The Launching of Roger Brook

by Dennis Wheatley

  Roger thought that their business was now completed, but he proved mistaken. Instead of turning back towards Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys Doctor Aristotle led the way farther into the city, and they walked on for the best part of a mile until they had passed through it and were in a leafy Faubourg leading up to the Bastion de Tourneville. Some way along it the Doctor halted opposite a squat, ivy-covered cottage with a thatched roof, and said:

  ‘I have to make another purchase here and I shall require a louis.’

  ‘But we have only some thirteen crowns left,’ expostulated Roger, ‘and if I give you eight of them, after we’ve settled up at the inn, we’ll have next to nothing left for emergencies.’

  The Doctor shrugged. ‘My score is already settled; since, knowing my sad habits, Maître Picard makes me pay always in advance; and having been there but a day yours cannot be a heavy one. Give me the money, I beg. ’Tis to acquire a drug which is ever one of my most profitable lines and at nowhere else do I know a place to obtain it nearer than Rouen.’

  Roger half suspected that the old man wanted to obtain the louis for some purpose of his own, but he had so far had no grounds for doubting his honesty and felt that as long as the mule, with its now valuable cargo, remained in his charge he had ample security; so with some reluctance he counted out the money.

  The door of the cottage was opened by a repulsive old crone with a bent back, hairs upon her bony chin and a black cat perched upon her shoulder. Roger felt sure she was a witch, and hastily averted his gaze as the Doctor went inside with her.

  The thought that his partner was about to purchase some rare and expensive decoction from this sinister old woman gave Roger furiously to think. What kind of drug could the Doctor possibly require that was not obtainable at an apothecary’s? Could it be that he was not merely an old quack whose worst fault lay in selling remedies, many of which he knew to be worthless?

  In the time of Louis XIV all Europe had been horrified by the disclosures at the trials of the infamous La Voisin and the Marquise de Brinvilliers. A vast conspiracy had been uncovered in which hundreds of people had been involved, including the King’s favourite, Madame de Montespan. Her young rival, Mademoiselle de Fontanges, had died in agonised convulsions after drinking a cup of fruit juice on her return from hunting with the King. The inquiry, on which her family had insisted, had revealed the existence of a great organisation fostering the practice of Satanism and willing to ensure the death of unwanted husbands, parents and rivals for a price, in many cases as low as ten louis. Although the King had refused to allow a case to be brought against his old favourite, on account of the children he had had by her, it had led to her downfall, and a number of her associates had been broken on the wheel. Hundreds of mysterious deaths had been traced to their evil machinations and, as a result, France had not even yet lived down the reputation of being a land where poisoning was rife. Could it be that Doctor Aristotle Fénelon made the more remunerative part of his precarious living as a poisoner?

  When the Doctor came out of the cottage he showed Roger a fair-sized bottle three parts full of liquid.

  ‘What is that?’ asked Roger, striving to conceal his perturbation.

  ‘’Tis Ergot of Rye,’ replied the Doctor shortly, ‘an invaluable specific for the ills to which many young women become subject,’ but he refused to amplify this statement, so Roger was left only partially satisfied as to the purpose for which this expensive acquisition was intended.

  As they walked back towards the centre of the town Georgina’s prediction recurred to him. She had said that he would be in grave danger from water; and he had been. She had said that he would meet with a man that boded no good for him and had something the matter with his left eye; and, wondering that he had not thought of it before, Roger now recalled the scar running up to the eye corner on De Roubec’s left cheek. She had said that he would go into some form of partnership with an old man who would prove a good friend to him, yet that no permanent good would come to him from it.

  But it was too late now to speculate on whether or no the Doctor was the old man she had seen in the glass. Roger realised that his last chance of getting back to England had vanished with the completion of their purchases that afternoon and only a few francs now stood between him and starvation. The die was cast and, for better or for worse, he must take the road with old Aristotle Fénelon the following morning.

  10

  The Man in Grey

  They got back to Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys with some hours of the long afternoon still to spare, so they at once set about turning the brew-house into a dispensary. While Roger stabled Monsieur de Montaigne and unloaded his panniers the Doctor brought down from his room two battered old portmanteaux, containing his medical instruments, a few crude laboratory appliances and the oddments of stock that he had over from his last journey. A fire was soon lighted under the big copper and a supply of fresh water drawn from the well in the yard; then Dr. Aristotle entered upon the performance of his dubious mysteries.

  Roger, his coat off and his shirt sleeves rolled up, watched him fascinated, and lent his aid by washing and drying the pots and bottles, then filling them with the Doctor’s sinister concoctions. Many of their purchases needed no further treatment than watering down and the principal business resolved itself into two main operations each followed by a number of subsidiary ones. The first was the blending of a foundation grease to which was added a variety of scents, some fragrant and some abominably foul, to give it the semblance of a number of quite different ointments; the second was the blending of a clear fluid containing 90 per cent water, to varying proportions of which colouring matter or pungent flavourings were added for a similar purpose.

  They broke off for supper then returned to finish their labours by candlelight, spending an additional hour rolling pills made of soap and a dash of cascara, then they packed their wares into the panniers and retired to bed.

  In the morning Roger woke with the awful thought that during the night the Doctor might have absconded with the lotions and unguents which now represented his small capital, leaving him near destitute. Hurriedly pulling on his clothes he dashed downstairs and out to the stable. To his immense relief he found his fears to be groundless; Monsieur de Montaigne was quietly munching away at the hay in his manger and the panniers lay nearby packed and strapped as they had been left the night before.

  Half an hour later, still feeling a little guilty about his unjust suspicions, he met his partner in the coffee room and they sat down to their petit déjeuner. Over the meal they discussed the itinerary for their journey and the Doctor having come down from Picardy via Dieppe, visiting all the villages along the coast on his way, it was decided to continue on into southern Normandy; but as they could not afford to take passage in a ferry across the wide estuary of the Seine they would follow its northern bank east as far as Rouen and then strike south from there.

  Roger’s bill for the eventful thirty-eight hours he had spent at Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys came to eight francs fourteen sous, so after a pourboire to the serving-man and the chambermaid he was reduced to a single crown and a little small change; but he was not unduly perturbed by the depletion of his resources as the day was fine and it held for him ample promise of new scenes and interests.

  Having hoisted the panniers on to Monsieur de Montaigne’s back and strapped on top of them the Doctor’s collapsible street pulpit they left the inn soon after eight o’clock and took the road to Harfleur.

  It was on the way there that the Doctor spoke tactfully to Roger about his sword. The old man told him that in France it was forbidden to carry arms unless of noble birth; the only exception to the rule being that barbers were allowed to do so, as a special concession on account of their peculiarly intimate relations with the nobility and their clients’ dependence upon them. In the towns, of course, many soldiers of fortune, and scallywags such as the Chevalier, wore swords in support of their pretensions to an aristocratic lineage that they did not in fact possess
, and they were so numerous as rarely to be called to account for this misdemeanour, but in the country it was different.

  As the Doctor pointed out, should some nobleman drive up to an inn and halt there for the horses of his coach to be watered he might see Roger wearing a sword while assisting to peddle their medicines. This would appear so incongruous to him that he would most probably set his lackeys on to give Roger a whipping.

  Having worn his sword only for a day, Roger was somewhat loath to take it off; but he saw the sense of the Doctor’s remarks and felt that as he had never carried one in England, to go without it would be no great deprivation, so he removed it from its frog and stowed it among the baggage on the mule.

  By ten o’clock they reached the still battlemented walls of Harfleur, made famous by King Henry V’s siege and reduction of it, but they did not pause there, and continued on along the main highway to the north-east, until an hour after midday they entered the village of St. Romain.

  Hungry now, after their twelve-mile tramp, they went to the inn and for a franc, procured a meal of bread and cheese washed down by a coarse vin du pays. During the afternoon they rested in an orchard, then towards five o’clock when the peasants, their day’s work done, began to drift back from the fields, the partners proceeded to set about their business.

  While the Doctor put up his stand outside the inn, Roger brought from the stable an assortment of bottles and pots which he set out on a small folding table beside the stand. The Doctor then mounted it and picking up a large handbell began to ring it loudly to attract the handful of people who were to be seen doing errands or gossiping in the village street.

  In a few moments he had a dozen children round him and a few grown-ups, and Roger had to admire the cleverness with which he opened the proceedings. Producing a packet of the cheap sweets from his pocket he addressed himself to the children.

  ‘My little ones, you see in me a wise man skilled in all medicines. Many of you must have mothers, fathers, and other relatives who are suffering and in pain from one cause or another. Run now to your homes and tell them that the good Doctor Aristotle Fénelon has arrived here for the special purpose of curing their complaints, and that it will cost them no more than a few sous. But before you bear these good tidings to your folks look what I have here for you, a sweet a-piece as succulent as it is colourful. Forget not my message; and those of you who have pretty sisters should add that for a trifle I have lotions and unguents here which will make red hands as white as alabaster and dull eyes sparkle like the stars.’

  He then handed out the highly-coloured sweets amongst them and they scurried away to spread the news of his visit through the village.

  After ringing the bell again for a while he had a crowd of some twenty people assembled and more were drifting up every moment. As Roger looked at them he greatly doubted if they could raise a louis between them, as they were mostly dressed in rags, and it struck him most forcibly how much poorer the people here appeared to be than would have a similar crowd in an English village. But his attention was soon distracted from the comparison as he endeavoured to follow the flowery phrases in which the Doctor now addressed them.

  ‘My friends!’ he cried, in a sonorous voice, ‘today is a day of good fortune for this ancient and populous township of St. Romain. Never, I make bold to say, since the good Saint who founded it passed to his holy rest, has such a unique opportunity been offered to its intelligent inhabitants to be swiftly relieved of their ills, both physical and mental.

  ‘I am the great Doctor Aristotle Fénelon, of whom many of you must have heard; since I spend my life administering to suffering humanity, and my name is reverenced from far Muscovy to even more distant Cathay for the miraculous cures and good works that I perform—yet I am also your most humble servant.

  ‘I was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, and also at the famous universities of Leyden, Oxford, Pavia and Heidelberg. At these great seats of learning I took all the degrees which it was possible to take, while still quite young, and my wisdom became so renowned that elderly professors travelled from such distant cities as Danzig, Palermo and Madrid to hold converse with me.

  ‘Having completed my studies I spent twenty years in travelling the world in search of medicines and remedies so far unknown in Europe. From the Moorish doctors of the Orient I learned the secrets by which the ladies of the Great Turk’s harem preserve their beauty from decay for almost unbelievable periods, so that at the age of sixty they are no less desirable than when at seventeen they first attracted the notice of their munificent master. Journeying on to Hind, I traversed the empire of the Grand Mogul from end to end, studying the methods by which the fakirs prolong their lives to the span of three hundred years, as did the Patriarchs in holy writ, and are still capable of begetting a child upon a virgin when two hundred and fifty years of age.

  ‘But think not that my search for the secrets of healing, longevity, beauty and vigour have been confined only to Europe and the East. I have also visited the Americas, where I learned of the Redmen how to seal open wounds by fire almost painlessly, and to cure the pox by a decoction made from the bark of a tree that grows only on the tops of the Andes mountains. In short, I am the living compendium of all knowledge concerning bodily ailments and the satisfaction of physical desire.

  ‘Yet, lest you may think me boastful I will freely confess that there is one thing I cannot do. I am an honest man and would never seek to deceive so distinguished and critical an audience. Death is still the master of us all, and although I can prolong life I cannot do so indefinitely. It is your great misfortune, as it is also mine, that although I once possessed a rare parchment on which an Atlantian alchemist had inscribed the method of distilling the Elixir of Life, a rascally Egyptian priest stole it from me; and, alas! the recipe was too complicated for any human brain to remember.

  ‘But, even though I cannot offer you the divine gift of immortality, I can provide a panacea for a thousand ills. I draw teeth, set sprains and apply electric fluid after the principles of Doctor Mesmer, who, as you may have heard, is now all the rage in fashionable Paris, and, ’tis said, has even treated Queen Marie Antoinette herself. I can cure boils, warts, tumours, goitre, suppurating ulcers, irritant rashes, eczema, catarrh, lumbago, anaemia, a persistent cough, acidity, headaches, sleeplessness, sore nipples, affections of the eyes, deafness, night-sweats, wind, bad breath and foot rot.

  ‘There are too, those results of amatory imprudence which for some purpose of His own the good God has seen fit to inflict upon us poor mortals. I refer, in the first place, to those dangerous diseases which, praise be, are rarely met with in the country, and particularly in towns of such high morality as St. Romain, but can be caught by even the best-intentioned during visits of curiosity to the dubious haunts of our great cities; in the second, to that process in nature which, as the result of a few moments’ indulgence, oft inflicts upon a girl or woman a burden that she is either unfitted or unwilling to bear. Finally, there are those distempers of the mind and brain which call for special treatment. Unrequited love is such a one, loss of sexual vitality and an inability to beget children are others. For all of these I have most efficacious remedies; but such are private matters, and should any of you wish to consult me on them I shall be at your service in my room here, at the inn, between eight o’clock and midnight. I make no extra charge for these confidential consultations and your secrets will be as safe with me as if made to your Curé in the confessional.’

  As the Doctor finished this long and grandiloquent harangue, Roger would not have been surprised if the crowd had broken into cries of anger and derision. Never had he heard so many palpable lies rolled off in so few moments, and it seemed impossible that any collection of sane men and women would believe one-tenth of them. Yet, as he looked at the dull and stupid faces of the peasant audience he realised that their ignorance must be abysmal, and that it was doubtful if they even understood half the allusions the Doctor had made to his mythical journeyings.
They just stood quietly and patiently there like a herd of animals. There was hardly a movement among them and their faces remained expressionless.

  As no one came forward the Doctor went on: ‘Now, good folk, have no fears, but seize upon this all-too-fleeting opportunity, for by dawn tomorrow it will be too late. The world is wide and there are many sufferers in it, so I must be on my way to give the great benefit of my experience to others. But for this evening my encyclopædic knowledge is yours for the asking. To produce an example, and thus overcome your reluctance to voice your needs, I will give a free treatment to whoever first consults me.’

  This offer produced an immediate reaction. The peasants were not so deaf and dumb as they appeared, and there was a little surge forward of the crowd as several people, all speaking at once, endeavoured to push their way to the front.

  ‘That’s better,’ purred the Doctor, as a lean, determined-looking woman gained first place. ‘Well, mother! What ails thee?’

  It was the woman’s eyes that were troubling her. Stepping down from his stand the Doctor screwed a pocket-lens into his own eye, took a quick look at them, and gave her a bottle which Roger knew to contain plain salt dissolved in water; as he remembered the Doctor remarking when they made it up that no better eye lotion had ever been discovered, and that it was a pity they had to pander to their customer’s stupid belief that no medicine was ever efficacious unless it was coloured, since the colouring matter rendered it much less soothing than would have been an unadulterated solution.

  The next applicant was a man with a horrid suppurating ulcer on his forearm, for which the Doctor sold him a pot of ointment; the third a woman who complained of splitting headaches; the fourth, another carrying a child that had croup: and so it went on for an hour or more. After a brief examination of each patient the Doctor pointed out the bottle or pot that Roger was to hand them and told him how much to charge. The fee was generally three sous and rarely more than six, while for drawing a tooth or extracting the core of a malignant boil by the application of the neck of a heated bottle, the Doctor charged only half a franc, so Roger, greatly disappointed in this collection of half-pence, began to fear that they would not even make enough clear profit to pay for their night’s lodging.