HIGH STAKES
The summer day was drawing to a close. Over the terrace outside the
club-house the chestnut trees threw long shadows, and such bees as
still lingered in the flower-beds had the air of tired business men
who are about ready to shut up the office and go off to dinner and a
musical comedy. The Oldest Member, stirring in his favourite chair,
glanced at his watch and yawned.
As he did so, from the neighbourhood of the eighteenth green, hidden
from his view by the slope of the ground, there came suddenly a medley
of shrill animal cries, and he deduced that some belated match must
just have reached a finish. His surmise was correct. The babble of
voices drew nearer, and over the brow of the hill came a little group
of men. Two, who appeared to be the ringleaders in the affair, were
short and stout. One was cheerful and the other dejected. The rest of
the company consisted of friends and adherents; and one of these, a
young man who seemed to be amused, strolled to where the Oldest Member
sat.
“What,” inquired the Sage, “was all the shouting for?”
The young man sank into a chair and lighted a cigarette.
“Perkins and Broster,” he said, “were all square at the seventeenth,
and they raised the stakes to fifty pounds. They were both on the green
in seven, and Perkins had a two-foot putt to halve the match. He missed
it by six inches. They play pretty high, those two.”
“It is a curious thing,” said the Oldest Member, “that men whose golf
is of a kind that makes hardened caddies wince always do. The more
competent a player, the smaller the stake that contents him. It is
only when you get down into the submerged tenth of the golfing world
that you find the big gambling. However, I would not call fifty pounds
anything sensational in the case of two men like Perkins and Broster.
They are both well provided with the world’s goods. If you would care
to hear the story--”
The young man’s jaw fell a couple of notches.
“I had no idea it was so late,” he bleated. “I ought to be--”
“--of a man who played for really high stakes--”
“I promised to--”
“--I will tell it to you,” said the Sage.
“Look here,” said the young man, sullenly, “it isn’t one of those
stories about two men who fall in love with the same girl and play a
match to decide which is to marry her, is it? Because if so--”
“The stake to which I allude,” said the Oldest Member, “was something
far higher and bigger than a woman’s love. Shall I proceed?”
“All right,” said the young man, resignedly. “Snap into it.”
* * * * *
It has been well said--I think by the man who wrote the sub-titles for
“Cage-Birds of Society” (began the Oldest Member)--that wealth does not
always bring happiness. It was so with Bradbury Fisher, the hero of
the story which I am about to relate. One of America’s most prominent
tainted millionaires, he had two sorrows in life--his handicap refused
to stir from twenty-four and his wife disapproved of his collection of
famous golf relics. Once, finding him crooning over the trousers in
which Ouimet had won his historic replay against Vardon and Ray in the
American Open, she had asked him why he did not collect something worth
while, like Old Masters or first editions.
Worth while! Bradbury had forgiven, for he loved the woman, but he
could not forget.
For Bradbury Fisher, like so many men who have taken to the game in
middle age, after a youth misspent in the pursuits of commerce, was
no half-hearted enthusiast. Although he still occasionally descended
on Wall Street in order to pry the small investor loose from another
couple of million, what he really lived for now was golf and his
collection. He had begun the collection in his first year as a golfer,
and he prized it dearly. And when he reflected that his wife had
stopped him purchasing J. H. Taylor’s shirt-stud, which he could have
had for a few hundred pounds, the iron seemed to enter into his soul.
The distressing episode had occurred in London, and he was now on his
way back to New York, having left his wife to continue her holiday in
England. All through the voyage he remained moody and distrait; and
at the ship’s concert, at which he was forced to take the chair, he
was heard to observe to the purser that if the alleged soprano who had
just sung “My Little Grey Home in the West” had the immortal gall to
take a second encore he hoped that she would trip over a high note and
dislocate her neck.
* * * * *
Such was Bradbury Fisher’s mood throughout the ocean journey, and it
remained constant until he arrived at his palatial home at Goldenville,
Long Island, where, as he sat smoking a moody after-dinner cigar in the
Versailles drawing-room, Blizzard, his English butler, informed him
that Mr. Gladstone Bott desired to speak to him on the telephone.
“Tell him to go and boil himself,” said Bradbury.
“Very good, sir.”
“No, I’ll tell him myself,” said Bradbury. He strode to the telephone.
“Hullo!” he said curtly.
He was not fond of this Bott. There are certain men who seem fated
to go through life as rivals. It was so with Bradbury Fisher and J.
Gladstone Bott. Born in the same town within a few days of one another,
they had come to New York in the same week; and from that moment their
careers had run side by side. Fisher had made his first million two
days before Bott, but Bott’s first divorce had got half a column and
two sticks more publicity than Fisher’s.
At Sing-Sing, where each had spent several happy years of early
manhood, they had run neck and neck for the prizes which that
institution has to offer. Fisher secured the position of catcher on
the baseball nine in preference to Bott, but Bott just nosed Fisher
out when it came to the choice of a tenor for the glee club. Bott was
selected for the debating contest against Auburn, but Fisher got the
last place on the crossword puzzle team, with Bott merely first reserve.
They had taken up golf simultaneously, and their handicaps had remained
level ever since. Between such men it is not surprising that there was
little love lost.
“Hullo!” said Gladstone Bott. “So you’re back? Say, listen, Fisher. I
think I’ve got something that’ll interest you. Something you’ll be glad
to have in your golf collection.”
Bradbury Fisher’s mood softened. He disliked Bott, but that was no
reason for not doing business with him. And though he had little faith
in the man’s judgment it might be that he had stumbled upon some
valuable antique. There crossed his mind the comforting thought that
his wife was three thousand miles away and that he was no longer under
her penetrating eye--that eye which, so to speak, was always “about his
bath and about his bed and spying out all his ways.”
“I’ve just returned from a trip down South,” proceeded Bott, “and I
have secured the authentic baffy used by Bobby Jones in his first
important contest--the Infants’ All-In Championship of Atlanta,
Georgia, open to those of both sexes not yet having finished teething.”
Bradbury gasped. He had heard rumours that this treasure was in
existence, but he had never credited them.
“You’re sure?” he cried. “You’re positive it’s genuine?”
“I have a written guarantee from Mr. Jones, Mrs. Jones, and the nurse.”
“How much, Bott, old man?” stammered Bradbury. “How much do you want
for it, Gladstone, old top? I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Ha!”
“Five hundred thousand.”
“Ha, ha!”
“A million.”
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“Two million.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Bradbury Fisher’s strong face twisted like that of a tortured fiend.
He registered in quick succession rage, despair, hate, fury, anguish,
pique, and resentment. But when he spoke again his voice was soft and
gentle.
“Gladdy, old socks,” he said, “we have been friends for years.”
“No, we haven’t,” said Gladstone Bott.
“Yes, we have.”
“No, we haven’t.”
“Well, anyway, what about two million five hundred?”
“Nothing doing. Say, listen. Do you really want that baffy?”
“I do, Botty, old egg, I do indeed.”
“Then listen. I’ll exchange it for Blizzard.”
“For Blizzard?” quavered Fisher.
“For Blizzard.”
It occurs to me that, when describing the closeness of the rivalry
between these two men I may have conveyed the impression that in no
department of life could either claim a definite advantage over
the other. If that is so, I erred. It is true that in a general
way, whatever one had, the other had something equally good to
counterbalance it; but in just one matter Bradbury Fisher had triumphed
completely over Gladstone Bott. Bradbury Fisher had the finest English
butler on Long Island.
Blizzard stood alone. There is a regrettable tendency on the part of
English butlers to-day to deviate more and more from the type which
made their species famous. The modern butler has a nasty nack of being
a lissom young man in perfect condition who looks like the son of the
house. But Blizzard was of the fine old school. Before coming to the
Fisher home he had been for fifteen years in the service of an earl,
and his appearance suggested that throughout those fifteen years he
had not let a day pass without its pint of port. He radiated port and
pop-eyed dignity. He had splay feet and three chins, and when he walked
his curving waistcoat preceded him like the advance guard of some royal
procession.
From the first, Bradbury had been perfectly aware that Bott coveted
Blizzard, and the knowledge had sweetened his life. But this was the
first time he had come out into the open and admitted it.
“Blizzard?” whispered Fisher.
“Blizzard,” said Bott firmly. “It’s my wife’s birthday next week, and
I’ve been wondering what to give her.”
Bradbury Fisher shuddered from head to foot, and his legs wobbled like
asparagus stalks. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. The
serpent was tempting him--tempting him grievously.
“You’re sure you won’t take three million--or four--or something like
that?”
“No; I want Blizzard.”
Bradbury Fisher passed his handkerchief over his streaming brow.
“So be it,” he said in a low voice.
* * * * *
The Jones baffy arrived that night, and for some hours Bradbury Fisher
gloated over it with the unmixed joy of a collector who has secured
the prize of a lifetime. Then, stealing gradually over him, came the
realisation of what he had done.
He was thinking of his wife and what she would say when she heard of
this. Blizzard was Mrs. Fisher’s pride and joy. She had never, like the
poet, nursed a dear gazelle, but, had she done so, her attitude towards
it would have been identical with her attitude towards Blizzard.
Although so far away, it was plain that her thoughts still lingered
with the pleasure she had left at home, for on his arrival Bradbury had
found three cables awaiting him.
The first ran:
“_How is Blizzard? Reply._”
The second:
“_How is Blizzard’s sciatica? Reply._”
The third:
“_Blizzard’s hiccups. How are they? Suggest Doctor Murphy’s Tonic
Swamp-Juice. Highly spoken of. Three times a day after meals. Try for
week and cable result._”
It did not require a clairvoyant to tell Bradbury that, if on her
return she found that he had disposed of Blizzard in exchange for a
child’s cut-down baffy, she would certainly sue him for divorce. And
there was not a jury in America that would not give their verdict in
her favour without a dissentient voice. His first wife, he recalled,
had divorced him on far flimsier grounds. So had his second, third,
and fourth. And Bradbury loved his wife. There had been a time in his
life when, if he lost a wife, he had felt philosophically that there
would be another along in a minute; but, as a man grows older, he tends
to become set in his habits, and he could not contemplate existence
without the company of the present incumbent.
What, therefore, to do? What, when you came right down to it, to do?
There seemed no way out of the dilemma. If he kept the Jones baffy, no
other price would satisfy Bott’s jealous greed. And to part with the
baffy, now that it was actually in his possession, was unthinkable.
And then, in the small hours of the morning, as he tossed sleeplessly
on his Louis Quinze bed, his giant brain conceived a plan.
On the following afternoon he made his way to the club-house, and was
informed that Bott was out playing a round with another millionaire of
his acquaintance. Bradbury waited, and presently his rival appeared.
“Hey!” said Gladstone Bott, in his abrupt, uncouth way. “When are you
going to deliver that butler?”
“I will make the shipment at the earliest date,” said Bradbury.
“I was expecting him last night.”
“You shall have him shortly.”
“What do you feed him on?” asked Gladstone Bott.
“Oh, anything you have yourselves. Put sulphur in his port in the hot
weather. Tell me, how did your match go?”
“He beat me. I had rotten luck.”
Bradbury Fisher’s eyes gleamed. His moment had come.
“Luck?” he said. “What do you mean, luck? Luck has nothing to do with
it. You’re always beefing about your luck. The trouble with you is that
you play rottenly.”
“What!”
“It is no use trying to play golf unless you learn the first principles
and do it properly. Look at the way you drive.”
“What’s wrong with my driving?”
“Nothing, except that you don’t do anything right. In driving, as the
club comes back in the swing, the weight should be shifted by degrees,
quietly and gradually, until, when the club has reached its top-most
point, the whole weight of the body is supported by the right leg, the
left foot being turned at the time and the left knee bent in toward
the right leg. But, regardless of how much you perfect your style, you
cannot develop any method which will not require you to keep your head
still so that you can see your ball clearly.”
“Hey!”
“It is obvious that it is impossible to introduce a jerk or a sudden
violent effort into any part of the swing without disturbing the
balance or moving the head. I want to drive home the fact that it is
absolutely essential to--”
“Hey!” cried Gladstone Bott.
The man was shaken to the core. From the local pro, and from scratch
men of his acquaintance, he would gladly have listened to this sort
of thing by the hour, but to hear these words from Bradbury Fisher,
whose handicap was the same as his own, and out of whom it was his
unperishable conviction that he could hammer the tar any time he got
him out on the links, was too much.
“Where do you get off,” he demanded, heatedly, “trying to teach me
golf?”
Bradbury Fisher chuckled to himself. Everything was working out as his
subtle mind had foreseen.
“My dear fellow,” he said, “I was only speaking for your good.”
“I like your nerve! I can lick you any time we start.”
“It’s easy enough to talk.”
“I trimmed you twice the week before you sailed to England.”
“Naturally,” said Bradbury Fisher, “in a friendly round, with only a
few thousand dollars on the match, a man does not extend himself. You
wouldn’t dare to play me for anything that really mattered.”
“I’ll play you when you like for anything you like.”
“Very well. I’ll play you for Blizzard.”
“Against what?”
“Oh, anything you please. How about a couple of railroads?”
“Make it three.”
“Very well.”
“Next Friday suit you?”
“Sure,” said Bradbury Fisher.
It seemed to him that his troubles were over. Like all twenty-four
handicap men, he had the most perfect confidence in his ability to beat
all other twenty-four handicap men. As for Gladstone Bott, he knew that
he could disembowel him any time he was able to lure him out of the
club-house.
* * * * *
Nevertheless, as he breakfasted on the morning of the fateful match,
Bradbury Fisher was conscious of an unwonted nervousness. He was no
weakling. In Wall Street his phlegm in moments of stress was a by-word.
On the famous occasion when the B. and G. crowd had attacked C. and
D., and in order to keep control of L. and M. he had been compelled to
buy so largely of S. and T., he had not turned a hair. And yet this
morning, in endeavouring to prong up segments of bacon, he twice missed
the plate altogether and on a third occasion speared himself in the
cheek with his fork. The spectacle of Blizzard, so calm, so competent,
so supremely the perfect butler, unnerved him.
“I am jumpy to-day, Blizzard,” he said forcing a laugh.
“Yes, sir. You do, indeed, appear to have the willies.”
“Yes. I am playing a very important golf-match this morning.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“I must pull myself together, Blizzard.”
“Yes, sir. And, if I may respectfully make the suggestion, you should
endeavour, when in action, to keep the head down and the eye rigidly
upon the ball.”
“I will, Blizzard, I will,” said Bradbury Fisher, his keen eyes
clouding under a sudden mist of tears. “Thank you, Blizzard, for the
advice.”
“Not at all, sir.”
“How is your sciatica, Blizzard?”
“A trifle improved, I thank you, sir.”
“And your hiccups?”
“I am conscious of a slight though possibly only a temporary relief,
sir.”
“Good,” said Bradbury Fisher.
He left the room with a firm step; and proceeding to his library, read
for a while portions of that grand chapter in James Braid’s “Advanced
Golf” which deals with driving into the wind. It was a fair and
cloudless morning, but it was as well to be prepared for emergencies.
Then, feeling that he had done all that could be done, he ordered the
car and was taken to the links.
Gladstone Bott was awaiting him on the first tee, in company with two
caddies. A curt greeting, a spin of the coin, and Gladstone Bott,
securing the honour, stepped out to begin the contest.
* * * * *
Although there are, of course, endless sub-species in their ranks, not
all of which have yet been classified by science, twenty-four handicap
golfers may be stated broadly to fall into two classes, the dashing
and the cautious--those, that is to say, who endeavour to do every
hole in a brilliant one and those who are content to win with a steady
nine. Gladstone Bott was one of the cautious brigade. He fussed about
for a few moments like a hen scratching gravel, then with a stiff
quarter-swing sent his ball straight down the fairway for a matter of
seventy yards, and it was Bradbury Fisher’s turn to drive.
Now, normally, Bradbury Fisher was essentially a dasher. It was his
habit, as a rule, to raise his left foot some six inches from the
ground, and having swayed forcefully back on to his right leg, to
sway sharply forward again and lash out with sickening violence in
the general direction of the ball. It was a method which at times
produced excellent results, though it had the flaw that it was somewhat
uncertain. Bradbury Fisher was the only member of the club, with the
exception of the club champion, who had ever carried the second green
with his drive; but, on the other hand, he was also the only member
who had ever laid his drive on the eleventh dead to the pin of the
sixteenth.
But to-day the magnitude of the issues at stake had wrought a change
in him. Planted firmly on both feet, he fiddled at the ball in the
manner of one playing spillikens. When he swung, it was with a swing
resembling that of Gladstone Bott; and, like Bott, he achieved a nice,
steady, rainbow-shaped drive of some seventy yards straight down the
middle. Bott replied with an eighty-yard brassie shot. Bradbury held
him with another. And so, working their way cautiously across the
prairie, they came to the green, where Bradbury, laying his third putt
dead, halved the hole.
The second was a repetition of the first, the third and fourth
repetitions of the second. But on the fifth green the fortunes of the
match began to change. Here Gladstone Bott, faced with a fifteen-foot
putt to win, smote his ball firmly off the line, as had been his
practice at each of the preceding holes, and the ball, hitting a
worm-cast and bounding off to the left, ran on a couple of yards, hit
another worm-cast, bounded to the right, and finally, bumping into a
twig, leaped to the left again and clattered into the tin.
“One up,” said Gladstone Bott. “Tricky, some of these greens are. You
have to gauge the angles to a nicety.”
At the sixth a donkey in an adjoining field uttered a raucous bray just
as Bott was addressing his ball with a mashie-niblick on the edge of
the green. He started violently and, jerking his club with a spasmodic
reflex action of the forearm, holed out.
“Nice work,” said Gladstone Bott.
The seventh was a short hole, guarded by two large bunkers between
which ran a narrow foot-path of turf. Gladstone Bott’s mashie-shot,
falling short, ran over the rough, peered for a moment into the depths
to the left, then, winding up the path, trickled on to the green,
struck a fortunate slope, acquired momentum, ran on, and dropped into
the hole.
“Nearly missed it,” said Gladstone Bott, drawing a deep breath.
* * * * *
Bradbury Fisher looked out upon a world that swam and danced before his
eyes. He had not been prepared for this sort of thing. The way things
were shaping, he felt that it would hardly surprise him now if the cups
were to start jumping up and snapping at Bott’s ball like starving dogs.
“Three up,” said Gladstone Bott.
With a strong effort Bradbury Fisher mastered his feelings. His mouth
set grimly. Matters, he perceived, had reached a crisis. He saw now
that he had made a mistake in allowing himself to be intimidated by
the importance of the occasion into being scientific. Nature had never
intended him for a scientific golfer, and up till now he had been
behaving like an animated illustration out of a book by Vardon. He
had taken his club back along and near the turf, allowing it to trend
around the legs as far as was permitted by the movement of the arms. He
had kept his right elbow close to the side, this action coming into
operation before the club was allowed to describe a section of a circle
in an upward direction, whence it was carried by means of a slow,
steady, swinging movement. He had pivoted, he had pronated the wrists,
and he had been careful about the lateral hip-shift.
And it had been all wrong. That sort of stuff might suit some people,
but not him. He was a biffer, a swatter, and a slosher; and it flashed
upon him now that only by biffing, swatting, and sloshing as he had
never biffed, swatted, and sloshed before could he hope to recover the
ground he had lost.
Gladstone Bott was not one of those players who grow careless with
success. His drive at the eighth was just as steady and short as ever.
But this time Bradbury Fisher made no attempt to imitate him. For seven
holes he had been checking his natural instincts, and now he drove with
all the banked-up fury that comes with release from long suppression.
For an instant he remained poised on one leg like a stork; then there
was a whistle and a crack, and the ball, smitten squarely in the
midriff, flew down the course and, soaring over the bunkers, hit the
turf and gambolled to within twenty yards of the green.
He straightened out the kinks in his spine with a grim smile. Allowing
himself the regulation three putts, he would be down in five, and only
a miracle could give Gladstone Bott anything better than a seven. “Two
down,” he said some minutes later, and Gladstone Bott nodded sullenly.
It was not often that Bradbury Fisher kept on the fairway with two
consecutive drives, but strange things were happening to-day. Not only
was his drive at the ninth a full two hundred and forty yards, but it
was also perfectly straight.
“One down,” said Bradbury Fisher, and Bott nodded even more sullenly
than before.
There are few things more demoralising than to be consistently
outdriven; and when he is outdriven by a hundred and seventy yards at
two consecutive holes the bravest man is apt to be shaken. Gladstone
Bott was only human. It was with a sinking heart that he watched his
opponent heave and sway on the tenth tee; and when the ball once more
flew straight and far down the course a strange weakness seemed to come
over him. For the first time he lost his morale and topped. The ball
trickled into the long grass, and after three fruitless stabs at it
with a niblick he picked up, and the match was squared.
At the eleventh Bradbury Fisher also topped, and his tee-shot, though
nice and straight, travelled only a couple of feet. He had to scramble
to halve in eight.
The twelfth was another short hole; and Bradbury, unable to curb
the fine, careless rapture which had crept into his game, had the
misfortune to over-shoot the green by some sixty yards, thus enabling
his opponent to take the lead once more.
The thirteenth and fourteenth were halved, but Bradbury, driving
another long ball, won the fifteenth, squaring the match.
* * * * *
It seemed to Bradbury Fisher, as he took his stand on the sixteenth
tee, that he now had the situation well in hand. At the thirteenth and
fourteenth his drive had flickered, but on the fifteenth it had come
back in all its glorious vigour and there appeared to be no reason to
suppose that it had not come to stay. He recollected exactly how he
had done that last colossal slosh, and he now prepared to reproduce
the movements precisely as before. The great thing to remember was to
hold the breath on the back-swing and not to release it before the
moment of impact. Also, the eyes should not be closed until late in the
down-swing. All great golfers have their little secrets, and that was
Bradbury’s.
With these aids to success firmly fixed in his mind, Bradbury Fisher
prepared to give the ball the nastiest bang that a golf-ball had ever
had since Edward Blackwell was in his prime. He drew in his breath and,
with lungs expanded to their fullest capacity, heaved back on to his
large, flat right foot. Then, clenching his teeth, he lashed out.
When he opened his eyes, they fell upon a horrid spectacle. Either
he had closed those eyes too soon or else he had breathed too
precipitately--whatever the cause, the ball, which should have gone due
south, was travelling with great speed sou’-sou’-east. And, even as he
gazed, it curved to earth and fell into as uninviting a bit of rough
as he had ever penetrated. And he was a man who had spent much time in
many roughs.
* * * * *
Leaving Gladstone Bott to continue his imitation of a spavined
octogenarian rolling peanuts with a toothpick, Bradbury Fisher,
followed by his caddie, set out on the long trail into the jungle.
Hope did not altogether desert him as he walked. In spite of its
erratic direction, the ball had been so shrewdly smitten that it was
not far from the green. Provided luck was with him and the lie not
too desperate, a mashie would put him on the carpet. It was only when
he reached the rough and saw what had happened that his heart sank.
There the ball lay, half hidden in the grass, while above it waved the
straggling tentacle of some tough-looking shrub. Behind it was a stone,
and behind the stone, at just the elevation required to catch the
back-swing of the club, was a tree. And, by an ironical stroke of fate
which drew from Bradbury a hollow, bitter laugh, only a few feet to the
right was a beautiful smooth piece of turf from which it would have
been a pleasure to play one’s second.
Dully, Bradbury looked round to see how Bott was getting on. And then
suddenly, as he found that Bott was completely invisible behind the
belt of bushes through which he had just passed, a voice seemed to
whisper to him, “Why not?”
Bradbury Fisher, remember, had spent thirty years in Wall Street.
It was at this moment that he realised that he was not alone. His
caddie was standing at his side.
Bradbury Fisher gazed upon the caddie, whom until now he had not had
any occasion to observe with any closeness.
The caddie was not a boy. He was a man, apparently in the middle
forties, with bushy eyebrows and a walrus moustache; and there was
something about his appearance which suggested to Bradbury that here
was a kindred spirit. He reminded Bradbury a little of Spike Huggins,
the safe-blower, who had been a fresher with him at Sing-Sing. It
seemed to him that this caddie could be trusted in a delicate matter
involving secrecy and silence. Had he been some babbling urchin, the
risk might have been too great.
“Caddie,” said Bradbury.
“Sir?” said the caddie.
“Yours is an ill-paid job,” said Bradbury.
“It is, indeed, sir,” said the caddie.
“Would you like to earn fifty dollars?”
“I would prefer to earn a hundred.”
“I meant a hundred,” said Bradbury.
He produced a roll of bills from his pocket, and peeled off one of
that value. Then, stooping, he picked up his ball and placed it on the
little oasis of turf. The caddie bowed intelligently.
“You mean to say,” cried Gladstone Bott, a few moments later, “that you
were out with your second? With your second!”
“I had a stroke of luck.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t about six strokes of luck?”
“My ball was right out in the open in an excellent lie.”
“Oh!” said Gladstone Bott, shortly.
“I have four for it, I think.”
“One down,” said Gladstone Bott.
“And two to play,” trilled Bradbury.
It was with a light heart that Bradbury Fisher teed up on the
seventeenth. The match, he felt, was as good as over. The whole essence
of golf is to discover a way of getting out of rough without losing
strokes; and with this sensible, broad-minded man of the world caddying
for him he seemed to have discovered the ideal way. It cost him
scarcely a pang when he saw his drive slice away into a tangle of long
grass, but for the sake of appearances he affected a little chagrin.
“Tut, tut!” he said.
“I shouldn’t worry,” said Gladstone Bott. “You will probably find it
sitting upon an india-rubber tee which some one has dropped there.”
He spoke sardonically, and Bradbury did not like his manner. But then
he never had liked Gladstone Bott’s manner, so what of that? He made
his way to where the ball had fallen. It was lying under a bush.
“Caddie,” said Bradbury.
“Sir?” said the caddie.
“A hundred?”
“And fifty.”
“And fifty,” said Bradbury Fisher.
Gladstone Bott was still toiling along the fairway when Bradbury
reached the green.
“How many?” he asked, eventually winning to the goal.
“On in two,” said Bradbury. “And you?”
“Playing seven.”
“Then let me see. If you take two putts, which is most unlikely, I
shall have six for the hole and match.”
A minute later Bradbury had picked up his ball out of the cup. He stood
there, basking in the sunshine, his heart glowing with quiet happiness.
It seemed to him that he had never seen the countryside looking so
beautiful. The birds appeared to be singing as they had never sung
before. The trees and the rolling turf had taken on a charm beyond
anything he had ever encountered. Even Gladstone Bott looked almost
bearable.
“A very pleasant match,” he said, cordially, “conducted throughout in
the most sporting spirit. At one time I thought you were going to pull
it off, old man, but there--class will tell.”
“I will now make my report,” said the caddie with the walrus moustache.
“Do so,” said Gladstone Bott, briefly.
Bradbury Fisher stared at the man with blanched cheeks. The sun had
ceased to shine, the birds had stopped singing. The trees and the
rolling turf looked pretty rotten, and Gladstone Bott perfectly foul.
His heart was leaden with a hideous dread.
“Your report? Your--your report? What do you mean?”
“You don’t suppose,” said Gladstone Bott, “that I would play you an
important match unless I had detectives watching you, do you? This
gentleman is from the Quick Results Agency. What have you to report?”
he said, turning to the caddie.
The caddie removed his bushy eyebrows, and with a quick gesture swept
off his moustache.
“On the twelfth inst.,” he began in a monotonous, sing-song voice,
“acting upon instructions received, I made my way to the Goldenville
Golf Links in order to observe the movements of the man Fisher. I had
adopted for the occasion the Number Three disguise and--”
“All right, all right,” said Gladstone Bott, impatiently. “You can skip
all that. Come down to what happened at the sixteenth.”
The caddie looked wounded, but he bowed deferentially.
“At the sixteenth hole the man Fisher moved his ball into what--from
his actions and furtive manner--I deduced to be a more favourable
position.”
“Ah!” said Gladstone Bott.
“On the seventeenth the man Fisher picked up his ball and threw it with
a movement of the wrist on to the green.”
“It’s a lie. A foul and contemptible lie,” shouted Bradbury Fisher.
“Realising that the man Fisher might adopt this attitude, sir,” said
the caddie, “I took the precaution of snapshotting him in the act with
my miniature wrist-watch camera, the detective’s best friend.”
Bradbury Fisher covered his face with his hands and uttered a hollow
groan.
“My match,” said Gladstone Bott, with vindicative triumph. “I’ll
trouble you to deliver that butler to me f.o.b. at my residence not
later than noon to-morrow. Oh yes, and I was forgetting. You owe me
three railroads.”
* * * * *
Blizzard, dignified but kindly, met Bradbury in the Byzantine hall on
his return home.
“I trust your golf-match terminated satisfactorily, sir?” said the
butler.
A pang, almost too poignant to be borne, shot through Bradbury.
“No, Blizzard,” he said. “No. Thank you for your kind inquiry, but I
was not in luck.”
“Too bad, sir,” said Blizzard, sympathetically. “I trust the prize at
stake was not excessive?”
“Well--er--well, it was rather big. I should like to speak to you about
that a little later, Blizzard.”
“At any time that is suitable to you, sir. If you will ring for one of
the assistant-underfootmen when you desire to see me, sir, he will find
me in my pantry. Meanwhile, sir, this cable arrived for you a short
while back.”
Bradbury took the envelope listlessly. He had been expecting a
communication from his London agents announcing that they had bought
Kent and Sussex, for which he had instructed them to make a firm offer
just before he left England. No doubt this was their cable.
He opened the envelope, and started as if it had contained a scorpion.
It was from his wife.
“_Returning immediately ‘Aquitania,’” (it ran). “Docking Friday night.
Meet without fail._”
Bradbury stared at the words, frozen to the marrow. Although he had
been in a sort of trance ever since that dreadful moment on the
seventeenth green, his great brain had not altogether ceased to
function; and, while driving home in the car, he had sketched out
roughly a plan of action which, he felt, might meet the crisis.
Assuming that Mrs. Fisher was to remain abroad for another month, he
had practically decided to buy a daily paper, insert in it a front-page
story announcing the death of Blizzard, forward the clipping to his
wife, and then sell his house and move to another neighbourhood. In
this way it might be that she would never learn of what had occurred.
But if she was due back next Friday, the scheme fell through and
exposure was inevitable.
He wondered dully what had caused her change of plans, and came to the
conclusion that some feminine sixth sense must have warned her of peril
threatening Blizzard. With a good deal of peevishness he wished that
Providence had never endowed women with this sixth sense. A woman with
merely five took quite enough handling.
“Sweet suffering soup-spoons!” groaned Bradbury.
“Sir?” said Blizzard.
“Nothing,” said Bradbury.
“Very good, sir,” said Blizzard.
* * * * *
For a man with anything on his mind, any little trouble calculated to
affect the _joie de vivre_, there are few spots less cheering than the
Customs sheds of New York. Draughts whistle dismally there--now to,
now fro. Strange noises are heard. Customs officials chew gum and lurk
grimly in the shadows, like tigers awaiting the luncheon-gong. It is
not surprising that Bradbury’s spirits, low when he reached the place,
should have sunk to zero long before the gangplank was lowered and the
passengers began to stream down it.
His wife was among the first to land. How beautiful she looked, thought
Bradbury, as he watched her. And, alas, how intimidating. His tastes
had always lain in the direction of spirited women. His first wife
had been spirited. So had his second, third and fourth. And the one
at the moment holding office was perhaps the most spirited of the
whole platoon. For one long instant, as he went to meet her, Bradbury
Fisher was conscious of a regret that he had not married one of those
meek, mild girls who suffer uncomplainingly at their husband’s hands
in the more hectic type of feminine novel. What he felt he could have
done with at the moment was the sort of wife who thinks herself dashed
lucky if the other half of the sketch does not drag her round the
billiard-room by her hair, kicking her the while with spiked shoes.
Three conversational openings presented themselves to him as he
approached her.
“Darling, there is something I want to tell you--”
“Dearest, I have a small confession to make--”
“Sweetheart, I don’t know if by any chance you remember Blizzard, our
butler. Well, it’s like this--”
But, in the event, it was she who spoke first.
“Oh, Bradbury,” she cried, rushing into his arms, “I’ve done the most
awful thing, and you must try to forgive me!”
Bradbury blinked. He had never seen her in this strange mood before. As
she clung to him, she seemed timid, fluttering, and--although a woman
who weighed a full hundred and fifty-seven pounds--almost fragile.
“What is it?” he inquired, tenderly. “Has somebody stolen your jewels?”
“No, no.”
“Have you been losing money at bridge?”
“No, no. Worse than that.”
Bradbury started.
“You didn’t sing ‘My Little Grey Home in the West’ at the ship’s
concert?” he demanded, eyeing her closely.
“No, no! Ah, how can I tell you? Bradbury, look! You see that man over
there?”
Bradbury followed her pointing finger. Standing in an attitude of
negligent dignity beside a pile of trunks under the letter V was a
tall, stout, ambassadorial man, at the very sight of whom, even at
this distance, Bradbury Fisher felt an odd sense of inferiority. His
pendulous cheeks, his curving waistcoat, his protruding eyes, and
the sequence of rolling chins combined to produce in Bradbury that
instinctive feeling of being in the presence of a superior which we
experience when meeting scratch golfers, head-waiters of fashionable
restaurants, and traffic-policemen. A sudden pang of suspicion pierced
him.
“Well?” he said, hoarsely. “What of him?”
“Bradbury, you must not judge me too harshly. We were thrown together
and I was tempted--”
“Woman,” thundered Bradbury Fisher, “who is this man?”
“His name is Vosper.”
“And what is there between you and him, and when did it start, and why
and how and where?”
Mrs. Fisher dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
“It was at the Duke of Bootle’s, Bradbury. I was invited there for the
week-end.”
“And this man was there?”
“Yes.”
“Ha! Proceed!”
“The moment I set eyes on him, something seemed to go all over me.”
“Indeed!”
“At first it was his mere appearance. I felt that I had dreamed of
such a man all my life, and that for all these wasted years I had been
putting up with the second-best.”
“Oh, you did, eh? Really? Is that so? You did, did you?” snorted
Bradbury Fisher.
“I couldn’t help it, Bradbury. I know I have always seemed so devoted
to Blizzard, and so I was. But, honestly, there is no comparison
between them--really there isn’t. You should see the way Vosper stood
behind the Duke’s chair. Like a high priest presiding over some mystic
religious ceremony. And his voice when he asks you if you will have
sherry or hock! Like the music of some wonderful organ. I couldn’t
resist him. I approached him delicately, and found that he was willing
to come to America. He had been eighteen years with the Duke, and he
told me he couldn’t stand the sight of the back of his head any longer.
So--”
Bradbury Fisher reeled.
“This man--this Vosper. Who is he?”
“Why, I’m telling you, honey. He was the Duke’s butler, and now he’s
ours. Oh, you know how impulsive I am. Honestly, it wasn’t till we were
half-way across the Atlantic that I suddenly said to myself, ‘What
about Blizzard?’ What am I to do, Bradbury? I simply haven’t the nerve
to fire Blizzard. And yet what will happen when he walks into his
pantry and finds Vosper there? Oh, think, Bradbury, think!”
Bradbury Fisher was thinking--and for the first time in a week without
agony.
“Evangeline,” he said, gravely, “this is awkward.”
“I know.”
“Extremely awkward.”
“I know, I know. But surely you can think of some way out of the
muddle!”
“I may. I cannot promise, but I may.” He pondered deeply. “Ha! I have
it! It is just possible that I may be able to induce Gladstone Bott to
take on Blizzard.”
“Do you really think he would?”
“He may--if I play my cards carefully. At any rate, I will try to
persuade him. For the moment you and Vosper had better remain in New
York, while I go home and put the negotiations in train. If I am
successful, I will let you know.”
“Do try your very hardest.”
“I think I shall be able to manage it. Gladstone and I are old friends,
and he would stretch a point to oblige me. But let this be a lesson to
you, Evangeline.”
“Oh, I will.”
“By the way,” said Bradbury Fisher, “I am cabling my London agents
to-day to instruct them to buy J. H. Taylor’s shirt-stud for my
collection.”
“Quite right, Bradbury darling. And anything else you want in that way
you will get, won’t you?”
“I will,” said Bradbury Fisher.