“The sting in the tail was this. Because sea-captaining was such a risky job in those days, it was a virtual certainty that the policyholder wouldn’t make sixty years of age. This is where the sucker-bet part of it comes in. Because of this actuarial semi-certainty, the policy contains the proviso that the sum assured—the payout—will increase by fifty per cent compound for every year that the life assured—the sucker—survives over the age of seventy-five. Seventy-five, mark you; those Fuggers were taking no chances. It made a marvellous selling point, and the age limitation only appeared in very tiny script on the back of the policy, just underneath the seal where you wouldn’t think of looking. They sold tens of thousands of those policies, and for every one sucker that made seventy-six, there were nine hundred and ninety-nine that didn’t.”
Mr Gleeson stopped talking and sat very still for a while, so still that Jane was afraid to interrupt him. It is very quiet indeed in a soundproofed office on the fifteenth floor of an office block at two in the morning.
“Talking of sucker bets,” Mr Gleeson finally said, “this one was the best of the lot. You see, Captain Vanderdecker didn’t die. He just went on living. Nobody knows why—there are all sorts of far-fetched stories which I won’t bore you with, because your credulity must be strained to breaking-point already. The fact remains that Vanderdecker didn’t die. He is still alive, over four hundred years later. Please bear in mind the fact that the interest is compound. We tried to calculate once what it must be now, but we couldn’t. There is, quite literally, not that much money in the whole world.”
“So, you see, if Vanderdecker dies, the whole thing will go into reverse. All the money which has gone into the sock—and that’s every penny there is—will have to come out again, and it will all go to Mr Vanderdecker’s estate. This is of course impossible, and so the bank would have to default—it would have to welch on a sucker bet. And that would be that. End of civilisation as we know it. You know as well as I do that the economies of the major economic powers are so volatile that the markets collapse every time the Mayor of Accrington gets a bad cold. The faintest hint that the National Lombard was about to go down and you wouldn’t be able to get five yards down Wall Street without being hit by a freefalling market-maker. And that is the basic story behind the Vanderdecker Policy.”
That same long, deafening silence came back again, until Jane could bear it no longer.
“But surely,” Jane said, “if Vanderdecker is going to live for ever, he’ll never die and the problem will never arise.”
Mr Gleeson smiled. “Who said he was going to live for ever?” he replied. “All we know is that he hasn’t died yet. It’s scientifically impossible for a man to live for ever. Logically, he must die eventually. And every year he doesn’t die, the problem gets inexpressibly worse. You see the trouble we’re in. We can’t afford for him to die, any more than we can afford for him to live any longer. Fifty per cent compound. Think about that for a moment, will you?”
Jane thought about it. She shuddered. “So where is he now?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” said Mr Gleeson. “We lost track of him in the 1630s, and then he kept turning up again. He turns up once every seven years or so, and then he vanishes off the face of the earth.”
Suddenly Jane remembered something. “You mean like the Flying Dutchman?” she said.
“Vanderdecker is the Flying Dutchman,” said Mr Gleeson. “The very same.”
“I see,” Jane said, as if this suddenly made everything crystal clear. “So where does Bridport come in?”
“I was coming to that,” said Mr Gleeson, “just as soon as I’d given you time to digest what I’ve just told you. Obviously you’ve got a remarkable digestion. Or you think I’m as mad as a hatter. Bridport comes in because that’s where Vanderdecker was last recorded in this country. He opened an account at the bank’s Bridport branch in 1890-something. I believe you found it.”
“I did,” Jane confirmed. “Why on earth haven’t you closed it?”
“Easy,” replied Mr Gleeson, “we can’t close it without either his instructions or sight of his death certificate. Rules are rules.”
Jane was astounded. The last thing she had expected was integrity. “But what about bank charges?” she said. “Couldn’t you just write it off against those?”
“No bank charges in eighteen ninety-thing,” replied Gleeson. “It wouldn’t be right. There would be an anomaly which would have to be noted in the accounts. As the bank’s auditor, I would have to insist on it.”
“I see,” Jane said again. “I didn’t realise the rules were so strict.”
“All we can do,” said Mr Gleeson, “is keep very quiet about it. The only people who know the significance of that account are me, the chairman of the bank, and now you. Obviously the local manager doesn’t know. And if anyone finds out apart from us, of course, we hound them to insanity and have them locked up in a mental hospital.”
