Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie [71]
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ said Hilary.
‘One can be absolutely sure of nothing in this world. I agree with you there. But it is a ninety-five per cent certainty all the same.’
Hilary looked at him with something like horror.
‘It’s dreadful,’ she said. ‘It’s like a typists’ pool! You’ve got a pool here of brains.’
‘Exactly. You put it very justly, Madame.’
‘And from this pool, you intend, one day, to supply scientists to whoever pays you best for them?’
‘That is, roughly, the general principle, Madame.’
‘But you can’t send out a scientist just as you can send out a typist.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because once your scientist is in the free world again, he could refuse to work for his new employer. He would be free again.’
‘True up to a point. There may have to be a certain–conditioning, shall we say?’
‘Conditioning–what do you mean by that?’
‘You have heard of Leucotomy, Madame?’ Hilary frowned.
‘That’s a brain operation, isn’t it?’
‘But yes. It was devised originally for the curing of melancholia. I put it to you not in medical terms, Madame, but in such terms as you and I understand. After the operation the patient has no more desire to commit suicide, no further feelings of guilt. He is carefree, conscienceless and in most cases obedient.’
‘It hasn’t been a hundred per cent success, has it?’
‘In the past, no. But here we have made great strides in the investigation of the subject. I have here three surgeons: one Russian, one Frenchman, and an Austrian. By various operations of grafting and delicate manipulation of the brain, they are arriving gradually at a state where docility can be assured and the will can be controlled without necessarily affecting mental brilliance. It seems possible that we may in the end so condition a human being that while his powers of intellect remain unimpaired, he will exhibit perfect docility. Any suggestion made to him he will accept.’
‘But that’s horrible,’ cried Hilary. ‘Horrible!’
He corrected her serenely.
‘It is useful. It is even in some ways beneficent. For the patient will be happy, contented, without fears or longings or unrest.’
‘I don’t believe it will ever happen,’ said Hilary defiantly.
‘Chère Madame, forgive me if I say you are hardly competent to speak on the subject.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Hilary, ‘that I do not believe a contented, suggestible animal will ever produce creative work of real brilliance.’
Aristides shrugged his shoulders.
‘Perhaps. You are intelligent. You may have something there. Time will show. Experiments are going on all the time.’
‘Experiments! On human beings, do you mean?’
‘But certainly. That is the only practical method.’
‘But–what human beings?’
‘There are always the misfits,’ said Aristides. ‘The ones who do not adapt themselves to life here, who will not co-operate. They make good experimental material.’
Hilary dug her fingers into the cushions of the divan. She felt a deep horror of this smiling, yellow-faced little man with his inhuman outlook. Everything he said was so reasonable, so logical and so businesslike, that it made the horror worse. Here was no raving madman, just a man to whom his fellow creatures were so much raw material.
‘Don’t you believe in God?’ she said.
‘Naturally I believe in God.’ Mr Aristides raised his eyebrows. His tone was almost shocked. ‘I have told you already. I am a religious man. God has blessed me with supreme power. With money and opportunity.’
‘Do you read your Bible?’ asked Hilary.
‘Certainly, Madame.’
‘Do you remember what Moses and Aaron said to Pharaoh? Let my people go.’
He smiled.
‘So–I am Pharaoh? And you are Moses and Aaron in one? Is that what you are saying to me, Madame? To let these people go, all of them, or just–one special case?’
‘I’d like to say–all of them,’ said Hilary.
‘But you are well aware, chère Madame,’ he said, ‘that that would be a waste of time. So instead, is it not your husband for whom you plead?’
‘He is no good to you,’ said Hilary. ‘Surely by now you must realize that.