The Newmarket meeting began next day, and Jim was not put to the odious degradation of paying for his own ticket, as he motored down with a friend. No more delightful way of spending the morning could be desired than this swift progress through the summer air over these smooth roads; and that, with a confident belief in the soundness of his betting book and the anticipation of a pleasant and lucrative afternoon, entirely dissipated the evil humour of the evening before. After all, in this imperfect world, it was wiser to take the bad with the good, and if the manners and customs of the Osborne family got on his nerves, it must be put down to their credit, not to the aggravation of their offences, as he had been disposed to think last night, that they treated him in so open-handed a way. Certainly they would appear in a far more disagreeable light if they were close-handed with their money. It was, of course, a sin and an iniquity that other people should have money and not he; but since Providence (and that deplorable Derby week) had chosen to make this disposition of affairs, it was as well that certain mines of bullion should be accessible to him. And here already was the Heath, and the crowds, and the roar of the ring.
Like most gamblers, Jim, though practical enough in the ordinary affairs of life, had a vein of fantastic superstition about him, and it occurred to him after the first race, in which he had the good fortune to back the winner, that his luck had turned, and he cast about to think of the cause that had turned it. At once he hit on it: he had paid Claude back the sovereign which he had found on his dressing table and had given to the cook. That had been a happy inspiration of his: the action itself had been of the nature of casting bread on the waters, for Claude probably was unconscious of having left a sovereign there, and in any case would not ask for it; and here, not after many days, but the very next day, he had picked up fifty of them before lunch. Apparently some sort of broad-minded guardian angel looked after his bets and his morals, and, if he was good, turned the luck for him (for this broad-minded angel clearly did not object to a little horse racing) and enabled him to back winners. And after this initial success Jim went back to his friend’s motor and ate an extremely good lunch.
Whether the broad-minded angel looked back over Jim’s past record and found something that he could not quite stand, Jim never reasoned out with any certainty; all that was certain was that after that first race the carefully made up, almost gilt-edged book went to pieces. Once in a sudden access of caution he hedged over a horse he had backed; that was the only winner he was concerned with for the rest of the day.
Jim returned to town that evening in a frame of mind that was not yet desperate, but sufficiently serious to make him uncomfortable. Outwardly, he took his losses admirably, was cheerfully cynical about them, and behaved in nowise other than he would have behaved if he had been winning all afternoon. He had promised to dine at the Savoy, but on arrival at the flat he found a telephone message written out which had come from Dora after his departure that morning, asking him to dine at No. 92. At that his mood of last evening flashed up again.
“I’ll be damned if I ever set foot in that house again!” he said to himself. And regretted into the telephone.
There was a telegram for him as well. It was from a very well-informed quarter, giving him the tip to back Callisto, an outsider, for the big race to-morrow.
He crumpled it up impatiently; how many well-informed tips, he wondered, had he acted on, and what percentage of them had come off? Scarcely one in a hundred. No; backing outsiders was a good enough game if you were on your luck, and also happened to be solvent.
He did not go to Newmarket next day, but sat all afternoon in his club, making frequent journeys to the tape, that ticked out inexorably and without emotion things so momentous to him. It was a little out of order, and now and then, after the announcement “Newmarket,” it would reel off a rapid gabble of meaningless letters like a voluble drunkard, or give some extraneous information about what was happening at Lord’s. Then it pulled itself together again, and he saw that Callisto had won. Harry Franklin was looking over his shoulder as this information came out, and gave a cackle of laughter.
“Hurrah! fur coat for May and new gun for me,” he said.
“Lucky dog!” said Jim. “I thought you never betted.”