The River of Death | Page 2

of them. And for the best part of a month the Thames has
been little better than a ditch stagnating under a brazen sunshine. Will
our people ever learn anything, Darbyshire? Is London and its six
million people always to groan under the tyranny of a monopoly? Say
there's an outbreak of typhoid somewhere up the river between here
and Oxford. It gets a grip before the thing is properly handled, the
village system of drainage is a mere matter of percolation. In
eight-and-forty hours the Thames is one floating tank of deadly poison.
And, mind you, this thing is bound to happen sooner or later."
"It has happened," Darbyshire said quietly. "and in a worse form than
you think. Just listen to this extract from an eastern counties provincial

paper:
STRANGE AFFAIR AT ALDENBURGH
A day or two ago the barque Santa Anna came ashore at Spur, near
Aldenburgh, and quickly became a total wreck. The vessel was piled
high on the Spur, and, the strong tide acting upon the worn-out hull,
quickly beat it to pieces. The crew of eight men presumably took to
their boats, for nothing has been seen of them since. How the Santa
Anna came to be wrecked on a clear, calm night remains a mystery for
the present. The barque was presumedly inbound for some foreign port
and laden with oranges, thousands of which have been picked up at
Aldenburgh lately. The coastguards presume the barque to be a
Portuguese."
'Naturally you want to know what this has to do with the Thames,"
Darbyshire observed. "I'm going to tell you. The Santa Anna was
deliberately wrecked for a purpose which you will see later. The crew
for the most part landed not far away and, for reasons of their own,
sank their boat. It isn't far from Aldenburgh to London: in a short time
the Portuguese were in the Metropolis. Two or three of them remained
there, and five of them proceeded to tramp to Ashchurch, which is on
the river, and not far from Oxford. Being short of money, their idea was
to tramp across to Cardiff and get a ship there. Being equally short of
our language, they get out of their way to Ashchurch. Then three of
them are taken ill, and two of them die. The local practitioner sends for
the medical officer of health. The latter gets frightened and sends for
me. I have just got back. Look here."
Darbyshire produced a phial of cloudy fluid, some of which he
proceeded to lay on the glass of a powerful microscope. Longdale fairly
staggered back from the eyepiece. "Bubonic! The water reeks with the
bacillus! I haven't seen it so strongly marked since we were in New
Orleans together. Darbyshire, you don't mean to say that this sample
came from--"
"The Thames? But I do. Ashchurch drains directly into the river. And
for some few days those sailors have been suffering from a gross form

of bubonic fever. Now you see why they ran the Santa Anna ashore and
deserted her. One of the crew died of plague, and the rest abandoned
her. We won't go into the hideous selfishness of it; it was a case of the
devil take the hindmost."
"It's an awful thing," Longdale groaned.
"Frightful," Darbyshire murmured. He was vaguely experimenting with
some white precipitate on a little water taken from the phial. He placed
a small electric battery on the table. "The great bulk of the London
water supply comes from the Thames. Speaking from memory, only the
New River and one other company draw their supply from the Lea. If
the supply were cut off, places like Hoxton and Haggerstone and
Battersea, in fact all the dense centres of population where disease is
held in on the slenderest of threads, would suffer fearfully. And there is
that deadly poison spreading and spreading hourly drawing nearer to
the metropolis into which presently it will be ladled by the million
gallons. People will wash in it, drink it. Mayfair will take its chance
with Whitechapel."
"At any hazard the supply must be cut off!," Longdale cried.
"And deprive four-fifths of London with water altogether!" Darbyshire
said grimly. "And London grilling like a furnace? No flushing of
sewers, no watering of roads, not even a drop to drink. In two days
London would be a reeking, seething hell - try and picture it,
Longdale."
"I have, often," Longdale said gloomily. "Sooner or later it had to come.
Now is your chance, Darbyshire - that process of sterilisation of yours."
Darbyshire smiled. He moved in the direction of the velvet curtains. He
wanted those notes of his; he wanted to prove a startling new discovery
to his colleague. The notes were there, but they seemed to have been
disturbed.