The Dusky Hour Read Online Free PDF Page B

they stacked the cards, was able to sign to me when to back my hand, when to throw in. They didn’t like it. Kept muttering and whispering to each other. Broke up the game finally, and there was no more card playing that voyage.”
    Mr. Moffatt chuckled delightedly, thoroughly enjoying the memory of that past triumph. The colonel asked:
    â€œDid you make any complaint?”
    â€œNo. Impossible. Those fellows don’t give you the chance. No proof. Larson told me they don’t even use marked cards or anything. They just rely on their own smartness, palming an extra ace and so on. Besides, I had got my own back and some more, too. Not so bad to sit down with a brace of card-sharpers and get up nearly fifty to the good.”
    â€œSince then you have been friendly together?”
    â€œWell, I gave him my card and asked him to look me up when he was back in England. He never did, and then I ran across him in town about six months ago. He had quite forgotten me and he had lost my card. Not the only time, apparently, he has had a bit of fun with card-sharpers. I insisted on lunching him, and we’ve seen something of him since. But he’s a very busy man. Reserved, though. Especially about business. Says it’s second nature with him now; so much often depends on not letting the other fellow know what you’re doing. He’s in with some very big people indeed.”
    Bobby was making notes again. The colonel said:
    â€œAnd Mr. Pegley? Have you known him long?”
    â€œA few months, not more,” Mr. Moffatt answered. “He wrote offering to buy a few shares I had in a West African gold-mining concern. Worth nothing at all. He offered a penny a share – they are two-shilling shares. He was quite frank about it – said there was a possibility of a new paying vein being found. One of his clients was buying up all the shares he could find – purely speculative. Pegley said I must decide for myself whether to sell out or hang on. I said I would think it over. Pegley sent me a wire next day to advise me to sell, but before I decided the bottom fell out of the whole thing and I lost the £20 I might have sold for. The shares are waste paper now.”
    â€œDo you often operate on the Stock Exchange, Mr. Moffatt?” Bobby asked, looking up from his notebook in which he had been making entries.
    â€œRarest thing in the world,” declared Mr. Moffatt. “My money is nearly all in consols – safe two and a half; not much, but safe.”
    The colonel smiled to himself at the virtuous tone in which this had been said. That Mr. Moffatt was the fortunate holder of a very large block of old consols was fairly well known, for when he was not grumbling about the poor return derived from land in these days he was generally lamenting the niggardly return of two and a half per cent he derived from his invested capital. As the investment had been made a good many years before, when consols stood well over par, there really had been a considerable shrinkage in nominal capital value, even though they had recovered from those dreadful war days when they had dropped so low that Mr. Moffatt felt himself face to face with ruin.
    â€œYou have kept in touch with him though?” the colonel asked.
    â€œWell, no, not exactly. It just happens we have run across one another once or twice – we met in the train again some time back. He got into my compartment. I was coming back from town. He was going on somewhere to see a client – he’s an investment consultant.”
    â€œWhat’s that?” inquired Colonel Warden, and Bobby, too, seemed interested as his busy pencil hovered over the pages of his notebook.
    â€œWell,” Mr. Moffatt answered slowly, “he advises people about their investments. Has most amazing stories to tell. He tells of one client he advised to invest a trifle in Woolworths and now he draws £20,000 a year from