I didn’t say anything. Already, as I got into bed beside her, I was beginning to slide off into another of those weird fantasies that seem to engulf me whenever I come to close quarters with a female. This time I was back in the middle ages and Richard Coeur de Lion was King of England. I was the champion jouster of the country, the noble knight who was once more about to display his prowess and strength before the King and all his courtiers in the field of the Cloth of Gold. My opponent was a gigantic and fearsome female from France who had butchered seventy-eight valiant Englishmen in tournaments of jousting. But my steed was brave and my lance was of tremendous length and thickness, sharp-pointed, vibrant, and made of the strongest steel. And the King shouted out, “Bravo, Sir Oswald, the man with the mighty lance! No one but he has the strength to wield so huge a weapon! Run her through, my lad! Run her through!” So I went galloping into battle with my giant lance pointed straight and true at the Frenchy’s most vital region, and I thrust at her with mighty thrusts, all swift and sure, and in a trice I had pierced her armour and had her screaming for mercy. But I was in no mood to be merciful. Spurred on by the cheers of the King and his courtiers, I drove my steely lance ten thousand times into that writhing body and then ten thousand times more, and I heard the courtiers shouting, “Thrust away, Sir Oswald! Thrust away and keep on thrusting!” And then the King’s voice was saying, “Begad, methinks the brave fellow is going to shatter that great lance of his if he doesn’t stop soon!” But my lance did not shatter, and in a glorious finale, I impaled the giant Frenchy female upon the spiked end of my trusty weapon and went galloping around the arena, waving the body high above my head to shouts of “Bravo!” and “Gadzooks!” and “Victor ludorum!”
All this, as you can imagine, took some time. How long, I had not the faintest idea, but when I finally surfaced again, I jumped out of the bed and stood there triumphant, looking down upon my prostrate victim. The girl was panting like a stag at bay and I began to wonder whether I might not have done her an injury. Not that I cared much about that.
“Well, mademoiselle,” I said. “Am I still in the kindergarten?”
“Oh no!” she cried, twitching her long limbs. “Oh no, monsieur! No, no, no! You are ferocious and you are marvellous and I feel like my boiler has exploded!”
That made me feel pretty good. I left without another word and sneaked back along the corridor to my own room. What a triumph! The powder was fantastic! The Major had been right! And the hail porter in Khartoum had not let me down! I was on my way now to the crock of gold and nothing could stop me. With these happy thoughts, I fell asleep.
The next morning, I immediately began to set matters in train. You will remember that I had a science scholarship. I was, therefore, well versed in physics and chemistry and several other things besides, but chemistry had always been my strongest subject.
I therefore knew already all about the process of making a simple pill. In the year 1912, which is where we are now, it was customary for pharmacists to make many of their own pills on the premises, and for this they always used something called a pill-machine. So I went shopping in Paris that morning, and in the end I found, in a back street on the Left Bank, a supplier of second-hand pharmaceutical apparatus. From him I bought an excellent little pillmachine that turned out good professional pills in groups of twenty-four at a time. I bought also a pair of highly sensitive chemist’s scales.
Next, I found a pharmacy that sold me a large quantity of calcium carbonate and a smaller amount of tragacanth. I also bought a bottle of cochineal. I carried all this back to my room and then I cleared the dressing-table and laid out my supplies and my apparatus in good order.