The Wells of Hell Read Free Page A

me.
    ‘What’s silly? This is coloured
water, possibly contaminated. Fd like you to test it for me.’
    He picked up the jar and peered at
it with bulging, shortsighted eyes. ‘Where’d you get this?’ he asked.
    ‘Out at Jimmy
Bodine’s house. He says he’s had discoloured water for Two to three days. Alison Bodine swears
it smells of fish, and Shelley seems to think the same way.’
    ‘Shelley? Your cat
Shelley?’
    ‘That’s right. When I took the lid
off the jar he went crazy. When I put it back on again, he returned to his
normal condition of utter indolence.’
    Dan switched off the bright light
over his microscope and rubbed his eyes. ‘Do you think Shelley would like a job
here?’ he asked. ‘I have a vacancy for a lab assistant with a good nose.’
    ‘I’m serious, Dan. All I’m asking is
that you test it.’
    Dan Kirk smiled tiredly, and nodded.
‘You know that I have to anyway. If you like, we’ll run through it now. I think
I’ve had a bellyful of swine fever for one day.’
    ‘Is it bad?’
    ‘About as bad as
it can get. Poor
old Ken Follard had to slaughter every .damn pig on the farm.
    You can smell burning bacon as far
away as Roxbury.’
    I took out my handkerchief and blew
my nose. It was the effect of walking into an overheated laboratory from a
freezing street. I looked at Rheta over the handkerchief as Dan led the way to
the centrifuge, and winked. I guess it wasn’t very romantic, but I believe in
taking every chance you can get.
    ‘You want to tell me something about
this sample?’ asked Dan, switching on the lights around the grey-painted
centrifuge. ‘Which faucet it came from? Any other details?’
    ‘Poured straight
from the kitchen faucet. Jimmy says it’s the same out of every faucet in the house.’
    Dan took the lid off the jar and
sniffed. He paused, considered what he had smelled, and then sniffed again.
    ‘Maybe Shelley was right,’ he told
me.
    ‘You think you smell fish?’
    ‘That’s one way of describing it.’
    ‘What’s another way? Turtle soup?’
    Dan dipped his finger in the water
and licked it. He frowned, and then licked again. ‘There’s definitely some kind
of unusual taste and smell associated with this water. But it’s pretty hard to
define. It doesn’t taste like any of the usual salts or minerals we get around
here. It’s not like manganese or potassium.’
    He tore off a piece of litmus paper
and dipped it into the water. As the water soaked into it, the paper gradually
turned from pale purple to a reddish colour.
    ‘Well,’ said Dan, ‘that indicates
the presence of acids.’
    ‘What kind of acids?’
    ‘I don’t know. We’re going to have
to make all the proper tests. We’re going to start by putting a sample into the
centrifuge, and seeing if we can separate any solids out of it. Did you see if
it left any deposits on the Bodine’s kitchen sink, or maybe their tub?’
    ‘Not a trace. Mind you, it’s only
been troubling them for a couple of days, and that’s hardly long enough to
leave a stain.’
    Dan switched on the centrifuge and
we waited while it whirled the Bodines’ water around and around. Dan said: ‘Did
you see the Hartford game Thursday?’
    ‘I missed it. Mrs Huntley had a
burst pipe.’
    Dan wearily rubbed the back of his
neck. ‘I missed it, too. I was up half the damn night analysing fertiliser.’
    Rheta came across the laboratory
with an armful of files and reports. Close to, she was very pretty, in an odd
kind of way. Her nose was a little too short, and her lips were a little too
wide, but what she lacked in symmetry she made up for with an infectious smile.
‘I like men who put their work first,’ she said, in a mock-serious voice, as if
she was presenting us each with a medal. ‘It shows a responsible, moral
character.’
    ‘That’s me,’ I told her. ‘Pipes before pleasure.’
    Dan finished his centrifuge test,
and then he took the water over to the spectroscope. He was a slow,