“It is the playoff, five hundred and one to gain. By the toss, first darts to the Horsemen, good luck to all, and game on.”
Professor Slocombe’s eyes swung towards the Horsemen’s team. Something strange seemed to have occurred within their ranks. Old Jack had declined to take his darts and sat sullenly in his wheelchair. The man Kelly was nowhere to be seen, and the other disembodied members of the team had withdrawn to their places of perpetual night and were apparently taking no more interest in the outcome of the game.
Alone stood Young Jack, hollow-eyed and defiant.
“He means to play it alone,” said the Professor. “I do not believe that it is against the rules.”
“By no means,” said Omally. “A man can take on a regiment, should he so choose. As a bookmaker I find such a confrontation interesting, to say the least.”
The Swan’s patrons found it similarly so and Omally was forced to open book upon his shirt sleeves.
Young Jack took the mat. He gave the Professor never a glance as he threw his stygian arrows. To say that he actually threw them, however, would be to give a false account of the matter, for at one moment the darts were in his hand, and in another, or possibly the same, they were plastered into the darts board. No-one saw them leave nor enter, but all agreed that the score was an unbeatable multiple of twenty.
“One hundred and eighty,” came a whispered voice.
Norman stepped to the fore. Although unnoticed by the throng, his darts gave off an electrical discharge which disabled television sets three streets away and spoiled telephonic communications a mile off.
“One hundred and eighty,” came a still small voice, when he had done his business.
Young Jack strode once more into the fray. His eyes shone like a pair of Cortina reversing lamps and a faint yellow fog rose from the corners of his mouth. He turned his head upon its axis and grinned back over his shoulders at the hushed crowd. With hardly a glance towards the board, he flung his darts. The outcome was a matter for the Guinness Book of Records to take up at a later date.
“I don’t like this,” said Professor Slocombe. “I am missing something, but I do not know what it is.”
“We are scoring equal,” said Omally, “he needs but one unfortunate error.”
“I am loath to intervene, John.”
“It might get desperate, Professor, say a few words in the old tongue, just to be on the safe side.”
“We will wait a bit and see.”
“He is closing for the kill,” said John.
Professor Slocombe shook his head. “I still cannot see it, he appears to be winning by skill alone.”
“God bless him,” said Pooley.
Omally raised a fist towards his companion. “We are talking about the Swan’s trophy here,” he said, waggling the terror weapon towards Pooley. “This is no joke.”
“One day,” said Jim calmly, “I shall turn like the proverbial worm and take a terrible retribution upon you, Omally, for all the blows you have administered to my dear head.”
“Sssh,” went at least a dozen patrons. “Uncle Ted is up.”
Uncle Ted, Brentford’s jovial greengrocer, was possibly the most loved man in the entire district. His ready smile and merry wit, his recourse to a thousand cheersome and altruistic bons mots, of the “laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone” variety, brought joy into the lives of even the most manic of depressives. It was said that he could turn a funeral procession into a conga line, and, although there is no evidence to show that he ever took advantage of this particular gift, he was never short of a jocular quip or two as he slipped a few duff sprouts into a customer’s carrier-bag.
Omally, who could not find it within himself to trust any man who would actually deal in, let alone handle, a sprout, found the greengrocer nauseous to the extreme degree. “That smile could make a Samaritan commit suicide,” he said.
Uncle Ted did a little limbering-up knee-work, made flexing motions with his shoulders, and held a wet finger into the air. “Is the wind behind us?” he asked, amidst much laughter from his supporters. He waved at the smoke-filled air with a beermat. “Which way’s the board then? Anybody got a torch?”
Omally groaned deeply within the folds of his beard. “Get on with it, you twerp,” he muttered.
Uncle Ted, who for all his inane clowning, was well aware that a wrong move now could cost him his livelihood, took a careful aim whose caution was disguised behind a bout of bum wriggling. His first dart creased into the treble twenty with very little to spare.
“Where did it land then?” he asked, cupping his hand to his forehead and squinting about. His supporters nudged one another, cheered and guffawed. “What a good lad,” they said. “Good old Uncle Ted.”
Ted looked towards the board and made a face of surprise upon sighting his dart. “Who threw that?” he asked.
To cut a long and very tedious story short, Uncle Ted’s second dart joined its fellow in the treble twenty, but his third, however, had ideas of its own and fastened its nose into the dreaded single one. The laughter and applause which followed this untimely blunder rang clearly and loudly, but not from any of those present who favoured the home team.
“What a good lad,” said Young Jack. “Good old Uncle Ted.”
The greengrocer left the Flying Swan that night in disgrace. Some say that like Judas he went forth and hanged himself. Others, who are better informed, say that he moved to Chiswick where he now owns three shops and spends six months of the year abroad.
Omally was leafing frantically through the pages of his book. “I am in big schtuck here,” he said suddenly, brushing away a bead of perspiration from his brow. “In my haste to accept bets and my certainty of the Swan’s ultimate victory, I have somewhat miscalculated. The fix is in and ruination is staring me in the beard.”
Professor Slocombe took the book from Omally’s trembling fingers and examined it with care. “I spy a little circle of treachery here,” he said.
“The Four Horsemen needs one hundred and forty-one,” gasped the adjudicator.
“I am finished,” said Omally. “It is back to the old country for me. A boat at the dock and before the night is out.”
Professor Slocombe was staring at the dartboard and shaking his head, his face wearing an unreadable expression. Pooley was ashen and speechless. But for the occasional bitow to the rear of the crowd, the Swan was a vacuum of utter silence.
Young Jack squared up to the board as Omally hid his face in his hands and said a number of Hail Marys.
Jack’s first dart pierced the treble twenty, his second the double, and his third the single one.
“One hundred and one,” mouthed the adjudicator in a manner which was perfectly understood by all deaf-mutes present.
Omally waved away a later punter proffering a wad of notes. “Suck, boy,” was all that he could say.
The adjudicator retired to the bar. He would say no more this evening and would, in all probability, make himself known for the rest of his life through the medium of notepad and pencil.
Norman, who had sacked the rest of the team, took the floor. He threw another blinding one hundred and eighty but it really didn’t seem to matter any more.
The Four Horsemen needed but a double top to take the Shield, and a child of three, or at a pinch four if he was born in Brentford, could surely have got that, given three darts.
Neville put the towels up and climbed on to the bar counter, knobkerry in hand. There was very likely to be a good deal of death and destruction within another minute or two and he meant to be a survivor at any cost.
Croughton the pot-bellied potman leant back in his beer crate refuge and puffed upon his cigarette. Up above, the night stars glittered eternally, and nothing there presaged the doom and desolation which was about to befall Brentford. “Oh look,” he said suddenly to himself, as he peered up at the firmament. “Shooting stars, that’s lucky. I shall make a wish on them.”