With no spiritual indigestion troubling him, Mr. James Chase, late of
the _New York Chanticleer_, now of the _Morning Telephone_, lighted a
cigarette at the corner of Harley Street. The night was young and there
was plenty of time for him to mature his plans. He had got what he
called an "almighty scoop" in his pocket, indeed in the whole history
of yellow journalism he could remember no greater. London dried up
like a withered sponge and absolutely devoid of water! London with the
liquid plague bursting from every subterranean pipe and fountain! The
whirling headlines were revolving in Chase's close-cropped head.
He reached the offices of the _Telephone_ at length and crawled up
a dingy flight of stairs. Without knocking he passed the barrier
of a door marked "strictly private." The controlling genius of the
_Telephone_ sat limp and bereft of coat and vest. His greeting of Chase
was not burdened with flattering politeness. He merely asked what the
blazes he wanted. Chase nodded sweetly and drew a large sheet of paper
before him. After a little thought he dashed in half-a-dozen vigorous
lines with a blue pencil.
"Things pretty slack lately," he remarked amicably. "So hot that even
the East End can't rise to its weekly brutal murder. Still you get on
to a pearl sometimes. Grady, my boy, what do you think of that for a
contents bill?"
He held the white sheet aloft so that the flare of the gas should fall
upon it. The tired look faded from Grady's eyes; he sat up alert and
vigorous. Here was the tonic that his fretted soul craved for.
"Chapter and Verse?" he said, speaking fast as if he had run far.
[Illustration: "I overheard a conversation between him and Doctor
Langdale."]
"Got it all from Derbyshire," Chase replied. "I overheard a
conversation between him and Doctor Longdale in his own house. Also I
managed to get hold of some notes to copy."
"It wants pluck," Grady remarked, "A scare like that might ruin the
Empire; if----"
"None of that," Chase cut in. "Take it or leave it. If you haven't got
the grit, Sutton of the _Flashlight_ will jump at the chance."
He held the contents bill up to the light again and Grady nodded.
He was going to do this thing deliberately, once he was sure of his
ground. He remarked cynically that it sounded like a fairy story.
"Not a bit of it," Chase, said briskly. "The plague breaks out on this
barque and the crew know it. There's no ceremony with sailors of that
class. They just lose their vessel and strike for the nearest land.
Knowing something of our quarantine laws they make themselves scarce as
soon as they can. A local doctor calls the plague English cholera, too
much bad fruit in very hot weather, and there you are."
Grady nodded again. The sweltering heat of the place no longer affected
him. Down below the presses were already beginning to clang and boom.
There was a constant clatter of feet along the passages.
"Sit down right away," Grady snapped. "Make two columns of it. I'll get
some statistics out for you."
Chase peeled off his coat and got to work at once. Grady found the book
he required and proceeded to compile his facts therefrom.
The further he dived into the volume the more terribly grave the
situation appeared.
The upper waters of the Thames were poisoned beyond doubt. And the
Thames for some time past had been little better than a stagnant ditch
under a fiery sun. Let that water only find its way into the pipes
under London and who could forecast the magnitude of the disaster?
Nearly all London derived its supply from the Thames.
So far as Grady could see from a swift examination of Dr. Richard
Siskey's valuable book, there were only two London water companies did
not derive their stock from the Thames--the New River Company with
its 40,000,000 gallons per diem, and the Kent Company with 20,000,000
gallons a day were the favoured ones.
But what of the other six sources of supply? Chelsea, East London, West
Middlesex, Grand Junction, Southwark, and Vauxhall and Lambeth were
all dependent upon the Thames. Some 250,000,000 gallons of water daily
were a matter of necessity for the areas supplied by the above-named
companies. Fancy that liquid poison flowing like a flood into the Fast
End from Limehouse to West Ham, and from Bow to Walthamstow, and nobody
dreaming of the hideous danger! Why, the Great Plague of London would
be nothing to it.
And the West End would be no better off. From Sunbury to Mayfair those
connected with the Grand Junction supply would suffer. So far as London
proper was concerned, only those fortunate ones who were joined to the
New River mains would be exempt from peril, and, even then, what chance
has a sanitary area surrounded by pestilent districts? If it were not
already too late, the only chance was to cut off the contaminated
water supply, and then leave four-fifths of the population of London
absolutely without water under a heat that seemed to deprive one of
vital power.
The further Grady read on the more he was impressed. If he could get
this dread information into the hands of the people before it was
too late, he felt that he would be playing the part of a benefactor.
Desperate as the situation looked, the _Telephone_ might yet save it.
Professor Darbyshire had no right to hold up such a secret when he
should have been taking measures to avert the threatened danger. It
never occurred to Grady that Darbyshire had had this calamity before
his eyes for years, and that his genius had found a way to nullify the
evil.
"The figures are pretty bad," Grady muttered. "Upon my word, it makes
me creepy to think about it. Got your stuff ready? Want anything?"
"Anything in the way of food, you mean?" Chase asked.
"That's it. No? So much the better; because when that copy goes
upstairs not a soul leaves the premises till the paper has gone to bed."
An hour later the presses were roaring: presently huge parcels of damp
sheets were vomited into the street. Under the glare of the arc lamps
perspiring porters ghostly blue and spectral vans waited. The whole
street was busy with the hum of high noon. And all the while, a little
way beyond the radius of purple arcs, London slept....
London awoke presently and prepared for the day's work. There was no
sign of fear or panic yet. A copy of the _Telephone_ lay on a hundred
thousand odd breakfast tables, news in tabloid form for busy men to
read. As the sheets were more or less carelessly opened the eye was
arrested by the scare heads on page 5. Nothing else seemed to be
visible:--