The Gambling Man

His chest was heaving and he was still laughing when he looked into her face again and said, ‘I’ve thought it, but now I’ll say it, you’re a remarkable woman.’

‘Oh, please don’t judge my intelligence on the fact that I recognized something that should have been staring everyone in the face, the police into the bargain. Yet at the same time I don’t think the police were as stupid as they made out to be, but when they asked you had you seen the assailant or assailants, I was given to understand you said no, you had been attacked while walking down a side street.’

He screwed up his eyes at her now and, his face serious, he asked, ‘But . . . but how could you know that I gambled?’

She stared at him for a long moment before saying, and seriously now, ‘A short while ago you said you’d always tell me the truth. I understood, of course, that you were referring to the future, but now I’m going to ask you: Is there anything further you want to tell me, anything, about your past say?’

For a moment he wondered if she were referring to his birth. He stared into her eyes, then gulped in his throat as he thought, She can’t know about the other business, else I wouldn’t be here now.

‘Think hard before you answer.’

He felt the colour flooding his face again. They were staring into each other’s eyes. His body was sweating; it was as if he were having a nightmare in broad daylight. His voice was a gruff whisper when he said, ‘Well, knowin’ what you know, or think you know, why am I sitting here now?’

Her voice was equally low as she replied, ‘I’ll answer that in a moment when you answer my question.’

His gaze riveted on her, he pondered. If she didn’t know, if she wasn’t referring to John George’s business then what he was about to say would likely put the kibosh on her proposal. But if it was that she was hinting at, then indeed, aye, by God! indeed she was a remarkable woman.

He closed his eyes for a moment, lowered his head, and turned it to the side before he muttered, as if he were in the confessional box: ‘I took the five pounds that John George did time for. I went back that night and helped meself, but like him I expected to be there first thing on the Monday morning to return it. If . . . if I had been there and you had caught me I would have stood me rap along of him, but by the time I knew what had happened I was sick and weak, and petrified at the thought of prison.’ His head still to the side, he jerked his neck out of his collar before going on, ‘I . . . . I have a fear on me, always have had since I was nailed down in a box as a child. I fear being shut in, I can’t stand being behind closed doors of any kind. I . . . I should have come forward, I know, but there it is, I didn’t . . . Is that what you want to know?’

There was a long pause and when she made no reply he looked at her again and said ‘You knew this all along?’

‘No, not from the beginning,’ she shook her head slowly. ‘But in the court I felt the man was speaking the truth and I recalled his amazement when I mentioned that not ten shillings but five pounds ten was missing. He was so astonished he couldn’t speak. But in any case, five pounds ten or ten shillings he had to be brought to book, for, as he admitted, he had been tampering with the books for some long time, and as he also admitted, not only for ten shillings at a time either.’

All this time their hands had been joined and he looked down on them as he asked quietly, ‘Why am I here now? Tell me that. Knowing all this about me, why am I here now?’

She now withdrew her hands from his and, rising to her feet, went towards the fire and once again looked at the picture above the mantelpiece. Then she wetted her lips twice and drew in a long breath before she said softly, I . . . I happen to care for you . . . This, of course, wipes out all my fine talk about friendship et cetera, but you see—’ again she wetted her lips—‘I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you in my father’s office. It was just like that, quickly, the most sudden thing in my life. I remember thinking, that’s the kind of man I would like to marry if it were possible. I knew it was a preposterous desire, quite hopeless, utterly hopeless. My father would never have countenanced it. Strangely, he didn’t like you. But then he liked so few people, and if I’d shown the slightest interest in you, even mentioned your name in a kindly fashion, he would have dismissed you.’