‘Oh, that’s easy. You can easily have some business in France, can’t you? Don’t you ever bet on French races?’
‘Of course I do, sometimes.’
‘And don’t you ever send money to France?’
‘Well, I have done, once or twice.’
‘Right, then. If you were to tell the Bank that you wanted to buy francs they’d believe you all right. And they love you in the Bank, anyhow. You keep a big current account, and they love anyone who does that.’
Saunders was still struggling against the mesmeric influence that was beginning to overpower him.
‘Tell me some more about this “forward operation” stunt,’ he pleaded, wavering, conscious that in a minute he would have to decide one way or the other, conscious that he would most probably fall in with Marble’s plans, and conscious, too, that he did not really want to. ‘Tell me what I should have to do?’
Marble explained carefully, drilling it into his man with meticulous care. Then he threw his last bait. He showed how, if a man were to take his profit when it amounted to a mere five times his stake, and had the hardihood to fling both profits and stake into the business again, by the time the currency purchased stood at twice the figure it stood at the start the profit would not be ten, but thirty-five units.
Saunders scratched his head wildly.
‘Here, what are you drinking?’ he asked, signalling agitatedly to the barman, and then leaning forward again to go over the details once more. Marble’s cold judgement had chosen his man well. A bookmaker earns his living by other people’s gambling, but even with this practical example always before him there is no one on earth so ready to gamble – in anything not pertaining to the turf.
Then Saunders made a last despairing effort to writhe out of the business. He said that, after all, he was unacquainted with Marble.
‘How do I know it’s straight?’ he asked pitifully.
‘It can’t be very well anything else, can it?’ replied Marble, and the condescension in his tone was an added spur to Saunders. ‘I won’t be able to pinch your money, will I? It will all be in your account, won’t it? If it isn’t straight I can’t make anything out of it.’
Saunders had realized this as soon as the words had left his mouth, and he apologized. Mr Marble, hope boiling in his veins, was very gracious.
‘Well, what is it you want out of it?’ asked the wretched Saunders.
‘Ten per cent of what you make,’ said Marble uncompromisingly, ‘and, of course, I’m going to have a bit on, too.’
‘How much?’
‘Sixty quid.’ Mr Marble produced a roll of five-pound notes – the last of those he had been so careful about changing. He was throwing discretion to the winds now. If ever the notes were traced to him, it would be his own fault, but there was no time for complicated manoeuvres to change them.
Saunders took them half involuntarily.
‘In fact,’ said Mr Marble, ‘I should like to have more than that on. Only I haven’t got it with me. I could raise it by to-morrow. But to-morrow will be too late.’
With those baleful eyes upon him, and the reassuring feel of those five-pound notes in his hand, Saunders could do nothing except make the inevitable offer.
‘Thanks,’ said Marble. ‘Look here, I tell you what we’ll do. Put four hundred in. Two hundred of that will be yours. There’s another sixty. Then you lend me the odd one-forty. That makes us just even.’
Saunders agreed helplessly.
‘Time’s getting on,’ said Mr Marble, with a glance at the clock. ‘We’d better get a move on. I can tell you what to do all over again as we walk back.’
As though in a dream Saunders rose from the table and followed him out. The stimulus of the fresh air outside revived him sufficiently to remember to ask Marble how it was he was so certain that the franc was going to rise.
‘I know all right,’ said Marble casually. He could afford to be casual, so sure was he of himself, and above all, so sure was he of Saunders.
And Saunders weakly yielded to the man with the superior knowledge. He would have hooted with derision at a man who proposed to back a stray acquaintance’s favourite horse to the tune of two hundred pounds; he would have rolled on the ground with mirth if he heard that the same man was going to risk another one hundred and forty by backing that horse for his friend; but this was not horse racing, about which he was thoroughly well informed. It was business – Big Business – and he was awed and submissive.
Marble ended his instructions just as they reached the main door of the National County Bank.
‘Go in there and say you want to buy francs as a forward operation. They’ll send you along to my department, so don’t worry. I’ll be there. I may even do the business for you. But I expect it’ll be Henderson that you see. Oh, yes, and don’t forget, whatever you do, to ring me up two or three times to-day and to-morrow. Get through to Foreign Exchange and then ask for me. It doesn’t matter what you say. Just say – what is that you always say when you see anyone in the bar? – “Hallo, old bean, how’s things?” Keep it up for a bit; say “Doodle-oodle-oodle” if you can’t think of anything else. That’s just to give me authority to move the account about when it’s necessary. Got it all? All right, then. Good-bye.’
Mr Saunders, dazed and mazed, walked weakly into the National County Bank. Mr Marble walked on to the side entrance where dwelt his own among other departments. The sweat was running off him in streams; for a brief space he had been a master of men; he had swayed a hard-headed man into doing something totally unexpected; he had gambled with fate and he had won; for a while he had known the wild exultation of success. He had done something that he would certainly not have done without the urgent impulse due to – a slight indiscretion one stormy night some months ago, but reaction closed upon him with terrible swiftness. His steps dragged as he came into the department of Foreign Exchange. He felt, and he looked, inexpressibly weary. The junior clerks nudged each other again as he walked by.
‘Old Marble’s had as much as he can carry already. He’ll be getting the sack one of these days, just see if he doesn’t.’
And Marble, tired to death, weary with fear, worn out by the thumping of his heart, crept brokenly to his desk and buried his face in his hands.
5
Mr Marble was paying. He was paying by the feeling of weary misery from which he suffered as he walked home that day across London Bridge, as he stood exhausted in the train, and in the bus which brought him from the station, and as he sat in the back room at 53 Malcolm Road.
It was a new habit, this, of sitting in the tiny ‘drawing-room’ instead of the dining-room. In the drawing-room the light was bad and the furnishings even more dreary than in the dining-room, while the fact that it was in the dining-room that during the winter they had their fire had habituated the family to passing all their time there. But Mr Marble now sat in the drawing-room. He did little enough there. He read, it is true, in the books that he now chose regularly from the Free Library – crime books, even the interminable Lombroso – but he only read at intervals. Quite half the time he spent in looking out of the window across the barren flower-bed. That way he felt more comfortable. He did not have to worry then in case some stray dog from one of the neighbouring houses were there. Mr Marble had read how dogs are employed to find truffles in Perigord and he was afraid.
There were in addition various children from neighbouring houses who had been known to climb into the garden after balls which they had knocked over. They had left off doing that now. Once upon a time Mr Marble had not shown any active objection, but two or three times lately he had caught them at it, and had rushed out in blind, wordless fury. The children had seen his face as he mouthed at them, and that experience was enough for them. Children know these things more clearly than do their elders, and they never came into Mr Marble’s garden again. The neighbours were at a loss to understand Mr Marble’s jea
lous guardianship of his garden. As they said, he never grew anything there. Gardening was hardly likely to be a hobby of a man with Mr Marble’s temperament, and the garden of Number 53 had always been in its barren weediness an unpleasing contrast to those near it.
It gave at least some cause for a feeling of superiority to the neighbours. They all thought Mr Marble unbearably snobbish. He sent his children to secondary schools – on scholarships, it is true, and after some years at public elementary schools – while their children began to work for their livings at the age of fourteen, and he wore a bowler hat, while the neighbouring menfolk wore caps. They none of them liked Mr Marble, although they all had a soft corner in their hearts for Mrs Marble. ‘Poor thing, he treats her like the dirt beneath his feet, he does.’
It was a comforting feeling that this monster suffered from the same troubles as they did, and was at times unable to pay his rent, even as they, for so the collecting clerk told them.
Mr Marble spent the evening sitting in the drawing-room of 53 Malcolm Road; on his knee was the last of the Free Library books on crime. It was very interesting – a Handbook to Medical Jurisprudence. Until he had begun it, Mr Marble did not know what Medical Jurisprudence was, but he found it more and more absorbing. The periods spent in gazing out of the window grew shorter and shorter as he read all about inquests, and the methods for discovering whether a dead body found in the water had been put there after death or not, and the legal forms necessary for certifying a person insane. Then he passed on to the section on Toxicology. He read all about the common domestic poisons, spirits of salt, lead acetate, carbolic acid; from these the book proceeded to the rarer poisons. The first ones mentioned, perhaps given pride of place because of infinitely superior deadliness, were hydrocyanic acid and the cyanides. The comments on the cyanides were particularly interesting:
‘Death is practically instantaneous. The patient utters a loud cry and falls heavily. There may be some foam at the lips, and after death the body often retains the appearance of life, the cheeks being red and the expression unaltered.
‘Treatment –’
But Mr Marble did not want to know anything about the treatment. Anyway, it was easy to see that there would rarely be an opportunity of treating a sufferer from cyanide poisoning. Besides, he did not want to read the book at all after that. It made his stupid heart beat too fast again, so that he had difficulty in breathing while his hand shook like the balance-wheel of a watch. And the book had started an unpleasant train of thought, that set him once more gazing out into the garden, only at twilight now, at the end of the day, while he thought about blank horrors.
He knew much more about crime now than when he had first become a criminal. He knew that nine murderers out of ten were only discovered through some silly mistake. Even if they were very careful about planning the deed, and carried it out successfully, they still made some ridiculous blunder that betrayed them. But in some cases they were found out by some unfortunate mischance. It was generally through the gossip of neighbours, but sometimes it was through the insatiable curiosity of some really uninterested person. Now Mr Marble could rely upon there being no gossip. No one knew that young Medland had come to his house that night. And he had made no blunder. It was only some event beyond his control that could betray him. Such as? The answer came pat to mental lips – someone else moving into the house after he had been turned out, someone with a taste for gardening. Come what may, he must not be turned out of 53 Malcolm Road. But he might be at any minute now. His tortured mind raced like a steamship propeller in a rough sea. Supposing the franc should fall! He would lose his money, but that would be only part of his loss, and the least part, too. For Saunders would complain about his loss, perhaps even to the management of the Bank, certainly in a way that would come to the ears of the authorities. Then Marble would lose his job – not possibly, but certainly. Then – a few weeks of grace perhaps, and then, rent unpaid, out of the house he would go. After that it was inevitable. Mr Marble shuddered uncontrollably. It all depended on the franc. One part of Mr Marble’s feverishly active mind began to toil once more through all the data accumulated that had made him decide that the franc would rise; another part began to regret bitterly that he had ever entered into such an absurd venture, rashly leaving his temporary safety – which already he began to long for again – in a wild search for permanency. Perhaps this was his blunder, like Crippen’s flight to the Continent. Perhaps it was because of this that he was going to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. That other book, the one about Famous Criminals, had been disgustingly fond of that expression. Mr Marble shuddered again.
Mr Marble sat till late that night – indeed, he sat until early the next morning, disregarding, hardly hearing the appeals of his wife, working out with one part of his mind the chances of the rise of the franc, with the other the chances of escaping detection. Mr Marble found some ghoulish details at the end of the Handbook to Medical Jurisprudence which interested him as well as appalled him. They dealt with the possibilities of identifying bodies after prolonged burial.
At half-past seven the next morning, Mr Marble, who was already awake – he hardly seemed to sleep nowadays – heard the newspaper pushed through the letterbox of the front door downstairs. He climbed out of bed and padded down bare-footed and in his pyjamas. The house was very still, and it seemed as if the beating of his heart shook it. It was unfortunate that it should start again now when it had taken him all the time he was in bed to quiet it down. But there was no help for it. Mr Marble wondered whether the paper had anything to say about the franc, and of course that was enough to start it.
With the fibre doormat scratching his bare feet Mr Marble stood and read the financial columns of the newspaper. It was unenlightening. It mentioned the closing price of the franc – 118 – one point better than he had bought at. Mr Marble knew that already. Nowhere was there any mention of drastic action by the French Government. Everything seemed as it was yesterday. Mr Marble realized that he might perhaps be able to get out of the transaction even now with safety and a small profit. That would perhaps keep Saunders’ mouth shut. But Mr Marble only dallied with the idea for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed, and his weak, nubbly chin came forward an eighth of an inch. No. He would stick it out now. He would carry the business through, cost what it might. He was sick of being afraid. There was some quite good stuff in the make-up of Mr William Marble. It was a pity that it took danger of life and death to stir him up to action.
Yet Mr Marble was so anxious that he called up to his wife, ‘Aren’t you ever coming down, Annie?’ and he bustled hastily through his dressing and breakfast and rushed off to the City a good half-hour before his usual time. No one in the crowded railway carriage guessed that the little man in the blue suit perched in the corner, his feet hardly touching the floor, who read his paper with such avidity, was hastening to either fortune or ruin, although perhaps a closer glance than ever Mr Marble received might have raised some strange speculations, considering his white face and his tortured light-blue eyes. He did not walk across the bridge from the station. Instead he scampered, breathlessly.
At the Bank he hung up his hat and coat carelessly, and dashed upstairs to the department of Foreign Exchange. The few clerks already there stared in wonder at his unwontedly early arrival. Straight to Mr Henderson’s room went Mr Marble, to that private sanctum which only he and Henderson had the right to enter. He looked at the tape machine. Fool that he was! Of course, there would be no quotations through yet. He might as well have stayed at home.
He came back to his desk, and sat down, making a pretence of being busy, though this was difficult to maintain, as the letters had not yet arrived. He waited for twenty minutes while the room filled with late arrivals of the one time-table and the early arrivals of the other. The customary din of the office began to develop. The telephones began to ring, and the clerks began to call to each other from desk to desk. Mr Marble became consc
ious that young Netley was speaking into the telephone opposite. He knew from Netley’s greeting to the unknown at the other end that he was talking to the exchange brokers in London Wall.
‘Yes,’ said Netley, ‘yes, no, what, really? No, I hadn’t heard, yes, yes, all right.’
Marble knew instinctively what he was talking about.
‘What’s Paris now, Netley?’ he asked.
Netley was so full of his surprising news that he did not notice the coincidence, and also actually added the hated ‘sir’.
‘Ninety-nine, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s gone up twenty points in the night. They don’t know why, yet.’
Marble knew. He was right, of course. He had a good head for finance when he chose to use it.
Henderson came in and passed through to his own room. Marble did not notice him. He was busy thinking. He was nerving himself to go on with the venture. If he sold now he could give Saunders some three hundred pounds’ profit – enough to satisfy him most probably. Anyway, he was safe for a bit. Keeping in close touch with the market as he naturally did, he could sell at the instant a decline seemed likely. But if he did what he had suggested to Saunders yesterday – sold out and then reinvested, he would be much less safe. A ten per cent drop would wipe out profit and capital as well, and Saunders would think he had been swindled. But all Marble’s judgement told him that the rise was bound to continue. There was a huge gain to be made if only he was bold enough – or desperate enough – to risk it. Henderson appeared at the door of his room.
‘Mr Marble,’ he said, ‘someone wants you.’
Marble went in and picked up the receiver.
‘Hullo,’ he said.
‘That Mr Marble?’ said the receiver.
‘Hallo, old bean, how’s things?’ said the receiver.
It was Saunders. He had begun to regret his transaction of the previous day long ago, but he was determined on playing the game to the last. Marble might have got four hundred pounds out of him by some nefarious means, but he was not going to get a rise out of him as well. He would see the thing through to the bitter end.