“ ‘August 16, subject loses chips amounting to $1000.’ Miss Brown is very prompt. ‘Subject leaves Casino and walks to the Parc de la Grande Armée’ — which is where we are now — ‘and stands in contemplation at edge of cliff, then leaves park and sends following cablegram: DEAR AUNT BELLA, HOTEL FIRE NO ACCIDENT. HAVE STUMBLED ON VAST INTERNATIONAL PLOT LINKING JAPANESE BEETLES, DISAPPEARANCE OF AMELIA EARHART, AND RADICAL CHANGES IN WEATHER THESE LAST FEW YEARS. CONFIRMS YOUR SUSPICION, WAS NOT SUNSPOTS. HAVE CONTACTED DISILLUSIONED FOREIGN AGENT. NEED $5000 AS PROOF OF MY GOOD FAITH. LET’S KEEP THIS TO OURSELVES. NORMY.
“ ‘August 17, subject’s losses: $5000. That evening sends following cablegram: DEAR AUNT BELLA, WE ARE REALLY ONTO SOMETHING. AGENT AGREES TO BE ON OUR SIDE AND SAP THEM FROM WITHIN. HE SAYS DOUBLE AGENTS GET DOUBLE PAY. SOUNDS FAIR ENOUGH. NEEDS ANOTHER $5000. MUM, DON’T FORGET, IS THE WORD, NORMY.
“ ‘August 18, subject’s losses: $5000. Sends following cablegram: DEAR AUNT BELLA, THINGS COMING TO A HEAD. NEED $5000 FOR INCIDENTAL EXPENSES — MICROFILM, INVISIBLE INK, SECRETARIAL HELP, ETC. ITEMIZED LIST TO FOLLOW. KEEP THIS UNDER YOUR HAT. NORMY.’ ”
The old man looked up from his notebook. “Might I ask you about this Miss Brown?”
“She doesn’t happen to be any of your darn business,” said Brown, through clenched teeth. The old man waited. At last Brown said, “You might say that I’m her favorite nephew. You might say that the money was her life savings.”
“I meant is she a bit — potty? Do you still say ‘potty’?” asked the old man.
“ ‘Peculiar’ might be better,” said Brown.
“I must jot that down,” said the old man, scribbling in his notebook, “And now where were we?
“ ‘August 19, by 5 P.M. subject’s winnings total $38,000; by midnight, $88,000; by closing time, $123,000. Subject returns to hotel where, in answer to inquiry, is informed that next train for Paris is at 1:47 P.M.
“ ‘August 20, subject checks out of hotel at 10:37 A.M., leaves bags at station, wanders through streets looking in store windows. Noon finds subject in front of Casino. Subject smiles as if pleasantly surprised, and with glance at wrist watch, enters Casino.’ ”
The old man closed his notebook and looked up. “By 2:30 you had lost $56,000, and by 3:30, $123,000. And here we are. I must add in conclusion that San Sabastiano for several years now has requested in the most vigorous terms that the railway provide us with a morning service to Paris. Now perhaps we had better go,” he said, preparing to rise.
“Hold on a minute,” said Brown, and he began to slap the palm of one hand with the back of the other. “I have certain rights. You can’t just put me on a train and run me out of town. Nothing you’ve said would hold up in a court of law.”
The old man settled back on the bench. “Ah, now I can understand your hostility,” he said. “Believe me there was never a question of a law having been broken. Consider for yourself how odd it would look if gay, carefree, light-hearted San Sebastiano had a law making it a crime to attempt suicide. What would people say? Why would anyone even dream of committing suicide here?”
“You mean that technically speaking,” said Brown, “I could Jump off this cliff this very moment and you could do nothing?”
The old man nodded. “It would be perfectly legal. But law is a funny thing, Mr. Brown. If some future historian, for example, were to try to understand the people of the Twentieth Century from a study of their books of law alone, would he, do you think, see them as they were, or as they feared they were, or as they hoped they might be?
“A particular case: what would this future historian of ours think of a certain law in force in San Sebastiano which says that our police must clean their revolvers daily — nothing unusual in that — but, the law continues, in a secluded yet public place in the open air? Legend has it that one Sub-Inspector Auguste Petitjean discharged his revolver as he was cleaning it while seated in his bath. The tub and walls, as it happened, were marble, and Sub-Inspector Petitjean was shot seventeen times in as many places by that single ricocheting bullet.
“By some miracle he recovered and returned to the force only to be subsequently discharged when it was discovered that he had developed a psychological block against firing his revolver — or, as another version of the story has it, against taking a bath. Whichever version is correct, the law is there nevertheless. Were you to try to jump I would be obliged to clean my revolver in public and it might accidentally discharge, the bullet striking you in the left calf. Conveniently enough, the hospital is located right next to the railway station.
“I had intended, by the way, to say before that I am sorry your train ticket is second class. By all rights it should be first class, but the authorities view the situation otherwise. You see our Eighth Bureau, dealing exclusively in cases such as yours, is organized into three divisions based on the amount of money lost by the subject — not winnings that happen to be lost again, you understand, but his own personal investment.
“The first division, headed by Inspector Guizot, deals with amounts of $5000 or less: the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. Traditionally his subjects travel third class.
“My own division, the second, deals with amounts of $5000 to $50,000. By the way, we use American dollars as a standard out of simple convenience. That was why I received quite a start a while back when I realized that in your case we were dealing in Canadian dollars. For a moment I was afraid, forgive me, that you might be in Guizot’s division. In any event, traditionally my subjects go second class.
“The third division, under Baron de Mirabelle, deals with sums in excess of $50,000. His subjects, of course, go first class.
“However, a few years ago the railways did away with third class. It was decided that Guizot’s would go second class. What else could they do? Fine, I said, but then I humbly submit that mine should go first class. But the authorities were blind to the justice of it, and de Mirabelle, though sympathetic, kept smiling in that cultured way of his.
“A very distinguished person, the Baron: always in evening dress and with a black patch, sometimes over one eye, sometimes over the other. I often tell the story of how the Baron acquired his eye patch. I like to think it makes my own subjects’ losses appear less significant.
“One day around the end of the last war a large burly soldier arrived in San Sebastiano. He had a system for roulette, as we all do, and $200,000 — the accumulated combat pay and savings of his entire regiment, which he had promised to increase a hundredfold.
“This he promptly proceeded to do. His system was based on what he called his ‘lucky lower-left bicuspid.’ He would survey the roulette table, from number to number, until his bicuspid throbbed. That number he would bet. And he would win astronomical sums, millions, night after night.
“Finally the day arrived when the Casino, short of a miracle, would open its doors for the last time. The soldier dined alone beforehand at Chez Tintin. At the end of the meal there was an altercation. The waiter accused him of overtipping. The soldier threated to ram a wad of banknotes down the waiter’s throat and moved toward him with a bobbing and weaving motion, the result, we were later to learn, of considerable experience in the ring where he was known as—”
The old man thought for a moment. “Breaker Baker, or something like that,” he said. “Politely but firmly the waiter struck him on the head with a bottle, Chateau Pommefrit, 1938. The soldier regained consciousness to find his celebrated tooth on the floor in front of him. He rushed to the Casino and with the tooth clenched in his fist, surveyed the table. Nothing happened.