Loser Takes All (2 page)

3

T
HE
Gom was called the Gom by those who disliked him and by all those too far removed from him for any feeling at all. He was like the weather – unpredictable. When a new tape machine was installed, or new computers replaced the old reliable familiar ones, you said, ‘The Gom, I suppose,' before settling down to learn the latest toy. At Christmas little typewritten notes came round, addressed personally to each member of the staff (it must have given the typing pool a day's work, but the signature below the seasonal greeting, Herbert Dreuther, was rubber stamped). I was always a little surprised that the letter was not signed Gom. At that season of bonuses and cigars, unpredictable in amount, you sometimes heard him called by his full name, the Grand Old Man.

And there was something grand about him with his mane of white hair, his musician's head. Where other men collected pictures to escape death duties, he collected for pleasure. For a month at a time he would disappear in his yacht with a cargo of writers and actresses and oddments – a hypnotist, a man who had invented a new rose or discovered something about the endocrine glands. We on the ground floor, of course, would never have missed him: we should have known nothing about it if we had not read an account in the papers – the cheaper Sunday papers followed the progress of the yacht from port to port: they associated yachts with scandal, but there would never be any scandal on Dreuther's boat. He hated unpleasantness outside office hours.

I knew a little more than most from my position: diesel oil was included with wine under the general heading of Entertainment. At one time that caused trouble with Sir Walter Blixon. My chief told me about it. Blixon was the other power at No. 45. He held about as many shares as Dreuther, but he was not proportionally consulted. He was small, spotty, undistinguished, and consumed with jealousy. He could have had a yacht himself, but nobody would have sailed with him. When he objected to the diesel oil, Dreuther magnanimously gave way and then proceeded to knock all private petrol from the firm's account. As he lived in London he employed the firm's car, but Blixon had a house in Hampshire. What Dreuther courteously called a compromise was reached – things were to remain as they were. When Blixon managed somehow to procure himself a knighthood, he gained a momentary advantage until the rumour was said to have reached him that Dreuther had refused one in the same Honours List. One thing was certainly true – at a dinner party to which Blixon and my chief had been invited, Dreuther was heard to oppose a knighthood for a certain artist. ‘Impossible. He couldn't accept it. An O.M. (or possibly a C.H.) are the only honours that remain respectable.' It made matters worse that Blixon had never heard of the C.H.

But Blixon bided his time. One more packet of shares would give him control and we used to believe that his chief prayer at night (he was a churchwarden in Hampshire) was that these shares would reach the market while Dreuther was at sea.

4

W
ITH
despair in my heart I knocked on the door of No. 10 and entered, but even in my despair I memorized details – they would want to know them on the ground floor. The room was not like an office at all – there was a bookcase containing sets of English classics and it showed Dreuther's astuteness that Trollope was there and not Dickens, Stevenson and not Scott, thus giving an appearance of personal taste. There was an unimportant Renoir and a lovely little Boudin on the far wall, and one noticed at once that there was a sofa but not a desk. The few visible files were stacked on a Regency table, and Blixon and my chief and a stranger sat uncomfortably on the edge of easy chairs. Dreuther was almost out of sight – he lay practically on his spine in the largest and deepest chair, holding some papers above his head and scowling at them through the thickest glasses I have ever seen on a human face.

‘It is fantastic and it cannot be true,' he was saying in his deep guttural voice.

‘I don't see the importance . . .' Blixon said.

Dreuther took off his glasses and gazed across the room at me. ‘Who are you?' he asked.

‘This is Mr Bertram, my assistant,' the chief accountant said.

‘What is he doing here?'

‘You told me to send for him.'

‘I remember,' Dreuther said. ‘But that was half an hour ago.'

‘I was out at lunch, sir.'

‘Lunch?' Dreuther asked as though it were a new word.

‘It was during the lunch hour, Mr Dreuther,' the chief accountant said.

‘And they go out for lunch?'

‘Yes, Mr Dreuther.'

‘All of them?'

‘Most of them, I think.'

‘How very interesting. I did not know. Do you go out to lunch, Sir Walter?'

‘Of course I do, Dreuther. Now, for goodness sake, can't we leave this in the hands of Mr Arnold and Mr Bertram? The whole discrepancy only amounts to seven pounds fifteen and fourpence. I'm hungry, Dreuther.'

‘It's not the amount that matters, Sir Walter. You and I are in charge of a great business. We cannot leave our responsibilities to others. The shareholders . . .'

‘You are talking high falutin rubbish, Dreuther. The shareholders are you and I . . .'

‘And the Other, Sir Walter. Surely you never forget the Other. Mr Bertrand, please sit down and look at these accounts. Did they pass through your hands?'

With relief I saw that they belonged to a small subsidiary company with which I did not deal. ‘I have nothing to do with General Enterprises, sir.'

‘Never mind. You may know something about figures – it is obvious that no one else does. Please see if you notice anything wrong.'

The worst was obviously over. Dreuther had exposed an error and he did not really worry about a solution. ‘Have a cigar, Sir Walter. You see, you cannot do without me yet.' He lit his own cigar. ‘You have found the error, Mr Bertrand?'

‘Yes. In the General Purposes account.'

‘Exactly. Take your time, Mr Bertrand.'

‘If you don't mind, Dreuther, I have a table at the Berkeley . . .'

‘Of course, Sir Walter, if you are so hungry . . . I can deal with this matter.'

‘Coming, Naismith?' The stranger rose, made a kind of bob at Dreuther and sidled after Blixon.

‘And you, Arnold, you have had no lunch?'

‘It really doesn't matter, Mr Dreuther.'

‘You must pardon me. It had never crossed my mind . . . this – lunch hour – you call it?'

‘Really it doesn't . . .'

‘Mr Bertrand has had lunch. He and I will worry out this problem between us. Will you tell Miss Bullen that I am ready for my glass of milk? Would you like a glass of milk, Mr Bertrand?'

‘No thank you, sir.'

I found myself alone with the Gom. I felt exposed as he watched me fumble with the papers – on the eighth floor, on a mountain top, like one of those Old Testament characters to whom a King commanded, ‘Prophesy.'

‘Where do you lunch, Mr Bertrand?'

‘At the Volunteer.'

‘Is that a good restaurant?'

‘It's a public house, sir.'

‘They serve meals?'

‘Snacks.'

‘How very interesting.' He fell silent and I began all over again to add, carry, subtract. I was for a time puzzled. Human beings are capable of the most simple errors, the failing to carry a figure on, but we had all the best machines and a machine should be incapable . . .

‘I feel at sea, Mr Bertrand,' Dreuther said.

‘I confess, sir, I
am
a little too.'

‘Oh, I didn't mean in that way, not in that way at all. There is no hurry. We will put all that right. In our good time. I mean that when Sir Walter leaves my room I have a sense of calm, peace. I think of my yacht.' The cigar smoke blew between us. ‘
Luxe, calme et volupté
,' he said.

‘I can't find any
ordre
or
beauté
in these figures, sir.'

‘You read Baudelaire, Mr Bertrand?'

‘Yes.'

‘He is my favourite poet.'

‘I prefer Racine, sir. But I expect that is the mathematician in me.'

‘Don't depend too much on his classicism. There are moments in Racine, Mr Bertrand, when – the abyss opens.' I was aware of being watched while I started checking all over again. Then came the verdict. ‘How very interesting.'

But now at last I was really absorbed. I have never been able to understand the layman's indifference to figures. The veriest fool vaguely appreciates the poetry of the solar system – ‘the army of unalterable law' – and yet he cannot see glamour in the stately march of the columns, certain figures moving upwards, crossing over, one digit running the whole length of every column, emerging, like some elaborate drill at Trooping the Colour. I was following one small figure now, dodging in pursuit.

‘What computers do General Enterprises use, sir?'

‘You must ask Miss Bullen.'

‘I'm certain it's the Revolg. We gave them up five years ago. In old age they have a tendency to slip, but only when the 2 and the 7 are in relationship, and then not always, and then only in subtraction not addition. Now, here, sir, if you'll look, the combination happens four times, but only once has the slip occurred . . .'

‘Please don't explain to me, Mr Bertrand. It would be useless.'

‘There's nothing wrong except mechanically. Put these figures through one of our new machines. And scrap the Revolg (they've served long enough).'

I sat back on the sofa with a gasp of triumph. I felt the equal of any man. It had really been a very neat piece of detection. So simple when you knew, but everyone before me had accepted the perfection of the machine and no machine is perfect; in every join, rivet, screw lies original sin. I tried to explain that to Dreuther, but I was out of breath.

‘How very interesting, Mr Bertrand. I'm glad we have solved the problem while Sir Walter is satisfying his carnal desires. Are you sure you won't have a glass of milk?'

‘No thank you, sir. I must be getting back to the ground floor.'

‘No hurry. You look tired, Mr Bertrand. When did you last have a holiday?'

‘My annual leave's just coming round, sir. As a matter of fact I'm taking the opportunity to get married.'

‘Really. How interesting. Have you received your clock?'

‘Clock?'

‘I believe they always give a clock here. The first time, Mr Bertrand?'

‘Well . . . the second.'

‘Ah, the second stands much more chance.'

The Gom had certainly a way with him. He made you talk, confide, he gave an effect of being really interested – and I think he always was, for a moment. He was a prisoner in his room, and small facts of the outer world came to him with the shock of novelty; he entertained them as an imprisoned man entertains a mouse or treasures a leaf blown through the bars. I said, ‘We are going to Bournemouth for our honeymoon.'

‘Ah, that I do not think is a good idea. That is
too
classical. You should take the young woman to the south – the bay of Rio de Janeiro . . .'

‘I'm afraid I couldn't afford it, sir.'

‘The sun would do you good, Mr Bertrand. You are pale. Some would suggest South Africa, but that is no better than Bournemouth.'

‘I'm afraid that anyway . . .'

‘I have it, Mr Bertrand. You and your beautiful young wife will come on my yacht. All my guests leave me at Nice and Monte Carlo. I will pick you up then on the 30th. We will sail down the coast of Italy, the Bay of Naples, Capri, Ischia.'

‘I'm afraid, sir, it's a bit difficult. I'm very, very grateful, but you see we are getting married on the 30th.'

‘Where?'

‘St Luke's, Maida Hill.'

‘St Luke's! You are being too classical again, my friend. We must not be too classical with a beautiful young wife. I assume she is young, Mr Bertrand?'

‘Yes.'

‘And beautiful?'

‘I think so, sir.'

‘Then you must be married at Monte Carlo. Before the mayor. With myself as witness. On the 30th. At night we sail for Portofino. That is better than St Luke's or Bournemouth.'

‘But surely, sir, there would be legal difficulties . . .'

But he had already rung for Miss Bullen. I think he would have made a great actor; he already saw himself in the part of a Haroun who could raise a man from obscurity and make him the ruler over provinces. I have an idea too that he thought it would make Blixon jealous. It was the same attitude which he had taken to the knighthood. Blixon was probably planning to procure the Prime Minister to dinner. This would show how little Dreuther valued rank. It would take the salt out of any social success Blixon might have.

Miss Bullen appeared with a second glass of milk. ‘Miss Bullen, please arrange with our Nice office to have Mr Bertrand married in Monte Carlo on the 30th at 4 p.m.'

‘On the 30th, sir?'

‘There may be residence qualifications – they must settle those. They can include him on their staff for the last six months. They will have to see the British Consul too. You had better speak on the telephone to M. Tissand, but don't bother me about it. I want to hear no more of it. Oh, and tell Sir Walter Blixon that we have found an error in the Revolg machines. They have got to be changed at once. He had better consult Mr Bertrand who will advise him. I want to hear no more of that either. The muddle has given us a most exhausting morning. Well, Mr Bertrand, until the 30th then. Bring a set of Racine with you. Leave the rest to Miss Bullen. Everything is settled.' So he believed, of course, but there was still Cary.