“Yes?”
“Yes. In that fraction of a second before final consummation. Although, of course, — almost any time today would still be poetically satisfying.”
Brooke said softly: “You love me very much, don’t you, Kurtzie?”
In the third bed, Winton waved his bandaged wrists, moaned and cursed. “Shut up,” he said. “Shut up. We’ve got to die — we know that. But why keep talking about it? Why talk?”
“Winton,” said Kurtz, “doesn’t like talk. Oh, no. He prefers action — only he bungles his actions. When you managed to steal that scalpel, Winton, why didn’t you just cut your throat and have done with it? Didn’t you realize the nurses would be bound to discover your cut wrists before anything serious happened? Or did you just go through the motions, with some half-witted idea of gaining sympathy?”
“I should have used it on you,” said Winton. “It would have stopped your infernal talking.”
“Minds,” said Brooke. “Funny things. Look at yours, Kurtz. A good brain, education and experience behind it, a capacity to think constructively when you choose. Only, you don’t choose. You prefer to twist and distort into the meanest, most personal, ugliest channels you can conceive. A real mental prostitution. And then there’s you, Winton — no real mind at all, only a few cockeyed emotions. No intelligence. Just a sort of blind stretching forward to satisfy the need of the moment.”
Winton said: “What do you know about what goes on in my mind? What about the scalpel? Could you have got one, Mr. Genius?”
“If I wanted one,” said Brooke, “I’d get one. And if I wanted to use it, I’d use it properly. I don’t know how you got it, Winton, but I’m pretty certain it was by accident. And I’m not running down your lack of mind through malice. Oh, no. You’re the luckiest of the three of us. When you go, you’ve got so very little to lose.”
Winton cursed. He repeated: “How do you know what I think about?”
“I don’t — except by inference. But let’s find out. Take this boiled egg, for instance. Here, let me hold it in my hand. Now, look at it, and tell me what you think.”
As Winton hesitated, Kurtz laughed from his bed. “Come on, Winton. I want to hear this, too.”
“It’s just... an egg,” said Win-ton. “Laid by a hen, on a farm somewhere. And boiled here in the kitchen.”
“And brought to me, warm and white and unbroken,” said Brooke. “I know. That’s how your mind works. But this egg tells my mind a lot more.”
“Like what, for instance?”
“Oh, many things... It reminds me, for instance, of Isaac Newton, of his discoveries — the law of gravitation — and from there, of space and time and. the universe, of Einstein and relativity. And it reminds me, on the other side, of pre-Newtonian science, of the theories of transmutation of metals; and I see that Newton is the link, and the two sides of the chain meet again today in the atom physicists.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” said Winton. “What has an egg to do with Isaac Newton?”
“Ah, so you haven’t even heard that story? Let me tell it to you — maybe it will provide some consolation for you. It shows how even great minds have their moments of aberration... You see, a friend once came into Newton’s kitchen, and there was the savant holding an egg in the palm of his hand — like this — staring at it in utter concentration — and on the stove next to him his watch boiled merrily in a pot of water.”
Again, Kurtz laughed. Winton looked at Brooke uncertainly. He said: “You’re still talking in the air...”
But Brooke was warming to his theme. “The human mind,” he said. “What a magnificent mechanism! Properly applied, it creates miracles. Nothing, basically, is impossible—”
“Except us.” In his triumph Winton spat. “What about us? All the best brains in science, all working on us, and they can’t help. None of them can help.”
Kurtz said: “All the same, Brooke’s right. One day they’ll find a cure. Maybe the day after you die, Winton. Or the day before. That’s why your scalpel idea was so completely and utterly foolish.”
“They still need data,” said Brooke. “Sorry, I should have been more explicit. I should have said nothing is basically impossible when all the facts are known. Do you ever read detective stories?”
Winton said: “Trash.”
“Not all of them. I’m thinking of a particular story, written by a man who’s now dead — Jacques Futrelle. A magnificent story called The Problem of Cell 13. Futrelle’s hero is a man he calls The Thinking Machine. He claimed that if he were locked in the condemned cell under the usual conditions, with nothing except his own magnificent mental equipment, he would thinly himself out. And he did. Winton, he did.”
“In a story, yes. Anything’s possible in a story.”
“Logic is the common denominator between good fiction and life. That’s why I say your scalpel idea was clumsy. There are so many easier, more ingenious methods. Now, if I wanted to get rid of myself—”
“No,” said Kurtz. “I don’t like suicide — not even used as an example. Rather, assume that you were planning to kill Winton. Or, better still, that I wanted to kill you. Much truer to life.”
“All right, we’ll say you want to kill me. And that you use your mind in the way you ought to use it. You’ll pick something commonplace and apparently innocent, like — like this egg here. Yes, the egg’s a good idea. First, you lay your hands on some virulent poison — if Winton could find a scalpel, you most certainly could find some poison. And you would work out a method of getting the poison inside the unbroken shell of the egg—”
Winton said: “That’s an impossibility, Brooke, a complete impossibility.”
“Is it? That’s what they said about The Thinking Machine and his guarded cell. And there’s another angle, too — also from detective fiction. In a book called The Three Coffins one of the modern masters of detective fiction, John Dickson Carr, had his chief character give a lecture on how to commit murder in a hermetically sealed room. If I remember correctly, there were three main methods, each with dozens of variations. And all perfectly possible — remember that, Winton. And if a murderer can get into a sealed room, commit a murder and disappear, he could also get into a sealed egg. The same principles apply. And the egg could be brought to me, like this one, through the normal innocent channels, and I could crack the shell, as I’m doing now, scoop up the egg — yes, do all the natural things, absolutely unsuspecting, put the spoon in my mouth, and die.”
He put the spoonful of egg into his mouth.
And died.
“Mr. le Roux,” said Nurse Metter, and then: “No. I can’t call you that. Hal has told me so much about you. I’m going to call you Rolf, and you must call me Doris. I can’t go on calling my husband’s best friend by his surname, can I?”
“Definitely not.” The brown eyes twinkled, and behind the beard the full lips curved in a smile. “I would have liked to have come earlier, but Hal’s letter didn’t give me much time. Still, I suppose I’ll have a chance for a chat with him before the ceremony?”
“Of course. The padre won’t get here until after lunch, and you can see Hal as soon as he’s finished his breakfast. He’s in Ward 3, just down the passage. You can follow me in when I go to fetch the trays. They’ll be ringing for me any second now.” Rolf thought of the letter from Hal in his pocket. And he thought: “Nice girl. If only Hal could live his normal span...”