Read Online Fiendish Schemes by K. W. Jeter - Free Book Online

overlook as salient a fact as this.”
    He blinked in confusion. “I’m not following you. . . .”
    “Evidently not. You come to me with some daft plan, spinning fantastic reveries about the vast sums in which we’ll soon be wallowing. I admit I was intrigued, more fool I. You caught me at a weak moment, when my thoughts were easily beguiled. But then, having thus ensnared me, when pressed as to the actual details of this grand scheme of yours, all that you can tell me is that it centers upon laying bets with those bookmakers who track who’s up and who’s down amongst the lighthouse corporations.”
    “So it does,” admitted Stonebrake. “If you’d but allow me to impart the full details to you—”
    “What need is there? As God is my witness, your opacity astounds me. Are you not aware that wagering with the Sea & Light Book is what reduced me to these wretched circumstances?”
    The reader’s forbearance is requested. If, in the furious pace of my narrative, I write of matters unfamiliar to those whose lives have been more circumspect than mine—which I assume would encompass most of the population, there being so little effort or good fortune required to achieve that happy condition—my apologies are extended. So sunk in misery had I become, that it would be only natural to assume that everyone was as acquainted with such sordid matters as myself. No great charitableness is needed to recognize that others lead, in general, more virtuous lives than mine.
    To elucidate, in pursuit of understanding amongst those curious about such things:
    For the British nation, so thoroughly dependent upon oceangoing trade as we are, the awareness of the surrounding oceans as living creatures—with its accompanying effect upon navigation— gave rise to more than Phototrope Limited and its competitors. Scarcely a bale or crate of goods is loaded or unloaded at a British port, but that one of the lighthouse corporations receives a share of the merchants’ proceeds, for having guided their vessels safely about the hazards that ring our island. No business as large as that can stride upon the scene, like some valiant commercial hero, without other money-making endeavours trailing behind. The opportunity to profit from the activities of the new lighthouse corporations is not limited to those who had invested so wisely in them.
    The rivalry amongst the different lighthouse corporations, and between the walking lights and their celebrity captains, such as the much-admired Captain Crowcroft whom I had so recently met, is so exciting to certain easily impressionable minds that it is little wonder that interest in such matters has swept through so much of our society. The more genteel of our house holds limit their indulgence to reading about the latest exploits of Crowcroft et al. in the popular journals of the day. No doubt there are many tender-hearted maidens who catch their breath at the portraits that accompany such deathless prose, and who murderously envy Lord and Lady Fusible’s daughter, Evangeline, for her betrothal to the heroic lighthouse captain who had captured her heart. Such diversions are essentially innocent. The darker aspect to enthusiasm for walking lighthouse exploits is to be found in the betting shops and bookmakers’ parlours, in particular that constellation of the same that has become known under the general rubric of the Sea & Light Book.
    Perhaps the reader has heard of such things, but has spared himself intimate acquaintanceship. I wish I could speak the same of myself. For I had allowed myself to become caught up in the betting mania, to my moral chagrin and financial detriment, the combination seemingly terminal.
    In the remote English village in which I had established my abode, there had been little opportunity to lay a bet upon the outcomes of the various corporations as their landbound fleets of walking lights competed against each other, pursuing those coastal locations where they could