The mother’s over eighty, but she simply cannot stay away from the
Rooms. She sits at the table, her face level with the cloth, her hands
clutching a few counters. Sometimes she has fits and has to be carried
out. She should be on her knees in some church instead of goggling and
gasping over that bloody board.... There was another old lady, nice,
serene, gentle, fat, who used to be known as ‘Queen Victoria,’ because
she resembled the late Queen. She held a kind of levée every day in
the Rooms. But her friends took her home to England, and they say she
nearly died of lonesomeness there. There’s lots like that, old folks
tottering on the edge of the tomb. They’d die in the Rooms if you’d let
’em.... Just look at that table over there. There’s a man that’s blind
and beside him a woman that’s paralyzed. I tell you, folks come here
that have to be carried to the table. They’re half dead.”
“Do many die in the Rooms?”
“Suicide? Not on your life. It’s considered bad form. As the English
say: ‘It’s a thing that’s simply not done....’ By God! if I wanted to
do it, I’d give ’em a jar. I’d go to that centre table and lean well
over the wheel; then I’d start pumping lead into my bean. I’d cover
that table with gore. A bucket of blood. I’d spatter my brains over
the damned croupiers. I can see the _Chef de Partie_ wiping them out of
the corner of his eye....”
“What a ghastly idea! I hope you’re not seriously thinking of such a
thing.”
Mr. Gimp cackled with laughter. “You don’t know me, son. I’m not
that sort. Still I’ve got a kind of idea in my old head I’ll make a
sensational exit. I have a notion that when I go, I’ll go with a bang.
I don’t just know how, but there it is....”
2.
In the week that followed Hugh saw a good deal of Paul Vulning.
The latter liked to swing round the “Cheese” in his long low
carmine-coloured car. He leaned back, driving with studied nonchalance.
On one occasion, he narrowly shaved Hugh and Mr. MacTaggart. The big
Scotchman shook a wrathful fist after him.
“The dawmed swanker! Ye’d think he wis rinnin’ the place. Ah’ll gie him
a puck on the gub yin o’ thae days that’ll teach him tae look doon his
neb at folk better than himsel’. I’ve got ma eye on him. I’ve seen him
aboot a lot wi’ Mrs. Emslie lately. Ye can tak’ me word for it he’s up
tae nae guid.”
And sure enough the very next day Hugh saw Mrs. Emslie and her daughter
in the carmine car. Vulning had a squint-eyed chauffeur who sat with
him as he drove. The mother and girl were behind. On their return
he saw them again; but this time, June Emslie was in front with the
chauffeur, while Vulning was behind with the mother.
That evening, he met the two women once more,--this time on the Avenue
des Fleurs. As he passed them in the darkness, he heard the mother’s
voice tense with anger. He never again saw the daughter waiting in the
atrium, but Mrs. Emslie, her white cheeks painted, her eyes burning,
gambled more desperately than ever.
Hugh himself was trying a new system which was behaving rather
decently. He put two louis on the manque and a louis on one of the
transversals of the passe. If it came manque he won a louis; if he
struck the transversal he won seven louis. He did not play until
certain indications told him he had the odds in his favour. He had to
a curious degree that sense of probability which is so valuable to the
player of roulette. Occasionally he had a hard tussle with the bank,
but on the whole he averaged a hundred francs a day. In addition to
this he made two louis for the running of the house. He was greatly
pleased and used to say to Margot:
“Isn’t it jolly to think that every mouthful we eat, we make the Casino
pay for? Doesn’t it make the food taste ever so much sweeter?”
“That’s not much of a compliment to my cooking.”
“You’re cooking’s delicious, my child. It’s the things you don’t cook.
By the way I made a couple of louis extra to-day, so here’s something
for you. You can regard it as a present from the _Société_.”
The gift was a pair of suede gloves. It was a joke of which he never
tired, that of giving her a present and saying: “With the compliments
of the Casino.”
He had come to love their big bright room. It was a refuge, a
retreat from the fever and fret of the tables. Here was reality, the
simple things that mattered; there, a false splendour, a theatrical
pretentiousness. Margot considered his growing fondness for home a
victory for her, and increased her efforts to make it attractive.
She bought many little furnishings, so that the living part became
extremely comfortable. But behind the big green curtain their sleeping
arrangements remained unchanged. The small grey curtain divided
his part from hers. This curtain seemed to him to have a definite
significance. It was the symbol of his honour. It was the frailest of
barriers, yet by the expression of his will it had become more solid
than a sheet of steel. It seemed curious at night to think that she was
so close. He often heard her breathing. Perhaps she was his for the
taking. But then she trusted him. He would open his eyes and look at
the grey curtain with a certain grim exultation. Good job it was grey.
Maybe if it had been orange or crimson, or some colour that appealed to
the senses, he might have been tempted to tear it aside.... But grey
had a sobering effect.
Not that he would have yielded to temptation. He was not that sort,
he told himself. If any such intention had ventured into his mind,
he would have stamped on it as he would on a snake. He had pride and
strength. He was clean-minded, cool-blooded. He was equal to the
situation he had created. Yet it was oddly pleasant to have her so
close to him. What did she think? he sometimes wondered. She, too,
accepted the situation and played the game as honourably as he. They
were like brother and sister.
He had to admit that every day she was growing more attractive. As
if to please him she had taken to dressing her hair in the English
fashion; parting it over the forehead, and massing it in a thick pleat
at the nape of her neck. The slight hollowing of her cheeks and the
sweetness of her mouth reminded him of Rossetti’s women. She did not
have much colouring; her skin was like ivory, and the faint pink of
her cheeks that of a sea shell. He made a good many sketches of her;
and told himself that some day he would paint her portrait.
But, for the time being, the Goddess Roulette claimed him as her own.
She brooked no rival. There in the gaiety and the golden sunshine,
he thought roulette, dreamed roulette, lived roulette. He was a
worshipper among a host of worshippers, their temple the Casino; and
few worshippers at a sacred shrine are so devoted.
One night he had a dream.
_The vast hollow of the sky seemed to be the bowl of a mighty wheel.
The ball rolled with the long menace of thunder and shot into its slot
like a lightning stab. Beneath the shadow of this sinister wheel, the
air was grey with fluttering bank-notes, the earth was like an ant-heap
of fevered, frenzied men and women. As they leaped at the money it
nearly always evaded them. With each leap they grew more feeble. Then
he noticed that the ground beneath them was a quagmire, into which they
were sinking. Their struggles plunged them deeper and deeper into the
ooze, until they disappeared from sight. But no sooner had they gone
than others took their place. They, too, leaped and clutched at the
elusive fortune, only to sink in turn. And over them the great shadowy
wheel rumbled and flashed, taking the place of God and the stars_....
It was all so vivid that he awoke shuddering and crying aloud: “The
wheel! The wheel!”
But no dream could damp his ardour, nor cloud his happiness. He was
superbly happy. He told himself it was because of the beauty and
charm of the place. Monte Carlo in its setting of primitive grandeur,
glutted with luxury, and gorged with light; man’s insolent triumph
over nature; a cocotte of price poised amid the eternal verities of
mountain and sea. He adored it. Its keynote was joy. Life glittered
and sang. Every day was a fête day. He loved the feeling that he was
part of it, one of its gay pleasure-seekers. That was the side of it he
chose to see. What if there was another, a sinister one! As far as he
was concerned it did not exist. Ruin, suicide, misery, all these were
lies of blackmailing journalists. The gambling was a harmless diversion
indulged in by people who lost what they could afford to lose. Those
who fell were only the weak who would have gone to the wall in some
other way. No, it was the most adorable place on earth.
One evening as he climbed the long hill to the Casino, his thoughts
were of the pleasantest. The night was rich with velvet darkness. A
sense of rain lurked in the crystal purity of the air, a soft reluctant
rain that might come before morning. On the concrete blocks that
protect the harbour the little lights of fishermen made swirls of gold,
and their nets moved round and round, scooping up the fish attracted by
the glow. The water of the harbour was as black as patent leather, and
the quay lamps shot down long bright stems that sprouted into silver
foliage. The few lights on the dark heights of Monaco seemed only to
accentuate its mystery.
He stood for a while where the white bust of Berloitz springs on a
shaft of marble from a patch of purple pansies. He looked past the
fiery frontages of the vast hotels, to where, above them all, the
cornice of the Riviera Palace appeared like an agraffe of pearls. He
inhaled deeply the breath of the sea. How well he felt! Never since
the year before the war, when he played cricket and football, had he
felt so fit. He was a man again, ready to tackle the job of life.
As he walked past the band-stand the Casino windows made panels of
orange against the biscuit-coloured stone. No, he would not play again
that night. One must not abuse one’s luck. He had already made three
hundred francs. He had now a thousand of the bank’s money to gamble
with. To-morrow he would buy ten chips of a hundred francs each and
play with them instead of with louis. He was full of confidence.
To-morrow the battle again; to-night the joy of victory. He rounded
the corner where the grounds of the Casino overhang the station, and
entered the quieter garden beyond. Finding a shadowed seat he sat down
to smoke. He was soon in a happy reverie.
A rock garden close by formed a small plateau on which was a pergola.
Suddenly his attention was drawn to it. He saw two people emerge from
the shadow. At first he thought they were lovers; then he noticed they
were struggling. As he bent forward trying to pierce the darkness he
heard a woman’s faint cry of distress. Rising swiftly, he ran towards
them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PLUNGING
1.
A man in evening dress was holding a girl and trying to draw her closer
to him.
“Leave me alone,” she moaned; “let me go or I’ll scream for help. I
will, I tell you....”
“You little fool! As if a kiss or two would hurt you. Come on, I’ve got
the car down below. Let me take you for a spin.”
“No, no. Let me go home to mother.”
He laughed. “You know your mother’s in the Casino playing the
fool, with money I lent her,--the last, by God! she ever gets from
me,--unless you are more amiable. I say, let’s go over to Ciro’s and
have something.”
“Oh, please let me go. You’re hurting me. I must find mother. She
wouldn’t like me to be alone here.”
“Bah! As long as she can gamble, your precious mother doesn’t care two
pins what you do. Why, she knows you’re with me. She’s got an extra
thousand to-night to keep out of the way. Come on, be reasonable! I’ll
save your mother yet; but you’ve got to be pretty nice. Here, another
kiss....”
“Oh, no. Please don’t. You forget yourself. You’ve been drinking. Let
me go, I say, let me go....”
His answer was to clutch her more fiercely. With a sudden wrench she
freed herself and broke away. He stood swaying for a moment, then with
a drunken laugh sprang after her. His arms were once more about to
close around her when Hugh leapt forward and dealt him a blow. The man
went down.
The girl had turned. In the radiance of an arc-light Hugh saw her
fear-distorted face.
“Miss Emslie!”
“Yes, yes,” she panted. “Oh, please help me. I’m afraid....”
“You needn’t be afraid. I’ll deal with this chap.”
“I don’t know you, but I’ve seen you often. How can I thank you....”
“Never mind about that. Run home to your friends.”
She vanished. As the man rose Hugh recognized Paul Vulning, his face
flushed with wine and deadly with rage.
“You young devil, you! Why did you do that?”
“Because under the circumstances it seemed the proper thing to do.”
“Is it the proper thing to interfere in an affair that doesn’t concern
you?”
“Her friends are my friends.”
“Who the devil are you? I’ve never met you. If it were not for these
fellows there I’d thrash you.”
“These fellows” were two firemen who had appeared from the shadow.
Probably they had been there all the time but had not judged the moment
opportune to intervene. Hugh laughed.
“We needn’t let that stand in our way. If there’s thrashing to be done,
I expect we can find lots of quiet places down on the beach.”
“I would be a fool to do that. I don’t know who you are. You may be a
crook for all I know.”
“I may be. You don’t know me. But I know you for a rotter and a cad.”
Paul Vulning’s face grew purple in its fury. Throwing discretion to
the winds, he rushed and swung a heavy blow. The two firemen valiantly
tried to come between them, and one of them received the vicious swing
intended for Hugh. Angered, he too struck out. There threatened to be a
general mix-up, when a voice, suave but edged with authority, made them
all turn.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, what’s this about? Do you want to be arrested?”
A tall dark man, with a lean intelligent face and a bland smile, seemed
to have sprung from nowhere. It was Krantz. He continued smoothly:
“I would strongly recommend you both to go home. You know, gentlemen,
we don’t want trouble in the Principality. Peace, perfect peace is our
ideal. Be advised, messieurs: go home.”
Paul Vulning’s jaw had dropped, and he was staring at Krantz with a
look that was half fascination, half fear. Then with a glower of hate
at Hugh, he strode away.
The next day, as he had planned, Hugh played with placques and won a
thousand francs. On his way out he met Mr. Gimp. The little lean man
seemed agitated as he fumbled over “the makings.” He pursed out his
underlip grimly.
“Heard the news?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Emslie ... she’s gone ... the veronal route....”
2.
One morning Hugh awoke joyously and sang as he dressed.
“You seem very gay,” said Margot, “considering you came home so very
late last night.”
“Yes, it was a gala night at Café de Paris. Masked dancers and all that
sort of thing. Very jolly. But I’m gay for another reason. Look....”
He spread on the table five notes of a thousand francs each. “There!
Gaze, gloat, marvel--the bank’s money.”
Her obvious awe was touched with anxiety.
“And you’ve made all that?”
“All.”
“You’re wonderful. You’ll stop now, I hope.”
“Stop nothing! I’m going on. I’ve got a lucky streak.”
“You’ll lose it all again.”
“_Tant pis!_ I’m going to risk it. I’m going to play big. I say, you’d
better come and watch me.”
“Never! I couldn’t. The emotion! It would be painful.”
“That’s what I love,--the emotion. The moment, just before the ball
drops, when the heart seems to pause. Whether one wins or loses one has
that precious thrill. Come.”
“No, thank you.”
Alone Hugh climbed the familiar hill. On his left towered huge hotels,
on his right the water of the gem-like harbour was like lapis lazuli,
the quays like porcelain. Dainty yachts, all varnish and brasswork,
glassed themselves exquisitely. A carmine car dashed past him. Hugh
caught a glimpse of Paul Vulning at the wheel. The seat raked so that
he seemed to be lying down. Beside him sat the cross-eyed chauffeur.
Hugh entered the Rooms with no definite plan of playing. His five
thousand francs were folded up into a small packet. It was curious, he
thought as he fingered it, how suddenly he seemed to lose all sense of
its value. It was not money at all, merely a ball of worthless paper.
A magnificent recklessness came over him. Going to the first table,
he took from his pocket the greasy wad of notes and threw it on red.
There it was gone, that crumpled soiled packet. He was rid of it. In
another moment that silly little ball would drop into a black slot, and
he would turn away with a careless smile.... No, it had dropped into
a red. How funny! He saw everybody turn to look at him. He stood in a
daze while the croupier unfolded his notes, counted them and paid him
five more. He had been in the Casino just one minute and he had made
five thousand francs.
He was back in his room half an hour after he had left it. He spread
his ten notes out on the table. Margot looked at him with admiration
and anxiety. He enjoyed the admiration.
“Come on,” he said; “I won’t play any more to-day. We’ll go to Nice for
lunch and make an afternoon of it.”
The next day he followed his impulse again, and threw five thousand
francs on black. He lost. Going to another table he played again on
black and won. The situation was unchanged, but his nerves were a
little uncertain.
The following day he hesitated; but finally, after taking three
imaginary losses, he played for a win, and got it. He had now fifteen
thousand francs.
On the fourth day his nerve failed him. After watching the play, making
up his mind, then hesitating and drawing back again he came away
without having played.
On the fifth day he played a well-known _coup_ that comes off three
times out of five. After a long run on black, a break and a return to
black, he played on red and won. Twenty thousand francs.
That afternoon like a miser he spread his twenty big notes all over
the table, and a sudden exaggerated sense of their value came to him.
Twenty thousand francs! Why, it meant Capital. In some quiet country
place he could live for three or four years on that; buy himself an
interest in a business, get a good start in life again. The Casino had
served him well.
Margot looked at him with growing anxiety. “You’ll stop now, won’t you?”
“No, I haven’t got enough yet.”
“_Mon Dieu!_ How much do you want?”
“Sixty thousand! I want to buy a good car for about twenty thousand.
Then there’s a little cottage with a big garden at Villefranche I can
get for another twenty. Between the car and the garden I think I can
make a pretty tidy living.”
“And the third twenty?”
“That’s for you, my child. What the French call a _dot_, the day you
marry.”
“And if I never marry?”
“Well, then, you’ll keep house for me in my little cottage covered with
roses. You’ll still be my little sister.”
“That’s nicer. Now you can stop at forty thousand.”
“No. I’m an obstinate brute. Sixty thousand goes.”
The girl sighed. “By the way we have a new neighbour, such a fine
looking old man, a Professor Durand.”
“The dickens! I know him quite well. He’s a little touched. Thinks he
has an invincible system that’s going to bust up the Casino.”
“Yes, the concierge told me. He has books and books of figures and
diagrams. He works over them night and day.”
“Seems to me the concierge takes too much interest in his _locataires_.
I don’t like that man. I wish you would talk to him as little as
possible.”
“Very well. I don’t like him myself, he ... he tried to make love to
me.”
“The dog! I’ll smash him.”
“No, please don’t make a fuss. I stopped him pretty quick. It doesn’t
do to make enemies of those people.”
The following day Hugh met Professor Durand on the stairway. The old
man was bronzed and hale-looking.
“Ha! my young friend!” he said. “Yes, I’ve been in the mountains, the
pines, preparing for the battle. I want all the strength that is left
in me to accomplish my mission.”
“Poor old chap!” thought Hugh, “he doesn’t know what’s in front of him.
Pathetic! Maybe another Casino tragedy.”
3.
As he was sitting in the Café de Paris that evening listening to the
music, Hugh idly watched the entrance to the Casino with its four great
lanterns. In the softened lustre its pale yellow stone took on a mellow
radiance almost onyxlike. Seen through the palms with the stars for a
background it was like a gleaming palace of delight, poised over the
mystery of the sea.
Into the pool of light from the doorway swished glossy limousines from
which descended elegantly dressed people. One, a very tall man, mounted
the steps and paused for a moment. He had a spade-shaped beard, a
swarthy face, and a hooked nose.
“First time I’ve seen that chap,” thought Hugh. “Looks like a grandee
of old Castile, but is probably an Armenian money-changer.”
Just at that moment Mr. Tope came bustling up. “I say,” said Hugh,
“who’s that hidalgo-looking johnny on the steps?”
Mr. Tope screwed a monocle into his right eye. “Don’t know exactly.
Some say he’s a South American, ex-president of some small republic
who got away with the state treasure. Wouldn’t be surprised. He has a
vulturish look. The scum of the world find their way here, and as long
as they have money they are welcome. By the way, I hear great things
of you, winning maximums and so on. Congratulations, young man! Any
one who can get ahead of that institution over there has my profound
admiration. You know, my boy, they’re making a million a week; and they
say there’s a suicide a day. I believe that’s an exaggeration, though.
If they put it at six a week they might be nearer the truth. I suppose
you’ve heard of the latest one?...”
“No.”
“That big man with the skull cap; they used to call him ‘Cheero.’”
“Really!”
“Prussic acid in the Café of the Casino. They always said he was the
luckiest player in the Rooms, the man who never lost. As it turned
out he did nothing but lose; he lost a million and hid it behind that
placid smile. That smile was a mask that hid his agony....”
“Pretty rough! One never knows. Oh, I say, I haven’t seen anything of
the Calderbrooks lately.”
“No, they’re lying low at present. They went through their letter of
credit and then borrowed from the bank. The old man wanted to go home,
but the two women persuaded him to stay another month. They put a
mortgage on their house, and are having two thousand pounds sent out.”
“And what about Mrs. Emslie’s daughter?”
“Oh, June. The Fitzoswalds have taken her in. Poor girl! She was very
ill after the tragedy. We wanted to send her to England, but it seems
she has no relatives there. They come from Australia. The mother
gambled away all the girl’s fortune and the poor thing is alone in the
world, helpless and destitute.”
“Is she better now?”
“Yes. The mother led her an awful life. June is helping Mrs. Fitzoswald
to look after the kiddies. You know Mrs. Fitz? Spunky little Irishwoman
with bronze gold hair and a turned up nose! Fitz is that red-headed,
one-legged man; always plays the same game, builds up louis round the
number thirty-two. He says it is his wife’s age, but she denies it.
She says she wishes Fitz would hurry up and be ruined, for then they
could go home to Ireland and live in peace. Well, they’re awfully fine
people, and so good to June. I say, young man, there’s a chance for
you. A sweet, pretty, refined girl, friendless and without a _sou_. Why
don’t you sail in, marry her and be happy ever after?”
“But I’ve never had the faintest idea of marrying.”
“Ah well, poor June must become a nurse or a governess, or fall into
the clutches of some professional seducer such as Vulning. I’ve heard
he’s after her. I hope the Major gets ruined pretty soon, and then the
Fitzoswalds can take June away from this infected hell.”
4.
The very next day Hugh encountered June Emslie. She was playing with
the Fitzoswald children in the circular sand pit near the dove-cage.
She started and grew pale; then advanced to meet him with outstretched
hand. Neither of them referred to the previous meeting. He found her
timid, painfully embarrassed, but shyly worshipping as she looked at
him. Come to think of it, he had made rather an effective entry on the
scene that night, quite in the hero of romance fashion. If she was at
all sentimental she must have idealized him. Being a prosaic young man
he was rather annoyed at the thought and his manner became brusque,
careless even. Her recent sorrow had not driven the fresh colour from
her cheeks. If Margot was the type of the lily this girl was like
a rose. Her features were sensitive and delicate, her hair a dark
chestnut, her eyes deep blue. She was tall, and slender, and apparently
not more than seventeen. After a few commonplace remarks, he said:
“If I can do anything for you, anything at all, please let me know.
Think of me as a friend, and call on me if ever you should need me.”
She understood what he meant and a deep flush overspread her face.
“Yes, I will. Thank you so much. By the way,--I don’t know your name.”
He told her. “Shall I write it down?” he asked.
“Oh no. I assure you I can remember it.”
They said good-bye and he left her with an impression of her virginal
sweetness and budding charm.