The Man Who Killed Himself Read Online Free PDF Page A

painful interview with his widower father, a retired customs and excise official who refused to lend him a penny and advised him to do a steady job of work. That avenue was closed, and he had no other approachable relatives. It was at this point that, like many men before him, he realised the immense usefulness of a rich wife.
    Arthur’s contacts with women had been slight and few, and although he had a strong fantasy life it was not associated with girls. In adolescence he became a surprisingly good tennis player and won the championship of the local club two years in succession. The champion of a tennis club, particularly if he is young and unmarried, is a desirable object to many of the women members, and Arthur had plenty of opportunities for what in such clubs is still euphemistically called flirtation. At this time, however, he rather resembled the man who maintained that if the concept of love had not been invented people would never have experienced the state itself. He was timid, even fearful, in the presence of women, and had had sexual intercourse only once before entering the army. On this occasion he was playing for the tennis team in an away match, and one of the ladies’ doubles pair took him home and seduced him in the back of her car. In the army his sexual experiences were more frequent, but equally brief and unsatisfactory. It is not surprising that when Arthur contemplated marriage he went to a matrimonial agency. He soon saw that he had been mistaken in thinking that he was likely to acquire a rich wife by this means, but the set-up of such agencies engaged his mind. Obviously an agency needed very little capital. Might it not be possible to make money out of it? A few weeks later his agency, Marriage For All, was born.
    It is hard to say what might have become of Arthur if he had not one day met a friend from his old tennis club, been persuaded to rejoin, and been partnered in a mixed doubles by a meatily handsome woman named Clare Slattery. They found that they made a good doubles pair, and although Arthur was too much out of practice to do well in the singles, they reached the final of the mixed doubles. When Clare had hit a forehand into the net to lose the final she shook Arthur’s hand vigorously and said: ‘Damned bad shot, partner, I’m sorry. Come and have a drink.’
    They had two or three drinks, and under questioning from Clare, Arthur found himself telling her what he did. Marriage For All was already showing signs of being profitable, but Arthur kept this activity a close secret because of its faint absurdity. Instead he talked about his inventions, in particular about an idea he had for driving cars by a series of belts and pulleys which would dispense with the need for gears. Clare listened patiently, although with obvious scepticism.
    ‘Very clever. Be a long time before you make any money out of it, though.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just a matter of getting going.’
    ‘Not relying on it, I hope?’
    Arthur laughed. He had a pleasant laugh, and although his hair was rapidly thinning he was still an engaging young man rather than a rabbity middle-aged one. ‘Of course not. It’s just a sideline for my firm. I put a couple of men on it from time to time, under my supervision naturally.’
    ‘Not your main source of income?’
    ‘Oh no. We’re importers of car spares. We can undercut most British manufacturers by thirty per cent.’ In saying this he was telling part of the truth. When he and Maser had bought Lektreks there had indeed been a flourishing business in the importation of cheap spares. Neglect of it, coupled with the defalcations of Maser, had led to the loss of most of their agencies. The small workshop in Bermondsey had been sold and the staff dismissed, and Lektreks now operated from one room in an office block called Paget House, filling orders sent in by long-established clients. With what was for him considerable boldness Arthur asked, ‘What kind of