The Mind Readers (14 page)

‘On a pressure point,' said Amanda. ‘This one down here in the neck.'

‘Is that honestly true? Did you see it? Are you sure it wasn't a nerve centre? Helena won't let me talk to Sam. She's taken him down to the Talismans.' He saw their astonished expressions and reddened. ‘I'd say it's my fault,' he admitted, ‘but I'm knocked over by this business. It seems Sam brought home a letter from the headmaster. He didn't give it to her until early this morning and I've not been in a condition even to read it yet! I shall get round to it in a minute or two but first I've just got to know about these crazy things. I hear Paggen was in the house last night. Did he see them, for God's sake?'

‘He tried one and took them both away with him,' Amanda said briskly. ‘Look Martin, can you explain a bit, please?'

‘Gosh! I wish I could.' There was a flash of his normal charming smile. ‘But this puts me back in square one. Strapped over a pulse! It's utterly fantastic but, in my own opinion, just possible. I've been bawled out by Paggen time and again for muttering something not unlike this.'

Mr Campion sat watching him. If this was a histrionic performance it was amazing. On the other hand, if it were not, then he himself was back at square one with a vengeance.

Amanda breathed deeply. ‘Albert and I were wondering if you were the explanation,' she remarked. ‘We thought you might have given the things to Sam and he had shared them out at school.'

‘Helena said that!' Some of his resentment echoed in his voice. ‘I find that preposterous. I wouldn't trust a delicate, secret device like that to a little boy, especially if it was anything like as successful as you say. And this idea of me not questioning my own kid strikes me as beyond belief.'

Mr Campion sighed. ‘I am no scientist,' he said. ‘Anything I'm told about these infernal machines must be in words of one syllable and even then they may trickle off the old drake's back. All I know is that someone appears to have succeeded in mechanising telepathy and so far hasn't done it very well. The point about the pulse escapes me altogether. Why do you find that fantastic?'

‘Because it's contrary to the present theory. We have assumed a wave—not a sound wave, of course—carrying an electrical impulse. As you know, the brain generates a certain amount of electricity.'

‘Does it? I see. You'd have expected any successful contraption to be applied to the head?'

‘Naturally. Paggen's own new device, which I admit is nothing like as advanced as this thing sounds to be, is contained in a great fibre-glass helmet.' The fascination which the subject held for him was smoothing away his hangover and his face was alive and eager. ‘I keep being nagged by the idea that the wave hasn't been identified yet. I wonder if there couldn't be some non-electrical method of linking intelligences.'

‘Perhaps,' said Amanda, ‘the link is not between intelligences, but each intelligence does its own decoding? I mean, suppose an aborigine gets a flash from a sophisticated person who has stumbled on a crashed airplane. Does he get
“Terrible disaster: machine burning”
or
“Exciting: bird on fire”
?'

He shook his head. ‘I just wouldn't know. I'm highly conservative. It's only because the phenomenon of thought transference and also of prophecy, which seems to be linked with it, has been recorded ever since writing began that I go on banging my head on the door. I admit I've speculated on the possible role of the nervous system in all this—panic, mass hysteria and that extraordinary phenomenon, infectious euphoria in the young. They're none of them necessarily mental——'

Mr Campion was hugging his knees, trying to drive his mind down the unfamiliar paths presented to him.

‘The pulses, the circulation of the blood,' he remarked. ‘Consanguinity, love at first sight, heart to heart.
“Trad”
! Martin, my lad, that's where this is taking you. Tell me, what exactly is
“Tr. Amp. N
. 400”?'

Martin stared at him. ‘Where did you get that, for Heaven's sake?'

‘It was on the receipt which Mayo gave Luke in return for the devices. Transistor and amplifier I can guess but what is N. 400?'

‘But that's so like our own! I mean it sounds so like an enormously simplified version of Paggen's device. My God, he must have hit the ceiling! You see, once the existence of E.S.P. was proved . . . that was done by work on some twins who were found in the navy . . . the difficulty was how to break in. Paggen's first idea was to amplify the signals. The only substance which seems to have any effect at all on the subjects of the various experiments is a carbonised form of the new element Nipponanium. My old chief, Bolitho at Pittsburgh, has been examining this and its effects on degrees of the brain's sensitivity both towards sound and in E.S.P. tests. Professor Tabard is in touch with him but we haven't had a lot of success. Paggen is most anxious not to show anything yet but we have hopes. These devices of yours sound out of this world.'

‘Wait a minute.' Mr Campion was making an effort. ‘All this is very tough going for me. I know two things only about Nipponanium. It's the last of the new elements discovered since nuclear fission; it was isolated in Japan from a consignment of radio-active carbon imported for eventual medical detective work. Is it the one you use to adulterate aluminium?'

‘No. That's Germanium. Otherwise you're not very far out. Campion, I've just got to see these things. You say Paggen has them? I must get down there. I can't telephone because there's no such thing as a reasonably reticent wire to that island, let alone a private one. If we became in the least technical there'd be trouble in no time. I'll have to get hold of a car.'

Mr Campion ventured to intervene. ‘Just a moment,' he said again. ‘Have you formed any theory about how you got here last night?'

Martin coloured. ‘I was wondering what to say about that,' he confessed gloomily. ‘Paggen's had enough to put up with lately without me talking about it, but I guess the dark secret of Melisande is not so hush-hush any more?'

‘Has she formed some sort of attachment to you?'

‘Oh, gosh no! Nothing like that, thank God.' He looked so appalled that they almost laughed at him. ‘She's just hysterical. He's been worried about her for some time. She has crazy ideas about him. Doubtless you heard some of them last night?'

‘She chattered away,' said Mr Campion lightly. ‘Does she do it often?'

‘More so lately. I believe it used to be kept for home consumption.'

‘I suppose Mr Mayo has been dealing with it by walking out on her and thinking of something else?' Amanda suggested delicately.

‘Well, yes, that's exactly what he did do.' He smiled apologetically. ‘He's so busy. He kept it all quiet until she put the bite on him the other day by making an absolutely fantastic allegation about his loyalty—in the canteen of all places! Paggen smoothed it over at the time but he told me about it afterwards. Since then she must have got worse and worse and I'm afraid neither of us realised it.'

‘And then came last night?' murmured Mr Campion.

‘Aren't you right! Last night I woke up in Arnold's van with Melisande beside me. She told me that Paggen was kidnapping me while he went . . . oh well, it doesn't matter. Anyway, she scared me and I realised in dismay that she'd given up talking and started to act! Then I passed out again. Maybe she'd drugged me or maybe I fainted, I was scared enough.'

‘Mr Mayo was there, you know,' said Amanda. ‘In a car in front.'

‘So Helena said.' He was completely puzzled. ‘I suppose he found out what Melisande was up to and followed us and decided I was safest here. He took her home, didn't he?'

They nodded but neither seemed satisfied and he tried to give them the story as he saw it. ‘Melisande always wants to annoy Paggen and take his mind off his work,' he said. ‘She knew he'd set his heart on doing a bit this week-end and had got me to give up my leave to help him. She was removing me so as to hold up the work. It's as simple as that.'

Mr Campion and Amanda wished it were, for his sake. The single-minded approach of the dedicated artist, let alone scientist, was not unknown to them and they hoped profoundly that he would not be too hurt when he found his loyalty in question.

However, the problem was shelved temporarily by an unexpected development. Helena tapped on the door and came sweeping in, looking like some restoration beauty in a tantrum, in her quilted blue silk gown.

‘It's true,' she announced without preamble. ‘I didn't notice it last night, but now that he's had a whole twelve hours without the beastly thing you can see that everything the man says is true! Oh Martin, what shall we do?'

‘Helena, my dear girl, what's the matter?' Martin tried to put an arm round her but she escaped from him and held out a closely typewritten sheet to Amanda. ‘You must all read this,' she said. ‘This is what the headmaster says. Read it. Then tell me if I can be blamed for refusing to have the child involved for one single second longer.' Amanda took the letter and the others read it over her shoulder. It proved to be a confession from a man who was not used to finding himself at such a loss.

When at last Mr Campion looked up it was with a very serious expression behind his spectacles but his tone was deliberately light.

Poor Headmaster! He'll be so relieved when he hears about the “iggy-tube”. He'll give all concerned six of the best. It's no toy for the growing boy!'

‘Children are so wholesale,' Amanda murmured. ‘I suppose he just wore it all the time, sleeping and waking, so that it became a built-in aid.'

‘But it's frightful! Don't you all see how awful it is?' The outburst they were all fearing came from Helena at last. ‘It can have ruined Sam's mind and moral fibre and . . . and . . . everything else. He may be “sub” after this. He may . . .'

‘Nonsense.' Martin slid an arm round her rigid shoulders. ‘It's pretty alarming and if I'd guessed what was going on I'd have stopped it. But you and I are not going to panic just because this is something new in the way of hazards. I can't believe that the experience of being shouted down by other people's casual thoughts—because that's what it amounts to—can have done him any permanent harm. I'll talk to him.'

‘No. You'll frighten him.'

‘I won't. And you'll be there.' He was gentle with her, and the tremendous masculinity of his race was very apparent. She responded to it at once, becoming calmer as he reassured her. He turned to the others and his sincerity was overwhelmingly convincing.

‘I hope you'll believe me that I had no idea that these amplifiers were in existence, let alone that the children had gotten hold of them.'

‘Could Paggen Mayo have made them without your knowledge?'

‘Why no! I told you, Paggen isn't as far ahead as this and the notion that the blood-stream is involved is right against his line of thinking.'

‘He did use Sam for an experiment.' Helena turned her head.

‘No, Sweetie, he did not. I would never have let him, would I? I took Sam to the workshop one day and we did a few elementary E.S.P. tests with cards and numbers. Sam was pretty good at it. Children often are. After that he stood around while we talked. The Professor came in for ten minutes. That was all.'