Allingham got up and stood behind Gregg at the window. The latter
raised his head a little as though to catch any words that might float
across from the babel of excited voices opposite. But there was nothing
clearly distinguishable.
"You see," said Allingham, nodding his head and wiping his moustache
with a handkerchief, "let the thing work on your mind and you ally
yourself with these town gossips. They'll talk this affair into a nine
days wonder."
Gregg shrugged his shoulders in silence. Presently he looked at his
watch. "I wonder if Grey will be back soon." Grey was the local
inspector of police, in whose hands they had placed the business of
rounding up the Clockwork man. Allingham had loaned out his car for the
purpose.
"I doubt if we shall see him before midnight," said the latter. "Even
supposing he catches his man before dusk, which is unlikely, it will
take him another hour or so to drive to the Asylum."
Gregg failed to suppress an abrupt snigger. He lit a cigarette to
cover his confusion. Once more he envisaged that flying figure on
the horizon. "At the rate he was going," he remarked, steadily, "and
barring accidents, I should say he's reached London by now."
"There will be an accident," retorted Allingham. "Mark my words, he
won't get very far."
At that moment Mrs. Masters, the doctor's elderly housekeeper, entered
the room in order to clear away the tea things. She was a country
woman, given to talking without reserve, except when the doctor's eye
fell upon her, as it did upon this occasion. But for once she evaded
this check to her natural proclivities; she was not going to be cheated
out of her share in the local gossip. She placed the tray on the table
and made the visitor an excuse for her loquacity.
"Oh, Mr. Gregg, they say the Devil's come to Great Wymering at last.
I'm not surprised to 'ear it, for the goings on in this town 'ave been
something terrible since the war. What with the drinking and the young
people doing just as they like.
"Have you heard anything fresh?" enquired Gregg, pleasantly.
"Only about old Mr. Winchape," said Mrs. Masters, as she packed the tea
things. "He's seen the man that knocked the cricketers down with the
bat. That is, if he is a man, but they do say--"
"Where did Mr. Winchape see him?" broke in Allingham, abruptly.
"Along the path from Bapchurch, sir." Mrs. Masters moderated her manner
before the doctor's searching eye. "Poor old Mr. Winchape, he's not so
young as he was, and it did give him a turn. He says he was 'urrying
along so as to get 'ome in time for tea, and all of a sudden something
flashed by 'im, so quick that he 'ardly realised it. He looked round,
but it was gone in no time. He reckons it was the Old Man 'imself.
There was fire coming out of his mouth and 'is eyes was like two red
'ot coals--"
Allingham stamped his feet on the carpet. "I _will_ not listen to such
talk, Mrs. Masters! A woman of your age and supposed sense to lend ear
to such nonsense. I'm ashamed of you."
Mrs. Masters trembled a little under the rebuke, but she showed no sign
of repentance. "I'm only repeating what's said," she remarked. "An' for
all I know it might have been the Devil. It says in the Bible that he's
to be unbound for a thousand years, and I'm sure he might just as well
come here as elsewhere for a start. The place is wicked enough."
"Superstitious nonsense," snorted Allingham. And he continued to snort
at intervals while Mrs. Masters hastily collected cups and plates, and
retreated with dignity to the kitchen.
"Perhaps you agree with Mrs. Masters?" said Allingham, as soon as the
door was closed.
Gregg laughed and lowered himself into an easy chair. "Superstition,
after all, is a perfectly legitimate although rudimentary form of human
enquiry. These good people want to believe in the Devil. At the least
opportunity they evoke his satanic majesty. They are quite right.
They are simply using the only material in their minds in order to
investigate a mystery."
"A sort of glamour," suggested Allingham, trying to look bored.
"If you like," admitted Gregg, "only it does help them to understand,
just as all our scientific knowledge helps us to understand, the
future."
"Why drag in the future," said the other, opening his eyes quickly.
"Because," said Gregg, purposely adopting a monotonous drawl as though
to conceal his eagerness, "if my theory is correct, then I assume that
the Clockwork man comes from the future."
"It's a harmless enough assumption," laughed Allingham.
Gregg rested his head upon the back of the chair and puffed smoke out.
"We will pass over the circumstance of his abrupt appearance at the
top of the hill, for it is obvious that he might have come from one of
the neighbouring villages, although I don't think he did. You yourself
admit that his manner of approach was startling, and that it almost
seemed as though he had come from nowhere. But let that be. There are,
I admit, as yet few facts in support of my theory, but it is at least
significant that one of the first questions he asked should have been,
not _where_ he was but _when_ he was."
"I don't quite follow you," interjected Allingham.
"He asked Arthur Withers what year it was. Naturally, if he did come
from the future, his first anxiety would be to know into what period of
man's history he had, possibly by some accident, wandered."
"But how could he have come from the future?"
"Time," said Gregg, quickly, "is a relative thing. The future has
happened just as much as the past. It is happening at this moment."
"Oh, well, you may be right there," blustered Allingham, "I don't know.
I admit I'm not quite up to date in these abstruse speculations."
"I regard that statement of his as highly significant," resumed Gregg,
after a slight pause. "For, of course, if the Clockwork man really is,
as suggested, a semi-mechanical being, then he could only have come
from the future. So far as I am aware, the present has not yet evolved
sufficiently even to consider seriously the possibility of introducing
mechanical reinforcements into the human body, although there has been
tentative speculation on the subject. We are thousands of years away
from such a proposition; on the other hand, there is no reason why
it should not have already happened outside of our limited knowledge
of futurity. It has often occurred to me that the drift of scientific
progress is slowly but surely leading us in the direction of some
such solution of physiological difficulties. The human organism shows
signs of breaking down under the strain of an increasingly complex
civilisation. There may be a limit to our power of adaptability, and
in that case humanity will have to decide whether it will alter its
present mode of living or find instead some means of supplementing the
normal functions of the body. Perhaps that has, as I suggest, already
happened; it depends entirely upon which road humanity has taken. If
the mechanical side of civilisation has developed at its present rate,
I see no reason why the man of the future should not have found means
to ensure his efficiency by mechanical means applied to his natural
functions."
Gregg sat up in his chair and became more serious. Allingham fidgeted
without actually interrupting.
"Imagine an exceedingly complex kind of mechanism," Gregg resumed, "an
exaggeration of the many intricate types of modern machines in use
to-day. It would have to be something of a very delicate description,
and yet rather crude at first in its effect. One thinks of something
that would work accurately if in rather a limited sort of way. You see,
they would have to ensure success in some things at first even at the
sacrifice of a certain general awkwardness. It would be a question of
taking one thing at a time. Thus, when the Clockwork man came to play
cricket, all he could do was to hit the ball. We have to admit that
he did that efficiently enough, however futile were the rest of his
actions."
"Hot air," interrupted Allingham, reaching for his tobacco pouch,
"that's all this is."
"Oh, I won't admit that," rejoined Gregg, cheerfully, "we must
acknowledge that what we saw this afternoon was entirely abnormal. Even
when we were talking to him I had a strong feeling come over me that
our interrogator was not a normal human being. I don't mean simply his
behaviour. His clothes were an odd sort of colour and shape. And did
you notice his boots? Curious, dull-looking things. As though they were
made out of some kind of metal. And then, the hat and wig?"
"You're simply imagining all these things," said Allingham, hotly, as
he rammed tobacco into his pipe.
"I'm not. I really noticed them. Of course, I didn't attach much
importance to them at the time, but afterwards, when Arthur Withers
was telling his story, all that queer feeling about the strange figure
came back to me. It took possession of me. After all, suppose he _is_ a
clockwork man?"
"But what is a clockwork man?" demanded Allingham.
"Well, of course I can't explain that exactly, but the term so
obviously explains itself. Damn it, he _is_ a clockwork man. He walks,
talks, and behaves exactly like one would imagine--"
"Imagine!" burst out Allingham. "Yes, you can _imagine_ such a thing.
But you are trying to prove to me that this creature is something that
doesn't and can't exist outside your imagination. It won't wash."
"But you agree," said Gregg, unperturbed, "that it might be possible in
the future?"
"Oh, well, everything is possible, if you look at it in that light,"
grudgingly admitted the other.
"Then all we have to do is to prove that the future is involved. Our
lunatic must convince us that he is not of our age, that he has, in
fact, and probably by mechanical means, found his way back to an age of
flesh and blood. So far, we are agreed, for I willingly side with you
in your opinion that the Clockwork man could not exist in the present;
while I am open to be convinced that he is a quite credible invention
of the remote future."
He broke off, for at that moment a car drew up in front of the window,
and the burly form of Inspector Grey stepped down in company with two
constables and a lad of about fifteen, whom both Gregg and the doctor
recognised as an inhabitant of the neighbouring village of Bapchurch.