Double or Die Read online

  Felix and Gordius played a six and a two and Odcombe was left with the queen. Four tricks in and he was already thirteen points down. He didn’t do much better for the rest of the hand, and ended up with most of the Hearts as well. James was landed with two and Felix took four. Gordius managed not to pick up any penalty points at all.

  The game continued like this for several hands. James noticed that Gordius was cautious to start with, testing the boys’ skill and getting to know how they played. But as the game continued he became bolder and took more risks, until he was playing quite aggressively. He was also playing tactically, trying to knock back any other player who posed a threat, and frequently letting Odcombe, as the weakest player, off the hook. Instead he began to concentrate his attack on James, who was the most experienced player among the boys. In trick after trick Gordius tried to land him with penalty cards, so James had to concentrate hard.

  With the cards in his hands Gordius had become a completely different man, animated and cheerful, where before he had been bored and listless. He hadn’t mentioned crosswords since they’d started playing. He did, though, talk freely about cards and gambling and told a long and complicated story about how he had once won several thousand pounds in one night’s play at the casino in Royale-Les-Eaux in France.

  He kept a tight control on his emotions, trying not to let them show. James knew that gamblers called this ability to look blank and not give anything away a poker face, and Gordius was good, but not good enough. You had to read more than just the face to understand someone. You had to study the whole body and see the little things that gave them away. James had noticed that Gordius rubbed his hands together, not when he was happy, but when he was excited. He did something different when he was happy. When he had dumped the queen of Spades on someone, for instance, or avoided a nasty trick, he made a tiny movement with his fingers. He flicked the edges of his cards with a fingernail. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

  But James saw it. James saw everything.

  He saw that when Gordius was annoyed – for instance, if a trick didn’t go his way, or if someone passed him a nasty set of cards – he sniffed.

  In these little ways James could tell what the man was really thinking.

  And it wasn’t pretty.

  Gordius was enjoying beating these boys.

  As the game had progressed the other boys had drifted off back to their Houses in ones and twos until there were just the four card players and Pritpal left.

  The game now stood at Odcombe on 142 points, Felix on 105, James on 71 and Gordius on 46.

  It was James’s turn to deal and he went around the table until all the cards were out.

  ‘It looks likely that our friend Percy Oddbod’s not going to last another round,’ said Gordius, looking at his hand and giving it a triumphant little flick with his fingernail. ‘It looks like it’s between you and me, Luc.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said James. ‘But I could still catch you.’

  He was glad that Gordius didn’t know his real name. It was like a disguise, a spy’s cloak. Gordius thought he could read him like a book, but James was keeping most of himself hidden from the man.

  ‘I know you’re some way behind,’ said Gordius. ‘But how’d you like to make this a little more interesting? Hmm?’

  ‘You mean gamble?’ said James.

  ‘Might be fun,’ said Gordius.

  ‘For you, maybe,’ muttered Dunkeswell. ‘You’re just about to win.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I could show my face in London if I lost to a schoolboy.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll definitely take the bet,’ said James. ‘I’ve got a reputation to keep up as well.’

  ‘Five pounds I win the game this hand,’ said Gordius.

  ‘That’s a lot of money,’ said James. ‘I am, after all, only a schoolboy.’

  ‘Come now. You’re an Eton boy. You’re all rich.’

  ‘Not me, I’m afraid,’ said James.

  ‘So you won’t take the bet?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said James. ‘I just said it’s a lot of money.’

  ‘Scared?’ said Gordius, smiling at James.

  James shook his head

  and smiled back at him. ‘Five pounds it is,’ he said.

  6

  Shoot the Moon

  James had been disappointed in his hand at first; it had contained a lot of high Hearts and Spades, but then he’d remembered another rule of the game and calculated his odds of success. It was a narrow chance, but he was pretty sure he could pull it off as long as Gordius didn’t realise what he was up to until it was too late.

  It was an all-or-nothing plan. If it went wrong, in even one trick, he would be left looking very stupid indeed. But with a bit of luck he could do it. He looked over his cards again. He had all the high cards he needed, except for the jack of Hearts and the queen of Spades.

  He was fairly sure he knew who had her, though.

  He had noticed Gordius’s little flick when he’d looked at his cards, which meant that he probably had the queen of Spades and was looking forward to passing her across to James. If Gordius decided to hang on to her, though, the game would be very hard to win.

  James passed his only two Diamonds to Gordius together with the ace of Spades. Passing the ace was a big gamble, but he risked it in order to throw up a smokescreen. He had seen enough of Gordius’s play to know how he would be likely to react and he hoped he would stay true to form.

  Gordius passed the queen, with a straight face. James fought back the urge to grin madly, and instead looked at the card and showed disappointment, knowing that Gordius would be watching. Now everything was in place, he just had to stick to his plan and hope that Gordius didn’t spot his tactic too soon.

  Play started and the first few tricks had no penalties. James managed to offload some low cards and then won a couple of tricks containing Hearts. To his delight Percy Odcombe dumped the jack on him. This was just what he had been hoping for. It was the only Heart he had been scared of. Now, if he had calculated right, he could pull off his scheme, just so long as he could make Gordius dump the ace of Spades.

  He took another trick with a Heart in it and made a sour face. He had now won three Hearts and was the only player to have taken any penalties.

  ‘Do you have the five pounds on you, or will you have to borrow it?’ gloated Gordius.

  James sighed and made a big show of looking at his cards and scratching his head. He had to make Gordius play that ace of Spades.

  He didn’t have to pretend to be nervous now. He was on a knife-edge. But not for the reason Gordius thought.

  James led the three of Spades. Felix played a seven. Gordius knew that James had the queen. He had passed it to him himself, after all. Now that he knew that there was no danger of winning the queen back, Gordius was safe to play the ace. There was a small threat that Percy might play a heart, but for Gordius it was a risk worth taking. A heart was only one penalty point. The queen was thirteen.

  The risk to James was much bigger. If Percy did play a heart then James was sunk.

  But James had been paying attention and counting the cards and was almost certain that Percy had no more Hearts in his hand.

  Almost, but not absolutely sure.

  Gordius was thinking hard. Would he risk the trick?

  He had to.

  James felt a warm flush of triumph as Gordius put down the ace.

  He hadn’t spotted what James was up to.

  But the danger wasn’t over yet. What if James hadn’t paid enough attention? What if Percy played a Heart now?

  He didn’t.

  He played a harmless Diamond and Gordius took the trick.

  James was still the only player to have won any Hearts.

  He was home and dry. The rest was plain sailing.

  Gordius played it safe and led with the two of Hearts.

  James won the trick, pretending that it hurt, and took the next one as well,
winning more Hearts off Felix and Gordius.

  As he scooped up the cards Gordius suddenly understood what James was up to. He sniffed, and, for the first time in the game, his face showed emotion; the tremor in his hand grew more noticeable, his eyebrows scrunched together into a frown and he glared at his cards.

  He had finally twigged.

  But it was too late.

  His eyes darted left and right, hoping to spot something he had missed. Then he calculated what cards had been played, what tricks James had already won and what was left to him. Fat beads of sweat sprung up on his forehead. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

  ‘You underhand swine,’ he said finally. ‘You’re trying to shoot the moon!’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Odcombe.

  Gordius grabbed the score pad and quickly ran through the sums in his head.

  Felix laughed. He was hugely enjoying the situation, even if it meant that James was going to soundly beat him.

  ‘If you win every single penalty card in one hand,’ he explained to Odcombe, ‘including the queen of Spades, instead of taking the penalty, you add twenty-six points to everyone else’s score.’

  ‘Ah…’ said Percy, weighing this up. He glanced at the score pad then round at James. ‘So you’d win the game, then?’

  ‘There’s always the danger, though,’ said Felix, ‘that if you don’t quite pull it off and somebody else wins even just one Heart, then you’re left with an awful lot of penalty points at the end of the hand.’

  James looked across the table at Gordius, trying to keep a straight face. ‘Do you have the five pounds on you?’ he said. ‘Or will you have to borrow it?’

  ‘There’s no need to be cheeky,’ said Gordius angrily and James could hold back a smile no longer.

  They carried on, but there were no surprises. James won all the Hearts, and then he was left with the king and queen of Spades. Just to rub it in, he didn’t play the queen until the very last card.

  Nobody could beat it.

  He took the trick.

  He had shot the moon.

  ‘That’s twenty-six points each to the three of you,’ he said.

  Pritpal did a quick addition and read out the scores.

  ‘The game is over,’ he said. ‘Percy is on one hundred and sixty-eight. Felix is on one hundred and thirty-one. Gordius is on seventy-two, and James is the winner with seventy-one.’

  Gordius had pulled himself together and wore a calm and unruffled expression now. He even managed a smile.

  He slid a £5 note from his pocket book and passed it over the table to James.

  ‘You had a lucky hand there,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone so easy on you. I wasn’t really playing to win. But thanks for the game. Most amusing.’

  ‘It was my pleasure,’ said James. ‘And thank you for coming to talk to us. We’ve really learnt a lot about crosswords.’

  James held Gordius’s stare and the man tried to read the boy. Was James mocking him? Was this a deliberate challenge? After all, Gordius had said virtually nothing about crosswords all the time he had been here.

  He sniffed and stood up to leave.

  ‘So long,’ he said. ‘We must do it again sometime.’

  He picked up his cane, and as he walked to the door James called after him.

  ‘Wait a minute – Gordius?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You haven’t told us your real name, sir. We’re all dying to know.’

  ‘My real name is, well, ah, ha…’ Gordius paused, rubbing his hands together. He seemed to be wondering what to say. At last he sniffed again and spoke. ‘My real name is Peterson. Professor Ivar Peterson.’

  By the time the four boys left Spottiswoode’s it had grown dark and the air was damp and chilly. James carefully turned up the collar of his overcoat. One of the more obscure rules at Eton was that it was forbidden for lower boys to wear their collars down. It was also forbidden for them to walk on the west side of the High Street. So they crossed over and walked up the east side until they came to the school buildings on Long Walk, where James and Pritpal stopped to say goodbye to Felix and Percy who were carrying on towards their House.

  James and Pritpal had to cross back over the road to get to Codrose’s. It looked all clear, but they were halfway across when a big black Daimler Double 6 roared up and nearly ran them down. They jumped out of the way and the car sped past, far closer than was comfortable, sending up a fine spray of water that soaked them.

  James got a good look at the driver, who was sitting up front, out in the open, separate from the enclosed passenger compartment behind him. He was a tall man with a huge head like a skull, his lips pulled back into a grimace from rotting brown teeth.

  ‘That idiot is driving far too fast,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘It’s almost as if he was trying to knock us down,’ said James.

  ‘If he’d really wanted to he could have done,’ said Pritpal.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  They carried on walking. Pritpal had been dying to ask James something since they’d left Spottiswoode’s, but Felix had been chattering away, reliving the drama of the card game and he hadn’t got the chance. Now, as they trudged along Judy’s Passage towards Codrose’s, he could hold it in no longer.

  ‘Why on earth did you pretend that you were Luc Oliver?’ he said. ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Lucky the real Luc Oliver wasn’t there to give me away,’ said James.

  ‘Don’t play the fool,’ said Pritpal. ‘You know as well as I do that Luc Oliver does not exist. He was made up by Mister Fairburn in order to create an anagram for his puzzle.’

  ‘So how did Gordius know the name?’ said James.

  ‘Well, he…’ Realization at last struck Pritpal and he stopped dead. ‘Why did I not spot that?’ he said, batting a brown hand against his forehead. ‘You are right. said James.

  ‘But if he is a friend of Fairburn,’ said Pritpal, ‘maybe he is in on the game.’

  ‘I’m not so sure any more that it is a game,’ said James. ‘Gordius didn’t seem to be very interested in crosswords and puzzles, did he?’

  ‘No,’ said Pritpal. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘And when I asked him about that clue it was obvious he didn’t know the answer,’ said James. ‘ “GSGE”. I don’t claim to fully understand cryptic crosswords, but they don’t just put four letters in as the initials for something, do they?’

  ‘No,’ said Pritpal. ‘I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m sure it has nothing to do with initials.’

  ‘All he cared about was playing cards,’ said James.

  ‘And the letter,’ said Pritpal. ‘He asked a lot of questions about the letter.’

  ‘I didn’t trust him from the start,’ said James. ‘That’s why I lied about you not having read it. Whoever that man was, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t Professor Ivar Peterson of Cambridge University.’

  ‘What is going on, James?’ said Pritpal. ‘Why would someone impersonate Gordius?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said James. ‘Maybe the best way to find out would be to go to Cambridge and talk to the real Professor Peterson.’

  ‘How would we find him, though?’ said Pritpal.

  ‘We go to his college.’

  ‘Which one? There are so many.’

  ‘The crossword clue,’ said James. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Fairburn has already given us all the answers.’

  ‘I’m not following you, James.’

  ‘Trinity,’ said James. ‘“Try smothered in it”. Trinity. It’s a college in Cambridge. And I’d be more than happy to bet you the five pounds I won off so-called Gordius that it’s where we’ll find Professor Peterson.’

  That night James couldn’t sleep. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the tip of his nose icy cold. He had promised the Head Master that he would stay out of trouble, but he had got the scent of danger at the Crossword Society and his blood was running hot in his veins.

 
Somehow he had to get away from Eton and up to Cambridge, but he could think of no way to do it. He decided that he needed help. Pritpal was no good. He was too timid, and besides, he wasn’t sure he should lead his friend too deeply into troubled waters. At the first opportunity tomorrow he would find Perry Mandeville and ask his advice.

  He spotted Perry in chapel the next morning and signalled to him that he needed to talk. Outside on Keate’s Lane Perry ambled over. He was a big, gangling lad who was always in a state of fidgety excitement. He talked very fast, his mouth running ahead of his brain, so that his words tumbled over each other and fell out in a stammer.

  ‘Filthy day,’ he said. ‘Roll on Christmas, God rest ye m-merry gentlem-men and all that, I’ve had enough of school for one year, all this studying is m-making m-my brain ache. What did you want to talk to m-me about?’

  ‘The letter,’ said James. ‘The one we photographed in Codrose’s study.’

  ‘What about it?’

  As they walked up the lane James filled Perry in on everything that had happened since Tuesday.

  ‘I’m stumped, though,’ said James, once Perry was up to date. ‘I can’t think of any way of getting to Cambridge before the Christmas holidays.’

  ‘I could m-maybe look into it for you,’ said Perry.

  ‘How?’ asked James.

  ‘I’ve m-managed to wangle m-myself some long leave this weekend,’ Perry explained. ‘It’s m-my father’s birthday, he’s having a big beano and I’m going up to our place in London.’

  ‘That’ll be fun,’ said James.

  ‘It should be,’ said Perry. ‘Particularly as m-my father won’t be there.’

  ‘What?’ said James. ‘I thought you just said he was having a party.’

  ‘He is,’ said Perry and he laughed. ‘Up at our country place in Buckinghamshire! He didn’t see fit to invite m-me, but the school doesn’t need to know that, seemed like a good excuse to trot off and enjoy m-myself in London while the folks are out of the way, if you’d let m-me borrow the m-motor, I could leave for Cambridge straight after lunch and be up there by teatime, then I could make it back down to London in time for a late supper.’