H. Wells - The Greatest Sci-Fi Works of H. G. Wells

I was very much impressed by the elaborate secrecy of these two men regarding the contents of the place, and for some time I was thinking of that, and of the unaccountable familiarity of the name of Moreau. But so odd is the human memory, that I could not then recall that well-known name in its proper connection. From that my thoughts went to the indefinable queerness of the deformed and white-swathed man on the beach. I never saw such a gait, such odd motions, as he pulled at the box. I recalled that none of these men had spoken to me, though most of them I had found looking at me at one time or another in a peculiar furtive manner, quite unlike the frank stare of your unsophisticated savage. I wondered what language they spoke. They had all seemed remarkably taciturn, and when they did speak, endowed with very uncanny voices. What was wrong with them? Then I recalled the eyes of Montgomery’s ungainly attendant.

Just as I was thinking of him, he came in. He was now dressed in white, and carried a little tray with some coffee and boiled vegetables thereon. I could hardly repress a shuddering recoil as he came, bending amiably, and placed the tray before me on the table.

Then astonishment paralysed me. Under his stringy black locks I saw his ear! It jumped upon me suddenly, close to my face. The man had pointed ears, covered with a fine fur!

`Your breakfast, sair,’ he said. I stared at his face without attempting to answer him. He turned and went towards the door, regarding me oddly over his shoulder.

I followed him out with my eyes, and as I did so, by some trick of unconscious cerebration, there came surging into my head the phrase: `The Moreau-Hollows’ was it? `The Moreau — ‘ Ah! it sent my memory back ten years. `The Moreau Horrors.’ The phrase drifted loose in my mind for a moment, and then I saw it in red lettering on a little buff-coloured pamphlet, that to read made one shiver and creep. Then I remembered distinctly all about it. That long-forgotten pamphlet came back with startling vividness to my mind. I had been a mere lad then, and Moreau was, I suppose, about fifty; a prominent and masterful physiologist, well known in scientific circles for his extraordinary imagination and his brutal directness in discussion. Was this the same Moreau? He had published some very astonishing facts in connection with the transfusion of blood, and, in addition, was known to be doing valuable work on morbid growths. Then suddenly his career was closed. He had to leave England. A journalist obtained access to his laboratory in the capacity of laboratory assistant, with the deliberate intention of making sensational exposures; and by the help of a shocking accident — if it was an accident — his gruesome pamphlet became notorious. On the day of its publication, a wretched dog, flayed and otherwise mutilated, escaped from Moreau’s house.

It was in the silly season, and a prominent editor, a cousin of the temporary laboratory assistant, appealed to the conscience of the nation. It was not the first time that conscience has turned against the methods of research. The doctor was simply howled out of the country. It may be he deserved to be, but I still think the tepid support of his fellow-investigators and his desertion by the great body of scientific workers, was a shameful thing. Yet some of his experiments, by the journalist’s account, were wantonly cruel. He might perhaps have purchased his social peace by abandoning his investigations, but he apparently preferred the latter, as most men would have once fallen under the overmastering spell of research. He was unmarried, and had indeed nothing but his own interests to consider.

I felt convinced that this must be the same man. Everything pointed to it. It dawned upon me to what end the puma and the other animals, which had now been brought with other luggage into the enclosure behind the house, were destined; and a curious faint odour, the halitus of something familiar, an odour that had been in the background of my consciousness hitherto, suddenly came forward into the forefront of my thoughts. It was the antiseptic odour of the operating-room. I heard the puma growling through the wall, and one of the dogs yelped as though it had been struck.

Yet surely, and especially to another scientific man, there was nothing so horrible in vivisection as to account for this secrecy. And by some odd leap in my thoughts the pointed ears and luminous eyes of Montgomery’s attendant came back again before me with the sharpest definition. I stared before me out at the green sea, frothing under a freshening breeze, and let these and other strange memories of the last few days chase each other through my mind.

What could it mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island, a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?…

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Montgomery interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion about one, and his grotesque attendant followed him with a tray bearing bread, some herbs, and other eatables, a flask of whisky, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives. I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching me with his queer restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work to come.

`Moreau!’ said I; `I know that name.’

`The devil you do!’ said he. `What an ass I was to mention it to you. I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inkling of our — mysteries. Whisky?’

`No thanks — I’m an abstainer.

`I wish I’d been. But it’s no use locking the door after the steed is stolen. It was that infernal stuff led to my coming here. That and a foggy night. I thought myself in luck at the time when Moreau offered to get me off. It’s queer.

`Montgomery,’ said I suddenly, as the outer door closed; `why has your man pointed ears?’

`Damn!’ he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at me for a moment, and then repeated: `Pointed ears?’

`Little points to them,’ said I, as calmly as possible, with a catch in my breath; `and a fine brown fur at the edges.’

He helped himself to whisky and water with great deliberation. `I was under the impression … that his hair covered his ears.’

`I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to me on the table. And his eyes shine in the dark.’

By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question. `I always thought,’ he said deliberately, with a certain accentuation of his flavouring of lisp; `that there was something the matter with his ears. From the way he covered them…. What were they like?’

I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence. Still I could hardly tell the man I thought him a liar. `Pointed,’ I said; `rather small and furry — distinctly furry. But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever set eyes on.’

A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us. Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.

`Yes!’ he said.

`Where did you pick the creature up?’

`Er — San Francisco…. He’s an ugly brute, I admit. Halfwitted, you know. Can’t remember where he came from. But I’m used to him, you know. We both are. How does he strike you?’

`He’s unnatural,’ I said. `There’s something about him…. Don’t think me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation, a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It’s a touch… of the diabolical, in fact.’

Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. `Rum,’ he said. `I can’t see it.’

He resumed his meal. `I had no idea of it,’ he said, and masticated. `The crew of the schooner… must have felt it the same…. Made a dead set at the poor devil…. You saw the captain?’