The game of faro is one that makes no strenuous demands on the skill of
the players. It is chance pure and simple, and therein lies its
fascination. While baccarat or chemin-de-fer are almost invariably games
to be most in favour when the police raid a gambling-house in the West
End, at the other side of the town it is invariably discovered that faro
holds first place in the affections of gamblers. In its simplest form it
is merely betting on the turn of each card throughout a pack.
Although it was broad daylight, the room in which the operations took
place was shuttered and had the blinds drawn. A three-light gaselier
beat down on a big table in the centre of the room, round three sides of
which were ranged a dozen or fifteen men eagerly intent on the
operations of the banker. A heavy-jowled man with overhanging black
eyebrows, he was seated in a half-circle cut into the centre of one side
of the table. In front of him was a bright steel box sufficiently large
to contain a pack of cards with the face of the top card discernible at
an opening at the top. The cards were pressed upwards in the box by
springs, and at the side a narrow opening allowed the operator to push
the cards out one at a time, thus disclosing the faces of those
underneath and deciding the bets. On each side of the box were the
discarded winning and losing cards, and on the dealer's left a tray
which served the purpose of a till in receiving or paying out money. A
cloth with painted representations of the thirteen cards of a suit was
pinned to the table nearest to the players, and they placed stakes on
the cards they fancied would next be disclosed. Twice the box would
click out cards amid a dead silence. Those who had staked out money on
the first card disclosed won, those who had staked on the second lost.
There was often dead silence while the turn was being made, save for the
click of a marker shown on the wall and guarded by a thick-set little
man with red hair, fierce eyes, and an enormous chest. But directly
afterwards babel would break out, to be sternly quelled by the
heavy-jowled man.
"I 'ad set on sa nine," ... "Say, that king was coppered," ... "I ought
ter have split it."
The jargons of all the world met and crossed at such time. It was rarely
that there arose a serious quarrel, for Keller and his myrmidons had a
swift way of dealing with malcontents. When a man became troublesome,
the fierce-eyed little marker with the big chest would tap him on the
shoulder.
"That's enough, you," he would say menacingly.
If the warning were not sufficient the left hand of the little man would
drop to his jacket pocket, and when it emerged it would be decorated
with a heavy brass knuckle-duster. It took but one blow to make a man
lose all interest in the game, and thereafter he would be handed over to
the tender mercies of "Jim," a giant of a door-keeper, who after dark
would drop him into the street at some convenient moment, with a savage
warning to keep his mouth shut lest a worse thing befall him.
This was the place Heldon Foyle had made up his mind to enter
single-handed--a place in which the precautions against surprise were so
complete that every article which could be identified as a gambling
implement was made of material which could be readily burnt, or soluble
at a temperature lower than that of boiling water. A big saucepan was
continually simmering on the fire, so that the implements could be
dropped in it at a second's notice.
But Heldon Foyle had hopes. At the worst he could only fail. He returned
to Scotland Yard and shut himself up for twenty minutes in the make-up
room. When he reached Smike Street again he was no longer the spruce,
upright, well-dressed official. A grimy cap covered tousled hair. His
face was strained, his eyes bloodshot and his moustache combed out
raggedly. A set of greasy mechanic's overalls had been drawn over his
own clothes. He walked uncertainly.
Green and the local inspector saw him reel past the public-house in
which they still remained, as affording an excuse to be near the spot,
and reel up Smike Street. Towards the end he appeared confused and
gravely inspected several houses before approaching the gambling-joint.
He rapped on the door with his knuckles, ignoring both the knocker and
the bell. It opened a few inches wide, enough for the scowling face of
Jim the door-keeper to appear in the aperture.
Supporting himself with one hand on the door-post, Foyle leered amiably
at the Cerberus. "Hello, old sport, I want t'come in. Open the door,
can't you?"
"Git out of it, you drunken swab. You don't live here," said Jim, taking
stock of the drunken intruder and coming to a quick decision.
The door slammed. Foyle beat a tattoo on the panels with his hands,
swaying perilously to and fro the while. Again the door opened the
cautious six inches, and Jim's face was not pleasant to look on as he
swore at the disturber.
"Tha'ss allri', ol' sport," hiccoughed Foyle. "I want to come in. A Bill
Reid tol' me if I wanted--hic--game I was to come here. You know ol'
Bill Reid"--this almost pleadingly--"he'll tell you I'm allri', eh?"
The door-keeper of the gaming-house holds an onerous responsibility. On
him depends the safety of the gamblers from interference by the
representatives of law and order. Jim's suspicions were lulled by
Foyle's quite obvious drunkenness. Nevertheless, a drunken man who had
apparently been told of the place was a danger so long as he remained
clamouring for admittance on the step. Jim tried tact.
"There's nothing doing now," he explained. "You go away and come back
to-night. It'll be a good game then."
"Tha'ss a lie," said Foyle, with an assumption of drunken gravity. "Old
Bill Reid he says to me, he says----"
But Jim had lost the remainder of his small stock of patience. He jerked
the door again in Foyle's face, pulled off the chain and leapt out, his
intention of throwing the other into the street and so ending the
argument once for all written on every line of his stalwart figure.
That was his programme. But Foyle had also his programme. He had got the
door open. All that remained between him and the entrance was the
muscular figure of Jim. He suddenly became sober. The door-keeper's hand
grasping at his collar clutched empty air. The detective's head dropped.
Jim was met half-way by a short charge and Foyle's shoulder caught him
in the chest. Both men were forced by the momentum of the charge back
through the open door and fell in a heap just within.
At ordinary times the two would have been fairly evenly matched. Both
were big men, though the door-keeper had slightly the advantage in size.
He had, however, been taken by surprise and received no opportunity to
utter more than a stifled oath before his breath was taken away. Inside
the house Foyle stood on no ceremony in order to silence his opponent
before those within could be alarmed. He had fallen on top of Jim.
Pressing down on him with head and knee, he swung his right fist twice.
Jim gave a grunt and his head rocked loosely on his neck. He had, in the
vernacular of the ring, been put to sleep.
The effects of a knockout blow, however deftly administered, do not last
long. The detective's first move was to close the street door, leaving
the bolts and chains undone, so that it was fastened merely by the
catches of the Yale locks. Then he whipped a handkerchief about the
unconscious man's mouth, and silently dragging him to a sitting posture,
handcuffed his wrists beneath his knees, so that he was trussed in the
position schoolboys adopt for cock-fighting. He surveyed his handiwork
critically, and, a new idea occurring to him, unlaced the man's boots,
and, taking them off, tied the laces round the ankles. That would
prevent the man rattling his boots on the floor when he came to, and so
have given the alarm.
The inner door had been left open by Jim, a lucky circumstance for
Foyle, as otherwise he would have been at a loss, for it was of stout
oak and he must have made considerable noise in forcing it. Yet he did
not make any attempt to soften his footsteps as he climbed the stairs.
He hoped to be taken as an ordinary client long enough, at any rate, to
discover the whereabouts of Ivan. Once that was achieved he was reckless
as to his identity becoming known.
He needed no guide to the right door, for the clink of money and the
exclamations of many voices guided him. He threw it open and entered the
faro room with quiet assurance. Beyond a quick glance from Keller no one
took any notice of him. They took it for granted that Jim had gone into
his _bona-fides_ and that he was "square."
He took up a position at the end of the table nearest the door, and
apparently watched the game before staking. In reality he was studying
the faces of the players. He was uncertain whether he would find Ivan
there, but he had calculated that the Russian would at least be
watching, if not taking a hand, if only as a means of passing the time
during his voluntary imprisonment. And he was right. Seated at the table
two or three paces away was the Russian, lost to all save the turn of
the card.
Foyle bent over and staked a coin. At the same moment Ivan's eyes met
his in puzzled recognition. There was a crash and the gambler sprang
up, overturning the chair. His hand was outstretched, the finger
pointing at the detective.
"That man--how did he get in here?" he cried, with something like
alarm.