Basil’s gaze shifted. “Mrs. Albany?”
“Isn’t it just barely conceivable that it was not a foreign power that sent these things but somebody on another planet, Mars or Saturn? Anders, you told me that since radar was invented they’ve been able to pick up noises that come from outside the earth’s atmosphere. Poor old Pythagoras was right. There is a music of the spheres, only it’s modern music — just noise. Didn’t they use to believe there was something between the stars that would carry light, but not sound? Something they decided to call ether? I don’t know whether you need air for sound to travel through or not, but if you do — why, then there’s air between us and the other stars and anything that can go through air might come here from another planet — even radio-guided missiles!”
Basil turned to Kurt. “Your explanation?”
“Father’s probably right about radio-guided missiles but aren’t we the only country that knows enough to experiment with atomic fission on a big scale right now? Why drag in Mars or a foreign power? I say this thing was a secret experiment of our own technicians that got out of hand. They didn’t expect anyone to die. They’re sorry as hell, but — there’s nothing they can do now. So they’re keeping mum and minimizing the Singing Diamonds as ‘mass hysteria.’ It was a military experiment because—”
Basil interrupted. “Dr. Radanine?”
Again that flippant brow arched in quizzical disagreement. “You’ve all forgotten one thing. None of these missiles landed anywhere. No explosions, no fragments. A missile has to land. The law of gravity is still operating, I believe. Singing Diamonds were supposed to have crashed near Dr. Amherst’s home. Dr. Willing tells us nothing was found there or near the wreckage of Sanders’ plane after he sent that radio-telephone message about Singing Diamonds.”
She took out a cigarette case. Basil was the first to provide a light. “Thank you.” Her crystal beads winked in the brief flame. “All three of you chose the same explanation,” she went on. “The objective explanation. You take into consideration such things as velocity, flying formation, sidereal noises picked up by radar, even the political situation! That is natural, scientific, and American. It is also silly.
“Dr. Willing, you laughed at my phrase ‘consistent structuration of the external stimulus world.’ It may be clumsy but it is true. When T. E. Lawrence made a plain sketch of an Arab chieftain, not one of his men could recognize him. Only one ventured an opinion and he said the foot might be a fig-tree. Mohammedans have lost all pictorial sense because Mohamet forebade pictures long ago. In other words, nine-tenths of your so-called reality is confected by your own eyes and your own brain. Occasionally they confect things that aren’t there at all. That is called hallucination. It can be collective. Years ago everyone in a whole village of illiterate Russian peasants believed he was smelling roses in winter, when there were no roses. You see?
“Therefore I suggest the subjective explanation — malobservation abetted by imagination. If you look fixedly at the sky about a mile away you see objects in the air — usually dots or circles. They are supposed to be red corpuscles passing across the retina. That is enough stimulus for an active imagination fed on newspaper stories of Singing Diamonds. Since asthma is an allergy, a symptom of an unstable nervous system, it may be asthmatics are more susceptible to this sort of thing than others. The first witness saw the spots as diamonds because diamonds had some subconscious association for him. Once that case was published the others would see the same thing — unconscious mimicry, like the homicidal maniac who imitates the murder method of another case just reported in the press. Shock and fear might account for the two plane accidents. The others died because their asthma was severe enough to affect the heart in a state of shock.”
“Very neat, Dr. Radanine,” said Basil. “I am glad someone else brought up the subjective explanation. But you’ve forgotten three points I consider vital — the candied ginger, the fact that not Sanders but his fiancée had asthma, and the fact that MacDonald, the first witness, estimated the speed of the Singing Diamonds at 621 miles an hour.”
Mathilde’s hands were busy with the coffee service which the maid had just brought. “Your explanation, Dr. Willing?”
“I propose an experiment,” he answered. “I propose to arrange things so that every one of us shall see and hear Singing Diamonds in a few moments.”
Basil strolled across the lawn to the spot where weeds from the vacant lot had infiltrated the shrubbery. He plucked two flowers and came back to the coffee table. Every eye was on him as he stripped a trumpet flower of white petals down to a sort of pod and took out the seeds.
“What an unpleasant odor!” said Clare, fastidiously.
“The taste is not so noticeable in coffee.” His tone was casual. “Or in candied ginger.”
Clare gasped. “Are you going to put seeds in our coffee?”
“Why not? Mrs. Verworn, will you be good enough to pour?”
Mathilde’s hand shook as she lifted the silver pot, but she obeyed. The wondering maid was well-trained. She passed the cups without a word.
Tamara turned to Basil. “I am not a botanist. What is this?”
“Jimson weed. A corruption of Jamestown weed. Years ago little country boys were paid to collect it by patent-medicine firms.”
Kurt leaned toward him. “Then Tamara was right? The thing is subjective, hallucination induced by a drug in the candied ginger? But who chose Ching Fu, MacDonald, Flaherty, Sanders, Mrs. Kuzak, and my stepmother? Why was it done? And how? No drug will produce the same hallucination in various people!”
“Sure?” Basil looked at him. “Why not drink and find out?”
Anders spoke hoarsely. “Dr. Willing, have you forgotten these other people... died?”
“I have not forgotten.” Basil met his gaze levelly. “Mrs. Albany, why are you hesitating?”
Clare Albany’s dark eyes burned as she lifted the cup to her lips.
“Clare!” Anders’ arm shot out, dashing the cup to the ground. It struck a leg of the metal table, and sang as it splintered. Clare gasped as the hot coffee stung her knee.
Anders stood over Basil, eyes blind with rage. “You devil! How did you know?” Anders crouched, clasping Clare’s hands as they lay in her scalded lap. “When it’s all over, Clare, I want you to remember: I did it for you. That horrible old woman wouldn’t let me go. I married her when I was young, inexperienced. She took over my whole life, managing me — ‘mothering’ me, she called it. When she let herself get old and fat and stupid, she held me by appealing to my pity and gratitude — the shabbiest weapons a woman can use. I couldn’t divorce her. She had tricked me into putting my money in her name long ago. Another way of chaining me if ever pity and gratitude should fail — as they did when I met you. I had to smash that cup. I couldn’t take the chance that Willing seemed ready to take — the chance that it was not a lethal dose...”
Clare Albany was sobbing. Mathilde sat still as a dead woman.
Later that evening Basil talked to Kurt Verworn and Tamara Radanine.
“Suppose you wish to kill someone, but your motive is so obvious that if your victim dies mysteriously you are sure to be suspected. You can’t risk buying poison. Jimson weed grows in your backyard. As stramonium, it is burned and inhaled by asthmatics. Your victim is asthmatic, so stramonium in her body would not excite suspicion. But unfortunately it is notorious for causing hallucinations and that might rouse suspicion. As datura, it is used traditionally by faithless Hindu wives who give it to husbands, then entertain lovers before their eyes. The husband waking in a dazed state from hallucinations more vivid than any induced by opium has no idea what he saw or didn’t see. You feel sure a death preceded by hallucinations will be suspect.