out of the nostril. I could see the two bits of blue string dangling from Henri's nostrils. I inserted my own noseplugs. Henri inspected them. He rammed them in tighter with his thumb. Then he went dancing back into the lab, waving his hairy hands and crying out, 'Come in now, my dear Oswald! Come in, come in! Forgive my excitement, but this is a great day for me!' The plugs in his nose made him speak as though he had a bad cold. He hopped over to a cupboard and reached inside. He brought out one of those small square bottles made of very thick glass that hold about an ounce of perfume. He carried it over to where I stood, cupping his hands around it as though it were a tiny bird. 'Look! Here it is! The most precious fluid in the entire world!'
This is the son of rubbishy overstatement I dislike intensely. 'So you think you've done it?' I said.
'I know I've done it, Oswald! I am certain I've done it!'
'Tell me what happened.'
'That's not so easy,' he said. 'But I can try.'
He placed the little bottle carefully on the bench. 'I had left this particular blend, Number 1076, to distil overnight,' he went on. 'That was because only one drop of distillate is produced every half hour. I had it dripping into a sealed beaker to prevent evaporation. All these fluids are extremely volatile. And so, soon after I arrived at eight thirty this morning, I went over to Number 1076 and lifted the seal from the beaker. I took a tiny sniff. Just one tiny sniff.
Then I replaced the seal.'
'And then?'
'Oh, my God, Oswald, it was fantastic! I completely lost control of myself! I did things I would never in a million years have dreamed of doing!'
'Such as what?'
'My dear fellow, I went completely wild! I was like a wild beast, an animal! I was not human! The civilizing influences of centuries simply dropped away! I was Neolithic!'
'What did you do?'
'I can't remember the next bit very clearly. It was all so quick and violent. But I became overwhelmed by the most terrifying sensation of lust it is possible to imagine. Everything else was blotted out of my mind. All I wanted was a woman. I felt that if I didn't get hold of a woman immediately, I would explode.'
'Lucky Jeanette,' I said, glancing toward the next room. 'How is she now?'
'Jeanette left me over a year ago,' he said. 'I replaced her with a brilliant young chemist called Simone Gautier.'
'Lucky Simone, then.'
'No, no!' Henri cried. 'That was the awful thing! She hadn't arrived! Today of all days, she was late for work! I began to go mad. I dashed out into the corridor and down the stairs. I was like a dangerous animal. I was hunting for a woman, any woman, and heaven help her when I found her!'
'And who did you find?'
'Nobody, thank God. Because suddenly, I regained my senses. The effect had worn off. It was very quick, and I was standing alone on the second-floor landing. I felt cold. But I knew at once exactly what had happened. I ran back upstairs and re-entered this room with my nostrils pinched tightly between finger and thumb. I went straight to the drawer where I stored the noseplugs. Ever since I started working on this project, I have kept a supply of noseplugs ready for just such an occasion. I rammed in the plugs. Now I was safe.'
'Can't the molecules get up into the nose through the mouth?' I asked him 'They can't reach the receptor sites,' he said. 'That's why you can't smell through your mouth. So I went over to the apparatus and switched off the heat. I then transferred the tiny quantity of precious fluid from the beaker to this very solid airtight bottle you see here. In it there are precisely eleven cubic centimetres of Number 1076.'
'Then you telephoned me.'
'Not immediately, no. Because at that point, Simone arrived. She took one look at me and ran into the next room, screaming.'
'Why did she do that?'
'My God, Oswald, I was standing there stark naked and I hadn't realized it. I must have ripped off all my clothes!'
'Then what?'
'I got dressed again. After that, I went and told Simone exactly what had happened. When she heard the truth, she became as excited as me. Don't forget, we've been working on this together for over a year now.'
'Is she still here?'
'Yes. She's next door in the other lab.'
It was quite a story Henri had told me. I picked up the little square bottle and held it against the light. Through the thick glass I could see about half an inch of fluid, pale and pinkish-grey, like the juice of a ripe quince.
'Don't drop it,' Henri said. 'Better put it down.' I put it down. 'The next step,' he went on, 'will be to make an accurate test under scientific conditions. For that I shall have to spray a measured quantity on to a woman and then let a man approach her. It will be necessary for me to observe the operation at close range.'
'You are a dirty old man,' I said.
'I am an olfactory chemist,' he said primly.
'Why don't I go out into the street with my noseplugs in,' I said, 'and spray some on to the first woman who comes along. You can watch from the window here. It ought to be fun.'
'It would be fun all right,' Henri said. 'But not very scientific. I must make the tests indoors under controlled conditions.'
'And I will play the male part,' I said.
'No, Oswald.'
'What do you mean, no. I insist.'
'Now listen to me,' Henri said. 'We have not yet found out what will happen when a woman is present. This stuff is very powerful, I am certain of that. And you, my dear sir, are not exactly young. It could be extremely dangerous. It could drive you beyond the limit of your endurance.'
I was stung. 'There are no limits to my endurance,' I said.
'Rubbish,' Henri said. 'I refuse to take chances. That is why I have engaged the fittest and strongest young man I could find.'
'You mean you've already done this?'
'Certainly I have,' Henri said. 'I am excited and impatient. I want to get on. The boy will be here any minute.'
'Who is he?'
'A professional boxer.'
'Good God.'
'His name is Pierre Lacaille. I am paying him one thousand francs for the job.'
'How did you find him?'
'I know a lot more people than you think, Oswald. I am not a hermit.'
'Does the man know what he's in for?'
'I have told him that he is to participate in a scientific experiment that has to do with the psychology of sex. The less he knows the better.'
'And the woman? Who will you use there?'
'Simone, of course,' Henri said. 'She is a scientist in her own right. She will be able to observe the reactions of the male even more closely than me.'
'That she will,' I said. 'Does she realize what might happen to her?'
'Very much so. And I had one hell of a job persuading her to do t. I had to point out that she would be participating in a demonstration that will go down in history. It will be talked about for hundreds of years.'
'Nonsense,' I said.
'My dear sir, through the centuries there are certain great epic moments of scientific discovery that are never forgotten. Like the time when Dr Horace Wells of Hartford, Connecticut, had a tooth pulled out in 1844.'
'What was so historic about that?'
'Dr Wells was a dentist who had been playing about with nitrous oxide gas. One day, he got a terrible
