CHAPTERXXI.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 thepetits chevauxhad been so longhors 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 samepetits chevauxtable, 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, andusually anagent de policewould 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 Hagerstononce 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 atpetits chevauxlately,” 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 stakedby 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’seye 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. “Ihave 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, accordingto 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.
“Itisso exciting, Charlie,” she exclaimed. “I must try my luck again to-morrow, I really must. In some ways Jessica is a wonderful woman; shetells 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.”