THE GODDESS OF CHANCE
If you have ever had to walk unconcernedly into the crowded vestibule of
a fashionable hotel, not knowing at what moment you might be identified
and arrested as a notorious criminal, you will no doubt understand, and,
perhaps, sympathise with Slyne's state of mind as he entered the Hotel
de Paris. If not, you can at least imagine how he felt as he made his
way through the throng toward the bureau, grimly conscious of every
inquisitive glance.
There was little enough to shield him from immediate detection, beyond
the flight of time and the facts that he had been wearing a beard and
living under a French _alias_--or, as he would have preferred to put it,
incognito--when, only a season or two before, he had earned such
undesired and undesirable distinction throughout the Cote d'Azur. And he
knew very well what his fate would be if he were recognised.
He was very devoutly thankful, therefore, when, having safely run the
gauntlet of all those argus eyes which had seemed to be searching his by
the way, he found himself installed in an ornate apartment vacated only
that morning by a grand duke.
"I can't afford to do things by halves now!" he had reflected, shrugging
his shoulders, as he had agreed with the manager, who happened to be on
the spot, that the suite in question would probably serve his turn. And
even the manager had been impressed by his manner--and his fine car.
"So far, so good, then," said Slyne to himself with a somewhat nervous
grimace, as he crossed to the window of his sitting-room and looked out
over the moonlit bay, after tossing his keys to a valet with a curt
order to lose no time. "And now--I must go on as I've begun. But--I
can't help wishing I were well through with it all. I didn't half like
the way that clerk watched me with his mouth wide open--and _I_ knew
_him_ all right!"
No one could have appeared more care-free, however, than he when, an
hour later, he left his dressing-room, ready to face--and outface--the
detective talent he still must meet, and sauntered very much at his
leisure, a cigarette between his tight lips, in the direction of the
_table d'hote_.
"Seems pretty dull here," he commented, after an indifferent inspection
of the elaborate company there. "I've a good mind to go on to
Ciro's--and find out if they have forgotten my face by now too. I won't
have any peace of mind till I've been all round the old place." In
pursuit of which bold policy he sent a page for his coat and hat, and
stood displaying himself to the general public till they arrived.
He found Ciro's well filled, as usual, when he strolled in, taking with
perfect outward calm the risk that he might be remembered there. But no
hostile glance met his roving eye as he entered the restaurant. He was
obsequiously received by an observant head-waiter, and shown to a table
which suited his immediate needs to a nicety.
Among the more ebullient gathering in that gay resort he could discover
no cause for alarm. And no one took any special notice of him until,
among some still later comers, he noticed a haggardly handsome woman, in
a gown so scant that she might well have been glad of the great bunch of
camellias she wore at her breast, who was pointing him out to one of the
two men in her company.
Slyne's heart almost stopped beating at that, and one of his hands
involuntarily slipped round to where, in a padded pocket within the
arm-hole of his thin evening-coat, he had a little double-barrelled
pistol concealed.
He caught the woman's eye again while she was whispering volubly to the
attentive listener at her elbow, a fashionably foolish-looking young man
of a stamp whose appearance is sometimes deceitful, and wondered sickly
what was coming as that individual, having looked him over quite openly
and with the aid of an eye-glass, rose and approached him across the
room.
He glanced up in admirably assumed surprise, however, for all answer to
the other's gruffly casual, "Good evenin', sir.
"Will you excuse my askin' whether you'd care to sell the car I saw you
drivin' past in, an hour ago?" inquired the stranger, quite unabashed.
"Because--I want it, don't y'know."
Slyne's face remained an immobile mask, although in his heart he was
dully conscious of an almost overwhelming sense of relief.
"It isn't for sale at the moment," he answered, suavely enough, but as
if a little offended.
"But--I want it," reiterated the stranger, who did not seem to lack a
sufficient sense of his own importance. "And I'll give you practically
your own price for it. It's for a lady, don't y'know--and as a favour
to me, eh?"
"I'd be very glad to oblige you," said Slyne, elated beyond expression
to find not only that his fears had been groundless, that his visitor
was really a fool and not a knave in disguise, but also that, if he
played his own cards properly, he might pocket a still fatter profit
upon his car than he had anticipated, "but--I can't at the moment. Are
you going to be here for a few days?"
"I'm at the Cap Martin for a week. As soon as you change your mind you
can come over an' see me there. Ask for Lord Ingoldsby. Good evenin' to
you," answered his visitor with all the sulky insolence of a spoiled
child; and slouched back to his own table, where, Slyne had the
satisfaction of seeing, he had to endure a rating from his enchantress
for his ill-success on her errand. And Slyne almost smiled.
For he knew the Marquis of Ingoldsby quite well, by repute at least, as
an English pigeon with feathers well worth the plucking, and set the
other two down for what they were, a pair of those hawks to be found
hovering wherever the simple pigeon would try its wings. He became
contemplatively interested in the trio, although he knew the ways of
that wicked world far too well to suppose for an instant that he would
be allowed to make a quartette of it.
"But you shall have your car, madame," he soliloquised, "presently, when
I'm finished with it. And, in exchange, I'll take--"
"If only I had Sallie here now--" he said to himself with sudden
self-pity, and then was seized with a hot contempt for all such as the
noble marquis. "But no one under a royalty need hope for an
introduction to her then," he finished, and so stifled an inconvenient
twinge of conscience.
"In the meantime it looks to me as if _my_ little overdraft on the
future is going to pay me most handsomely," he reflected. And that happy
thought added zest to his appetite for the excellent dinner his waiter
had ordered for him, the first good dinner to which he had sat down in
endless months.
He had given the man _carte blanche_ in the matter of viands, only
reserving the choice of what he should drink. So that when he ordered
Vichy the waiter was not unduly depressed. Slyne also would have
preferred to see a silver bucket beside the table, a pursy gold neck
protruding from it, but he wanted all his wits about him that evening,
while he was once more pitting himself, alone, against all comers in
Monte Carlo--and, incidentally, against the odds in favour of the bank,
on which he hoped to draw to the tune of at least a hundred thousand
dollars during the next few days. He knew, of expensive experience, that
the Widow Clicquot and her charming companions are safer society after a
dangerous campaign is over than just before it begins.
He would not even venture upon an after-dinner cigar, contenting himself
with a cigarette from the plain gold case with a crest on it which he
purchased from the chauffeur he had so providentially picked up in Genoa
that afternoon. But he tipped the waiter with such profusion that the
man preceded him to the door bent almost double with gratitude, and even
the Marquis of Ingoldsby was staringly impressed by the magnificence of
his exit--as Slyne had intended he should be.
His masterly impersonation of an unostentatious millionaire was not
without its effect on the flunkeys of the Casino also. These made as
much of his entrance as he in his assumed modesty would allow on his way
into the _salles de jeu_, where he attracted not a few appraising,
inquisitive glances while he once more dared discovery as he roamed from
table to table, gazing about him as though that had really been his
first visit there. The world and the half-world alike seemed to be
wondering who he might be; a circumstance which, otherwise, would have
caused him ecstatic pleasure.
It has been stated already that he was more than passably good-looking,
with regular profile and straight, spare, elegant figure. In evening
clothes which fitted him to perfection, neither over-groomed nor untidy
in any detail, without a flaw for the most fastidious to pick in either
appearance or manner, he seemed to bear some stamp of distinction which
might very well have passed current in circles much more exclusive.
The rooms were well filled, although the really fashionable world had
just begun to flock south for the winter. The usual motley went to make
up the highly-coloured mosaic of worshippers at the chief shrine of the
goddess of chance. It would be a waste of your time and mine, too, to
describe again the types to be observed there, and Slyne had seen them
all very often before. He sauntered about for a little and then slipped
quietly into the only seat which had been vacated since he had arrived,
much to the annoyance of a short, fat Frenchman who seemed disposed to
insist on his own prior claim to it, till Slyne glanced over one
shoulder into his eyes.
"Good luck to you!" cried a jovial voice from the other side of the
table as he sat down, and Slyne nodded coldly to his companion of the
afternoon.
He did not desire Mr. Jobling's further acquaintance, and would have
ignored his greeting entirely but that he had noticed in front of the
stout solicitor quite a noteworthy stack of winnings; and he did not
know whether he might not yet have occasion to draw on the other's
expressed ambition to repay him a favour done. In any case, he dismissed
all such ideas from his mind for the moment, and started to play, very
cautiously.
A cautious player, who can keep his head, need seldom lose a great deal
at any game. Slyne had drunk nothing stronger than Vichy since the night
before. He was tensely on the alert. His luck came and went until he had
lost a couple of thousand francs, and then he began to win.
He had been winning, slowly but surely, with only an occasional
set-back, for over an hour before he became aware that a growing group
of interested onlookers had gathered behind him, and that he had
accumulated within the space between his protective elbows a pile of
notes and gold which reached to his chin. And, thus convinced that he
was in the vein, spurred on by some sudden remembrance of Sallie caged
in her cabin on the _Olive Branch_, an ever-present temptation to play
to the gallery, to stake no less than the maximum on every turn of the
wheel, had almost vanquished all his discretion when he encountered the
quiet glance of a man who was contemplating him from behind the players
seated at the other side of the table, a man whom he knew only too well
as one of the cleverest of those _mouchards_ whose frequent comings and
goings attract so little attention there, and who knew him.
The brilliant lights about him grew strangely blurred. He felt faint
and ill. But, by a desperate effort of will, he managed to maintain an
outward composure. He yawned openly, and then let his eyes fall to look
at his watch. The detective was carelessly moving round the table in his
direction. He shifted his rake to his left hand and, slipping his right
across his chest to within the lapel of his evening-coat, laid out some
small further stake, entirely at random.
He lost that, and two or three more, before he yawned again, as if
fatigued by such trifling, and pushed a much larger amount into place,
as a blind man might, for a final venture. No hand had as yet fallen on
his shoulder, but the suspense of not knowing at what moment that would
happen was hard to bear. He felt like one in the grip of a hideous
nightmare as the croupier presently shovelled over toward him a large
and miscellaneous assortment of notes and gold and counters, which, none
the less, he collected indifferently and dully conscious of an envious
sigh from behind him.
He hesitated a little before letting go his hold of the pistol about
whose butt the fingers of his right hand were still closely clasped, in
order to pocket his profits of the evening. He had laid down his rake.
It was at once seized by a woman who had been standing close at his
shoulder, and, as she pushed eagerly past him into his seat, the bunch
of camellias in her corsage brushed his face. It was the woman with whom
Lord Ingoldsby had been dining. Slyne noticed her husband among the
crowd in the rear as he himself made his way out into the open. He
noticed also, approaching him entirely as if by accident, the
inconspicuous spy whose appearance there had so alarmed him.
Slyne had not even time to hesitate. Without the slightest change of
expression he stopped and confronted his enemy, addressing him by name,
in the execrable French of the average Englishman.
"_Bon soir, M. Dubois. Comment ca va? Bien_, eh?"
"Monsieur has the advantage of me," the detective returned in effortless
English, and over his features flitted the faintest shadow of
disappointment.
"Oh, I scarcely supposed you would know me," said Slyne with a
deprecatory shrug. "This is my first trip so far afield, though I've
seen you several times in Paris, and we all know you quite well in
London, of course."
The faintest shadow of what might have developed into a smile hovered
for an instant about the famous man-hunter's lips and eyes, and Slyne
made a mental note of the fact that he was not above being flattered.
"I'm over here after a fat fellow called Jobling," continued Slyne,
ingratiatingly communicative. "I don't suppose you know anything about
him?"
The other sniffed, disdainfully.
"An embryo embezzler," said he, in a tone of such conscious superiority
that Slyne would surely have laughed in his face if he himself had felt
safe. "Give him rope enough and he'll do the rest. Don't disclose
yourself for a day or two, but watch him carefully.
"Are you working for New Scotland Yard?"
Slyne had expected some such question, and did not stammer over his
answer.
"I've started a private agency on my own account. This is my first case.
A thousand thanks for your hint. If all my official friends were as
courteous, life would be much pleasanter for me." He spoke with a most
respectful inflection, but always in barbarous Anglo-French. "_Mille
remerciements encore, mon confrere. Et maintenant--a demain._"
His new acquaintance nodded with most gracious condescension and moved
on in the direction of an obese German diplomatist who had just met amid
the throng and greeted with over-acted surprise a pretty Viennese
countess. And Slyne did not fail to observe, amid all his own agitation,
how promptly the two of them parted again at sight of M. Dubois.
He was conscious that his own nostrils were nervously twitching, and
that there were tiny beads of cold perspiration about his forehead.
"He thought he knew me," said he to himself, very tremulously. "And,
though I've put him off the scent to some extent, he'll root about
till--" For all his nerve of steel, he shivered and changed countenance.
"I can't trust myself to play any more to-night--and just when I was
getting my hand in! But I suppose I may thank my stars that I'm no worse
off since I caught his eye--he'd have been down on me in an instant, if
I had so much as blinked. And now I must bluff him out--I'm _not_ going
to be scared off.
"There's this about it, anyhow--if I've really got him hoodwinked, none
of the others need worry me!" With which conditional self-encouragement,
and having made sure that his enemy was no longer watching him, he
turned back on an impulse, to see how Mr. Jobling was getting on. But
Mr. Jobling had already gone off with his winnings.
"I wonder if he'd take a hand at ecarte now?" thought Slyne. "His name
came in very useful just now--and I might as well have my own money back
out of him while he's got it. He'll probably be fancying himself at the
moment, too."
And with that business-like ambition before him, he roamed the rooms
till he could be sure that his proposed victim was nowhere within the
Casino. Among the multitude there he could run across no one else who
seemed likely to prove easy prey. So he gave up the quest with a
philosophical shrug, got his coat and hat, and sauntered out on to the
terrace, a fragrant cigar between his thin lips.
"And I'll stand myself a bottle of something at supper, to buck me up,"
he promised himself. "I'll look into Ciro's again presently, and get the
good of the gold piece I had to waste on that scoundrelly waiter. If I
chance across Jobling there, I'll get a free meal as well; or, if I
should see that ass Ingoldsby, I'll tackle him while his precious
keepers are out of the way. They're evidently making _his_ feathers
fly!"
The night was still, and even unusually mild for that season of the
year. The moon had disappeared. Slyne looked down at the sea, all dark
and mysterious, with a strong feeling of distaste; he had lately seen
more than enough of it to last him a lifetime. He turned his steps
toward the deserted gardens, to escape a party of chattering tourists
who had trespassed on his privacy.
He was in no hurry at all for supper, and wanted a few minutes of peace
and quietness in which to compose his still troubled mind, and to
consider the situation as touching his lordship of Ingoldsby--who would
undoubtedly prove a far more profitable companion than Mr. Jobling, even
although the latter should have won the fifty thousand francs that had
been his ambition.
"What a fool that fellow is, for a lawyer!" mused Slyne, having more or
less successfully combated an inclination to let his thoughts stray back
to the _Olive Branch_--and Sallie. And, _Click!_ something answered him
from behind a bush not very far from the verge of the path he was
meditatively pacing.
He jumped aside at the sound, as any man would who has known what it is
to be ambushed, and then, recollecting himself, stood still, with a
mirthless, annoyed half-smile. He did not believe that Dubois would
adopt any such noisy means to get rid of him, but--none the less, he
felt impelled to find out who was in hiding behind that bush.