Mr. Elver glanced at him, with an expression of surprise, almost of alarm, on his face. His eyes wavered away from Mr. Cardan’s steady, genial gaze. He took refuge in his tumbler. “Yes,” he said, when he had taken a gulp. “How did you guess?”
Mr. Cardan shrugged his shoulders. “Purely at random,” he said.
“After my father died,” Mr. Elver explained, “she went to live with her godmother, who was the old lady at the big house in our parish. A nasty old woman she was. But she took to Grace, she kind of adopted her. When the old bird died at the beginning of this year, Grace found she’d been left twenty-five thousand.”
For all comment, Mr. Cardan clicked his tongue against his palate and slightly raised his eyebrows.
“Twenty-five thousand,” the other repeated. “A half-wit, a moron! What can she do with it?”
“She can take you to Italy,” Mr. Cardan suggested.
“Oh, of course we can live on the interest all right,” said Mr. Elver contemptuously. “But when I think how I could multiply it.” He leaned forward eagerly, looking into Mr. Cardan’s face for a second, then the shifty grey eyes moved away and fixed themselves on one of the buttons of Mr. Cardan’s coat, from which they would occasionally dart upwards again to reconnoitre and return. “I’ve worked it out, you see,” he began, talking so quickly that the words tumbled over one another and became almost incoherent. “The Trade Cycle.… I can prophesy exactly what’ll happen at any given moment. For instance….” He rambled on in a series of complicated explanations.
“Well, if you’re as certain as all that,” said Mr. Cardan when he had finished, “why don’t you get your sister to lend you the money?”
“Why not?” Mr. Elver repeated gloomily and leaned back again in his chair. “Because that blasted old hag had the capital tied up. It can’t be touched.”
“Perhaps she lacked faith in the Trade Cycle,” Mr. Cardan suggested.