FOOTNOTES:[6]Romain Rolland.
FOOTNOTES:
[6]Romain Rolland.
[6]Romain Rolland.
CHAPTER V
THE WINE CELLAR
"There smiles no Paradise on Earth so fairBut guilt will raise avenging phantoms there."F. Hemans.
Ifthere was one thing in the world that the General prided himself on it was his wine cellar. It was a long, cool cave blasted out of the solid rock, and extended the whole length of the garden. On each side were rows upon rows of shelves, on which whole regiments of bottles lay on their sides like batteries of guns ready to be discharged. Champagnes from Rheims, Tokay from Hungary, choice vintages from the Rhine and Moselle lay in dozens, ornamented with their red, blue and yellow labels. Rich wines from Portugal, Greece, Madeira, and the Cape might be seen with their noses half hidden in sawdust, while whole companies of Mumm, Perrier-Jouet, Spumante d'Asti, and sparkling Hock could be distinguished by their wire and gold and silver foil pressed round their bulging corks. On each side was a row of casks filled with the red wines of France and Italy.
The cellar was quite dark save for a gleam of reflected daylight which issued through a ventilating grating near the ceiling. On the afternoon following their previous interview, father and son again met in the General's study to discuss further their plan of campaign in their endeavour to get the hated Delapine out of their path.
"By the way," said the General, "I don't suppose you'll have any objection to joining me in a glass of wine? Thoughts and words often flow more freely, and ideas spring more quickly under the gentle influence.
"Thank you, sir, nothing would please me better."
"Charles," said the General, as the butler appeared in answer to the bell, "go down to the cellar and bring a bottle of '89 Berncastler Doktor, and please be quick."
Charles bowed and left the room. After waiting a while the General pulled out his watch and growled impatiently.
"Confound that fellow, I wonder what he is up to," he shouted, after waiting in vain for a quarter of an hour, and going to the bell he tugged the cord violently. "Does he suppose that I, a General of the French army, am to be kept waiting by a mere servant?"
At this moment his valet, a tall, military-looking man named Robert, entered the room and saluted.
"Robert," he thundered, "what the devil does this mean? Mille Tonneres! what is that fellow Charles doing? I sent him down for a bottle of wine nearly half-an-hour ago. Go and find him at once. Sac—r—re Bleu! This is mutiny," he yelled.
Robert saluted and backed out.
Presently he returned with the cook supporting Charles, who was trembling from head to foot.
"Nom de Dieu! What on earth does this mean?" said the General astonished.
"If you please, mon Général," said the valet, saluting with his disengaged hand, "we found him lying on his face in the cellar, moaning piteously, and covering his face with his hands."
"Did he fall down the steps then?"
"No, sir, oh no, sir," said the butler in a piteous tone of voice, and trembling more than ever. "I got inside the cellar all right, and was in the act of lighting a candle to choose your bottle, when I saw a tall man staring at me with the most piercing eyes I ever saw."
"A man, did you say? I suppose it was a common thief coming to steal my wines, eh? You idiot, why didn't you attack him, or at least run back and lock the door after you, and then come and call me? I would soon have settled him."
"Oh, mon Général, I was too frightened. I shouted out, but he did not move and stood staring at me with his terrible eyes all the time, and then I swooned away."
"How did he get in?" said the General, unmoved by his excited cries. "Did he pick the lock, or had you forgotten to shut the door when you went the time before?"
"Oh, no, mon Général, that would be impossible, as the door shuts by itself with a spring lock. I found the door locked as usual when I arrived there, and I opened the door myself with the key which I always carry about with me."
"Have you ever lent the key to anybody?"
"Never, mon Général, never in my life."
"Then he must have picked the lock."
"That would be no easy task, sir. The lock, as you are aware, is a very complicated one, and of the most approved pattern. If you remember, the maker guaranteed it burglar-proof."
"How was the fellow dressed?"
"He had on a black coat with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour, a white shirt front, and a black cravat. I also noticed he had a short, black, pointed beard, an 'Empereur moustache,' and dark curly hair."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the General. "The red ribbon of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, eh? A common thief is not usually decorated in that way. That looks like Delapine from your description. But what the deuce did that fellow want in my cellar? By the way, did you shut the door when you left?"
"Pardon me for speaking, mon Général, but I did it for him," interposed Robert, "as Charles was incapable of doing anything."
"I suppose it is no use my going to look for him," mused the General, "if he got in, he should have no difficulty in getting out again. Still, perhaps I had better go and see what has happened. Let the butler go to the library and wait there for me, and you, Robert, go and bring my revolver."
"I think, father," interrupted Pierre, "we had better go to the cellar at once, and see whether anything has been stolen. If anything is missing we have a chance of having the thief arrested and taken to the Gendarmerie, and if it should prove to be Delapine, then hurrah for Renée, eh, mon père?"
"I shall have him arrested in any case," said the General. "But," he added as Robert returned with the revolver, "let us go down to the cellar."
He then poured out a full measure of cognac, and was in the act of swallowing it when he noticed Pierre taking the revolver from the valet.
"No, I will take charge of that," said the General.
"Oh, father, let me have it. I want so much to have a shot at him."
"What are you thinking of, my son? If you shoot the intruder it's murder, but if I, a General in the army, shoot him, why, it's nothing. Allons, allons, en avant," he shouted, looking very fierce as he led the way to the cellar with revolver cocked, followed closely by Pierre and Robert, the latter carrying a candle.
Arrived at the cellar, the General opened the door cautiously and looked about, but saw nothing.
Suddenly Pierre slipped and bumped against Robert in the semi-darkness, knocking the candle out of the valet's hand, and leaving them without a light.
Presently as their eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, the General thought he saw someone standing a few paces off, and sure enough, the form slowly assumed the features of Delapine.
"Halt!" shouted the General, "If you move I fire—" and he covered the dim figure with his revolver. "What are you doing here?" he thundered.
The spectre stretched out its hand and pointed at Pierre. A cold shudder went through Pierre's frame and his knees shook, but the General, doubly fortified by the glass of cognac and the revolver, felt courageous enough for anything.
"Down on your knees, and hold your hands up, or I fire," yelled Duval in a terrific outburst of passion. "Do you hear me? I am going to pull the trigger," he continued as Delapine showed no signs of obeying.
In their excitement both the General and his son imagined they heard Delapine speaking.
"It is for you to fall on your knees, not for me," the spectre of the professor seemed to say very calmly, and then appeared to add by signs "Fire if you like, but I warn you of the consequences."
The spectre stepped forward to within a few feet of the General. The General's blood was up, he pulled the trigger, and bang went the pistol as he fired point-blank at the professor's heart.
On hearing the shot the chef came running into the cellar, and found his master lying on the ground unconscious, with Pierre and the valet bending over him. Duval looked ghastly pale, while his arm lay helpless at his side, and a small stream of blood began to soak through his clothes.
"Lift my father, you two," ordered Pierre, as he turned to look for the professor.
Delapine's spectre was nowhere to be seen.
The two servants carried the General to his room and laid him on his bed, while Pierre drove over at full speed to Passy for Dr. Villebois. Rushing into the vestibule he enquired breathlessly:
"Is the doctor at home? Tell him I must see him at once. It's urgent."
"Hullo, Pierre," said Villebois, coming forward as he heard the agitated voice. "What is the matter?"
"Oh, doctor, please come at once. My father shot Delapine a little less than half an hour ago, and the professor rounded on him and nearly killed him. Don't lose a minute if you want to save my father's life."
"What on earth are you talking about?" enquired Villebois in surprise. "Have you lost your senses? Why, man, Delapine has been here during the whole evening."
"Do you mean to tell me that Delapine has been here during the whole of the last hour?" asked Pierre, pinching himself to make sure that he was not dreaming.
"Certainly. He went to lie down a little more than an hour ago, saying he felt tired, and I was in the room myself when he woke up. I remember the time perfectly. You must have been dreaming, my boy. Come in and have a liqueur, it will do you good."
"Thanks. I really feel the need of something to pick me up after all I have gone through. But meanwhile tell the coachman to be ready as we must lose no time. I am very far from being mad, you have only to see father to be convinced of the truth of what I have told you."
As Pierre was passing through the hall a minute later, he caught sight of Delapine, and ran up to him.
"Well," said Delapine, "what brings you here in such a state of excitement?"
"Excuse me," said Pierre, "but where were you half an hour ago?"
"Why, here of course. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, nothing; but I thought I saw you in my father's wine-cellar."
"In your father's wine-cellar? What on earth gave you that idea?" and the professor's eyes twinkled with mischief. "And pray, what was I doing there?"
"You know well enough," said Pierre, but a glance at the calm face of the professor made him doubtful. He looked scared and began to suspect that he had been under an optical illusion, or else a hallucination of some kind.
"I trust," said Delapine, "that you will take my words of warning to heart which I gave you in the cellar, and please tell your father with my compliments not to go shooting people who have done him no harm, as the bullet sometimes has the curious habit of turning round and striking the firer instead. But you must please excuse me now as I have to prepare my lecture for to-morrow at the Sorbonne. Won't you like to come and hear it? It commences at eleven sharp. No? Well then, au revoir," he said, as he entered his room and shut the door.
"He must be the very devil himself," cried Pierre. "Did you hear what he said, doctor?"
"I did. I was standing behind you all the time, as I came here to tell you that the carriage is ready."
"Well, how in the name of heaven could he know all this? He must have been in the cellar all the time, and yet you say he was here."
"I have already told you so," said Villebois, "Do you doubt my word?"
"Well, I don't know what to think."
"No more do I—of you, sir!" replied Villebois, becoming nettled at his reply.
The doctor and Pierre drove rapidly to the General's house, and on going to his room they found him lying onhis bed groaning, and in a state of semi-consciousness. Blood had been slowly trickling down his right arm, and had formed a little pool on the ground. Ripping up his shirt with a pair of scissors, Villebois noticed that a bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his arm. It had struck the bone at an angle, and ricochetted off, missing the brachial artery by a hairsbreadth, and had passed out again near the shoulder.
After first disinfecting the wound, Dr. Villebois dressed it, and fixing the arm in a splint, ordered a hospital nurse to be sent for immediately, and gave strict orders that the patient was not to be disturbed.
"Is it very serious?" said Pierre.
"Not very, fortunately, but the median nerve is completely divided."
"How do you know that?"
"For two very simple reasons. First, the probe showed me that the nerve lay right in the track of the bullet, and in the second place his arm is paralysed."
"Will he ever get the use of it again?"
"There is no reason why he should not, if we can manage to sew the ends of the nerve together. I have good hopes that I shall succeed in doing so, but sometimes the operation proves unsuccessful."
"Well, anyhow, I shall go at once to the police and have him arrested for attempting to murder my father."
"You silly boy, how can you? Delapine can bring half a dozen witnesses to prove that he was in my house when the shot was fired. Besides, he had no revolver."
Pierre put on a puzzled look, and scratched his head as if to awaken his thoughts, "I don't know what to make of it."
"No more do I. It is very mysterious," said Villebois.
CHAPTER VI
THE ANALYST
Twodays after the episode related in the last chapter, a fiacre might have been seen rolling along the embankment of the Seine in the direction of Notre Dame.
It had been raining all day, and streams of water descended through the long pipes from the roofs of the houses to form miniature cascades which flowed with a gurgling noise down the gratings placed at intervals along the edge of the kerbstone. The cochers with their varnished top hats might be seen from time to time shaking off the water which poured from the brims in little streams down their overcoats. Everything seemed sodden with rain. Women leading little children by the hand, who were crying on account of the rain, which streamed from the parental umbrellas down their necks, might be observed hurrying along the street, or disappearing into narrow passages apparently leading to nowhere. The second-hand bookstalls along the river had long since been shut up, or covered with tarpaulins to keep off the wet. Here and there a few truant fowls, or a half-starved cat would scuttle out of the way of the carriage as it splashed along. The driver cracked his long whip in a temper, as if attempting to chastise the elements for their bad behaviour. On the carriage went, past groups of workmen in their blue blouses, who could be seen through the window of the fiacre standing in front of the musty smelling bars drinking their absinthe or vin ordinaire, while in the larger cafés others, better dressed, were whiling away their time playing dominoes, or indulging in a game of billiards with absurdly large balls on very small tables.
Suddenly the fiacre turned across the Pont Neuf towardsthe Rue de l'Ecole de Medicine. The solitary passenger poked his head out of the window.
"Cocher, drive to the third house on the right round the corner," said the fare, and the head instantly disappeared inside the vehicle, which a few minutes later drew up at the house.
It was Pierre Duval who alighted from the cab, and entering the house knocked at the door on the first floor.
"Ah, this is indeed a surprise, mon ami." The speaker, Paul Romaine, was a man nearly middle-aged with a crop of dishevelled hair and teeth discoloured from the effects of perpetual cigarette smoking, but a charming fellow notwithstanding, and thoroughly straightforward and honest.
"Diable! I have not seen you for nearly two years. What brings you in here, mon ami, on a filthy day like this of all others?"
"As a matter of fact I have a most important legal case on hand, and I really came, mon cher Paul, to ask your advice."
"Nothing could give me greater pleasure, I assure you, but I am no lawyer, and I cannot see how I can help you."
"On the contrary you can be of inestimable service to me. You are assistant medical analyst to the Government, are you not?"
"That is precisely what I am," replied Paul, "entirely at your service."
"You must know then that I am acting as prosecutor in a medico-legal case, which is very obscure, as we suspect foul play—in fact poisoning, and it is naturally of the greatest importance that I should make myself au fait with the various poisons and their means of detection. The case I have to study is a very complicated one as none of the doctors could fix on any poisons from the symptoms, and yet the autopsy revealed nothing to account for the death of the victim. Of course my visit is strictly confidential, as it would not do for anyone to know I had been consulting you. I feel sure you will appreciate my reason for this."
"Oh, you may rely on me implicitly. I shall be as silent as the grave. I think the best thing to do would be to take you over to my laboratory and show you how we make these analyses and detect the various poisons. But first you must have a glass of wine," said Paul as he brought a decanter from the cupboard. "These poisoning cases are wonderfully fascinating," he added, as he filled a couple of glasses with remarkably fine Beaune. "To feel that a man's life depends on the colour of a precipitate in a test tube, or on the appearance of a few crystals under the microscope, surrounds one's work with a halo of romance which nothing else I know of can give."
"Yes, that is quite true, but we also have our feelings of excitement and pride. I remember on one occasion I had to defend a man who had been accused of stealing a gold watch, and he confessed to me that he had done it. Well, I succeeded in intercepting the principal witness for the prosecution through an intermediary, and told him to inform the witness that he would not be wanted. I even succeeded in sending him a hundred miles into the country with instructions not to return for a few weeks. The trial came on the same afternoon, and the prosecuting counsel began to state his case. When he had concluded his speech, he informed the judge that he would now proceed to call the witness, and the usher shouted his name high and low. Oh, it was a joke I assure you to watch the counsel's face when the fellow failed to appear. Ha! Ha! Of course the case broke down through the absence of the witness's evidence. But the best of the joke was when the fellow came to see me about paying my fee. I discovered that he had no money, and so I took the gold watch which he had stolen as payment instead! I never enjoyed a fee so much. Oh, Lord! you should have been there." And Pierre laughed again until his sides ached.
Paul opened his blue eyes in undisguised astonishment at the audacity of the lawyer of treating a criminal act in such a tone of levity.
"Upon my word, if I did not think you were joking, I should refuse to speak to you any more," said Paul in utter disgust.
"Well you know it is only by doing smart things that we are able to enhance our reputation—and after all, we are paid to do it. Moreover in this case," added Pierre, anxious to repair the bad impression he was creating in Paul's mind, "I was really sorry for the fellow as it was his first offence, and his wife came and pleaded so hard to me to get him off."
"Well, I will forgive you this time," said Paul, "but for God's sake don't tell anyone else, or you may get struck off the rolls, or even find yourself in the dock one of these fine days."
"My dear Paul, if one wants to get on in one's profession one must not have too thin a skin; you must make a little allowance for us lawyers."
"Well, for my part, I think it is simply disgusting. You ought to aim at justice being done before everything," replied Paul in a voice of indignation.
"Why, my good fellow, if we advocates were to be paragons of virtue, like Thomas à Kempis, or St. Francis de Sales we should all starve to death."
Paul merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said at length, anxious to change a subject so repugnant to his feelings, "let us go over to the laboratory, and I will show you some of our work." So saying they left the flat together. They entered a large room reeking with chemical fumes. On one table were scales which could weigh a hundred kilos, and on another table a balance so delicate, that it would turn with the fifth of a millegramme.
Rows upon rows of bottles were on the shelves containing twice as many drugs as are to be found in a chemist's shop.
In another part of the room were glass jars filled with every organ of the human body, all furnished with large labels. Beakers, test-tubes, mortars, funnels, measuring-glasses, dishes, thermometers, etc., were scattered all over the room, in what might be termed orderly confusion, but actually just where they were most wanted. On the opposite side of the room stood a large spectroscope by Hilger, used for revealing the spectrum lines of metals, or examining the absorption bands of blood. Near by stooda row of microscopes by Hartnack, furnished with objectives of every power, which were screwed on a revolving attachment so that they could be brought into position by a single turn of the hand.
Pierre was lost in amazement at the prodigious display of apparatus.
"Do you mean to say that you employ all these things?" he asked.
"Oh, my dear sir, you have not seen a fourth part of our apparatus yet. Just look behind the curtain."
Pierre pushed aside a thick curtain, and opening a door found himself in a "dark room" illuminated by a large red light, and supplied with a washing trough and numerous bottles and dishes.
"That is where we make our photographs," said Paul, "and in the room next to it we make our enlargements, and reproduce by photography, finger prints and blood stains, and make copies of the object seen under the microscope."
They passed along a short corridor and entered the bacteriological laboratory. Here were bottles filled with dyes and stains of every colour. A whole row of copper incubating chambers, each surrounded by a water jacket, were ranged along the one side of the wall. Each was heated by an automatic burner, so arranged that a constant temperature of any degree required could be maintained for days or weeks at a time.
In one part of the room was a centrifugal whirler, holding a couple of test-tubes. These were filled with the fluids to be examined which contained solids in suspension, and when these tubes were whirled round at a prodigious rate the solid contents were forced to the bottom of the tubes, and could thus be readily separated. In another part of the room were test-tubes filled with serums, jellies, and meat broths of various kinds, any of which could be inoculated by touching the surface with a sterilized platinum wire which had been previously dipped in the fluid supposed to be infected by microbes. When the microbes were thus placed in their food, the test-tubes containing them would be labelled and placed in the incubator to allow the germs to multiply to their heart's content.
"Once more open the door," said Paul, smiling at his friend's amazement, and the two passed down some steps into a courtyard. All round the walls were hutches filled with guineapigs and rabbits, others contained whole families of rats and mice, some white, and some brown. Other hutches again contained cats and small dogs, while a large cage in the corner was filled with Rhesus and Bonnet monkeys. Lastly in the opposite corner was an aquarium containing a varied assortment of frogs and toads.
"What on earth do you want this menagerie for?" said Pierre.
"Why, this is the most important part of our laboratory. I will show you later what use we make of these animals. Meanwhile let us return to the first room, and we will have a chat."
"Do you always succeed in detecting the poison?" asked Duval.
"In the case of acids, alkalies, and metals or their salts, practically always, as not only are the tests easy to apply and well known, but the doses to be fatal are usually so large that one can find sufficient traces in the stomach, intestines, and liver to make a reliable test. To take an example. Here is a bottle containing what is left of the contents of the stomach of a woman who was poisoned a week ago. We have already made our report, so I can quite well use a little of what is left.
"Watch me closely. I first stir the contents well, and then filter some of it through this filter paper into this little beaker. Now I add a few drops of acid, and then allow some of the sulphuretted hydrogen gas to bubble through. Observe a bright canary yellow precipitate is forming. This shows me that arsenic is probably present. But to make quite sure I apply some further tests." Paul then poured another small quantity of the suspected fluid into a tiny porcelain dish, to which he added a few drops of pure hydrochloric acid and gently warmed it.
"Now," said Paul, "I take this slip of pure polished copper-foil and just dip it into the liquid—so, and see, it is slowly becoming covered with an iron-grey metallic film. In order to be quite sure that the coating is not due to accidental impurity, I repeat the experiment with the contents of another stomach which I know is free from any poison, and observe when I dip the foil in there is no deposit. This shows me that both the acid and the copper-foil are pure, and that in the former case the grey deposit was due to arsenic. In order to make doubly sure, I take the coated slip of copper, wash it well in water, then in ether alcohol, and gently heat it in this reduction tube. Now, let us put it under the microscope and tell me what you see."
"I see a number of shiny square crystals like little diamonds."
"Just so," replied Paul. "Those are the crystals of arsenious acid. It forms characteristic eight-sided crystals. So you see we have determined the presence of arsenic by three independent tests. It therefore must be arsenic, as nothing else will give these reactions. In the case of alkaloids the tests are much more difficult, because one may poison a person with a very small quantity indeed.
"For example, here are the remains of the contents of the stomach of a child. In this particular instance we found it extremely difficult to detect the poison. We tested for all the ordinary poisons in vain. Here our menagerie came to our aid; for on injecting a small quantity of the fluid under a guineapig's skin with this Pravaz syringe the little animal rapidly died with convulsions and syncope. Hence we knew at once that we had to do with a very poisonous alkaloid. By using nearly the whole contents of the stomach, and extracting the alkaloid,[7]we recovered about the 1/30th part of a grain of a white powder which we proved to be Aconitine—one of the most deadly poisons known.
"So you see if anyone tries to poison a person even with these alkaloids he is sure to be found out."
"But are there no poisons which are beyond your powers to detect?"
"Undoubtedly there are," replied Paul, warming up with his subject. "The ptomaines for example. These are soluble ferments which are formed when any animal tissue putrifies. But although we cannot so readily test them by chemical means, we can easily prove their presenceby observing their effect on some one or other of the animals in our invaluable menagerie.
"I could give you many more examples if you wanted them. Muscarine, for instance, the alkaloids of certain fungi, many snake poisons, and countless different microbes."
"But can't you tell me of something which will defy detection even by means of your animals?"
Paul puffed away at his cigarette in deep thought, and then, slowly removing it from his lips, looked up at Pierre and gave a characteristic nod.
"Yes, now I think of it, I can give you one. There is a peculiar fluid sent to me from Japan recently," and he pointed to a bottle on the top shelf. "This has hitherto defied all detection by chemical means or otherwise. I alone have discovered how to detect its presence, but I have not had time to publish my discovery, and the poison is quite unknown in Europe. I am told it has the property of sending the person off into a gentle sleep from which he never wakes, if only a teaspoonful be injected under the skin. A friend of mine who is a professor of toxicology at Tokio wrote to me about it, and told me of several murders that had been committed through some mysterious drug which he ultimately managed to get hold of. Being unable to analyse it he sent me a sample to see what I could do with it. It arrived only about two weeks ago."
"Well," said Duval, rising to go, "thanks very much for the charming hour I have spent with you."
"Don't mention it. I see it is nearly dinner time; will you have dinner with me? I know of a select restaurant where the viands and wines are admirable."
Pierre cordially thanked him, and taking up his hat and stick proceeded to follow him out of the room. Before doing so, however, he allowed his cigarette case to fall noiselessly on a duster which lay partly hidden by the table. On leaving the room, Paul turned round and locked the door, and the two left the house together.
"Allow me to offer you one of my cigarettes," said Pierre, as they stood in the portico waiting for a fiacre.
"With pleasure, mon ami."
"Diable!" exclaimed Pierre, fumbling in vain for his cigarette case. "What have I done with it? Oh, I remember, I left it in your laboratory. Pray don't trouble to go back," he added, as Paul turned round to enter the house. "Give me the keys, I can find it much quicker than you can, as I know exactly where I left it in the laboratory. I will be back in a moment."
Suspecting nothing, Paul handed him his bunch of keys, and Pierre ran upstairs. He entered the room, shutting the door after him, and then, rapidly placing a pair of steps against the shelves he took down the bottle which Paul had pointed out. Quick as lightning he poured half the contents into an empty bottle which happened to be lying on the table, and returned the rest to its place on the shelf. Picking up his cigarette case, together with the syringe which Paul had shown him, he slipped them into his pocket, locked the door after him, and ran down to his friend.
"I must apologise for keeping you so long," said Pierre with superb effrontery, "but I could not find it at first as it had dropped on to the floor, but here it is," and so saying he offered him a cigarette.
The fiacre coming up at this moment they adjourned to the "Restaurant Joseph" for dinner.
Of all the restaurants in Paris there is none that quite comes up to "Joseph's." Monsieur Joseph was more than a great chef, he was a genius. To his way of thinking there was no art or science in the world that could compare with his. "What poetry could be mentioned in the same breath with a great dinner," he would exclaim. "And as to science, we know that Newton, Leibnitz, Fresnel, Laplace, Pasteur, and the rest of them achieved great things, but compared with the victories of Béchamel, Robert, Rechaud, Carême, and Mérillion, they are rien, monsieur, rien du tout. You boast to me of the moral courage of the Christian martyrs who faced death in the arena of the Coliseum rather than offer incense to Cæsar; but their courage cannot be mentioned in the same breathwith that of Vatel, the cook of the great Condé. Did any of them bid adieu to life in the superb manner of Vatel? Ah! there was a hero for you. He actually put an end to himself because a fish he had ordered arrived too late for his master's banquet. What a magnificent example to set! How sublime his end!"
The great man wiped the perspiration off his brow and positively panted with excitement.
The enthusiasm that the famous chef threw into his work was the wonder and admiration of all the leading gourmands of the town. The moment one of his favourite customers entered for dinner, the great chef would wave away the garçon who came up to take orders of his customer, and attend to him himself.
"Now I cannot allow you to choose your own dinner, permit me to suggest for the Hors d'Oeuvres some salade d'Anchovis with Hareng Marines and just a suspicion of Kets Cavier at the side."
"Yes, that is excellent."
"Now for soup. What do you say to crême d'orge à l'allemande? Oh, you prefer 'clear.' Just a little Consommé Julienne en Tasse, as we must not spoil the appetite for the fish and entrées. A small glass of gin a l'anglaise with it is wonderfully appetising and forms a superb apéritif."
"Quite so."
"And for fish, ah, le voilà. Grey Mullets Meunière, or do you prefer Escalopes de Mostele écossaise just brought in fresh this morning, with a little dry hock? And after that what shall we suggest? Ah! I know, my superb dish, a 'Caneton à la presse.' But gently, gently, messieurs, you cannot pass over my Poussins Picadilly, and to please the palate a demi-bouteille of my special '84 Beaune, it is superb, it will clear the brain." And so the worthy man would go on.
To watch him carve a 'Caneton roti a l'anglaise' was a marvel of dexterity and skill, and was considered one of the sights of Paris. It was a masterpiece of carving. Transfixing the bird by means of a large fork, with half-a-dozen rapid strokes of the knife, never exceeding one stroke for each limb, slish slash, slish slash, and the birdwould apparently fall to pieces completely dismembered. "Ah!" he would exclaim, "no chef in England or Germany can perform a feat like that. There is one God and one Joseph, and the latter is the king of chefs, n'est-ce pas?" and smiling in conscious triumph he would place the disarticulated fowl before his astonished guests. "Ah, where would Paris be without its restaurants, and where would the restaurants be without their chefs?"
"Where indeed," replied Pierre and Paul in one breath, as they gazed in astonishment at the great man in his white cap jauntily placed on his head, as he stood before them with his arms folded, awaiting the applause which he knew was sure to follow.
"Yes," replied Joseph, "if only the Emperor Napoleon III. had permitted me to cook for him, how different would have been the result. He would have led his brave army straight to Berlin. Victory would have followed victory."
"And then?" asked Paul amused.
"Why, monsieur, of course we should have dictated terms at Berlin, instead of being massacred by the hated Prussians at Sedan."
"But never mind, a time will come—a time will come—les Bosches nous les aurons, mon Dieu! Nous avons plus que quinze centmille braves—brave comme des lions—Diable!
"But messieurs, they are not eating, and they are positively allowing the Mousselmes de Volaille a l'Indienne to get cold," and the great man nearly wept in despair.
"Mille tonnerres!" he would exclaim, "Les messieurs have eaten their pudding glacé amilcar without blending the flavour with my special brand of Veuve Clicot. Mais c'est terrible!" and he ran off to order the sommelier to fetch the bottle. "And now," he said, "I will call the garçon to fetch you each a cup of my extra special coffee. Such coffee, messieurs, you will not obtain in any other house in Paris. I have spent years in experimenting with the different varieties of coffee beans to discover the most perfect blend."
"Can you give us the recipe?" enquired Pierre and Paul together.
"Oh, messieurs, you would surely not rob a man of the fruit of his labours; but I can tell you this much—there are six varieties of the coffee berries in it, and the discovery and correct blending of these different beans is the outcome of a lifetime of study. The moment I become convinced that any chef produces a superior coffee to mine, I shall put an end to myself, for I shall be too mortified to survive the disgrace."
It was past midnight when our two friends left the restaurant. They strolled for some distance along the boulevards watching the merry crowds of midnight revellers who seem never to be tired of chatting together. Some might be seen in groups round the marble tables under the awnings of the cafés facing the pavement, while others again could be seen inside the heated rooms listening to the strains of some Hungarian band playing their weird Czardas.
Here and there a group of shop girls might be seen hurrying home with rapid footsteps, or dawdling in front of the shop windows, while the ceaseless flow of vehicles and passengers gave the stranger the idea that Paris never went to bed at all.
It was during the early hours of the morning when Paul and Pierre entered their respective apartments.
They were thoroughly tired out, and tried to sleep, but the roar of the great city, like the roar of the ever-sounding sea, continued to break on their ears without a pause.
FOOTNOTES:[7]An alkaloid is an organic crystalline substance containing nitrogen usually of vegetable origin. It is generally poisonous, and in most cases yields brilliant colours with certain reagents. (Author.)
FOOTNOTES:
[7]An alkaloid is an organic crystalline substance containing nitrogen usually of vegetable origin. It is generally poisonous, and in most cases yields brilliant colours with certain reagents. (Author.)
[7]An alkaloid is an organic crystalline substance containing nitrogen usually of vegetable origin. It is generally poisonous, and in most cases yields brilliant colours with certain reagents. (Author.)
CHAPTER VII
RENÉE'S EXPERIENCE IN STORM AND SUNSHINE
Thenext afternoon about three o'clock, Payot called at the house of Villebois, to see his daughter.
"Well, my child, have you made up your mind yet?"
"Yes, father, I have."
"Ah! that's a good girl. I knew you would respect your old father's wishes, and take a reasonable view of the matter. A little reflection and a little reasoning was doubtless necessary to show that it was the only sensible thing you could do. Now you see that nothing could further your interests better, and you will always have the satisfaction of knowing that you were the means of binding our two families together by marrying Pierre, eh Renée?" and he patted her on the head.
"Oh, father," she faltered, "I never meant that. You misunderstand me. I loathe Pierre. How can you ask me to marry such a brute?"
"What? You dare to tell me that you won't marry the son of my old comrade-in-arms?" shrieked Payot. "You obstinate hussy, you vile wretch, you bastard, I disown you," he cried in his fury, not thinking that his words affected himself as well as her. "I shall cut you out of my will entirely—at least," he added, "not a penny beyond what the law compels me to leave you. Don't expect anything from me when you marry that pauper, that madman Delapine. You may go begging in the streets for all I care. Go away and be damned to you, with your father's curses on your head—you, you ... I don't know what to call you, you child of an abandoned woman."
The poor girl buried her face in her hands and sobbed convulsively.
"Oh, father, father, don't say such dreadful things, you are too cruel to me. Why do you treat me in this way? Why do you speak evil of my darling mother who is in the grave? Is it because I refuse to marry a man I detest?"
Payot worked himself into a terrible rage, and Renée's sobs only added fuel to the flames.
"Get out of my presence this instant, and never come near my house again. Do you hear what I say?" he added as Renée made no attempt to move. "If ever you dare to speak to me again I shall hand you over to the police," he shouted, not knowing what he was saying. "Go," he said in a voice husky and almost incoherent with rage, and rushing at her, shook her violently, and struck her across the face with his fist.
The girl fell on to the ground moaning, and then swooned away. Payot tried to raise her and wake her up, but she never moved, and at length he became really frightened and rang the bell violently.
"François," he said, trying hard to control his passion and appear calm, "my daughter has fainted, I think it must be the heat. Run and bring me a glass of cognac."
The butler returned with the brandy, which her father tried in vain to make her swallow.
"Come now, come now, don't pretend in this way. You needn't try to make me believe that you are hurt. Wake up at once, Renée, and take this brandy. Do you hear me? Now then, you little fool, don't sham any more," and so saying he tried to force the liquid down her throat by main force.
Renée, nearly choked by the fluid going down the wrong way, set up so violent a fit of spasmodic coughing that he had to get François to help him bring her round.
"I think we had better carry her up to her room, and lay her on her bed. The heat has evidently been too much for her," he said to the butler. "Go and tell her maid to come and look after her."
Having once more assured himself that she had onlyfainted, he gave the necessary instructions to the maid, and left the house. Stepping into his carriage he drove home. "I am afraid I must have lost my temper a bit," he said to himself, feeling now that he had calmed down, a tinge of remorse for his brutal conduct. "Well, it was entirely her fault," he exclaimed. "The obstinacy of that girl after all I have done for her is perfectly inconceivable," and consoling himself with his magnanimity, he walked up the steps of his house.
Renée, exhausted with weeping, opened her eyes, and sipped the brandy which her maid had brought her.
"My poor darling, what have they been doing to her!" she exclaimed.
"Please leave me," she said in a scarcely audible voice, "and don't allow anyone to see me on any pretence whatever, do you understand? Now pull down the blinds, and leave me alone."
As soon as Marie had gone, Renée rolled over on her face, covering it with her hands, and burst out into an uncontrollable fit of weeping.
Dinner was announced, but the young lady did not appear.
"I must go and see what is the matter," said Madame Villebois, as she hurried upstairs to Renée's room. She found the door locked. "What is the meaning of this?" she asked Marie.
"Please, madame, my mistress has a dreadful headache, and has given orders that no one is to be allowed to see her."
Madame ran down to her husband with a terrible story that she was dying, and advised a consultation of eminent specialists, and suggested bursting the door open.
"Leave her alone, my dear. Something has evidently upset her, she will have brain fever if you go and frighten her like that."
"You're a cruel, ungrateful man, Adolphe, that's the plain truth. I never heard of anyone with so little feeling as you show, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. To think of the poor lamb being neglected in this way. I call it perfectly disgraceful. You men are all a set of heartless creatures."
"Tut, tut, my dear. Let her have a good cry, there'snothing like it. She will soon get over it, and to-morrow she will be all right," and taking his wife by the arm, he led her off to dinner.
Renée woke up in the morning with a splitting headache, but feeling better towards evening, she rose and dressed, and after removing the traces of her crying, walked downstairs into the parlour.
The room was empty, and going to the piano the girl sat down in a dazed condition and attempted to play. But her heart was too sad, and Renée mechanically passed her hands over the keys, hardly conscious of what she was playing.
Renée was about to close the lid of the instrument, when she became aware of someone near her, and looking round saw Delapine who had just returned from the university, and had silently entered the room for his evening cup of coffee.
"Is that you, Henri?" she called out as she rose from the music stool and caught hold of him convulsively by the arms.
"My dear child, whatever is the matter with you? You have been crying. Come and sit down, my poor little Renée, and let me comfort you."
"Oh, Henri," she cried, "do please help me. Father came to see me yesterday, and tried all he could to make me promise to marry Pierre, and I flatly refused to have anything to do with him, and so he swore at me and vowed he would cut me off with a shilling, and turn me into the streets. I did not mind that so much, but when he told me my darling mother was an abandoned woman, which you know is a lie, and then struck me across the face, and bade me never see him again, I broke down, and I think I must have swooned away, because I didn't remember anything until I found myself on my bed. And now I am all alone in the world, and I have no one to go to in my trouble. Oh, why did my poor mother die so soon? You don't know what she was to me, Henri," and she sobbed as if her heart would break.
"Renée dear, may I be your protector? Come to me and I will never leave you. God knows I love you better than my own life. Yes, a thousand times better. Willyou share your lot with me, darling? I am not rich, but all that I have is yours, and what I have not shall be made up for by my love and devotion."
Her heart was too full to reply. She just nestled in his arms, and their lips met in one lingering delicious kiss of ecstasy.
"God bless you, my own petite Renée," he answered, "I have given you my soul, dear, and in giving you that I have given you everything."
She fell into a reverie of keen delight, so keen that she felt herself becoming overwhelmed with the intoxication of love's young dream, and with a great effort she woke up to the realities of life.
"But how did you contrive to come here so early? You don't generally manage to do so."
"Well, to tell the truth, I knew everything that had happened, and so I hurried away from my laboratory in a fiacre, so as to be ready to help you the moment you dressed and came downstairs."
"Do you mean to say that you knew that father had been storming at me and hit me?"
"Yes, dear. I don't know everything, but I knew that, and I arrived here just as you entered this room, and the moment you sat down to the piano I stole in on tip-toe, and stood behind you."
Renée opened her large eyes with mingled astonishment and awe, and paused in thought.
"Will you always love me, Henri? Even when I am old and wrinkled?" she suddenly exclaimed, as if the thought of possessing him was too good to be true.
"To the eyes of real love, dear, the loved one never becomes old or wrinkled," he replied gravely.
"But will you love me very much?"
"That depends on you as well, Renée," said the professor, amused at her question. "Don't you know that Italian saying which I think is attributed to Goldoni, 'Amor solo d'amor si pasce,' 'Love feeds on love and increases by exchange'? However, let us be happy for this one short hour at any rate," he added slowly with a sigh.
"Why do you sigh?" she asked, looking alarmed.
"Have you then so soon forgotten what I told you?"
Of course she remembered the words. But what did they mean?
"I cannot tell you now," he replied, "but, dear one, you know that I have opened up my soul to you, so that you might be able to understand me."
"I do understand you, Henri, you know I do."
"Then you will trust me, won't you?"
Renée merely squeezed his hand, and looked into his eyes with a smile.
"Of course I will," she added, as a slight cloud passed over Delapine's brow. "But does it mean that we shall be separated again?" she enquired after a long pause.
"Yes, Renée, for some little time to come. But take courage, ma chérie, as I told you before it will all come right. And now, dear, the coffee is coming, and I hear Dr. Villebois in the hall."
Renée rushed back to the piano and began turning over her music, while the professor sank demurely into an armchair, and was apparently deeply engaged in reading thePetit Journalupside down when Villebois walked into the room.
"Well, Delapine, mon brave, how is it that you are here so early?"
"As a matter of fact I had some very important business to attend to here, and so I came a little earlier than I intended."
"I hope the business proved satisfactory?"
"Very much so indeed," replied Delapine, looking slyly at Renée, who blushed like a peony up to the roots of her hair.
"Ha, ha! I see, I see," said Villebois, slyly shaking his finger at them both. "Splendid, splendid," he cried. "Take care of her, Delapine, my boy, you have won the greatest treasure in all France. And you, my dear, have got a man who has not his equal anywhere. He is something more than a man, he is a hero, Renée. Mark my words, before we are two years older he will be the greatest savant in Europe. Give me your hands, both of you, and let me be the first to join them together. 'Pon my word,I think I am as pleased as either of you. But, not a word, not a word, eh, professor?"
"Thank you ever so much for your congratulations, doctor, and also for your hint of caution; were things otherwise, we should ask you to tell all the world, but under the circumstances it is better we should keep it strictly to ourselves. I have good reasons for believing that more than one person is anxious to separate us, and would do anything to get us out of the way."
"Do you really mean it, professor? I can't imagine that anyone would wish you evil. Surely you don't mean to say that you have enemies who come to my house?"
"It is not my habit to mention names, my dear doctor, but I assure you, you have a Judas among your disciples. Nay, you have two or three who would be delighted to see me dead."
"Come, my dear professor, you don't really mean that. You must be joking. Take the people who were at the dinner the other evening, Riche, Marcel, the Duvals, father and son. Surely they are all your friends and strictly honourable."
"Oh, yes! Brutus is an honourable man, so are they all, all honourable men," said Delapine, imitating the mocking sarcasm of Mark Antony.
"Are you not sarcastic, professor, or do you mean it?"
"Yes, doctor," Renée interposed, "Henri is right and he means it. Oh, I know it so well," she replied bitterly.
Henri squeezed her hand while she clung close to him for protection.
"As far as I am concerned I am not in the least alarmed," said Delapine, "but it is my duty now to defend Renée. I am, as you know, a man of peace, but I shall be sorry for the man who attempts any tricks on Renée, as he will find out to his cost. You know it is written, 'Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves,' but, ma foi, if anyone comes fooling around to hurt my dove, I have a right to set my serpent at him. Eh, doctor?"
"Ha, ha! capital, capital, those are my sentiments to a 'T'," said Villebois laughing. "But the situation is becoming serious and I promise to help you to the best of my power."
"I know you will, doctor," said Delapine, shaking him cordially by the hand. "But promise me you will not let anyone know what I suspect. Please do me the favour to invite the same guests as you had last time, together with any others you may choose to ask, for we must on no account let anyone imagine we are suspicious."
"I promise faithfully to do as you wish," said Villebois, pressing his hand.
"But you will give us the promised séance at our next party?"
"Certainly, why not?"
Madame Villebois and Céleste entered the room at this moment and the conversation ceased.
CHAPTER VIII
DELAPINE MAKES AN EXPERIMENT IN BOTANY
Delapineand Villebois left the room arm in arm, and entered the library where they found Riche idly glancing over a magazine, and at the same time quietly smoking his pipe.
"Hullo, Riche," called out Villebois in his usual cheery tones. "What have you been doing with yourself for the last hour?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, I have been amusing myself looking through your charming work on Turner's paintings illustrated in colour. Ah, Turner was a great artist, a very great artist," said Riche. "He was to England what our Claude Lorraine was to France. Between them they succeeded in teaching the world the true art of landscape painting. Until their time the Dutch and Flemish schools alone had attained a moderate degree of success, but when all is said and done Dutch and Flemish pictures were in the main—that is, in the majority of cases—merely cold, flat, and very conventional. But with the advent of Turner, a great change came over art. He not only copied Nature, but he improved on it, idealised it, and gave it life, warmth, breadth, and depth, such as only Claude before him could conceive. Ma parole, were I not a Frenchman, I would place him in the world of painters absolutely alone in his glory."
"Right again, Riche, as usual," said Delapine, much interested. "It is a pleasure to hear Turner praised and appreciated. Not so very long ago it was the fashion to decry him, but all the disparagement could not gainsay the revolution he caused in art."
"Look," continued Riche, encouraged in one of his pet hobbies to find so sympathetic an enthusiast in Delapine—the man of science and psychic phenomena, "look at the picture of Dido building Carthage. See the towering marble buildings on either side like fairy castles in the air. Look how every figure, every object is so cunningly painted that collectively they form graceful curves which insensibly lead the eye to the 'point d'apui', which in this case, as you will notice, is the setting sun in the infinite distance beyond, giving immense depth and plasticity to the scene. Look again at his picture of Venice. Here we have a city of pink, and gold, and white, rising like a mist out of an emerald sea under a dome of sapphire blue. What a vista of exquisitely tender loveliness. How beautifully, and yet almost impossibly real. Compare it with the Venice of Canaletti—the same buildings, the same Grand Canal, and yet how vast the gulf between the two painters. Turner's may be likened to a poetic dream; the other, well—the other is merely conventional prose. Take again his 'Ulysses deriding Polyphemus.' Look at the huge rugged rocks frowning over the sea, and the half-hidden giant heaving a large boulder at the Grecian galley. Note the defiant look of Ulysses as he waves a blazing olive tree, while his men are climbing the rigging to unfurl the sails. See the skilful outlining of the shadowy horses of Phoebus in the slanting rays of the rising sun. Could anything tell a tale better? What conception! what genius! it is the power of imagination over the stern reality of facts."
"Yes, you have seized the keynote of his genius," said Villebois, admiring his friend's enthusiasm. "But in my humble opinion his 'Fighting Temeraire' being towed to her last resting place by the fiery little steamtug is the finest picture of them all."
"By the way, what has become of Delapine? I wanted him to have a glass of wine or some coffee with us in the summer-house, let us go and look for him."
"He cannot be far away," said Villebois, as the latter and Riche left the room together. "He was with us a moment ago. How quietly he must have slipped out of the library. I expect he has gone to look for Renée."
"No, you won't find him with her," said Riche thoughtfully. "He is not the kind of man who wastes his time running after a woman. I fancy that our friend is far too absorbed and occupied scientifically."
"I am not so very sure about that," replied Villebois, smiling to himself, as the scene that he had witnessed about an hour previously flitted across his mind.
"Well, you seem to make out that you know him better than I do. Take my word for it, he is making an experiment somewhere. Let us go into the garden, we are sure to find him playing with some worms, or spiders, or something like that. There you are," cried Riche as they approached the conservatory, "did I not tell you where we would find him?"
Delapine, fully occupied with some plants, looked up on hearing their voices.
"Hullo, what on earth are you doing with that Venus's fly-trap?" called out Villebois, as he watched Delapine letting a tiny spider which was hanging by the end of its thread drop inside the lobes of the carniverous plant, known to science as the Dionaea muscipula, with one hand, while he held his watch in the other.
"This is exceedingly interesting, Riche, I am trying an experiment to find out how long the trap takes to close again after the spider has touched the little hair filaments projecting out from the inside of the leafy pair of lobes."
While still speaking, he allowed the spider to fall lower and lower until its body touched a hair. Then, before the little fellow had time to climb up over the leaf, the two lobes closed together and held him prisoner.
"Now let us sit here and watch," said Delapine, thoroughly absorbed in the experiment. "Before many minutes have elapsed the animal will be killed by the secretion clogging up its spiracles, and then the insect will be digested by the juices secreted by the glands."
"And then what will happen?" asked Villebois.
"Wait a moment and you will see."
After a lapse of about fifteen minutes the lobes began slowly to open again, and there before the eyes of the deeply interested watchers lay the spider, sucked half dry and shrivelled up at the bottom of the cavity.
"What I cannot understand, and what I have been trying to discover," said Delapine, "is what makes the leaves close instantly when the hairs are touched, and what it is that causes the gastric juices to pour out precisely as it does in the stomach when one has taken a meal. In our own case the reason is clear enough because the stomach is supplied with nerves and nerve-ends. But botanists assure us that plants have no traces of nerves. And again, why should the leaves reopen the very moment that the plant has had a sufficient meal? Now here is another plant which, like a chameleon, devotes all its energies to catching flies," continued Delapine as he led them over, and pointed to a fine specimen of Drosera.
"You surely recognise the familiar sun-dew with its round head stuck all over with little stalk-like tentacles each having a knob at the end, the whole reminding one of a round pincushion stuffed with pins. Now I have noticed that the heads of these tentacles secrete a sticky, treacly juice, and the moment a fly alights to suck that juice its legs become entangled, and the fly is at once a prisoner. Immediately this happens, all the neighbouring tentacles bend over the captive fly, exactly as the tentacles of a sea-anemone bend over their prey, and suck its life-blood."
"I have not studied these plant problems," said Riche, "but now that you demonstrate some of them so clearly they do indeed appear marvellous."
"Ah, my dear doctor," said Delapine, "there are quite a host of problems awaiting solution in the actions of that plant. The moment one begins to think, and to ask one-self Why and How, one becomes aware of one's dense ignorance of the every-day operations of Nature. We are accustomed to look upon a plant as if it were an inanimate thing, and yet there can be no doubt that it enjoys life, and feels and thinks after some sort of fashion. I have often wondered if it ever occurs to a girl as she plucks a flower that the plant might decidedly object to having its head cut off. Of course I do not lay it down that a plant can feel pain in the same way that we do. That it can feel, I have amply shown you, and that it has some dim consciousness of existence I am fully convinced."
"It is intensely interesting, and must be a splendid relaxation for you, Delapine," said Villebois, "but all the same you should not forget that there are other relaxations also, and one of them is to come over to the summer-house where I see François has just brought some coffee and liqueurs."
As they entered the cool shades of the arbour, Duval, who had been passing a quiet half hour there in deep thought, rose to meet them.
"Ah, glad to see you, Pierre," called out Villebois in a cheerful tone, and mindful of his promise to Delapine. "We have just come over for a little refreshment and cool air after the heat of the conservatory. Which do you prefer," he continued, "some coffee or a liqueur? I can recommend this Curaçao but perhaps you would rather have some coffee," and he proceeded to light the samovar.
"Coffee and a cigarette for me by all means," replied Pierre, "I always think the two go so admirably together, each seems to bring out the acme of flavour in the other."
"Very true," said Villebois, who delighted in playing the host, as he proceeded to fill all the four cups with the fragrant Mocha. At this moment Céleste appeared on the verandah.
"Look, papa, what a lovely orchid I am going to bring you," she called out, with a wealth of love and laughter shining in her eyes.
"No, no, stay where you are," shouted Villebois, "we'll make it a prize." Turning to his companions he added smiling, "Let us race for it; physics, medicine and law running for a prize in botany, and the privilege of having the decoration placed on his breast by Céleste."
Villebois, Delapine, and Riche, each shouting 'Go' as the word for starting, darted off and ran as hard as they could across the lawn, while Duval, swift as lightning, seized the opportunity to drop something quickly into Delapine's coffee unnoticed by anyone, and then with one bound sped after the racers.
"Well done, doctor," called Céleste to Riche, as with a wonderful effort he just managed to grasp the girl's skirt a second before Delapine, while Villebois and Duval came panting behind, almost on their heels.
"Three cheers for the winner of the Great Flower Stakes," called out Villebois as Céleste shyly pinned the prize in Riche's button-hole, "I think it was a clear case of the favourite winning. Now let us 'return to our muttons,' or rather our coffee," and so saying the four men moved off in the direction of the summer-house, while Céleste went indoors.
"What a pity you were not here earlier," said Villebois, turning to Duval, "Delapine has been entertaining us with some experiments on feeding insectivorous plants in the conservatory, and began by showing us how remarkably susceptible they are to the faintest traces of certain drugs. By the way, professor, now that we are all here quietly, will you give us an exhibition of your thought-reading powers?"
"Certainly, my dear Villebois, with all the pleasure in the world," said Delapine; "but it is a pity that our amiable friend, Pierre, should have missed the experiments in the conservatory. Would you mind if we all went back there as I should like very much to let him see the effect of this coffee on one of the plants."
So saying he took up the cup, which had been filled for him, and moved towards the hothouse followed by his three companions. Edging up alongside Delapine, Pierre, with almost murderous thoughts surging in his breast, watched for an opportunity either to snatch, or even to risk all and dash the tell-tale cup from his rival's hand. Appearing, however, not to notice the agitated manner of the man walking so close to him, Delapine adroitly handed the cup to Riche while bending over to whisper something in his ear. Then turning towards Duval he quietly linked arms with him in the most natural and friendly manner in the world, without any apparent pressure, but at the same time so skilfully that it would have been very difficult for Pierre to have freed himself without arousing suspicion.
"My dear Duval," said Delapine, affectionately pressing the arm resting against his own, "you will be delighted with what I am going to show you, it's a most surprising experiment."
Once more in the conservatory, Riche at a sign from Delapine handed him a spoonful of the coffee, and Delapinegently let a few drops of the liquid fall on the tentacles of the Drosera.
As Delapine had previously remarked, the effect was surprising, but in a totally different manner from what he had meant at the time. Immediately the drops touched them the tentacles turned over and lost their colour, while the glands changed from a rich purple to a sickly pink.