THE LITTLE HORSES.
The re-opening of the Casino at Dieppe in 1919 was the signal, as some
may remember, for an outbreak of gambling for very high stakes. This
was attributed partly to the natural reaction of public feeling after
the roulette tables and the _petits chevaux_ had been so long _hors
concours_, and partly to the fact that during the war many acquired a
taste for speculation who previously had looked upon even a sixpenny
lottery as ungodly.
Among the regular frequenters of the Casino during August of 1919 was
a very handsome Englishwoman, accompanied almost always by a tall,
undistinguished-looking man of middle-age, and by a good-looking, well
groomed young fellow of twenty-six or so. Night after night this trio
would arrive between eight and nine o’clock, seat themselves whenever
possible at the same _petits chevaux_ table, until the Casino closed.
What attracted attention to them was the large sum they invariably
staked at every turn of the wheel which set the horses “running”; the
recklessness of their play, and their extraordinary luck. Time and
again they would come out of the Casino many hundreds, and sometimes
many thousands of pounds richer than when they had gone in, and
usually an _agent de police_ would meet them at the entrance and
accompany them across to their hotel to prevent any possibility of
their being robbed.
Dieppe at that time was one of the few French seaport towns which could
be visited by English folk without their being compelled first of all
to comply with endless formalities, so that English people foregathered
there in their thousands. It was not surprising, therefore, that when
Jessica and her friends had been a week or two in the town they should
suddenly come face to face in the Casino with no other than Captain
Preston and his future wife.
Instantly Jessica extended her hand.
“I won’t say it is odd meeting you here,” she exclaimed, as she shook
hands with Yootha, “because one does nothing but run across friends all
day and every day, but I must say I did not expect to meet you, for I
heard you were both in Monmouthshire.”
“We left Abergavenny two days ago,” Yootha answered quickly, “and
arrived here last night. Isn’t this a delightful place? I’ve never been
here before.”
“Is anybody with you?” Jessica asked.
“An aunt of mine had arranged to come, but at the last moment she was
detained through illness.”
Though she felt exceedingly uncomfortable at meeting Jessica again,
after all that had occurred, she deemed it wiser to appear friendly
than to cut the woman--her secret wish. Jessica, on the other hand,
seemed really glad to meet Yootha Hagerston once more, and Captain
Preston, and when they had conversed for a little while she inquired
where they were staying, and then invited them to dine, an invitation
they naturally felt compelled to accept.
The Royal Hotel was crowded with well-dressed people, many of whom went
across to the Casino after dinner, among them Jessica, her friends, and
her two guests.
“I have been so lucky at _petits chevaux_ lately,” Jessica said as they
all passed in. “I don’t want to influence you in any way, Yootha, but
if you and Captain Preston like to play my game I believe you will win.
During the three weeks I have been playing I have come away a loser
only three times, and not on one occasion a heavy loser. I am between
three thousand and four thousand pounds to the good on my three weeks’
play, and Louie and Archie won several thousands each. And yet not one
of us has any system. It is just pure luck.”
“I don’t think Yootha will play,” Preston, who had overheard Jessica’s
remark, cut in.
“Oh, but why not, Charlie?” the girl exclaimed in a tone of
disappointment. “I have been looking forward so much to playing, though
of course I am not going to gamble.”
Jessica laughed, and in the laughter was a note of pity, approaching
disdain.
“Naturally if Captain Preston forbids you to play, you won’t play,” she
said lightly.
“Indeed you are mistaken, Jessica,” Yootha said piqued. Then she turned
to Preston.
“I am going to play, Charlie,” she said, “and you will see that I shall
win!”
“That’s the spirit,” Jessica laughed, only partly in jest. “And yet if
you lose, dear, you won’t blame me, I hope.”
Preston bit his lip, but said nothing more. Directly he had said that
Yootha wouldn’t play, he had realized his want of tact. No woman likes
to be thwarted, least of all before acquaintances, and by the man she
is going to marry. Had he remained silent she would, he felt sure, have
said of her own accord that she preferred not to play.
He lit a cigar and stood watching the game while Jessica found seats at
the table and made Yootha take the vacant one beside her. Stapleton and
La Planta stood just behind.
“Give me your money,” Jessica said in an undertone to the girl. “I will
add it to my own, and then we shall be backing the same horses and my
luck, if I have any, will be yours too.”
With a growing feeling of excitement, Yootha produced from her handbag
a roll of paper money, counted it carefully, and handed it to her
companion.
“That is all I can afford,” she whispered. “You’ll do the best you can
with it, won’t you? I do so want to win.”
“Oh! that is plenty,” Jessica answered, as she picked up the notes, and
after counting them, placed them on top of her own sheaf.
Then, for some minutes, she watched the play closely.
“Now I am going to start,” she said suddenly, and pushed a heap of
paper on to one of the names of the horses.
The little horses spun around, passing one another, some gradually
dropping back, others overtaking, the leaders. Then came the monotonous
“_Rien n’va plus_” from the croupier; the horses began to slacken
speed, went slower and slower--stopped.
Jessica had lost.
“This time we double,” she said under her breath to Yootha, and pushed
more money on to the name from which her former stake had just been
raked.
Again the horses spun round; again the croupier droned; again they
slowed down--and stopped.
Jessica had lost again.
“Had we better go on?” Yootha asked anxiously. “Or why not try another
horse?”
“Nonsense,” Jessica answered impatiently. “You have lost only a trifle.
I have lost fifty pounds. Now watch.”
She backed the same horse again, and this time the heap of notes was
much bigger. The race started. For more than a minute the little horses
kept changing their positions, then they moved slower and finally
stopped.
Yootha uttered an exclamation of delight. The horse Jessica had backed
had won!
A great pile of money, as it seemed to the girl, was pushed towards
Jessica by the croupier, and at once she passed some of the pile
towards her.
The next time the horses started the sum staked by Jessica was much
bigger, and she won again. Again she staked, and again she won; and
again; and yet again. The crowd gathered about the table began to
murmur. It grew excited when Jessica, backing different animals, won
three times more in succession.
By that time Yootha was panting with excitement. Jessica, as soon as
she had realized that her luck still prevailed, had gone practically
nap every time with Yootha’s money as well as her own. Yootha’s breast
rose and fell, her lips were parted, her eyes shone strangely as she
watched her companion staking and winning now on almost every race.
If she lost once she won twice. If she lost twice she won generally
three or four times directly afterwards. Yootha, with her winnings
piled in front of her, was about to speak to Jessica, when her eyes met
Preston’s. Her lover, standing facing her on the opposite side of the
table, was calmly smoking his cigar. He made no movement, nor did his
expression betray either approval or disapproval. He merely looked hard
at her without smiling.
“Make Captain Preston come and sit near us,” Yootha heard Jessica
saying. “He looks so sad there alone. Doesn’t he ever play? Has he no
vices at all? Take my advice, Yootha--think twice before marrying a man
who boasts that he has no vices!”
“But he doesn’t boast anything of the sort--he doesn’t boast at all,”
Yootha retorted, nettled, for again Jessica’s tone annoyed her. She
caught Preston’s eye once more and made a sign to him; but he only
shook his head and smiled rather coldly.
“You must teach him to play after you are married, dear,” Jessica said.
“I know that he has played,” and she smiled oddly. “Look at the sum you
have amassed to-night through taking my advice. Now I am going to stake
again four times, and, after that, win or lose, we stop.”
She staked heavily, and lost; then staked heavily again, and won three
times in succession.
Then she rose, and Yootha did the same, and at once other players took
their seats.
Yootha was beside herself. Though the sum she had won was small by
comparison with the amount won by Jessica, to her it seemed a lot,
perhaps because she had never played before.
“Let us go back and win some more,” she exclaimed excitedly, casting a
furtive glance backward at the table they had just left. “I do love it
so! Are you always as lucky as that, Jessica?”
In the excitement of the moment she seemed quite to have forgotten her
aversion for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson; she had even forgotten her lover’s
presence until he suddenly approached.
“Was I not right not to take your advice?” she said to him gaily. “You
ought to have played, Charlie, you really ought. You have no idea what
fun it is.”
“Haven’t I?” he answered, looking down at her. “I wish I hadn’t--I
should be a rich man to-day.”
“Yes,” Jessica cut in with a curious laugh. “I have been told that
years ago Captain Preston lost thousands on the turf and at cards.”
Yootha saw her lover make a little gesture of annoyance and at once she
changed the subject.
At supper in the Casino they were joined by Stapleton and La Planta,
who had disappeared while Yootha and Jessica were playing. When they
were half-way through the meal, Yootha’s gaze became fixed on a man
at supper with friends at a table close by. Presently she turned to
Preston:
“I know that man so well by sight,” she said, “but can’t remember
who he is, or where I have seen him before. Haven’t we both met him
somewhere?”
Preston cast a hasty glance in the direction indicated. The person
referred to was a sleek, well-nourished man with black, rather curly
hair, and a carefully waxed moustache. Yes, he too had seen him
before--but where?
And then all at once he remembered. He had not seen him before, but he
had seen his portrait. It hung, quite a large picture, in Stothert’s
office in the house with the bronze face.
He told Yootha so.
“So it does!” she exclaimed. “That is how I remember the face. I wonder
who he is?”
“You wonder who he is?” Jessica inquired; she had overheard only the
last sentence.
“That dark man at supper over there,” and she indicated his whereabouts
with her eyes.
“Oh, that is Monsieur Alphonse Michaud,” Jessica replied at once. “A
remarkable character, according to all accounts. He is the director,
and I suppose proprietor of the Metropolitan Secret Agency in London.”
“That man is? But I thought Mr. Stothert and the woman called Camille
Lenoir were the directors.”
Jessica laughed.
“Have some more lobster, dear,” she said. “No, Stothert and Lenoir are
merely managers, just salaried people like other managers. But when
have you been to the Metropolitan Agency?”
“I went there at the time of that horrible affair at the Albert Hall
ball, when they thought I had stolen Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace. I
can’t bear to think of it, even now. It seems like a nightmare still.”
“Of course--I had forgotten. By the way, was that mystery ever cleared
up?”
“I believe not. The whole thing was most singular.”
“Didn’t the Metropolitan Agency find out anything? They are generally
so clever.”
“Nothing of importance,” Yootha answered quickly. “Oh, yes, that is
the man,” she said, looking again at the dark-haired stranger who had
just risen from supper with his friends, three flashily-dressed women.
“There is no mistaking him. The portrait is a striking likeness.”
When Yootha and Preston were alone again, the girl returned to the
subject of her play.
“It _is_ so exciting, Charlie,” she exclaimed. “I must try my luck
again to-morrow, I really must. In some ways Jessica is a wonderful
woman; she tells me she nearly always wins, so that by doing just what
she does----”
“You seem suddenly to have taken a fancy to Jessica,” her lover
interrupted. “I never thought you would do that, dear.”
“Nor did I, Charlie,” she replied at once. “And I haven’t exactly taken
a fancy to her, only I think--well, I think we have misjudged her to
some extent.”
“After the things you know she said about Cora?”
“I don’t actually know she said them, because I didn’t hear her say
them. After all, we were only told she said those things, and you know
how people exaggerate.”
Preston was silent.
“I wish you wouldn’t play again, darling,” he suddenly exclaimed
earnestly. “You have no idea how the craving to play can get hold of
you. I hoped so much to-night that you would lose.”
“Hoped that I should lose!”
“Yes, so that you wouldn’t want to play again; so that you would grow
disgusted with the game before it had time to get a hold on you.”
“Ah! I know why that was,” she exclaimed, her brow clearing. “Jessica
said that years ago you lost a lot of money. No wonder you hate playing
now. I understand your being disgruntled. How much did you lose,
Charlie? And why did you never tell me? And who told Jessica?”
“I lost almost every shilling I had,” Preston answered, lowering
his voice. “Otherwise I should be a rich man to-day, instead of
comparatively a pauper. The gambling fever caught me first when I was
staying in Port Said, with friends, and I was very lucky. It increased
and increased until, though I lost again and again, I became absolutely
reckless. I think the craze for gambling is the worst form of
affliction that can befall any man. But I overcame it in the end, and
because I overcame it when too late I want you to overcome it before
you go further.”
Yootha looked up into his face, and patted his cheek playfully.
“Charlie,” she said, “I am going to play to-morrow--just to-morrow.
I promised Jessica I would. And now I promise you that if I lose
to-morrow I will never play again. Will that satisfy you? You know I
always keep my promises.”
“I suppose it will have to satisfy me,” her lover answered, kissing
her. “But I hate your becoming intimate with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson--you
don’t know how I hate it. She is not the right companion for you at
all.”
“Oh, don’t be anxious,” Yootha replied, smiling. “I can look after
myself, I assure you.”