by Simon Raven
The first thing that struck him on his entry was the atmosphere of excitement. He didn't have to have a drink or purchase a single counter: wave after wave of excitement swept through the room, wave after wave of that excitement which springs from hope fulfilled, hope deferred, hope in the midst of desperation, hope, above all, prompted by the second oldest instinct in man — avarice. At some tables men and women sat solidly with lists on which they recorded each number that came up, occasionally risking a counter in support of their researches. At other tables, people hovered, backed away, pounced back from a last minute bet, shrugged their shoulders, rushed off to buy more counters. A woman stalked from table to table, flinging down thousands of francs at once, and turning back to another to discover her gains or losses. An elderly man, with a great pile of plaques worth 20,000 francs apiece, covered the board with them, lost the lot, covered it again, won much of it back, covered it a third time.... And everywhere Esme looked sat the black, imperturbable, figures of the croupiers, bending over the tables like the gods overlooking Troy, quick and nimble, placing the counters, raking them back — click, click, wood against plastic — placing bets for the gamblers, paying, receiving, impervious. Like the chant of an overseer of galley-slaves came their regular intonation, 'Merci, M'sieur — pour les employees', as a lucky gambler tossed over anything from 100 francs to five thousand, 'Merci bien, M'sieur — pour les employees, pour les employees, pour les employees . . .' It was the background rhythm for the devil's own tune.
And what a tune, thought Esme. It was as stirring as a march, as alluring as the sirens' song, as sinister as the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. He was not the one to stop his ears to it. He went up to the exchange counter. The minimum stake was 100 francs — about two shillings, he supposed — capital was necessary', you could never win without ample resources, it was not the moment to skimp. He put five thousand francs down. That should see him through for a bit.
He took his place at a vacant chair. The cloth was being covered rapidly. What did one do? . . . Yes, that was it, one backed an even chance for a bit and double when it lost. A hundred francs for Manque. 'Rien ne va plus . . . trente-six, noir, pair, et passe.' Two hundred francs then . . . 'Vingt, noir, pair et passe.' Four hundred. . . . 'Le Premier, noir, impair, manque.' That was it of course — seven hundred down, eight hundred back. One for a long chance then — nine. 'Faites vos jeux.' Nine. . . . 'Vmgt-sept.' Start again. Manque. Manque it was — leave it there. Manque again. Another lost chance — nine. . . . 'Neuf, noir, impair, manque.' The thrill went right through him. He had won practically nothing, three thousand five hundred francs perhaps, but he had won en plein, the gambler's dream. He had beaten the whole board. And now he would -
'Well, well,' said a voice behind him, 'the tutor making his fortune.' He looked up. It was Trito.
'Don't worry now, I'm delighted to see you do so well. Sandra sent me on early to see how things were. I can tell her they're prospering. . . . But come and talk a few minutes, my dear Esme,—roulette afterwards. Over here. But we must have more roulette — it's the best game in the world for character. That's the mistake made by our great public schools — football and cricket as training grounds for life! They should install roulette: what can be better training than to see worthy people hopelessly mined and worthless ones raking in a fortune? The way of the world in a pig's bladder! Far better they should lose a term's pocket-money in an hour, run into debt, win it all back in ten minutes. That'd teach 'em to go looking for absolutes all over the place, that'd see to their kaëokàyaèia! A good lesson of ðavôà påÀ — all in flux, my dear Esme — is what they need.'
He too seemed to have caught the excitement.
'And that was why I asked you to be here. It's an atmosphere for talk, tutor, we can say what we please on any subject here in the midst of roulette and baccarat. It's a purgative, an enema, ðavôà påÀ if you take the joke.'
'Several thousand pounds worth of education,' said Esme, 'have been preparing me over the last ten years for just that sort of joke. But since you make such claims for the atmosphere, go on and say your bit.'
'Well then,' said Dr Fibula Trito without preface, 'you've now been doing this job for well upwards of a month. What do you make of it all?'
'You asked me that once before, and didn't pause for an answer.'
'I should like one now.'
'It's a great life but I'm weakening fast.'
'If you could be a little more explicit...'
'On what particular points?' asked Esme.
'Well, take myself, for example. Am I your idea of the family physician and friend?'
'I think,' said Esme, 'that you're just a crook.'
'That's better. And what sort of crook?'
'A small-time crook. Do you want to know the details?'
'Certainly,' said Trito.
'Well, for a time your behaviour puzzled me. Or rather, it didn't while it was going on, but it did when I thought about it. Not that I didn't like it — quite the reverse. I looked upon you as an ally.'
'In what capacity? In the general one of cheating the rich?'
'Yes,' said Esme, 'but also in the more particular one, when I came to think about it, of extracting information from them which might possibly have an outside market.'
'Go on.'
'I thought that you, like myself, must be in the pay of a certain Mr Chynnon, who provided just such a market. I didn't know how far he was dependent on you, but I imagined to a considerable extent. And if this was the case, you couldn't have been telling him very much.'
'And what made you think that?' said Trito, raising his eyebrows.
'A list he gave me which was a most unsatisfactory document. It occurred to me that you had probably provided the information on that list — and had advisedly limited it to prevent possible competition from myself or, for the matter of that, anticipation on the part of Chynnon.'
'And what else, stupor mundi?'
'It struck me that your enthusiasm — for which I was very grateful — that Terence and I should come to Biarritz indicated your own inclination to follow us; and that it was therefore highly probable that you had some sort of a clue which led here.'
'But such deduction,' cried Trito; 'always pick a scholar when it comes to an affair of action. Their intelligence. But I'll tell you this much, scholar, you've allowed yourself to be misled. And who shall blame you? You've performed miracles with your data. But if you will allow me, I shall now supplement your data and destroy your edifice — or a great deal of it.'
'I should be delighted,' said Esme.
'Well, let us have two things plain for a start: first, my object is not information — at any rate not in the sense you mean; and secondly, there is consequently no question of a clue or a secret, in Biarritz or elsewhere — a point I shall expand in a minute. Let us then call my object "x". And let us add to this the fact that I am Mr Chynnon's doctor. You will understand then that I was not slow to hear about his little contretemps with our employer — in fact you might say I even helped to foster it: you will also understand that I knew enough about him to anticipate a favourable reaction to a little suggestion I had in mind. For my object, "x", required both money and cover: Mr Chynnon was in a position to provide both; and so, while in a sense I employed him (the reverse of your creditable surmise), at the same time he was paying me — or at any rate providing the money I needed. And how did I win him over? Simply by convincing him that "x" equaled blackmail: I wanted the information for blackmail, he thought, while he could use it for his own equally malicious but different purpose — denigrating poor Sandra, that is to say. He would receive all the information I gathered, and was to do certain services for me in return.'
'Rather a breach of blackmailer's etiquette,' said Esme, 'selling information to two parties.'
'Not so fast, tutor,' said Dr Trito: 'I did not say "x" was blackmail, I said Chynnon thought "x" was blackmail. If he thought I was capable of such a breach, so
much the better for me and the worse for him. Because in fact there is no information and so he will receive none — though his money and his efforts have had their uses. But to continue. Chynnon obviously wanted to have something to chew on: so I devised a little fiction (with a factual basis) which I called the Acre secret. You will know by now that there was indeed a Marshal Acre who married Sandra and whose suicide was rather sudden. But since a detailed enquiry at the time and sixteen years of subsequent speculation have not elucidated the point, every sensible person concludes that there is no point to elucidate. Still, it seemed to make Chynnon happy. I gave him a non-comittal list of Sandra's old friends that made him even happier, and he even offered a substantial bonus should the secret ever be uncovered.
'Now it was about this time that I decided that "x" would require a further assistant for its completion. After a glance at your situation, I decided, my dear Esme, that you would do. It was a risk to employ you before observing you, but this was essential because you had to become actually and swiftly implicated in a fair measure of villainy so that, when the time came, you would hardly be in a position to object to giving your services. At the same time you could be observed by myself for suitability while you were, as I hoped, busy implicating yourself. It was necessary you shouldn't suspect me of observing you: and so here was another opportunity' for Mr Chynnon to provide cover. Of course I had to find a reason to give him for wanting you included in our little plot; so I pretended to be convinced of the necessity for a constant inside observer: and of course you were treated to the Acre story in the hope, on his part that you might unearth it, and on mine that your interest in it would lead you to get sufficiently enmeshed in iniquity to assist in "x" when the hour came. Chynnon of course agreed that it was as well you shouldn't know my part in it all till I had had a chance to observe your activities — though of course the end I had in view was very different to his.'
'Wasn't he surprised when you suggested an assistant — a possible competitor for the Acre bonus?'
'Not particularly. The bonus was a small matter compared with what he presumed I should stand to make by blackmail.'
'Do you suppose he would have paid what he said for the secret if there had actually been one?'
'I dare say. He's a vain, vicious and unstable man, totally lacking in any sense of proportion.'
'Hm,' said Esme: 'and do you consider that I'm sufficiently hedged around with evil to be enlightened about "x" and compelled to assist with it?'
'On the whole, yes. There are those notes to Chynnon. I could produce them, as his doctor, and stand by him in alleging they were forced upon him by yourself after your own suggestion that he might care to hear anything you could learn.'
'A little thin.'
'But I've no doubt of your acceptance, my dear Esme. Perhaps I had hoped you'd become a little more involved. But you'll be getting a fair reward — not quite up to the Acre myth standard, but still very fair.'
'But what about your insistence on Biarritz? You say no clue leads here. What is there about "x" that makes Bi—'
'A good deal. Many places would have done as well — Deauville, Le Touquet, Cannes — but Sandra herself suggested Biarritz, the Duke of Panton was a sure attraction —'
'Very well then,' said Esme, 'now we're getting to the point. Hitherto I've been busy being "observed" and becoming implicated. Wasting my time in fact. So you've observed me, you've trapped me, you've found me satisfactory: you've finally got us all to Biarritz, which "will do" as well as Deauville or Le Touquet; and now, I presume, you're at last ready to tell me just what your "x" game is and how we're to set about playing it.'
'It's almost distressingly simple.'
'Well?'
'Has it not occurred to you that Sandra may spend a lot of money here?'
'It has — I've already spent a lot for her.'
'Which is all to the good. And has it not occurred to you that in these days it's a criminal offence to spend a lot of money abroad, and that certain people are interested enough to pay very highly, I say very highly, for evidence that may — '
'Really,' said Esme, 'I honestly think this is the dirtiest trick I ever did hear of. You propose — '
'Yes,' rapped Trito, 'and I don't want any nonsense out of you just because you've been duped into following a dud line of—'
'So I have, have I?' said Esme, stung to the core of his being, 'I'm so stupid, am I, that I'm the only person living — or almost — who knows there actually is an Acre secret, which is admittedly worth about tuppence, and what it is?'
'Well, well,' said Trito, 'choose a scholar every time. You interest me, I must say.'
'Well, I just wanted you to know. It's worth a heap of scrap iron, but there it is. There's not a shred of evidence of course.'
'And you'd care to divulge it?'
There was one thing Esme could never resist — the chance to tell people how clever he'd been. All his vanity and all his love of telling a story rose to meet Trito's question. Step by loving step he traced his enquiries, his doubts, his perplexities; his find in Caprice, his luck with the 'Luritania Supplement'; his hopes, his fears, his expenditure, his final coup with Uncle Bill. If there was to be no thousand pounds, there would at least be a round of applause. He sat back after the final disclosure about Terence's parenthood, and beamed with self-satisfaction.
'Well, well, well,' said Mr Trito, 'I must say it's the most creditable piece of work. Who'd have thought it. Choose a scholar.... Well, well.'
'But you see what I mean — no sales-value?'
There was a long pause.
'No, I suppose not. But really, Esme. . . . Now let's think . . .Yes....I wonder...'
'Meanwhile I suppose I'd better hear what you've got to say. Though I must say, picking up titbits is one thing, but spending a person's money abroad and then acting as an exchange stooge ... You must admit.'
'No, no, my dear Esme, now don't go and hurry me. It's possible. . . . Well now, listen. You've heard that I required your assistance. Here is the position. I've been thinking about this for a long time, I've observed Sandra abroad, I know what her resources are. I also know that as things stand at the moment she'll have almost no francs at all except the customary allowance.
I know, for example, that her account with a certain Paris dressmaker — an account she likes to pay regularly — has now been outstanding for much longer than usual. I know a lot else. And what it all adds up to is that she's now at a very low ebb for francs. For you, Terence, and herself the allowance comes to a hundred and fifty pounds worth. Of this, you've got about fifty for expenses — right? And just how far do you suppose the rest's going to get her, in Biarritz of all places, and with a hotel bill (what with you two and herself) that would knock a horse down? Furthermore she's a rare one for baccarat — she can't resist it, she loses often and heavily.
'Now what will be the result of all this? Evidently she will have to get hold of more francs — friends, the black market, anywhere. And it doesn't particularly matter where, because in every case it's a criminal offence. Are you with; me?'
'Up to my neck in dirt,' said Esme.
'Don't be pert. Now then, where do you come in? You come in, my dear Esme, where I walk out. You will readily understand that neither my practice in general nor my position as Sandra's doctor in particular will admit of any suggestion, any suspicion however slight, of my being the agent of such proceedings. I therefore propose returning to London before Sandra even gets here.'
'That's sweet,' said Esme, 'that shows real professional tact. And so I stay here, do I, do all the dirty work, and end up as a notorious figure in a currency case while you make your fortune?'
'If you pause to think for as much as two seconds,' said Trito, 'you will realize that your position, both for incurring excessive expense and for collecting the evidences of it, is absolutely unrivalled. Furthermore there is not the slightest need for you to incur the least suspicion — Sandra is coming here without her secreta
ry. Who is it then who will fetch and carry, haggle over the bills, collect the receipts, cash the travellers' cheques, be at her arm in the Casino? Answer me that.'
'Little Alf,' said Esme.
'If you like the sobriquet — little Alf. And what is required of little Alf? Very, very little. All I am asking of you is to get hold of bills, receipted or otherwise, and to try and remember the rough amounts Sandra disposes of at the Casino or elsewhere. But it is the bills that matter. Everything else — everything in the least bit dangerous or compromising — will be handled by me in London. All you have to do is get the bills — even one would be sufficient, provided it totalled more than the joint allowances of you three. This alone would be proof that she had exceeded the just amount — by however little. And it would not be difficult to establish that she had spent more money than merely on her hotel bill. Did Chynnon talk to you in terms of an act of justice?'
'Yes.'
'Then how appropriate was his wording! The wheel turns, a little twist is given, and back we are where we started — performing "acts of justice".'