Loaded Dice

by Ellery H. Clark

Lynch smiled patiently. "Well," he admitted coolly, "that's one way of putting it. But, on the other hand, you'll never catch a big fish with a bare hook, and I'm putting on the bait that I think's most likely to work. There are only three moves, really. First, the message that I'm going to send him; second, the way he's going to figure out what it means, and last, what's going to happen if we do get him down here."

Mrs. Holton nodded. "Well?" she said inquiringly.

"Well," repeated Lynch, "as far as the message goes, I simply send him word that I'm sick; confined to my bed, and very weak; that I've got no one here to look after me but you, and that I've got some political news of the very greatest importance that I've got to let him know about at once. Further, that if he can possibly arrange things to come down here and see me, he'll be well repaid. 'Well repaid,' is good, I think. And that's all there is to that."

The woman shook her head. "It's no use, Tom," she said, with conviction. "Either he won't come, or he'll bring some one with him, or he'll leave word where he's going in some such way that, if anything should happen to him, we'd be sure to be found out. No, it's no use."

Lynch smiled. "Those are the obvious things he would do, I'll admit," he answered. "But then he doesn't do the things that are obvious, as a general rule. I've studied the man pretty close since I've been in touch with him—a good deal closer than he thinks—and I've about made up my mind that I've got to the secret of how he's got along so fast. Most of us can't get rid of the habit of looking at everything from our own point of view; you know how you hear a hundred times a day, 'If I were in his place, I'd do so and so,' and all that sort of fool talk. Some of us, who think we're clever, get far enough to be willing to imagine how, under given conditions, the average man would think or act, not just how the particular kink in our own special little brain would work; but the governor's got further than that. He gets away from himself altogether—he even gets away from the average man altogether—and instead, if a man's worth being studied at all, he puts himself, as far as he's able, inside that man's skin; he eats, thinks, sleeps as that man, and when he's ready to make a move, he figures his own play by his own standards of thought and action, then plays the other man's game as the other man would play it, and so he's really on both sides of the table at the same time. God knows I hate Gordon, but God knows the man's smart as chain lightning, and anybody who undervalues him is a fool."

The woman frowned. "I don't understand what you're talking about," she said fretfully.

Lynch looked at her with ironical contempt. "My fault, I'm sure," he said gravely. "This was all I was trying to say; that I'm figuring now just how he'll look at this message he gets; not what you or I would think about it, or what anybody else in the world would think about it except the Honorable Richard Gordon himself. Is that any plainer?"

Mrs. Holton nodded. "What you think," she retorted, with unexpected spirit, "is plain enough, but what he's going to think isn't plain, and never will be."

"There," replied Lynch, "is exactly where we differ. I'll tell you just what he's going to think. In the first place, for any one who's been spending as much thought on us lately as I flatter myself he has, the first thing that will strike him is the fact that by coming down to this forsaken spot he could find us together, and in all probability would find no one else excepting ourselves. That's clear enough; and from that it's only a step to thinking how easy it would be to put us both away at the same time, and nobody the wiser. He'll have thought that far in about a tenth part of the time it's taken me to say it. Then he'll pull up short with the idea that the whole thing's a trap, and decide not to come; then he'll go into it deeper, and suddenly it's going to strike him what a big advantage he's really got over us; he knows we can't see him hurt; he's got the chance that the message is genuine, which is perfectly possible, and if it isn't, if things don't break right for him, he'll figure that he's sure to get away with a whole skin; and, if they do break right, he's got the chance of his life to get us off his mind for good and all. See?"

Grudgingly enough the woman nodded. "Yes," she said slowly. "But how about his bringing people with him; and how about his leaving word with the police where he's gone?"