exact amount of our money that you have won.' The voice cracked like a
whiplash, and the peer stared at him with complete incomprehension for
a moment and then his face mottled purple and crimson, and he gobbled
angrily.
'Sir! How dare you. Good God, sir!-' and he rose in his seat,
breathless, choking with outrage.
'Have at him!' cried Gareth, and overturned the heavy teak table with
a single upward thrust of both hands. It crashed over, pinning the
planter and the civil servant under it, and scattering ivory chips and
playing cards in such profusion that nobody would ever know what cards
Gareth Swales had dealt to himself in that last remarkable deal.
Gareth leaned across the struggling mass of downed players and clipped
the peer smartly under the left ear.
'Cheating! Ha! Caught you cheating!' The peer roared like a bull and
swung a full-armed punch under which Gareth ducked lightly, but which
went on to catch the club secretary between the eyes, as he hurried up
to intervene.
The room erupted into violence, as the other members rushed in to
assist the secretary.
Jake tried to reach Gareth, through the sudden seething storm of
bodies.
'Not him, you!' he shouted angrily, flexing his arms and knotting his
fists.
There were forty club members in the room. Only one person was not
dressed in the uniform that showed they belonged Jake in his baggy
moleskins and the pack turned on him.
'Watch out behind you, old boy,' Gareth warned Jake in a friendly
fashion, as he reached out to take the lapels of Gareth's suit in his
hands.
Jake whirled to meet the rush of angry members, and the fists that were
bunched for Major Swales thudded into the charging group. Two of them
dropped but the rest swarmed on.
'Lay on!' Gareth encouraged him merrily. 'And damned be he who cries
'Enough'.' Miraculously he had armed himself with a billiard cue.
By now, Jake was almost totally submerged under a heaving mound of
black evening dress. There were three of them riding on his back, two
hanging around his legs, and one tucked under each of his arms.
'Not me, you fools. Not me him!' He tried to point to Gareth,
but both his arms were occupied.
'Quite right,' Gareth agreed. 'Dirty cheating dog!' and he wielded
the billiard cue with uncanny skill, holding it inverted and tapping
the thick end smartly against the skulls of the well-dressed gentlemen
riding on Jake's back. They dropped away, and freed of their weight
Jake turned to Gareth once more.
'Listen-!' he bellowed, advancing despite the bodies that clung to his
legs.
'Listen, indeed.' Gareth cocked his head, and the sound of a police
whistle shrilled, and there was the glimpse of uniforms beyond double
doors. 'Peelers, by Jove, Gareth announced. 'Perhaps we should move
