To adopt the opening words of a more famous tale, "The truth of this
strange matter is what the world has long been looking for." The
events which I propose to chronicle were known to perhaps a hundred
people in London whose fate brings them into contact with politics.
The consequences were apparent to all the world, and for one hectic
fortnight tinged the soberest newspapers with saffron, drove more than
one worthy election agent to an asylum, and sent whole batches of
legislators to Continental cures. "But no reasonable explanation of
the mystery has been forthcoming until now, when a series of chances
gave the key into my hands."

Lady Caerlaverock is my aunt, and I was present at the two remarkable
dinner-parties which form the main events in this tale. I was also
taken into her confidence during the terrible fortnight which
intervened between them. Like everybody else, I was hopelessly in the
dark, and could only accept what happened as a divine interposition.
My first clue came when James, the Caerlaverocks' second footman,
entered my service as valet, and being a cheerful youth chose to gossip
while he shaved me. I checked him, but he babbled on, and I could not
choose but learn something about the disposition of the Caerlaverock
household below stairs. I learned--what I knew before--that his
lordship had an inordinate love for curries, a taste acquired during
some troubled years as Indian Viceroy. I had often eaten that
admirable dish at his table, and had heard him boast of the skill of
the Indian cook who prepared it. James, it appeared, did not hold with
the Orient in the kitchen. He described the said Indian gentleman as a
"nigger," and expressed profound distrust of his ways. He referred
darkly to the events of the year before, which in some distorted way
had reached the servants' ears. "We always thought as 'ow it was them
niggers as done it," he declared; and when I questioned him on his use
of the plural, admitted that at the time in question "there 'ad been
more nor one nigger 'anging about the kitchen."

Pondering on these sayings, I asked myself if it were not possible that
the behaviour of certain eminent statesmen was due to some strange
devilry of the East, and I made a vow to abstain in future from the
Caerlaverock curries. But last month my brother returned from India,
and I got the whole truth. He was staying with me in Scotland, and in
the smoking-room the talk turned on occultism in the East. I declared
myself a sceptic, and George was stirred. He asked me rudely what I
knew about it, and proceeded to make a startling confession of faith.
He was cross-examined by the others, and retorted with some of his
experiences. Finding an incredulous audience, his tales became more
defiant, until he capped them all with one monstrous yarn. He
maintained that in a Hindu family of his acquaintance there had been
transmitted the secret of a drug, capable of altering a man's whole
temperament until the antidote was administered. It would turn a
coward into a bravo, a miser into a spendthrift, a rake into a fakir.
Then, having delivered his manifesto he got up abruptly and went to bed.

I followed him to his room, for something in the story had revived a
memory. By dint of much persuasion I dragged from the somnolent George
various details. The family in question were Beharis, large
landholders dwelling near the Nepal border. He had known old Ram Singh
for years, and had seen him twice since his return from England. He
got the story from him under no promise of secrecy, for the family drug
was as well known in the neighbourhood as the nine incarnations of
Krishna. He had no doubt about the truth of it, for he had positive
proof. "And others besides me," said George. "Do you remember when
Vennard had a lucid interval a couple of years ago and talked sense for
once? That was old Ram Singh's doing, for he told me about it."

Three years ago it seems the Government of India saw fit to appoint a
commission to inquire into land tenure on the Nepal border. Some of
the feudal Rajahs had been "birsing yont," like the Breadalbanes, and
the smaller zemindars were gravely disquieted. The result of the
commission was that Ram Singh had his boundaries rectified, and lost a
mile or two of country which his hard-fisted fathers had won.

I know nothing of the rights of the matter, but there can be no doubt
about Ram Singh's dissatisfaction. He appealed to the law courts, but
failed to upset the commission's finding, and the Privy Council upheld
the Indian judgment. Thereupon in a flowery and eloquent document he
laid his case before the Viceroy, and was told that the matter was
closed. Now Ram Singh came of a fighting stock, so he straightway took
ship to England to petition the Crown. He petitioned Parliament, but
his petition went into the bag behind the Speaker's chair, from which
there is no return. He petitioned the King, but was courteously
informed that he must approach the Department concerned. He tried the
Secretary of State for India, and had an interview with Abinger
Vennard, who was very rude to him, and succeeded in mortally insulting
the feudal aristocrat. He appealed to the Prime Minister, and was
warned off by a harassed private secretary. The handful of members of
Parliament who make Indian grievances their stock-in-trade fought shy
of him, for indeed Ram Singh's case had no sort of platform appeal in
it, and his arguments were flagrantly undemocratic. But they sent him
to Lord Caerlaverock, for the ex-viceroy loved to be treated as a kind
of consul-general for India. But this Protector of the Poor proved a
broken reed. He told Ram Singh flatly that he was a belated feudalist,
which was true; and implied that he was a land-grabber, which was not
true, Ram Singh having only enjoyed the fruits of his fore-bears'
enterprise. Deeply incensed, the appellant shook the dust of
Caerlaverock House from his feet, and sat down to plan a revenge upon
the Government which had wronged him. And in his wrath he thought of
the heirloom of his house, the drug which could change men's souls.

It happened that Lord Caerlaverock cook's came from the same
neighbourhood as Ram Singh. This cook, Lal Muhammad by name, was one
of a large poor family, hangers-on of Ram Singh's house. The aggrieved
landowner summoned him, and demanded as of right his humble services.
Lal Muhammad, who found his berth to his liking, hesitated, quibbled,
but was finally overborne. He suggested a fee for his services, but
hastily withdrew when Ram Singh sketched a few of the steps he proposed
to take on his return by way of punishing Lal Muhammad's insolence on
Lal Muhammad's household. Then he got to business. There was a great
dinner next week--so he had learned from Jephson, the butler--and more
than one member of the Government would honour Caerlaverock House by
his presence. With deference he suggested this as a fitting occasion
for the experiment, and Ram Singh was pleased to assent.

I can picture these two holding their meetings in the South Kensington
lodgings where Ram Singh dwelt. We know from James, the second
footman, that they met also at Caerlaverock House, no doubt that Ram
Singh might make certain that his orders were duly obeyed. I can see
the little packet of clear grains--I picture them like small granulated
sugar--added to the condiments, and soon dissolved out of sight. The
deed was done; the cook returned to Bloomsbury and Ram Singh to
Gloucester Road, to await with the patient certainty of the East the
consummation of a great vengeance.



II

My wife was at Kissengen, and I was dining with the Caerlaverocks en
garcon. When I have not to wait upon the adornment of the female
person I am a man of punctual habits, and I reached the house as the
hall clock chimed the quarter-past. My poor friend, Tommy Deloraine,
arrived along with me, and we ascended the staircase together. I call
him "my poor friend," for at the moment Tommy was under the weather.
He had the misfortune to be a marquis, and a very rich one, and at the
same time to be in love with Claudia Barriton. Neither circumstance
was in itself an evil, but the combination made for tragedy. For
Tommy's twenty-five years of healthy manhood, his cleanly-made
up-standing figure, his fresh countenance and cheerful laugh, were of
no avail in the lady's eyes when set against the fact that he was an
idle peer. Miss Claudia was a charming girl, with a notable bee in her
bonnet. She was burdened with the cares of the State, and had no
patience with any one who took them lightly. To her mind the social
fabric was rotten beyond repair, and her purpose was frankly
destructive. I remember some of her phrases: "A bold and generous
policy of social amelioration"; "The development of a civic
conscience"; "A strong hand to lop off decaying branches from the trunk
of the State." I have no fault to find with her creed, but I objected
to its practical working when it took the shape of an inhuman hostility
to that devout lover, Tommy Deloraine. She had refused him, I believe,
three times, with every circumstance of scorn. The first time she had
analysed his character, and described him as a bundle of attractive
weaknesses. "The only forces I recognise are those of intellect and
conscience," she had said, "and you have neither." The second time--it
was after he had been to Canada on the staff--she spoke of the
irreconcilability of their political ideals. "You are an Imperialist,"
she said, "and believe in an empire of conquest for the benefit of the
few. I want a little island with a rich life for all." Tommy declared
that he would become a Doukhobor to please her, but she said something
about the inability of Ethiopians to change their skin. The third time
she hinted vaguely that there was "another." The star of Abinger
Vennard was now blazing in the firmament, and she had conceived a
platonic admiration for him. The truth is that Miss Claudia, with all
her cleverness, was very young and--dare I say it?--rather silly.

Caerlaverock was stroking his beard, his legs astraddle on the
hearthrug, with something appallingly viceregal in his air, when Mr.
and Mrs. Alexander Cargill were announced. The Home Secretary was a
joy to behold. He had the face of an elderly and pious bookmaker, and
a voice in which lurked the indescribable Scotch quality of "unction."
When he was talking you had only to shut your eyes to imagine yourself
in some lowland kirk on a hot Sabbath morning. He had been a
distinguished advocate before he left the law for politics, and had
swayed juries of his countrymen at his will. The man was
extraordinarily efficient on a platform. There were unplumbed depths
of emotion in his eye, a juicy sentiment in his voice, an overpowering
tenderness in his manner, which gave to politics the glamour of a
revival meeting. He wallowed in obvious pathos, and his hearers, often
unwillingly, wallowed with him. I have never listened to any orator at
once so offensive and so horribly effective. There was no appeal too
base for him, and none too august: by some subtle alchemy he blended
the arts of the prophet and the fishwife. He had discovered a new kind
of language. Instead of "the hungry millions," or "the toilers," or
any of the numerous synonyms for our masters, he invented the phrase,
"Goad's people." "I shall never rest," so ran his great declaration,
"till Goad's green fields and Goad's clear waters are free to Goad's
people." I remember how on this occasion he pressed my hand with his
famous cordiality, looked gravely and earnestly into my face, and then
gazed sternly into vacancy. It was a fine picture of genius descending
for a moment from its hill-top to show how close it was to poor
humanity.

Then came Lord Mulross, a respectable troglodytic peer, who represented
the one sluggish element in a swiftly progressing Government. He was
an oldish man with bushy whiskers and a reputed mastery of the French
tongue. A Whig, who had never changed his creed one iota, he was
highly valued by the country as a sober element in the nation's
councils, and endured by the Cabinet as necessary ballast. He did not
conceal his dislike for certain of his colleagues, notably Mr. Vennard
and Mr. Cargill.

When Miss Barriton arrived with her stepmother the party was almost
complete. She entered with an air of apologising for her prettiness.
Her manner with old men was delightful, and I watched with interest the
unbending of Caerlaverock and the simplifying of Mr. Cargill in her
presence. Deloraine, who was talking feverishly to Mrs. Cargill,
started as if to go and greet her, thought better of it, and continued
his conversation. The lady swept the room with her eye, but did not
acknowledge his presence. She floated off with Mr. Cargill to a
window-corner, and metaphorically sat at his feet. I saw Deloraine
saying things behind his moustache, while he listened to Mrs. Cargill's
new cure for dyspepsia.

Last of all, twenty minutes late, came Abinger Vennard. He made a fine
stage entrance, walking swiftly with a lowering brow to his hostess,
and then glaring fiercely round the room as if to challenge criticism.
I have heard Deloraine, in a moment of irritation, describe him as a
"Pre-Raphaelite attorney," but there could be no denying his good
looks. He had a bad, loose figure, and a quantity of studiously
neglected hair, but his face was the face of a young Greek. A certain
kind of political success gives a man the manners of an actor, and both
Vennard and Cargill bristled with self-consciousness. You could see it
in the way they patted their hair, squared their shoulders, and shifted
their feet to positions loved by sculptors.

"Well, Vennard, what's the news from the House?" Caerlaverock asked.

"Simpson is talking," said Vennard wearily. "He attacks me, of course.
He says he has lived forty years in India--as if that mattered! When
will people recognise that the truths of democratic policy are
independent of time and space? Liberalism is a category, an eternal
mode of thought, which cannot be overthrown by any trivial happenings.
I am sick of the word 'facts.' I long for truths."

Miss Barriton's eyes brightened, and Cargill said, "Excellent." Lord
Mulross, who was a little deaf, and in any case did not understand the
language, said loudly to my aunt that he wished there was a close time
for legislation.

"The open season for grouse should be the close season for politicians."

And then we went down to dinner.

Miss Barriton sat on my left hand, between Deloraine and me, and it was
clear she was discontented with her position. Her eyes wandered down
the table to Vennard, who had taken in an American duchess, and seemed
to be amused at her prattle. She looked with disfavour at Deloraine,
and turned to me as the lesser of two evils.

I was tactless enough to say that I thought there was a good deal in
Lord Mulross's view. "Oh, how can you?" she cried. "Is there a close
season for the wants of the people? It sounds to me perfectly horrible
the way you talk of government, as if it were a game for idle men of
the upper classes. I want professional politicians, men who give their
whole heart and soul to the service of the State. I know the kind of
member you and Lord Deloraine like--a rich young man who eats and
drinks too much, and thinks the real business of life is killing little
birds. He travels abroad and shoots some big game, and then comes home
and vapours about the Empire. He knows nothing about realities, and
will go down before the men who take the world seriously."

I am afraid I laughed, but Deloraine, who had been listening, was in no
mood to be amused.

"I don't think you are quite fair to us, Miss Claudia," he said slowly.
"We take things seriously enough, the things we know about. We can't
be expected to know about everything, and the misfortune is that the
things I care about don't interest you. But they are important enough
for all that."

"Hush," said the lady rudely. "I want