The two young men were conscious of a pleasant sensation of warmth as
the door swung to behind them.
They found themselves in a narrow passage, and immediately to their left
was a glass window like the window of a conciergerie, one panel of which
was open and looked into a dingy office lit by a single gas jet. There
was nothing in the office but a safe, a desk round the wall, and some
high stools, while a cheap French clock ticked from a bracket upon the
wall.
"At any rate, whoever they are, they have not gone," said Deschamps with
satisfaction. "Now we shall be all right," and as he said it he rapped
loudly with his knuckles upon the little counter in front of the glass
partition. They waited for nearly half a minute, but there was no
response. Finally Gregory took his walking stick and beat a tattoo upon
the counter. The sound of his knocking had hardly died away when
footsteps were heard in the distance. They grew nearer, and a door
leading into the office behind the partition was pushed open, and a
strange and rather startling figure entered.
This was a little man not more than four feet high, wearing a round
black cap of alpaca, a green baize apron, and a huge circular pair of
spectacles. His face was brown and shrivelled. A fine network of
wrinkles was all over it, and beneath the alpaca cap were straggling
locks of dingy white. The nose which supported the pair of grotesque
horn spectacles was large and bird-like, the mouth below was innocent
and kindly.
The little man, in short, looked exactly like the traditional toy or
clock maker of Nuremberg in a comic opera, stepping clean off the stage
to greet the new-comers.
He looked up at them with a courteous but inquiring glance as he turned
up the gas jet and they saw him more clearly. Then, placing two soiled
and wrinkled, but delicate and capable, hands upon the counter, he made
an odd bow.
"Messieurs?" he said, in a thin, piping voice.
Deschamps raised his hat. "I am sorry to say that my friend and I have
lost our way," he began. "The fog is very thick to-night, and it is
growing thicker and thicker. We have come quite out of our route, and do
not know where we are. We are trying to get to the Latin Quarter, where
we live."
The little man raised his hands, and as he did so, both young men
noticed how prehensile and delicate they were--the hands of a master
workman.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he said, "but you are very far out of your way, indeed,
gentlemen. This is the Rue Petite Louise. It is not a thoroughfare at
all. It is only a cul-de-sac, which winds among the wood-yards. Between
here and the Latin Quarter the district is very congested, and you might
walk about all night in a fog like this unless you could find a
taxi-cab."
"I am afraid there won't be any cabs abroad to-night in this part of
Paris," Gregory broke in. "Well, we must just take our chance. I thank
you very much, monsieur."
"But it is impossible!" the odd little creature said with a tiny
shriek. "The hour is already late, gentlemen; the fog, as you say, grows
thicker every moment. And, look you, on a night like this there will be
all sorts of robbers abroad. It is most unsafe."
Deschamps shrugged his shoulders. "Doubtless," he said, "but there is
nothing else for it."
The little man on the other side of the counter peered at them anxiously
through his great round spectacles. "But, yes," he said, in a plaintive
bleat, "if affairs call you home, monsieur--doubtless madame will be
distressed--then, indeed you must go, but----"
Deschamps laughed. "No, we have no business; we have finished our work
for the day, and we are not married; still----"
"The matter is settled," said the old gentleman, with a child-like
smile. "You will do me the honour of coming into our workshop
immediately. We have a fire there, soup, bread, and _vin ordinaire_ are
ready, and there is enough for all. My brother will be as pleased as I
am to have the honour of offering you hospitality on such a night.
No"--he waved his hands in reply to a murmur of protest from
Deschamps--"we could not let you go. Stay with us until the morning, and
we will do our best to make you comfortable as may be."
Eager, chirping and twittering like an excited bird, the odd, old fellow
unlatched a half-door, pushed up the counter-flap and bowed them into
the little office. In a moment they had passed through it into a long,
narrow room with a high roof which seemed to be of glass.
The place was lit by a huge fire of coal and wood, which glowed in an
open hearth, and by the side of it was a small forge. The red light
streamed out in a mysterious radiance upon a workshop crowded with
tools, long tables, stacks of rare and polished woods, and here and
there an unfamiliar machine.
The only other light came from two candles stuck upon a bench in their
own grease, and the whole effect was startlingly curious and unexpected.
It was as picturesque as some carefully set scene upon the stage, and
seemed utterly removed from the modern life of a great city. The red
light of the fire left distant corners of the workshop in black,
impenetrable shadow, making it seem of vast extent.
Around the fire, however, the half-circle of light it threw out showed
everything with great distinctness.
Gregory and Deschamps looked round them with bewildered eyes, and then,
simultaneously, they gasped.
Rising from an old oak chair, emerging from its depths rather, there
came another little man towards them.
In every particular he was exactly like their guide. In that bizarre
light, at any rate, hardly anyone could have told them apart, and as he
stepped forward he peered at them through identical round spectacles.
"My brother, Edouard," said the old man who had welcomed them. "Edouard,
these gentlemen have lost their way in the fog. They are very far from
their home, and it would be dangerous for them to seek it to-night
without a proper guide. I have accordingly asked them to come in, and
begged of them to share our simple supper, and to wait till the fog
goes."
"But I am enchanted!" said the second little man, settling his round
alpaca cap upon his head and waving his right arm in an expressive
pantomime of welcome. "But this is most fortunate, gentlemen. Supper is
nearly ready; come to the fire. Charles and myself are delighted to be
of service."
The sudden transition from bitter cold and the grey blanket of the fog
to this extraordinary place bewildered both the engineers. It was almost
as if they moved among the scenes of some fantastic dream, as they sat
down upon a bench by the fire, removed their damp hats and overcoats,
and looked around them.
Was this really modern Paris? Who were these two kindly, dwarf-like
creatures who had welcomed them into this warm, secret place, which
seemed like a cavern of the gnomes?
Suddenly Basil Gregory became conscious that "my brother Charles" was
standing before him and speaking.
"We are the Carnet Freres," he was saying, "and twin brethren also! I
noticed, monsieur, you were startled as Edouard came to greet you. And,
_naturellement_, this old workshop of ours is something out of the
ordinary way. But we have lived and worked here for twenty years, my
brother and I--we have a sleeping-room at the back--and what we do for
our living is a small and specialised branch of the wood-worker's trade,
and we have the monopoly of it."
Basil bowed. "My comrade, Monsieur Emile Deschamps," he said. "I, myself
am an Englishman, and my name is Gregory."
The hands of Brother Charles flickered in front of him. "But it is
wonderful!" he said with the pleased surprise of a child with a new toy.
"You are English to look at, monsieur. There is nothing of the Latin
about you; and yet you speak French as well as I do."
"I have lived nearly all my life in Paris," Basil answered with a smile.
"That accounts for it," the other twittered. "And now I see Brother
Edouard is preparing the meal. _Mon Dieu_, Edouard, how hungry these
poor gentlemen must be!"
An iron pot was hooked over the fire--a steaming pot, a pot of fragrant
promise. From it into stout china bowls Brother Edouard was ladleing
thick brown soup.
Brother Charles wheeled round to the long work-bench and began to cut
thick slices of bread, to rattle spoons, parade a somewhat dingy cruet,
set flat-footed glasses by each bowl, and uncork two bottles of _vin
ordinaire_.
Overflowing with hospitality and the most charming child-like
excitement, the odd, bird-like hosts served the soup and poured out that
cheap table-wine of Paris, which is exactly the colour of permanganate
of potash and water.
Basil and Emile sat down without further ado, and for five minutes there
was a happy silence. The _pot-au-feu_ was rich and nourishing. The wine
was exactly that to which the friends themselves were accustomed. The
fog and the cold in the ridiculous, inhospitable outside world was quite
forgotten, and it seemed as if some malignant fog-curtain in their own
brains had now rolled up and disappeared.
The faces of the two young men lost their pinched and discontented look.
Anxiety faded from their eyes, and as they passed their cigarette cases
to their hosts, and four thin blue spirals of smoke rose out of the red
light to be lost in the shadows of the roof, Basil Gregory and Emile
Deschamps had lost all thought of care.
It seemed quite natural, perfectly in the order of things, to be sitting
there with their fantastic and courteous entertainers in a strange,
mediaeval setting--two starving wayfarers upon a hillside, taken in to
the cave of the kindly gnomes, or the workshop of beneficent magicians.
"Your cigarettes are of the best tobacco, monsieur," said Charles
Carnet. "_Au bon fumeur!_ My brother and I had expected to spend a
lonely evening. Here's to the fortunate chance that brought us guests!"
He tossed off a thimbleful of the purple wine with a flourish.
"But I could wish, gentlemen," said his brother, "that we could have
entertained you better, I am afraid we are old-fashioned in our ways,
and prefer a simple menage. At any rate, there might have been more
light upon the scene. The fire is all very well, but these two candles
give hardly any illumination. As a rule, our workshop is lit with
electric light, and we also use the current for our lathe. An hour ago,
however, there was a 'fizz' and a 'spit' from that porcelain box there
in the casing of the electric wires, and, behold! the light went and the
lathe will not work. It has happened before, and we must now wait till
to-morrow for the electrician to come from the works and put it right
for us."
Basil Gregory laughed. "Fate hath many surprises, Monsieur Carnet," he
said, "and surely we have been specially sent to your assistance
to-night! My friend and I are both electrical engineers attached to the
superintending station of the Societe Generale at Mont Parnasse. I
expect I know what has happened. And I shall be very much mistaken if I
cannot put it right for you in two or three minutes."
The little gentlemen were on their feet in a second, chirping and
twittering with pleasure.
"_Tiens!_ Edouard," said Brother Charles, "we have been entertaining
angels unawares!"
"You are right, Charles," said Brother Edouard. "Angels of light."
Gregory and Deschamps went to the opposite wall of the workshop, moving
cautiously among the benches, litter of wood-blocks and tools. Deschamps
held one of the candles while Gregory deftly unscrewed the round
porcelain cap of the cut-out. It was as he suspected, and he pulled out
the semi-circular china bridge from its brass clips and showed it to his
hosts.
"It is quite simple," he said. "Between this brass screw and this, there
is always a soft wire made of tin and lead--fusible metal, we call it.
All the current which lights your lamps and runs your lathes passes
through the insulated copper wires, but it has to pass through the
little lead wire as well. From some reason or other the current gets too
strong and might heat the wires and create a fire; the little lead wire
strung on this half-circle melts with the heat, and the current is shut
off. That was the spitting noise you heard."
He plunged his hand into a side pocket and withdrew a small coil of fuse
wire, which every practical engineer carries, and a screwdriver. In half
a minute he had fixed three inches of the soft lead wire into the
bridge, and snapped the bridge into its place in the box.
There was a click as the blocks came home, and then, in an instant, the
long workshop was flooded with white light, while at the far end of it
the motor, and the lathe it drove, began to hum and clatter with a
sudden, disconcerting noise.
Edouard Carnet ran to the lathe and pulled down the tumbler switch. The
noise stopped, but the brilliant illumination remained, and entirely
changed the aspect of the room.
The great fire glowed a dull red now. The shadows shrivelled up into the
corners and disappeared. Every object in the workshop was distinct and
well-defined.
"A thousand thanks, monsieur," said the little men. "Another glass of
wine! We will go back to the fireside and drink in light and comfort."
The four of them found their way back to their seats, and began to talk
again. The eyes of the newcomers, however, were straying round the
workshop with a curiosity they could hardly disguise. The place had been
mysterious before, and strangely picturesque in the half light. It was
mysterious no longer, but a picturesqueness lingered still, while there
was much that neither of them were able to understand.
Suddenly Deschamps gave an exclamation. His eye had fallen upon
something which interested and excited him, something which called up
golden visions.
"_Tiens!_" he cried, jumping up from his seat, and going over to the
adjacent table. "And what have we here?"
Upon the table was a circular basin--rather larger than an ordinary
washing basin--beautifully made of polished black ebony, and with a rim
that curved over upon the inside. Upon the inward curve of the basin, at
regular distances, were diamond-shaped bosses of bright metal, while the
whole of the bottom of the instrument consisted of a series of tin
compartments painted black and red alternately, each compartment having
a number painted upon it in white. These compartments were fixed to a
moving disc, which could be rapidly rotated by means of a silver upright
terminating in a sort of capstan, and rising above the sides of the
bowl in the exact centre.
Emile Deschamps knew very well what this was. He was of the South. He
had been born near that fairy city on the Mediterranean where the
Goddess of Chance rules supreme.
"Then you make roulette wheels?" he cried, turning excitedly to the two
little men. "But this one is superb! It is larger than you can buy in
the shops. It is full size indeed--exactly as they are used at Monte
Carlo!"
With fingers that actually trembled, the young man twirled the silver
capstan, and immediately the painted slots in the bowl became merged in
a trembling blur of colour, as the disc revolved noiselessly, but at
great speed.
"It is perfect!" Emile went on, with a chuckle of excitement and
delight. "It runs as sweetly and truly as those in the Casino itself!
Basil, look here! See how delicate and beautiful this work is!"
The brothers Carnet had risen to their feet also, and were standing side
by side. Their bird-like faces were wreathed with gratified smiles. They
bowed together like a grotesque toy.
"Messieurs," said Brother Edouard, "we thank you for what you have
said. The wheel is, indeed, as you say, a masterpiece! But it would be
odd if it were not so, for, for twenty years my brother and myself have
done nothing else than make just these wheels. Every single piece of it
is our handiwork. We forge the nickel for the pivot and capstan, and we
silver-plate it ourselves. We select the wood, we turn it--no other
hands but ours touch the wheels. Brother Charles here even turns the
ivory balls." He stepped up to the table, pulled out a long drawer, and
lifted from it a walnut box lined with green baize, in which were a
dozen small balls of ivory, the size of a large marble.
"See!" he cried; "these also!"
Basil had been examining the delicate and beautifully made machine with
great interest while the Carnets had been speaking. He also had an eye
for perfect workmanship, and it needed not the excited enthusiasm of his
friend for him to realise that he saw it here.
At the same time, he could not quite understand the sort of fever into
which the sight of the roulette wheel had thrown Deschamps. It seemed
exaggerated to the Englishman. Here was good workmanship, it was true.
But why this torrent of excited words?
"For twenty years!" Deschamps cried. "Then; indeed, monsieur, that
explains it! But surely it cannot pay you to devote your life to this
work, though it is certainly the finest I have ever seen, and far
superior to anything one can buy in the shops!"
The two brothers chuckled; and then Charles took up the tale.
"Our wheels are not for sale," he said. "I must let you into a little
secret, which, as our guests and men of honour, you will preserve. My
brother and I make all the roulette wheels for the Casino at Monte
Carlo. We have been employed by the Administration for many, many years.
As you may well conceive, it is important that these machines should be
perfect in every detail. Millions of francs depend upon it. We are
retained at a large figure to construct the wheels. Every two years all
the wheels at Monte Carlo are changed. There are twelve roulette tables
generally in use. Every two years we send twelve wheels and the old ones
are returned to us to be broken up. We can just make twelve within the
two years. This one is the last of the new batch which will be
dispatched to the south in three days in charge of two commissionaires
from Monaco, who will never leave them out of their sight until they
arrive at their destination."
Basil listened to this explanation with interest. He had never been to
Monte Carlo, though, in common with the rest of the world, he had heard
many fabulous tales of the great gambling centre of the world. He saw,
however, that Emile's imagination was profoundly stirred, and he
listened, half dreamily, to the quick fire of eager questions and
courteous answers which passed between Deschamps and his hosts.
When this had a little died down, Emile turned to him and noticed his
half-abstracted, half-amused expression.
"Ah, _mon ami_," he said, "you wonder at me! This leaves you cold. It
means nothing to you. To me, who have been, I myself, in those
glittering halls of Chance, upon the edge of the Mediterranean, this
machine brings intoxicating visions. It tells of men and women at the
last gasp of hope, ruined in fortune, friendless, and with the whole
face of the world set against them like a wall of polished brass. It
tells me of a man like this entering through the great doors and issuing
forth again within a few short hours, rich beyond his rosiest dreams,
able to command all that life has to offer, the divine sense of power
flowing in his veins, the cold brass wall gone and in its place a garden
of roses! See!"
With a swift motion of his hands he picked up one of the little ivory
balls and twirled the capstan in the disc. The painted slots began to
revolve, more slowly than before.
Then, and obviously with a practised hand, Emile Deschamps held the ball
between the thumb and two first fingers of his right hand, gave a swift
motion of his wrist, and the little ivory cylinder whirled round the top
of the basin under the overhanging lip, with that curious droning sound
that no one who has ever heard it can quite forget.
Click! crack! crack! The speed of the ball lessening, it was now
rattling upon the diamond-shaped bosses on the side of the bowl, losing
momentum with every moment, until it dropped upon the revolving disc
below--revolving in the opposite direction to itself.
And now there was a succession of sharp taps, as the little ball was
tossed by the edges of the slots hither and thither, furiously jumping
from one to the other, flung back for an instant upon the sloping side
of the basin, returning to its mad career over the slots.
And then--a sudden final click as it fell to rest. Silence!
Immediately Deschamps put his finger upon the top of the capstan and
stopped the revolutions of the slots.
"Seven--red!" he cried. "Ah! if I had put but nine little golden louis
upon that number, within a quarter of a minute I should have been richer
by six thousand three hundred francs, more than twice what I earn in a
whole year, Basil! In twenty little seconds! Now, do you see what this
thing may mean?"
Basil found himself strangely affected by his friend's enthusiasm. He
knew nothing of roulette. He had occasionally seen a small wheel in a
toy shop, but this so concrete illustration of the game startled him
more than he would have been willing to admit.
The thin voice of Edouard Garnet broke in. "Yes, monsieur," he said,
"that is one vision, but there are others. Who should tell of those
unhappy men who have followed the Goddess of Chance even to the very
gates of death, until they have opened and closed upon them at last.
Somewhere in the kingdom of Monaco there is a hidden graveyard; none
know where it is. And in that dishonoured plot lies hundreds of nameless
ones, who have yielded up their all--happiness, honour, life--to the
ebony basin."
Basil started. The words seemed to come strangely from the actual
artificer of the wheel of fortune. Deschamps also looked curiously at
the little man, whose face had suddenly gone grey and whose voice
trembled. "But, monsieur," he said, in a hesitating voice.
The other made a gesture with his hand. "Yes, yes," he replied, "I well
know what you would say--such words come strangely from me or from my
brother. But, monsieur"--he tapped the rim of the bowl with a thin
hand--"this is the very last of these engines of hell that I or Charles
will ever make!"
He paused, struggling with some deep emotion. "We had a nephew," he
continued, "my brother and I; the only relative left to us in the world.
We loved him as if he had been a son. We saved, invested, and worked
solely for him. We are rich, monsieur! Not only have our earnings been
large, but we have saved, and invested our savings in safe rents. All,
all was to have been his. Aristide was young, clever, and, backed by the
fortune we could leave him, would have taken a high place in the world.
He had gone to Marseilles on business for us, entrusted with a
considerable sum of money. Some friends took him to Monte Carlo--it was
only three months ago. He lost this money of ours at the tables--lost it
by means of one of the very wheels we had made--and in despair he killed
himself, though God knows how gladly we would have forgiven him. We have
now completed our last contract for the Administration. We have
resigned our position, and for the future others shall make the wheels.
We will touch them no more."
"Never again," Charles Carnet echoed his brother, but he looked lovingly
at the glittering thing upon the table nevertheless. "No one will make
the wheels like us again," he said with a sigh.
The four men, oddly assorted as they were, gathered round the fire once
more. There was but little conversation now. They gazed into the glowing
heart of coals and wood-blocks, each busily occupied with his own
troubled thoughts.
Basil Gregory, warmed and comfortable as he was in body, felt very low
in spirits. One of those moments had come to him when life seems a
spoilt and futile thing. The future stretched before him in imagination
like some great Essex marshland at evening, when the colour fades out of
everything, the leaden tides creep inwards from the sea, and the curlews
pipe to each other with melancholy voices, like souls sick for love.
There was nothing, nothing! A dreary round of ill-paid mechanical
duties, a long engagement which would probably never end in marriage,
one of the most epoch-making inventions the world could ever know,
locked up in his mind and that of his friend, Emile Deschamps.
Thus the thoughts of the poor Englishman, Basil Gregory, as he gazed
into the rose-pink and amethyst heart of the fire.
The two old men were sadly remembering the recent loss of the
bright-faced boy that had meant everything in their narrow, patient
lives.
Sadness lay like a veil upon the faces of all three.
But Emile Deschamps' face was not sad. It was set and rigid. Not a
feature of it moved. The brow was wrinkled and knotted with thoughts.
There was a fixed and smouldering fire in the eyes. Once Basil looked at
his friend and wondered what intense and concentrated thought was
burning and glowing in the great executive brain of the Southerner. Had
he known, had an inkling of it reached him, he would have leapt to his
feet in the wildest excitement he had ever known.
For, indeed, the fickle Goddess of Chance was abroad this night, and had
led their footsteps to this secluded workshop. Unseen, unfelt by any
save only Emile Deschamps, she was hovering in the room where the wheels
of her votaries were made.
About dawn a low wind arose and wailed around the quarter of the
wood-turners. The deep mist vanished as grey light began to filter in
through the glass roof of the workshop. With many thanks the two young
men bade their hosts farewell, and went out into the chill morning air.
A pressing invitation to come again whenever they liked, piped in unison
by Brother Charles and Brother Edouard, was the last sound they heard as
their feet echoed up the deserted street towards the great main
thoroughfares of Paris.