"He looks like a pirate from the Barbary coast--San Francisco," Knowlton
went on, "and when he's full he acts like one. I've rented the bedroom
that opens into this study for him. You can share the sitting room and
work here evenings on your chemical problems. Also you will be able to
keep an eye on him. The first time he comes home pickled, you let me
know."
This cool way of supplying me with a roommate staggered me.
"Do you wish me to cable your father to authorize this arrangement?"
said Knowlton, with his unerring skill in tracing the course of my
thoughts.
"Not if you honestly tell me it is for the good of the business, and not
because you want to tie me down."
"Well," he puffed, looking at his cigarette, "I'm frank enough to say
it's a mixture of both. We need this man in our business and some one
has got to look after him. It's two birds with one barrel."
"It's very inconvenient for me," I objected. "I like to read and
experiment with my literary work in the evenings."
"The world is often an inconvenient place," moralized Knowlton. "It
might be inconvenient for several of us if old Prospero gets to hitting
the booze."
"Prospero?" I enquired, surprised by Knowlton's sudden excursion into
literature.
"That's the best name I know for him. I learned a piece about him in
school once, something about cloud-capped palaces leaving a wreck behind
them, or words to that effect. I have a hunch that if you steer old
Prospero right, he'll bring one of those cloud-capped palaces down to
earth. The only thing that worries me is the danger of the wreck behind.
Shakespeare certainly knew human nature all right. He was a wise boy."
Knowlton achieved his carefully planned purpose of disarming me. I
laughed and even began to feel most curious concerning Prospero.
"What is the real name of your genius?" I asked, still postponing my
final decision.
"John de Fougere is what he call's himself, since he decided he had
French blood. As a matter of fact he took this name to avoid an
unnecessary wife in Cripple Creek. That's a piece of information I've
salted away for what it may be worth to us. Just now he is living with
an ex-circus gymnast. I'm buying the lady off, and persuaded John to pay
his alimony to her. He thinks I think this circus woman is his wife.
Prospero's right name is Donald McClintock and he hails originally from
South Carolina. There's still some Scotch that isn't whiskey in him
somewhere."
"I think you have planned a rather heavy contract for me. Won't he get
restless without his gymnastic companion?"
"No. You see Prospero is all brains and no physical strength. Lately the
lady has taken to practicing her gymnastic skill on him and beats him up
every time he stays out nights. He says she is too crassly material to
appreciate his knowledge of chemistry. If we can keep him in shape and
use his brains for three months, I'll be satisfied."
"All right" I agreed finally. "You may move him in here and I'll stand
it as long as I can. When does he arrive?"
"Day after tomorrow."
With this Knowlton rose and took himself off, leaving me to meditate
upon this new complication in life.
Wednesday evening brought Prospero. Knowlton escorted him to my
apartment, and the door between my study and the extra bedroom was
formally opened. Prospero revealed the reason for his name. He was a
tall, gaunt, swarthy individual over whose sharp bones a sallow,
shrunken skin clung tightly. His eyes, deep sunken and brown, glowed
beneath bushy eyebrows. His long, lean face was adorned with a waxed
moustache and sharp pointed goatee, which, together with an ample
brimmed felt hat, gave him the appearance of a royalist of the ancient
regime. He wore a Byronic collar, above which protruded an enormous
Adam's apple resting in the folds of a flowing black tie. His hands,
tapering like a vulture's claws, were covered with cheap imitation
jewelry. A suit of outrageous checked tweeds and patent leather pumps
gave the last touch to his bizarre appearance. Any one seeing him would
seize upon him as a character newly stepped from some detective story or
tale of mystery. His breath was strongly impregnated with alcohol, which
the smoke of a Cuban cigarette hanging loosely from a flabby lower lip
could not conceal. He seemed even more out of place in Deep Harbor than
I did. Some mediaeval alchemist's cell, hung with crocodiles and stuffed
owls, was the only natural background for him.
With him he brought infinite luggage--everything from a steamer roll to
a canvas dunnage bag, all of it portable. As we shook hands, an act
which he performed in a most friendly manner, he crossed the room,
opened one of his mysterious overflowing bags, and produced a box of
costly chocolates. These he solemnly passed--like the Dodo in "Alice in
Wonderland," I thought. Like Alice I took one, fearing to offend him.
Then he drew his chair up to a table and announced that he was ready to
talk business.
Knowlton evidently understood what was expected, for he took out a roll
of bills and counted out a respectable pile. "I think you will find the
amount correct--two months' pay in advance as per our agreement," said
Knowlton. Prospero made great ceremony of counting and recounting the
bills in silence, moistening his fingers frequently and getting the
smoke from his cigarette in his eyes at intervals during the process.
"And now, Teddy, my lad," he said suddenly to me, to my intense
surprise, calling me by my nickname in this unexpected way, "we'll go
out, get something to eat, and see the town."
I looked at Knowlton, and his expression denoted approval. I fetched my
hat and the two of us sallied forth. Don Quixote and Sancho were not a
more ill-assorted couple, and it was not strange that men turned to
stare at us in the street.
"You are French, I believe," I said at last in a desperate effort to
start conversation. I didn't believe it, but I wanted to know what he
would say. His answer was astounding.
"I am a descendant of Charles Martel," he announced as if he were
stating the most ordinary fact. I let the statement pass in silence.
"Are you leading me to the best restaurant in town?" he queried a block
further on.
"If you wish," I replied. "The best restaurant in town is a relative
question. We'll try the so-called grill room at the Otooska House."
Our entrance together was easily the event of the evening. Prospero
demanded a table like an emperor issuing a proclamation. Waiters came
upon the run from every nook and cranny and crowded tables upon us. He
was content to sit at the most conspicuous. To one waiter he handed his
hat, to another his stick, to a third, his gloves, and bade a fourth
"Divest my friend of his paraphernalia." There was a distinct touch of
Wilkins Micawber in his make-up, I decided; still, one must expect that
of a present-day relative of Charles Martel.
"Stout and oysters for two," he commanded. "I have ventured to order
stout and oysters in compliment to you," he explained. "The combination
is new to me, but I have read about it in Charles Dickens' novels."
"We are rather inland for oysters," I said. "They have an indecent habit
here of serving them nude on a plate--without their shell, I mean," I
added, as Prospero frowned questioningly.
"You are a chemist, Edward? Am I right?" Prospero's questions sounded
like those of Rhadamanthus.
"I'm trying to be one," I modestly rejoined.
"I am the greatest chemist in the world, if I choose to let men know
it." It seemed to me rather ill concealed for a secret of such
importance. "I have an idea here--" he tapped his forehead--"that will
make me rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Would you like to know what
it is?"
"Very much," I said sipping my stout gratefully.
"Listen!" he proclaimed. "I have discovered the secret of making
electricity direct from coal! What do you think of me now?" And he sat
back to study the effect of his dramatic announcement on me. I felt that
common politeness compelled me in some way to rise to the occasion.
"It sounds marvellous," I said. "Have you ever done it?"
He waved this question aside with a long draft of stout. "Not yet," he
sputtered through the brown foam on his moustache, "but that is
immaterial, for I know the secret." I contemplated him a bit ruefully,
wondering if the hard-headed Knowlton had made a good bargain in
saddling us with this.
"You doubt me," he remarked. "That is because you do not know me yet. Do
you know"--suddenly dropping his voice to a whisper--"I am not convinced
yet that the alchemist's search for the philosopher's stone was vain. It
might be possible--locked within the element radium that secret lies.
And if men are to find it out, I shall be that man."
"Oh, hell, Mr. Fougere!" I said much nettled, "all this has very little
to do with the chemistry we use in our business."
"True, my young materialist, true. He who looks straight before his nose
shall see but the dust. My gaze is among the stars. But you need not
worry. I shall give you and your father every cent's value that the most
exacting business man could ask of me. If you care nothing for my true
brains and want only my routine daily labour, that will be _your_
loss--yet I shall not hold it against you. Money is the curse of the
age."
"Your big ideas sound reasonably profitable," I retorted, "if you pull
them off. How would you escape the curse?"
"I can use money wisely, for I am a great man. If I were rich I should
cruise in the South Seas."
"That has been done before," I murmured.
"I shall go to Tahiti and surround myself with beautiful island women.
There I will build the world's greatest laboratory and search for the
philosopher's stone as I recline against the bronze breasts of
flower-decked girls."
I meditated a moment on the vision he had conjured up and concluded he
would look rather well in the part as outlined. Finally I ventured.
"Isn't Tahiti quite an out of the way place for a chemical laboratory?
'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"
"I do not agree with you. The hero of 'Locksley Hall' was wrong. He but
reflected sentimentally the materialism of the nineteenth century."
I was amused to have my quotation recognized by him. What was this
strange man, and what had he done with himself in the world? I wondered
what kind of chemist he would prove.
"In spite of your youth, Edward, I see you are, like me, a thinker and
philosopher; on a lower plane, of course, yet our minds have much in
common."
He talked after a fashion of the characters in an early Victorian novel
or a transpontine melodrama. Where could such a creature have obtained
the skill to keep consistently his elaborate pose? I wished to draw him
out, so I played back to him: "I find the world a mildly amusing place
and always interesting even in its unpleasant phases."
"That is very true, Edward. At one time I was forced by unusual
circumstances to apply my chemical skill to the making of what is known
as moonshine whiskey. This was in the mountains of North Carolina. Here,
if you please, was one of life's unpleasant phases--that I, of all men,
should be technically classified by a capitalistic government as a
criminal and hence be subjected to annoyances from internal revenue
minions. Nevertheless, I was profoundly interested in the problems
involved in eluding man-made laws."
He bared his right forearm; across the drum-like skin ran a long seared
scar. "That was as near as the law came to me," he said, and emptied a
pony of brandy, which he had ordered as soon as his bottle of stout was
empty. I made an effort to stop him by referring to the early hour at
which work began at the factory. There was as yet no trace of thickness
in his speech; only his fiery eyes were shining more and more brightly.
With his next brandy he commanded Welsh rabbits and chocolate ice-cream.
Fortunately he made no attempt to urge me to keep pace with him in
drinking. As for the morrow, he dismissed it with a shrug.
"I work neither in time nor in space, Edward. My ideas are
flashes--gleams--from the outer Cosmos, whence time is not. When they
come, I work; when they don't, I await the signal."
"It sounds like an irregular schedule to follow," I smiled.
"When the hour strikes, I shall be there, Edward. Waiter! Bring me
another brandy."
From this time on he began to get thoroughly drunk. I could only sit and
watch hoping that ultimately he would find his way home. When closing
time came he wished to fight the entire hotel management for suggesting
that he leave. At last I coaxed him to go; and, strange to say, I was
not once included in his outbursts of rage. Like a lamb he followed me
half way home; and then another whim seized him. He was determined to
make an excursion down an unsavoury by-street whose nature he
recognized. In vain I sought to detain him. I reminded him that half the
night was gone and that there was work to do tomorrow. He would listen
to no word of mine, but, wrenching his arm free from me, lurched away.
Whether to follow or not I was undecided. He turned into an alley and
disappeared. The streets were dark and deserted. With a final
imprecation almost as picturesque as one of Prospero's own, I went home
and to bed.
At six, with the alarm clock still clanging in my ears, I looked into
his bedroom. Prospero lay across the bed with most of his clothes on,
unconscious. The sleeve of his left arm was rolled up, and I saw that
the skin was covered with small puncture marks. On the floor a
hypodermic syringe and his Russia leather wallet, both empty, were
lying. I shook him savagely, but a groan was the only response. Damning
Knowlton for thrusting such a roommate upon me, I went out to the
factory.
Instead of going to work I sat in Knowlton's office waiting for him to
arrive. I had made up my mind to have the case of Prospero out with him.
Promptly at eight he came, bringing Prospero with him! The latter was as
fresh appearing and as amiable as if nothing had happened. He had
changed his tweeds for a long frock coat, slightly green with age, and
upon his head was a silk hat of a famous vintage.
"Why, Ted, I'm surprised not to find you on the job this morning,"
grinned Knowlton. "I'm afraid Mr. de Fougere kept you up too late last
night. Take him out to the laboratory, and if there's anything needed,
wire New York to ship by express. I'll leave you two authority for any
reasonable order."
In silence and deep disgust I led the way. As we entered the laboratory
Prospero glanced about with an appraising eye.
"Very good, Teddy, very good. A well equipped little workshop," and he
removed hat and coat, soaked a towel in fresh water, wrung it out, bound
it about his head without further comment, lit a cigarette in defiance
of the factory rules staring him in the face, and sat before the long
bench table. I outlined the day's work and explained the experiments
already under way. He critically picked up a beaker or two, sniffed
their contents, and squinted at a rack of test tubes. I waited to see
what would happen next. Our problem was one requiring a number of
experiments to be performed in sequence. Among the assets of our firm
were certain new chemical patents which were not yet in a commercial
stage.
De Fougere finished his cigarette and then asked to see the laboratory
diary and the inventory of chemicals on hand. These I placed in his
hands. He smoked another cigarette in silence while he looked over my
records.
"You appear to be a methodical boy, Teddy," he remarked with a yawn, at
the same time choosing a Meissen ware dish as an ash tray. "I can't be
bothered to write results down. I carry them stored here," and he tapped
his forehead.
"All very well," I replied, "but what would happen if you dropped dead?"
Prospero smiled: "That is impossible. I have been sent to this planet to
do a great work. Not until all the world rings with the name de Fougere
shall I pass away. When that time comes I may pass, like Arthur, into
the deep. I have seen my death in dreams, and it is a glorious one.
There is no fear of my falling in the street."
All this explanation was not so comforting to me as it was to him, and I
decided to add his records to mine, as far as it was possible to get
them from observation and question. Was he a megalomaniac, or was his
ego an effect of drugs upon a nerve-wracked constitution? Was there any
knowledge accompanying this colossal conceit--this ego-centrism of his?
"I grant you, Teddy, that last evening has given you some cause to
mistrust me. As soon as this headache clears from my brain, you shall
see and marvel at the true de Fougere. You imagine I am often as you saw
me last night? You are wrong, young man, wrong. That is the body of de
Fougere struggling for freedom from the mind of de Fougere. I make my
body so completely my slave that at times it revolts and demands such
food as drugs and flesh."
I was fascinated by this pompous speech, which seemed as if it had been
written out beforehand and memorized. A hundred questions were on the
tip of my tongue. Where had he acquired this language, this farrago of
phrases from Godey's Ladies' Magazine? This thought kept recurring to me
as the most inexplicable of all the strange things about this man. I
turned to my morning's work and abandoned the problem of Prospero.
* * * * *
In the evening I went to Knowlton's room at the Otooska House and laid
formal complaint against de Fougere. Knowlton grinned: "It's great
experience for you, Teddy boy. You don't meet many jewels like Prospero
at your pink teas, I guess. So he hit the booze and worse, in spite of
your protests? Tut, tut, Teddy that's bad."
"Not only that, but I tell you he uses morphine," I said, nettled by the
way Knowlton took my story.
"Our contract is only for three months, Teddy, and he has forgotten more
chemistry than most people will ever know. Now, Ted, keep your hair on.
I'm simply gambling on a long chance. If we keep him fairly straight for
three months, he can be mightily useful. If we don't, we are only out
three months' salary for him. He spent two months' of it last night,
which pretty well guarantees us against further blow-ups. I wanted to
pay him the whole three in advance, but the old devil was too foxy to
take it," Knowlton added reflectively.
Light began to dawn upon me. "So you encouraged him to take that tear
last night?"
"Surest thing you know. I thought it would be well to get it out of his
system at the start. It has been some time since he has seen that much
money. He didn't get you stewed, did he, Ted?"
"No," I said shortly. Knowlton grinned.
"You sound like a hang over, but perhaps it's only your moral sense,
Teddy."
"The point is, have I got to have a drug fiend as a roommate?"
"I'm afraid so, Teddy. We must keep as much of an eye on him as
possible. He believes you innocent and guileless; and he'll talk more
freely to you than to me."
"Talk freely! Great heavens! I should think he did! That's one of the
things I complain of. Perhaps you think it amusing to listen to a crazy
man talk about himself night and day."
Upon my return to my quarters I found Prospero, in velvet jacket, cap,
and slippers, smoking a peculiar pipe of a great size. It was his
instinct to wear a suitable costume for everything he did, even for pipe
smoking. An old cash ledger lay open before him, and in this he was
writing with--trust Prospero for a dramatic effect--a quill pen! He
frowned at me as I entered and growled "Silence!" Somewhat bored and
more irritated, I lit a candle which I had bought for sealing documents,
set it down on the table by his book, and put out the desk light. "I'll
make his damned scene complete," I thought.
"I thank you, Edward," he boomed at me. "Candle-light is less fatiguing
to the eye. You are very thoughtful." He scratched abominably with his
quill, which I suspected he did not know how to use. I endeavoured to
read and watch his melodrama at the same time.
"Edward, do you know what I am writing?"
I rejoiced inwardly at this, for I was certain that my literal
interpretation of his injunction to silence would prove irksome to him
in the end.
"A treatise on chemistry?" I suggested. "Or perhaps a monograph on one
of the rare elements?"
"Wrong, Edward, wrong again. I am writing _the_ philosophy."
"_The_ philosophy?" I queried.
"I call it _the_ philosophy, for it is the only true one. I am the only
man who can explain mind and matter--of what the universe is made--why
it is, and what the nature of the Supreme Being is."
"What is the universe?" I ventured, hoping to draw him out. Mental
hallucinations were novelties to me at that time, and for once Prospero
had interested me.
"The universe, Edward, is a complex chemical equation which I am
solving. On one side of this equation you have material manifestations
of energy; on the other, the manifestations which we call mind and
spirit."
"I think I have heard something like this before," I said, a little
disappointed.
"The germ of my philosophy, Edward, is to be found in Confucius and
repeats itself again in the sayings attributed to Buddha."
"Indeed?"
"Positive matter is the male essence; negative matter, the female. The
ultimate quintessence emanating from the supreme source is a wave
vibration independent of time and space. As this travels outward through
the atoms and molecules of the ultimate solid--these atoms and molecules
which we call stars and planets and which compose this solid--the
combinations between these positive and negative ions or wave vibrations
produce the varying manifestations of mind and matter. They are all
self-perpetuating, yet always passing into new forms. Thus matter begets
matter; thought, thought."
"It sounds as plausible as any explanation," I said politely, turning
over a page of my book. "I'm going to bed," and I shut myself up in my
bedroom. I had had philosophy enough for one evening.
* * * * *
For a week or ten days Prospero worked steadily and amazingly in the
laboratory. He did his experiments with skill, ease, and rapidity;
furthermore, he put no obstacles in the way of my keeping full records
of his work. One day, however, when he returned in the afternoon he was
much depressed. His cigarette reappeared upon his lower lip and he spilt
its ashes into various mixtures, until, in a rage, he hurled an eggshell
Bohemian glass beaker partly full of nitric acid into a far corner of
the room. By acting promptly I saved the factory from a fire and the
room from any serious damage. Prospero contemplated me gloomily when I
had finished clearing up his mess.
"That's a little too risky to be funny," I rebuked him, with pardonable
annoyance. "It's all right to have nerves for one's personal pleasure,
but endangering company property is another matter."
His reply was a series of picturesque and obscene oaths. The final
intimation was that the next time I might expect nitric acid or worse at
my head, instead of at a corner of the room. He flatly refused to
continue any more experiments that afternoon and sat until six o'clock
watching a flickering electric current passing through a vacuum tube. I
reported the situation to Knowlton at the office.
"What do you make of it, Ted?" Knowlton asked.
"Getting ready to shoot himself full of morphine, I take it."
"He hasn't any money."
"I think he probably has a reserve supply of the drug--a fiend isn't
likely to be without it."
"H'm," mused Knowlton. "I wish we could search his baggage. Here, Ted,
you'd better have this in case of emergency," and Knowlton took a
revolver from his desk and offered it to me. I laughed.
"You are getting as melodramatic as old Prospero himself. Thank you just
the same, but I never use them," and I handed it back.
"If he should take a dislike to you, look out, Ted. Let me know if it
continues. Paranoia is not a disease to ignore lightly."
"Paranoia?" I gasped in surprise.
"Sure. He's got all the symptoms--big head and the rest."
* * * * *
Evening brought the explanation. It was not quite so bad as we had
surmised. Upon entering my study I found a stout middle-aged woman
seated there, fanning herself with a palm leaf fan. I was taken aback, I
confess it, and at a loss for words. She saved me the trouble by saying,
"Now, dearie, don't you worry about me. I'm waiting for Mr. de Fougere.
I'm his wife."
"Yes?" I faltered. "Pray make yourself at home."
"You can trust me to do that, dearie, no matter where I am. I've slept
twenty-five seasons in a tourist Pullman car. Home is where I find it, I
always say."
"Twenty-five seasons in a Pullman?" My fatal curiosity was leading me
into conversation in spite of myself.
"Yes, dearie, with the greatest show on earth. Ain't you never heard of
la belle Helene?--well, that's me--Risley act--I've been everything from
the apex to the base of the human pyramid."
"Good God," I thought, "the circus woman! What on earth shall we do
now?" I sat down rather suddenly.
"When do you expect John home? I sent him a telegraph I was coming this
noon, but the skunk didn't meet me to the depot as I told him. Left me
to find my way as best may be, the dirty hound! But I'll fix him!" and
she fanned herself vigorously, for her emotion caused her profuse
perspiration. "Has he been boozing again?" she continued.
"Mr. de Fougere should be here now," I said uneasily. "I can't think
what's keeping him."
"Well, I can!" she announced with vigour. "He always gets drunk when he
knows I'm coming--the coward!"
I thought it took some courage to drink with certain punishment waiting
at the other end. Here was more than a mere headache.
"I suppose you're Teddy--just the age my oldest boy was when he made his
first hit--I trained him myself. John has written me all about you. You
won't mind me calling you Teddy?--I just have to mother something or I'm
all at sea."
The conversation was taking an alarmingly intimate turn. At this
opportune moment Prospero's voice was heard upon the stairs, carolling
at the top of his lungs "Rolling down to Rio."
"That's him," said the ex-gymnast, getting elaborately upon her feet,
"and he's pie-eyed!"
There was no exit through which I could retreat; Prospero's entrance
would be by the only door. I lacked spirit to make a sudden dash by him.
He arrived in the middle of the chorus, his silk hat, ruffled, over one
ear.
"This is a nice way to meet me, ain't it? And you call yourself a man!"
was his greeting.
"Woman, I defy you!" he challenged, "In the name of my ancestor, Charles
Martel, King of France!"
"Go on, you drunken fool! You ain't no more French than what I am,
except for your name, which is a fake, same as my stage name."