He left the house, I found, every morning sharp at eight, and this was in favour of Brodie's theory that he had some regular job. He was an experienced, much-lived old bird, a touch of something sinister about him always, about most of his friends as well. Some very disagreeable types I surprised more than once in his well-furnished room. He "knew the ropes," knew men and women too, his counsel was always sound in worldly matters. A lack of humour was his chief failing, it seemed to me, while his snobbery was another weakness that probably led many of his schemes to failure. Every summer, for instance, he would go for two weeks to Newport, where the rank and fashion went. "When I was at Newport," or "I am going to Newport next week," were phrases his tongue loved to mouth and taste like fine wine. But his brief days there were spent actually in a cheap boarding-house, although the letters he wrote to all and sundry, to myself included, bore one word only as address: "Newport," made from a die, at the head of his coloured paper.
It was von Schmidt, then, who warned me about Brodie and his eau-de-Cologne business: "He is a fool, a peasant. There will be trouble there. Do not identify yourself with him or his business. It is not worth while...." And his manner conveyed that he could tell something more definite if he liked, which I verily believe was the case. Brodie, I was convinced later, paid him tribute.
I began to feel uncomfortable. One day I asked Brodie, point blank, what his recipe was and how he came by it? "That's me own beezness," he replied. "There's nothing to be nairvous about." I consulted "old Louis." "If you feel the faintest doubt," was his answer, "you should leave at once." I decided to get out. Brodie asked me to wait the current month. I agreed.
Before the end of the month, however, when I left the eau-de-Cologne business, a most unpleasant and alarming incident occurred. The terrible thing, long dreaded in a
vague kind of way, had overtaken me at last. I was to
