Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/308

 Knew" in triumph, "it is known and is employed. It was known as long ago as the days of the Borgias. It was employed in France in the days of Louis XVI. It has been, to some extent, rediscovered and used in lunatic asylums to quiet dangerous patients."

He saw the interest deepen in the other's eyes.

"I have never heard of that," said Jasper slowly; "the only drug that is employed for that purpose is, as far as I know, bromide of potassium."

Mr. Mann produced a slip of paper, and read off a list of names, mostly of mental institutions in the United States of America and in Germany.

"Oh, that drug!" said Jasper Cole contemptuously. "I know the use to which that is put. There was an article on the subject in the British Medical Journal three months ago. It is a modified kind of 'twilight sleep'—hyocine and morphia. I 'm afraid, Mr. Mann," he went on, "you have come on a fruitless errand, and,