Its principal symptoms were complete paralysis of the arms which were strained and twisted in a terrible manner, fever which mounted at a furious speed, and agonising pains in the head. Many of the victims were already in extremis, several died even while the doctor was examining them, and in the course of a few hours practically everyone attacked by the disease had succumbed. The only ones to recover were a few children, too young to give any useful information.
It would be useless to trace or describe the excitement which followed, even though the Press, at the instigation of the Government, was silent upon the matter. Help was rushed to Moorcrest, the dead were interred and the living helped in every way. The Ministry of Health sent down its most famous experts to investigate. One and all admitted that they were completely baffled.
On May 21st Ancoats was the scene of an appalling outbreak of the disease. People in the densely packed areas died like flies. But there were some remarkable circumstances which drew the attention of the trained observers who rushed to the spot to inquire into the phenomenon.
Ancoats had been the scene of the second explosion twelve days before. It was not long before a health official noticed the coincidence that the outbreaks at Moorcrest and Ancoats occurred exactly twelve days after the explosions in each place.
The coincidence was, of course, remarked upon as somewhat suspicious, but it was not until it was reproduced in the terrible outbreak at Nottingham that suspicion became a practical certainty. It was speedily confirmed by repeated outbreaks in other parts of the country. In each case the mysterious malady broke out exactly twelve days after the appearance of the violet vapour. In all cases the symptoms were precisely alike, and the percentage of deaths was appalling. Neither remedy nor palliative could be devised, and the best medical brains in the country confessed themselves baffled.
By this time there was no room for doubt that the terror was the deliberate work of some human fiend who had won a frightful secret from Nature’s great laboratory. But who could it be, and what possible object could he have?
Leading scientific men of all nations poured in to England to help. For it was now recognised that civilisation as a whole was menaced; the fate of England to-day might be the fate of any other nation to-morrow. France and the United States sent important missions; even Russia and Germany were represented by famous bacteriologists and health experts. International jealousies and rivalries appeared to be laid aside, and even the secret service, most suspicious of rivals, began for once to co-operate and place at each other’s disposal information which might prove useful in tracking down the author of the mysterious pestilence.
On the day of the meeting of the British Cabinet, two men and a pretty, dark-haired French girl were keenly discussing the terrible problem in a small but tastefully furnished flat in the Avenue Kléber, in Paris.
“I know only three people in the world with brains enough to carry the thing out,” said the girl. “They are Ivan Petroff, the Russian; Paolo Caetani, the Italian, and Sebastian Gonzalez, the Spaniard. They are all three avowed anarchists, and, as we know, they are all chemists and bacteriologists of supreme ability. But I must say that there is not a scrap of evidence to connect either of them with this affair.”
The speaker was Yvette Pasquet, and there was no one in whom Regnier, the astute head of the French Secret Service, placed more implicit confidence.