“The idea is fairly widely accepted.”
“Not around South Haverside it isn’t,” Pardey said emphatically. “Some people in these parts still have their doubts about the telephone.”
Redpath stared at Pardey with a dull sense of wonderment, half-convinced that the detective had said something significant. Now that he thought of it, the Jeavons Institute—traditional, conventional, hidebound, less a seat of learning than a repository for technical knowledge required by local industry—seemed an unusual place to find time and money being spent on para-psychological research. Because of his own close association with the project he had never stopped to consider…
“The thing that really intrigues me,” Nevison said firmly, dismissing what he obviously regarded as side issues, “is the management capability of the various levels of John’s consciousness, the ability to take selected elements of perception and fit them into a unified pattern with extra-sensory or subjective elements.” He leaned forward to peer into Redpath’s face.
“John, do you fully understand that I wasn’t at Leila’s flat yesterday? She borrowed my car to pop home for ten minutes.”
“I know that now.”
“When Leila drove the car away from the house, couldn’t you see her at the wheel?”
“No—the sun was shining on the side windows. It dazzled me.”
“Otherwise everything looked normal?”
“Well, everything seemed to be rippling a bit. I remember I started thinking about detached retinas.”
“In other words, you had a slight feeling you were watching an image projected on…”
“Excuse me, Doctor Nevison,” Pardey interjected, “I’m the odd man here and I want to get out of your way as quickly as possible—but I need to ask John a couple of questions first.”
An expression of annoyance flickered on Nevison’s greyish face, but he made an ushering gesture in Redpath’s direction. “I’m sure John won’t mind.”
“Thanks.” Pardey consulted his notebook before glancing at Redpath. “This woman with the room full of goods and provisions—have you any idea what her second name is?”
“No.” Redpath was suddenly aware of being back in the normal world, where different types of people had different types of preoccupation. “I only know her as Miss Connie.”
“How about the man Albert?”
“Just Albert.”
“I see. Have you any idea how these people support themselves?”
“None at all—I was only there for a matter of hours and the subject didn’t come up. I think Albert may have been in the steelworks at one time.” For the second time in a couple of minutes Redpath sensed that Pardey, with his uncompromising practicality, had managed to touch on something worth thinking about. Yesterday had been Tuesday, an ordinary working day, but nobody in the house in Raby Street had gone to work. What did they do for a living?
“It all sounds a bit…” Pardey scraped his pen along the spiral wire binding of his notebook, producing a noise like a miniature rattle, and his blue eyes were pensive. “Is there a telephone I could use? I want to call the station.”
“Along the landing, second door on the right,” Nevison told him. He waited until the detective had left the room, then gave Redpath a smile which was unexpectedly sympathetic. Redpath raised his eyebrows and turned his gaze towards the window, refusing to be won over too quickly.
“John, I don’t want you to think you’re on your own in this thing,” Nevison said. “You’ve had a very unpleasant time of it, and as head of the department I feel responsible. None of us foresaw the exact manner in which Compound 183 would affect your perceptions, and…”
“But you said the drug had nothing to do with it,” Redpath blurted. “You as good as said I was going gaga on my own.“Nevison smiled again. “What I said was that the compound didn’t cause you to have any hallucinations. I still insist that you are picking up telepathic emanations in visual form—they could be coming from anywhere—and that you haven’t yet learned to interpret them properly.”
“There’s no interpreting to do—when you see something you see it.”
“It’s not as simple as that, John, believe me. If you take a photograph of a television set and hand it to an aboriginal tribesman who has never seen a television or even a photograph before, he’ll have absolutely no idea what you’ve given him. All he will be able to see is a flat sheet with some coloured stains on it. Similarly, a wiring diagram for that same set could be meaningless to you, but for an electronics engineer it would be crammed with crystal-clear information. Do you see what I mean?”
“I see what you mean, but you don’t mean what I mean.”
“Let’s move on a bit,” Nevison said patiently. “In that dream you had about being in the United States—what was the name of the town?”
“Gilpinston.”
“And the state?”
“I think it was Illinois.” Redpath spoke reluctantly, aware that Nevison was setting up some kind of a trap.
“Right. To the best of your knowledge, have you ever heard of a place called Gilpinston, Illinois?”
“Never, but I don’t see what…”
“I’m taking a bit of a gamble here,” Nevison said, standing up and going to one of his bookshelves, “but it’s all in a good cause.” He took a large, weighty atlas from the shelf, opened it at the gazetteer section and placed the book in Redpath’s lap. “Go ahead, John, look up Gilpinston.”
Redpath did as instructed, running a finger down the narrow columns of small type. He stopped, feeling a tremor of unease, when he reached an entry in which the words “Gilpinston, Ill. U.S.A.” were followed by a page number and a set of map references.
“What does this mean?” he said, frowning up at Nevison. “How did you know it would be there?”
Nevison returned to his desk and sat down before replying. “I didn’t. I never heard of Gilpinston until you mentioned it this morning.”
Leila left her chair and stood beside Redpath, resting her hand on his shoulder while she checked the gazetteer entry herself. “Are you putting this forward as proof that telepathy was involved?”
“It isn’t as simple as that,” Nevison said ruefully. “It could be telepathy or unconscious retention of a place name. What I was trying to demonstrate to John is that the relationship between his mind and his brain is more complex than he previously thought. I’ll give you another example from the same dream sequence…John, have you ever been to the States?”
“Never.” Redpath answered automatically, much more concerned with the fact that Leila had remained at his side. He could smell the light blossomy perfume she favoured.
“I thought not—and yet when you were describing trying to turn the light on in that basement you said the switch was upside down. You said you had to push the toggle up to turn the light on.”
Redpath shrugged. “What of it?”
“Switches are like that in the States. Pushing them up turns them on.”
“That can’t be right. I mean, it’s a natural movement to turn something on by bringing your hand down. I mean…“Redpath’s voice tailed off uncertainly as he began to realise that right from the beginning he and Nevison had been arguing on two entirely different levels.
“That could be unconscious retention, as well,” Leila said. “Anybody who has seen as many American films as John could have absorbed that fact without realising he was doing it.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Nevison replied equably. “All I want is for John to appreciate that mental scenarios which are presented to him—no matter whether they are internally or externally inspired—cannot be treated like Disney cartoons. It may be that the greatest problem in telepathic communication will be incompatability between sender and receiver. We may have to anticipate a plethora of interpretation difficulties.”