Each time he won and by now a rumour of something utterly unique had spread through the whole vast building, other and lesser punters won with him. When he was up three thousand pounds against the Bank, the Bank had lost quite seventeen thousand.
The air was electric. The word had gone round.Habituésof the Casino crowded to watch one of those extraordinary nights of play which occur now and then—far more rarely than is supposed—and which are talked about for long afterwards. New-comers joined the throng, and still Basil Gregory sat impassive in his place, conscious that he was the centre of attention, but allowing nothing whatever to divert him from his purpose.
He glanced at his watch.
Stakes were being put upon the table timidly. The players were waiting to see what he was going to do.
He glanced at his cypher-card. The moment was marked with a tiny cross. He was now to adventure a bigger coup than ever before.
He placed the maximum of nine louis upon number 20—standing to win six thousand francs. He placed the maximum of sixty louis upon the line that covered the six figures from 16 to 21, including 20. Here also he stood to win 6,000 francs if 20 turned up.
Then he staked on black. Number 20 upon the roulette wheel is a black number, so here, again, he played the maximum and stood to win the highest possible. Finally he backed the middle dozen of the 36 numbers, here also staking the maximum of 150 louis, again making it possible to win 6,000 francs.
In that quiet place, where any outward expression of excitement or emotion is instantly suppressed, there came a low, sighing sound like the fluttering of leaves in the wind.
It was the spectators whispering to each other.
Such high play as this was beyond the experience of almost everyone. This time, getting more cautious, the other players wagered heavily againstBasil. They thought such phenomenal luck as he had had could not possibly continue, and for the first time during the evening a slight sardonic smile came upon the young man's face.
He knew, they did not, with what certainty number 20 would turn up.
The wheel swung, the ball spun. "Noir et vingt," croaked the croupier.
And now, as the rakes pursued their remorseless way, and swept in all the stakes upon the table except Basil's maximums, there was a low murmur of surprise and consternation. Anywhere else but in the Casino it would have been a babel of tongues.
In one single minute Basil Gregory had won the huge sum of 24,000 francs—960 English pounds.
Standing by the director of the table, who sat above and behind the croupier who spun the wheel, there was now seen a tall and unobtrusive man with a pale face, a short black beard, and wearing evening dress. It was one of the heads of the permanent staff of the Administration—a mysterious being who only entered the rooms upon specialoccasion, a person invested with unknown powers—one of the gods!
Basil had emptied his mind of thought.
He had focussed his whole being upon what he was doing. The huge pile of wealth before him affected him no more than if the notes and gold—and by now there were many notes and but little gold—were but so many counters. Mechanically he folded bundle after bundle of thousand franc notes and placed them in the inner pocket of his coat.
And then, in the stir and rustle, he heard a sharp exclamation—unremarked by the crowd around in that moment of tension, but like an arrow through his own consciousness.
He looked up.
Opposite him, down towards the end of the table, two ladies were sitting. He had been vaguely conscious of them before, but, during all his play, he had made a point of not allowing his thoughts or glances to be distracted by the other players.
It was from one of those ladies, the young one, that he, and he alone, heard a little gasping cry.
It was the girl he loved! It was Ethel McMahon!
A mist seemed to rise up from the table as if water had been poured upon a heated plate of steel. For a moment it swayed and blotted out everything. His mind seemed to be a turning wheel. He felt little needles pricking at the back of his eyes, his blood congealed into a jelly, and the palms of his hands suddenly became covered with a film of perspiration.
Ethel!... It was Ethel! And as the mist cleared away and his mind came to attention, he knew that this was no illusion, but that in very flesh and blood Ethel and her mother were sitting almost opposite to him playing at this table, playing roulette in the world's greatest gambling hell!
The impulse to call out was almost unbearable, but he restrained it with an iron effort.
He stared hungrily at the two women, and as he did so he saw Ethel and Mrs. McMahon look up and meet his gaze. He saw this also—in their eyes was envy and consternation, but not the slightest glint of recognition.
And then he remembered his disguise—thespectacles, the shaved moustache, the foreign clothes, and swarthy complexion—and he realised that their interest in him was no more than that of any of the others.
The whole crowd, the croupiers also, were waiting to see what he would do.
The "faites vos jeux" was rapping out at him from all sides of the table.
He knew that he must have an instant to think or else go mad. With careless gesture he threw a couple of louis upon the table before him, not caring where they fell, and once again the wheel of chance revolved.
What did this mean? There was no answer to his agonised mental inquiry.
He saw Ethel and her mother bending over a card covered with figures—one of those system cards so frequently seen at the tables, so certain to end in disaster.
He saw also the pallor of their faces. He realised in a flash of intuition that they were losing heavily.
How to warn them, how to tell them that he and he only possessed the secret key to Fortuneto-night he could not think, he could not divine.
Again he glanced at his card. Habit had become mechanical. His watch pointed to ten minutes past the hour. His directions stood clear and plain in the cypher before him.
He sorted out his notes and did what was directed.
Up there, on the top of the Hôtel Malmaison, Emile Deschamps was even at that moment pressing a certain key. The result was as inevitable as sure as Fate.
And as Fate or, rather, the cunning of science, the immense trickery of the two young geniuses, spoke, Basil saw that Ethel McMahon and her mother were very hard hit.
He watched them slant-wise from the ends of his spectacles, realising, more definitely than ever, that they were playing upon some fallacious scheme, and being sure—with a jerk of memory—that old Mrs. McMahon had unearthed one of her late husband's systems, and was pursuing it to her own ruin.
Again he won, and by now he was a rich man. The excitement was tremendous, when suddenlythe tall man in evening dress announced a suspension of play.
Basil Gregory had "broken the bank."
There is a prevalent idea, among those who do not know much about Monte Carlo, that breaking the bank means that the whole play of the Casino is stopped for the night on which it occurs.
This is quite wrong.
"Breaking the bank" simply means that the resources of a particular table, out of the dozen or so tables on which roulette is played, are exhausted for a moment. In five minutes new money is brought and play goes on.
It was so now. There was a hurried consultation, and in no time lackeys were bearing oak coffers bound with brass, filled with money, to Basil's table, accompanied by three or four frock-coated officials.
The money was spread out in rows before the principal paying croupier, and six minutes had hardly passed when once more the calm, passionless voice of the director was calling upon the players to "make their game."
But in the interim, as Basil Gregory leant backin his chair, he had heard, with ears quickened by anxiety and love, these words from Ethel to her mother—words spoken in English:
"But, mother, wecannotgo on."
Then the answer, in a sort of wail of despair: "We must go on, Ethel. This next coup is certain to put us right. We must pay no attention to the extraordinary luck of that young Russian nobleman opposite. We must adhere to your father's system. If this coup goes wrong, then we can only play twice again, and all our money will be exhausted. But I have every faith in your father's system."
Then Basil heard something about "courage," and, finally, a whispered lamentation that "our capital is so small."
Three numbers upon his cypher-card had passed by during the rebringing of money to the table.
Glancing at his watch, he saw that the time was ripe for him to play upon 16.
He was gathering up the necessary money to put upon the board, when the sallow man from the Administration pushed through the people surrounding him and whispered in his ear.
If he liked, the official did not press it at all, monsieur should have the opportunity of playing three coups against the bank. That is to say, that the ordinary maximum should be entirely abrogated in favour of monsieur, and any sum he cared to wager upon an even chance, the Administration would be pleased to meet.
The colloquy was very rapid. Deschamps had told Basil that such a thing might happen—such an offer be made to him. When a player has temporarily suspended the game at a certain table—or, in common parlance, "broken the bank"—the authorities are nearly always ready for a final sensational coup.
Basil nodded. "Certainly," he said, pulling out bundle after bundle of notes. "I will play 200,000 francs on red."
The number 16 is a red number. Basil wagered almost his whole winnings of that night without a tremor.
There was now a dead silence round the table. People clustered about it ten deep in the vain effort to see what was going on. Yet, while the wheel was turned and the ball spun, the onlyunconcerned person about this gigantic stake was Basil Gregory himself.
No one else put a single coin upon the table, save only a trembling old lady who sat by a young and lovely girl—an obstinate old lady, clinging to a hope.
Basil was given notes to the value of £16,000.
The most notable thing about the Casino, with its enormous resources, is the absolute impassibility of its officials.
Again Basil wagered £8,000—this time upon black.
He won, and as his money was being paid to him a loud murmur rose from the crowd—a loud murmur, broken by a sharp and pulsing cry.
A tall and beautiful girl had risen from her feet and had fallen in a deep swoon into the arms of the bystanders behind her.
There was an immediate struggle. The electric tension of the moment was over. The well-dressed crowd surged and almost fought in a panic of snapped nerves and suddenly relaxed excitement.
People came surging from all sides. The othertables were deserted, and, far away through the great halls, those who were playingtrente-et-quaranterose from their cards with listening ears.
In that supreme moment Basil Gregory did not lose his head. He gathered up his enormous winnings. The pockets of his coat bulged with wealth. And Ethel McMahon was being carried out into the Atrium, followed by her mother in a state of wild hysteria, before he rose from his seat.
He took six thousand-franc notes from one of his pockets. To each of the six croupiers he gave a note.
Then he sauntered quietly out into the huge hall.
Under the brilliant electric lights which gleamed upon the marble he saw little groups of people—each group seeming quite small in the immensity—talking earnestly together.
As he came out among them every head was turned, though of Ethel and her mother he saw not a trace.
But as he went to the cloak-room, and delivered his metal ticket, two or three commissionairescame up to him with awed and respectful faces.
"That young lady?" he said, "and the elder one with her?"
"It was nothing, monsieur," one of the men hastened to say. "They are two English ladies staying at thepensionin the Rue Grimaldi. Your success, monsieur, unnerved them. They have been sent home in avoiture."
Basil nodded as he was helped into his long, dark coat.
With a smile he distributed a few gold coins, and then, alone, unattended, he walked out into the warm, aromatic night, and strolled to his adjacent hotel among flower-bordered paths, under the twin lights of electricity and the great, red moon of the South.
At the Hôtel de Paris, at the Métropole, at Ciro's, people were gathering for gay supper parties.
As he entered the huge, brilliantly decorated lounge of the Malmaison, groups of wealthy people were smoking a preliminary cigarette before supper. Some of them—many of them—recognised him, and nodded and whispered to eachother, but he entered the lift and went straight to his own room.
He turned up the electric lights, and locked the door. And then, from pocket and pocket, he poured out crackling, crumpled heaps of notes, heavy handfuls of gold—the wealth of which he had dreamed.
After a minute or two, without even locking the door of his sitting-room, he stumbled out of it and up the stairs to the servants' quarters.
He gave the signal knocks.
He was at once admitted to the dingy little bedroom-workshop.
Emile Deschamps was there. The Frenchman's face was as grey as evening ice.
He was staring at his apparatus in a sort of stupor, and by his side the chronometer ticked.
Emile gave a loud shout as Basil tumbled into the place.
"It is done, then?" he gasped. "Mon ami, it is a thing done?"
All grimy as he was Basil led his friend down into his sitting-room.
* * * * * *
At two o'clock on the afternoon of the next day two English ladies, accompanied by a little, swarthy Frenchman, with a dressing-case which never left his hands, rolled out of the station of Monte Carlo,en routefor Paris.
For two days after this Monsieur Montoyer was observed to walk distractedly through the salons and occasionally to place a maximum upon a single number. Monsieur Montoyer did not repeat his successes, and those who followed his play cursed him and their own credulity deeply and silently.
The great night when Fortune smiled upon the "young Russian nobleman" is still remembered by the assiduous acolytes of Chance. It is talked about, and given as an instance to new-comers of what bold, indifferent play can accomplish.
Nobody connects Sir Basil Gregory, Bart., the head of the great firm of Deschamps, Gregory and Co., which has revolutionised wireless telegraphy, with the spectacled, clean-shaven young gentleman who made such a sensation one night in the Casino at Monte Carlo.
Sir Basil and Lady Gregory spend almost alltheir days in the charming old house they have bought near Falmouth.
But on the Riviera there is an old, old lady—the well-known Madame McMahon—who still haunts the gambling hells of the Continent. She is a recognised figure. She has a marvellous system which never comes off, but when she gets into difficulties with the proprietors of herpension, mysterious telegraphic drafts upon the local bank always arrive in the nick of time, either from Cornwall or from Quimperlé, in Brittany, where Monsieur Edouard and Monsieur Charles Carnet have a house, and are churchwardens of the unique cathedral.