Stanislaw Lem: The Chain of Chance

“I was upset that he’d let him get away, but I postponed giving him a reprimand. Besides, we now had the optician’s work ledger. I asked the agent whether he could recall the number on the man’s repair tag, but it had escaped his notice. The ledger included a number of recent entries, but only the customers’ initials were given, which didn’t look too promising. Our only other lead was the missing stranger, who knew Proque well enough to call him by his first name. I jotted down the most recent entries, though I wasn’t very optimistic. Was the repair tag a pretext or cover? I wondered. But any drugs that well hidden would have meant it was the work of professionals. I didn’t know what to make of Proque any more. But even if I’d misjudged the man and his shop was being used as a drop, it seemed pretty absurd to think Proque would have helped himself to a dose, much less taken an overdose. The stuff could have been counterfeit, which was often the case, but it was unusual for dealers and middlemen to use narcotics themselves: they’re too well acquainted with the aftereffects to be tempted. I was nearly at the end of my wits when my assistant suddenly recalled that, even though it had been raining, the stranger had been without an umbrella or a hat, and that his mohair coat was almost completely dry. We knew he couldn’t have come by car, because the street had been blocked off for repairs, so chances were that he lived somewhere in the neighborhood. It took us five days to track him down. How did we find him? Very simple. Based on the agent’s description a composite sketch was made of the missing man and circulated among all the concierges on Rue Amélie. The man identified was a prominent scientist, a doctor of chemistry by the name of Dunant. Jérôme Dunant. While going through the ledger I’d noticed something unusual: the initials J. D. were listed on each of the three days preceding Proque’s attacks. The doctor lived a few doors down the street, so early one afternoon I went to call on him. When he met me at the door, I recognized him at once from the sketch.

“‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Come right in.’

“‘It looks as if you were expecting me,’ I said as I followed him inside.

“‘I was. Is Proque still alive?’

“‘I beg your pardon, but it was I who wanted to ask you a few questions, not vice versa. What makes you think Proque might not be alive?’

“‘Now it’s my turn not to answer. You see, inspector, it’s absolutely essential there be no publicity about this. It must be kept out of the press. Otherwise the consequences could be disastrous.’

“‘Disastrous for whom? For yourself?’

“‘For France.’

“I ignored this last comment but couldn’t get any more out of him,

“‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but any statement I make will have to be to the head of the Sûreté, and then not before I have special clearance from my superiors.’

“He volunteered no other information, afraid I might be one of those policemen who like to pass on sensational news stories to the media. That I found out only afterward. He gave us quite a hard time, but in the end he got his way. My superior got in touch with his superior, and two ministries had to approve before he was allowed to testify.

“It’s a well-known fact that every nation loves peace and makes plans for war. France is no exception. Chemical warfare is always treated with moral indignation, but still the research goes on. It just so happened that Dr. Dunant was working on a project aimed at developing chemical compounds known as psychotropic depressants, which in pill or gas form would be capable of paralyzing the enemy’s will and morale. Under the seal of secrecy we were told that for over four years Dr. Dunant had been trying to synthesize such a depressant. By working with a certain chemical compound, he had obtained a number of derivatives, one of which proved to be capable of producing the desired effect on the brain but only when administered in massive doses. Only when taken by the spoonful did it produce the symptomatic effects of hyperexcitability and aggression, followed by depression, and culminating in an acute suicidal mania. Finding the right compound is very often a matter of luck, arrived at by substituting various chemical groups in the original compound and then analyzing the derivatives for their pharmacological properties. Sometimes it can take years of research to find the right combination; other times one can achieve instantaneous results, the latter being of course the exception, rather than the rule.

“Since he was extremely nearsighted, Dr. Dunant was forced to wear his glasses at all times. For the past several years he had been a steady customer of Proque’s. Since he was severely handicapped without his glasses, he made it a point always to keep three pairs on hand. He would wear one pair, carry the second pair around with him as a spare, and keep the third pair at home. He’d begun taking these precautions after breaking a pair of glasses in the lab and having to interrupt his work as a result. And just before his last visit to the shop—three weeks before, to be exact—he had had another accident. Dunant worked in a maximum-security laboratory. Before entering the lab he would have to change into a new set of clothes, including special shoes and underwear, and deposit all his personal items in a changing room separated from the work area by a pressure chamber. While he worked he was required to wear a transparent plastic hood equipped with its own air supply system. At no time was his body or glasses allowed to come into contact with any of the chemical substances under investigation. To avoid any further possible inconvenience, he had got into the habit of putting his extra pair of glasses on one of the reagent shelves before going to work. One day, as he was reaching for a reagent, he accidentally knocked them to the floor, shattering one lens and damaging the frame by stepping on it with his foot. He immediately took them to Proque for repair, but two days later, when he went to pick them up, he hardly recognized the optician, who had the tired and haggard look of someone who’s just recovered from a serious illness. Proque told him he suspected having been poisoned, because the night before he’d been overcome by a strange attack that for some reason made him feel like crying even now.

“Dunant quickly forgot about Proque and his troubles, but he was far from satisfied with the repair job: not only did one of the stems pinch, but also one of the newly fitted lenses came loose from its plastic frame and finally popped out and broke on the laboratory’s tiled floor. Dunant brought the glasses back a second time, but when he stopped by for them the following day Proque seemed to have aged overnight. Casually he began inquiring about the details of this latest ‘attack.’ Proque’s description sounded like an acute depression caused by a chemically induced psychosis, very similar, in fact, to the symptoms produced by the compound X he had been working on. But since it would have taken a hefty dose of at least ten grams in pure form to provoke such a violent reaction, he failed to see what connection this could have with the glasses. Twice he had brought for repair the pair that usually lay on the reagent shelf located above the Bunsen burner. Then he began wondering whether the chemical fumes might have traveled through the air and settled on the glasses in microscopic amounts. He decided to run a test on them. By subjecting the glasses to a chemical analysis, he established that traces of the compound were indeed present on the lenses and frame stems, but in amounts measurable in gammas—in other words, in micrograms. The story of how LSD was discovered is a familiar one among chemists. Like everyone else at the time, the chemist experimenting with it was completely unaware of its hallucinogenic effects. But after returning home from work one night, he started experiencing all the symptoms of a ‘trip’—visions, psychic manifestations, and the like—though before leaving the lab he had washed his hands as thoroughly as he always did. But the infinitesimal amount lodged under his fingernails had been enough to induce the symptoms while he was making dinner.