place one day between Franklin and Poirot. Judith, who tried to instruct me, was, as is customary with the earnest young, almost impossibly technical. She referred learnedly to the alkaloids physostigmine, eserine, physoveine and geneserine, and then proceeded to a most impossible sounding substance, prostigmin or the demethylcarbonic ester of 3 hydroxypheyl trimethyl lammonum, etc. etc., and a good deal more which, it appeared, was the same thing, only differently arrived at! It was all, at any rate, double Dutch to me, and I aroused Judith’s contempt by asking what good all this was likely to do mankind? There is no question that annoys your true scientist more. Judith at once threw me a scornful glance and embarked on another lengthy and learned explanation. The upshot of it was, so I gathered, that certain obscure tribes of West African natives had shown a remarkable immunity to an equally obscure, though deadly disease called, as far as I remember, Jordanitis – a certain enthusiastic Dr Jordan having originally tracked it down. It was an extremely rare tropical ailment, which had been, on one or two occasions, contracted by white people, with fatal results.
I risked inflaming Judith’s rage by remarking that it would be more sensible to find some drug that would counteract the after-effects of measles!
With pity and scorn Judith made it clear to me that it was not the benefaction of the human race, but the enlargement of human knowledge , that was the only goal worthy of attainment.
I looked at some slides through the microscope, studied some photographs of West African natives (really quite entertaining!), caught the eye of a soporific rat in a cage and hurried out again into the air.
As I say, any interest I could feel was kindled by Franklin’s conversation with Poirot.
He said: ‘You know, Poirot, the stuff ’s really more up your street than mine. It’s the ordeal bean – supposed to prove innocence or guilt. These West African tribes believe it implicitly – or did do so – they’re getting sophisticated nowadays. They’ll solemnly chew it up quite confident that it will kill them if they’re guilty and not harm them if they’re innocent.’
‘And so, alas, they die?’
‘No, they don’t all die. That’s what has always been overlooked up to now. There’s a lot behind the whole thing – a medicine man ramp, I rather fancy. There are two distinct species of this bean – only they look so much alike that you can hardly spot the difference. But there is a difference. They both contain physostigmine and geneserine and the rest of it, but in the second species you can isolate, or I think I can, yet another alkaloid – and the action of that alkaloid neutralizes the effect of the others. What’s more that second species is regularly eaten by a kind of inner ring in a secret ritual – and the people who eat it never go down with Jordanitis. This third substance has a remarkable effect on the muscular system – without deleterious effects. It’s damned interesting. Unfortunately the pure alkaloid is very unstable. Still, I’m getting results. But what’s wanted is a lot more research out there on the spot . It’s work that ought to be done! Yes, by heck it is . . . I’d sell my soul to –’ He broke off abruptly. The grin came again. ‘Forgive the shop. I get too het up over these things!’
‘As you say,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘it would certainly make my profession much easier if I could test guilt and innocence so easily. Ah, if there were a substance that could do what is claimed for the Calabar bean.’
Franklin said: ‘Ah, but your troubles wouldn’t end there. After all, what is guilt or innocence?’
‘I shouldn’t think there could be any doubt about that ,’ I remarked.
He turned to me. ‘What is evil? What is good? Ideas on them vary from century to century. What you would be testing would probably be a sense of guilt or a sense of innocence. In fact no
I risked inflaming Judith’s rage by remarking that it would be more sensible to find some drug that would counteract the after-effects of measles!
With pity and scorn Judith made it clear to me that it was not the benefaction of the human race, but the enlargement of human knowledge , that was the only goal worthy of attainment.
I looked at some slides through the microscope, studied some photographs of West African natives (really quite entertaining!), caught the eye of a soporific rat in a cage and hurried out again into the air.
As I say, any interest I could feel was kindled by Franklin’s conversation with Poirot.
He said: ‘You know, Poirot, the stuff ’s really more up your street than mine. It’s the ordeal bean – supposed to prove innocence or guilt. These West African tribes believe it implicitly – or did do so – they’re getting sophisticated nowadays. They’ll solemnly chew it up quite confident that it will kill them if they’re guilty and not harm them if they’re innocent.’
‘And so, alas, they die?’
‘No, they don’t all die. That’s what has always been overlooked up to now. There’s a lot behind the whole thing – a medicine man ramp, I rather fancy. There are two distinct species of this bean – only they look so much alike that you can hardly spot the difference. But there is a difference. They both contain physostigmine and geneserine and the rest of it, but in the second species you can isolate, or I think I can, yet another alkaloid – and the action of that alkaloid neutralizes the effect of the others. What’s more that second species is regularly eaten by a kind of inner ring in a secret ritual – and the people who eat it never go down with Jordanitis. This third substance has a remarkable effect on the muscular system – without deleterious effects. It’s damned interesting. Unfortunately the pure alkaloid is very unstable. Still, I’m getting results. But what’s wanted is a lot more research out there on the spot . It’s work that ought to be done! Yes, by heck it is . . . I’d sell my soul to –’ He broke off abruptly. The grin came again. ‘Forgive the shop. I get too het up over these things!’
‘As you say,’ said Poirot placidly, ‘it would certainly make my profession much easier if I could test guilt and innocence so easily. Ah, if there were a substance that could do what is claimed for the Calabar bean.’
Franklin said: ‘Ah, but your troubles wouldn’t end there. After all, what is guilt or innocence?’
‘I shouldn’t think there could be any doubt about that ,’ I remarked.
He turned to me. ‘What is evil? What is good? Ideas on them vary from century to century. What you would be testing would probably be a sense of guilt or a sense of innocence. In fact no
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