John Carr - The Reader Is Warned

Outside the windows, the sky was growing grey. For some moments Chief Inspector Masters had been contemplating the corner of the desk with a growing twinkle in his eye. He picked up his almost untasted drink, stirred it, and drained it. He chuckled. His chuckle deepened and became a guffaw.

'Lummy,' he said comprehensively, and slapped his thigh.

H. M. peered at him over his spectacles. ‘So? What's so funny, Masters?'

'I was just thinking, sir, about the old gentleman on the tram: the one who wanted to put Pennik in a zinc-lined box like a tube of radium. Teleforce! And a lot of people getting the wind up. And a death-ray that'd knock bombers out of the air. And ... well, and all because an electric heater dropped into a bath.'

'You think that's funny ?'

'Don't you?'

'No,' said H. M. 'Why do you think all this fuss has been allowed?' 'How do you mean?’

'For the salutary moral lesson,' said H. M., 'when on this bright day the1 menace of Teleforce is turned into howlin' nonsense, and pseudo-scientific rubbish gets the kick in the pants it deserves. That's how the campaign has been planned. The long-threatened raspberry bursts forth. The Press tells what Teleforce is, and who had the managin' of it. And the next dme alarmists go scurry in' from house to house, the next dme they tell you about a super-bomb that'll drop from an enemy aeroplane and wipe out a whole county, the next time they picture London as one cloud of poison-gas from Hampstead to Lambeth, then you look at your back-garden and softly murmur, "Teleforce," and be comforted.

'We know what we're doin', son.' He swept his arm towards Whitehall. 'Don't let the outside alarmers scare you.

The trident's still on the coin. They don't speak Esperanto in Billingsgate yet. When you hear about these super-planes, these super-gases, these super-weaknesses on our side, think of Teleforce, too. This tendency to believe anything puts a leerin' face on people. It's a face made a little larger than1 life; but it's still rubber that can be pulled about to look more hideous than it really is. Most of it's Voodoo, son; and,' d'ye know, there never was much room for Voodoo here.'

Pulling himself to his feet, he snorted once, lumbered over to the window and, with the growing daylight on his bald head and square jaw, he stared out across the river and the mighty curve of London.