“Have you read what it says on the label?” I asked him anxiously. The last thing I wanted was a dead Jap around the place. Think of the outcry, the autopsy, the enquiries, and the pill-boxes with my name on them in his house.
“I examine the label,” he said, holding his glass out for more of Madame Boisvain’s brandy. “And I ignore it. We Japanese, we may be small in body but our organs are of gigantic size. That is why we walk bow-legged.”
I decided I would try to discourage him by doubling the price. “I’m afraid they are terrifically expensive, these pills,” I said.
“Money no object,” he said, pointing to the leather satchel on the table. “I pay in gold coins.”
“But Mr. Mitsouko,” I said, “each pill is going to cost you two thousand francs! They are very difficult to manufacture. That’s an awful lot of money for one pill.”
“I take twenty,” he said without even blinking.
My God, I thought, he is going to kill himself. “I cannot allow you to have them,” I told him, “unless you give me your word you will never take more than one at a time.”
“Do not lecture me, young buckeroo,” he said. “Just get me the pills.”
I went upstairs and counted out twenty pills and put them in a plain bottle. I wasn’t going to risk having my name and address on this lot.
“Ten I shall send to the Emperor in Tokyo,” Mr. Mitsouko said when I handed them to him. “It will put me in a very hot position with His Royal Highness.”
“It’ll put the Empress in some pretty hot positions, too,” I said.
He grinned and took up the leather satchel and emptied a vast pile of gold coins onto the table. They were all onehundred-franc pieces. “Twenty coins for each pill,” he said, starting to count them out. “That is four hundred coins altogether. And well worth it, you young magician.” When he had gone, I scooped up the coins and carried them up to my room.
My God, I thought. I am rich already.
But before the day was done, I was a lot richer. One by one, the messengers started trickling back from their respective embassies and ministries. They all carried precise orders and exact amounts of money, most of it in gold twenty-franc pieces. This is how it went:
Sir Charles Makepiece, 4 pills = 4,000 francs
The German ambassador, 8 pills = 8,000 francs
The Russian ambassador, 10 pills = 10,000 francs
The Hungarian ambassador, 3 pills = 3,000 francs
The Peruvian ambassador, 2 pills = 2,000 francs
The Mexican ambassador, 6 pills = 6,000 francs
The Italian ambassador, 4 pills 4,000 francs
The French foreign minister, 6 pills = 6,000 francs
The Army general, 3 pills = 3,000 francs
46,000 francs
Mr. Mitsouko, 20 pills (double price) 40,000 francs
Grand Total 86,000 francs
Eighty-six thousand francs! At the exchange rate of one hundred francs to five pounds, I was all of a sudden worth four thousand three hundred English pounds! It was incredible. One could buy a good house for money like that, with a carriage and a pair of horses thrown in, as well as one of those dashing newfangled automobiles!
For supper that night, Madame Boisvain served oxtail stew, and it wasn’t at all bad except that the sloshiness of it all encouraged Monsieur B to suck and swig and gulp in the most disgusting fashion. At one point, he picked up his plate and tipped the gravy straight into his mouth, together with a couple of carrots and a large onion. “My wife tells me that you had a lot of peculiar visitors today,” he said. His face was plastered with brown fluid and strands of meat were hanging from his moustache. “Who were these men?”
“They were friends of the British ambassador,” I answered. “I am doing a little business for Sir Charles Makepiece.”
“I cannot have my house turned into a market-place,” Monsieur B said, speaking with his mouth full of fat. “These activities must cease.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Tomorrow I am finding alternative accommodation.”
“You mean you’re leaving?” he cried.