should it win?”
“I am an indifferent player. If the tactics of the game have been
reduced to machinery and the combinations are controlled by a
dispassionate automaton, the one-tenth would constitute a winning
factor.”
“And against expert players?”
Sir Fergus admitted that to the best of his knowledge the figure still
had the advantage. In answer to Carrados’s further inquiry he estimated
his losses at two or three hundred pounds. The stakes were whatever the
visitor suggested--Spinola was something of a grandee, one inferred--and
at half-crown points Sir Fergus had found the game quite expensive
enough.
“Why do people go if they invariably lose?” asked the blind man.
“My dear fellow, why do they go to Monte Carlo?” was the retort,
accompanied by a tolerant shrug. “Besides, I don’t positively say that
they always lose. One hears of people winning, though I have never seen
it happen. Then I fancy that the novelty has taken with a certain set.
It is a thing at the moment to go up there and have the rather bizarre
experience. There is an element of the creep in it, you know--sitting
and playing against that serene and unimpressionable contrivance.”
“What do the others do? There is quite a company, I gather.”
“Oh yes, sometimes. Occasionally one may find oneself alone. Well, the
others often watch the play. Sometimes sets play bridge on their own.
Then there is coffee and wine. Nothing formal, I assure you.”
“Rowdy ever?”
“Oh no. The old man has a presence; I doubt if anyone would feel
encouraged to go too far under Spinola’s eye. Yet practically nothing
seems to be known of him, not even his nationality. I have heard
half-a-dozen different tales from as many cocksure men--he is a South
American Spaniard ruined by a revolution; a Jesuit expelled from France
through politics; an Irishman of good family settled in Warsaw, where he
stole the plans from a broken-down Polish inventor; a Virginia military
man, supposed to have a dash of the negroid, who suddenly found that he
was dying from cancer and is doing this to provide a fortune for an only
and beautiful daughter, and so on.”
“Is there a beautiful daughter?”
“Not that I have ever seen. No, the man just cropped up, as odd people
do in great capitals. Nobody really knows anything about him, but his
queer salon has caught on to a certain extent.”
Now any novel phase of life attracted Carrados. The mixed company that
Spinola’s enterprise was able to draw to an out-of-the-way suburb--the
peculiar blend of science and society--was not much in itself. The
various constituents could be met elsewhere to more advantage, but the
assemblage might engender piquancy. And the man himself and his machine?
In any case they should repay attention.
“How does one procure the entrée?” he inquired.
Copling raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“You also?” he replied. “Oh, I see; you think----Well, if you are going
to discover any sleight-of-hand about the business I don’t mind----”
“Yes?” prompted Carrados, for Sir Fergus had pulled up on an obvious
afterthought.
“I did not intend going up again,” said Copling slowly. “As a matter of
fact, I have seen all that interests me. And--I suppose I may as well
tell you, Carrados--I made someone a sort of promise to have nothing to
do with gambling. She feels very strongly on the subject.”
“She is very wise,” commented the blind man.
Elation mingled with something faintly apologetic in the abrupt bestowal
of the baronet’s unexpected confidence.
“It was really quite a sudden and romantic happening,” he continued, led
on by the imperceptible encouragement of his companion’s attitude. “She
is called Mercia. She does not know who I am--not that that’s anything,”
he added modestly. “She is an orphan and earns her own living. I was
able to be of some slight service to her in the science galleries at
South Kensington, where she was collecting material for her employer.
Then we met there again and had lunch together, and so on.”
“At tea-shops?”
“Oh yes. Her tastes are very simple. She doesn’t like shows and society
and all that.”
“I congratulate you. When is it to be?”
“It? Oh! Well, we haven’t settled anything like that yet. Of course this
is all in confidence, Carrados.”
“Absolutely--though the lady has done me rather an ill turn.”
“How?”
“Well, weren’t you going to introduce me to Mr Spinola?”
“True,” assented Sir Fergus. “And I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” he added
valiantly. “I need not play, and if there is any bunkum about the thing
I should certainly like to see how it is done. What evening will suit
you?”
An early date had suited both, and shortly after eight o’clock--an hour
at which they were likely to find few guests before them--Carrados’s car
drew up at Strathblane Lodge. By arrangement he had picked up Copling,
who lived--“of all places in the world,” as people had said when they
heard of it--in an unknown street near Euston. Parkinson, out of regard
for the worthy man’s feelings, had been left behind on the occasion and
in ignorance of his master’s destination.
The appearance of the place was certainly not calculated to reassure a
nervous investor. The entirely neglected garden seemed to convey a hint
that the tenant might be contemplating a short occupation and a hasty
flight. Nor did the exterior of the house do much to remove the
unfortunate impression. Only a philosopher or an habitual defaulter
would live in such a state.
The venerable Mr Spinola received them in the salon set apart for the
display of the automaton and for cards in general. It was a room of fair
proportions--doubtless the largest in the house--and quite passably
furnished, though in a rather odd and incongruous style. But probably
any furniture on earth would have seemed incongruous to the strange,
idol-like presence which the inventor had thought fit to adapt to the
uses of his mechanism. The figure was placed on a low pedestal,
sufficiently raised from the carpet on four plain wooden legs for all
the space underneath to be clearly visible. The body was a squat,
cross-legged conception, typical of an Indian deity, the head singularly
life-like through the heavy gilding with which the face was covered, and
behind the merely contemplative expression that dominated the golden
mask the carver had by chance or intention lined a faint suggestion of
cynical contempt.
“You have come to see my little figure--Aurelius, as we call him among
ourselves?” said the bland old gentleman benignly. “That is right; that
is right.” He shook hands with them both, and received Mr Carrados, on
Sir Fergus’s introduction, as though he was a very dear friend from whom
he had long been parted. It was difficult indeed for Max to disengage
himself from the effusive Spinola’s affection without a wrench.
“Mr Carrados happens to be blind, Mr Spinola,” interposed Copling,
seeing that their host was so far in ignorance of the fact.
“Impossible! Impossible!” exclaimed Spinola, riveting his own very
bright eyes on his guest’s insentient ones. “Yet,” he added, “one would
not jest----”
“It is quite true,” was the matter-of-fact corroboration. “My hands must
be my eyes, Mr Spinola. In place of seeing, will you permit me to touch
your wonderful creation?”
The old man’s assent was immediate and cordial. They moved across the
room towards the figure, the inventor modestly protesting:
“You flatter me, my dear sir. After all, it is but a toy in large;
nothing but a toy.”
A weary-looking youth, the only other occupant of the room, threw down
the illustrated weekly that he had picked up on the new arrivals’
entrance and detained Copling.
“Yes, I had been toying a little before you arrived,” he remarked
flippantly. “I came early to cut Dora Lascelle off from the idle crowd
and the silly little rabbit isn’t coming, it appears. I didn’t want to
play, because, for a fact, I have no money, but the old thing bored me
to hysterics. Good God! how he can talk so little on anything really
entertaining, like _The Giddy Flappers_ or Trixie Fluff’s divorce, and
so much about strange, unearthly things that no other living creature
has ever seen even in a dream, baffles my imagination. What’s an
‘integral calculus,’ Copling? No, don’t tell me, after all. Let me
forget the benumbing episode as soon as possible.”
“Do you wish for a game, Sir Fergus?” broke in Spinola’s soft voice from
across the room. “Doubtless Mr Carrados might like to follow someone
else’s play before he makes the experiment.”
Copling hesitated. He had not come to play, as he had already told his
friend, but Max gave no sign of coming to his assistance.
“Perhaps you, Crediton?” said the mathematician; but young Crediton
shook his head and smiled wisely: Copling was too easy-going to stand
out. He crossed the room and sat down at the automaton’s table.
“And the stake?”
“Suppose we merely have a guinea on the game?” suggested the visitor.
Spinola acquiesced with the air of one to whom a three-penny bit or a
kingdom would have been equally indifferent. The deal fell to Copling
and the automaton therefore had the first “elder hand,” with the
advantage of a discard of five cards against its opponent’s three.
Carrados had already been shown the theory of the contrivance. He now
followed Spinola’s operations as the game proceeded. The old man picked
up the twelve cards dealt to the automaton and carefully arranged them
in their proper places on a square shield that was connected with the
front of the figure. As each fell into its slot it registered its
presence on the delicate mechanism that the figure contained.
“The discard,” remarked Spinola, and moved a small lever. The left hand
of the automaton was raised, came over the shield which hid its cards
from the opponent, touched one with an extended finger, and affixing it
by suction, lifted the selected card from the slot and dropped it face
downwards on the table.
“A little slow, a little cumbersome,” apologised the inventor as the
motions were repeated until five cards had been thrown out. “The left
hand is used for the discard alone, as a different movement is
necessary.” He picked up the five new cards from the stock and arranged
them as he had done the hand. “Now we proceed to the play.”
Crediton strolled across to watch the game. He stood behind Copling,
while Carrados remained near the automaton. Spinola opened the
movements.
“Aurelius has no voice, of course,” he said, studying the display of
cards, “so I--point of five.”
“Good,” conceded the opponent.
Spinola registered the detail on one of an elaborate set of dials that
produced a further development in the machinery.
“Spades,” he announced, declaring the suit that he had won the “point”
on. “Tierce major.”
“Quart to the queen--hearts,” claimed Copling, and Spinola moved another
dial to register the opponent’s advantage.
“Three kings.”
“Good,” was the reply.
“Three tens,” added the senior player, as his three kings, being good
against the other hand, enabled him to count the lower trio also. “Five
for the point and two trios--eleven.” Every detail of the scoring and of
the ensuing play was registered as the other things had been.
This finished the preliminaries and the play of the hands began. The
automaton, in response to the release of the machinery, moved its right
arm with the same deliberation that had marked its former action and
laid a card face upwards on the table. For the blind man’s benefit each
card was named as it was played. At the end of the hand Copling had won
“the cards”--a matter of ten extra points--with seven tricks to five and
the score stood to his advantage at 27--17.
“Not bad for the junior hand,” commented Crediton. “Do you know”--he
addressed the inventor--“there is a sort of ‘average,’ as they call it,
that you are supposed to play up to? I forget how it goes, but 27 is
jolly high for the minor hand, I know.”
“I have heard of it,” replied Spinola politely. Crediton could not make
out why the other two men smiled broadly.
The succeeding hands developed no particular points of interest. The
scoring ruled low and in the end Copling won by 129 to 87. Spinola
purred congratulation.
“I am always delighted to see Aurelius lose,” he declared, paying out
his guinea with a princely air.
“Why?” demanded Crediton.
“Because it shows that I have succeeded beyond expectation, my dear
young sir: I have made him almost human. Now, Mr Carrados----”
“With pleasure,” assented the blind man. “Though I am afraid that I
shall not afford you the delight of losing, Mr Spinola.”
“One never knows, one never knows,” beamed the old man. “Shall we
say----”
“Half-crown points--for variety?”
“Very good. Ah, our deal.” He dealt the hands and proceeded to dispose
the twelve that fell to the automaton on the shield. There was a moment
of indecision. “Pray, Mr Carrados, do you not arrange your cards?”
“I have done so.” He had, in fact, merely spread out his hand in the
usual fan formation and run an identifying finger once round the upper
edges. The cards remained as they had been dealt, face downwards.
“Wonderful! And that enables you to distinguish them?”
“The ink and the impression on a plain surface--oh yes.” He threw out
the full discard as he spoke and took in the upper five of the stock.
“You overwhelm us; you accentuate the tiresome deliberation of poor
Aurelius.” Spinola was hovering about the external fittings of the
figure with unusual fussiness. When at length he released the left hand
it seemed for an almost perceptible moment that the action hung. Then
the arm descended and carried out the discard.
“Point of five,” said Carrados.
“Good.”
“In spades. Quint major in spades also, tierce to the knave in clubs,
fourteen aces”--_i.e._ four aces; “fourteen” in the language of piquet
as they score that number. He did not wait for his opponent to assent to
each count, knowing, after the point had passed, that the other calls
were good against anything that could possibly be held. “Five, twenty,
twenty-three, ninety-seven.” Having reached thirty before his opponent
scored, and without a card having so far been played, his score
automatically advanced by sixty. That is the “repique.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Crediton, “that’s the first time I’ve ever known
Aurelius repiqued.”
“Oh, it has happened,” retorted Spinola almost testily.
The play of the hand was bound to go in Carrados’s favour--he held eight
certain tricks. He won “the cards” with two tricks to spare and the
round closed at 119--5.
“You look like being delighted again, Mr Spinola,” remarked Crediton a
little cruelly.
“Suppose you make yourself useful by dealing for me,” interposed
Carrados. “Of course,” he reminded his host, “it does not do for me to
handle any cards but my own.”
“I had not thought of that,” replied Spinola, looking at him shrewdly.
“If you had no conscience you would be a dangerous opponent, Mr
Carrados.”
“The same might be said of any man,” was the reply. “That is why it is
so satisfactory to play an automaton.”
“Oh, Aurelius has no conscience, you know,” chimed in Crediton
sapiently. “Mr Spinola couldn’t find room for it among the wheels.”
The second hand was not eventful. Each player had to be content to make
about the “average” which Crediton had ingenuously discovered. It raised
the scores to 33--130. Two hands followed in the same prudent spirit;
the fifth--Carrados’s “elder”--found the position 169--67.
“Only two this time,” remarked Carrados, taking in.
“Jupiter!” murmured Crediton. It is unusual for the senior hand to leave
even one of the five cards to which he is entitled. It indicated an
unusually strong hand. The automaton evidently thought so too. It
availed itself of all the six alternative cards and, as the play
disclosed, completely cut up its own hand to save the repique by beating
Carrados on the point. It won the point, to find that its opponent only
held a low quart, a tierce and three kings. As a result Carrados won
“the cards” and the score stood 199--79. The discard was, in fact, an
experiment in bluff. Carrados _might_ have held a quint and fourteen
kings for all the opposing hand disclosed.
“What on earth did you do that for?” demanded Copling. He himself always
played an eminently straightforward game--and generally lost.
“I’ll bet I know,” put in Crediton. “You are getting rather close, Mr
Spinola--the last hand and you need twenty-one to save the rubicon.” The
“rubicon” means that instead of the loser’s score being deducted from
the winner’s in arriving at the latter’s total, it is _added_ to it--a
possible difference of nearly 200 points.
“We shall see; we shall see,” muttered Spinola with a little less than
his usual suavity.
Whatever concern he had, however, was groundless, for the game ended
tamely enough. Carrados ought to have won the point and divided tricks,
leaving his opponent a minor quart and a solitary trio--about 15 on the
hand. By a careless discard he threw away both chances and the final
score stood at 205--112. Copling, who had come to regard his friend’s
play as rather excellent, was silent. Crediton almost shrieked his
disapproval and seizing the cards demonstrated to his heart’s content.
“Ninety-three and the hundred for the game--twenty-four pounds and one
half-crown,” said the loser, counting out notes and coin to the amount.
“It has been an experience for both of us--Aurelius and myself.”
“And certainly for me,” added Carrados.
“Look here,” interposed Crediton, “Aurelius seems off his play. If you
don’t mind taking my paper, Mr Spinola, I should like another go.”
“As you please,” assented the old man. “Your undertaking is, of
course----” The gesture suggested “quite equal to that of the cashier of
the Bank of England.” The venerable person had, in fact, regained his
lofty pecuniary indifference. “The same point?”
“Right-o,” cheerfully assented the youth.
“I will go and think over my shortcomings,” said Carrados.
He started to cross the room to a seat and ran into a couch. With a gasp
Copling hastened to his assistance. Then he found his arm detained and
heard the whisper.
“Sit down with me.”
Across the room the play had begun again and with a little care they
could converse without the possibility of a word being overheard.
“What is it?” asked Sir Fergus.
“The golden one will win. It is only when the cards are not exposed that
you play on equal terms.”
“But I won?”
“Because it is well to lose sometimes and, by choice, when the stake is
low. That witless youth will have to pay for both of us.”
“But how--how on earth do you suggest that it is done?”
“Look round cautiously. What eyes overlook Crediton’s hand as he sits
there?”
“What eyes? Good gracious! is there anything in that?”
“What is it?”
“There is a trophy of Japanese arms high up on the wall. An iron mask
surmounts it. It has glass eyes. I have never seen anything like that
before.”
“Any others round the walls?”
“There is a stuffed tiger’s head on our right and a puma’s or something
of that sort on the left.”
“In case a suspicious player asks to have the places changed or holds
his cards awkwardly. Working the automaton from other positions is
probably also arranged for.”
“But how can a knowledge of the opponent’s cards affect the automaton?
The dials----”
“The dials are all bunkum. While you were playing I took the liberty of
altering them and for a whole hand the dials indicated that you must
inevitably be holding eight clubs and four spades. All the time you were
leading out hearts and diamonds and the automaton serenely followed
suit. The only effective machinery is that indicating the display of
cards on the shield and controlling the hands, and that is worked by a
keyboard and electric current from the room below. The watcher behind
the mask telephones the opposing hand, the discard and the take-in. The
automaton’s hand has already been indicated below. You see the enormous
advantage the hidden player has? When he is the minor hand he knows
everything that is to be known before he discards. When he is the elder
he knows almost everything. By concentrating on one detail he can
practically always balk the pique, the repique and the kapot, if it is
necessary to play for safety. You remember what Crediton said--that he
had never known Aurelius repiqued before. The leisurely manipulation of
the dials gives plenty of time. An even ordinary player in that position
can do the rest.”
Copling scarcely knew whether to believe or not. It sounded plausible,
but it reflected monstrously.
“You speak of a telephone,” he said. “How can you definitely say that
such a thing is being used? You have never been in the room before and
we’ve scarcely been here an hour. It--it may be awfully serious, you
know.”
Carrados smiled.
“Can you hear the kitchen door being opened at this moment or detect the
exact aroma of our host’s mocha?” he demanded.
“Not in the least,” admitted Copling.
“Then of course it is hopeless to expect you to pick up the whisper of a
man behind a mask a score of feet away. How fearfully in the dark you
seeing folk must be!”
“Can you possibly do that?” Even as he was speaking the door opened and
a servant entered, bringing coffee and an assortment of viands
sufficiently exotic to maintain the rather Oriental nature of
entertainment.
“Stroll across and see how the game is going,” suggested Carrados. “Have
a look at Crediton’s discard and then come back.”
Sir Fergus did not quite follow the purpose, but he nodded and proceeded
to comply with his usual amiable spirit.
“It stands at 137 to 75 against Crediton and they are playing the last
hand. Our young friend looks like losing thirty or forty pounds.”
“And his discard?”
“Oh--seven and nine of clubs and the knave of hearts.”
Carrados held out a slip of paper on which he had already pencilled a
few words. The baronet took it, looked and whistled softly. He had read:
“Clubs, seven, nine. Hearts, knave.”
“Conjuring?” he interrogated.
“Quite as simple--listening.”
“I suppose I must accept it. What staggers me is that you can pick out a
whisper when the room is full of other louder sounds. Now if there had
been absolute stillness----”
“Merely use. There’s nothing more in it than in seeing a mouse and a
mountain, or a candle and the sun, at the same time. Well, what are we
going to do about it?”
Copling began to look acutely unhappy.
“I suppose we must do something,” he ruminated, “but I must say that I
wish we needn’t. I mean, I wish we hadn’t dropped on this. You know,
Carrados, whatever is going on, Spinola is no charlatan. He does
understand mathematics.”
“That makes him all the more dangerous. But I should like to produce
more definite proof before we do anything.... Does he ever leave us in
the room?”
“I have never known it. No, he hovers round his Aurelius.”
“Never mind. Ah, the game is finished.”
The game was finished and it needed no inquiry to learn how it had gone.
Mr Crediton was handing the venerable Spinola a memorandum of
indebtedness. His words and attitude did not convey the impression of a
graceful loser.
“I wish you two men would give me the tip for beating this purgatorial
image,” he grumbled as they came up. “I thought that he’d struck a
losing line after your experience and this is the result.” He indicated
the spectacle of their amiable host folding up his I.O.U. preparatory to
dropping it carelessly into a letter-rack, and shrugged his shoulders
with keen disgust.
“I’ll tell you if you like,” suggested Sir Fergus. “Hold the better
cards.”
“And play them better,” added Carrados. “Good heavens!”
A very untoward thing had happened. They had all been standing together
round the table, Spinola purring appreciatively, Crediton fuming his
ill-restrained annoyance, and the other two mildly satirical at his
expense. Carrados held a cup of coffee in his hand. He reached towards
the table with it, seemed to imagine that he was a full foot nearer than
he was, and before anyone had divined his mistake, cup, saucer and the
entire contents had dropped neatly upon Mr Spinola’s startled feet,
saturating his lower extremities to the skin.
“Good heavens! What on earth have I done?”