The Gates of Chance | Page 7

door for Mr. Indiman. To each caller the answer was returned
that no Mr. Indiman was known at No. 4020 Madison Avenue, and that
Mr. Ambrose Johnson Snell could not be disturbed at his dinner.
There was no caller at the next quarter, and none again at nine o'clock.
The series had, therefore, come to an end, and I remained the sole
survivor--of and for what?
I dare say that my nerves had been somewhat weakened by my two
days' fast, or else it was the effect of Jeckley's cocktail on an otherwise
empty stomach. Whatever the cause, I suddenly became conscious that

I was passing into a state of high mental tension; I wanted to scream, to
beat impotently upon the air; Jeckley would have put it that I was
within an ace of flying off the handle.
A deafening clash of clanging metal smote my ears. It should have been
the finishing touch, and it was, but not after the fashion that might have
been expected. As though by magic, the horrible tension relaxed; my
nerves again took command of the situation; I felt as cool and collected
as at any previous moment in my life.
In the centre of the room stood a heavy table of some East-Indian
wood--teak, I think, they call it. I could have sworn that there was
nothing whatever upon this table when I entered the room; now I saw
three objects lying there. I walked up and examined them. As they lay
towards me, the first was a ten- thousand-dollar bill, the second a
loaded revolver, caliber .44, the third an envelope of heavy white paper
directed to me, Winston Thorp. The letter was brief and formal; it read:
"Mr. Indiman presents his compliments to Mr. Thorp and requests the
honor of his company at dinner, Tuesday, March the thirtieth, at nine
o'clock.
"4020 Madison Avenue."
Dishonor, death, and dinner--a curious trio to choose between. Yet to a
man in my present position each of them appealed in its own way, and
I'm not ashamed to confess it. Perhaps the choice I made may seem
inevitable, but what if you had seen Bingham's face as I did, with the
arc light full upon it? It was the remembrance of that which made me
hesitate; twice I drew my hand away and looked at the money and the
pistol.
Through the open door came a ravishing odor, that of a filet a la
Chateaubriand; the purely animal instincts reasserted themselves, and I
picked up the gardenia blossom that lay beside the letter and stuck it
into the button-hole of my dinner-jacket. I looked down at the table,
and it seemed to me that the ten-thousand-dollar note and the pistol had
disappeared. But what of that, what did anything matter now; I was

going to dine--to dine!
I walked up-stairs, guided by that delicious, that heavenly odor, and
entered the dining-room in the rear, without the smallest hesitation. At
one end of the table sat a man of perhaps forty years of age. An
agreeable face, for all of the tired droop about the mouth and the deep
lines in the forehead; it could light up, too, upon occasion, as I was
soon to discover. For the present I did not bother myself with profitless
conjectures; that entrancing filet, displayed in a massive silver cover,
stood before him; I could not take my eyes from it.
My host, for such he evidently was, rose and bowed with great
politeness.
"You must pardon me," he said, "for sitting down; but, as my note said,
I dine at nine. I will have the shell-fish and soup brought on."
"I should prefer to begin with the filet," I said, decidedly.
A servant brought me a plate; my hand trembled, but I succeeded in
helping myself without spilling the precious sauce; I ate.
"There are three conditions of men who might be expected to accept the
kind of invitation which has brought me the honor of your company,"
remarked my host as we lit our cigarettes over the Roman punch. "To
particularize, there is the curious impertinent, the merely foolish person,
and the man in extremis rerum. Now I have no liking for the dog-faced
breed, as Homer would put it, and neither do I suffer fools gladly. At
least, one of the latter is not likely to bother me again." He smiled
grimly, and I thought of Bingham's face of terror.
"I found my desperate man in you, my dear Mr. Thorp, shall we drink
to our better acquaintance?" I bowed, and we drank.
"The precise nature of your misfortune does not concern me," he
continued, airily. "It is sufficient that we are of the same mind in our
attitude towards the world--'to shake with Destiny for beers,' is