I went so dotty about her that I broke the golden rule and saw her a second time.
And now it was twenty to ten in the evening and A. R. Woresley was bicycling home and I myself was in the porter’s lodge at Girton asking the old porter kindly to inform Miss Yasmin Howcomely that Mr. Oswald Cornelius wished to see her on a matter of the most urgent nature.
She came down at once. “Hop in the car,” I said. “We have things to talk about.” She hopped in and I drove her back to Trinity where I gave the Trinity porter half a sovereign to look the other way as she slid past him to my rooms.
“Keep your clothes on,” I said to her. “This is business. How would you like to get rich?”
“I’d like it very much,” she said.
“Can I trust you completely?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You won’t tell a soul?”
“Go on,” she said. “It sounds like fun already.”
I then proceeded to tell her the entire story of A. R. Woresley’s discovery.
“My God!” she said when I had finished. “This is a great scientific discovery! Who the hell is A. R. Woresley? He’s going to be world famous! I’d like to meet him!”
“You soon will,” I said.
“When?” Being herself a bright young scientist, she was genuinely excited.
“Wait,” I said. “Here’s the next installment.” I then told her about my plans for exploiting the discovery and making a fortune by starting a sperm vault for the great geniuses of the world and all the kings.
When I had finished, she asked me if I had any wine. I opened a bottle of claret and poured a glass for each of us. I found some good dry biscuits to go with it.
“It’s sort of a funny idea, this sperm vault of yours,” she said. “But I’m afraid it’s not going to work.” She proceeded to put forward all the same old reasons that A. R. Woresley had given me earlier in the evening. I allowed her to spout on. Then I played my ace of spades.
“Last time we met I told you the story of my Parisian caper,” I said. “You remember that?”
“The splendid Blister Beetle,” she said. “I keep wishing you’d brought some back with you.”
“I did.”
“You’re not serious!”
“When you use only a pinhead at a time, five pounds of powder goes an awful long way. I’ve got about a pound left.”
“Then that’s the answer!” she cried, clapping her hands.
“I know.”
“Slip them a powder and they’ll give us a thousand million of their little squigglers every time!”
“Using you as the teaser.”
“Oh, I’ll be the teaser all right,” she said. “I’ll tease them to death. Even the ancient ones will be able to deliver! Show me this magic stuff.”
I fetched the famous biscuit tin and opened it. The powder lay an inch deep in the tin. Yasmin dipped a finger in it and started to put it to her mouth. I grabbed her wrist. “Are you mad?” I shouted. “You’ve got about six full doses sticking to the skin of that finger!” I hung onto her wrist and dragged her to the bathroom and held her finger under the tap.
“I want to try it,” she said. “Come on, darling. Just give me a tiny bit.”
“My God, woman,” I said, “have you any idea what it does to you!”
“You already told me.”
“If you want to see it working, just watch what it does to A. R. Woresley when you give it to him tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Whoopee! When tomorrow?”
“You get old Woresley to deliver and I win my bet,” I said. “That means he’s got to join us. Woresley, you, and me. We’ll make a great team.”
“I like it,” she said. “We’ll rock the world.”
“We’ll rock more than that,” I said. “We’ll rock all the crowned heads of Europe. But we must rock Woresley first.”
“He has to be alone.”
“No problem,” I said. “He’s alone in the lab every evening between five thirty and six thirty. Then he goes home to his supper.”