One missing letter. One eccentric inventor. One very smoky meeting with the Viceroy of India.

John Fennil Wonder is an ambitious private secretary with a talent for involving himself in matters far beyond his authority. Determined to manage the affairs of the British Raj—and occasionally the Viceroy himself—Wonder arranges a private audience with Mellishe, an important and influential official from Madras.

Unfortunately, the invitation is delivered to the wrong man.

E. S. Mellish is an obsessive inventor who has spent fifteen years developing what he believes to be an infallible defense against cholera: Mellish’s Own Invincible Fumigatory. Convinced that powerful medical interests have conspired to suppress his discovery, he arrives at the Viceroy’s residence prepared to demonstrate his invention personally.

What follows is a spectacular cloud of choking smoke, flying sparks, panicked officials, and complete administrative chaos.

While Mellish proudly proclaims his experiment a triumph, the amused Viceroy quickly realizes that the mishap has destroyed something far more troublesome than any disease-causing germ.

Witty, fast-moving, and sharply irreverent, A Germ Destroyer is Rudyard Kipling’s comic attack on officious administrators, inflated reputations, scientific obsession, and the magnificent absurdity of government bureaucracy.

Narrated by Paul Landergan, this entertaining short listen brings Kipling’s mistaken identities, larger-than-life personalities, and explosive farce vividly to life.