Dr. Thorndyke Omnibus Vol 7

by R. Austin Freeman

  "Now," said he, as the taxi trundled off, "for 'the gay and festive scenes and halls of dazzling light'; and oblivion to the demmed unpleasant body."

  II. JOHN GILLUM

  As the taxi pursued its unimpeded way westward through the half-populated streets, I reflected on the curious circumstances that had made me the guest of a man who was virtually a stranger to me, and I was disposed to consider what I knew of him. I use the word "disposed" advisedly, for, in fact, my mind was principally occupied by my late experiences, and the considerations which I here set down for the reader's information are those that might have occurred to me rather than those that actually did.

  I had now been acquainted with John Gillum for some six months; ever since, in fact, I had been transferred to the Gracechurch Street branch of the bank. But our acquaintance was of the slightest. He was one of the bank's customers and I was a cashier. His visits to the bank were rather more frequent than those of most of our customers and on slack days he would linger to exchange a few words or even to chat for a while. Nevertheless, our relations hardly tended to grow in intimacy; for though he was a bright, gay, and rather humorous man, quite amusing to talk to, his conversation persistently concerned itself with racing matters and the odds on, or against, particular horses, a subject in which I was profoundly uninterested. In truth, despite our rather frequent meetings, his personality made so little impression on me that, if I had been asked to describe him, I could have said no more than that he was a tallish, rather good-looking man with black hair and beard which contrasted rather noticeably with his blue eyes, that he spoke with a slight Scotch accent and that two of his upper front teeth had been rather extensively filled with gold. This latter characteristic did, indeed, attract my notice rather unduly; for, though gold is a beautiful material (and one that a banker might be expected to regard with respectful appreciation), these golden teeth rather jarred on me and I found it difficult to avoid looking at them as we talked.

  Yet even in those days I felt a certain interest in our customer; but it was a purely professional interest. As cashier, I naturally knew all about his account and his ways of dealing with his money, and on both, and especially his financial habits, I occasionally speculated with mild curiosity. For his habits were not quite normal, or at least were not like those of most other private customers. The latter usually make most of their payments by cheque. But Gillum seemed to make most of his in cash. It is true that he appeared to pay most of his tradespeople by cheque, but from time to time, and at pretty frequent intervals, he would present a "self" cheque for a really considerable sum—one, or even two or three hundred pounds, and occasionally a bigger sum still—and take the whole of it away in pound notes.

  It was rather remarkable, in fact very much so when I came to look over the ledger and note the fluctuations of his account. For at fairly regular intervals he paid in really large cheques—up to a thousand pounds—mostly drawn upon an Australian bank, which for a time swelled his account to very substantial proportions. But, by degrees, and not very small degrees, his balance dwindled until he seemed on the verge of an overdraft, and then another big cheque would be paid in and give him a fresh start.

  Now there is nothing remarkable in the fluctuation of an account when the customer receives payment periodically in large sums and pays out steadily in the small amounts which represent the ordinary expenses of living. But when I came to cast up Gillum's account, it was evident that the great bulk of his expenditure was in the form of cash. And it seemed additional to the ordinary domestic payments, as I have said; and I found myself wondering what on earth he could be doing with his money. He could not be making investments, or even "operating" on the Stock Exchange, for those transactions would have been settled by cheque. Apparently he was making some sort of payments which had to be made in cash.

  Of course it was no business of mine. Still, it was a curious and interesting problem. What sort of payments were these that he was making? Now when a man pays away at pretty regular intervals considerable sums in cash, the inference is that he is having some sort of dealings with someone who either will not accept a cheque or is not a safe person to be trusted with one. But a person who will not accept payment by an undoubtedly sound cheque is a person who is anxious to avoid evidence that a payment has been made. Such anxiety suggests a secret and probably unlawful transaction; and in practice, such a transaction is usually connected with the offence known as "demanding money with menaces." So, as I cast up the very large amounts that Gillum had drawn out in cash, I asked myself, "Is he a gambler, or has he fallen into the clutches of a blackmailer?" The probability of the latter explanation was suggested by certain large withdrawals at approximately quarterly periods, and also by the fact that Gillum not only took payment almost exclusively in pound notes, but also showed a marked preference for notes that had been in circulation as compared with new notes, of the serial numbers of which the bank would have a record. Still, the two possibilities were not mutually exclusive. A gambler is by no means an unlikely person to be the subject of blackmail.

  Such, then, were the reflections that might have occupied my mind had it not been fully engaged with my recent adventure. As it was, the short journey was beguiled by brief spells of scrappy and disjointed conversation which lasted until the taxi drew up opposite the brilliantly lighted entrance of the restaurant and a majestic person in the uniform of a Liberian admiral hurried forward to open the door. We both stepped out, and when Gillum had paid the taxi-driver—extravagantly, as I gathered from the man's demeanour—we followed the admiral into a wide hall where we were transferred to the custody of other and less gorgeous myrmidons.

  Giamborini's Restaurant was an establishment of a kind that was beyond my experience, as it was certainly beyond my means. It oozed luxury and splendour at every pore. The basin of precious marble in which I purged myself of the by-products of the London atmosphere was of a magnificence that almost called for an apology for washing in it; the floor of delicate Florentine mosaic seemed too precious to stand upon in common boots; while as to the dining-saloon, I can recall it only as a bewildering vision of marble and gilding, of vast mirrors, fretted ceilings and stately columns—apparently composed of gold and polished gorgonzola—and multitudinous chandeliers of a brilliancy that justified Dick Swiveller's description, lately quoted by Gillum. I found it a little oppressive and was disposed to compare it (not entirely to its advantage) with the homely Soho restaurants that I remembered in the far-off pre-war days.

  A good many of the tables were unoccupied, though the company was larger than I should have expected, for the hour was rather late for dinner but not late enough for theatre suppers. Of the guests present, the men were mostly in evening dress, and so, I suppose, were the women, judging by the considerable areas of their persons that were uncovered by clothing. As to their social status I could form no definite opinion, but the general impression conveyed by their appearance was that they hardly represented the cream of the British aristocracy. But perhaps I was prejudiced by the prevailing magnificence.

  "What are you going to have, Mortimer?" my host asked as we took our seats at the table to which we had been conducted. "Gin and It, cocktail, or sherry? You prefer sherry. Good. So do I. It is wine that maketh glad the heart of man, not these chemical concoctions."

  He selected from the wine list the particular brand of sherry that commended itself to him and then gave a few general directions which were duly noted. As the waiter was turning away, he added: "I suppose you haven't got such a thing as an evening paper about you?"

  The waiter had not. But there was no difficulty. He would get one immediately. Was there any particular paper that would be preferred?

  "No," replied Gillum, "any evening paper will do." Thereupon the waiter bustled away with the peculiar quick, mincing gait characteristic of his craft; a gait specially and admirably adapted to the rapid conveyance of loaded trays. In a minute or two he came skating back with a newspaper under his arm a
nd a tray of hors-d'oeuvres and two brimming glasses of sherry miraculously balanced on his free hand. Gillum at once opened the paper, while I fixed a ravenous eye on the various and lurid contents of the tray. As I had expected, he turned immediately to the racing news. But he did not read the column. After a single brief glance, he folded up the paper and laid it aside with the remark, uttered quite impassively: "No luck."

  "I hope you haven't dropped any money," said I, searching for the least inedible contents of the tray.

  "Nothing to write home about," he replied. "Fifty."

  "Fifty!" I repeated. "You don't mean fifty pounds?"

  "Yes," he replied calmly. "Why not? You can't expect to bring it off every time."

  "But fifty pounds!" I exclaimed, appalled by this horrid waste of money. "Why, it would furnish a small library."

  He laughed indulgently. "That's the bookworm's view of the case but it isn't mine. I've had my little flutter and I'm not complaining; and let me tell you, Mortimer, that I have just barely missed winning a thousand pounds."

  I was on the point of remarking that a miss is as good as a mile, but, as that truth has been propounded on some previous occasions, I refrained and asked: "When you say that you have just barely missed winning a thousand pounds, what exactly do you mean? How do you know that you nearly won that amount?"

  "It is perfectly simple, my dear fellow," said he. "I laid fifty pounds on the double event at twenty to one against. That is to say, I backed two particular horses to win two particular races. Now, one of my horses won his race all right. The other ought to have done the same. But he didn't. He came in second. So I lost. But you see how near a thing it was."

  "Then," said I, "if you had backed the two horses separately, I suppose you would have won on the whole transaction?"

  "I suppose I should," he admitted, "but there would have been nothing in it. The horse that won was the favourite. But the double event was a real sporting chance. Twenty to one against. And you see how near I was to bringing it off."

  "Nevertheless," I objected, "you lost. And you went into the business with the knowledge, not only that you might lose, but that the chances that you would lose were estimated at twenty to one. I should have supposed that no sane man would have taken such a chance as that."

  He looked at me with a broad smile that displayed his golden teeth to great disadvantage.

  "Thus saith the banker," he commented. "But you are taking a perverted view of the transaction. You are considering it as an investor might; as a means of realising the greatest profit with the smallest risk. That is the purely commercial standpoint. But I am not engaged in commerce; I am engaged in sport—in gambling, if you prefer the expression. Now the essence of the sport of gambling is the possibility that you may lose. If you were certain to win every time, it might be highly profitable but it would be uncommonly poor fun. Believe me, Mortimer, the heart and soul of the game is the chance of losing."

  He spoke quite gravely and earnestly and the statement put me, for the moment, rather at a loss for a reply. For, in its mad way, it was true, and yet, from a practical point of view, it was nonsense. Meanwhile, the waiter brought and placed before us a strangely sophisticated dish, based, I believe, on fish, and then proceeded to fill our glasses with champagne. It was, I think, quite good champagne, though I am no authority, my extreme dissipation, in the ordinary way, not going beyond the traditional "chop and a pint of claret." At any rate, it was highly stimulating, and when Gillum had raised his glass and, with a toast "to the next double event," emptied it and insisted on my doing likewise, the last traces of my depression vanished.

  "I admit, Gillum," said I, resuming the discussion, "that there is a certain amount of truth in what you say. But we must try to keep some sense of proportion. Fifty pounds is a devil of a price for the fun of a little flutter. Surely you could have got your sport at a cheaper rate than that."

  "But that is just what you can't do," said he. "What you don't seem to realise is that the intensity of the thrill is strictly proportionate to the amount of the possible loss, and, of course, of the possible gain. I could have laid five shillings on the double event and been secure from appreciable loss. But then I should have stood to gain a mere flyer. No, my young friend, you can't get a respectable thrill for five bob. And there is another thing that you are over-looking. You speak as if I lost every time. But I don't. Sometimes I win. If I never won, it would be a dull game and I expect I shouldn't go on."

  "I think you would," said I. "You would always be hoping that at last you would get your money back."

  "Perhaps you are right," he conceded. "It is certainly the fact that a genuine gambler is not put off by a succession of losses. The oftener he loses the more dogged he becomes."

  "So I have always understood," said I. "But to come to your own case, you say that sometimes you win. How often do you win? Taking your betting transactions as a whole, how does the balance stand? Are you in pocket or out?"

  "Out, of course," he replied promptly. "Every body is, excepting the bookies. And they don't do it for sport, but just as a cold-blooded matter of business. They don't lose, in ordinary circumstances, and they don't win to a considerable extent. They just balance their books and make a comfortable living. But, of course, the fact that the bookies are in pocket by the transaction is clear proof that the backers, as a whole, must be out."

  There seemed to me something very odd and rather abnormal in the reasonable and lucid way in which he discussed this absurdity. I had the sort of feeling that one might have had in discussing insane delusions with a lunatic. But I returned to the charge, futile as I knew the discussion to be.

  "Very well," said I, "you agree that the balance of profit and loss is against you. How much, you know better than I do, but I suspect that your losses, from month to month, are pretty heavy." (Of course, I did not "suspect." I knew. The bank's books told the story.) "You must be paying very considerable sums for your little flutters and I put it to you, isn't it a most monstrous waste of money?"

  He laughed cheerfully and refilled our glasses.

  "I see," he replied, "that you are an incorrigible financier. You are taking a completely perverted view of the matter. You speak of waste of money. But what, after all, is money?"

  "If you are asking me that as a banker," I replied, "I can only say that I don't know. I know what money was before the war, but now that the politicians and financial theorists have taken it over, it has become something quite different and I don't profess to understand it."

  "That isn't quite what I meant," said he. "I was referring to money in general terms. What is it? It is simply a means of obtaining certain satisfactions or pleasures. No one wants money for itself excepting a miser."

  "You can rule out misers," said I. "They are an extinct race. A miser doesn't hoard paper vouchers which have only a conventional and temporary value."

  "No, I suppose not," he agreed. "At any rate, I am not a miser" (which was most unquestionably true), "and I have no use for money excepting as a means of obtaining satisfactions. And that is the rational use of money. I put it to you, Mortimer, if a man has money and there are certain things that he desires and that money will buy, is it not obviously reasonable that he should exchange the thing that he doesn't want for the things that he does? You speak of waste of money. But is it wasted when it is being used for the very purpose for which it exists? Take, for instance, this bottle of champagne—which, by the way, is getting low and needs replacing. Now, I think we like champagne."

  "I do, certainly," I admitted.

  "I am glad you do. So do I. And we can get it in exchange for your despised paper vouchers. Accordingly, like sensible men, we make the exchange; and I submit that it is a reasonable and profitable transaction. For if, as you suggest, the money is a mere fleeting convention, the champagne for which we have exchanged it isn't. It is real champagne."

  Seeing that we had already emptied one bottle, the cogency of this argument did not impress m
e. Probably I should have proceeded to rebut it, but at this paint an interruption occurred and the discussion broke off.

  When we had entered the room, I had noticed a party of three persons, two men and a woman, at a table in a corner. They had caught my attention because we had evidently caught theirs. But I don't think that Gillum observed them; and when we had seated ourselves, as his back was towards them, they were outside his range of vision whereas I was nearly facing them; and throughout our meal I found myself from time to time looking in their direction, attracted as before by the occasional glances that they cast in ours. It seemed to me that they must be acquainted with Gillum, for there was otherwise nothing noticeable in our appearance. At any rate, they were obviously interested in us and I received the impression that we were being discussed.

  They did not prepossess me favourably. I cannot say exactly why, but there was an indefinable some thing about them that jarred on me. The men did not look like gentlemen, and the woman, dressed in the extreme of an unbecoming fashion, was so heavily and coarsely made up as to extinguish any good looks that she might have had. Everything about her seemed to be artificial. Her hair was of an unnatural colour, her cheeks were visibly painted, and her lips were plastered with crude vermilion like the lips of a circus clown.

  That these people were acquaintances of Gillum's became evident when they rose to depart, for they steered a course across the room which brought them opposite our table. And here they halted; and, for the first time, Gillum became aware of their presence. His expression did not convey to me that he was overjoyed, but as the lady bestowed on him the kind of leer that is known as "giving the glad eye," he made shift to produce a responsive smile.

  "Now, don't let us interrupt your dinner," said she, as he rose to shake hands. "But, as you cut us dead when you came in, we have just come across to say 'howdy' and let you know that we saw you. We are now off to the club. Shall you be coming along presently?