It was not as easy as Grunewald wanted for Mendel to leave the Monastery for a short visit to the Cejl district just outside Brno. Despite the urgency of the appeal, Mendel still had duties at the Monastery and needed to consult with the Prior and his friends about the upcoming election. He also needed some help.

Reluctantly he allowed Waldschmidt to escort him back to Old Brno and his warm, comfortable room in the Monastery grounds. Despite the mildness of the current winter, there was still frost in the air and the recent rains had churned up ruts of mud along the less traveled roads making the journey around the Petrov Hill slower than usual.

All of the windows in the Abbey buildings were covered in black cloth and the hallways were deserted and gloomy as the two men approached Mendel's room.

During their journey from the Cathedral they had talked mainly about inconsequential things, and in particular their mutual impressions of England. Mendel had visited that country briefly some years earlier, but, not being able to speak the language his adventures there had left him with a kaleidoscope impression of the English and their sometimes strange customs.

"Despite their peculiarities, I like the English," Waldschmidt said during their coach ride. "In many ways it is a strange country, but one with amazing vitality and inventiveness. Where I stayed for at least part of the time, in Lancashire, there was a lot of crime, particularly at railway stations. A member of a gang called a 'stall' would block the path of a well-dressed person while a 'dipper' picked his pocket. They sometimes did this by using three pronged tools which they could insert into your pocket and remove your money without you even knowing it".

Mendel nodded at this description, not too long ago he had met a similar artist during his attempt to stop wine going sour (see Chapter the Fourth - ed.).

"In any other society," Waldschmidt continued, "the citizens would have resorted to armed guards, the police or some other furious over-reaction, but in Lancashire the Victorians took another approach; an invention. Herr Leon de Landfort created a device, made of sheet metal which fitted inside your pocket and held your valuables safe from theft. It was a metal pocket inside your cloth pocket which closed in such a way as to make it impossible to pick. I have one at home and will show it to you if you like?"

After Mendel declined the offer, Waldschmidt told him, "This reaction to a situation is typical of the Victorians; if they find a problem they try to solve it using some clever idea. In my own field, which is engineering, there are no equals to the British, which is why I went there in the first place. I only got involved in chemistry by accident when Herr Perkin asked me to build him some special equipment for his 'chemical engineering' as he calls it".

This brought the conversation uncomfortably back to the subject of dyes and Mendel's next task. "While I was working on new machinery for a dye works in Lancashire," Waldschmidt said, "Herr Perkin brought the new formula for making alizarin dye up from London, where he has his laboratory. We worked together on setting up the large scale processes for making the dye and then using it to turn wool, cotton and even silk into a stable, bright red color. Herr Perkin has a partner who hopes to sell this red cloth to the British army for their uniforms".

"We were mostly successful, but I cannot pretend to understand all the talk about 'atoms' and 'molecules' and the new ideas that Perkin has about engineering molecules into any form he wants. Like all the English, he has grandiose ideas about improving on nature and even controlling the way his atoms behave in his test tubes. But it seems to work".

"Was he able to make a stable dye that dissolved in water and turned cloth red, then?" Mendel asked. He was anxious to know if it was possible to solve his appointed task. If the Englishman Perkin could do it, at least it could be done - somehow!

"I think so," Waldschmidt said slowly, "he was very secretive about his new process as it has not been properly patented yet, and he was worried that his ideas would be stolen by others".

Which they were, Brother Gregory could not help thinking. A deeply moral man himself, he was having a hard time adjusting to the much looser moral code of politicians and businessmen such as Grunewald. Although it had not been said in so many words, it was clear that Waldschmidt had taken the formula from Perkin without either permission or payment, which in Mendel's world was called theft.

"Herr Grunewald has many friends in the business of cloth manufacture, especially in England," said Waldschmidt, not knowing that Mendel had already met two of these when he was giving his talk to the Natural History Society (See Chapter the Second - ed.). "So when he found out about the new dye, he asked me if I could help him".

At this partial confession, Mendel remained silent, not wishing to insult the young German at his side, but not wishing to give any kind of blessing to the shady world he was now hearing about. If he could have found an easy way out of helping Grunewald and Waldschmidt he would have done so, but without Napp to guide him, he was having problems thinking of a way to do that.

Tactfully, Waldschmidt remained silent, wisely not telling his new colleague the full story of his defection from the English chemists and his arrival in Brno. Through his extensive network of contacts, Grunewald had not only discovered that William Perkin was working on a new dye, but that his fellow countrymen were interested in profiting from these new and exciting discoveries.

Independently of Perkin, a goldsmith who now was his own manufacturer of coal-tar dyes, Friedrich Engelhorn, had recently started a new company in Mannheim, he was calling it the Badische Anilin- & Soda-Fabrik (Baden Aniline & Soda Factory), but most of its new investors (including Otto Grunewald) had started calling it by its initials - BASF. The mission of this new company was to become a world leader in the manipulation of basic materials so as to produce a full range of new chemicals, including the very profitable dyestuffs.

Grunewald, using some of his recent profits, had helped provide the much needed capital for this venture, and was also interested in staffing it with the best scientists and engineers in Europe. Carl Waldschmidt was a perfect candidate, and when an appropriate salary and stock options had been agreed, the price had been paid.

But to everyone's horror, a page was missing!