"The Ambrotox gang," replied her father, lowering his voice almost to a whisper. "The only four people in the world, I believe, who know even that silly nick-name you invented, Amaryllis, are in this house. Sir Randal knows its properties. I know all about it. You know that I have spent two years in reaching it, and d.i.c.k Bellamy knows there is something in which we three are deeply interested. And so Sir Randal has advised me to take you younger people into full confidence."

He slipped his arm through his daughter's, and led the way across the hall and down the narrow pa.s.sage beyond the stair, to the study.

Randal, with his back to the open door, was filling the port gla.s.ses, while Amaryllis and her father were gazing from the open french-window across the moonlit lawn, when all three were startled by a thin, high-pitched voice behind them.

"Me lib for make one dam fine lot coffee, missy," it said.

But, turning, they laughed to see only d.i.c.k, setting down the tray.

"When does the seance begin?" he asked, turning to close the door.

"Now," said his brother. "Better leave that open, and sit here where you can see right down the pa.s.sage. Miss Caldegard," he went on, "please make Gorgon lie outside the window."

Amaryllis stepped out upon the terrace, and the dog followed her. "Lie down," she said. "On guard."

She came back into the room, and Randal drew the heavy curtains across the window. "Keep your eye on the end of the pa.s.sage, d.i.c.k," he said.

"There's no other door in it but ours."

Then he sat down. "Coal-tar," he said, "the mother of wealth, the aunt of colour, and the grandmother of drugs, is a mystery to the layman. The highest, if not the best known, of its priesthood, is my old friend Caldegard. Some little time ago he penetrated too far into the arcana of his cult; and on one of the branches of that terrific tree he found and coaxed into blossom a bud which grew into the fruit which his daughter has named Ambrotox--as if it were a beef essence or a cheap wine. Tell 'em its properties, Caldegard--in the vernacular."

Between the first and second puffs at a fresh cigar, Caldegard grunted a sort of final protest.

"You answer for him?" he asked, nodding to d.i.c.k.

"Of course. And you for your daughter."

"It is," began Caldegard, "the perfect opiate. As anodyne it gives more ease, and as anaesthetic leaves less after-effect to combat than any other. Morphia, opium, cannabis Indica, cocaine, heroin, veronal and sulphonal act less equally, need larger doses, tempt more rapidly to increase of dose, and, where the patient knows what drug he has taken, lead, in a certain proportion of cases, very quickly to an ineradicable habit. In wise hands, the patient's and the public's ignorance being maintained, Ambrotox"--and here he bestowed a little laugh on amateur nomenclature--"Ambrotox will be a blessing almost as notable as was chloroform in the fifties.

"But there's another side: carry the thing a step further, and you have a life, waking, and dreams, sleeping, of delight such as has never been--I think never could be expressed in words; not because, as with De Quincey and his laudanum, the coherent story of the dreams and visions cannot be remembered, but because the clear sunshine of personal happiness and confidence in the future--the pure joy of being alive--which the abuser of Ambrotox experiences in his whole daily life, is incommunicable. It is a period of bliss, of clear head, good impulses, celestial dreams, and steady hope. These effects last, on an even dose, longer than with any other drug of which I have experience.

And then there begins and grows a desire for action, the devil preaching that no good works have resulted from the faith, the hope and the good intentions. A little more, and we shall accomplish, he a.s.sures us, the full measure of our dreams. The dose is increased, confidence returns, and performance is still for to-morrow. I have never seen a victim of Ambrotox pursue this descent to the grave, but all a.n.a.logous experience a.s.sures me that the final stages must be h.e.l.l."

"How do you know so much about the effects?" asked d.i.c.k.

"There was only one possible subject for experiment--myself," replied Caldegard.

Amaryllis sat upright in her chair, and drew in her breath sharply. But she did not speak.

"Ghastly risk to take," said d.i.c.k.

"Ghastly," a.s.sented Caldegard. "But it wasn't the first, nor the second time that I'd chanced it. The very memory of the horrors I went through in curing myself after a course of hashish, gave me faith in my power to push this tremendous experiment to the point I had determined upon, without overshooting the mark."

"What was the mark?" inquired d.i.c.k.

"The appearance," replied Caldegard, "of certain cardiac symptoms which I expected."

"Oh, dad!" exclaimed Amaryllis. "That must have been the time when you sent for Dr. Greaves at three in the morning."

Caldegard nodded.

"For three weeks after that," went on Amaryllis indignantly, "I thought you were horribly ill."

"That, my darling," answered her father, smiling at her, "was because I was getting better."

"I've been wondering, Caldegard," said Randal, "how often and how strongly the remembrance of that incommunicable bliss cries out for an epicurean repet.i.tion of those early stages of your scientific experiment."

Caldegard laughed. "Oh, she calls, and calls pretty loud sometimes," he said. "Let her call. It's all part of the experiment. Knowledge, you see, has the sweeter voice."

Amaryllis had tears in her eyes, and for a moment the others waited on her evident desire to speak.

"But do you think, father," she said at last, "that's it's really worth while to let the world know you have found a more delightful temptation than opium or cocaine, just for the sake of giving a few sick people a more comfortable medicine than they've been accustomed to. Ambrotox!"

she sighed scornfully. "I wish I'd never given it that pretty name. I think it's horrid stuff!"

"That's what I was going to ask," said d.i.c.k.

"As for publicity, my dear boy," replied Caldegard, "Ambrotox will very probably do more harm than good if its properties become general knowledge. But the Home Office is drafting a comprehensive measure for State control of the manufacture and distribution of injurious drugs.

You all know that the growth of the drug habit caused serious alarm in the early days of the war, and that even the amendment to the Defence of the Realm Act, forbidding the unauthorised sale and possession of cocaine and other poisons, did little to diminish the illicit traffic.

Such contrabrand dealing is immensely lucrative, and prices rise in direct ratio with the danger. But the new Bill may contain a clause vesting in the State the formulae and the manufacture of all newly-discovered drugs of this kind. The Government is relying in this matter greatly upon the experience and advice of Sir Randal, and if a sufficiently stringent clause can be devised, it is probable that never more than three living persons, in addition to the discoverer, will be acquainted with the processes necessary to the manufacture of a newly discovered chemical compound which has been brought under State control.

In regard to the good which may be done by Ambrotox--do you remember, Amaryllis, the two pretty little old ladies who lived in the small grey house with the red blinds? Don't say names, my child, nor mention the town. They were sisters and devotedly attached."

The girl's face was a picture of curiosity.

"Yes, father," she said. "And they grew pale and anxious. One of them came to see you, and then the other, several times; and once, just before I went to Scotland, they both came together. I remember how dreadfully ill they looked. But when I came home, their cheeks were pink again, one always laughed when the other did, and their garden was full of roses."

"What about 'em?" asked d.i.c.k.

"This," said Caldegard: "For several years each of those old women had been taking morphia; each had been concealing it from the other; each had suffered in conscience the torture of the d.a.m.ned; each confessed to me her vice, and the dreadful failure of her struggle to overcome it.

Experimentally I treated each with Ambrotox, in gradually decreasing doses. The return to health was quicker and more complete than I had dared to hope; the craving for morphia has not reappeared, and I do not think it will."

"Oh, you darling!" cried Amaryllis. "I always thought you'd something to do with it."

"It is the story of two cases only, I admit," continued Caldegard. "But I am convinced that I have found a means of releasing at least unwilling slaves from that bondage."

"But what do you gain by telling us?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Secrecy," said Caldegard. "You and my daughter know now the importance of my two years' work, and you cannot fail to see the danger of a rumour that 'Professor Caldegard, we understand, has achieved an epoch-making discovery in the history of science. An anodyne with more than all the charms and few of the dangers of opium will bring comfort with a good conscience to thousands of sufferers in this nerve-racked world.' Every chemist in the country that knows my line of work will be searching in a furious effort to forestall the new legislation by discovering and putting on the market new synthetic opiates. There is not, perhaps, much fear that chance shooting will achieve the actual bull's-eye of Ambrotox. But there is a greater danger than commercial rivalry--criminal! The illicit-drug interest is growing in numbers and wealth. Every threat of so-called temperance legislation stimulates it.

We have lately heard much of crime as a policy. Soon, perhaps, the world will learn with startled disgust, that crime went into trade two years ago.

"There are men in every big city to whom thousands of pounds and the lives of many hirelings would be a small price to pay for the half-sheet of paper and the small bottle hidden in the safe in that alcove.

"Knowing a little," he concluded, turning to d.i.c.k, "you might have told too much. Knowing everything, you will tell nothing at all."

There was a silence in the room, so heavy that it seemed long. And then,

"Some dope," said d.i.c.k Bellamy.