Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [60]
‘A gas?’ suggested Colonel Munro.
Professor Eckstein brightened.
‘Oh, we’ve got all sorts of gases in stock. Mind you, some of them are reasonably harmless. Mild deterrents, shall we say. We’ve got all those.’ He beamed like a complacent hardware dealer.
‘Nuclear weapons?’ suggested Mr Lazenby.
‘Don’t you monkey with that! You don’t want a radio-active England, do you, or a radio-active continent, for that matter?’
‘So you can’t help us,’ said Colonel Munro.
‘Not until somebody’s found out a bit more about all this,’ said Professor Eckstein. ‘Well, I’m sorry. But I must impress upon you that most of the things we’re working on nowadays are dangerous.’ He stressed the word. ‘Really dangerous.’
He looked at them anxiously, as a nervous uncle might look at a group of children left with a box of matches to play with, and who might quite easily set the house on fire.
‘Well, thank you, Professor Eckstein,’ said Mr Lazenby. He did not sound particularly thankful.
The Professor gathering correctly that he was released, smiled all round and trotted out of the room.
Mr Lazenby hardly waited for the door to close before venting his feelings.
‘All alike, these scientists,’ he said bitterly. ‘Never any practical good. Never come up with anything sensible. All they can do is split the atom–and then tell us not to mess about with it!’
‘Just as well if we never had,’ said Admiral Blunt, again bluntly. ‘What we want is something homely and domestic like a kind of selective weedkiller which would–’ He paused abruptly. ‘Now what the devil–?’
‘Yes, Admiral?’ said the Prime Minister politely.
‘Nothing–just reminded me of something. Can’t remember what–’
The Prime Minister sighed.
‘Any more scientific experts waiting on the mat?’ asked Gordon Chetwynd, glancing hopefully at his wristwatch.
‘Old Pikeaway is here, I believe,’ said Lazenby. ‘Got a picture–or a drawing–or a map or something or other he wants us to look at–’
‘What’s it all about?’
‘I don’t know. It seems to be all bubbles,’ said Mr Lazenby vaguely.
‘Bubbles? Why bubbles?’
‘I’ve no idea. Well,’ he sighed, ‘we’d better have a look at it.’
‘Horsham’s here, too–’
‘He may have something new to tell us,’ said Chetwynd.
Colonel Pikeaway stumped in. He was supporting a rolled-up burden which with Horsham’s aid was unrolled and which with some difficulty was propped up so that those sitting round the table could look at it.
‘Not exactly drawn to scale yet, but it gives you a rough idea,’ said Colonel Pikeaway.
‘What does it mean, if anything?’
‘Bubbles?’ murmured Sir George. An idea came to him. ‘Is it a gas? A new gas?’
‘You’d better deliver the lecture, Horsham,’ said Pikeaway. ‘You know the general idea.’
‘I only know what I’ve been told. It’s a rough diagram of an association of world control.’
‘By whom?’
‘By groups who own or control the sources of power–the raw materials of power.’
‘And the letters of the alphabet?’
‘Stand for a person or a code name for a special group. They are intersecting circles that by now cover the globe.
‘That circle marked “A” stands for armaments. Someone, or some group is in control of armaments. All types of armaments. Explosives, guns, rifles. All over the world armaments are being produced according to plan, dispatched ostensibly to under-developed nations, backward nations, nations at war. But they don’t remain where they are sent. They are re-routed almost immediately elsewhere. To guerrilla warfare in the South American Continent–to rioting and fighting in the USA–to Depots of Black Power–to various countries in Europe.
‘“D” represents drugs–a network of suppliers