The Mammoth Book of Terror (74 page)

It seemed obvious that the killer was the same man who had strangled the old pensioner a few days before. The two murders fitted the same pattern of having no pattern. The woman had no known
enemies and no one could possibly have profited by her death. The killing had been cold and efficient. The police had no clues and asked anyone who might have been in the vicinity to contact them
whether they had heard or seen anything or not. Anyone who had noticed a man with wet clothing anywhere in the city was asked to notify the authorities. The theory was that it was the work of a
maniac. It seemed the only solution. The thought of a madman is always terrifying and this was magnified by the fact that the victims had been old and helpless and had died without reason. The
police stated it was likely the man would kill again – would go on killing at regular intervals until he was captured. I had a sudden image of Detective Inspector Grant poring over all the
details of the two crimes, trying desperately to project and predict and prevent, and knowing with painful frustration that he had insufficient data – and that there was only one way in which
to acquire more data and that implied more victims. He would be chain-smoking cigarettes, pacing across his office, snapping at his subordinates, cross with his wife. But they would understand the
great unrest of his thoughts, and would tolerate his surly behaviour. And thinking of tolerance, I found myself contrasting Grant with this gentleman whose newspaper I held – who looked at
the murders in such a calm and unexpected way. I looked up from the paper; glanced sideways at him. He was turning the pages of a large volume with vague disinterest. I placed the paper on the
table and he closed the book; folded the paper neatly.

“Thank you.”

“Why of course,” he said.

“Say what you will, it’s a gruesome business.”

“Oh, I daresay the papers make it seem worse than it is, you know. Circulation and all that. The human fascination with the macabre. I find myself fascinated with that strange fascination.
As a scientist . . .”

“A scientist?” I said, interrupting him with an abrupt impulse to change the subject. I did not wish to hear his opinions on human failings – if indeed he thought them
failings, for he had a tendency to make the unexpected statement; to view from unconsidered angles.

He nodded slowly.

“What is your field?”

“I am a naturalist.”

I raised my eyebrows slightly at the old-fashioned term and he interpreted the gesture correctly; nodded and repeated the word. “Yes, a naturalist. I use the old word deliberately –
to imply that I have spread myself over the natural sciences rather than specializing. A fault of modern thinking, specialization.”

“But surely knowledge is accumulating too quickly for a man to encompass everything?”

“Ah, but is that valid? If all knowledge is related – and it must be, if there is any basic law to the universe – then isn’t a shallow immersion in a wide subject better
than penetration to blind and limited depths? I have always wished to form conclusions which draw all the branches of natural science into a tighter pattern. An ambitious goal, certainly, and yet
in some ways curiously limited.” He paused, peering at me sharply. I had the impression he was judging my comprehension and his glance was curious – his countenance resigned and placid
on the surface, yet with sharp inquiry coming through. It was like a flash of sudden lightning exposing the inner fabric of the storm clouds for a brilliant instant. Then it faded. “Oh, I
fully understand the necessity for specialists,” he continued. “Men – men of that sort of mind – must probe the depths of limited fields and form little cones of knowledge
– little submerged and isolated studies from which more well rounded scholars may draw as they grope for a totality. Necessary, yes. But it seems a shame that knowledge has outpaced the
evolution of the mind, does it not?” And again that keen glance probed me.

“You interest me.”

“Yes? I’ve always believed that a man who has wide interests will prove interesting.”

“And are you pursuing your interests here at the museum? I’ve seen you quite often and wondered if you might be doing research of some nature.”

“Nothing specific. In point of fact, I come to the museum for pleasure. As some might go to the opera or the theatre. I dearly love to wander through the natural history halls. But
research – no, my research is in the field. It was, at least, until my accident. Now I must content myself with less strenuous studies. Although recently I have been able to do a bit of field
work. Just a bit. An application of former conclusions.”

“Accident?”

“My leg. I lost my leg, as you may have noticed.”

He glanced down.

“Oh, I didn’t realize,” I said, a trifle embarrassed.

“I’ve managed to adapt myself to it. One does, you know. I have an artificial limb, of course, but I’d have adapted without it. That’s the story of survival. But it
hinders field research, nonetheless.”

This fact seemed to sadden him. He fell into a thoughtful silence. Then he looked up and smiled.

“But we’ve not been introduced,” he said. He held out his hand. His grip was firm.

“Claymore,” he said. “Edward Claymore.”

I told him my name. His name had a familiar ring and after a moment I placed it; said, “I believe I’ve read one of your books. Dealing with ecology, was it?”

“You please me. One has vanity, of a sort. Of a sort. One hopes one’s ideas are of value. And valid, of course. Yes, ecology has always been my prime study, dear to my heart. The
linking of relationships between creatures within the scope of their environment, the incredibly complex interplay between organisms, subtle, slowly emerging as one gathers experience, and in no
other way. These relationships cannot be predicted in the laboratory nor projected in the library. One must be there. One must observe and record. A falsehood may be written but what one has seen
is truth – the conclusions may be wrongly drawn but one cannot argue with the basic premise of objective fact, eh?” I nodded agreement. A certain intensity had come into his voice as he
spoke of his work and I felt a new respect for the man. His book, as I recalled it, had been lucid and straightforward and unpretentious; had been an early work which, in its simplicity, had stood
the test of time. It was no longer read much, for the theory had advanced beyond its scope, and yet the material had been proved correct and had greatly affected later research along those lines,
foreshadowing understanding. I had read it long ago, and yet found myself able to recall certain passages of bright illumination and even simple eloquence in his descriptions of the wild reaches of
our northern forests, the perfect balance of nature, the harmony of life and death. Seen in the context of his work, his unusual method of looking at events was no longer surprising. I determined
to look up his book and read it again, in the new light of our acquaintance.

Claymore was thoughtful now; seemed to be looking back into the past, looking northward to the forests of former times. I stood up and excused myself. He nodded absently. He was still sitting at
the table, staring at far places, as I left.

When next I saw Claymore, I recalled his calm attitudes concerning the former murders; was interested in what he thought in this instance. I asked him whether he considered this crime natural.
I’m not sure what reaction I expected, but he surprised me by screwing up his face in obvious internal conflict, a genuine attempt at decision. I was amazed. I would not have been shocked had
he taken an attitude opposed to normal morality, but had not foreseen this struggle within himself. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, and then hesitated. I watched his face, my interest
greatly aroused.

Our meeting had taken place in the Hall of Saurians, a great vaulted room of silence with implications of vast and imponderable time. The skeletons of brontosaurus and allosaurus loomed over us.
A high skylight sent filtered illumination dropping from the dome, washing the bones and casting Jurassic shadows across the floor, articulated adumbrations of the eons. Presently, without
speaking, Claymore moved on, still shrouded in thought. I followed. He moved, as it were, through the path of prehistory; came to the Cretaceous period and sank down upon the edge of a platform
with a tyranno-saurus rearing above, the great jaws in the gloom of the arched roof. I sat beside him. It seemed that even the shadows of those bleached bones had a great weight – that they
lay upon us with the burden of knowledge, not insight to the mind but some truth known only in our most primitive cells, long forgotten to the magnifying mind but remaining dormant in the glands,
the secretions of primordial instinct. I could not understand why this strange mood had come upon me; wondered if, somehow, it could have emanated from my companion by some basic transference, as a
dog senses fear in a man.

At last, he spoke.

“The nurse should not have died,” he said, quite simply.

“The nurse? Why only the nurse?”

“The nurse. Her actions were so very human and so very unnatural.”

“But surely noble?”

“Nobility is unnatural. That, like law, has been created outside nature. Created by man. And man stands at some undefined point between nature and logic. Only man, you know, and possibly
the elephant who is mighty enough to afford it – or was until man came along – show concern and respect for the aged and infirm, tolerate the useless elements of the pack, the tribe,
the species. It was quite natural for the nurse to risk – and give – her life, but only in the framework of human terms. Not natural science but philosophy. The fault lies deeper than
behaviour, it is in the system itself – a system that flaunts and reverses nature and creates homes for incurables, protects the helpless, preserves the weakest units to clutter the
species.”

He looked sideways at me.

“You can’t believe the nurse’s sacrifice wrong?”

“Not by human judgements.”

“Well then . . .”

“But I am speaking objectively. I am standing outside the system and wish I had a lever long enough to move it. But one man cannot, there is no fulcrum, a man can do his little part and
nothing more.”

“You speak objectively. But don’t you feel human sentiments?”

“Of course. With my human mind, I must. ButI can also look through them, penetrate the veil of emotion, and attempt to act accordingly. If man were natural, you see, he would let the
useless die, as our ancestors abandoned them to the lion and the hyena. And if man were logical he would, for instance, form his armies from the ranks of the cripples, the defectives, the
malformed. War is quite natural – perhaps necessary – to our species. It is a safety valve for the pressures of survival. But it would be a far more effective valve if the casualties
came from the weak, allowing the strong to live. But man lies somewhere in the void, groping upwards for elusive logic while his feet are slipping from their purchase on the natural. We are driven
by false instincts we term rational – instincts created within ourselves long after nature had finished imprinting her pattern. We weaken ourselves by tolerance and, at the same time, destroy
other species by inverse selectivity. Only man – man, the hunter – seeks the finest trophy, the largest antlers, the beast in the prime of life. We kill the best specimens and spurn the
weak; we plunder nature as we follow our own descent.”

“You have strong views,” I said.

Claymore nodded. His slight shadow slipped across the floor, within the dinosaur’s vaulted ribcage, as he shifted his position; crossed his leg over the artificial limb.

“Yes, the dichotomy has long troubled me,” he said. “As these conclusions first solidified during long winter nights in the open, I often lay awake in my sleeping bag and saw
the cold starry sky as a background to my concepts. How implacable that sky seemed, how pitiless. It was then that I saw natural science cannot be isolated, can never be an enclosed sphere of
knowledge, for even the non-objective sciences are inextricably linked to ecology. Man is unique. He stands above nature and imposes his half-considered concepts on the natural scheme –
forces them in where they do not fit. It seems that the experiment with the big brain has taken a wrong turning – a turning nature never intended but is powerless to correct – to guide
us back to the proper channel. Nature has created a Frankenstein’s monster which threatens to turn upon its creator. And to destroy nature is suicidal. Far better, perhaps, if homo sapiens
had been allowed to survive by virtue of thumb and upright spine, and never granted the gift and curse of vocal cord and concept; to survive like the cockroach which, I daresay, will outlast us
yet.”