“I'll give you the report just as we had it,” I told him, and proceeded to do so. When I reached a description of the turtle-like creatures he looked somewhat relieved.
“Oh, so that's what happened to them,” he said.
“Ah!” cried Alfred, his voice going up into a squeak with excitement. “So you admit it! You admit that you are responsible for those two unhappy creatures!”
Dixon looked at him, wonderingly.
“I was responsible for them — but I didn't know they were unhappy: how did you?”
Alfred disregarded the question.
“That's what we want,” he squeaked. “He admits that he—”
“Alfred,” I told him coldly. “Do be quiet, and stop dancing about. Let me get on with it.”
I got on with it for a few more sentences, but Alfred was building up too much pressure to hold. He cut right in:
“Where — where did you get the arms? Just tell me where they came from?” he demanded, with deadly meaning.
“Your friend seems a little over — er, a little dramatic,” remarked Doctor Dixon.
“Look, Alfred,” I said severely, “just let me get finished, will you? You can introduce your note of ghoulery later on.”
When I ended, it was with an excuse that seemed necessary. I said to Dixon: “I'm sorry to intrude on you with all this, but you see how we stand. When supported allegations are laid before us, we have no choice but to investigate. Obviously this is something quite out of the usual run, but I'm sure you'll be able to clear it up satisfactorily for us. And now, Alfred,” I added, turning to him, “I believe you have a question or two to ask, but do try to remember that our host's name is Dixon, and not Moreau.”
Alfred leapt, as from a slipped leash.
“What I want to know is the meaning, the reason and the method of these outrages against nature. I demand to be told by what right this man considers himself justified in turning normal creatures into unnatural mockeries of natural forms.”
Doctor Dixon nodded gently.
“A comprehensive inquiry — though not too comprehensibly expressed,” he said. “I deplore the loose, recurrent use of the word ‘nature’ — and would point out that the word ‘unnatural’ is a vulgarism which does not even make sense. Obviously, if a thing has been done at all it was in someone's nature to do it, and in the nature of the material to accept whatever was done. One can act only within the limits of one's nature: that is an axiom.”
“A lot of hairsplitting isn't going to —” began Alfred, but Dixon continued smoothly:
“Nevertheless, I think I understand you to mean that my nature has prompted me to use certain material in a manner which your prejudices do not approve. Would that be right?”
“There may be lots of ways of putting it, but I call it vivisection — vivisection!” said Alfred, relishing the word like a good curse. “You may have a licence. But there have been things going on here that will require a very convincing explanation indeed to stop us taking the matter to the police.'
Doctor Dixon nodded.
“I rather thought you might have some such idea: and I'd prefer you did not. Before long, the whole thing will be announced by me, and become public knowledge. Meanwhile, I want at least two, possibly three, months to get my findings ready for publication. When I have explained, I think you will understand my position better.”
He paused, thoughtfully eyeing Alfred who did not look like a man intending to understand anything. He went on:
“The crux of this is that I have not, as you are suspecting, either grafted, or readjusted, nor in any way distorted living forms. I have built them.”
For a moment, neither of us grasped the significance of that — though Alfred thought he had it.
“Ha! You can quibble,” he said, “but there had to be a basis. You must have had some kind of living animal to start with — and one which you wickedly mutilated to produce these horrors.”
But Dixon shook his head.
“No, I mean what I said. I have built — and then I have induced a kind of life into what I have built.”
We gaped. I said, uncertainly: “Are you really claiming that you can create a living creature?”
“Pooh!” he said. “Of course I can, so can you. Even Alfred here can do that, with the help of a female of the species. What I am telling you is that I can animate the inert because I have found how to induce the — or, at any rate, a — life-force.”
The lengthy pause that followed that was broken at last by Alfred.
“I don't believe it,” he said, loudly. “It isn't possible that you, here in this one-eyed village, should have solved the mystery of life. You're just trying to hoax us because you're afraid of what we shall do.”
Dixon smiled calmly.
“I said that I had found a life-force. There may be dozens of other kinds for all I know. I can understand that it's difficult for you to believe; but, after all, why not? Someone was bound to find one of them somewhere sooner or later. What's more surprising to me is that this one wasn't discovered before.”
But Alfred was not to be soothed.
“I don't believe it,” he repeated. “Nor will anybody else unless you produce proofs — if you can.”
“Of course,” agreed Dixon. “Who would take it on trust? Though I'm afraid that when you examine my present specimens you may find the construction a little crude at first. Your friend, Nature, puts in such a lot of unnecessary work that can be simplified out.”
“Of course, in the matter of arms, that seems to worry you so much, if I could have obtained real arms immediately after the death of the owner I might have been able to use them — I'm not sure whether it wouldn't have been more trouble though. However, such things are not usually handy, and the building of simplified parts is not really difficult — a mixture of engineering, chemistry and common sense. Indeed, it has been quite possible for some time, but without the means of animating them it was scarcely worth doing. One day they may be made finely enough to replace a lost limb, but a very complicated technique will have to be evolved before that can be done.”
“As for your suspicion that my specimens suffer, Mr. Weston, I assure you that they are coddled — they have cost me a great deal of money and work. And, in any case, it would be difficult for you to prosecute me for cruelty to an animal hitherto unheard of, with habits unknown.”
“I am not convinced,” said Alfred, stoutly.
The poor fellow was, I think, too upset by the threat to his theory for the true magnitude of Dixon's claim to reach him.
“Then, perhaps a demonstration...?” Dixon suggested. “If you will follow me...”
Bill's peeping exploit had prepared us for the sight of the steel-barred cages in the laboratory, but not for many of the other things we found there — one of them was the smell.
Doctor Dixon apologized as we choked and gasped:
“I forgot to warn you about the preservatives.”
“It's reassuring to know that that's all they are,” I said, between coughs.
The room must have been getting on for a hundred feet in length, and about thirty high. Bill had certainly seen precious little through his chink in the curtain, and I stared in amazement at the quantities of apparatus gathered there. There was a rough division into sections: chemistry in one corner, bench and lathes in another, electrical apparatus grouped at one end and so on. In one of several bays stood an operating table, with cases of instruments to hand;