I Walked in Arden Part 7

"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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 cla.s.sified 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 s.p.a.ce, 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. d.a.m.ning 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 a.s.sets 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 pa.s.s away. When that time comes I may pa.s.s, 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 const.i.tution? 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 G.o.dey'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 doc.u.ments, set it down on the table by his book, and put out the desk light. "I'll make his d.a.m.ned 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.