This is the focus.” He made gestures

with both hands.

 

“We concentrate,” he said, “by a semi-official statement. Now how many

people, in face of that, and their neighbours, are going on believing

in an obviously absurd Stone? Ask yourself, Birlesmere, would you?”

 

“If, I’d seen it…” Lord Birlesmere began.

 

“Pooh! coincidence,” said the other. “Pure coincidence.”

 

“And suppose one of the original Stones gets about somehow?” Birlesmere

asked. “How will the Government look then? It’s a damned risky

business, Browne, and I don’t half like it.”

 

“Nor you mayn’t,” Mr. Garterr Browne, a little huffed, answered. “But

you don’t like simplicity. Look here—this is the Stone, don’t you see?

It is; just is. And it doesn’t do anything at all. Of course, we shall

try and get hold of all the others. Tumulty ought to do that.”

 

“Tumulty won’t do anything but what he wants.” Birlesmere said. “And I

don’t like the way the Persians are talking. Suppose it does come up at

Geneva?”

 

“Well, give them this,” the Home Secretary suggested. “Who’s to know?

They only want it for a temple or something, I suppose, so this would

be just as good. It isn’t as if it was a matter of practical

importance. And would even they know the difference? Why, I can hardly

believe there is any.”

 

“O I think there is,” Birlesmere protested. “The marking looks

different.”

 

“O the marking, the marking,” said Mr. Garterr Browne impatiently.

“God’s truth, man, what does the marking matter? Here am I faced with a

riot or a strike and you with a war, and there you sit bleating about

the marking. If you get to rock-bottom, if you come down to actual

facts, it is that or this. Which will you have?”

 

“O this of course,” Lord Birlesmere said.

 

“Do you agree to my telling this Mayor, when he comes in a few minutes,

that this is it?” the other pressed again.

 

“Yes, O yes,” Birlesmere assented. “Only you must back me up too with

the Persian.”

 

“United we stand, divided we fall,” Mr. Garterr Browne

almost sang. “It’s quite simple, Birlesmere, so long as you keep firmly

in mind that people must not be allowed to believe in it. in fact, of

course, they don’t believe in it; nobody could. So we’re only making

their real minds clear to them.”

 

“But-” the Foreign Secretary began.

 

“I know, I know,” the other interrupted. “You used it, didn’t you? You

and Tumulty. Yes, but, my dear fellow, are you sure you did? Looking

back now, are you sure it wasn’t a kind of illusion? You may know it

wasn’t because you have the Stone, but will those who haven’t it know?”

 

The telephone rang and he bent to it. “O bring him in,” he said. “Now

here is the Mayor; now you see.”

 

The Mayor came in heavily. His meeting with Merridew had shaken his

determination far more than he had known at