The Quick Brown Fox

by Stan Mason

  Mr. G. picked up the telephone and dialled the number to be passed through to the main official.

  ‘Igor!’ he greeted warmly when he answered. ‘Do you still remember me? The man with no skis!’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line and then recognition took place. ‘Gardner... the man with one arm!’ came the delighted response. ‘This is a surprise! How are you, tovarich? How are you getting along these days?’

  ‘Fairly well, Igor. How’s Irina?’

  ‘My wife is doing well. She is shopping in Oxford street at the moment so I expect a call from my bank to say that I’m overdrawn shortly.’

  Mr. G. burst into laughter. ‘Same old Igor with the jokes,’ he returned with amusement.

  ‘When are you going to return to Russia?’ asked the Trade Minister bluntly. ‘Maybe we can go together... yes?’

  ‘I’d love to do that soon, Igor,’ returned the entrepreneur even though he didn’t mean it. ‘Look I have something that might interest you.’

  ‘Anything you want to say to me I am interested. Russia does not wish to be second to anyone and I’m sure you wouldn’t have contacted me if it wasn’t something really important.’

  ‘It certainly is, Igor, and I can tell you that if you go along with this, you may even become the President of your country.’

  There was a slight pause at the other end of the line as the Russian absorbed the comment. ‘That would be something very much to my liking. And, I tell you, Irina would love to be the First Lady. You have my interest. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a heating project called hydrogenetics... a process that can generate heat at a quarter of the present cost. Russia would do very well to acquire the details.’

  Strogonoff paused for a longer period as he screwed up his face in disbelief. ‘What is going on?’ he demanded in a much more serious tone.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked a puzzled Mr. G.

  ‘Only this morning, two men from the Baker’s patent attorney office came to see with the same project. How is it that two people know of such an important thing... if it is that important?’ He picked up the business card that Jack had left to reassure himself of the name.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ responded the entrepreneur becoming angrier by the minute. ‘Except for one other person, I’m the only one with the formula and the notes.’

  The Russian shook his head slowly. ‘I think not. I sent them away with a flea in their ears because the process has not yet been tested. Is this the same one you are talking about?’

  ‘That’s the one!’ muttered Mr. G. realising that he had been outsmarted. Someone was already trying to make money from the theory and he was in the lead.

  ‘Can you tell me that name again and the address please. I want a word with them.’

  Strongonoff read all the details from the business card as Mr. G. cradled the receiver into his neck to enable him to write down the information.

  ‘So when will you be coming to Russia,’ asked the Trade Minister. ‘I owe you a dinner. That I remember and Irina will be delighted to see you again.’

  ‘I’ll have to get back to you on that, Igor. Sorry we won’t be able to do business with each other for the moment but I’ll be in touch.’

  He replaced the receiver into its cradle fuming at the news given to him by his Russian friend. Who else had the information? Only David Coleman had it in his possession so where did the Baker Patent Agency come into it? He was determined to find out before the issue deteriorated further causing him to fail to make any money out of it whatsoever.

  Chapter Eleven

  Don was true to his commitment. He went to Limehouse regularly every evening for the first month. His visits were mostly to Mai Wan for therapy because Dr. Sinclair did not wish to see him until he had lost a significant amount of weight. On the odd occasion that he did visit the surgeon, he was asked to stand on the weighing-scales and his progress was recorded. Two weeks after starting diet he stood on the machine waiting for the results to be told to him.

  ‘’Hm... you’ve lost a stone already,’ commented the surgeon. ‘Glad to see you’re sticking strictly to the diet.’

  ‘I f... feel my stomach’s c... cut off from my throat,’ returned the scientist weakly. ‘I c... could really do with a couple of beefburgers and two pints of beer.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it!’ cautioned Sinclair curtly. ‘You need to lose another stone by the end of the month. Keep going at the same rate. You’re lengthening your life week by week.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll live that long because I’ll starve to death,’ bleated Don simply.

  ‘Stick to the diet! Now off you go to Mai Wan!’

  The scientist left the room and climbed the stairs to enter the next building. The Chinese woman was undergoing yoga exercises and she stopped when she saw him. She had been trying to find out the problems inhibiting him from leading a normal life but now it was time to start turning the screw. Her first task was to try to stop him stuttering.

  ‘A friend of mine told me to hold my nose,’ he ventured when she broached the subject.

  ‘If you feel like doing it then do so, but I doubt whether it will have any effect,’ she went on. ‘What I want you to do is to pause each time you intend to speak. Calm yourself down, take a deep breath, and think what you want to say. Then you can talk... hopefully without a stutter. But first let me say that you seem to stutter on words that begin with the letters cee, dee and emm. So I’ve set out three sentences on this sheet of paper for you to practice on.’

  She handed him the paper and he stared at it vacantly. ‘I’m going to ask you to repeat the following: “Copies of claret can’t cater for crime.”

  He stared at her vacantly for a short while and then composed himself, taking a firm hold on his nose before chanting.

  ‘C... copies of c... claret c... cant cater for c... crime,’ he uttered.

  ‘All right,’ she interjected. ‘Try “Dodos don’t daunt our domain.”

  He looked at her with a miserable expression on his face as though he was suffering pain.

  ‘D... dodos don’t d... daunty our d... domain.’

  ‘You’re not calming yourself down or inhaling deeply!’ she chided. ‘Try the last one which is: “Medicine makes men march more.’

  ‘You’re talking without thinking!’ she reproached angrily. ‘Do take your hand away from your nose! It’s only distracting you!’

  He obeyed her wishes and there was a very long period of silence, ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he told her slowly.

  ‘Good!’ she responded, applauding him by clapping her hands. ‘You didn’t stutter under the word ‘don’t’,’

  ‘I d... didn’t d... did I.’

  She stared at him in annoyance. ‘You’re slipping back again! Old habits, Mr. Wise! We shall have to move on to other methods to stop you from doing that!’

  He left the building a little later that evening feeling very humiliated. He was trying so hard to please Mai Wan but he wasn’t succeeding. He didn’t know what other measures she had implied, but in time he would certainly find out. She was thorough in his treatment in every sense of the word. Yes, in time, he would certainly find out!

  Don continued to visit Dr. Sinclair and Mai Wan every evening. After losing two stones in weight, the surgeon sat facing his subject thoughtfully.

  ‘I’m delighted you’ve kept to your commitment,’ he commented. ‘You haven’t missed one day with Mai Wan and you ought to be proud of yourself for doing so.’ He paused to stare at the scientist’s face and then nodded. ‘I think it’s time we began some cosmetic surgery.’

  ‘What sort of c... cosmetic surgery?’ asked Don in trepidation, The last thing he wanted was to feel pain.

  ‘Your nose! I think I can do a good job on tha
t. I have a book of nose shapes. The Roman nose, the Greek one, a retrousse nose, and a variety of other shapes and sizes. If you return to me after seeing Mai Wan this evening, you can choose which one you prefer and I’ll begin surgery. Whatever happens, keep dieting in the same fashion, You still need to lose a lot more weight but it’s coming down. We’ll have you looking like a Greek God eventually.’

  ‘D... do you really think so?’ asked the scientist, although the question ended rhetorically.

  ‘Right,’ continued Sinclair enthusiastically. ‘Off your go and I’ll see you later.’

  Don rose and left the building to enter the one next door. Mai Wan was there waiting to greet him.

  ‘Nee har!’ she said warmly.

  He paused to think. ‘Ah, yes. Good morning in Chinese, Nee hah!’

  She laughed at his naivety, ‘Let’s see if we can unblock your sub-conscious today,’ she began, after he had sat down in a chair opposite her.

  ‘You told m... me you would s... seek other measures,’ he advanced hoping that she would desist.

  ‘That’s right,’ she responded. ‘I’m going to hypnotise you.’

  He stared at her blankly as though he didn’t know what she was going to do. His eyes ran over her body which was covered in a tight black costume with a low-cut front and he licked his fat lips. She was a very beautiful woman and he felt something move inside him as he gazed at her slim body, He had never considered people to be white, black, yellow or any other colour before. They all seemed to be the same to him. Now he was facing a lovely Chinese woman and his mind went completely blank.

  She looked at him seriously and pulled at her necklace which revealed a silver disc at the bottom. She moved it slowly to reflect the light from a single bulb causing the reflection to land on Don’s face. As she moved it to and fro, she began to hypnotise him.

  ‘Your eyes are feeling heavy,’ she told him. ‘You are tired... very tired... and you want to go to sleep.

  He continued to stare at the metal disc which seemed to swing like a pendulum before his eyes.

  ‘You feel very tired... very tired,’ she continued, ‘and you want to go to sleep... to sleep! Your eyes are becoming heavier.,,,.heavier. You cannot keep them open because they are so heavy. You welcome sleep... sleep!’

  She paused to look closely at her subject checking whether he was under her spell before continuing.

  ‘You’re going back... back to the time when you were young. Way back... you are young again... very young.’ He grunted and she waited patiently for him to go back in time. ‘Tell me where you are and how old you are?’

  There was a long pause before he responded. ‘I’m at home in bed,’ he uttered in his trance. ‘I’m eleven years old.’

  ‘Go on!’ she urged. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m trying to sleep. My teddy bear’s in bed with me but I can’t sleep.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s a noise in the other bedroom where my mother and father sleep. It’s keeping me awake.’

  ‘What kind of noise?’

  ‘They’re shouting and arguing.’

  ‘What did you do about it?’

  ‘I got out of bed with my teddy bear and went to their room. They were fighting.’

  ‘Fighting?’

  ‘My father was pushing my mother in the bed, She kept telling him she didn’t want to do what he wanted her to do and he punched her.’

  There was a long pause before Mai Wan continued to demand more information.

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘He moved over her and his body went up and down number of times. She screamed and tried to push him away but he was too strong.’

  ‘Carry on!’

  ‘When my father saw me standing in the doorway watching them, he became very angry and got up and took me to the coal cellar downstairs. He locked me in there and that’s where I stayed until my mother let me out in the morning. It was dark and cold. There were rats in there scuttling about and I was very frightened.’

  ‘You loved your mother, didn’t you?’

  ‘Very dearly, and when she died... ’ he tailed off as the thought in his sub-conscious was too much to bear.

  ‘You hated your father after that, didn’t you?’

  There was a long pause before he replied.

  ‘I didn’t like seeing my father hurt my mother,’

  ‘Do you realise that you’re not stuttering?’ There was no response. ‘It happened way in the past and you will forget all about it as though it never occurred. Is that understood? It’s a figment of your imagination. You had a nightmare that’s all and you dreamed about it. But it never really happened!’ She paused to allow the words to sink in by suggestion and then took a deep breath before continuing. ‘You will wake up shortly and not stutter again. Do you hear me? You will not stutter again. There is no reason for it. The incident you saw that frightened you is solely a figment of your imagination. When I count three and clap my hands you will wake up feeling refreshed and be able to speak without stuttering. One, two, three.’

  She clapped her hands and the scientist awoke staring bleakly at her.

  ‘I’m ready to be hypnotised,’ he told her boldly. ‘You can start now.’

  She smiled at him warmly. Each one of the subjects that she hypnotised would make the same comment when they came out of the trance. She handed him a small sheet of paper and he stared at it bleakly.

  ‘Read what’s on there,’ she ordered.

  He looked at the text again and said: ‘Copies of claret can’t cater for crime. Dodos daren’t daunt our domain. Medicine makes men march more.’

  ‘Again!’ she pressed. ‘Only this time slower.’

  His eyes returned to the text and he repeated the words slowly.

  ‘You can go back to Dr. Sinclair now,’ she told him. ‘You’ve been cured of stuttering and he wants to undertake some cosmetic surgery, Tomorrow, I will introduce you to Mr. Griffiths. He’s a retired teacher who will fill in the gaps in your knowledge. As far as we’re concerned... well we’re getting there. Another two months and you’ll stare to see a new Don Wise appearing on the horizon.’

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ returned the scientist hopefully. ‘And as you say, I seemed to have lost the stutter. I hope it doesn’t come back.’ He paused as he rose from his chair. ‘What did I talk about?’

  ‘It’s time for you to have cosmetic surgery,’ replied diplomatically. It was never a good idea to pass information of that kind to her subjects. Whether it stayed in Don’s subconscious was not within her control. It depended entirely how his brain dealt with it. For the present, however, he seemed to have overcome the problem of stuttering. That in itself was an achievement.

  ***

  Mr. G., made contact with a number of wealthy private individuals and organisations in an attempt to sell the idea of hydrogenetics but, to his dismay, every effort he made failed miserably. As far as they were concerned, there was one spanner in the works... the fact that the idea was unproved until the testing was completed. However he dressed up the situation, it kept coming back to the same problem. There were always two questions that were asked. Did the system actually worked and when would the test period end to prove whether or not it did. No one was willing to risk their money on an untried theory and so the entrepreneur was left wanting on something that had great potential.

  Ultimately, he called on Jake to visit him to undertake further investigation on two fronts. Firstly, he needed to find out exactly when the test results would come about. Secondly, what was the likelihood that the theory was sound and the process would work? Until he had the answers, there was no point in proceeding to his contacts to try to sell the idea.

  ‘I’m at an impasse, Jake,’ he admitted freely to the ex-convict. ‘I ca
n’t deal until I know more about the veracity of the heating process.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can help you on that,’ stated the other man frankly. ‘I’m not a scientist and it’s all gobbledy-gook to me.’

  ‘Can’t you find out from your backward friend who worked with Harris. He should know.’

  ‘It wasn’t his theory but I doubt whether he would have let it go forward if he had any doubts.’

  ‘That doesn’t convince me at all,’ declared Mr. G. sharply. He was becoming exasperated by the way the project was stalling. In his last deal, there had been a painting which went to auction. It was simple and very clean. This one was becoming messy and very muddled with no ending in sight.

  Jake shrugged his shoulders aimlessly. ‘I suppose I could have a word with him but I doubt whether he could verify the process. We really have to wait for the test results.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ continued the entrepreneur. ‘When will these results be known?’

  ‘From what I understand,’ went on the ex-convict, ‘they’re going to have to build a small unit to test whether it works and if it does, they’ll have to build a giant reactor to ensure that it will follow through. All that will take time and the schedule is about six months.’

  ‘Too long!’ spat Mr. G. ‘Far too long!’

  ‘I don’t see what anyone can do about it.’

  ‘Go back to that fellow Don Wise and see whether he can pinpoint the time. He might be able to give you a lead. He seems a person who’ll co-operate.’

  ‘Yes... he’ll co-operate all right. But I’m not certain he’ll be able to give me any answers.’

  The face of the entrepreneur turned into a pucker as he puffed on his large Cuban cigar and watched the smoke curl up to the ceiling. ‘How are we repaying him for what he’s done... or shouldn’t I know about it?’ he continued.

  ‘It’s simple. He’s a fat ugly man who stutters and gets tongue-tied when he meets a woman,’ came the reply.

  ‘Poor chap. I presume he’s unmarried and leading a life of loneliness. It’s a very sad case.’