“Do you like card tricks?”
“No, I hate card tricks,” I answered.
“Well, I’ll just show you this one.”
He showed me three. Then I said I would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at table.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “I’ve already taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same state-room we might just as well sit at the same table.”
I did not like Mr Kelada.
I not only shared a cabin with him and ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted.
He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auctions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, organized the concert, and arranged the fancy-dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best-hated man in the ship. We called him Mr Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at meal times that he was most intolerable. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening vanity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unimportant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor’s table. Mr Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doctor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr Kelada and resented bitterly the Levantine’s cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.
Ramsay was in the American Consular Service, and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of his ready-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to fetch his wife, who had been spending a year at home. Mrs Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular Service is ill paid, and she was dressed always very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet distinction. I should not have paid any particular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. You could not look at her without being struck by her modesty. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.
One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the culture pearls which the cunning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably diminish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted:
“Well, I ought to know what I am talking about. I’m going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I’m in the trade and there’s not a man in it who won’t tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don’t know about pearls isn’t worth knowing.”
Here was news for us, for Mr Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told anyone what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked round the table triumphantly.
“They’ll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can’t tell with half an eye.” He pointed to a chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. “You take my word for it, Mrs Ramsay, that chain you’re wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now.”
Mrs Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.
“That’s a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsay’s, isn’t it?”
“I noticed it at once,” answered Mr Kelada. “Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right.”
“I didn’t buy it myself, of course. I’d be interested to know how much you think it cost.”
“Oh, in the trade somewhere round fifteen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it.”
Ramsay smiled grimly.
“You’ll be surprised to hear that Mrs Ramsay bought that string at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.” Mr Kelada flushed.
“Rot. It’s not only real, but it’s as fine a string for its size as I’ve ever seen.”
“Will you bet on it? I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s imitation.”
“Done.”
“Oh, Elmer, you can’t bet on a certainty,” said Mrs Ramsay.
She had a little smile on her lips and her tone was gently deprecating.
“Can’t I? If I get a chance of easy money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.”
“But how can it be proved?” she continued. “It’s only my word against Mr Kelada’s.”
“Let me look at the chain, and if it’s imitation I’ll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars,” said Mr Kelada.
“Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants.”
Mrs Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.
“I can’t undo it,” she said. “Mr Kelada will just have to take my word for it.”
I had a sudden suspicion that something unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.
Ramsay jumped up.
“I’ll undo it.”
He handed the chain to Mr Kelada. The Levantine took a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swarthy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of Mrs Ramsay’s face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terrified eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her husband did not see it.
Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.
“I was mistaken,” he said.” It’s a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn’t real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing’s worth.”
He took out his pocket-book and from it a hundred-dollar note. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.
“Perhaps that’ll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend,” said Ramsay as he took the note.
I noticed that Mr Kelada’s hands were trembling.
The story spread over the ship as stories do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs Ramsay retired to her state-room with a headache.
Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scraping sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block letters. I handed it to him.