Ambrotox and Limping Dick | Page 7

asked his brother.
"To keep my tryst with Mrs. Rogers," said Dick, and went out.
"I've told 'em we'll have our wine and coffee in the study, Caldegard," said Randal. "I think it's the safest place for what we're going to talk about."
Amaryllis rose to leave them together, but her father stopped her.
"You'll come with us, won't you, my dear? You're one of the gang," he said.
"What gang?" she asked, looking at him with eyes opened wide.
"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 Dick 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 passage beyond the stair, to the study.
Randal, with his back to the open door, was filling the port glasses, 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 Dick, setting down the tray.
"When does the s��ance 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 passage. 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 passage, Dick," 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 Dick.
"Of course. And you for your daughter."
"It is," began Caldegard, "the perfect opiate. As anodyne it gives more ease, and as an?sthetic 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 assures 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 analogous experience assures me that the final stages must be hell."
"How do you know so much about the effects?" asked Dick.
"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