Probably Richard's most violent antipathy was for the smell of onions. He abhorred it as the devil abhors virtue. With an exclamation of disgust he disappeared beneath the bedclothes and stuffed the sheet into his mouth. He lay thus for a long while before venturing to emerge and sample the air. To his relief he found the detestable taint had vanished and the atmosphere had recovered its original slightly tomby flavour.
"That's a blessing any way," he said. "I suppose it's no use wondering how it's done or why it's done. Better get to sleep and ask questions in the morning."
And quite unexpectedly he found he was afraid—filled with a kind of nameless dread—a horrible prescience of some villainy about to happen. There was a motive in this programme of changing scents, a deeper significance than the mere will to annoy. He knew without even asking himself how he knew that the smell of pineapple would be next. But why he should fear pineapple was not at the moment apparent. He only knew that when it came he would have to command every nerve to prevent crying out.
Sitting up in bed he sniffed the air tentatively.
"Nothing! (sniff) No, nothing. (sniff) Wait a bit, wasn't that—?
No. (sniff) No—"
And then it came—pungent, acrid, bitter sweet, gathering in intensity second by second.
With a stifled cry he clapped both hands over his mouth and swung a leg to the floor. His eyes wide open in the dark began to sting violently. He caught his breath and burst into a spasm of coughing. Somewhere from the wall by the bedside came the faint sound of gas hissing from a cylinder.
"Phosgene!" shouted Richard Frencham Altar. "You dirty swine!
Phosgene!"
It is a smell that once learnt can never be forgotten—a smell pregnant with memories. As it invades the nostrils the doors of a dreadful past fly open. The white mist hanging over the sunken road, the clangour of beaten shell cases ringing out alarm, the whistle of the warning rockets and the noise of men choking in the spongy fog.
Richard struggled back to the farthest corner of the room. He had picked up his shirt and thrust it over his mouth and nostrils but even so his lungs were nearly bursting. "You rotten, rotten swine," he repeated. "I'll make you pay for this."