The Perfect Creature
John Wyndham
THE first thing I knew of the Dixon affair was when a deputation came from the village of Membury to ask us if we would investigate the alleged curious goings-on there.
But before that, perhaps, I had better explain the word ‘us’.
I happen to hold a post as Inspector for the S.S.M.A. — in full, the Society for the Suppression of the Maltreatment of Animals — in the district that includes Membury. Now, please don't assume that I am wobble-minded on the subject of animals. I needed a job. A friend of mine who has influence with the Society got it for me; and I do it, I think, conscientiously. As for the animals themselves, well, as with humans, I like some of them. In that, I differ from my co-Inspector, Alfred Weston; he likes — liked? — them all; on principle, and indiscriminately.
It could be that, at the salaries they pay, the S.S.M.A. has doubts of its personnel — though there is the point that where legal action is to be taken two witnesses are desirable; but, whatever the reason, there is a practice of appointing their inspectors as pairs to each district; one result of which was my daily and close association with Alfred.
Now, one might describe Alfred as the animal-lover par excellence. Between him and all animals there was complete affinity — at least, on Alfred's side. It wasn't his fault if the animals didn't quite understand it; he tried hard enough. The very thought of four feet or feathers seemed to do something to him. He cherished them one and all, and was apt to talk of them, and to them, as if they were his dear, dear friends temporarily embarrassed by a diminished I.Q.
Alfred himself was a well-built man, though not tall, who peered through heavily-rimmed glasses with an earnestness that seldom lightened. The difference between us was that while I was doing a job, he was following a vocation — pursuing it wholeheartedly, and with a powerful imagination to energize him.
It didn't make him a restful companion. Under the powerful magnifier of Alfred's imagination the commonplace became lurid. At a run-of-the-mill allegation of horse-thrashing, phrases about fiends, barbarians and brutes in human form would leap into his mind with such vividness that he would be bitterly disappointed when we discovered, as we invariably did, (a) that the thing had been much exaggerated, anyway, and (b) that the perpetrator had either had a drink too many, or briefly lost his temper.
It so happened that we were in the office together on the morning that the Membury deputation arrived. They were a more numerous body than we usually received, and as they filed in I could see Alfred's eyes begin to widen in anticipation of something really good — or horrific, depending on which way you were looking at it. Even I felt that this ought to produce something a cut above cans tied to cats' tails, and that kind of thing.
Our premonitions turned out rightly. There was a certain confusion in the telling, but when we had it sorted out, it seemed to amount to this:
Early the previous morning, one Tim Darrell, while engaged in his usual task of taking the milk to the station, had encountered a phenomenon in the village street. The sight had so surprised him that while stamping on his brakes he had let out a yell which brought the whole place to its windows or doors. The men had gaped, and most of the women had set up screaming when they, too, saw the pair of creatures that were standing in the middle of their street.
The best picture of these creatures that we could get out of our visitors suggested that they must have looked more like turtles than anything else — though a very improbable kind of turtle that walked upright upon its hind legs.
The overall height of the apparitions would seem to have been about five foot six. Their bodies were covered with oval carapaces, not only at the back, but in front, too. The heads were about the size of normal human heads, but without hair, and having a horny-looking surface. Their large, bright black eyes were set above a hard, shiny projection, debatably a beak or a nose.
But this description, while unlikely enough, did not cover the most troublesome characteristic — and the one upon which all were agreed despite other variations. This was that from the ridges at the sides, where the back and front carapaces joined, there protruded, some two-thirds of the way up, a pair of human arms and hands!
Well, about that point I suggested what anyone else would: that it was a hoax, a couple of fellows dressed up for a scare.
The deputation was indignant. For one thing, it convincingly said, no one was going to keep up that kind of hoax in the face of gunfire — which was what old Halliday who kept the saddler's had give them. He had let them have half a dozen rounds out of twelve-bore; it hadn't worried them a bit, and the pellets had just bounced off.
But when people had got around to emerging cautiously from their doors to take a closer look, they had seemed upset. They had squawked harshly at one another, and then set off down the street at a kind of waddling run. Half the village, feeling braver now, had followed them. The creatures had not seemed to have an idea of where they were going, and had run out over Baker's Marsh. There they had soon struck one of the soft spots, and finally they had sunk out of sight into it, with a great deal of floundering and squawking.
The village, after talking it over, had decided to come to us rather than to the police. It was well meant, no doubt, but, as I said:
“I really don't see what you can expect us to do if the creatures have vanished without trace.”
“Moreover,” put in Alfred, never strong on tact, “it sounds to ine that we should have to report that the villagers of Membury simply hounded these unfortunate creatures — whatever they were — to their deaths, and made no attempt to save them.”
They looked somewhat offended at that, but it turned out that they had not finished. The tracks of the creatures had been followed back as far as possible, and the consensus was that they could not have had their source anywhere but in Membury Grange.
“Who lives there?” I asked.
It was a Doctor Dixon, they told me. He had been there these last three or four years.
And that led us on to Bill Parsons' contribution. He was a little hesitant about making it at first.
“This'll be confidential like?” he asked.
Everyone for miles around knows that Bill's chief concern is other people's rabbits. I reassured him.
“Well, it was this way,” he said. “ 'Bout three months ago it'd be—”
Pruned of its circumstantial detail, Bill's story amounted to this: finding himself, so to speak, in the grounds of the Grange one night, he had taken a fancy to investigate the nature of the new wing that Doctor Dixon had caused to be built on soon after he came. There had been considerable local speculation about it, and, seeing a chink of light between the curtains there, Bill had taken his opportunity.
“I'm telling you, there's things that's not right there,” he said. “The very first thing I seen, back against the far wall was a line of cages, with great thick bars to 'em — the way the light hung I couldn't see what was inside: but why'd anybody be wanting them in his house?”
“And then when I shoved myself up higher to get a better view, there in the middle of the room I saw a horrible sight — a horrible sight it was!” He paused for a dramatic shudder.
“Well, what was it?” I asked, patiently.
“It was — well, it's kind of hard to tell. Lying on a table, it was, though. Lookin' more like a white bolster than anything — 'cept that it was moving a bit. Kind of inching, with a sort of ripple in it — if you understand me.”
I didn't much. I said: