It was what, in college, we used to call “good football weather”--a
crisp, autumn afternoon that sent the blood tingling through brain and
muscle. Kennedy and I were enjoying a stroll on the drive, dividing
our attention between the glowing red sunset across the Hudson and the
string of homeward-bound automobiles on the broad parkway. Suddenly a
huge black touring car marked with big letters, “P.D.N.Y.,” shot past.
“Joy-riding again in one of the city's cars,” I remarked. “I thought the
last Police Department shake-up had put a stop to that.”
“Perhaps it has,” returned Kennedy. “Did you see who was in the car?”
“No, but I see it has turned and is coming back.”
“It was Inspector--I mean, First Deputy O'Connor. I thought he
recognised us as he whizzed along, and I guess he did, too. Ah,
congratulations, O'Connor! I haven't had a chance to tell you before how
pleased I was to learn you had been appointed first deputy. It ought to
have been commissioner, though,” added Kennedy.
“Congratulations nothing,” rejoined O'Connor. “Just another
new-deal-election coming on, mayor must make a show of getting some
reform done, and all that sort of thing. So he began with the Police
Department, and here I am, first deputy. But, say, Kennedy,” he added,
dropping his voice, “I've a little job on my mind that I'd like to pull
off in about as spectacular a fashion as I--as you know how. I want to
make good, conspicuously good, at the start--understand? Maybe I'll be
'broke' for it and sent to pounding the pavements of Dismissalville,
but I don't care, I'll take a chance. On the level, Kennedy, it's a big
thing, and it ought to be done. Will you help me put it across?”
“What is it?” asked Kennedy with a twinkle in his eye at O'Connor's
estimate of the security of his tenure of office.
O'Connor drew us away from the automobile toward the stone parapet
overlooking the railroad and river far below, and out of earshot of
the department chauffeur. “I want to pull off a successful raid on the
Vesper Club,” he whispered earnestly, scanning our faces.
“Good heavens, man,” I ejaculated, “don't you know that Senator Danfield
is interested in--”
“Jameson,” interrupted O'Connor reproachfully, “I said 'on the level' a
few moments ago, and I meant it. Senator Danfield he--well, anyhow, if I
don't do it the district attorney will, with the aid of the Dowling law,
and I am going to beat him to it, that's all. There's too much money
being lost at the Vesper Club, anyhow. It won't hurt Danfield to be
taught a lesson not to run such a phony game. I may like to put up a
quiet bet myself on the ponies now and then--I won't say I don't, but
this thing of Danfield's has got beyond all reason. It's the crookedest
gambling joint in the city, at least judging by the stories they tell of
losses there. And so beastly aristocratic, too. Read that.”
O'Connor shoved a letter into Kennedy's hand, a dainty perfumed and
monogrammed little missive addressed in a feminine hand. It was such a
letter as comes by the thousand to the police in the course of a year;
though seldom from ladies of the smart set.
“Dear Sir: I notice in the newspapers this morning that you have just
been appointed first deputy commissioner of police and that you have
been ordered to suppress gambling in New York. For the love that you
must still bear toward your own mother, listen to the story of a mother
worn with anxiety for her only son, and if there is any justice or
righteousness in this great city close up a gambling hell that is
sending to ruin scores of our finest young men. No doubt you know
or have heard of my family--the DeLongs are not unknown in New York.
Perhaps you have also heard of the losses of my son Percival at the
Vesper Club. They are fast becoming the common talk of our set. I am not
rich, Mr. Commissioner, in spite of our social position, but I am human,
as human as a mother in any station of life, and oh, if there is any
way, close up that gilded society resort that is dissipating our
small fortune, ruining an only son, and slowly bringing to the grave
a gray-haired widow, as worthy of protection as any mother of the poor
whose plea has closed up a little poolroom or low policy shop.”
Sincerely,
(Mrs.) Julia M. DeLong.
P.S.--Please keep this confidential--at least from my son Percival.
J. M. DeL.
“Well,” said Kennedy, as he handed back the letter, “O'Connor, if you do
it, I'll take back all the hard things I've ever said about the police
system. Young DeLong was in one of my classes at the university, until
he was expelled for that last mad prank of his. There's more to that boy
than most people think, but he's the wildest scion of wealth I have ever
come in contact with. How are you going to pull off your raid--is it to
be down through the skylight or up from the cellar?”
“Kennedy,” replied O'Connor in the same reproachful tone with which he
had addressed me, “talk sense. I'm in earnest. You know the Vesper Club
is barred and barricaded like the National City Bank. It isn't one of
those common gambling joints which depend for protection on what we
call 'ice-box doors.' It's proof against all the old methods. Axes and
sledge-hammers would make no impression there.”
“Your predecessor had some success at opening doors with a hydraulic
jack, I believe, in some very difficult raids,” put in Kennedy.
“A hydraulic jack wouldn't do for the Vesper Club, I'm afraid,”
remarked O'Connor wearily. “Why, sir, that place has been proved
bomb-proof--bomb-proof, sir. You remember recently the so-called
'gamblers' war' in which some rivals exploded a bomb on the steps? It
did more damage to the house next door than to the club. However, I can
get past the outer door, I think, even if it is strong. But inside--you
must have heard of it--is the famous steel door, three inches thick,
made of armourplate. It's no use to try it at all unless we can pass
that door with reasonable quickness. All the evidence we shall get will
be of an innocent social club-room downstairs. The gambling is all on
the second floor, beyond this door, in a room without a window in it.
Surely you've heard of that famous gambling-room, with its perfect
system of artificial ventilation and electric lighting that makes it
rival noonday at midnight. And don't tell me I've got to get on the
other side of the door by strategy, either. It is strategy-proof. The
system of lookouts is perfect. No, force is necessary, but it must not
be destructive of life or property--or, by heaven, I'd drive up there
and riddle the place with a fourteen-inch gun,” exclaimed O'Connor.
“H'm!” mused Kennedy as he flicked the ashes off his cigar and
meditatively watched a passing freight-train on the railroad below us.
“There goes a car loaded with tons and tons of scrap iron. You want me
to scrap that three-inch steel door, do you?”
“Kennedy, I'll buy that particular scrap from you at almost its weight
in gold. The fact is, I have a secret fund at my disposal such as former
commissioners have asked for in vain. I can afford to pay you well,
as well as any private client, and I hear you have had some good fees
lately. Only deliver the goods.”
“No,” answered Kennedy, rather piqued, “it isn't money that I am after.
I merely wanted to be sure that you are in earnest. I can get you past
that door as if it were made of green baize.”
It was O'Connor's turn to look incredulous, but as Kennedy apparently
meant exactly what he said, he simply asked, “And will you?”
“I will do it to-night if you say so,” replied Kennedy quietly. “Are you
ready?”
For answer O'Connor simply grasped Craig's hand, as if to seal the
compact.
“All right, then,” continued Kennedy. “Send a furniture-van, one of
those closed vans that the storage warehouses use, up to my laboratory
any time before seven o'clock. How many men will you need in the raid?
Twelve? Will a van hold that many comfortably? I'll want to put some
apparatus in it, but that won't take much room.”
“Why, yes, I think so,” answered O'Connor. “I'll get a well-padded van
so that they won't be badly jolted by the ride down-town. By George!
Kennedy, I see you know more of that side of police strategy than I gave
you credit for.”
“Then have the men drop into my laboratory singly about the same time.
You can arrange that so that it will not look suspicious, so far uptown.
It will be dark, anyhow. Perhaps, O'Connor, you can make up as the
driver yourself--anyhow, get one you can trust absolutely. Then have
the van down near the corner of Broadway below the club, driving slowly
along about the time the theatre crowd is out. Leave the rest to me. I
will give you or the driver orders when the time comes.”
As O'Connor thanked Craig, he remarked without a shade of insincerity,
“Kennedy, talk about being commissioner, you ought to be commissioner.”
“Wait till I deliver the goods,” answered Craig simply. “I may fall down
and bring you nothing but a lawsuit for damages for unlawful entry or
unjust persecution, or whatever they call it.”
“I'll take a chance at that,” called back O'Connor as he jumped into his
car and directed, “Headquarters, quick.”
As the car disappeared, Kennedy filled his lungs with air as if
reluctant to leave the drive. “Our constitutional,” he remarked, “is
abruptly at an end, Walter.”
Then he laughed, as he looked about him.
“What a place in which to plot a raid on Danfield's Vesper Club! Why,
the nurse-maids have hardly got the children all in for supper and bed.
It's incongruous. Well, I must go over to the laboratory and get some
things ready to put in that van with the men. Meet me about half-past
seven, Walter, up in the room, all togged up. We'll dine at the Cafe
Riviera to-night in style. And, by the way, you're quite a man about
town--you must know someone who can introduce us into the Vesper Club.”
“But, Craig,” I demurred, “if there is any rough work as a result, it
might queer me with them. They might object to being used--”
“Oh, that will be all right. I just want to look the place over and
lose a few chips in a good cause. No, it won't queer any of your Star
connections. We'll be on the outside when the time comes for anything to
happen. In fact I shouldn't wonder if your story would make you all the
more solid with the sports. I take all the responsibility; you can have
the glory. You know they like to hear the inside gossip of such things,
after the event. Try it. Remember, at seven-thirty. We'll be a little
late at dinner, but never mind; it will be early enough for the club.”
Left to my own devices I determined to do a little detective work on my
own account, and not only did I succeed in finding an acquaintance who
agreed to introduce us at the Vesper Club that night about nine o'clock,
but I also learned that Percival DeLong was certain to be there that
night, too. I was necessarily vague about Kennedy, for fear my friend
might have heard of some of his exploits, but fortunately he did not
prove inquisitive.
I hurried back to our apartment and was in the process of transforming
myself into a full-fledged boulevardier, when Kennedy arrived in
an extremely cheerful frame of mind. So far, his preparations had
progressed very favourably, I guessed, and I was quite elated when he
complimented me on what I had accomplished in the meantime.
“Pretty tough for the fellows who are condemned to ride around in that
van for four mortal hours, though,” he said as he hurried into his
evening clothes, “but they won't be riding all the time. The driver will
make frequent stops.”
I was so busy that I paid little attention to him until he had nearly
completed his toilet. I gave a gasp.
“Why, whatever are you doing?” I exclaimed as I glanced into his room.
There stood Kennedy arrayed in all the glory of a sharp-pointed
moustache and a goatee. He had put on evening clothes of decidedly
Parisian cut, clothes which he had used abroad and had brought back with
him, but which I had never known him to wear since he came back. On
a chair reposed a chimney-pot hat that would have been pronounced
faultless on the “continong,” but was unknown, except among impresarios,
on Broadway.
Kennedy shrugged his shoulders--he even had the shrug.
“Figure to yourself, monsieur,” he said. “Ze great Kennedy, ze detectif
Americain--to put it tersely in our own vernacular, wouldn't it be a
fool thing for me to appear at the Vesper Club where I should surely be
recognised by someone if I went in my ordinary clothes and features? Un
faux pas, at the start? Jamais!”
There was nothing to do but agree, and I was glad that I had been
discreetly reticent about my companion in talking with the friend who
was to gain us entrance to the Avernus beyond the steel door.
We met my friend at the Riviera and dined sumptuously. Fortunately he
seemed decidedly impressed with my friend Monsieur Kay--I could do no
better on the spur of the moment than take Kennedy's initial, which
seemed to serve. We progressed amicably from oysters and soup down to
coffee, cigars, and liqueurs, and I succeeded in swallowing Kennedy's
tales of Monte Carlo and Ostend and Ascot without even a smile. He
must have heard them somewhere, and treasured them up for just such an
occasion, but he told them in a manner that was verisimilitude itself,
using perfect English with just the trace of an accent at the right
places.
At last it was time to saunter around to the Vesper Club without seeming
to be too indecently early. The theatres were not yet out, but my friend
said play was just beginning at the club and would soon be in full
swing.
I had a keen sense of wickedness as we mounted the steps in the yellow
flare of the flaming arc-light on the Broadway corner not far below us.
A heavy, grated door swung open at the practised signal of my friend,
and an obsequious negro servant stood bowing and pronouncing his name
in the sombre mahogany portal beyond, with its green marble pillars and
handsome decorations. A short parley followed, after which we entered,
my friend having apparently satisfied someone that we were all right.
We did not stop to examine the first floor, which doubtless was innocent
enough, but turned quickly up a flight of steps. At the foot of the
broad staircase Kennedy paused to examine some rich carvings, and I felt
him nudge me. I turned. It was an enclosed staircase, with walls that
looked to be of re-enforced concrete. Swung back on hinges concealed
like those of a modern burglar-proof safe was the famous steel door.
We did not wish to appear to be too interested, yet a certain amount of
curiosity was only proper.
My friend paused on the steps, turned, and came back.
“You're perfectly safe,” he smiled, tapping the door with his cane with
a sort of affectionate respect. “It would take the police ages to get
past that barrier, which would be swung shut and bolted the moment the
lookout gave the alarm. But there has never been any trouble. The police
know that it is so far, no farther. Besides,” he added with a wink to
me, “you know, Senator Danfield wouldn't like this pretty little door
even scratched. Come up, I think I hear DeLong's voice up-stairs. You've
heard of him, monsieur? It's said his luck has changed I'm anxious to
find out.”
Quickly he led the way up the handsome staircase and into a large,
lofty, richly furnished room. Everywhere there were thick, heavy carpets
on the floors, into which your feet sank with an air of satisfying
luxury.
The room into which we entered was indeed absolutely windowless. It was
a room built within the original room of the old house. Thus the windows
overlooking the street from the second floor in reality bore no relation
to it. For light it depended on a complete oval of lights overhead
so arranged as to be themselves invisible, but shining through richly
stained glass and conveying the illusion of a slightly clouded noonday.
The absence of windows was made up for, as I learned later, by a
ventilating device so perfect that, although everyone was smoking, a
most fastidious person could scarcely have been offended by the odour of
tobacco.
Of course I did not notice all this at first. What I did notice,
however, was a faro-layout and a hazard-board, but as no one was playing
at either, my eye quickly travelled to a roulette-table which stretched
along the middle of the room. Some ten or a dozen men in evening clothes
were gathered watching with intent faces the spinning wheel. There
was no money on the table, nothing but piles of chips of various
denominations. Another thing that surprised me as I looked was that the
tense look on the faces of the players was anything but the feverish,
haggard gaze I had expected. In fact, they were sleek, well-fed, typical
prosperous New-Yorkers rather inclined to the noticeable in dress and
carrying their avoirdupois as if life was an easy game with them. Most
of them evidently belonged to the financial and society classes. There
were no tragedies; the tragedies were elsewhere--in their offices,
homes, in the courts, anywhere, but not here at the club. Here all was
life, light, and laughter.
For the benefit of those not acquainted with the roulette-wheel--and I
may as well confess that most of my own knowledge was gained in that one
crowded evening--I may say that it consists, briefly, of a wooden disc
very nicely balanced and turning in the centre of a cavity set into
a table like a circular wash-basin, with an outer rim turned slightly
inward. The “croupier” revolves the wheel to the right. With a quick
motion of his middle finger he flicks a marble, usually of ivory, to the
left. At the Vesper Club, always up-to-date, the ball was of platinum,
not of ivory. The disc with its sloping sides is provided with a number
of brass rods, some perpendicular, some horizontal. As the ball and the
wheel lose momentum the ball strikes against the rods and finally is
deflected into one of the many little pockets or stalls facing the rim
of the wheel.
There are thirty-eight of these pockets; two are marked “0” and “00,”
the others numbered from one to thirty-six in an irregular and confusing
order and painted alternately red and black. At each end of the table
are thirty-six large squares correspondingly numbered and coloured. The
“0” and “00” are of a neutral colour. Whenever the ball falls in the “0”
or “00” the bank takes the stakes, or sweeps the the board. The Monte
Carlo wheel has only one “0,” while the typical American has two, and
the Chinese has four.
To one like myself who had read of the Continental gambling-houses with
the clink of gold pieces on the table, and the croupier with his wooden
rake noisily raking in the winnings of the bank, the comparative silence
of the American game comes as a surprise.
As we advanced, we heard only the rattle of the ball, the click of the
chips, and the monotonous tone of the spinner: “Twenty-three, black.
Eight, red. Seventeen, black.” It was almost like the boys in a broker's
office calling off the quotations of the ticker and marking them up on
the board.
Leaning forward, almost oblivious to the rest, was Percival DeLong, a
tall, lithe, handsome young man, whose boyish face ill comported with
the marks of dissipation clearly outlined on it. Such a boy, it flashed
across my mind, ought to be studying the possible plays of football of
an evening in the field-house after his dinner at the training-table,
rather than the possible gyrations of the little platinum ball on the
wheel.
“Curse the luck!” he exclaimed, as “17” appeared again.
A Hebrew banker staked a pile of chips on the “17” to come up a third
time. A murmur of applause at his nerve ran through the circle. DeLong
hesitated, as one who thought, “Seventeen has come out twice--the odds
against its coming again are too great, even though the winnings would
be fabulous, for a good stake.” He placed his next bet on another
number.
“He's playing Lord Rosslyn's system, to-night,” whispered my friend.
The wheel spun, the ball rolled, and the croupier called again,
“Seventeen, black.” A tremor of excitement ran through the crowd. It was
almost unprecedented.
DeLong, with a stifled oath, leaned back and scanned the faces about the
table.
“And '17' has precisely the same chance of turning up in the next spin
as if it had not already had a run of three,” said a voice at my elbow.
It was Kennedy. The roulette-table needs no introduction when curious
sequences are afoot. All are friends.
“That's the theory of Sir Hiram Maxim;” commented my friend, as he
excused himself reluctantly for another appointment. “But no true
gambler will believe it, monsieur, or at least act on it.”
All eyes were turned on Kennedy, who made a gesture of polite
deprecation, as if the remark of my friend were true, but he
nonchalantly placed his chips on the “17.”
“The odds against '17' appearing four consecutive times are some
millions,” he went on, “and yet, having appeared three times, it is just
as likely to appear again as before. It is the usual practice to avoid a
number that has had a run, on the theory that some other number is more
likely to come up than it is. That would be the case if it were drawing
balls from a bag full of red and black balls--the more red ones drawn
the smaller the chance of drawing another red one. But if the balls are
put back in the bag after being drawn the chances of drawing a red one
after three have been drawn are exactly the same as ever. If we toss
a cent and heads appear twelve times, that does not have the slightest
effect on the thirteenth toss--there is still an even chance that it,
too, will be heads. So if '17' had come up five times to-night, it would
be just as likely to come the sixth as if the previous five had not
occurred, and that despite the fact that before it has appeared at all
odds against a run of the same number six times in succession are about
two billion, four hundred and ninety-six million, and some thousands.
Most systems are based on the old persistent belief that occurrences of
chance are affected in some way by occurrences immediately preceding,
but disconnected physically. If we've had a run of black for twenty
times, system says play the red for the twenty-first. But black is just
as likely to turn up the twenty-first as if it were the first play of
all. The confusion arises because a run of twenty on the black should
happen once in one million, forty-eight thousand, five hundred and
seventy-six coups. It would take ten years to make that many coups, and
the run of twenty might occur once or any number of times in it. It is
only when one deals with infinitely large numbers of coups that one can
count on infinitely small variations in the mathematical results. This
game does not go on for infinity--therefore anything, everything, may
happen. Systems are based on the infinite; we play in the finite.”
“You talk like a professor I had at the university,” ejaculated DeLong
contemptuously as Craig finished his disquisition on the practical
fallibility of theoretically infallible systems. Again DeLong carefully
avoided the “17,” as well as the black.
The wheel spun again; the ball rolled. The knot of spectators around the
table watched with bated breath.
Seventeen won!
As Kennedy piled up his winnings superciliously, without even the
appearance of triumph, a man behind me whispered, “A foreign nobleman
with a system--watch him.”
“Non, monsieur,” said Kennedy quickly, having overheard the remark, “no
system, sir. There is only one system of which I know.”
“What?” asked DeLong eagerly.
Kennedy staked a large sum on the red to win. The black came up, and
he lost. He doubled the stake and played again, and again lost. With
amazing calmness Craig kept right on doubling.
“The martingale,” I heard the man whisper behind me. “In other words,
double or quit.”
Kennedy was now in for some hundreds, a sum that was sufficiently large
for him, but he doubled again, still cheerfully playing the red, and the
red won. As he gathered up his chips he rose.
“That's the only system,” he said simply.
“But, go on, go on,” came the chorus from about the table.
“No,” said Kennedy quietly, “that is part of the system, too--to quit
when you have won back your stakes and a little more.”
“Huh!” exclaimed DeLong in disgust. “Suppose you were in for some
thousands--you wouldn't quit. If you had real sporting blood you
wouldn't quit, anyhow!”
Kennedy calmly passed over the open insult, letting it be understood
that he ignored this beardless youth.
“There is no way you can beat the game in the long run if you keep at
it,” he answered simply. “It is mathematically impossible. Consider. We
are Croesuses--we hire players to stake money for us on every possible
number at every coup. How do we come out? If there are no '0' or '00,'
we come out after each coup precisely where we started--we are paying
our own money back and forth among ourselves; we have neither more
nor less. But with the '0' and '00' the bank sweeps the board every so
often. It is only a question of time when, after paying our money back
and forth among ourselves, it has all filtered through the '0' and '00'
into the bank. It is not a game of chance for the bank--ah, it is exact,
mathematical--c'est une question d' arithmetique, seulement, nest-ce
pas, messieurs?”
“Perhaps,” admitted DeLong, “but it doesn't explain why I am losing
to-night while everyone else is winning.”
“We are not winning,” persisted Craig. “After I have had a bite to eat I
will demonstrate how to lose--by keeping on playing.” He led the way to
the cafe.
DeLong was too intent on the game to leave, even for refreshments. Now
and then I saw him beckon to an attendant, who brought him a stiff drink
of whiskey. For a moment his play seemed a little better, then he
would drop back into his hopeless losing. For some reason or other his
“system” failed absolutely.
“You see, he is hopeless,” mused Kennedy over our light repast. “And
yet of all gambling games roulette offers the player the best odds, far
better than horse-racing, for instance. Our method has usually been to
outlaw roulette and permit horse racing; in other words, suppress the
more favourable and permit the less favourable. However, we're doing
better now; we're suppressing both. Of course what I say applies only to
roulette when it is honestly played--DeLong would lose anyhow, I fear.”
I started at Kennedy's tone and whispered hastily: “What do you mean? Do
you think the wheel is crooked?”
“I haven't a doubt of it,” he replied in an undertone. “That run of '17'
might happen--yes. But it is improbable. They let me win because I was
a new player--new players always win at first. It is proverbial, but
the man who is running this game has made it look like a platitude. To
satisfy myself on that point I am going to play again--until I have lost
my winnings and am just square with the game. When I reach the point
that I am convinced that some crooked work is going on I am going to try
a little experiment, Walter. I want you to stand close to me so that no
one can see what I am doing. Do just as I will indicate to you.”
The gambling-room was now fast filling up with the first of the theatre
crowd. DeLong's table was the centre of attraction, owing to the high
play. A group of young men of his set were commiserating with him on his
luck and discussing it with the finished air of roues of double their
ages. He was doggedly following his system.
Kennedy and I approached.
“Ah, here is the philosophical stranger again;” DeLong exclaimed,
catching sight of Kennedy. “Perhaps he can enlighten us on how to win at
roulette by playing his own system.”
“Au contrarie, monsieur, let me demonstrate how to lose,” answered Craig
with a smile that showed a row of faultless teeth beneath his black
moustache, decidedly foreign.
Kennedy played and lost, and lost again; then he won, but in the main he
lost. After one particularly large loss I felt his arm on mine, drawing
me closely to him. DeLong had taken a sort of grim pleasure in the fact
that Kennedy, too, was losing. I found that Craig had paused in his play
at a moment when DeLong had staked a large sum that a number below “18”
would turn up--for five plays the numbers had been between “18” and
“36.” Curious to see what Craig was doing, I looked cautiously down
between us. All eyes were fixed on the wheel. Kennedy was holding an
ordinary compass in the crooked-up palm of his hand. The needle pointed
at me, as I happened to be standing north of it.
The wheel spun. Suddenly the needle swung around to a point between
the north and south poles, quivered a moment, and came to rest in that
position. Then it swung back to the north.
It was some seconds before I realised the significance of it. It had
pointed at the table--and DeLong had lost again. There was some electric
attachment at work.
Kennedy and I exchanged glances, and he shoved the compass into my hand
quickly. “You watch it, Walter, while I play,” he whispered.
Carefully concealing it, as he had done, yet holding it as close to the
table as I dared I tried to follow two things at once without betraying
myself. As near as I could make out, something happened at every play. I
would not go so far as to assert that whenever the larger stakes were on
a certain number the needle pointed to the opposite side of the wheel,
for it was impossible to be at all accurate about it. Once I noticed the
needle did not move at all, and he won. But at the next play he staked
what I knew must be the remainder of his winnings on what seemed a
very good chance. Even before the wheel was revolved and the ball set
rolling, the needle swung about, and when the platinum ball came to rest
Kennedy rose from the table, a loser.
“By George though,” exclaimed DeLong, grasping his hand. “I take it all
back. You are a good loser, sir. I wish I could take it as well as you
do. But then, I'm in too deeply. There are too many 'markers' with the
house up against me.”
Senator Danfield had just come in to see how things were going. He was
a sleek, fat man, and it was amazing to see with what deference his
victims treated him. He affected not to have heard what DeLong said, but
I could imagine what he was thinking, for I had heard that he had scant
sympathy with anyone after he “went broke”--another evidence of the
camaraderie and good-fellowship that surrounded the game.
Kennedy's next remark surprised me. “Oh, your luck will change, D.
L.,”--everyone referred to him as “D. L.,” for gambling-houses have an
aversion for real names and greatly prefer initials--“your luck will
change presently. Keep right on with your system. It's the best you can
do to-night, short of quitting.”
“I'll never quit,” replied the young man under his breath.
Meanwhile Kennedy and I paused on the way out to compare notes. My
report of the behaviour of the compass only confirmed him in his
opinion.
As we turned to the stairs we took in a full view of the room. A
faro-layout was purchasing Senator Danfield a new touring-car every
hour at the expense of the players. Another group was gathered about the
hazard board, deriving evident excitement, though I am sure none could
have given an intelligent account of the chances they were taking. Two
roulette-tables were now going full blast, the larger crowd still about
DeLong's. Snatches of conversation came to us now and then, and I caught
one sentence, “De Long's in for over a hundred thousand now on the
week's play, I understand; poor boy--that about cleans him up.”
“The tragedy of it, Craig,” I whispered, but he did not hear.
With his hat tilted at a rakish angle and his opera-coat over his arm he
sauntered over for a last look.
“Any luck yet?” he asked carelessly.
“The devil--no,” returned the boy.
“Do you know what my advice to you is, the advice of a man who has seen
high play everywhere from Monte Carlo to Shanghai?”
“What?”
“Play until your luck changes if it takes until to-morrow.”
A supercilious smile crossed Senator Danfield's fat face.
“I intend to,” and the haggard young face turned again to the table and
forgot us.
“For Heaven's sake, Kennedy,” I gasped as we went down the stairway,
“what do you mean by giving him such advice--you?”
“Not so loud, Walter. He'd have done it anyhow, I suppose, but I want
him to keep at it. This night means life or death to Percival DeLong and
his mother, too. Come on, let's get out of this.”
We passed the formidable steel door and gained the street, jostled by
the late-comers who had left the after-theatre restaurants for a few
moments of play at the famous club that so long had defied the police.
Almost gaily Kennedy swung along toward Broadway. At the corner he
hesitated, glanced up and down, caught sight of the furniture-van in the
middle of the next block. The driver was tugging at the harness of the
horses, apparently fixing it. We walked along and stopped beside it.
“Drive around in front of the Vesper Club slowly,” said Kennedy as the
driver at last looked up.
The van lumbered ahead, and we followed it casually. Around the corner
it turned. We turned also. My heart was going like a sledgehammer as the
critical moment approached. My head was in a whirl. What would that gay
throng back of those darkened windows down the street think if they knew
what was being prepared for them?
On, like the Trojan horse, the van lumbered. A man went into the Vesper
Club, and I saw the negro at the door eye the oncoming van suspiciously.
The door banged shut.
The next thing I knew, Kennedy had ripped off his disguise, had flung
himself up behind the van, and had swung the doors open. A dozen men
with ages and sledge-hammers swarmed out and up the steps of the club.
“Call the reserves, O'Connor,” cried Kennedy. “Watch the roof and the
back yard.”
The driver of the van hastened to send in the call.
The sharp raps of the hammers and the axes sounded on the thick
brass-bound oak of the outside door in quick succession. There was a
scurry of feet inside, and we could hear a grating noise and a terrific
jar as the inner, steel door shut.
“A raid! A raid on the Vesper Club!” shouted a belated passer-by.
The crowd swarmed around from Broadway, as if it were noon instead of
midnight.
Banging and ripping and tearing, the outer door was slowly forced. As
it crashed in, the quick gongs of several police patrols sounded. The
reserves had been called out at the proper moment, too late for them
to “tip off” the club that there was going to be a raid, as frequently
occurs.
Disregarding the melee behind me, I leaped through the wreckage with the
other raiders. The steel door barred all further progress with its
cold blue impassibility. How were we to surmount this last and most
formidable barrier?
I turned in time to see Kennedy and O'Connor hurrying up the steps
with a huge tank studded with bolts like a boiler, while two other men
carried a second tank.
“There,” ordered Craig, “set the oxygen there,” as he placed his own
tank on the opposite side:
Out of the tanks stout tubes led, with stopcocks and gages at the top.
From a case under his arm Kennedy produced a curious arrangement like a
huge hook, with a curved neck and a sharp beak. Really it consisted of
two metal tubes which ran into a sort of cylinder, or mixing chamber,
above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran a third separate tube with
a second nozzle of its own. Quickly he joined the ends of the tubes from
the tanks to the metal hook, the oxygen-tank being joined to two of the
tubes of the hook, and the second tank being joined to the other. With
a match he touched the nozzle gingerly. Instantly a hissing, spitting
noise followed, and an intense blinding needle of flame.
“Now for the oxy-acetylene blowpipe,” cried Kennedy as he advanced
toward the steel door. “We'll make short work of this.”
Almost as he said it, the steel beneath the blowpipe became
incandescent.
Just to test it, he cut off the head of a three-quarter-inch steel
rivet--taking about a quarter of a minute to do it. It was evident,
though, that that would not weaken the door appreciably, even if the
rivets were all driven through. Still they gave a starting-point for the
flame of the high-pressure acetylene torch.
It was a brilliant sight. The terrific heat from the first nozzle caused
the metal to glow under the torch as if in an open-hearth furnace. From
the second nozzle issued a stream of oxygen under which the hot metal
of the door was completely consumed. The force of the blast as the
compressed oxygen and acetylene were expelled carried a fine spray of
the disintegrated metal visibly before it. And yet it was not a big hole
that it made--scarcely an eighth of an inch wide, but clear and sharp
as if a buzz-saw were eating its way through a three-inch plank of white
pine.
With tense muscles Kennedy held this terrific engine of destruction
and moved it as easily as if it had been a mere pencil of light. He was
easily the calmest of us all as we crowded about him at a respectful
distance.
“Acetylene, as you may know,” he hastily explained, never pausing for a
moment in his work, “is composed of carbon and hydrogen. As it burns at
the end of the nozzle it is broken into carbon and hydrogen--the carbon
gives the high temperature, and the hydrogen forms a cone that protects
the end of the blowpipe from being itself burnt up.”
“But isn't it dangerous?” I asked, amazed at the skill with which he
handled the blowpipe.
“Not particularly--when you know how to do it. In that tank is a porous
asbestos packing saturated with acetone, under pressure. Thus I can
carry acetylene safely, for it is dissolved, and the possibility of
explosion is minimised. This mixing chamber by which I am holding the
torch, where the oxygen and acetylene mix, is also designed in such
a way as to prevent a flash-back. The best thing about this style of
blowpipe is the ease with which it can be transported and the curious
uses--like the present--to which it can be put.”
He paused a moment to test the door. All was silence on the other side.
The door itself was as firm as ever.
“Huh!” exclaimed one of the detectives behind me, “these new-fangled
things ain't all they're cracked up to be. Now if I was runnin' this
show, I'd dynamite that door to kingdom come.”
“And wreck the house and kill a few people,” I returned, hotly resenting
the criticism of Kennedy. Kennedy affected not to hear.
“When I shut off the oxygen in this second jet,” he resumed as if
nothing had been said, “you see the torch merely heats the steel. I can
get a heat of approximately sixty-three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and
the flame will exert a pressure of fifty pounds to the square inch.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed O'Connor, who had not heard the remark of his
subordinate and was watching with undisguised admiration. “Kennedy, how
did you ever think of such a thing?”
“Why, it's used for welding, you know,” answered Craig as he continued
to work calmly in the growing excitement: “I first saw it in actual
use in mending a cracked cylinder in an automobile. The cylinder was
repaired without being taken out at all. I've seen it weld new teeth and
build up old worn teeth on gearing, as good as new.”
He paused to let us see the terrifically heated metal under the flame.
“You remember when we were talking on the drive about the raid,
O'Connor? A car-load of scrap-iron went by on the railroad below us.
They use this blowpipe to cut it up, frequently. That's what gave me the
idea. See. I turn on the oxygen now in this second nozzle. The blowpipe
is no longer an instrument for joining metals together, but for
cutting them asunder. The steel burns just as you, perhaps, have seen
a watch-spring burn in a jar of oxygen. Steel, hard or soft, tempered,
annealed, chrome, or Harveyised, it all burns just as fast and just as
easily. And it's cheap too. This raid may cost a couple of dollars, as
far as the blowpipe is concerned--quite a difference from the thousands
of dollars' loss that would follow an attempt to blow the door in.”
The last remark was directed quietly at the doubting detective. He had
nothing to say. We stood in awe-struck amazement as the torch slowly,
inexorably, traced a thin line along the edge of the door.
Minute after minute sped by, as the line burned by the blowpipe cut
straight from top to bottom. It seemed hours to me. Was Kennedy going to
slit the whole door and let it fall in with a crash?
No, I could see that even in his cursory examination of the door he had
gained a pretty good knowledge of the location of the bolts imbedded in
the steel. One after another he was cutting clear through and severing
them, as if with a superhuman knife.
What was going on on the other side of the door, I wondered. I could
scarcely imagine the consternation of the gamblers caught in their own
trap.
With a quick motion Kennedy turned off the acetylene and oxygen. The
last bolt had been severed. A gentle push of the hand, and he swung the
once impregnable door on its delicately poised hinges as easily as if he
had merely said, “Open Sesame.” The robbers' cave yawned before us.
We made a rush up the stairs. Kennedy was first, O'Connor next, and
myself scarcely a step behind, with the rest of O'Connor's men at our
heels.
I think we were all prepared for some sort of gun-play, for the crooks
were desperate characters, and I myself was surprised to encounter
nothing but physical force, which was quickly, overcome.
In the now disordered richness of the rooms, waving his “John Doe”
warrants in one hand and his pistol in the other, O'Connor shouted
“you're all under arrest, gentlemen. If you resist further it will go
hard with you.”
Crowded now in one end of the room in speechless amazement was the late
gay party of gamblers, including Senator Danfield himself. They had
reckoned on toying with any chance but this. The pale white face of
DeLong among them was like a spectre, as he stood staring blankly about
and still insanely twisting the roulette wheel before him.
Kennedy advanced toward the table with an ax which he had seized from
one of our men. A well-directed blow shattered the mechanism of the
delicate wheel.
“DeLong,” he said, “I'm not going to talk to you like your old professor
at the university, nor like your recent friend, the Frenchman with a
system. This is what you have been up against, my boy. Look.”
His forefinger indicated an ingenious, but now tangled and twisted,
series of minute wires and electro-magnets in the broken wheel before
us. Delicate brushes led the current into the wheel. With another blow
of his axe, Craig disclosed wires running down through the leg of the
table to the floor and under the carpet to buttons operated by the man
who ran the game.
“Wh--what does it mean?” asked DeLong blankly.
“It means that you had little enough chance to win at a straight game of
roulette. But the wheel is very rarely straight, even with all the
odds in favour of the bank, as they are. This game was electrically
controlled. Others are mechanically controlled by what is sometimes
called the 'mule's ear,' and other devices. You can't win. These wires
and magnets can be made to attract the little ball into any pocket
the operator desires. Each one of those pockets contains a little
electro-magnet. One set of magnets in the red pockets is connected with
one button under the carpet and a battery. The other set in the black
pockets is connected with another button and the battery. This ball is
not really of platinum. Platinum is nonmagnetic. It is simply a soft
iron hollow ball, plated with platinum. Whichever set of electro-magnets
is energised attracts the ball and by this simple method it is in the
power of the operator to let the ball go to red or black as he may
wish. Other similar arrangements control the odd or even, and other
combinations from other push buttons. A special arrangement took care
of that '17' freak. There isn't an honest gambling-machine in the whole
place--I might almost say the whole city. The whole thing is crooked
from start to finish--the men, the machines, the--”
“That machine could be made to beat me by turning up a run of '17' any
number of times, or red or black, or odd or even, over '18' or under
'18,' or anything?”
“Anything, DeLong.”
“And I never had a chance,” he repeated, meditatively fingering the
wires. “They broke me to-night. Danfield”--DeLong turned, looking
dazedly about in the crowd for his former friend, then his hand
shot into his pocket, and a little ivory-handled pistol flashed
out--“Danfield, your blood is on your own head. You have ruined me.”
Kennedy must have been expecting something of the sort, for he seized
the arm of the young man, weakened by dissipation, and turned the pistol
upward as if it had been in the grasp of a mere child.
A blinding flash followed in the farthest corner of the room and a huge
puff of smoke. Before I could collect my wits another followed in the
opposite corner. The room was filled with a dense smoke.
Two men were scuffing at my feet. One was Kennedy. As I dropped down
quickly to help him I saw that the other was Danfield, his face purple
with the violence of the struggle.
“Don't be alarmed, gentlemen,” I heard O'Connor shout, “the explosions
were only the flashlights of the official police photographers. We now
have the evidence complete. Gentlemen, you will now go down quietly to
the patrol-wagons below, two by two. If you have anything to say, say it
to the magistrate of the night court.”
“Hold his arms, Walter,” panted Kennedy.
I did. With a dexterity that would have done credit to a pickpocket,
Kennedy reached into Danfield's pocket and pulled out some papers.
Before the smoke had cleared and order had been restored, Craig
exclaimed: “Let him up, Walter. Here, DeLong, here are the I.O.U.'s
against you. Tear them up--they are not even a debt of honour.”