“I cannot believe,” I said slowly, “that human ingenuity could
so closely duplicate the handiwork of nature. Surely the gem is
unique?--possibly one of those magical talismans of which we read in
Eastern stories?”
My companion smiled.
“It is not a gem,” he replied, “and while in a sense it is a product of
human ingenuity, it is also the handiwork of nature.”
I was badly puzzled, and doubtless revealed the fact, for the stranger
laughed in his short fashion, and:
“I am not trying to mystify you,” he assured me. “But the truth is so
hard to believe sometimes that in the present case I hesitate to divulge
it. Did you ever meet Tcheriapin?”
This abrupt change of topic somewhat startled me, but nevertheless:
“I once heard him play,” I replied. “Why do you ask the question?”
“For this reason: Tcheriapin possessed the only other example of this
art which so far as I am aware ever left the laboratory of the inventor.
He occasionally wore it in his buttonhole.”
“It is then a manufactured product of some sort?”
“As I have said, in a sense it is; but”--he drew the tiny exquisite
ornament from his pocket again and held it up before me--“it is a
natural bloom.”
“What!”
“It is a natural bloom,” replied my acquaintance, fixing his penetrating
gaze upon me. “By a perfectly simple process invented by the cleverest
chemist of his age it had been reduced to this gem-like state while
retaining unimpaired every one of its natural beauties, every shade of
its natural colour. You are incredulous?”
“On the contrary,” I replied, “having examined it through a magnifying
glass I had already assured myself that no human hand had fashioned
it. You arouse my curiosity intensely. Such a process, with its endless
possibilities, should be worth a fortune to the inventor.”
The stranger nodded grimly and again concealed the rose in his pocket.
“You are right,” he said; “and the secret died with the man who
discovered it--in the great explosion at the Vortex Works in 1917. You
recall it? The T.N.T. factory? It shook all London, and fragments were
cast into three counties.”
“I recall it perfectly well.”
“You remember also the death of Dr. Kreener, the chief chemist? He died
in an endeavour to save some of the workpeople.”
“I remember.”
“He was the inventor of the process, but it was never put upon the
market. He was a singular man, sir; as was once said of him--'A Don Juan
of science.' Dame Nature gave him her heart unwooed. He trifled with
science as some men trifle with love, tossing aside with a smile
discoveries which would have made another famous. This”--tapping his
breast pocket--“was one of them.”
“You astound me. Do I understand you to mean that Dr. Kreener had
invented a process for reducing any form of plant life to this
condition?”
“Almost any form,” was the guarded reply. “And some forms of animal
life.”
“What!”
“If you like”--the stranger leaned forward and grasped my arm--“I will
tell you the story of Dr. Kreener's last experiment.”
I was now intensely interested. I had not forgotten the heroic death of
the man concerning whose work this chance acquaintance of mine seemed to
know so much. And in the cadaverous face of the stranger as he sat there
regarding me fixedly there was a promise and an allurement. I stood on
the verge of strange things; so that, looking into the deep-set eyes,
once again I felt the cloak being drawn about me, and I resigned myself
willingly to the illusion.
From the moment when he began to speak again until that when I rose and
followed him from Malay Jack's, as I shall presently relate, I became
oblivious of my surroundings. I lived and moved through those last
fevered hours in the lives of Dr. Kreener, Tcheriapin, the violinist,
and that other tragic figure around whom the story centred. I append: