"No, you jealous pig."
"Helen," I said, with masculine solemnity and inappropriateness, "is
this really the first time--for you?"
Afterwards I was thankful she had a sense of humour; in a normal frame
of mind I should not have propounded such a banal absurdity. It was
excess of good fortune which destroyed my sense of proportion. She
flushed slightly for a moment, more because it was a shock to find me so
stupid than because the question hurt her.
"Ted, it isn't like us," she said gently, using the phrase that so many
times, in the days to come, kept me steady on my feet and my face in the
clouds--"it isn't like us to--to doubt each other even in tiny things.
Of course, I've had boy friends who have sat on the beach with me and
watched the moon rise or begged me for an extra allowance of dances."
She smiled, and there was a pause, during which I felt humble and
guilty. The back of my neck was uncomfortably hot. "I've met only one
Ted--my Sir Edward of Overseas," and she laid her hand on mine. There
followed a long silence.
"Teddy dear," she said at last. "Tell me more about England."
Until after the room grew dark I told her all I could--of my family; of
country life in Hertfordshire, with its packs of hounds, straggly
villages, and grey parish churches on the summits of windy hills; of
London, with its mystery and romance and its age-old stories. It sounds
as if I lectured poor Helen like a school teacher. In reality it was a
true lover's conversation--she questioning and curious about her
home-to-be, I trying to make her see it through my eyes. I was young and
sentimental; I had not then learned that patriotism and love of home are
suburban and unintellectual emotions.
Suddenly I cried out: "Good Heavens, dearest, it's half past five, and I
forgot I have to go on duty at six! I can't stay to supper--I must run
now."
"Won't they let you off this once, if you telephone?"
I hesitated, for the temptation was strong, but it wouldn't be fair to
Knowlton. It would mean a twenty-four hour stretch for him if I stayed
away, I explained.
"Of course you must go, Ted. Let's try not to be selfish in our
happiness--ever." I kissed her and left with these words repeating
themselves over and over in my ears.
* * * * *
When I reached the factory I found Knowlton pacing the floor.
"I've been wanting to get you all day, Ted. I didn't like to call you up
at the Claybournes', as I knew you'd be here at six. There's the devil
to pay."
"What do you mean?"
"Prospero's companion, the circus woman, has gone. All your chemistry
notes of our experiments have disappeared too. Prospero is in his room
raving drunk. He swears you have tricked him and stolen the secret of
his great discovery. He threatens law, murder, anything he can think
of."
"That part is all right," I said. "The notes are serious."
"Can you reconstruct them?"
"Not all," I answered "without repeating part of the experiments."
"How long will that take?"
"A minimum of six weeks."
"I was a triple damn fool, Ted, not to keep a copy of your work in the
office safe. There's the Texas contract which we must begin work on
tomorrow. Do you know the formula?"
"No, that was Prospero's discovery--but I know how he went at it."
"Go to the laboratory, Ted, and stick at it as long as you can, night
and day. If you can work out that formula, you can have two weeks at
Christmas. If you can't, we are done for. The bank is carrying us now on
the strength of our Texas contract--if we can't make good on it, you and
I have finished with Deep Harbor. Can I telephone for a chemist to help
you?"
"Yes--get me a young, trained research man--and see if the Owen people
will lend us one of their best laboratory men. Of course, you'll have to
pay like the deuce--"
"That doesn't matter--you'll get your man. And, Ted?"
"Yes?"
"I'd rather you wouldn't tell Miss Claybourne about this--her father is
a director in the bank--"
"Miss Claybourne does not repeat--" I began.
"Nevertheless--why worry her with your troubles, Ted, until necessary?"
"Then you know about--us?" I asked naively.
"I'm not a damned fool in everything, Ted."
"All right--I shan't tell her unless I have to."
With this I went into the laboratory. During my absence, Prospero or his
companion, or both together, had searched the place from top to bottom.
Every bottle with a paper label had been carefully washed and the labels
removed. Galvanometers, ammeters, voltmeters, all our delicate
instruments, including the chemical balanced, had been rendered
inaccurate, hence useless until re-calibrated. They had worked with
skill, for nothing had been taken. My notes had been burned one by one
in a Bunsen flame, and the ashes powdered. A careful inventory revealed
a situation difficult to explain to a court of law and still more
difficult to prove. It was true the documents weren't there and their
ashes were. It was another matter to establish these facts on a witness
stand.
I sent for Joe, the day watchman, who had been detained by Knowlton
until my examination of the laboratory was complete.
"Who used the laboratory today, Joe?" I asked the burly Pole who looked
after the plant on Sundays.
"Mr. Fougeer--an' Mrs. Fougeer--they worked here all day--mos' important
job, he tells me--I let 'em in building--he have key to this room."
"What time did they leave?"
"'Bout tree 'clock. I fin' door unlock' near six--Mr. Fougeer, he forgot
lock him--I lock door--everything he look O. K. inside."
"All right, Joe. You did your duty," Knowlton said, dismissing him.
Naturally we had given orders that Prospero was to have access to the
laboratory at any time, not suspecting this form of danger.
"There are three hours unaccounted for with the door unlocked. I suppose
that was done with some idea of using it as an alibi," I said.
"It does beat hell, the cussed things that can happen in this world,
Ted," Knowlton generalized. "Still, I want to go very easy on any legal
proceedings, for two good reasons: it's possible I can talk to Prospero
when he's sober, and second, any publicity will put the bank wise that
we're in a double extra deep bottomless hole."
"You know we have to get all our chemicals from New York--so the first
thing to do is to make out a list, for I can't risk using these
unlabelled bottles, even those that are easily recognized. The contents
may have been tampered with."
"Can you test that?" Knowlton asked.
"Yes." I took at random two or three bottles and poured some of their
contents into test-tubes. I then tried a few simple reactions. In each
case, the chemical purity of the materials proved to have been
destroyed. Our hands were completely tied.
"That old devil would never have thought of that all by himself,"
Knowlton said, after a string of complicated introductory epithets. "The
circus woman did that--I recognize the feminine touch."
"I can't help admiring the skill with which it was done. Not a bottle
betrays by sight or smell, except for the missing label, that the
contents aren't all right."
Knowlton grinned, in spite of himself.
"Good boy, Ted. I'm glad to see you aren't panic-stricken, any way.
Well, I might as well go home and get some sleep. You make out your list
and telegraph tonight."
I began my list of needed materials, wondering the while what Helen
would say if she knew how the day was ending for us both. The thought of
her put a desperate eagerness into me--I was not going to be beaten,
black as things looked. Then a new idea came to me. Prospero would
probably appear in the morning to see the results; if he found me simply
getting ready to begin again, he might try a new scheme to injure us. On
the other hand, if he saw me working away with the damaged chemicals, as
if ignorant of what had happened to them, he would conclude his devilish
plan was succeeding and keep quiet. I left my desk, lit the Bunsen
burners under the sand baths, and set out several dishes of compounds to
stew and evaporate. I spent an hour or more in carefully setting my
stage; under the safety hood there was a fuming beaker; there were
filtrates in various stages of progress, in addition to the dishes over
the flames. It was a normal-looking night's work--a continuation of
Friday's experiments to all outward appearances. Then I returned to my
real work.
About four in the morning I heard a familiar step, and my heart leaped
to think I had so well prepared for just this contingency. Prospero
entered, bleary, dishevelled, his flowing black tie loose and streaming,
his brass-buttoned waistcoat buttoned awry, his yellow gloves dirty and
stained. On his face was the leering, crafty expression of the drunkard
or the insane.
"You're early," I remarked drily, barely glancing at him.
"Got a big idea, Teddy--biggest idea I ever had--you know that?"
"Glad to hear it," and I scratched away at my list.
"Makin' notes, Ted? That's right--always keep your notes," and he roared
a drunken laugh. He walked over to one of the experiments and smelt the
beaker cautiously. He was evidently satisfied his plan was working, for
he laughed long and loudly again. "That's good stuff, Ted.
Bril-brilliant idea--if it works. You must keep careful notes on that
ex--experiment."
I looked at him. "You are a great chemist, Mr. de Fougere, but even I
know enough to know you can't always tell what's in a beaker by the
smell." The sarcasm missed him.
"That's right, Ted--that's right. Best ex-experiments look all
right--good theory, but won't work."
He lit a cigarette and hummed a wabbly tune, sitting astride a chair and
watching me with his empty leer.
"Why did you wash all the labels off the bottles?" I asked quietly.
"Secrecy, Teddy--secrecy. Important work here--worth millions. Any one
could walk in and find out all about it. We know all the bottles, now,
Teddy--don't need labels, do we?"
The telephone stood on my desk in front of me, and I meditated calling
up Knowlton. Finally I thought better of it, for my play was not to let
Prospero know we had any inkling of the truth.
"That's a good idea," I said, "taking off the labels. I never thought of
it just that way before."
"Of course you didn't, Ted. You don't know the world. It's a rough
place, my boy--a rough place."
"It has delayed me some, because you didn't tell me first," I went on
casually. "For instance, I want the bottle with the mixture made up
according to the formula you worked out for the Texas contract. We have
to start work on that job at seven." I paused and pretended to look
through my papers.
"The Texas contract, eh? You know the formula--go ahead and make it." He
hugged one knee and his eyes narrowed at me.
"No," I said, "that was your work."
"It's in your notes, Ted. Look it up."
"I took a copy of them away with me Saturday morning--I'll have to go
down after them, if you don't tell me."
He sprang to his feet: "You lie, Ted, God damn you, you lie!" My hand
reached for the telephone, then paused. I was puzzled about what my next
move ought to be.
"Are you goin' to sit there and let me call you a liar?" he challenged.
I turned around in my chair and looked him over. Excitement was working
him up to a frenzy; his lips drooled. He wasn't a pleasant sight, but,
curiously, I felt no physical fear; it was the critical business
situation that alarmed me.
"I haven't time for a personal quarrel, Fougere," I said. "At present
our business is to make good on the Texas contract. It's true that I
have no copy of the notes you destroyed."
"Ah!" he exulted.
"Cut out the melodrama," I said with a pretence of boredom, "and come
back when you are sober. This is too important a matter to play with."
"You admit it!" he shouted. "I've beaten you at your own filthy game!"
He turned and crashed two of my stewing beakers to the floor and
trampled on the mess. "Not one of your experiments will work--I've
ruined them all! You tried to trick me, but by God, you couldn't do it!"
"I know that you are a drunkard and a thief--and one or two other
things--that you break your word and have neither honour nor loyalty." I
was getting as eloquent as Prospero himself. "Still, you'll tell me that
formula or you'll land in gaol."
"You can't prove anything against me--but I can prove you tried to steal
my great discovery--it was there, in your notes, and I have a witness."
He raved in his excitement, pacing the floor like a wild animal.
"What discovery?" I asked, as he bore down on me.
"The making of electricity direct from coal."
"Oh, hell!" I exclaimed. "I haven't had time to waste on moonshine. At
your own request I recorded all your experiments, even when I didn't
know what nonsense they were all about."
"I--I make nonsense--you ignorant--"
"Shut up! I want the Texas formula."
"You'll pay me my terms for it."
"No, I won't. I'll pay mine, which is the salary you were hired for. You
have one wife in Cripple Creek"--he started, and grasped the back of a
chair--"it was foolish of you to marry the circus woman too. Bigamy is
still a crime," and I felt quite satisfied with myself as I noted the
effect of this. "Well," I thought, "when it comes to playing melodrama
with a drug fiend, you are not bad, Ted!" His hands shook, but he
managed to light another cigarette.
"Ted, I've been drinking," he mumbled, with an ugly grin that ought to
have warned me he wasn't through. "I don't know what I've been
saying"--he staggered to his feet and offered his lean scraggy
hand--"I'm a good friend of yours, Ted. I always have been. You forget
the wife in Cripple Creek--and we'll mix up the Texas formula."
I took his hand, feeling quite triumphant. "Knowlton will be proud of
me," I thought.
"I'll forget either wife you say--or both," I said. "Let's get to work."
"That's it. Work. You're a good fellow, Teddy," and he lurched toward
the shelves of bottles. "You thought I'd thrown it away?" he turned with
his leer again. "You're wrong, Ted. I'm too old a fox for that, eh? Here
it is," and he handed me a blue glass bottle with a rubber cork. "Right
under your nose all the time, and you didn't know it."
I snatched it eagerly from him, and he chuckled. I was so certain that I
was carrying all before me no suspicion crossed my mind.
"Analyze it, Ted, if you don't trust me," he urged.
"It's only business if I do," I replied.
"That's right--get it down in black and white. I never remember
formulas."
I poured a little into a test tube; in colour and appearance it was as I
remembered it to be. He took the tube from me and lightly passed it back
and forth through a Bunsen flame. The liquid bubbled and began to give
off fumes whose odour was queer--unlike what I expected. I felt dizzy
for a moment, but recovered.
"It doesn't smell like the other when you evaporate it," I said, with
returning suspicion.
"It's all right, Ted. I added an aromatic oil to it to throw curious
people off the track--we haven't got our patent yet, and the world's a
rough place, Ted."
"I hope you haven't ruined it," I exclaimed, much angered. One of the
curses of his work was the fact that he never allowed a formula to be
finished, but was always adding, adding to it.
"Perfectly harmless, Ted. Just a pleasant smell--that's all."
He poured some more into a shallow Meissen dish and placed it over the
sand-bath flame.
"Watch it, Ted. The crystals are long and needlelike when it evaporates
down. It's easy to analyse then."
I sat over it in my excitement, with the pleasant smelling fumes now and
then blowing in my face. The hawk-like countenance of Prospero peered
over my shoulder.
Why was he wearing a magician's robe, I wondered, with stars of gold and
signs of the Zodiac upon it? Was it drink that made his eyes shine with
blue fire? Opposite me Helen was standing, dressed in mediaeval costume,
her hair flowing, violets trailing everywhere about her. I tried to
speak to her, and to take her hand, and could not, even when she smiled.
I wanted to tell her that Milton's epithet about the violet was
true--"the glowing violet"--there they were glowing like the liquid in a
test tube, or like the philosopher's stone, which was it?
Then I knew no more.