Paul merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," he said at length, anxious to change a subject so repugnant to his feelings, "let us go over to the laboratory, and I will show you some of our work." So saying they left the flat together. They entered a large room reeking with chemical fumes. On one table were scales which could weigh a hundred kilos, and on another table a balance so delicate, that it would turn with the fifth of a millegramme.
Rows upon rows of bottles were on the shelves containing twice as many drugs as are to be found in a chemist's shop.
In another part of the room were glass jars filled with every organ of the human body, all furnished with large labels. Beakers, test-tubes, mortars, funnels, measuring-glasses, dishes, thermometers, etc., were scattered all over the room, in what might be termed orderly confusion, but actually just where they were most wanted. On the opposite side of the room stood a large spectroscope by Hilger, used for revealing the spectrum lines of metals, or examining the absorption bands of blood. Near by stood a row of microscopes by Hartnack, furnished with objectives of every power, which were screwed on a revolving attachment so that they could be brought into position by a single turn of the hand.
Pierre was lost in amazement at the prodigious display of apparatus.
"Do you mean to say that you employ all these things?" he asked.
"Oh, my dear sir, you have not seen a fourth part of our apparatus yet. Just look behind the curtain."
Pierre pushed aside a thick curtain, and opening a door found himself in a "dark room" illuminated by a large red light, and supplied with a washing trough and numerous bottles and dishes.
"That is where we make our photographs," said Paul, "and in the room next to it we make our enlargements, and reproduce by photography, finger prints and blood stains, and make copies of the object seen under the microscope."
They passed along a short corridor and entered the bacteriological laboratory. Here were bottles filled with dyes and stains of every colour. A whole row of copper incubating chambers, each surrounded by a water jacket, were ranged along the one side of the wall. Each was heated by an automatic burner, so arranged that a constant temperature of any degree required could be maintained for days or weeks at a time.