The Medusa Touch Page #4

Very withdrawn sort of fellow.

Had the most disconcerting eyes.

One could never return his gaze

in conversation.

Somehow made one feel guilty.

Do you know why he left the law?

I thought you knew,

thought that's why you'd come.

No, I didn't know.

Mr. Morlar, may I suggest you be brief?

Barristers' first windings up tend to be

rather more generous of the Court's time

than is strictly necessary.

The chief villainy

of Mr. Lovelass's pamphlet

lies in his open admission

that he would do what he could

to make the world a saner

and more humane than the world we live in.

His phrase, not mine.

He made curbside speeches.

He even wrote certain politicians

and so called features of the...

Could you bring us to the charges?

My Lord,

the prosecution makes much

of the Defendant's professed wish to see

the lmperial War Museum destroyed.

"Why", the Defendant asks,

"do we send bus-loads of children

to gawk at that collection of tributes

to authorised murder?"

A crime?

Look at this venerable courtroom.

We are supposed to be civilised,

yet we do shove innocence

into that chamber of horrors,

stuffed with pain, mutilation and death

and say:

"This is what put the great in England".

But where in that asylum of grotesques

do we find framed the armament

manufacturer's cheque book,

together with Grandpa's pathetic medal

and his artificial leg?

I am with the Defendant.

If I knew how,

I would blow the bloody place sky high.

For which thought, if memory serves

the Prosecution argues,

if a man can be so scathing

about our bloodied militaristic past,

what is he not capable of?

I will tell you,

ladies and gentlemen of the Jury.

He is not capable of a non-event.

There was no bomb, no threats,

no conspiracy.

You know it, the Prosecution knows it,

I know it,

the Judge knows it.

It is not the Defendant

who should be on trial here,

but a besotted establishment

who can cheerfully send

a generation to slaughter

in the name of war

and yet has the audacity to bring

a hapless fool like Lovelass to trial

for uttering

words.

There was no crime,

therefore there can be no sentence.

My Lord.

Some good points of course,

but McKinley was the wrong man

to give them to, especially in that way.

He instructed the Jury. Got a verdict

and passed sentence.

It is plain that you deliberately sought

to attack the law with violence.

The only fit punishment

is to remove you from society.

I sentence you

to a period of imprisonment of 9 years.

Take him away.

May I guess what happened next?

As Morlar stared at him,

the Judge grew pale.

Exactly on the nail.

Later something happened to him.

In his chambers, an hour after the trial,

died of a heart attack.

The Coroner asked if there was anything

to account for the terror on his face.

- What's on your mind, Inspector?

- It's what's on that mind.

I've honestly never seen anything like it.

It seems to be struggling harder.

I have been reading his journals,

he talks about telekinesis.

Fairy stories or anything to it?

The power of thought to influence matter.

The Americans have done a lot of research,

the Russians too.

They have a girl who can apparently think

a chair across a room.

In America there's a man

who can think pictures onto film.

Our ignorance is great,

I keep an open mind.

We have traced the experiments

in telekinesis and mental powers.

The first one is fairly familiar,

the power of the mind dominates pain.

It's in the tradition of lying on spikes

and walking on hot coals.

This second experiment is more interesting.

The boy's head is linked to a scoreboard.

The power of his thoughts

can turn on lights and ring bells.

This film is one of the most famous

of telekinetic demonstrations.

Kulagina is just a Leningrad housewife

and grandmother.

Over 40 high ranking scientists

examined her for hidden magnets,

wires and other artificial aids.

There were none.

They could give no explanation

of her powers to move objects.

Lastly and the most dramatic.

This young history teacher is going to try

to will this sheet of glass to shatter.

To build a cenotaph,

first choose a million victims.

You know, Duff, I'm beginning to wonder

what we're chasing,

victim or murderer?

It's a string of coincidences.

I can see how it gave the bloke nightmares,

but every single one is explainable.

- What do you think he wants?

- Conclusions.

To tell me I have 2 months left in England

and I'm wasting too much time on a man

who isn't even dead.

Meanwhile let's find Lovelass.

Morning, Sir.

- Morlar still alive?

- Yes, Sir.

Everything going all right?

I think the expression is,

it belongs to the book.

I've read your reports.

This Zonfeld, is he reliable?

He's a her,

everything has checked so far.

Some interested parties want his journals.

Who?

You have interested parties in France too.

Why?

They don't have to say why.

- he wrote books.

- is That against the law in England?

Not yet, we've got enough trouble

without a dozen Watergates to handle.

Morlar knew too much

about those corridors of power,

what goes on behind the wainscoting

under the carpets.

God knows how he ever learnt but he did.

The books were bad enough, they want to see

what's going on in those journals.

You've given me

an interesting set of new suspects.

That's not their way, they're too subtle.

It was personal hatred that got Morlar.

Remember, I've been a detective too.

That's why I want those journals.

I tell you one thing,

lots of people will be relieved

to know who did it.

Not as many apparently as wished him dead.

Morlar didn't profess to us hypnosis

and you can't cause a school to burn

or a car to move with hypnosis.

He talks in his journals about telekinesis.

A very disputed field.

But it's hard to believe he could

give measles to his nanny in that way,

or induce a heart attack on Judge McKinley.

He told you about McKinley?

And his neighbour, Mrs. Pennington?

You sound a little like you're becoming

a victim of Morlar's own thinking.

It is a remarkable chain of coincidence.

Remarkable.

It's no coincidence, it's me.

It's seems like you,

but when we understand more about you,

perhaps we'll know why.

Don't patronise me.

You drag people out of hell

and yet you refuse to recognise the devil.

If I believed in possession,

I'd be a witch doctor.

You're clever,

they told me, that's why I came.

But don't talk to me of coincidence.

My wife and I had a baby,

it was born deformed, withered.

It lived for an hour and when it died

the hospital breathed a sigh of relief.

If you say coincidence to me,

I will drive my fist through your face.

All right, I'm not possessed.

I don't believe in the devil more than you,

any more than I believe in God.

But what is it?

Do you know what I did when I saw the baby?

I'd wanted that child.

I was the only thing I had wanted

from my marriage.

When I looked at it,

all these coincidences seemed too much.

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