by makeshift tables covered in books, papers, metal and glass containers connected with rubber or Perspex tubing. Strange liquids simmered over Bunsen burners running from gas bottles and gave off foul vapours. Piled up in every shadowy corner were heaps of junk, old crates, broken containers, rows of empty bottles.
‘What a shit-pit,’ Roberta breathed.
‘At least it’s not full of flies.’
‘Ha ha.’ She smirked at him. ‘Jerk,’ she added under her breath.
Ben went over to one of the tables, where something had caught his eye. It was a faded old manuscript weighted down at the corners by pieces of quartz crystal. He picked it up and it sprang into a roll, throwing up a cloud of dust particles that caught the ray of light from the boarded window nearby. He brought the manuscript into the path of the sunbeam, gently unfurling it to read the spidery script.
If the herb ch-sheng can make one live longer Surely this elixir is worth taking into one’s body? Gold by its nature cannot decay or perish And is of all things the most precious. If the alchemist creates this elixir The duration of his life will become everlasting Hairs that were white now all return to black Teeth that had fallen will regrow The old dotard is once more a lusty youth The crone is once more a maiden He whose form has changed escapes the perils of life.
‘Found something?’ she asked, peering over his shoulder.
‘I don’t know. Could be interesting, maybe.’
‘Let me see?’ She ran her eyes down the scroll. Ben searched the table for more like it, but all he could find among the heaped rolls and dog-eared piles of dirty paper were abstruse diagrams, charts and lists of symbols. He sighed. ‘Do you understand any of this stuff?’
‘Um, Ben?’
He blew some dust off an old book. ‘What?’ he mumbled, only half-listening to her.
She nudged him. ‘We’ve got company.’
Ben’s hand flew to his gun. But when he turned and saw the man approaching them, he let his arm drop to his side.
The old man’s eyes flashed wildly behind long, straggly grey hair that hung down to merge with his bush of a beard. He hobbled rapidly towards them with a stick, boots dragging on the concrete floor.
‘Put that down!’ he shouted harshly, waving a bony finger at Roberta. ‘Don’t touch that!’
She gingerly replaced the scroll on the table, where it sprang back into a tight curl. The old man grabbed it, clutching it furiously to his chest. He was wearing an ancient, filthy greatcoat that hung from him in tatters. His breathing was laboured, wheezing. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, baring blackened teeth. ‘What are you doing in my home?’
Roberta stared at him. He looked as though he’d spent the last thirty years or so living rough under the bridges of Paris. Jesus, she thought. These are the guys I’m trying to convince the world to take seriously?
‘We’re looking for Monsieur Gaston Clément,’ Ben said. ‘I’m sorry, the door was open.’
‘Who are you?’ the old man repeated. ‘Police? Leave me alone. Fuck off.’ He retreated towards the shadows, clutching the rolled-up paper to him and waving his stick at them.
‘We’re not the police. We’d just like to ask you a few questions.’
‘I’m Gaston Clément, what do you want from me?’ the old man wheezed. Suddenly his knees seemed to give way under him, and he stumbled, dropping the scroll and his walking-stick. Ben picked him up and helped him to a chair. He knelt beside the old alchemist as he hacked and coughed into a handkerchief.
‘My name’s Benedict Hope, and I’m looking for something. A manuscript written by Fulcanelli…listen, should I call a doctor for you? You don’t look well.’
Clément ended his coughing fit and sat panting for a minute, wiping his mouth. His hands were bony and arthritic, blue veins bulging through translucent pale skin. ‘I’m all right,’ he croaked. Slowly his grey head turned to look at Ben. ‘You said Fulcanelli?’
‘He was your father’s teacher, isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, he gave great wisdom to my father,’ Clément murmured. He sat back, as though thinking. For a minute he broke off into a rambling mutter, seeming confused and far away.
Ben picked up the fallen stick and propped it up by the old man’s chair. He unfurled the scroll that had dropped to the floor. ‘I don’t suppose…’
Clément seemed to come back to life when he saw the scroll in Ben’s hands. A skinny arm shot out and snatched it away. ‘Give that back to me.’
‘What is that?’
‘What do you care? It is The Secret of Everlasting Life. Chinese, second century. It is priceless.’ Clément’s old eyes focused more clearly on Ben. He staggered to his feet, pointing a trembling finger. ‘What do you want from me?’ he quavered. ‘More fucking foreigners coming to steal!’ He grabbed his stick.
‘No, monsieur, we aren’t thieves,’ Ben assured him. ‘We just want information.’
Clément spat. ‘Information? Information– that’s what that salaud Klaus Rheinfeld said to me.’ He slammed the stick on the table, making papers fly. ‘That filthy thieving little Kraut!’ He turned to them. ‘Now you get out of here,’ he shouted at them, spit frothing from the corners of his mouth. He reached out to a rack of equipment and grabbed a test-tube filled with a steaming green liquid, waving it at them threateningly. But then his knees went again and he stumbled and fell. The test-tube smashed on the floor and the green liquid spattered everywhere.
They got old Clément back on his feet and helped him up the steps of the raised platform where he had his living-quarters. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking frail and sick. Roberta brought him a drink of water. After a while he calmed down and seemed more willing to speak to them.
‘You can trust me,’ Ben told him earnestly. ‘I don’t want to steal from you. I’ll pay you money if you help me. Agreed?’
Clément nodded, sipping his water.
‘Good. Now, listen carefully. Fulcanelli gave your father, Jacques Clément, certain documents before his disappearance in 1926. I need to know whether your father might have had possession of some kind of alchemical manuscript given to him by his teacher.’
The old man shook his head. ‘My father had many papers. He destroyed a lot of them before he died.’ His face twisted in anger. ‘Of the ones he left behind, most were stolen from me.’
‘By the man Rheinfeld you mentioned?’ Ben asked. ‘Who was he?’
Clément’s wrinkled cheeks flushed red. ‘Klaus Rheinfeld,’ he said in a voice full of hatred. ‘My assistant. He came here to learn the secrets of alchemy. One day he arrives, that miserable scrawny shit, with nothing but the stinking
