"_Rien ne va plus_!"
Then there was a moment's hush, the ball fell with a click into its
socket, and the croupier's rake came swiftly before his fevered eyes and
swept away the coin he had staked.
He had lost, and would remain.
Glancing round, his lips curled in a bitter smile; at the same moment,
however, he placed his trembling hand to his mouth, as if to stifle an
imprecation.
Glaring, rigid and desperate he sat, his dark eyes, the eyes that had
been so admired by the women, fixed upon the ever-revolving disc of
black and red now holding him in fascination. Suddenly, as another game
was being played, a spasm of excruciating pain caused him to clap both
hands to his brow and utter a low groan. It was the gasp of a dying
man, but amid the terrible excitement of play it passed unnoticed, and
none dreamed the truth until a moment or two later when, with a wild,
despairing shriek which rang through the hot gilded rooms and caused an
instant's hush, he half-rose from his chair and fell forward upon the
table lifeless, scattering the gold, silver and notes staked by the
players, and causing a terrible scene of alarm and confusion.
His heart had always been weak, and the sudden excitement of play had
caused a rupture which had proved fatal.
Such was the official account of the affair given in the papers, for the
administration of the Casino were careful not to let the public know
that in the dead man's pocket was found a tiny bottle labelled
"Quinine," containing several white tabloids which, on analysis, were
found to be of strychnine.
Nevertheless, it is not surprising that the public remained in ignorance
of this last-mentioned fact, when it is remembered that the
Administration of the Cercle des Etrangers spends some hundreds of
thousands of francs annually among the journals and journalists in order
to conceal the many suicides which take place in their world-famous
combination of paradise and hell.