Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie
apposite moment, Stafford Nye thought, bringing him back
from his past memories just at that moment of their farewell.
'Auf Wiedersehen,' he murmured, as he-rose to his
feet crossed to take the receiver off, 'let it be so.'
A voice spoke whose wheezy accents were quite unmistakable.
Stafford Nye?'
He gave the requisite answer: 'No smoke without fire.'
'My doctor says I should give up smoking. Poor fellow,'
said Colonel Pikeaway, 'he might as well give up hope of
that. Any news?'
'Oh yes. Thirty pieces of silver. Promised, that is to say.'
'Damned swine!'
Yes, yes, keep calm.'
'And what did you say?'
'I played them a tune. Siegfried's Horn motif. I was
following an elderly aunt's advice. It went down very well.'
'Sounds crazy to me!'
'Do you know a song called Juanita? I must learn that
too, in case I need it.'
'Do you know who Juanita is?'
I think so.'
'H'm, I wonder--heard of in Baltimore last.'
'What about your Greek girl. Daphne Theodofanous?
Where is she now, I wonder?'
'Sitting in an airport somewhere in Europe waiting for
you, probably,' said Colonel Pikeaway.
'Most of the European airports seem to be closed down
because they've been blown up or more or less damaged.
High explosive, hi-jackers, high jinks.
"The boys and giris come out to play
The moon doth shine as bright as day--
Leave your supper and leave your sleep
And shoot your playfellow in the street.'
163
'The Children's Crusade S. la mode.'
'Not that I really know much about it. I only know the
one that Richard Coeur de Lion went to. But in a way
this whole business is rather like the Children's Crusade.
Starting with idealism, starting with ideas of the Christian
world delivering the holy city from pagans, and ending
with death, death and again, death. Nearly all the children
died. Or were sold into slavery. This will end the same way
unless we can find some means of getting them out of it . . .'
Chapter 20
THE ADMIRAL
VISITS AN OLD FRIEND
Thought you must all be dead here,' said Admiral Blunt
with a snort.
His remark was addressed not to the kind of butler which
he would have liked to see opening this front door, but
to the young woman whose surname he could never remember
but whose Christian name was Amy.
'Rung you up at least four times in the last week. Gone
abroad, that's what they said.'
'We have been abroad. We've only just come back.'
'Matilda oughtn't to go rampaging about abroad. Not
at her time of life. She'll die of blood pressure or heart
failure or something in one of these modem airplanes.
Cavorting about, full of explosives put in them by the
Arabs or the Israelis or somebody or other. Not safe at all
any longer.'
'Her doctor recommended it to her.'
'Oh well, we all know what doctors are.'
'And she has really come back in very good spirits.'
Where's she been, then?'
'Oh, taking a Cure. In Germany or--I never can quite
remember whether it's Germany or Austria. That new placs,
you know, the Golden Gasthaus.'
'Ah yes, I know the place you mean. Costs the earth,
doesn't it?'
'Well, it's said to produce very -remarkable results.'
'Probably only a- different way of killing you quick< '
said Admiral Blunt. 'How did you enjoy it?'
164
'Well, not really very much. The scenery was very nice,
but--'
An imperious voice sounded from the floor above.
'Amy. Amy! What are you doing, talking in the hall all
this time? Bring Admiral Blunt up here. I'm waiting for
him.'
'Gallivanting about,' said Admiral Blunt, after he had greeted his old friend. That's how you'll kill yourself one
of these days. You mark my words--'
'No, I shan't. There's no difficulty at all in travelling
nowadays.'
'Running about all those airports, ramps, stairs, Buses.*
'Not at all. I had a wheelchair.'
'A year or two ago when I saw you, you said you wouldn't
hear of such a thing. You said you had too much pride to
admit you needed one.'
Well, I've had to give up some of my pride, nowadays,
Philip. Come and sit down here and tell me why you wanted
to come and see me so much all of a sudden. You've neglected
me a great deal for the last year.'
'Well, I've not been so well myself. Besides, I've been
looking into a^few things. You know the sort of thing. Where
they ask your advice but don't mean in the least to take it.
They can't leave the Navy alone. Keep on wanting to fiddle
about with it, drat them.'
b 'You look quite well to me,' said Lady Matilda.
| 'You don't look so bad yourself, my dear. You've got a
I nice sparkle in your eye.'
| 'I'm deafer than when you saw me last. You'll have to
|speak up more.'
'All right. I'M speak up.'
'What do you want, gin and tonic ,or whisky or rum?'
'You seem ready to dispense strong liquor of any kind.
K it's all the same to you, I'll have a gin and tonic.'
Amy rose and left the room.
'And when she brings it,' said the Admiral, 'get rid of
her again, will you? I want to talk to you. Talk to you
particularly is what I mean.'
Refreshment brought, Lady Matilda made a dismissive
wave of the hand and Amy departed with the air of one
who is pleasing herself, not her employer. She was a tactful
young woman.
'Nice girl,' said the Admiral, 'very nice.'
'Is that why you asked me to get rid of her and see she
165
shut the door? So that she mightn't overhear you saying
something nice about her?'
'No. I wanted to consult you.'
'What about? Your health or where to get some new
servants or what to grow in the garden?'
'?I want to consult you very seriously. I thought perhaps
you might be able to remember something for me.'
'Dear Philip, how touching that you should think I can
remember anything. Every year my memory gets worse. I've
come to the conclusion one only remembers what's called
the "friends of one's youth". Even horrid girls one was at
school with one remembers, though one doesn't want to.
That's where I've been now, as a matter of fact.'
'Where've you been now? Visiting schools?'
'No, no, no, I went to see an old school friend whom I
haven't seen for thirty?forty?fifty?that sort of time.'
'What was she like?'
'Enormously fat and even nastier and horrider than I
remembered her.'
'You've got very queer tastes, I must say, Matilda.'
"Well, go on, tell me. Tell me what it is you want me to
remember?'
'I wondered if you remembered another friend of yours.
Robert Shoreham.'
'Robbie Shoreham? Of course I do.'
/> The scientist feller. Top scientist.'
'Of course. He wasn't the sort of man one would ever
forget. I wonder what put him into your head.'
'Public need.'
'Funny you should say that,' said Lady Matilda. 'I thought
the same myself the other day.'
'You thought what?'
'That he was needed. Or someone like him?if there is
anyone like him.'
'There isn't. Now listen, Matilda. People talk to you a
bit. They tell you things. I've told you things myself.'
"?I've always wondered why, because you can't believe
that I'll understand them or be able to describe them. A
that was even more the case with Robbie than with yo
'I don't tell you naval secrets.'
'Well, he didn't tell me scientific secrets. I mean, only
a very general way.'
'Yes, but he used to talk to you about them, didn't hi
'Well, he liked saying things that would astonish me son
times.'
166
'All right, then, here it comes. I want to know if he ever
talked to you, in the days when he could talk properly,
poor devil, about something called Project B.'
Project B.' Matilda Cleckheaton considered thoughtfully.
'Sounds vaguely familiar,' she said. 'He used to talk about
Project this or that sometimes, or Operation that or this.
But you must realize that none of it ever made any kind of sense to me, and he knew it didn't. But he used to like--
oh, how shall I put it?--astonishing me rather, you know.
Sort of describing it the way that a conjuror might describe
how he takes three rabbits out of a hat without your knowing
how he did it. Project B? Yes, that was a good long time
ago . . . He was wildly excited for a bit. I used to say to him sometimes "How's Project B going on?"'
'I know, I know, you've always been a tactful woman. You can always remember what people were doing or interested
in. And even if you don't know the first thing about
it you'd show an interest. I described a new kind of naval
gun to you once and you must have been bored stiff. But
you listened as brightly as though it was the thing you'd
been waiting to hear about all your life.'
'As you tell me, I've been a tactful woman and a good
listener, even if I've never had much in the way of brains.'
'Well, I want to hear a little more what Robbie said about
Project B.'
'He said--well, it's very difficult to remember now. He
mentioned it after talking about some operation that they
used to do on- people's brains. You know, the people who
were terribly melancholic and who were thinking of suicide
and who were so worried and neurasthenic that they had
awful anxiety complexes. Stuff like that, the sort of thing people
used to talk of in connection with Freud. And he said that
the side effects were impossible. I mean, the people were
quite happy and meek and docile and didn't worry any more,
or want to kill themselves, but they--well I mean they didn't
worry enough and therefore they used to get run over and
all sorts o-f things like that because they weren't thinking of any danger and didn't notice it. I'm putting it badly but you do understand what I mean. And anyway, he said, that was going to be the trouble, he thought, with Project B.'
'Di.l b: describe it at all more closely than that?'
"He sa 1 I'd put it into his head,' said Matilda Cleckheaton Unexr?c;::dly.
'Wt^f; r)o you mean to say a scientist--a topflight ^ei-iiis; he Robbie actually said to you that you had put
167
first thing about science.'
'Of course not. But I used to try and put a little common
sense into people's brains. The cleverer they are, the less
common sense they have. I mean, really, the people who
matter are the people who thought of simple things like perforations
on postage stamps, or like somebody Adam, or whatever
his name was--No--MacAdam in America who put
black stuff on roads so that farmers could get all their crops
from farms to the coast and make a better profit. I mean,
they do much more good than all the high-powered scientists
do. Scientists can only think of things for destroying you.
Well, that's the sort of thing I said to Robbie. Quite nicely,
of course, as a kind of joke. He'd been just telling me that
some splendid things had been done in the scientific world
about germ warfare and experiments with biology and what
you can do to unborn babies if you get at them early
enough. And also some peculiarly nasty and very unpleasant
gases and saying how silly people were to protest against
nuclear bombs because they were really a kindness compared
to some of the other things that had been invented since
then. And so I said it'd be much more to the point if Robbie,
or someone clever like Robbie, could think of something
really sensible. And he looked at me with that, you know,
little twinkle he has in his eye sometimes and said, "Well what
would you consider sensible?" And I said, "Well, instead of inventing all these germ warfares and these nasty gas
and all the rest of it, why don't you just invent somethi
that makes people feel happy?" I said it oughtn't to be a
more difficult to do. I said, "You've talked about this op
ation where, I think you said, they took out a bit of the frc
of your brain or maybe the back of your brain. But anyw
it made a great difference in people's dispositions. The] become quite different. They hadn't worried any more
they hadn't wanted to commit suicide. But," I said, "Well,
you can change people like that just by taking a little bit
bone or muscle or nerve or tinkering up a gland or taki
out a gland or putting in more or a gland," I said, "if you c
make all that difference in people's dispositions, why can't yi
invent something that will make people pleasant or just siee;
perhaps? Supposing you had something, not a sleeping dra'. a;'
but just something that people sat down in a chair and kd
nice dream. Twenty-four hours or so and just woke up t^ I
fed now and again. I said it would be a much better i ' "'
'And is that what Project B was?'
168
'Well, of course he never told me what it was exactly.
But he was excited with an idea and he said I'd put it into
his head, so it must have been something rather pleasant I'd
put into his head, mustn't it? I mean, I hadn't suggested any
ideas to him of any nastier ways for killing people and I
didn't want people even--you know--to cry, like tear gas or
anything like that. Perhaps laughing--yes, I believe I mentioned
laughing gas. I said well if you have your teeth out,
they give you three sniffs of it and you laugh, well, surely,
surely you could invent something that's as useful as that
but would last a little longer. Because I believe laughing gas
only lasts about fifty seconds, doesn't it? I know my brother
had some teeth out once. The dentist's chair was very near
the window and my brother was laughing so much, when he
was unconscious, I mean, that he stretched his leg right out
&
nbsp; and put it through the dentist's window and all the glass fell
in the street, and the dentist was very cross about it.'
'Your stories always have such strange side-kicks,' said
the Admiral. 'Anyway, this is what Robbie Shoreham had
chosen to get on with, from your advice.'
'Well, I don't know what it was exactly. I mean, I don't
think it was sleeping or laughing. At any rate, it was something. It wasn't really Project B. It had another name.'
'What sort of a name?'
'Well, he did mention it once I think, or twice. The
name he'd given it. Rather like Benger's Food,' said Aunt
Matilda, considering thoughtfully.
'Some soothing agent for the digestion?'
1 don't think it had anything to do with the digestion.
I rather think it was something you sniffed or something,
perhaps it was a gland. You know we talked of so many
things that you never quite knew what he was talking
about at the moment. Benger's Food. Ben--Ben--it did begin
with Ben. And there was a pleasant word associated with it.'
'Is that all you can remember about it?'
'I think so. I mean, this'was just a talk we had once and
then, quite a long time afterwards, he told me I'd put something into his head for Project Ben something. And after
that, occasionally, if I remembered, I'd ask him if he was still
working on Project Ben and then sometimes he'd be very
exasperated and say no, he'd come up against a snag and
he was putting it all aside now because it was in--in--well,
I mean the next eight words were pure jargon and I couldn't
remember them and you wouldn't understand them if I said ""an to you. But in the end, I think--oh dear, oh dear, this
169
is all about eight or nine years ago--in the end he came one
day and he said, "Do you remember Project Ben? " I said, "Of
course I remember it. Are you still working on it? " And he said
no, he was determined to lay it all aside. I said I was sorry.
Sorry if he'd given it up and he said, "Well, it's not only that
I can't get what I was trying for. I know now that it could be got. I know where I went wrong. I know just what the snag
was, I know just how to put that snag right again. I've got
Lisa working on it with me. Yes, it could work. It'd require
experimenting on certain things but it could work." "Well," I
said to him, "what are you worrying about?" And he said,
"Because I don't'know what it would really do to people."
I said something about his being afraid it would kill peep;;
or maim them for life or something. "No," he said, "it's n.;?.
like that." He said, it's a--oh, of course, now I remembe:He
called it Project Benvo. Yes. And that's because it had m'
do with benevolence.'
'Benevolence!' said the Admiral, highly surprised. 'Benevolence?
Do you mean charity?'
'No, no, no. I think he meant simply that you could make
people benevolent. Feel benevolent.'
'Peace and good will towards men?*
Well, he didn't put it like that.'
'^b, that's reserved for religious leaders. They pre
that to you and if you did what they preach it'd be a v
happy world. But Robbie, I gather, was not preaching.
proposed to do something in his laboratory to bring ab
this result by purely physical means.'
"That's the sort of thing. And he said you can never
when things are beneficial to people or when they're i
They are in one way they're not in another. And he s ;
things about--oh, penicillin and sulphonamides and h( ;
transplants and things like pills for women, though we hac '
got "The Pill" then. But you know, things that seem all ri '
and they're wonder-drugs or wonder-gases or wonder-sol
thing or other, and then there's something about them t
makes them go wrong as well as right, and then you w they weren't there and had never been thought of. Well, th
the sort of thing that he seemed to be trying to get over
me. It was all rather difficult to understand. I said, "Do ;
mean you don!t like to take the risk?" and he said; "Yoi .c
quite right. I don't like to take the risk. That's the trou 'e
because, you see, I don't know in the least what the risk
will be. That's what happens to us poor devils of scientists.
^fe take the risks and the risks are not in what we've
discovered, it's the risks of what the people we'll have to
tell -about it will do with what we've discovered." I said;
"Now you're talking about nuclear weapons again and atom
bombs," and he said, "Oh, to Hell with nuclear weapons and
atomic bombs. We've gone far beyond that."
' "But if you're going to make people nice-tempered and
benevolent," I said, "what have you got to worry about?"
And he said, "You don't understand, Matilda. You'll never
from his past memories just at that moment of their farewell.
'Auf Wiedersehen,' he murmured, as he-rose to his
feet crossed to take the receiver off, 'let it be so.'
A voice spoke whose wheezy accents were quite unmistakable.
Stafford Nye?'
He gave the requisite answer: 'No smoke without fire.'
'My doctor says I should give up smoking. Poor fellow,'
said Colonel Pikeaway, 'he might as well give up hope of
that. Any news?'
'Oh yes. Thirty pieces of silver. Promised, that is to say.'
'Damned swine!'
Yes, yes, keep calm.'
'And what did you say?'
'I played them a tune. Siegfried's Horn motif. I was
following an elderly aunt's advice. It went down very well.'
'Sounds crazy to me!'
'Do you know a song called Juanita? I must learn that
too, in case I need it.'
'Do you know who Juanita is?'
I think so.'
'H'm, I wonder--heard of in Baltimore last.'
'What about your Greek girl. Daphne Theodofanous?
Where is she now, I wonder?'
'Sitting in an airport somewhere in Europe waiting for
you, probably,' said Colonel Pikeaway.
'Most of the European airports seem to be closed down
because they've been blown up or more or less damaged.
High explosive, hi-jackers, high jinks.
"The boys and giris come out to play
The moon doth shine as bright as day--
Leave your supper and leave your sleep
And shoot your playfellow in the street.'
163
'The Children's Crusade S. la mode.'
'Not that I really know much about it. I only know the
one that Richard Coeur de Lion went to. But in a way
this whole business is rather like the Children's Crusade.
Starting with idealism, starting with ideas of the Christian
world delivering the holy city from pagans, and ending
with death, death and again, death. Nearly all the children
died. Or were sold into slavery. This will end the same way
unless we can find some means of getting them out of it . . .'
Chapter 20
THE ADMIRAL
VISITS AN OLD FRIEND
Thought you must all be dead here,' said Admiral Blunt
with a snort.
His remark was addressed not to the kind of butler which
he would have liked to see opening this front door, but
to the young woman whose surname he could never remember
but whose Christian name was Amy.
'Rung you up at least four times in the last week. Gone
abroad, that's what they said.'
'We have been abroad. We've only just come back.'
'Matilda oughtn't to go rampaging about abroad. Not
at her time of life. She'll die of blood pressure or heart
failure or something in one of these modem airplanes.
Cavorting about, full of explosives put in them by the
Arabs or the Israelis or somebody or other. Not safe at all
any longer.'
'Her doctor recommended it to her.'
'Oh well, we all know what doctors are.'
'And she has really come back in very good spirits.'
Where's she been, then?'
'Oh, taking a Cure. In Germany or--I never can quite
remember whether it's Germany or Austria. That new placs,
you know, the Golden Gasthaus.'
'Ah yes, I know the place you mean. Costs the earth,
doesn't it?'
'Well, it's said to produce very -remarkable results.'
'Probably only a- different way of killing you quick< '
said Admiral Blunt. 'How did you enjoy it?'
164
'Well, not really very much. The scenery was very nice,
but--'
An imperious voice sounded from the floor above.
'Amy. Amy! What are you doing, talking in the hall all
this time? Bring Admiral Blunt up here. I'm waiting for
him.'
'Gallivanting about,' said Admiral Blunt, after he had greeted his old friend. That's how you'll kill yourself one
of these days. You mark my words--'
'No, I shan't. There's no difficulty at all in travelling
nowadays.'
'Running about all those airports, ramps, stairs, Buses.*
'Not at all. I had a wheelchair.'
'A year or two ago when I saw you, you said you wouldn't
hear of such a thing. You said you had too much pride to
admit you needed one.'
Well, I've had to give up some of my pride, nowadays,
Philip. Come and sit down here and tell me why you wanted
to come and see me so much all of a sudden. You've neglected
me a great deal for the last year.'
'Well, I've not been so well myself. Besides, I've been
looking into a^few things. You know the sort of thing. Where
they ask your advice but don't mean in the least to take it.
They can't leave the Navy alone. Keep on wanting to fiddle
about with it, drat them.'
b 'You look quite well to me,' said Lady Matilda.
| 'You don't look so bad yourself, my dear. You've got a
I nice sparkle in your eye.'
| 'I'm deafer than when you saw me last. You'll have to
|speak up more.'
'All right. I'M speak up.'
'What do you want, gin and tonic ,or whisky or rum?'
'You seem ready to dispense strong liquor of any kind.
K it's all the same to you, I'll have a gin and tonic.'
Amy rose and left the room.
'And when she brings it,' said the Admiral, 'get rid of
her again, will you? I want to talk to you. Talk to you
particularly is what I mean.'
Refreshment brought, Lady Matilda made a dismissive
wave of the hand and Amy departed with the air of one
who is pleasing herself, not her employer. She was a tactful
young woman.
'Nice girl,' said the Admiral, 'very nice.'
'Is that why you asked me to get rid of her and see she
165
shut the door? So that she mightn't overhear you saying
something nice about her?'
'No. I wanted to consult you.'
'What about? Your health or where to get some new
servants or what to grow in the garden?'
'?I want to consult you very seriously. I thought perhaps
you might be able to remember something for me.'
'Dear Philip, how touching that you should think I can
remember anything. Every year my memory gets worse. I've
come to the conclusion one only remembers what's called
the "friends of one's youth". Even horrid girls one was at
school with one remembers, though one doesn't want to.
That's where I've been now, as a matter of fact.'
'Where've you been now? Visiting schools?'
'No, no, no, I went to see an old school friend whom I
haven't seen for thirty?forty?fifty?that sort of time.'
'What was she like?'
'Enormously fat and even nastier and horrider than I
remembered her.'
'You've got very queer tastes, I must say, Matilda.'
"Well, go on, tell me. Tell me what it is you want me to
remember?'
'I wondered if you remembered another friend of yours.
Robert Shoreham.'
'Robbie Shoreham? Of course I do.'
'Of course. He wasn't the sort of man one would ever
forget. I wonder what put him into your head.'
'Public need.'
'Funny you should say that,' said Lady Matilda. 'I thought
the same myself the other day.'
'You thought what?'
'That he was needed. Or someone like him?if there is
anyone like him.'
'There isn't. Now listen, Matilda. People talk to you a
bit. They tell you things. I've told you things myself.'
"?I've always wondered why, because you can't believe
that I'll understand them or be able to describe them. A
that was even more the case with Robbie than with yo
'I don't tell you naval secrets.'
'Well, he didn't tell me scientific secrets. I mean, only
a very general way.'
'Yes, but he used to talk to you about them, didn't hi
'Well, he liked saying things that would astonish me son
times.'
166
'All right, then, here it comes. I want to know if he ever
talked to you, in the days when he could talk properly,
poor devil, about something called Project B.'
Project B.' Matilda Cleckheaton considered thoughtfully.
'Sounds vaguely familiar,' she said. 'He used to talk about
Project this or that sometimes, or Operation that or this.
But you must realize that none of it ever made any kind of sense to me, and he knew it didn't. But he used to like--
oh, how shall I put it?--astonishing me rather, you know.
Sort of describing it the way that a conjuror might describe
how he takes three rabbits out of a hat without your knowing
how he did it. Project B? Yes, that was a good long time
ago . . . He was wildly excited for a bit. I used to say to him sometimes "How's Project B going on?"'
'I know, I know, you've always been a tactful woman. You can always remember what people were doing or interested
in. And even if you don't know the first thing about
it you'd show an interest. I described a new kind of naval
gun to you once and you must have been bored stiff. But
you listened as brightly as though it was the thing you'd
been waiting to hear about all your life.'
'As you tell me, I've been a tactful woman and a good
listener, even if I've never had much in the way of brains.'
'Well, I want to hear a little more what Robbie said about
Project B.'
'He said--well, it's very difficult to remember now. He
mentioned it after talking about some operation that they
used to do on- people's brains. You know, the people who
were terribly melancholic and who were thinking of suicide
and who were so worried and neurasthenic that they had
awful anxiety complexes. Stuff like that, the sort of thing people
used to talk of in connection with Freud. And he said that
the side effects were impossible. I mean, the people were
quite happy and meek and docile and didn't worry any more,
or want to kill themselves, but they--well I mean they didn't
worry enough and therefore they used to get run over and
all sorts o-f things like that because they weren't thinking of any danger and didn't notice it. I'm putting it badly but you do understand what I mean. And anyway, he said, that was going to be the trouble, he thought, with Project B.'
'Di.l b: describe it at all more closely than that?'
"He sa 1 I'd put it into his head,' said Matilda Cleckheaton Unexr?c;::dly.
'Wt^f; r)o you mean to say a scientist--a topflight ^ei-iiis; he Robbie actually said to you that you had put
167
first thing about science.'
'Of course not. But I used to try and put a little common
sense into people's brains. The cleverer they are, the less
common sense they have. I mean, really, the people who
matter are the people who thought of simple things like perforations
on postage stamps, or like somebody Adam, or whatever
his name was--No--MacAdam in America who put
black stuff on roads so that farmers could get all their crops
from farms to the coast and make a better profit. I mean,
they do much more good than all the high-powered scientists
do. Scientists can only think of things for destroying you.
Well, that's the sort of thing I said to Robbie. Quite nicely,
of course, as a kind of joke. He'd been just telling me that
some splendid things had been done in the scientific world
about germ warfare and experiments with biology and what
you can do to unborn babies if you get at them early
enough. And also some peculiarly nasty and very unpleasant
gases and saying how silly people were to protest against
nuclear bombs because they were really a kindness compared
to some of the other things that had been invented since
then. And so I said it'd be much more to the point if Robbie,
or someone clever like Robbie, could think of something
really sensible. And he looked at me with that, you know,
little twinkle he has in his eye sometimes and said, "Well what
would you consider sensible?" And I said, "Well, instead of inventing all these germ warfares and these nasty gas
and all the rest of it, why don't you just invent somethi
that makes people feel happy?" I said it oughtn't to be a
more difficult to do. I said, "You've talked about this op
ation where, I think you said, they took out a bit of the frc
of your brain or maybe the back of your brain. But anyw
it made a great difference in people's dispositions. The] become quite different. They hadn't worried any more
they hadn't wanted to commit suicide. But," I said, "Well,
you can change people like that just by taking a little bit
bone or muscle or nerve or tinkering up a gland or taki
out a gland or putting in more or a gland," I said, "if you c
make all that difference in people's dispositions, why can't yi
invent something that will make people pleasant or just siee;
perhaps? Supposing you had something, not a sleeping dra'. a;'
but just something that people sat down in a chair and kd
nice dream. Twenty-four hours or so and just woke up t^ I
fed now and again. I said it would be a much better i ' "'
'And is that what Project B was?'
168
'Well, of course he never told me what it was exactly.
But he was excited with an idea and he said I'd put it into
his head, so it must have been something rather pleasant I'd
put into his head, mustn't it? I mean, I hadn't suggested any
ideas to him of any nastier ways for killing people and I
didn't want people even--you know--to cry, like tear gas or
anything like that. Perhaps laughing--yes, I believe I mentioned
laughing gas. I said well if you have your teeth out,
they give you three sniffs of it and you laugh, well, surely,
surely you could invent something that's as useful as that
but would last a little longer. Because I believe laughing gas
only lasts about fifty seconds, doesn't it? I know my brother
had some teeth out once. The dentist's chair was very near
the window and my brother was laughing so much, when he
was unconscious, I mean, that he stretched his leg right out
&
in the street, and the dentist was very cross about it.'
'Your stories always have such strange side-kicks,' said
the Admiral. 'Anyway, this is what Robbie Shoreham had
chosen to get on with, from your advice.'
'Well, I don't know what it was exactly. I mean, I don't
think it was sleeping or laughing. At any rate, it was something. It wasn't really Project B. It had another name.'
'What sort of a name?'
'Well, he did mention it once I think, or twice. The
name he'd given it. Rather like Benger's Food,' said Aunt
Matilda, considering thoughtfully.
'Some soothing agent for the digestion?'
1 don't think it had anything to do with the digestion.
I rather think it was something you sniffed or something,
perhaps it was a gland. You know we talked of so many
things that you never quite knew what he was talking
about at the moment. Benger's Food. Ben--Ben--it did begin
with Ben. And there was a pleasant word associated with it.'
'Is that all you can remember about it?'
'I think so. I mean, this'was just a talk we had once and
then, quite a long time afterwards, he told me I'd put something into his head for Project Ben something. And after
that, occasionally, if I remembered, I'd ask him if he was still
working on Project Ben and then sometimes he'd be very
exasperated and say no, he'd come up against a snag and
he was putting it all aside now because it was in--in--well,
I mean the next eight words were pure jargon and I couldn't
remember them and you wouldn't understand them if I said ""an to you. But in the end, I think--oh dear, oh dear, this
169
is all about eight or nine years ago--in the end he came one
day and he said, "Do you remember Project Ben? " I said, "Of
course I remember it. Are you still working on it? " And he said
no, he was determined to lay it all aside. I said I was sorry.
Sorry if he'd given it up and he said, "Well, it's not only that
I can't get what I was trying for. I know now that it could be got. I know where I went wrong. I know just what the snag
was, I know just how to put that snag right again. I've got
Lisa working on it with me. Yes, it could work. It'd require
experimenting on certain things but it could work." "Well," I
said to him, "what are you worrying about?" And he said,
"Because I don't'know what it would really do to people."
I said something about his being afraid it would kill peep;;
or maim them for life or something. "No," he said, "it's n.;?.
like that." He said, it's a--oh, of course, now I remembe:He
called it Project Benvo. Yes. And that's because it had m'
do with benevolence.'
'Benevolence!' said the Admiral, highly surprised. 'Benevolence?
Do you mean charity?'
'No, no, no. I think he meant simply that you could make
people benevolent. Feel benevolent.'
'Peace and good will towards men?*
Well, he didn't put it like that.'
'^b, that's reserved for religious leaders. They pre
that to you and if you did what they preach it'd be a v
happy world. But Robbie, I gather, was not preaching.
proposed to do something in his laboratory to bring ab
this result by purely physical means.'
"That's the sort of thing. And he said you can never
when things are beneficial to people or when they're i
They are in one way they're not in another. And he s ;
things about--oh, penicillin and sulphonamides and h( ;
transplants and things like pills for women, though we hac '
got "The Pill" then. But you know, things that seem all ri '
and they're wonder-drugs or wonder-gases or wonder-sol
thing or other, and then there's something about them t
makes them go wrong as well as right, and then you w they weren't there and had never been thought of. Well, th
the sort of thing that he seemed to be trying to get over
me. It was all rather difficult to understand. I said, "Do ;
mean you don!t like to take the risk?" and he said; "Yoi .c
quite right. I don't like to take the risk. That's the trou 'e
because, you see, I don't know in the least what the risk
will be. That's what happens to us poor devils of scientists.
^fe take the risks and the risks are not in what we've
discovered, it's the risks of what the people we'll have to
tell -about it will do with what we've discovered." I said;
"Now you're talking about nuclear weapons again and atom
bombs," and he said, "Oh, to Hell with nuclear weapons and
atomic bombs. We've gone far beyond that."
' "But if you're going to make people nice-tempered and
benevolent," I said, "what have you got to worry about?"
And he said, "You don't understand, Matilda. You'll never