THE RASH
When Ralph returned home to London, it was obvious that in a very short time there would be no more concealment of the strange growths. They were swelling to prodigious sizes with a swiftness which was rendering secrecy impossible. Already two peppery gentlemen who had considered themselves favoured experimenters had discovered one another's rivalry and were indulging in wordy unpleasantness.
It could not be long before all twenty, and other yet undiscovered growers, would hear about it and join in the indignation. Dorothy's next letter, therefore, did not astonish him when it announced that the cats were out of the bag and the gardeners of the town of St. Brian were in full cry for one another's blood.
'When our fathers discovered that they were rivals,' she wrote, 'it was bad enough. But now there are more than a score of them tearing their hair and threatening legal proceedings. It isn't only in St. Brian, either. We've heard reports that hundreds of gardeners both in Cornwall and west Devon are growing the things.
'Ours is so big, too. It's over four feet in diameter now, and looks more evil than ever. I'm beginning to feel a bit afraid of it; I know that sounds silly, but it's the truth. I told Daddy the other day that there was something wicked about it and that I was sure it was never meant to grow in England, but he only laughed and said neither were potatoes. All the same, I think the balls are beastly things. I hear that some boys cut the stalk of one near Newquay and rolled it down the cliffs so that it burst. I'd like to do the same with ours, only I hate the idea of touching the thing—ugh!'
The earlier part of the letter caused Ralph some quiet smiles. He knew very well the temperament of the amateur gardener, with all its jealousies and enthusiasms, and the prospect of the warfare which must now be disturbing the community could give the unprejudiced onlooker no little amusement. But he grew more serious as he recalled the sickening appearance of those growths when they were only two feet in diameter; already they had swelled to four... .
Unreasoning as Dorothy's dislike of them might be, he found himself able to understand it and to sympathise with it. He was worried by the feeling, for he preferred reason to prejudice.
Nevertheless the matter was gradually slipping into the back of his mind until it was recalled a few days later by a paragraph tucked away at the foot of a newspaper column :
'Several cases are reported from Newquay, the well-known Cornish holiday resort, of an outbreak of rash which is puzzling the local doctors. It is thought that the condition may be consequent upon prolonged or injudicious exposure of the skin while sunbathing.'
For a moment he was puzzled to know when he had lately thought of Newquay; then he remembered that it was near there that the yellow ball had been pushed over the cliffs.
Dorothy's next letter informed him that a state of excitement was prevailing all over the West Country. The inhabitants, it appeared, had split into two schools of thought on the subject of the yellow balls.
The growers and their friends were noisily upholding their rights to grow what they liked on their own land, while the opposition, without apparent grounds for the statement, proclaimed that the things were unhealthy. They shared, Dorothy surmised, her revulsion against them. Some days before a minor riot of protest had taken place in Bodmin. In the course of it, three balls had been slashed open.
After he had finished the letter, Ralph turned to his newspaper and found information which brought wrinkles of speculation to his forehead.
The cases of rash at Newquay had become serious. One of the victims had died, and the others were in a precarious condition. It was, according to the correspondent, impossible to state definitely that the rash was the cause of death, but he evidently had more than suspicions.
Then followed the information that the same mysterious rash had made its appearance at Bodmin, coupled with an assurance that it could not, in the later cases, be in any way attributed to sunbathing.
Thoughtfully, Ralph withdrew his father's seed capsule from his pocket and regarded it.
'I may be a fool. It's probably just a coincidence, but it's worth investigating.' he told himself.
Before he sought his own office, he called in at the laboratory of a friend who worked in the bio-chemical department of Amalgamated Chemicals, Ltd.
Two days passed before he heard any result of the examination of the capsule. Then Arnold Jordan, the bio-chemist, entered his office just as he was finishing off for the day.
'You've tackled it?' asked Ralph.
Arnold nodded.
'Yes, I've tackled it. And I'm not sure whether I owe you a dinner for putting me on to it, or whether you owe me a dinner for putting in the devil of a lot of work. On the whole, I approve of the latter.'
'Oh, all right. You look as if some good food wouldn't do you any harm. Come on!'
It was not until the end of the dinner, over the coffee and cigarettes, that Arnold consented to discuss his conclusions. Then he began with an expostulation.
'I do think, old man, you might have given me a bit more warning about that beastly stuff you brought along.'
'Well, I told you I had an idea it was pretty noxious,' Ralph pointed out. 'But, after all, the reason I brought it at all was that I didn't know much about it.'
'Where did you get it?' asked Arnold curiously.
His manner shed its slight banter, and a look of seriousness crept into his eyes, as Ralph explained.
'Good God! You don't mean to say these things are being grown! What for?'
'Food—what else does one grow vegetables for?'
'But this is a fungus.'
'I thought it looked that way, but quite a lot of fungi are edible when they're cooked.'
Arnold failed to reply for some seconds; he seemed not to have heard and was staring fixedly into space. When he turned back Ralph was startled by the expression on his face.
'Do you know anything about fungi?'
'No,' replied Ralph promptly.
'Well, I'll be short about it, but I'll try to show you what this business means. First of all, there are two types of fungi. Either a fungus is a saprophyte and lives upon decaying matter, or else it is a parasite, in which case it exists upon living matter. As far as the saprophytes are concerned—well, you've eaten a good many in your time as mushrooms or cheese, or a hundred other ways; but the parasites are not so numerous—the kind which most frequently afflicts human beings is ringworm.
'Now this particular bit of evil which you kindly handed to me is neither one nor other of these forms; it is both. That is to say that it flourishes equally well on decay, or on living flesh. Do you see what I'm getting at?'
Ralph began to see.
'This thing,' Arnold continued, 'is not only a parasite, but a more vicious parasite than any known. All these growths you have told me of must be scotched—utterly wiped out and obliterated before they can become ripe. Once allowed to burst and scatter their spores―' He spread his hands expressively.
Ralph regarded him nervously. 'You're sure of this?'
Arnold nodded. 'Of the danger I am certain. About the plant itself I'm very puzzled. Obviously the spores were enclosed in a soluble capsule so that they might be planted and brought to fruit in safety.
'If your information is correct, the whole thing seems to be deliberate, and on a large scale. It is not merely a case of scattering a few spores to grow haphazard, but immense trouble has been taken to induce people to cultivate the fungi so that millions of spores will be spread.'
He paused, and added: 'It's up to us to try to stop this thing, old man. Somebody must, or it's God help thousands of miserable people!'
Ralph was silent. He remembered the mysterious rash at Newquay, and the similar outbreak at Bodmin. He recalled, too, the sight of that slimy, yellow ball in his father's garden, and his face was pale as he looked at the other.