I Walked in Arden Part 23

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, h.e.l.l!" 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 gla.s.s bottle with a rubber cork. "Right under your nose all the time, and you didn't know it."

I s.n.a.t.c.hed it eagerly from him, and he chuckled. I was so certain that I was carrying all before me no suspicion crossed my mind.

"a.n.a.lyze 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.n.a.lyse 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.

Chapter Nine

I COME FACE TO FACE WITH THE FUTURE

I opened my eyes, and there was Helen smiling at me--not in mediaeval dress this time, but with a bunch of glowing violets at her belt. How curious for her to come to the laboratory at night! I looked about: there was Knowlton sitting near with the cheerfulest of grins on his face, and Mr. Claybourne too. What was happening? I made an effort, as I realized I had something of importance to tell Knowlton.

"The Texas formula--" words seemed strangely difficult to say--"Prospero has it. It's in the blue bottle with the rubber, cork--"

"Hush, dear," I heard Helen say, "you mustn't try to talk just yet," and she patted my pillow, kissed me, and gave me something cool to drink. I looked blankly about, but the room was quite dark--I was in bed!

"Isn't this the laboratory?" I asked helplessly. My head ached and whirled; my thoughts refused to work at this new problem.

"No, dearest," Helen's gentle voice said, "you are at home--with me."

"Home?" I wrestled vaguely with this idea. Where was home?--with me?

"At my house, Ted, dear--here in Deep Harbor," Helen whispered, her lips brushing my cheek.

"Your knee--you mustn't stand," I faltered, some recollection fighting through the chaos in my head.

"It's almost well, Ted dear. Watch me walk!" and she took a few steps away, then back to me.

"But last night--?" I gave it up as Helen put her cool hand over my month to silence me.

"Well, well," I heard a hearty sounding voice say at the door, "it's quite seasonable weather for Thanksgiving, isn't it? Snowing like the deuce--whew! And how's our patient this morning? I'll bet he slept all right last night after that potion I gave him," and a frock-coated, checked-waistcoated man walked up to my bed.

"h.e.l.lo," he said quickly as he looked at me, speaking in a low tone to Helen. "When did the delirium leave him?"

"He has just waked up," I heard her reply.

"Who are you?" I said, almost aggressively, to the new arrival.

"Who am I? Come, that's a good one," he chuckled, apparently immensely pleased. "Who am I, Claybourne, eh?"

"Ted, this is Dr. Sinclair, who has been looking after you ever since."

"Ever since what?" I persisted. It was all a most annoying puzzle.

"Helen, can't you explain?--please!" I said petulantly.

"Now then, how's our temperature today?"--and before I could say more Dr. Sinclair rendered me speechless with a little gla.s.s rod in my mouth that I was mortally afraid of breaking. I lay there, looking first at him and then at Helen, who smiled encouragement at me; Dr. Sinclair kept his eyes on a noisy gold watch. Rebellion was gathering headway within: why was I being treated like a child and put to bed? Some doctor's silly whim; he probably had made Helen believe I'd been overworking, when there was the Texas formula to solve. It was preposterous to lose time this way! What was the matter with Knowlton, that he let them do it?

"Well!" exclaimed the doctor, walking to the window with his thermometer and letting in the light. I could see snow on the roofs opposite. "We are almost normal again--not quite, but almost." Helen clapped her hands and gave a little cry. He shook the thermometer vigorously, put it away in his coat, put on his gla.s.ses, and surveyed me over the tops of them from the window. "No excitement yet--no worry, remember that, Miss Helen. Absolute quiet--nature's restorative, you know--that's the word.

Give nature a chance, that's all we need now."