He’d written twice more to Professor Jones at the University, but with no reply. He also wrote to Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys. He explained defensively to Fran that, though it was ridiculous to regard the worms as aliens from another planet, at least the man took them seriously and might have discovered something useful. About a fortnight later they received an invitation to go and visit him.
Tegwyn Aneurin Rhys lived in a large Victorian brick-built house known as the Old Rectory. It was set well back from the lane. The wide wooden gate at the entrance to the drive looked as though it hadn’t been shut for many decades. A couple of greenhouses could be glimpsed beyond the thick trunk of the old oak tree which dominated the extensive but unkempt lawn.
On the gravel in front of the steps leading up to the porch an oldish Bentley was parked, and Matt drew up behind it. Before they could ring the bell the front door opened and an Alsatian bounded out to investigate, closely followed by a smallish man whose bald head was fringed with grey hair sticking out wildly on each side.
‘Heard you arrive,’ he said, ordering the dog to heel. ‘I’m Rhys.’
Matt introduced Fran and himself.
‘Glad to meet you. House is a mess, but come in. Not all that many people take these worms seriously. You’ve found that yourself, I imagine. A bad to-do you had with them in the sewers, wasn’t it? Sorry about that. Been lucky myself, though Barker here lost an ear as you can see.’
The Alsatian looked up at them with knowing eyes, then turned his head sideways to let them see where one ear was missing.
‘That’s what first put me on to the worms,’ Rhys continued, leading the way into a large downstairs room whose walls were heavy with books. ‘I’ll take you to the river afterwards, show you the scene of the crime. Barker saved himself of course. Bit the worm in half, and they haven’t bothered him since. Obviously word got around. Sit down, sit down.’ He waved to a lumpy sofa which still bore signs of having been a very elegant piece of furniture in its day. ‘Now tell me why you want to breed worms. To my mind we’ve enough already.’
Matt explained, with Fran filling in the commercial details. Rhys listened intently, his eyes bright and alert, darting across to Fran’s face every so often.
‘And that’s it,’ Matt concluded. ‘Can you help? Anything you happen to know…’
‘If anyone deserves to make money out of these creatures, I imagine you do,’ Rhys commented after a moment’s thought, gazing at the facial scars still visible under Matt’s beard. ‘It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but then I’ve always had enough money. You’ve broken your connection with television?’
‘I was thrown out. Contract terminated.’
‘You don’t surprise me. Anything they do… Can’t stand those television people. So smarmy. Think they know everything. In fact they know nothing. I wrote to them — you’ve seen the letter — but no reply. Even sent them some specimens, and not a word of thanks.’
‘In a chocolate box?’
‘Half a dozen small worms in a chocolate box personally addressed to the managing director, Mary Keating. Used to watch her children’s programmes. Excellent. Miles better than all the evening crap. Oh, I read in the paper afterwards she’d been a bit careless opening the box, had a fright, but you’d think she’d say thank you.’
‘She was quite seriously injured, wasn’t she?’ asked Fran, looking at Matt.
‘No, no!’ Rhys shook his head vigorously. ‘A couple of small bites, and whose fault was that? I warned her in the note to take care. Open with care, I said. But you can’t tell them anything.’
‘Too true,’ Matt agreed with feeling. ‘Though the truth is, I don’t think they found a note.’
Rhys stared at him with uncomprehending eyes. ‘Typical!’ he snorted. He stood up and leaned against the marble mantelpiece which bore an ornamental clock, several piles of books and journals, and assorted rocks. ‘Breeding. You want to know about breeding.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t help you, though. Nobody can. Reptiles either lay eggs or give birth to living young, same as we do. But which methods these worms use, that’s a mystery. They may be oviparous — lay eggs, you understand — or viviparous, but how can we tell? I’ve never met a female, have you?’
‘I … I wouldn’t know,’ Matt admitted, shamefaced. ‘How to tell, that is.’
‘If you’re planning to breed them, I suggest it would be worth your while finding out,’ Rhys observed drily. ‘Come with me.’
He led them through to the back of the house, to a room fitted up as a laboratory. Shelves of jars, containing worms, snakes and various organs all preserved in formaldehyde, lined the walls. A freshly dissected worm lay spreadeagled on a piece of fibreboard.
‘Invited you here out of self-interest, you know,’ Rhys was telling them as they came into the room. ‘When you find a female I’d like to know about it. Now, if we look at this worm—’ he picked up a scalpel to use as a pointer ‘—you can see the cloaca here… And this — see? — is the penis. Or hemipenis, as it’s more properly called — or maybe less properly, but that’s what they call it anyway.’
‘Forked,’ Fran noticed, bending closely over it.
Rhys stood aside to let her study it. ‘You understand that they are not always forked in this type of reptile, but definitely in the case of sewer worms. And rattlesnakes, of course.’
‘Why hemipenis?’
‘They’ve two. Here’s the other one. And they use whichever is more convenient.’
Fran’s eyes twinkled as she looked up at Matt. ‘Jealous?’ she teased.
Rhys moved the microscope away from the bench to make room for a second board which he fetched across from another table. ‘I prepared this for you as well. It’s a slow-worm, quite different in every respect, but it’ll help you to recognize what to look for. This is a female. You see? But I’ve never come across a female sewer worm.’ He was quite emphatic. ‘One week I took two dozen out of the river, deliberately, and every single one was male.’
‘I tried to get in touch with Professor Jones—’ Matt began.
Rhys snorted again. ‘Jones is a nuts-and-bolts man. He’ll tell you all about how a reptile’s made, how it’s put together, but he doesn’t know them as creatures. I’m no herpetologist but I’ve thought it my duty to learn as much as I can in the last eighteen months. How do they fit in with the general scheme of life on this planet? That’s the important question. But then I’m one of those old-fashioned people, a natural philosopher. Not many of us about these days.’
He took them down to the far end of the garden to show them the spot on the river bank where Barker, the dog, had first come into contact with the worms. The air was hazy, softening the outlines of the bare branches; dead leaves, soggy from the rain, still covered the grass. Fran took Matt’s hand and snuggled up against him, shivering. ‘Isn’t he a darling!’ she whispered. ‘Oh, I’m so glad we came.’
There were no worms in the river now, Rhys explained, because it was too cold for them. Being cold-blooded creatures, sensitive to the temperature of their surroundings, they would either hibernate or find a warmer spot. If Matt really wanted to fish some out, there was a tributary stream not more than a mile away which received waste water from a factory on its banks with the result that its temperature was a good two or three degrees higher.
They went there in Matt’s car, scrambling over waste ground and through barbed wire to reach the water’s edge. Using his home made sieve-cum-scoop, Matt netted four at his first attempt. Then another three, then five very small ones, then one almost as long as his arm.
‘Who says they’re not breeding?’ Matt grinned as they drove back to the Old Rectory.