In a room on the second floor of an old, high, dingy-looking house in
one of the dingiest back streets near the flower-market in Nice sat a
man and a woman. The room was lofty, with a ceiling which had once been
painted but had now faded and fallen away in great flakes, while the
furniture was frayed and shabby. The shutters of the two long windows
were closed, and the place was lit by a cheap shaded lamp suspended in
the centre, its light being too dim to sufficiently illuminate the whole
apartment. Beneath the circle of light stood a table marked in squares,
and in its centre a roulette-wheel.
The man, lying lazily back in an armchair, smoking a long cigar, was
about thirty-five, dark, with well-cut aquiline features, in which craft
and intelligence were combined, a small pointed moustache, and a pair of
keen black eyes full of suspicion and cunning. His companion was old,
perhaps sixty, lean, ill-attired and wizened, her face being almost
brown as a toad's back, her body bent, and her voice weak and croaking.
They sat opposite to one another, talking. Around the walls there were
tacked copies of a leaflet headed, in huge black capitals, "The Agony of
Monte Carlo," which declared that the advertiser, an Englishman who
offered his services to the public, had vanquished the hazard, and was
the only person who could gain indefinitely at either roulette or
trente-et-quarante. He had solved the puzzling problem of "How to Win."
The French in which the circular was printed was not remarkable for its
grammar or diction, but it was certainly a brilliant specimen of
advertisement, and well calculated to entrap the unwary. Copies of it
had for several weeks been widely distributed in the streets of Nice,
flung into passing cabs, or handed to those who took their daily airing
on the Promenade, and it had given rise to a good deal of comment.
Among many other remarkable statements, it was alleged that the
discoverer of this infallible method had gained five hundred francs an
hour upon an ordinary capital of five francs, and so successful had been
his play that the Administration of the Casino, in order to avert their
own ruin, had denied him any further card of admission. The remarkable
person declared further that so certain was he of success that he was
prepared to place any stake against that of any person who doubted, and
to allow the player to turn the roulette himself. To those who arranged
to play under his direction the circular promised the modest gain of one
million two hundred thousand francs a month! Truly the remarkable
circular was aptly headed "The Agony of Monte Carlo."
The inventor was the dark-eyed man with the cigar, and it was upon the
table before him that he gave illustrations of his marvellous discovery
to his clients. All the systems of Jacquard, Yaucanson, Fulton,
Descartes and Copernic were declared to be mere jumbles of false
principles, and held up to derision. This was actually infallible.
Nice had heard of a good many methods of winning before, but never one
put forward by an inventor sufficiently confident to offer to bear the
losses; hence, from the hours of ten to twelve, and two to six, the
foppishly-attired man who declared in his circular, "_Je mis la force,
parceque je suis la verite_," was kept busy instructing amateur
gamesters how to act when at Monte Carlo, and receiving substantial fees
for so doing.
The clocks had chimed ten, and the street was quiet. The old woman, who
with difficulty had been reading the feuilleton in the _Petit Nicois_
yawned, flung down her paper, and glanced over at the cosmopolitan
adventurer who, with his head thrown back, was staring at the ceiling,
humming in a not unmusical voice the catchy refrain of Varney's popular
"Serenade du Pave--"
"Sois bonne, O ma chere inconnue,
Pour qui j'ai si souvent chante!
Ton offrande est la bienvenue,
Fais-moi la charite!
Sois bonne, O ma chere inconnue,
Pour qui j'ai souvent chante!
Devant moi, devant moi
Sois la bienvenue?"
So light-hearted he seemed that possibly he had succeeded in inventing
some other system whereby the pockets of the long-suffering public might
be touched. Suddenly a footstep on the landing outside caused them both
to start and exchange quick glances. Then the bell rang, and the
conqueror of the hazard rose and opened the door.
Their visitor was Zertho. He was in evening clothes, having left the
theatre early to stroll round there.
"Well, Mother Valentin," he exclaimed in French, tossing his hat
carelessly upon the table, and sinking into a chair. "Rheumatism still
bad--eh?"
"Ah, yes, m'sieur," croaked the old woman in the Provencal patois,
"still very bad," and grunting, she rose, and hobbled out of the room.
"And how's business?" Zertho inquired of the other.
"Pretty fair. Lots of mugs in the town just now," he smiled, speaking
in Cockney English.
"That handbill of yours is about the cheekiest bit of literature I've
ever come across," he said, nodding towards one of the remarkable
documents tacked upon the wall.
"It has drawn 'em like honey draws flies," said the other, smiling and
regarding it with pride. "The offer to pay the losses does it. You can
always make a lie truth by lying large enough."
He had resumed his seat, and was puffing contentedly at his cigar.
"It's a really marvellous specimen of bluff," Zertho observed, in a tone
of admiration. "When I first saw it I feared that you had been a bit
too extravagant in your promises."
"The bigger your promise the greater your success. I've always found it
the same with all the wheezes I've worked," he replied. "I saw you
driving with Brooker's daughter a few days ago. You seem to be having
an uncommonly good time of it," he added.
"Can't complain," Zertho said, leaning back with a self-complacent air.
"Patrician life suits me after being so many years an outsider."
"No doubt it is pleasant," his companion answered with a meaning look,
"if one can completely bury the past."
"I have buried it," Zertho answered quickly.
Max Richards, the inventor of "The Agony of Monte Carlo," regarded the
man before him with a supercilious smile. "And you pay me to prevent
its exhumation--eh?"
"I thought we had agreed not to mention the matter again," Zertho
exclaimed, darting at his crafty-looking fellow-adventurer a look of
annoyance and suspicion.
"My dear fellow," answered the other quite calmly, "I have no desire to
refer to it. If you are completely without regret, and your mind is
perfectly at ease, well, I'm only too happy to hear it. I have sincere
admiration, I assure you, for a man who can forget at will. I wish I
could."
"I do not forget," Zertho snapped. "Your confounded demands will never
allow me to forget."
The thin-faced man smiled, lazily watching the smoke ascend from an
unusually good weed.
"It is merely payment for services rendered," he observed. "I'm not the
lucky heir to an estate, therefore I can't afford to give people
assistance gratis."
"No," cried Zertho in a tumult of anger at the remembrance of recent
occurrences. "No, you're an infernal blackmailer!"
Richards smiled, quite undisturbed by his visitor's sudden ebullition of
wrath, and, turning to him said,--
"My dear fellow, whatever can you gain by blackguarding me? Why, every
word you utter is in self-condemnation."
Zertho was silent. Yes, it was the truth what this man said. He was a
fool to allow his anger to get the better of him. Was it not Napoleon
who boasted that the success of all his great schemes was due to the
fact that he never permitted his anger to rise above his throat?
His face relaxed into a sickly smile.
"I'm weary of your constant begging and threatening," he said at last.
"I was a fool in the first instance. If I had allowed you to speak no
one would have believed you. Instead of that, I generously gave you the
money you wanted."
"I'm glad you say `generously'," his companion observed, smiling.
"Generosity isn't one of your most engaging characteristics."
"Well, I've been generous to you--too generous, for you have now
increased your demands exorbitantly."
"I'm poor--while you can afford to pay."
"I can't--I won't afford," retorted Zertho, determinedly. "When men
grow wealthy they are always imposed upon by men such as you," he added.
"I admit that the service you rendered deserved payment. Well, I
liquidated the debt honourably. Then you immediately levied blackmail,
and have ever since continued to send me constant applications for
money."
"A man who can afford to forget his past can afford to be reminded of
the debt he owes," answered the man, still smoking with imperturbable
coolness.
"But I tell you I won't stand it any longer. You've strained the cord
until it must now snap."
"Very well, my dear fellow," answered the other, with an air of impudent
nonchalance. "You know your own business best. Act as you think fit."
"I shall. This is my last visit here."
"No doubt. My present wheeze is getting about played out. A good thing
like this can't run for any length of time. In a week, for obvious
reasons, I shall lock up the doors and depart with Mother Valentin,
leaving the landlord looking for his rent and my clients thirsting for
my vitals. Yes, you are right, my dear Zertho, when you say this will
be your last visit here. But if the mountain will not come to Mahomet,
the latter must go to the mountain. I may, perhaps, call upon you, my
dear Zertho."
"No, you sha'n't. I shall give orders that you are not to be admitted."
"You will scarcely do that, I think," he answered, still smiling. The
whole bearing of the man betrayed confidence in his position.
"But I tell you I will. I have come here to-night in fulfilment of your
demand. It is, however, the last time that we shall meet."
"I hope so."
"Why?"
"I hope that you'll pay me a sum sufficient to obviate the necessity of
us meeting again. I assure you that the pleasure of your company is not
unmixed with dislike."
"It is mutual," Zertho snapped, annoyed at the man's unmitigated
insolence. "I'll pay you nothing more than what you demanded in your
letter yesterday," and taking from his pocket a wallet of dark-green
leather with silver mountings, he counted out four five-hundred-franc
notes, and tossed them angrily upon the table, saying, "Make the best of
them, for you won't get another sou from me."
The man addressed stretched out his hand, took the notes, smoothed them
out carefully, and slowly placed them in his pocket.
"Then we are enemies?" he observed at last, after a long pause. He
looked straight into Zertho's face.
"Enemies or friends, it makes no difference to me. It does not alter my
decision."
His companion slowly knocked the ash from his cigar, then continued
smoking in silence.
"Well, you don't speak," exclaimed Zertho, impatiently, at last,
twirling his dark moustache. "What is your intention?"
"I never show my hand to my opponent, my dear fellow," was the quick
retort. "And I know you are never unwise enough to do so."
Zertho had his match in this _chevalier d'industrie_, and was aware of
it.
"You think I'm still in fear?" he said.
"I don't know; neither do I care," the other answered. "If you don't
pay me there are others who no doubt will."
Zertho sprang quickly from his chair with a look of murderous hatred in
his dark face and flashing eyes. "You would still threaten me!" he said
between his teeth. "You taunt me because you believe I am entirely in
your hands."
"I do not believe," the other replied with cool indifference. "I know."
"You are an infernal scoundrel!"
"I might pass a similar compliment," he said. "But I see no reason why
the pot should comment unfavourably upon the blackness of the kettle.
I'm merely assisting you to obtain a pretty wife--a wife, by Heaven, too
pure and good and beautiful for any such as you, and--"
"What do you mean?" Zertho interrupted with a start. This man
evidently knew more than he had suspected. "You are not assisting me in
the least."
But Richards laughed aloud, and with a deprecatory wave of the hand,
replied,--
"It's no good to bluff me. I know it is your intention to marry Liane
Brooker, whose beauty is so admired everywhere, and who is as good as
she's pretty. I happen to know something of her--more, perhaps, than
you think. Well, only by my assistance can you obtain her. Therefore,
you won't be such an idiot as to quarrel with me."
"I do not quarrel," Zertho answered in a much more conciliatory tone.
"I only protest against your infernal taunts and insolence."
"Then the matter resolves itself into a simple one--a mere question of
price."
"I refuse to treat with you."
"Then you will not marry Liane. She will be spared the misery of
becoming Princess d'Auzac."
"Misery!" he echoed. "I can give her wealth, position--everything which
makes a woman happy."
"I doubt whether any woman can be happy with a man whose conscience is
overshadowed, like yours," his companion observed. "Why, her face would
remind you hourly of that which you must be ever striving to forget."
"What does it matter to you?" he snarled. "I shall marry her."
"Then before doing so you will pay me for my services. Your stroke is a
bold one, Zertho, but remember that you can marry her only through me.
It is worth a good sum to obtain such a beautiful wife."
"Whatever it may be worth, you'll never get it," d'Auzac declared
determinedly.
The two men faced each other.
"In which case she will be enabled to release herself," observed the
inventor of the infallible system.
"Who will suffer, then? Why you, yourself." Zertho stood leaning upon
the back of the armchair in which he had been sitting. He well knew by
this man's attitude that he meant to "squeeze" him. Nevertheless, he
treated his remarks with derision, laughing disdainfully.
"You appear to fancy that because you are now wealthy no words of mine
can injure you," the thin-faced man said. "Well, you are welcome to
that opinion. The ostrich buries its head in the sand when pursued.
You bury yours in the millions which have unexpectedly come to you."
"It is sufficient for you to know that I'll never part with another
sou," Zertho answered with impatience.
"Very well, my dear friend, we shall see. Of all men you in the past
have been among the most discreet, and none have ever accused you of the
folly of impatience; but I tell you plainly that you shall never marry
Liane Brooker," he said distinctly, without the slightest undue warmth.
"I intend to marry her," Zertho answered. "In a month she will be my
wife."
"You dare not act like that."
"But I shall."
"Then you defy me? Very good. We now understand one another."
"No, I do not defy you," Zertho exclaimed quickly. "But in this matter
I shall follow my own inclination entirely. I intend to marry Brooker's
daughter."
"Without my sanction?"
"Don't you intend to give it? It surely is no affair of yours?"
"No, I shall not give it," he answered carelessly tossing his dead
cigar-end into the ash-tray. "Liane shall never become your wife."
"What! you would tell her?" Zertho gasped, his face suddenly pale and
anxious.
"I have already told you that I'm not in the habit of showing my
opponent my hand."
"I love Liane. I must marry her," he blurted forth.
"Love! Fancy you, Zertho d'Auzac, declaring that you love a woman!" the
man exclaimed, laughing heartily in derision. "The thing's too absurd.
I know you too well."
Zertho bit his lip. If any other man had spoken thus he would have
knocked him down; but, truth to tell, he was afraid of this dark-faced,
crafty-eyed Englishman. Since first he had known him, in the days when
he was down on his luck, he had always felt an antipathy towards him,
because he treated everything and everybody with such amazingly cool
indifference. He saw that money only would appease him. He calculated
roughly how much he had already paid him, and the reflection caused him
to knit his brows.
"A few minutes ago you said it was a question of price," he said at
length. "Well, what are your views?"
"Since then they have changed."
"Changed! How?"
"You say that I have received from you all that you intend I shall
receive. Well, let it remain so. You will not marry her."
Zertho regarded him with a puzzled expression.
"I asked you to name your price," he said. "What is it?"
Max Richards, lying back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his
head, turned towards his visitor and answered,--
"I have offered to treat with you, but you refused. My offer is
therefore withdrawn. I have enough money at present. When I want more
I shall come to you."
"But, my dear fellow," exclaimed Zertho, dismayed, "you cannot mean that
you refuse to accept anything further for the slight service you have,
up to the present, rendered me?"
"Our compact is at an end," the man answered coldly. "No word will pass
my lips on one condition, namely, that you release Liane, and--"
"I will never do that!" he cried in fierce determination. "She shall be
my wife. Come, name your own terms."
"Ah! I thought you would not be so unwise as to utterly defy me!"
exclaimed the man, smiling in triumph. "The prize is too great to
relinquish, eh?"
Zertho nodded.
"Come, don't name a figure too exorbitant. Let it be within reason," he
said.
"It will be entirely within reason," the other answered, fixing his dark
eyes intently upon Zertho's.
"Well?"
"Nothing!" he laughed.
"Nothing? I don't understand."
"I want nothing," he repeated, rousing himself, and bending forward in
the lamplight, his eyes still fixed upon the man he was addressing.
"You refuse?"
"Yes, I refuse," he said in a deep intense voice. "I have, it is true,
bought and sold many things in my brief and not unblameworthy career,
but I have never yet sold a pure woman's life, and by Heaven! I never
will!"
Zertho stood in abject dismay. He had been utterly unprepared for this.
Anger consumed him when he recognised how completely he had been
misled, and how suddenly all his plans were checkmated by this man's
unexpected caprice.
"You've suddenly withdrawn into the paths of rectitude," he observed
with a sickly smile when at last he found voice. "It will be a new and
interesting experience, no doubt."
"Possibly."
"Come, Richards," Zertho exclaimed, after a brief pause, "it's useless
to prevaricate any longer. Let us settle the business. I intend
marrying Liane, but I am ready to admit that this is possible only with
your assistance. For the latter I am prepared to continue to pay as I
have already done. Name the amount, and the thing can be settled at
once."
"I will name no amount. I decline to barter away Liane's happiness."
"You wish me to name a sum--eh? Well, what do you say to five hundred
pounds down? Recollect how much you've already had off me."
The other's lip curled contemptuously, as he shook his head.
"Well, I'll double it. A thousand."
Their gaze met. Max Richards again shook his head.
Zertho, with a sudden movement, pulled his wallet from his pocket,
withdrew his cheque-book, and taking up a pen from the table, scribbled
out a draft upon the Credit Lyonnais, and filled it in for fifty
thousand francs.
Tearing it out roughly he tossed it across to his companion, exclaiming
with a bitter smile,--
"There you are. I've doubled it a third time. Surely that's sufficient
as lip-salve?"
The other stretched forth his hand unsteadily, hesitated for a single
instant, then slowly his thin eager fingers closed upon it.