best machines and a machine should be incapable…
“I feel at sea, Mr Bertrand,” Dreuther said.
“I confess, sir, I am a little too.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean in that way, not in that way at all. There is no hurry. We will put all that right. In our good time. I mean that when Sir Walter leaves my room I have a sense of calm, peace. I think of my yacht.” The cigar smoke blew between us. “Luxe, calme et volupte,” he said.
“I can’t find any ordre or beaute in these figures, sir.”
“You read Baudelaire. Mr Bertrand?”
“Yes.”
“He is my favourite poet.”
“I prefer Racine, sir. But I expect that is the mathematician in me.”
“Don’t depend too much on his classicism. There are moments in Racine, Mr Bertrand, when—the abyss opens.” I was aware of being watched while I started checking all over again. Then came the verdict. “How very interesting.”
But now at last I was really absorbed. I have never been able to understand the layman’s indifference to figures. The veriest fool vaguely appreciates the poetry of the solar system—“the army of unalterable law”—and yet he cannot see glamour in the stately march of the columns, certain figures moving upwards, crossing over, one digit running the whole length of every column, emerging, like some elaborate drill at Trooping the Colour. I was following one small figure now, dodging in pursuit.
“What computers do General Enterprises use, sir?”
“You must ask Miss Bullen.”
“I’m certain it’s the Revolg. We gave them up five years ago. In old age they have a tendency to slip, but only when the 2 and the 7 are in relationship, and then not always, and then only in subtraction not addition. Now, here, sir, if you’ll look, the combination happens four times, but only once has the slip occurred…”
“Please don’t explain to me, Mr Bertrand. It would be useless.”
“There’s nothing wrong except mechanically. Put these figures through one of our new machines. And scrap the Revolg (they’ve served long enough).”
I sat back on the sofa with a gasp of triumph. I felt the equal of any man. It had really been a very neat piece of detection. So simple when you knew, but everyone before me had accepted the perfection of the machine and no machine is perfect; in every join, rivet, screw lies original sin. I tried to explain that to Dreuther, but I was out of breath.
“How very interesting, Mr Bertrand. I’m glad we have solved the problem while Sir Walter is satisfying his carnal desires. Are you sure you won’t have a glass of milk?”
“No thank you, sir. I must be getting back to the ground floor.”
“No hurry. You look tired, Mr Bertrand. When did you last have a holiday?”
“My annual leave’s just coming round, sir. As a matter of fact I’m taking the opportunity to get married.”
“Really. How interesting. Have you received your clock?”
“Clock?”
“I believe they always give a clock here. The first time, Mr Bertrand?”
“Well…the second.”
“Ah, the second stands much more chance.”
The Gom had certainly a way with him. He made you talk, confide, he gave an effect of being really interested—and I think he always was, for a moment. He was a prisoner in his room, and small facts of the outer world came to him with the shock of novelty; he entertained them as an imprisoned man entertains a mouse or treasures a leaf blown through the bars. I said, “We are going to Bournemouth for our honeymoon.”
“Ah, that I do not think is a good idea. That is too classical. You should take the young woman to the south—the bay of Rio de Janeiro…”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t afford it, sir.”
“The sun would do you good, Mr Bertrand. You are pale. Some would suggest South Africa, but that is no better than Bournemouth.”
“I’m afraid that anyway…”
“I have it, Mr Bertrand. You and your beautiful young wife will come on my yacht. All my guests leave me at Nice and Monte Carlo. I will pick you up then on the 30th. We will sail down the coast of Italy, the Bay of Naples, Capri, Ischia.”
“I’m afraid, sir, it’s a bit difficult. I’m very, very grateful, but you see we are getting married on the 30th.”
“Where?”
“St Luke’s, Maida Hill.”
“St Luke’s! You are being too classical again, my friend. We must not be too classical with a beautiful young wife. I assume she is young, Mr Bertrand?”
“Yes.”
“And beautiful?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Then you must be married at Monte Carlo. Before the mayor. With myself as witness. On the 30th. At night we sail for Portofino. That is better than St Luke’s or Bournemouth.”
“But surely, sir, there would be legal difficulties…”
But he had already rung for Miss Bullen. I think he would have made a great actor; he already saw himself in the part of a Haroun who could raise a man from obscurity and make him the ruler over provinces. I have an idea too that he thought it would make Blixon jealous. It was the same attitude which he had taken to the knighthood. Blixon was probably planning to procure the Prime Minister to dinner. This would show how little Dreuther valued rank. It would take the salt out of any social success Blixon might have.
Miss Bullen appeared with a second glass of milk. “Miss Bullen, please arrange with our Nice office to have Mr Bertrand married in Monte Carlo on the 30th at 4 a.m.”
“On the 30th, sir?”
“There may be residence qualifications—they must settle those. They can include him on their staff for the last six months. They will have to see the British Consul too. You had better speak on the telephone to M. Tissand, but don’t bother me about it. I want to hear no more of it. Oh, and tell Sir Walter Blixon that we have found an error in the Revolg machines. They have got to be changed at once. He had better consult Mr Bertrand who will advise him. I want to hear no more of that either. The muddle has given us a most exhausting morning. Well, Mr Bertrand, until the 30th then. Bring a set of Racine with you. Leave the rest to Miss Bullen. Everything is settled.” So he believed, of course, but there was still Cary.
5
The next day was a Saturday. I met Cary at the Volunteer and walked all the way home with her: it was one of those spring afternoons when you can smell the country in a London street, tree smells and flower smells blew up into Oxford Street from Hyde Park, the Green Park, St James’s, Kensington Gardens.
“Oh,” she said, “I wish we could go a long, long way to somewhere very hot and very gay and very—” I had to pull her back or she would have been under a bus. I was always saving her from buses and taxis—sometimes I wondered how she kept alive when I wasn’t there.
“Well,” I said, “we can,” and while we waited for the traffic lights to change I told her.
I don’t know why I expected such serious opposition: perhaps it was partly because she had been so set on a church wedding, the choir and the cake and all the nonsense. “Think,” I said, “to be married in Monte Carlo instead of Maida Hill. The sea down below and the yacht waiting…” As I had never been there, the details rather petered out.
She said, “There’s sea at Bournemouth too. Or so I’ve heard.”
