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Updated: June 26, 2025
I have now definitely decided that the result of this particular inquiry must never be published. You, Colquhoun, I believe, possess an example of the process, a tiger lily, I think? I must ask you to return it to me. Our late friend, Tcheriapin, wears a pink rose in his coat which I have treated in the same way. I am going to take the liberty of removing it."
Thus far Tcheriapin had proceeded, and was in the act of airily flicking ash upon the floor, when, uttering a sound which I can only describe as a roar, Andrews hurled himself upon the smiling violinist. His great red hands clutching Tcheriapin's throat, the insane Scotsman, for insane he was at that moment, forced the other back upon the settee from which he had half arisen.
God knows how many of them followed whether through the dens of Limehouse or the more fashionable salons of vice in the West End they followed perhaps down to Hell. So much for Tcheriapin. At the time when the episode occurred to which I have referred, Dr. Kreener occupied a house in Regent's Park, to which, when his duties at the munition works allowed, he would sometimes retire at week-ends.
Neither troubled very much to veil it. In Tcheriapin it found expression in covert sneers and sidelong glances, while the big, lion-maned Scotsman snorted open contempt of the Eurasian violinist. However, what I was about to say was that Tcheriapin on the occasion of his first visit brought his violin.
We found him in the dining room, a nearly empty whisky-bottle beside him. "I had to gang awa'," he explained thickly; "he was temptin' me to murder him. I should ha' had to do it if I had stayed. Damn his hell-music." Tcheriapin revisited Dr. Kreener on many occasions afterward, although for a long time he did not bring his violin again.
"It was called 'A Dream at Dawn." As he spoke the words I saw Andrews start forward, and Dr. Kreener exchanged a swift glance with him. But the Scotsman, unseen by the vainglorious half-caste, shook his head fiercely. The picture to which Tcheriapin referred will, of course, be perfectly familiar to you. It had phenomenal popularity some eight years ago.
Kreener glanced across the laboratory at the crouching figure of Tcheriapin, then, resting his hands upon Andrews's shoulders, he pushed him back in the chair and stared into his dull eyes. "Brace yourself, Colquhoun," he said tersely. Turning, he crossed to a small mahogany cabinet at the farther end of the room. Pulling out a glass tray he judicially selected a pair of dental forceps.
At the elfin black hair and Mephistophelian face of this horrible, wonderful image, I stared fascinatedly. I looked and looked at the dwarfed figure of... Tcheriapin! All these impressions came to me in the space of a few hectic moments, when in upon my mental tumult intruded a husky whisper from the man on the sofa. "Kreener!" he said. "Kreener!"
He was as sour as an unripe grape-fruit, cynical, embittered, a man savagely disappointed with life and the world; and tragedy was written all over him. If anyone knew the secret of his wasted life it was Dr. Kreener, and Dr. Kreener was a reliquary of so many secrets that this one was safe as if the grave had swallowed it. One Sunday Tcheriapin joined the party.
And she wept; she wept, and I kissed her tears away. "To please her I waited until 'A Dream at Dawn' was finished. With the finish of the picture, finished also his dream of dawn the moon-faced one's." Tcheriapin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette. "Can you believe that a man could be so stupid? He never knew of my existence, this big, red booby.
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