Читать книгу The Missing Angel (Sci-Fi Novel) - Erle Cox - Страница 15

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Meanwhile, in his office, Tydvil Jones had fanned his own plans. A touch on his bell called Miss Brand to the presence. "If Mr. Brewer is about the office, will you kindly let him know I require to see him," was the message he delivered to his secretary.

Geraldine looked at him uncertainly. He read her unspoken uneasiness. "It is another matter, Miss Brand. I will respect your wishes about this morning's affair."

Re-assured, Geraldine returned to her desk and sought Billy on the warehouse extension lines. She delivered her message with a wicked little smile, hanging up immediately to prevent the enquiry he would be sure to make.

A few minutes later, the culprit answered the summons. She heard his approach, but kept her eyes resolutely on her work. She knew he paused for a moment beside her, and anathematised her heart for its rebellious response to his nearness. She heard him enter the room behind her, and her work suffered because she could not keep her thoughts from what was going on behind the closed door.

All the morning Billy had been awaiting the summons. He anticipated, and regretted, the prospect of a summary dismissal. His only regret for his conduct lay in the thought that his folly had made the task of winning Geraldine trebly difficult. Being sacked was a comparatively small price to pay for the glory of holding her in his arms. He had paused for a second to gratify his eyes with a glimpse of that golden helmet—or was it copper? Then he marched grimly to what he believed was his official scaffold.

Tydvil Jones waved him to a chair with a smileless face. The face was a sign of ill-omen that was balanced by his offer of the chair. Execution, he thought, would be carried out standing. Billy felt he cut a very poor spectacle. Since the morning the rich colouring of his left eye had had time to develop. Its swollen lid drooped until it almost shut out the light. No man could feel dignified with such an eye, especially in the presence of one who had seen how he attained to it.

He began to speak, but Tydvil, recognising his intention, cut him short. "Do not wish to refer to that matter, Brewer, if you please! Miss Brand has, very magnanimously, I think, interceded on your behalf." Billy's heart gave a jump.

Then, with a very meaning look at the polychrome eye, he went on. "We will regard the incident as also closed."

"That's a nasty one," thought Billy. But the fact that Geraldine had interceded took the sting from Tyddie's irony. If she had turned aside the wrath of justice she might...

Here Tydvil cut into his golden hopes. "I understand, Brewer, that you are addicted to gambling in fact that you are in the habit of playing a card game known as draw poker."

Billy gasped from the jolt. "Who," he wondered, "was the kind friend who had handed that item of news to Tyddie?" Truly, it was his day of atonement. It seemed as though the bill for the total of his peccadilloes was being presented at once. "Let 'em all come," he murmured to himself hopelessly.

He admitted the charge, and added, "At the same time, I have never regarded it as a heinous offence."

His judge pursed his lips. "Perhaps not, Brewer—that is, compared with some others I know of, but on which I will not dwell." The voice was as dry as a summer's throat. "However, I did not send for you to censure you, however much I disapprove of certain of your actions. I wished to know if you would be good enough to teach, me that game?"

Billy thought his ears had been bewitched. Tyddie asking to be taught how to play "draw!"

"He'll be taking me out for a snifter yet," reflected the senior city representative of C. B. & .D. His expression revealed his amazement to Tydvil more completely than words could.

"I can understand your astonishment," said Mr. Jones, "but the fact (Oh! Tydvil!) is, I am making a study of the gambling evil. I find I am handicapped in my investigations by a need of a practical knowledge of the subject. I am, therefore, looking to you for enlightenment."

Billy breathed deeply. Two reprieves in ten minutes were rather too much for him, but he pulled himself together. Billy never questioned for a moment that Tydvil's statement was anything but the truth. It proved again that a reputation for a blameless life is a perfect cloak for a lapse therefrom. Billy hastened to assert his willingness to oblige, but suggested the necessity for a pack of cards.

Tydvil nodded. "That has not escaped me," he replied. Opening a drawer in his table, he handed his recent purchase across to Billy. "I presume those will do."

Billy snapped the twine and, opening the box, slid the cards on to the table and ran his fingers through them with an expert's touch. "Of course, you understand that we must play for some form of stakes?" he queried.

"I presumed that it would be so," Tydvil acquiesced sourly, "but I suggest we play for something of no value—pins, for instance."

Billy smiled. "They will do for a start, anyhow," he replied cheerfully.

"My interest is, of course, purely academic," insisted Mr. Jones.

"Quite so," admitted Billy as with deft fingers he shuffled cards so easily as to draw an admiring comment on his dexterity. "Merely a matter of practice," Billy said as he dealt each five cards, cleanly and swiftly.

Then, facing them up, he gave Tydvil his first lesson in the gentle and unhallowed art of "draw." It is a game in which the elements are easily grasped. In spite of its simplicity, however, there is no game demands a more skilled technique. Nature had richly endowed Billy Brewer with that brazen sang froid which is a poker player's best asset.

Billy dealt half a dozen hands face up, and explained the mysteries of pairs, threes, straights, flushes and fulls, and the chances of improving on the draw. Then, after dividing the contents of Tydvil's pin tray between them, he began a practical demonstration. Tydvil quickly grasped the essentials, and, before they realised it, the two were deep in the simple pastime. Single handed "draw" for pins did not appeal to Billy very strongly, but to Tydvil, it opened up a new and fascinating avenue of amusement.

In less than half an hour, beginners' luck and the absence of risk enabled Tydvil to completely relieve Billy of his stock of pins.

Noting the smile of satisfaction on Jones's face, Billy suggested that, had the pins represented cash, his opponent would not have been quite so venturesome.

The imputation touched Tydvil's pride in his new found knowledge. It pricked him into replying. "Well, I would be prepared, for once, to prove my competence to play for money—a small amount, say?"

It occurred to Billy, that since his employer was paying him for his time, and would probably pay more for his daring, the arrangement would be most satisfactory.

"Good," he challenged, "we'll make the pins worth threepence a dozen." So, with pins to the value of half a crown each, they recommenced.

For an hour nothing disturbed the silence of the sanctum but the murmur of the two voices. Outside, Miss Brand, denied admittance to caller after caller, including two departmental heads. These, hearing that Tyddie had been in conference with Brewer half the morning, earnestly discussed what campaign the Chief could be organising. Lunch time came, but there was no sound of movement behind the frosted-glass door.

Inside, Tydvil was backing amazing luck with improving technique. Again and again he sent Billy to the pin tray for more ammunition. Determination to come out victor led Brewer into taking risks that he could not afford with the astute Tydvil. Finally, after throwing in his hand rather than risk "seeing" the victorious Tydvil, he leaned back and said, "I have no right to ask, but what did you hold then? I drew a flush."

There was a little smile on Tydvil's face as he confessed to a pair of threes.

Billy put the cards down. He looked at the pile of pins in front of Tydvil, and said, "Your education is complete. A man who looks like a full hand holding a pair of threes needs no further instruction. I'll cut my loss." He dug his hand into his trouser pocket.

For the first time during the session, Tydvil looked at the clock. "Good gracious, Brewer!" he exclaimed. "It is half past one o'clock! Dear me! I'm sure I had no idea of the time." Then, glancing at the silver, he said, "I couldn't think of letting you pay, Brewer. I am much obliged for the trouble you have taken."

Billy shook his head. "Had I won I would have expected to be paid," he said decisively. "I consider myself very lucky it was only three pence a dozen."

"It is a most demoralising game. Most demoralising!" said Tydvil gravely. "I admit that I became most fascinated with its possibilities. Nothing could have brought home to me more clearly how the evil of gambling could take hold of one. I would rather we considered the matter settled."

Leaning across the table, Brewer drew the pad with its pile of pins towards him. Swiftly his deft fingers separated the pile into dozens. Presently, Billy looked up. "I make it thirty seven dozen and four. Threepence a dozen lets me down lightly. I owe you nine and fourpence." He sorted out four florins, a shilling and threepence. Adding a penny from his vest pocket, he handed the loot to Tydvil, who accepted it reluctantly.

"At any rate," he said, "in future I shall be able to speak of gambling with some experience."

Billy stood up. "I think it lucky for the community that you will make nothing but academic use of your knowledge. I should hate to sit in with you in a game of half-crown rises. You have been too good a pupil." He grinned.

"I'm afraid my friends would be terribly shocked if they knew how I have spent the last two hours," Jones said.

"Well," said Billy from the door, "they are not likely to hear it from me. Would one of them believe you had won nine shillings and fourpence from me in your own office?"

As he passed Geraldine's table he looked towards her. His one eye met her two fixed on him in real consternation at the havoc she had wrought. In spite of herself, a dismayed "Oh!" broke from her lips.

Billy, the unregenerate, smiled cheerfully. "It was coming to me, Geraldine—and it was well worth the getting. Isn't it a beauty?"

His utter impenitence froze her sympathy. "In future," she said with crushing dignity, "I do not wish you to speak to me."

With his head on one side Billy surveyed her with a twinkle in the undamaged eye. "I hear and obey, O Queen! But there's no law agin' lookin' at ye, Geraldine, me darlint." He kissed the tips of his fingers to her and went on his way.

As she watched him go the uncertain little smile on her lips grew to a little laugh as he disappeared from sight.

In his room Tydvil gazed at the coins in his hand with a certain amount of pride. Taking his hat he apologised politely to Geraldine for having detained her. He passed the restaurant where he was in the habit of spending a midday two shillings. Turning into Collins Street, he entered one over the threshold of which he had never yet set foot. Here he ordered a lunch that, when he had given the waiter two shillings, left him with fourpence of his winnings. Tydvil Jones felt much better for his lunch.