Loser Takes Al

With despair in my heart I knocked on the door of N°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.”