The Gates of Chance | Page 5

asked Jeckley.
I temporized. "It's unfamiliar, certainly."
Jeckley looked gloomy. "Nobody seems to know him," he said. "And
the name isn't to be found in the directory, telephone-book, or social

register."
Wonderful fellows, these newspaper men; I never should have thought
of going for Mr. Indiman like that.
"But why and wherefore?" I asked, cautiously.
"A mystery, my son. The card was shoved into my hand not half an
hour ago."
"Where?"
"At Twenty-third and Fourth. There were a lot of people around, and I
haven't the most distant notion of the guilty party."
"What does it mean?"
Jeckley shook his head. "What will you do about it?"
"I will make the call, of course."
"Of course!"
"There maybe a story there--who knows. Besides, it's directly on my
way to the Globe, and the curtain is not until eight-thirty. Tell you what,
old man; come along with me and see the thing to a finish. Fate leads a
card--Mr. Esper Indiman's--and we'll play the second hand; what do
you say?"
I declined firmly. God forbid that I should be featured, along with the
other exhibits in the case, on the first page of to-morrow's Planet.
"So," he assented, indifferently, and pushed his chair back. "Well, I
must push along--Lord! there's that copy--the old man will have it in
for me good and plenty if I don't get it down in time. Adios!" He
disappeared, and I let him depart willingly enough. Later on I went up
to the library for a smoke--no fear of encountering any Jeckleys there,
and, in fact, the room was entirely deserted. I looked at my watch; it
was ten minutes after seven, and that gave me a quarter of an hour in

which to think it over. Should I accept Mr. Indiman's invitation to call?
I looked around for an ash-tray, and, seeing one on the big writing-table
in the centre of the room, I walked over to it.
There were some bits of white lying in the otherwise empty tray-- the
fragments of a torn-up visiting-card. A portion of the engraved script
caught my eye, "Indi--"
It was not difficult to piece together the bits of pasteboard, for I knew
pretty well what I should find. Completed, the puzzle read, "Mr. Esper
Indiman," and in pencil, "Call at 4020 Madison Avenue at half-past
seven this evening."
So there were three of us--if not more. Rather absurd this assignment of
a separate quarter of an hour to each interview-- quite as though Mr.
Indiman desired to engage a valet and we were candidates for the
position. Evidently, an eccentric person, but it's a queer world anyhow,
as most of us know. There's my own case, for example. I'm supposed to
be a gentleman of leisure and means. Leisure, certainly, but the means
are slender enough, and proceeding in a diminishing ratio. That's the
penalty of having been born a rich man's son and educated chiefly in
the arts of riding off at polo and thrashing a single-sticker to windward
in a Cape Cod squall. But I sha'n't say a word against the governor,
God bless him! He gave me what I thought I wanted, and it wasn't his
fault that an insignificant blood-clot should beat him out on that day of
days--the corner in "R. P." It was never the Chicago crowd that could
have downed him--I'm glad to remember that.
Well, there being only the two of us, it didn't matter so much; it wasn't
as though there were a lot of helpless womenfolk to consider. After the
funeral and the settlement with the creditors there was left--I'm
ashamed to say how little, and, anyway, it's no one's business; the debts
were paid. What is a man to do, at thirty-odd, who has never turned his
hand to anything of use? The governor's friends? Well, they didn't
know how bad things were, and I couldn't go to them with the truth and
make them a present of my helpless, incompetent self.

And so for the last two years I've been sticking it out in a hall bedroom,
just west of the dead-line. I have a life membership in the club--what a
Christmas present that has turned out to be!--and twice in the week I
dine there. As for the rest of it, never mind-- there are things which a
man can do but of which he doesn't care to speak.
The future? Ah, you can answer that question quite as well as I. Now I
had calculated that, at my present rate of expenditure, I could hold out
until Easter, but there have been contingencies. To illustrate, I had my
pocket picked yesterday morning. Amusing-- isn't it?--that it should
have been my pocket--my pocket!
Fortunately I have stacks of clothes and some good pearl shirt- studs,
and