Wheel of Fortune

"The earl of Dara raises the best horses in Ireland, for all that he is an Englishman," said Terry as he led me into the pasture. "And you'll not deny that the Irish Thoroughbred makes the best hunter in the world."

I stood in the deep, wet grass on the lord's demesne while Terry, my taxi driver, waved his checked cap and shouted, "Whoosh!" to make the foals and brood mares run.

As the herd swept past, I took particular notice of one young stallion whose spirit soared above the others'. "Now there," I said, pointing, "is a horse!"

"He is that," rejoined Terry. "A horse with the heart of a lion, just like his da."

"Who is his father?" I asked.

"Wheel-of-Fortune he was," said Terry. "A horse whose name will never be forgotten here in Dara, for he shook up the lives of more than one of us."

Though he said no more, I knew Terry had a story inside him, and I paid my debt to courtesy by inquiring whether or not my suspicions had a foundation.

He nodded. "If it's a story you want," he said darkly, "then it's a story I'll tell you, sir."

"That calls for putting our feet up and a pint of stout," I said. "We've had a long day."

My plane to New York had been grounded at Shannon Airport by bad weather, so I had hired Terry to show (continued on page 54) Wheel of Fortune (continued from page 35) me some of the countryside around Limerick.

He had driven me to Dara, a picture-book village in the greenest valley of Eire, a place so small, peaceful and old-fashioned you would suppose nothing had happened there since the Franciscan Friary burned down in 1464. We had strolled the single, unpaved street between two rows of whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs, earth floors and flower-filled window boxes. We had tramped the woods and lush meadows of the lord's estate and, from a respectful distance, had viewed his 14th Century castle.

"Let's go back to Austin's Inn in the village," Terry said now. "I must have a splash of something or other, or such a long story would destroy me surely."

• • •

Gary Roche was as steady as any man in Dara (Terry began, after we were comfortably settled in the old coaching tavern with pots of the black brew before us). Gary kept the village store and lived peaceably with his wife and four children. He got decently tight with his friends in this very pub of a Saturday night and attended Mass often enough at St. Mary's Church on Sunday mornings. Except for a wedding trip to Dublin, he probably had never roved a hundred miles from home in his life.

Yes, a steady, respected man was Gary Roche -- until Kathryn Hess came up from Rathkeale to work as a maid in the earl's house at Dara. She walked into his store one day to order some groceries for the cook.

"Or should I say she appeared to him there one day." Terry said, "for that was the magical effect upon him."

Gary was bending over a sack of potatoes in the rear of his little shop, as though this were an ordinary day, when he heard her step and the rustle of her starched uniform. He looked up and gasped at first sight of the girl.

She stood in the brightness of the doorway, with the back light glowing out around her golden hair and white dress, like an angel in one of those old Italian paintings.

"She was not one of your County Limerick women, you know, dark and skinny," said Terry with a touch of malice, for he was a Kerry man himself.

Kathryn came of German stock, one of those Palatinate families brought over as refugees from French rule in Queen Anne's time. She had the yellow hair, blue eyes, rosy complexion, and sturdy figure typical of her race. Gary thought he had never seen anyone so young and beautiful and sweet.

"Mr. Roche?" she said. "I have a list here."

"You'll be the new girl at the manor," he managed to say.

"I am that. How did you know?"

By now, he had recovered a little and answered as an Irishman should.

"I heard there was a disturber of the peace among us, and after one look at you, I knew it could be no other."

She laughed merrily at his gallantry. "Have they moved Blarney Castle to Dara now? There was no riot in Rathkeale when I departed."

"Well, a thousand welcomes."

"Thank you," she said. "Now, please, Mr. Roche, my list. Cook will have every hair out of my head if I keep her waiting longer."

It was so pleasant driving back in his cart to deliver the groceries that Gary let his horse just amble along. She was an orphan, Kathryn told him; that was why she had left her married sister's home to go into domestic service. She thought she would like it here, Dara was so pretty.

"It rains half the time and threatens rain the other half," Gary grumbled.

But the rain made the fields lovely, Kathryn went on. And look at the lichen growing over the white wall of the ruins of the medieval abbey. Wasn't that a picture post card now?

"Yes, but I'm tired of it," Gary said.

"I'd like to see how the rest of the world lives before I'm through."

She was glad they raised horses here. The foals were so sweet, coming up in the fields to lick your hand.

"That's for the salty taste of the sweat," said Gary factually.

She laughed at him again. "You're not a romantical man, I see."

"I'm a lot more romantic than people think," Gary protested, and was surprised at himself. It seemed quite true, now that he came to think of it.

They drove over an ancient stone bridge arched across the sparkling Cleath River.

"There are 30-pound salmon in that water," Gary pointed out.

"Are there now? Have you caught any?"

"Killed any. You don't catch salmon; you kill them."

"What's the difference?"

"No difference. Just a way of speaking. Would you care to see how 'tis done? I'll fetch my rod and we'll kill a salmon one day."

"I'd like that," she said. "Good-bye, Mr. Roche, thank you."

She jumped down off the cart and went into the house, pausing at the door to wave back to him. Gary gazed after her until she disappeared.

When he arrived home for supper, his wife, Nora, said, "You're late." She meant no harm, but Gary was irritated.

"So I am," he replied shortly. Possibly whatever she had said at the moment would have irritated him. He was feeling the pricks of a guilty conscience already.

Nora was a good wife to him, but you know how husbands are, Terry said, in Ireland or America or the wide world over. A man may love his wife as much as ever, but 'tis only human for him to feel somewhat calmer after some years.

And after some years, poor Nora, who was rather plain even as a young girl, was worn with motherhood and housework and old habit. Furthermore, Gary was almost 40, a dangerous age for many a man, when his spirit briefly blossoms forth in a kind of second spring, Terry said. One more chance, he prays secretly, just one more chance, while I still have time to find my heart's desire.

Of course, 'tis an illusion, Terry went on. Does any of us truly know what his heart's desire is? Even if we got it, would we be satisfied? Or would we soon be crying for the moon again ... "just one more chance"...?

Well, that's how the story of Kathryn and Gary began, an old story, as old as men and women.

Kathryn came to town frequently, or he found some pretext to call at the back of the big house. They talked and talked, always about themselves, of course, about their childhood, what they liked and disliked. Naturally, they never admitted out loud they could be anything more than friends.

But one afternoon, Gary happened to spy Kathryn embrace a stranger who was leaving on the bus from Austin's. Immediately he felt a stab in the chest like an attack of heart disease. After the bus left, he ran to overtake her. Grabbing her arm, he wrenched her around to face him, right there in the high street, no matter who might be watching.

"Who was that man?" he panted in fury.

"Why, 'tis only my brother-in-law, who was passing through Limerick and stopped to see me." She stared at him in dismay. "You never thought ...?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Sure, I've no right to think anything at all."

Gary and Kathryn saw each other nearly every day after that, looking forward joyfully to each meeting as the whole purpose and meaning of the day.

One Sunday afternoon, Gary took his fishing rod and stopped at the back door of the manor house on the way to the stream. Kathryn got a few hours off to go with him.

It was not what we call a soft Irish day; in other words, it wasn't raining, for once. The air was hard and bright as a diamond. The sunshine brought out the gleam of the grass and early (continued on page 64) Wheel of Fortune (continued from page 54) wild flowers, and the whole landscape seemed to dance. On such a day, you wanted to live as much as possible, to gulp down every minute like wine and not spill a drop.

Gary and Kathryn strolled through the fragrant fields, smiling and silent, because there were no words for the content they felt. He helped her over a stone wall, then kept her hand in his as they walked on.

At the stream, he demonstrated how to cast and soon hooked a good-sized salmon. As he played the fighting fish from the bank, Kathryn stood on the old bridge joshing him.

"He's running under the bridge," Gary called to her. "Scare him away or he'll break the line."

"How can I scare him?" Kathryn shouted back.

"Yell and wave your arms. Hurry now!"

"Shoo, shoo!" Kathryn flapped her apron absurdly.

"There he goes under," Gary yelled. "Wave lower, close to the water."

"Shoo, salmon!" Kathryn leaned far over the parapet to wave a kerchief. A crumbling stone gave way beneath her knee, and she fell.

The river is deep and swift enough to drown you there. The current carried her to the other side of the bridge, dragged her under. She was in serious danger. But Gary reached her in a minute, flailing the water with clumsy strength, and pulled her to the shallows. After he carried her out, she lay in his arms in the grass, choking and scared.

"Are you all right? Are you all right, Kathryn, darling?" he kept asking.

"I can't swim," she gasped.

"Neither can I," Gary confessed.

"But you dove in after me," she said.

He shrugged and looked away.

"Why?"

"Must I say why?" he demanded harshly.

She did not insist, but gazed at him tenderly. He groaned and put his face down to hers. "I must speak to you," he whispered.

"No," she said in panic, "please don't."

"I've got to," Gary rushed on. "I've never been so happy and so miserable at the same time."

"I, too."

They clung together like two lost children.

"I love you, Kathryn."

"You mustn't say that," she moaned.

"I love you more than anything in the world or above it," he cried recklessly.

"Hush." She put her fingers across his lips. He kissed her palm.

"Do you love me?"

"Don't ask me," she begged. "I vowed I would not say that."

"It would give me much happiness."

She shook her head, while the tears flowed from under her closed eyelids. They then kissed on the mouth, long and hard, not at all like children. When she could speak, she murmured in his ear, "If I don't answer, it's for your sake, dear."

• • •

"Now, Terry," I objected, "were you there? How do you know what two lovers whispered to each other alone?"

"Sure, 'tis not a word-for-word quotation, you understand," Terry admitted cheerfully. "But 'tis the sense of it I have. I am intimately acquainted with Gary and Kathryn and everybody connected with the matter. Besides, I have been crossed in love myself once or twice, and it's always the same. Has it never happened to you, sir?"

"Please go on," I said. "What happened after that?"

• • •

After that, Gary and Kathryn rode a roller coaster, soaring to the skies one day and plunging in sick despair the next. They strove to break off their affair, but that was very hard to do.

Many a night, after the store was closed, Gary would pace in the orchard behind the manor house, whistling My Dark Rosaleen so Kathryn would know he was there. Most times, Kathryn would shut her window and, covering her face with her hands, pray hard not to hear him. But sometimes she couldn't help it; then she would throw on a cloak and slip out to him, burning with shame.

The apple trees were coming into bloom and lighted the night like phosphorous. Gary would be waiting in the glow as she turned the end of a hedgerow, and they would fly into each other's arms.

"I can't live without you, darling," Gary would plead.

"You can't live with me," she would correct him sorrowfully.

"They say there are butterflies in Australia as big as my hat," Gary said once, for there were dreams inside him none of us suspected. "And there are not enough men for all the work to do there. Couldn't we just be off to Australia and live happy together?"

"No," she said. "What about your wife and children? We could never be happy with a mortal sin on us both."

"I'll risk it," he offered, but she shook her head.

"Then what are we to do?"

"We mustn't see each other any more." It must have scorched her like fire to say that.

"I'll destroy myself!" he cried desperately.

She hugged him in fear.

"I love you, Katy," he said. "I love you. I love you."

"Don't," she sobbed, struggling against herself as much as against him.

They would kiss good-bye as though it were their last hour on earth. Then, of course, a week, two weeks, three weeks later, they would say farewell forever again.

So they dragged themselves painfully on, only half-alive, never daring to run away together and never able to snap it off clean.

In a village of only 396 people, such a scandal could not long be hidden. The gentle parish priest lectured Gary on the subject. Gary listened sullenly and said, "All right, Father." But he remained away from church afterwards.

Nora went to church every morning, she was that worried. She must have had some idea what was going on, but held her tongue.

Once she said timidly, "Must you go but again tonight, Gary?"

He replied, "And what if I do?" so belligerently that she was afraid to have it out with him, lest he be goaded into leaving home.

At last the housekeeper at the manor complained to the countess.

"'Tis a disgrace to the house, milady," she declared righteously, with her hands on her hips. "A disgrace to the whole village, so it is. Walking out until all hours at night with that man, and him with a good wife and four children at home. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

Gary was summoned to the manor. He was not told why, but he could guess.

Dara was still a bit feudal. In the old days, the lord owned the village and everyone in it. He holds most of it yet, and certainly could oust a tenant for misbehavior, for you know how we Irish are about the sanctity of the home, Terry said.

Gary had never been in the main part of the manor house before. He gaped about curiously as he followed the butler through the baronial halls. The earl received him in the trophy room, which was lined with cases of silverware won by his horses. Gary had thought it proper to put on his Sunday suit, but the lord wore riding clothes, as usual. Gary noticed with surprise that he rested one boot on a brocaded chair as though on a fence rail.

"Shall you break it off, Roche?" he commanded, not too sternly, for he was a man of the world. "The countess will not give me a moment's peace, nor you either, until you do. I shall be forced to send you packing and install another storekeeper, if you persist." (continued on page 69) Wheel of Fortune (continued from page 64)

Meanwhile, the countess had Kathryn arraigned in her bedroom. The lady sat in bed, with a pile of mail on a breakfast tray in her lap, while Kathryn stood before her feeling as if her face would burst into flame.

Milady was more severe than her lord.

"I'll simply not have it, my girl, not for one moment more. Is that perfectly clear?

"Now, I am told Griffin has been making inquiries about you at the back of the house. He is a most decent young man, and his lordship thinks he promises well as a trainer. He'll be back from a racing tour in a week or so. Why don't you marry Griffin? What? Does that interest you?"

Too upset to answer, Kathryn could only bite her lips and twist her fingers in misery until dismissed.

In desperation, Gary persuaded her to meet him "for the last time" (they were repeatedly meeting for the "last time") that night in the starlit ruins of the abbey.

"Oh, come away with me, right now, tomorrow, anywhere," Gary implored her, "or it will be too late forever."

Again she refused, although less firmly than before. "It's wrong, it's wrong." But then she added, "Besides, we have no money for the long boat trip to Australia."

Gary had the feeling that if only he had the cash in his pocket, he might carry her off then and there.

As it was, Kathryn met him no more in the orchard at night, although she could see him lurking there in the shadows. She sat alone in her room when off duty, depressed all the time. She was no longer the laughing, carefree, cheeky girl who had come up from Rathkeale only a few months ago.

Tending his store, Gary was morose and abstracted. After supper, he would hike for hours on the lonely roads. If the weather was too bad, he wandered about the house bored and idle. His children felt the tension and stopped their horseplay when their silent, frowning father entered the room.

Nora watched Gary out of the corner of her eye. She had never seen him like this before. Each morning she woke in panic that Gary was gone; then was relieved, but only momentarily, to see him lying in bed.

Gary still attended Austin's on Saturday nights, but sat alone, shunning conversation with his cronies. No matter how much he drank, he seemed unable to get adequately drunk.

• • •

In the middle of the spring racing season, Tony Griffin came home for a bit between tours, triumphant, exuberant, confident, everybody's friend. He was a young man on the way up, a likable if cocky fellow, assistant trainer of a pretty good stable while not yet 25. Like every professional in the horse-racing game, he believed religiously in his own good luck, a faith that sometimes carried all before it.

Griffin held court in Austin's every night. Sitting on a table top in his good Dublin tweeds, he would entertain an admiring circle with anecdotes of the race-meetings and betting rings. The taproom buzzed with horsy talk. Shouts of delight applauded the end of each story, and everyone wanted to buy Tony a drink.

The first Sunday Griffin was home, he encountered Kathryn at church. After Mass, he strolled with her back to the manor. 'Twas no more than natural. But the village hummed with gossip.

Later in the week, Nora said to Gary, "Tony Griffin is home from the races, I hear." She was careful to sound casual.

"Is that so?" said Gary.

"He took Kathryn Hess from the manor to a dance in Limerick on Wednesday night."

Gary was at his desk, totting up accounts, with his back to his wife. He made no comment, but the pencil point broke under his hand.

"Matt Cogan saw them get off the last bus at Austin's," Nora went on.

"Now get along with you," Gary said. "How can I add against all this old woman's tattle?"

He had succeeded in keeping his voice from shaking, but he was glad she did not see his face. It was hard enough to go on, endlessly, hopelessly, but this last twist of the knife he could not endure. He would perish before he heard the church bells ring out for Kathryn and Griffin.

On Saturday night, Gary sat at a little table in Austin's, pretending to be absorbed in the Irish Independent so people would let him alone.

Griffin stood in his usual place across the room, surrounded by hero-worshipers. At one point, Griffin looked over the heads of his friends and called out jovially, "Ain't that my old chum, Gary Roche?"

Gary raised his head from his paper, suspicious. He knew Griffin, certainly, but the two men were not "chums," had never even had much to do with each other.

"Excuse me," Griffin said to his circle. Smiling genially, he sauntered over to Gary.

"I've not seen you at all since I've been home," he began sociably. "How've you been?"

"All right," replied Gary, on guard.

Griffin invited the older man to have more whiskey.

The hell with this, Gary thought. He said, "Thanks, but I'll just finish this and be off home."

"Oh, come on," Griffin pressed hospitably. "There's no store to open tomorrow morning." And he gave the order to the barmaid. Well, Gary decided, I'll just see what his game is. The surprised customers in the café put their heads together to whisper excitedly. The two rivals for Kathryn Hess were standing each other treat! What do you make of that now?

"Slainte!" Griffin raised his glass in the Gaelic toast.

After the first sip, he lit his pipe, saying between puffs, "What's new with you, Gary?"

"What would be new in Dara?" Gary parried. He wondered how much Griffin knew about his relations with Kathryn. "'Tis yourself who has news. You've had a successful tour, I am told."

"Not half bad." Griffin recounted a few of the victories the earl's hunters had won in the meetings, thanks to Griffin's handling.

"Ah, that Wheel-of-Fortune is a grand horse," he said enthusiastically. "Now there's a young stallion that will win both Grand Nationals one fine day. He stands 17.1 and has the heart of a lion."

The Wheel was not one of your discreet hunters that skinned his fences barely, Griffin went on rhapsodically. No, he gathered himself way back on his great quarters and flew high and wide over the rails, like a bird, a rocket, a shooting star. The Wheel was as upcoming a steeplechaser as you'd find in all Ireland or England either today. He had a charmed name, too.

Sure that can't be all he wants to say to me, Gary assured himself. He knows I'm not a racing man. So, Gary bought the next round of hot whiskeys and waited for Griffin to come to the point.

"As a matter of fact-- --" Griffin paused to glance all around cautiously. Then, leaning toward Gary, he muttered behind his hand, "Can you keep a secret?"

"What?" asked Gary.

"I clocked him myself this morning over our course in 5:21."

"Who?". Gary asked stupidly.

"Why, the Wheel, of course. Have you been listening to me?"

"But what does 5:21 mean?"

"Why, Gary." Griffin was losing patience with the dullness of the man. "That means that if he does as well at Fairy House on Saturday a week, he will win in a walk."

"Oh," said Gary, still puzzled about what this had to do with him.

"We have kept him under wraps all season," Griffin went on in a low voice. "The touts don't know nothing about him. You might get 20 to 1."

"Might you now?" Gary knew nothing of horse racing, but, being a storekeeper, he understood pounds and pence.

"Whisht!" Griffin put an admonitory finger across his lips and winked.

• • •

The more Gary thought about it, the more it appealed to him. The idea was simple and bold, a real gambler's idea, an all-or-nothing idea.

He would sell everything and borrow to the limit to lay hands on every thrupenny bit; then plunk down the whole pot on Wheel-of-Fortune to win at Fairy House a week hence.

Figuring hard at his scarred desk in the back of the shop, Gary reckoned he could raise two thousand pounds by drawing out all his savings, cashing his life insurance, and mortgaging his store, stock and home to the eaves.

Griffin swore that if the Wheel did not crash at one of the terrifying hedges, and the jockey obeyed orders to let the horse alone, he could not fail. At 20 to 1, as expected, Gary would get back 40 thousand pounds, a fortune! He would leave Nora half, which would maintain her and the children in better style than he could by slaving the rest of his life.

With the remaining 20 thousand pounds, he would sail to Australia with Kathryn and live happily with her ever after. Sure, she'd not turn him down then. He counted on the pot to change her mind. It was because his situation was so impossible that she wavered between him and Griffin.

However, he decided not to consult her in advance about his plan. At the proper moment, he would go to her and say, "I have two tickets for Sydney and a nest egg of 20 thousand pounds for us to start on there. The boat leaves Cobh on Friday morning, so you'd best get ready."

Kathryn would stare at him in wide-eyed unbelief. "What about Nora and the children?"

"They are provided for," he would say. "Another 20 thousand pounds. They are better off with that than with me against my will."

Probably she would break down and weep. He would enfold her in his arms, saying, "Come now, dearest Kate." He could see them going off down the road with their arms around each other.

But suppose Wheel-of-Fortune did not win? It was a horse race, after all. What if Griffin were playing a trick, scheming to ruin him entirely, out of spite because Kathryn had loved him first?

No, not likely. Griffin would not have anticipated that so steady a man as Gary Roche, a man who had never gambled a ha'penny in his life, would put down every bob he could beg and borrow on a race. Griffin might reasonably have supposed Gary would risk only a couple of pounds, and that hardly seemed worth the trouble of a hoax.

Anyway, Gary had made up his mind what to do if the Wheel lost. In that case, he could not go on living. He would be penniless, no longer the support of his family. In the village, his good name would be lost for having taken such a mad chance. Never again would he be trusted to keep the store or any other responsible position. If the Wheel crashed, the whole world crashed for Gary Roche.

Wouldn't Dara be amazed to know what he was doing, he thought with grim satisfaction. The honest storekeeper, quiet neighbor, respected husband and father, risking everything -- home, business, family, reputation, his very life -- on a horse race! A steady man, they used to say. Hah! What did they know of the passion that roiled inside him? Caesar or nothing! Wealth, a new girl, a new life -- or death -- on one turn of the wheel, Wheel-of-Fortune indeed!

He laughed aloud with exhilaration, as a duelist laughs although he may be killed in a moment.

And the sin, the damnation, as Kathryn would say? "Well, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't," Gary told himself bitterly, "in this life or the next."

Therefore, on his next buying trip to Limerick, Gary bought nothing. Instead he bound himself, body and soul, to the bankers, Terry said.

Then, with shaking hands, Gary mailed to a booking shop in Dublin a bank draft for two thousand pounds, all on Wheel-of-Fortune to win. By the time he got his receipt, some tip must have trickled out, for the odds had declined to 18 to 1. Still, 36 thousand pounds would be enough for his purpose, and the fall in odds was a good sign, for it confirmed Griffin's tip.

Waiting for the race made Gary feel he would jump out of his skin. He slept not a wink nor sat still a moment the entire week. He could not look Nora in the eye. His temper exploded like gunpowder at the least friction. When his little Maureen was prattling a child's song, Gary roared, "Will you cease that bloody yowling!" The poor thing was frightened out of a month's growth.

Gary could not bear the silly talk in Austin's. He kept away, nervously tippling all day out of a bottle in his shop.

On the day of the race, Gary watched the clock as though it might run away. When post-time drew near, he locked the store and went to Austin's. Matt Cogan said afterwards that Gary looked like a sleepwalker when he entered the inn.

"Might I use the telephone?" His tone was demanding rather than asking. It was the only phone in town in those days.

"That you might," the manager replied. "Who do you want to ring up, Gary?" He wanted to be helpful, and was full of curiosity, too, you may be sure.

"Dublin, on business," Gary said through clenched teeth.

"I'll get your number," Cogan offered. "Important business for such a long call."

"I'll talk alone." Gary appeared so forbidding that Cogan retreated. Gary shut and locked the door of the office behind the manager.

"Here now!" Cogan turned to protest, then shrugged as he thought better of it.

Gary sat down at the desk in the little office, with his back to the window on the street. There were no radios then in Dara. Gary had timed his call to reach the booking shop in Dublin, 30 miles from the track, just as the race should be ending.

Now that he stood on the edge of the abyss, the nervousness of the waiting period had vanished. He wore a calm, absent expression. His hand did not tremble as he drew the pistol out of his pocket.

In those days, before he owned a taxi, Terry used to drive the local bus. "I had just arrived from Limerick and stopped in front of Austin's," he told me. "I happened to glance in the window of Matt Cogan's office and saw a man sitting at the desk with a telephone receiver to one ear and a revolver to the other.

" 'Love of God!' I yelled. It's Gary Roche. Hey, Gary! Hello, Gary! I banged on the glass with the flat of my hand. 'Hold on, chum! Wait a bit, me boy-o!'

"He never heard me. He sat there in a trance. I ran into the tavern, bawling for Cogan, the porter, anybody.

" Matt, quick! Gary Roche is in there with a gun to his head!'

"Cogan turned white and was no help at all. I leaped to the door of his office and rattled the knob. Cogan gasped, 'He's locked it. I've no other key.'

" Open up, Gary, lad,' I begged him through the closed door. 'We're all your pals here.'

"A little crowd had gathered about us already.

" Break down the door,' I shouted. 'Hand me the fire-axe, some of you.'

" 'Half a moment, now,' Cogan said, recovering. He was not that shocked, you know, to damage his own property.

" 'Stand away, Cogan,' I warned, swinging the axe. 'I'm going to save a man's life if I have to commit murder to do it.' "

A few blows broke the panel of the door. As the wood gave way, the rescuers heard the pistol fired. Terry and the rest burst in to see Gary Roche lying on the floor with the telephone dangling by its cord from the desk and a little puff of smoke rising.

• • •

"And that," I said, "was the end of the road for Gary Roche."

"The end of the road, was it?" responded Terry. "It was not. The bullet never touched him. He fainted when he heard the news, do you see, and the pistol went off in the air as he collapsed."

"That was a dirty trick of Griffin's," I said, "to give his rival a phony tip to ruin him."

"The tip," said Terry, "was straight, sir. Griffin felt pretty sure of Kathryn, he was that cocky, and she had bravely confessed to him her affair with Gary. Griffin was sorry for the man and wished to do him a little kindness, unbeknownst to Kathryn. Gary fainted, do you see, from the goodness of the news. Wheel-of-Fortune came in first, in a walk, just as Griffin had predicted."

"Ah! So Gary had his fortune and his heart's desire within his grasp at last."

"Oh, sir, as for the fortune, he had that, but as for the girl, he did not have her at all, at all. You know what women are, sir. An eye for the main chance, every one of them, and Griffin had begun to look like the better catch of the two men, entirely. He was younger, he was on the way up, and he had a way with him, as they say. Now, mark, I'm not sayin' that Gary's winnings might not have made her decide in his favor, but she married Griffin the day before the race, do you see."

"And Gary?----"

"Why, this very minute he is living in high style in Australia, where the butterflies are as big as his hat."

"I'm glad to hear he used his winnings wisely," I said.

"That he did not!" countered Terry. "It was to Dublin he went, the great boob, and lost it all on the horses, and if he had not run into that rich Australian widow there, the good Lord alone knows what might have become of him." Terry shook his head at the ways of Fate.

"At any rate," I said, draining my glass and preparing to leave the inn, "it's a happy story you've told me, Terry, and everyone found his or her contentment in the end." But then I caught myself. "Except, of course, for Gary's wife, poor woman. In these affairs, there is always someone who must suffer, it seems."

"Suffer she did, and long enough, sir, what with Gary's shameless philandering all the while with Kathryn. But are you thinkin' a woman of Dara would put up forever with such shenanigans and not find a little amusement for herself on the outside? Why do you suppose Gary went off to Dublin and lost all his money? Because his Kathryn chose Griffin? That was part of it, sir, to be sure, but the other part of it was this: that when he recovered from his fainting spell and wended his way home, he found that his wife could take no more of it and had run off with a horse dealer from County Cork, taking the little ones with her. A good life they are leading now, the lot of them, if the news from Cork is to be believed. And shall we have another small one before we go, sir?"