The House of Peril (Ainslee's, 1911)/Chapter 5

William Oldchester, lawyer, and respected citizen of Dallington, Massachusetts, after having fulfilled the very slight formalities which are required of any stranger desirous of forming part of the “Club” of Enghien, walked through into the large and beautifully decorated Salles de Jeu of the Casino.

Late though it was, considerably after eleven o'clock, the gambling rooms were full of a seething crowd of chattering men and women, and he felt slightly confused, as well as cross and tired.

Eagerly concerned with their own affairs as were most of the people there, some of them yet found time to look at one another and smile, as the young American elbowed his way through them.

The scene in which Mabel Blackett's trustee and erstwhile lover found himself bewildered and amazed him—also he was suffering from a distinct sense of injury.

The boat train had been late in arriving at Paris, so he had dined there, and had not reached Enghien till after ten o'clock. Mrs. Blackett had told him that she would take a room for him in the boarding house where she was staying, and Oldchester, tired after a long, hot journey, had looked forward to a pleasant, little talk with her, followed by a good night's rest. But at the Pension Noir he had been met with the news that Mrs. Blackett had gone out for the evening. This information was tendered with profuse apologies by a lively, little Frenchman who seemed the only person left in the large house, and who was evidently the proprietor of the boarding house.

Oldchester had listened impatiently while the man explained that Madame Blackett, having waited for m'sieur till half-past nine, had concluded that he meant to spend the night in Paris, and so had gone to the Casino which, as m'sieur doubtless knew, was the great attraction of delightful and salubrious Enghien.

The American asked to be shown to the room which Mrs. Blackett had engaged for him; but again there came a torrent of apologies in Monsieur Noir's voluble and flowery French. There was, alas, no room for m'sieur in the pension; in fact, the boarding house was so extraordinarily prosperous that there never was a room there unless one engaged it three or four weeks beforehand! But m'sieur must not feel cast down, for Madame Blackett had procured a room for m'sieur in another pension, inferior no doubt to the Pension Noir, but still quite comfortable. Madame had been terribly disappointed, and she had hoped m'sieur would come to dinner—indeed, an extra place had been laid at her dining table. Madame Blackett had been entertaining a few friends that evening, and it was with them that she had gone on to the Casino.

Oldchester, more and more surprised, asked the man when he thought Mrs. Blackett would be back. To the American lawyer it seemed so odd that there should be a Casino in the quiet place near Paris where his widowed friend was living.

Monsieur Noir spread out his hands with an eloquent gesture, and shook his head.

“Perhaps in one hour—perhaps in two hours,” he said vaguely.

Oldchester abruptly asked the way to the Casino where Mrs. Blackett was spending the evening. At home, in Dallington, she had always been fond of going to bed early; yet now, according to this Frenchman, she was perhaps going to remain out till one o'clock—till one o'clock on a Sunday morning!

Monsieur Noir obligingly offered to show the stranger the way to Enghien's chief attraction, and a few minutes later found them on the edge of the pretty lake, which to-night, it being a hot evening, was dotted with tiny pleasure craft. Overhanging the lake, and rearing its large mass of building against the still, starry sky, the Casino, where reigns triumphantly the Goddess of Chance, and that, in spite of the efforts which the tradespeople of Paris are ever making to dislodge her from there.

As Oldchester walked slowly through the rooms where the humbler gambling games were in full swing, he told himself that the landlord of the Pension Noir had, of course, made a mistake. It was wildly improbable that Mabel was spending the evening in such a place as was this Casino, and forming part of the mixed crowd of gamblers who surged round the tables risking with anxious, calculating eyes their pieces of silver. Still, with characteristic legal thoroughness, he thought it worth while to go through all the rooms before giving up the search; and the unaccustomed atmosphere and surroundings in which he found himself amused and interested, if they rather shocked him.

At last he found himself in the baccarat room—that is, in the inner sanctuary where the devotees of the fickle goddess risk gold instead of silver, but where the laws of chance, as every gambler knows, are far more honestly observed than at “little horses” or “roulette.”

In the baccarat room a good many of the men were in evening dress, and the women with them, if to Oldchester's eyes by no means desirable or reputable-looking companions, yet were in most cases handsome and showy looking—too handsome, too showy for the American lawyer's taste—indeed, he felt a thrill of disgust at the thought that Mabel Blackett could even be thought to be in such company.

Baccarat was going on at two long tables, and the crowd was naturally thicker there than anywhere else in the room. Feeling a certain growing interest in the sight of what he realized was really high play, Oldchester approached the farther of the two tables.

Slowly his eyes focused the various groups and single figures which formed a crowd two deep round the green cloth, and then, with a sudden shock of surprise, he saw Mabel Blackett sitting nearly opposite to where he himself was standing.

There are certain scenes, certain human groupings of individuals, which remain fixed forever against the screen of memory. Bill Oldchester was destined never to forget the particular group on which his tired eyes now rested with growing amazement and attention.

Mrs. Blackett was sitting at the baccarat table, next to the man who was acting as banker. She was evidently absorbed in the fortunes of the game, and she followed the slow falling of the fateful cards with rather feverish intentness.

Her small, gloved hands rested on the table, one of them loosely holding a tiny ivory rake; and on a bank note spread open on the green cloth before her were two neat piles of gold, the one composed of twenty-franc pieces, the other of ten-franc pieces.

Oldchester, with a strange feeling of fear and anger clutching at his heart, told himself that he had never seen Mabel look as she looked to-night. She was more than pretty; she was beautiful, and above all alive—vividly alive. There was a bright color on her cheek, and a soft light shining in her eyes. The row of pearls which had occasioned the only serious difference he and she had ever had, rose and fell softly on the bosom of her black lace dress.

Oldchester also gradually became aware that Mrs. Blackett formed a center of attraction to those standing round the gambling table. Both the men and the women stared at her, some enviously, but more with kindly admiration, for beauty is sure of its tribute in any French audience, and Mabel Blackett to-night looked enchantingly lovely.

Now and again she turned and spoke in an eager, intimate fashion to a man sitting next her on her left, and for a moment Oldchester concentrated his attention on this man. Mabel Blackett's companion was obviously a foreigner; he was small and fair, and what could be seen of his evening clothes fitted scrupulously well. The American, looking at him with alien, jealous eyes, decided within himself that this Frenchman with whom Mabel seemed to be on such friendly terms was a foppish-looking fellow, not at all the sort of man she ought to have “picked up” on her travels.

Suddenly she raised her head, throwing it back with a graceful gesture, and Oldchester's eyes traveled on to the person who was standing just behind her, and to whom she had begun speaking with smiling animation. This was a woman—short, stout, and swarthy, dressed in a bright purple gown, and wearing a pale-gray bonnet which was singularly unbecoming to her red, massive face.

Mabel seemed also to include in her conversation a man who was standing next to the stout woman. He was tall and lanky, absurdly and unsuitably dressed, to the American onlooker, in a gray alpaca suit and a shabby Panama hat. In his hand this man held a little book in which he noted down every turn in the game, and it was clear to Oldchester that, though he listened to Mrs. Blackett with civility, he was quite uninterested in what she was saying.

Very different was the attitude of the woman; she seemed deeply interested in Mabel's remarks, and she leaned forward familiarly on the back of the chair on which Mrs. Blackett was sitting, smiling broadly in a way that showed her large, strong teeth.

Oldchester thought them both queer, common-looking people, and he noticed that the Frenchman sitting next Mabel, the dandyish-looking fellow to whom she had been talking before, took no part at all in her present conversation. Once, indeed, he looked up and frowned, as if the talk going on just behind him disturbed him. When at last Mrs. Blackett turned again to the table, this man said something to her which at once made her take up two napoleons and a ten-franc piece from the pile of gold in front of her and place the coins within the ruled-off space reserved for the stakes.

Oldchester, staring at the little scene, felt as if he were in a nightmare—gazing at something which was not real, and which would vanish if looked at long enough.

To those who regard gambling as justifiable, provided the gambler's means allow of it, even to those who habitually see women indulging in games of chance, there will, of course, be something absurd in the point of view of Bill Oldchester. But to him the sight of the woman for whom he had always felt a very sincere respect, as well as a far more enduring and jealous affection than he quite realized, sitting there at a public gaming table, was a staggering, nay, a disgusting sight.

He reminded himself angrily that Mabel had a good income—so good an income that she very seldom spent it all in the course of any one year. Why, therefore, should she wish to increase it? Above all, how could she bear to find herself in this queer, horrid crowd? Why allow herself to be contaminated by breathing the same air as some of the women who were there round her? She and the common, middle-aged woman standing behind her, who, by the way, was not playing, but only looking on, were the only “respectable” women in the room!

And then it was all so deliberate. Oldchester had once seen a man whom he greatly respected drunk, and the sight had ever remained with him. But, after all, a man may get drunk by accident, nay, it may almost be said that a man always gets drunk by accident. But in this matter Mabel Blackett knew very well what she was about.

With a thrill of genuine distress the lawyer told himself that she had evidently become a confirmed gambler; for it was with an assured, familiar gesture that she placed her money on the cloth—and then with what intelligent knowledge she followed the operations of the banker!

He watched her when her money was swept away, and noted the calm manner with which she immediately took five louis from her pile, and pushed them with her little rake well onto the green cloth.

But long before the dealer of the cards had uttered the fateful words: ''“Le jeu est fait! Rien ne va plus!”'' Mrs. Blackett uttered an exclamation under her breath, and hurriedly rose from the table. She had seen Oldchester—seen his eves fixed upon her with a perplexed, angry look in them, and the look had made her wince.

As she made her way through the crowd—some one had quickly slipped into her vacant chair—Oldchester saw that she had won; that is, five louis had been added to her original stake; at once the money was swept up by the fair-haired Frenchman in evening dress with whom Mrs. Blackett had evidently been playing.

“Bill! You here? I had quite given you up! I thought you had missed the train—at any rate, never thought you would come out to Enghien as late as this!”

The bright color which was one of Mabel Blackett's chief physical attributes had faded from her cheeks; she looked pale, and her heart was beating uncomfortably. She would have given almost anything in the world for Bill Oldchester not to have come down and caught her like this—“caught” was the expression poor Mabel used to herself.

“I am so sorry,” she went on breathlessly, “so very sorry! What a wretch you must have thought me! But I have got you such a nice room in a pension where I was myself for a little while. It's unlucky I couldn't get you anything with the Noirs—they're such nice people, and it's such a quiet, pleasant house.”

Oldchester said nothing; he was still looking at her, trying to readjust his old ideas of her to her present environment. Then there came to them both a welcome diversion.

“Mab-bell, will you not introduce me to your friend?”

Madame Wachner had elbowed her way through the crowd to where Oldchester and Mabel were standing. Her husband lagged a little way behind, his eyes still following the play; even as his wife spoke, he made a note in the little book he held in his hand.

Mabel turned, relieved.

“Oh, Bill,” she exclaimed, “this Madame Wachner, who has been very kind to me since came to Enghien.”

They turned, and slowly walked down the room. Mabel instinctively fell behind, keeping step with Monsieur Wachner, while Oldchester and Madame Wachner walked in front.

The latter had already taken the measure of the quiet, stolid-looking American. She had seen him long before Mabel had done so, and had watched him with some attention, guessing almost at once that he must be the man Mrs. Blackett had expected would come to dinner.

“I suppose that this is your first visit to Enghien?” she said. “Very few of your countrymen come here, sir, but it is interesting, and it is curious—more curious than Monte Carlo. It is not a place for our pretty friend”—she lowered her voice a little, but he heard her very clearly—“but, ah, she loves play now! Her friend, Madame Olsen, the Danish lady, was also a great lover of baccarat. But now the Danish lady 'as gone away. When Madame Blackett comes here, like this, at night, my husband and I—we are what you American people call old-fashioned folk—we come, too, not to play, oh, no—but you understand, just to look after her. She is so innocent, so young!”

Oldchester looked kindly at the speaker. It was very decent of her—nice and motherly—to take such an interest in poor Mabel and her delinquencies. Yes, that was the way to take the matter which had so shocked him. Mabel Blackett, after all, was a very young woman, and ridiculously innocent. He, Oldchester, knew that a great many nice people went to Monte Carlo; yes, and spent there sometimes a great deal more than they could afford, gambling at the tables. It was absurd to be angry with Mabel for doing what very many other people did in another place. He felt sincerely grateful to this fat, common-looking woman.

“It's very good of you to do that,” he said awkwardly. “I mean it's good of you to accompany Mrs. Blackett here.” He looked round him with distaste. “It certainly is no place for her to come to alone.”

He was going to add something when Mabel came forward; the color had come back into her cheeks.

“Where's Count Paul?” she asked anxiously. “Sure he did not stay on at the table after we left?”

Madame Wachner shook her head slightly. She looked at Oldchester. It was a meaning look, and somehow it inspired him with prejudice against the person of whom Mabel had just spoken.

“Ah, here he is!” There was relief, nay, gladness ringing in Mrs. Blackett's voice,

The Comte De Poupel had hurried after them, and now he placed ten louis in Mabel's hand.

“Your winnings,” he said briefly. Then: “That means, does it not, madame, that you have made thirty-two louis this evening? I congratulate you.”

Oldchester's prejudice grew unreasonably. Damn the fellow! Why should he congratulate Mrs. Blackett on having won what was, after all, other people's money? He acknowledged Mabel's introduction of her French friend very stiffly, and he was relieved when the count turned on his heel—relieved, and yet puzzled to see how troubled Mabel seemed to be; she actually tried to keep the Comte De Poupel by her side.

“Aren't you coming with us?” she said, in a tone of deep disappointment.

But he, bowing, answered: “No, madame. It is impossible.”