Deception Read online

  Men like Henry Sugar are to be found drifting like seaweed all over the world. They can be seen especially in London, New York, Paris, Nassau, Montego Bay, Cannes and St Tropez. They are not particularly bad men. But they are not good men either. They are of no real importance. They are simply a part of the decoration.

  All of them, all wealthy people of this type, have one peculiarity in common: they have a terrific urge to make themselves still wealthier than they already are. The million is never enough. Nor is the two million. Always, they have this insatiable longing to get more money. And that is because they live in constant terror of waking up one morning and finding there’s nothing in the bank.

  These people all employ the same methods for trying to increase their fortunes. They buy stocks and shares, and watch them going up and down. They play roulette and blackjack for high stakes in casinos. They bet on horses. They bet on just about everything. Henry Sugar had once staked a thousand pounds on the result of a tortoise race on Lord Liverpool’s tennis lawn. And he had wagered double that sum with a man called Esmond Hanbury on an even sillier bet, which was as follows: they let Henry’s dog out into the garden and they watched it through the window. But before the dog was let out, each man had to guess beforehand what would be the first object the dog would lift its leg against. Would it be a wall, a post, a bush, or a tree? Esmond chose a wall. Henry, who had been studying his dog’s habits for days with a view to making this particular bet, chose a tree, and he won the money.

  With ridiculous games such as these did Henry and his friends try to conquer the deadly boredom of being both idle and wealthy.

  Henry himself, as you may have noticed, was not above cheating a little on these friends of his if he saw the chance. The bet with the dog was definitely not honest. Nor, if you want to know, was the bet on the tortoise race. Henry cheated on that one by secretly forcing a little sleeping-pill powder into the mouth of his opponent’s tortoise an hour before the race.

  And now that you’ve got a rough idea of the sort of person Henry Sugar was, I can begin my story.

  One summer week-end, Henry drove down from London to Guildford to stay with Sir William Wyndham. The house was magnificent, and so were the grounds, but when Henry arrived on that Saturday afternoon, it was already pelting with rain. Tennis was out, croquet was out. So was swimming in Sir William’s outdoor pool. The host and his guests sat glumly in the drawing-room, staring at the rain splashing against the windows. The very rich are enormously resentful of bad weather. It is the one discomfort that their money cannot do anything about.

  Somebody in the room said, ‘Let’s have a game of canasta for lovely high stakes.’

  The others thought that a splendid idea, but as there were five people in all, one would have to sit out. They cut the cards. Henry drew the lowest, the unlucky card.

  The other four sat down and began to play. Henry was annoyed at being out of the game. He wandered out of the drawing-room into the great hall. He stared at the pictures for a few moments, then he walked on through the house, bored to death at having nothing to do. Finally, he mooched into the library.

  Sir William’s father had been a famous book collector, and all the four walls to this huge room were lined with books from floor to ceiling. Henry Sugar was not impressed. He wasn’t even interested. The only books he read were detective novels and thrillers. He ambled aimlessly round the room, looking to see if he could find any of the sort of books he liked. But the ones in Sir William’s library were all leather-bound volumes with names on them like Balzac, Ibsen, Voltaire, Johnson and Pepys. Boring rubbish, the whole lot of it, Henry told himself. And he was just about to leave when his eye was caught and held by a book that was quite different from all the others. It was so slim he would never have noticed it if it hadn’t been sticking out a little from the ones on either side. And when he pulled it from the shelf, he saw that it was actually nothing more than a cardboard-covered exercise-book of the kind children use at school. The cover was dark blue, but there was nothing written on it. Henry opened the exercise-book. On the first page, hand-printed in ink, it said:

  A REPORT ON AN INTERVIEW

  WITH IMHRAT KHAN, THE MAN WHO

  COULD SEE WITHOUT HIS EYES

  by

  Dr John F. Cartwright

  BOMBAY, INDIA

  DECEMBER, 1934

  That sounds mildly interesting, Henry told himself. He turned over a page. What followed was all handwritten in black ink. The writing was clear and neat. Henry read the first two pages standing up. Suddenly, he found himself wanting to read on. This was good stuff. It was fascinating. He carried the little book over to a leather armchair by the window and settled himself comfortably. Then he started reading again from the beginning.

  This is what Henry read in the little blue exercise-book:

  I, John Cartwright, am a surgeon at Bombay General Hospital. On the morning of the second of December, 1934, I was in the Doctors’ Rest Room having a cup of tea. There were three other doctors there with me, all having a well-earned tea-break. They were Dr Marshall, Dr Phillips and Dr Macfarlane. There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ I said.

  The door opened and an Indian came in who smiled at us and said, ‘Excuse me, please. Could I ask you gentlemen a favour?’

  The Doctors’ Rest Room was a most private place. Nobody other than a doctor was allowed to enter it except in an emergency.

  ‘This is a private room,’ Dr Macfarlane said sharply.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the Indian answered. ‘I know that and I am very sorry to be bursting in like this, sirs, but I have a most interesting thing to show you.’

  All four of us were pretty annoyed and we didn’t say anything.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I am a man who can see without using his eyes.’

  We still didn’t invite him to go on. But we didn’t kick him out either.

  ‘You can cover my eyes in any way you wish,’ he said, ‘you can bandage my head with fifty bandages and I will still be able to read you a book.’

  He seemed perfectly serious. I felt my curiosity beginning to stir. ‘Come here,’ I said. He came over to me. ‘Turn round.’ He turned round. I placed my hands firmly over his eyes, holding the lids closed. ‘Now,’ I said. ‘One of the other doctors in the room is going to hold up some fingers. Tell me how many he’s holding up.’

  Dr Marshall held up seven fingers.

  ‘Seven,’ the Indian said.

  ‘Once more,’ I said.

  Dr Marshall clenched both fists and hid all his fingers.

  ‘No fingers,’ the Indian said.

  I removed my hands from his eyes. ‘Not bad,’ I said.

  ‘Hold on,’ Dr Marshall said. ‘Let’s try this.’ There was a white doctor’s coat hanging from a peg on the door. Dr Marshall took it down and rolled it into a sort of long scarf. He then wound it round the Indian’s head and held the ends tight at the back. ‘Try him now,’ Dr Marshall said.

  I took a key from my pocket. ‘What is this?’ I asked.

  ‘A key,’ he answered.

  I put the key back and held up an empty hand. ‘What is this object?’ I asked him.

  ‘There isn’t any object,’ the Indian said. ‘Your hand is empty.’

  Dr Marshall removed the covering from the man’s eyes. ‘How do you do it?’ he asked. ‘What’s the trick?’

  ‘There is no trick,’ the Indian said. ‘It is a genuine thing that I have managed after years of training.’

  ‘What sort of training?’ I asked.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ he said. ‘But that is a private matter.’

  ‘Then why did you come here?’ I asked.

  ‘I came to request a favour of you,’ he said.

  The Indian was a tall man of about thirty with light brown skin, the colour of a coconut. He had a small black moustache. Also, there was a curious matting of black hair growing all over the outsides of his ears. He wore a white cotton robe, and he had sandals on his bare f