Aleister Crowley - The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley

It annoyed me that it was daylight, and I didn't know where to go. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there came the name and address of the man who had helped Billy Coleridge out of her scrape. It was a long way off, and I was horribly tired. I was hungry, but the thought of lunch made me sick. I felt that people were looking at me strangely. Was it the scar by my eye ?

I bought a thick veil. The girl looked surprised, I thought. I suppose it was rather funny in September, and might attract still more attention ; but it gave me a sense of protection, and it was a very pretty veil

-cream lace with embroidered zig-zags.

I took a taxi to the doctor's. Doctor Collins, it was, 61 or 71 Fairelange Street, Lambeth.

I found him at home; a horrid, snuffy old man with shabby clothes; a dingy grimy office as untidy as himself.

He seemed disappointed at my story. It wasn't his line, he said, and he didn't want to get into trouble. On the other hand, he was frightened of me because of what I knew about Billy. He promised to do what he could; but under the new law, he couldn't do more than prescribe ten doses of an eighth of a grain apiece. Four or five sniffs, the whole thing I And he wouldn't dare to repeat it in less than a week.

However, it was better than nothing. He told me where to get it made up.

I found a cloak-room where I could put the packets into one, and started.

The relief was immense. I went on, dose after dose. Cockie could get his own. I should tell him I had drawn blanks. I felt I could eat again, and had some light food and a couple of whiskies and sodas.

I felt so good that I drove straight back to Greek Street, and poured out a mournful tale of failure. It was delicious to deceive that brute after he'd struck me.

It was keen pleasure to see him in such pain ; to imitate his symptoms with minute mimicry; to mock at his misery. He was angry all the same, but his blows gave me infinite pleasure. They were the symbols of my triumph.

" Here, you get out of this," he said, " and don't come back without it. I know where you can get it. Andrew McCall is the man's name. I know him to the bottom of his rotten soul."

He gave me the address.

It was a magnificent house near Sloane Square. He had married a rich old woman, and lived on the fat of the land.

I had met him once myself in society. He was a self-made Scot, and thought evening dress de rigeur in Paradise.

Peter sent me off with a sly snigger. There was some insane idea at the back of his mind. Well, what did I care ?...

Dr. McCall was a man of fifty or so, very well preserved and very well dressed, with a gardenia in his buttonhole. He recognised me at once, and drew me by the hand into a comfortable arm-chair. He began to chatter about our previous meeting ; about the duchess of this and the countess of that.

I wasn't listening, I was watching. His tact told him that I wasn't interested. He stopped abruptly.

" Well, well, excuse me for running on like this about old times. The point is, what can I do for you to-day, Miss Laleham ? "

I instantly saw my advantage. I shook my head laughingly.

" Oh, no," I said, " it's not Miss Laleham." He begged my pardon profusely for the mistake.

" Can it be possible ? Two such beautiful girls so much alike ? "

" No," I smiled back, " it's not as bad as that. I was Miss Laleham, but now I am Lady Pendragon." " Dear, dear," he said, " where can I have been ? Quite out of the world, quite out of the world ! "

" Oh, I'm not quite such an important person as that, and I only married Sir Peter in July."

" Ah, that accounts for it," said the doctor. " I've been away all the summer in the heather with the Marchioness of Eigg. Quite out of the world, quite out of the world. Well, I'm sure you're very happy, my dear Lady Pendragon."

He always mentioned a title with a noise like a child sucking a stick of barley sugar.

I saw at once the way to appeal to him.

"Well, of course, you know," I said, "in really smart circles one has to offer heroin and cocaine to people. It's only a passing fashion, of course, but while it's on, one's really out of it if one doesn't do the right thing."

McCall got out of the chair at his desk, and drew up a little tapestried stool close to mine.

" I see, I see," he muttered confidentially, taking my hand and beginning to stroke it gently, " but you know, it's very hard to get."

" It is for us poor outsiders," I lamented, " but not for you."

He rolled back my sleeve, and moved his hand up and down inside of my forearm. I resented the familiarity acutely. The snobbishness of the man reminded me that he was the son of a small shopkeeper in a lowland village-a fact which I shouldn't have thought of for a second but for his own unctuous insistence on Debrett.

He got up and went to a little wall safe behind my back. I could hear him open and shut it. He returned and leant over the back of my chair, stretching out his left arm so that I could see what was in his hand.

It was a sealed ten-gramme bottle labelled " Heroin Hydrochlorid," with the quantity and the maker's name. The sight of it drove me almost insane with desire

Within a yard of my face was the symbol of victory. Cockie, Basil, the law, my own physical pangs:they were all in my power from the moment my fingers closed over the bottle.

I put out my hand; but the beroin had disappeared in the manner of a conjuring trick.

McCall leant his weight on the back of my chair and tilted it slightly. His ugly shrewd false face was within a foot of mine.

Will you' really let me have that ? " I faltered. Sir Peter's very rich. We can afford to pay the price, whatever it is."

He gave a funny little laugh. I shrank from the long wolf-like mouth hanging over me greedily open, with its bared two white rows of sharp, long fangs.

I was nauseated by the stale whisky in his breath.

He understood immediately; let my chair back to its normal position, and went back to his desk. He sat there and watched me eagerly like a man stalking game. As if inadvertently, he took out the bottle and played with it aimlessly.

In his smooth varnished voice he began to tell me what he called the romance of his life. The first time he saw me he had fallen passionately in love with me; but he was a married man, and his sense of honour prevented his yielding to his passion. He had, of course, no love for his wife, who didn't understand him at all. He had married her out of pity ; but for all that he was bound by his sense of right feeling, and above all by realising that to give rein to his passion, God-given though it was, would mean social ruin for me, for the woman he loved.

He went on to talk about affinities and soul-mates and love at first sight. He reproached himself for having told me the truth, even now, but it had been too strong for him. The irony of fate ! The tragic absurdity of social restrictions !

At the same time, he would feel a certain secret pleasure if he knew that I, on my part, had had something of the same feeling for him. And all the time, he went on playing with the heroin. Once or twice he nearly dropped it in his nervous emotion.

It made me jump to think of the danger to that precious powder. But there was clearly only one thing to be done to get it : to fall in with the old fellow's humour.

I let my head fall on my breast and looked at him sideways out of the corners of my eyes.

" You can't expect a young girl to confess everything she has felt," I whispered with a deep sigh, " especially when she has had to kill it out of her heart. It does no good to talk of these things," I went on. " I ought really not to have come. But how could I guess that you, a great doctor like you, had taken any notice of a silly kid like me ? "

He jumped to his feet excitedly.