William Withers for his part had set up the props. He wore his heaviest horn-rimmed spectacles and a formal suit which he kept at the villa for the very rare occasions he needed it. Since he was going to play the establishment scientist, it was proper to look like a Greek’s idea of one, not the husband of an unpopular woman on what amounted to his forty-fourth honeymoon.
He greeted the inspector courteously, but wasted no time on spies or his wife.
“Come into the garden, please.”
It was polite, but it had the ring of authority. The inspector was surprised but went with him. There was something about this solemn Englishman, the authentic aura of serious business. William Withers walked to a bush of hibiscus.
“I'd like you to look at that very carefully.”
“A fine plant,” the inspector said. He was puzzled. This wasn’t working out his way. No apologies, no pleading, no bribes. He could have dealt with all three but not a lesson in gardening.
“I said carefully,” Sir William said. Making his point, he turned a leaf. He had put on rubber gloves before doing so. On the back was a blob of viscous stain. The inspector touched it.
“Don’t do that” The voice had been sharp with an urgent warning.
“What is it then?”
“It’s KD-27, I fear.” William Withers was modestly proud of that; he’d invented it as he’d been changing his clothes.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a killer.”
“You mean it could kill me?” He had noticed the gloves.
“Improbable, but it’s still a killer, so it’s very unwise to risk spreading it carelessly. It kills plants and trees and crops, not men.” Withers waved at the smiling slopes below them. “In a month all that will be screaming desert.”
The inspector was silent, thinking hard, for he knew where Sir William worked and at what. He hadn’t believed him yet but was doubting. William Withers began to drive the doubt home. He did it smoothly and with increasing confidence, for he had taken the inspector’s measure. This man had some formal education, and men with a formal education which was also not one in the world of science were more vulnerable to mumbo jumbo than the most ignorant peasant with no schooling at all.
“This disease does not occur in nature. It has to be induced by chemicals.”
The inspector went up like a premature rocket. “That Zekky! I’ll make him pay with his life.”
Sir William Withers spread his gloved hands. “I# cannot pretend to understand it.” He sounded sincere and solemn — behind these scared; he’d been an amateur actor of notable competence. “This blight is produced by a deadly defloriant. The Americans used it a lot in Vietnam.”
“Christ,” the inspector said. He crossed himself. He did it right to left. He was Orthodox.
“But you must not misunderstand me, inspector. To produce a defloriant useful in war you need laboratories, biochemicals, breeders — the sort of secret and sinister setup where I work myself at my own shameful trade.”
“Then this has nothing to do with Zekky’s foolishness?”
“I did not say that. I cannot say it.”
The inspector was very severely shaken. “Then what are you trying to tell me, please?”
“I am telling you what any good scientist would. The first rule of science is nonomniscience. If you’d asked me if it was possible to produce an utterly deadly defloriant from a mixture of tins of commercial insecticides, I’d have said that no man had so far done so and offered you odds of ten thousand to one. But I’ve sufficient scientific discipline never to use the word impossible.”
The inspector sat down on a wooden bench. He looked at the land below him. He wept.
Sir William lit a cigarette. He smoked seldom and only out of doors. Agnes hated it and, as he’d said, he had discipline. When the inspector had finished crying, he gaffed him.
“No antidote, alas, is known.” It was a statement, but held a note of uncertainty. The inspector caught it.
“None whatever?”
“I use words with precision. I said ‘known,’ not ‘exists.’ ”
The inspector raised his hands in a sort of prayer. “In the name of God, of His Mother, the Saints…
William Withers exhaled his smoke deliberately. “You put me in an appalling dilemma. Naturally if one finds such a thing, it’s a secret of the utmost importance. I’d be in breach of a dozen regulations to say nothing of my professional conscience if I even considered unauthorised use of it. Nevertheless…”
He broke off; he was pacing it.
“Please,” the inspector said. “I beg of you. I beg you in the name of my people.”
“With whom my wife has lived in amity.” He knew that she hadn’t, but that wasn’t the point. “She and her servants, one of them senile.” He was too clever to state his terms and humiliate.
Nor did he need to. “I quite understand, sir.”
“Then I’ll telephone to England at once and enough will be on a flight tomorrow. You dissolve it in water and spray from an aircraft. Of course there may be procedural difficulties. I told you this was highly secret so it cannot travel alone, without escort. And it will probably be a commercial flight so the escort will have to be armed as well.”
Young Watson would do it, he thought, and love it. It was exactly the sort of black joke he enjoyed.
“There’ll be no trouble at the airport. None.”
“Good.” They shook hands. “I wish you well. And I hardly need stress the need for secrecy.”
He went back into the house and to Agnes. “Zekky will be out quite soon. Don’t pester him, just let him potter. And I don’t think you’ll hear any more about spying.”
She opened her mouth but shut it quickly. He had used that voice an hour ago, and she knew what it meant. It meant No Questions.
He woke her in the night with laughter. For of course they wouldn’t play fair, they were Greeks. They’d spray the stuff in a tearing hurry, some concoction of harmless household chemicals, but it was supposed to be a Great State Secret and there was money in any sort of secret. So sooner or later they’d have some analysed…
He laughed again, for it wouldn’t matter. In his work he needed the best information, and from the latest he thought the Turks were coming. A week or maybe ten days at the most.
When Agnes would do something silly. She’d run up the Turkish flag and join them; she might even ask for arms to fight When they’d promptly lock her up as a nuisance.
Sir William Withers rolled over contentedly. She’d get out all right — he could fix all that — but a week in a Turkish cell might sober her.
Or maybe it wouldn’t. He reversed his position. Living the way they did they were happy.
William Haggard
Commentary on Timeo Danaos
This story was written after a holiday in Cyprus which produced more shock than pleasure. I knew that the Turks were in a minority but did not know that they were treated as helots in an island which had once been part of their own proud empire. Every Greek I met was uneasily proclaiming that Turkey would never dare intervene. To me it seemed obvious that she would; and she did.
It is a pleasure to recall that the State Department for once got it dead right. It issued a cool little statement deploring the use of American-donated weapons in a private war and thereafter did nothing that mattered. The British were even cooler. It is at least arguable that they were treaty-bound to go to war with Turkey, but they sat on their hands and stared out of the window. Both were exercises in classic realpolitik.