THE GAMBLERS

By

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

Author of "Of Royal Blood," "The Under Secretary," "The Seven Secrets," etc.

London: HUTCHINSON & CO. Paternoster Row

CONTENTS

Chapter

I. Is Purely Personal II. Tells Something about Love III. Is a Mystery IV. Relates some Astounding Facts V. Deals with a Millionaire VI. Places Me in a Predicament VII. Mainly Concerns the Owl VIII. Narrates a Mysterious Incident IX. Shows the Bird's Talons X. Makes One Point Plain XI. Describes a Meeting and Its Sequel XII. Carries Me on Board the "Vispera" XIII. Discloses a Millionaire's Secret XIV. In Which I make a Resolve XV. In Which We pay a Visit Ashore XVI. Discusses Several Matters of Moment XVII. Describes a New Acquaintance XVIII. Creates Another Problem XIX. A Millionaire's Manoeuvres XX. Wherein Captain Davis Speaks his Mind XXI. Is Astonishing XXII. Is More Astonishing XXIII. Confides the Story of a Table XXIV. In Which Matters Assume a Very Complex Aspect XXV. Presents a Curious Phase XXVI. Gives the Key to the Cipher XXVII. Pieces Together the Puzzle XXVIII. Reveals the Truth XXIX. Contains the Conclusion

THE GAMBLERS

CHAPTER I IS PURELY PERSONAL

No. I dare not reveal anything here, lest I may be misjudged.

The narrative is, to say the least, a strange one; so strange, indeed, that had I not been one of the actual persons concerned in it I would never have believed such things were possible.

Yet these chapters of an eventful personal history, remarkable though they may appear, nevertheless form an unusual story—a combination of circumstances which will be found startling and curious, idyllic and tragic.

Reader, I would confess all, if I dared, but each of us has a skeleton in the cupboard, both you and I, for alas! I am no exception to the general rule prevailing among women.

If compelled by a natural instinct to suppress one single fact, I may add that it has little or nothing to do with the circumstances here related. It concerns only myself, and no woman cares to supply food for gossips at her own expense.

To be brief, it is my intention to narrate plainly and straightforwardly what occurred, while hoping that all who read may approach my story with a perfectly open mind, and afterwards judge me fairly, impartially, and without the prejudice likely to be entertained against one whose shortcomings are many, and whose actions have perhaps not always been tempered by wisdom.

My name is Carmela Rosselli. I am English, of Italian extraction, five-and-twenty years of age, and for many years—yes, I confess it freely—I have been utterly world-weary. I am an only child. My mother, one of the Yorkshire Burnetts, married Romolo Annibale, Marchese Rosselli, an impecunious member of the Florentine aristocracy, and after a childhood passed in Venice I was sent to the Convent of San Paolo della Croce, in the Val d'Ema, near Florence, to obtain my education. My mother's money enabled the Marchese to live in the reckless style customary to a gentleman of the Tuscan nobility; but, unfortunately for me, both my parents died when I was fifteen, and left me in the care of a second cousin, a woman but a few years older than myself—kind-hearted, everything that was most English and womanly, and in all respects truly devoted to me.

Thus it was that at the age of eighteen I received the maternal kiss of the grave-eyed Mother Superior, Suor Maria, and of all the good sisters in turn, and then travelled to London, accompanied by my guardian, Ulrica Yorke.

Like myself, Ulrica was wealthy; and because she was very smart and good-looking she did not want for admirers. We lived together at Queen's Gate for several years, amid that society which circles around Kensington Church, until one rather dull afternoon in autumn Ulrica made a most welcome suggestion.

"Carmela, I am ruined, morally and physically. I feel that I want a complete change."

I suggested Biarritz or Davos for the winter,

"No," she answered. "I feel that I must build up my constitution as well as my spirits. The gayer Continent is the only place—say Paris for a month, Monte Carlo for January, then Rome till after Easter."

"To Monte Carlo!" I gasped.

"Why not?" she inquired. "You have money, and we may just as well go abroad for a year to enjoy ourselves as vegetate here."

"You are tired of Guy?" I observed.

She shrugged her well-formed shoulders, pursed her lips, and contemplated her rings.

"He has become a little too serious," she said simply.

"And you want to escape him?" I remarked. "Do you know, Ulrica, I believe he really loves you."

"Well, and if he does?"

"I thought you told me, only a couple of months ago, that he was the best-looking man in London, and that you had utterly lost your heart to him."

She laughed.

"I've lost it so many times that I begin to believe I don't nowadays possess that very useful portion of the human anatomy. But," she added, "you pity him, eh? My dear Carmela, you should never pity a man. Not one of them is really worth sympathy. Nineteen out of every twenty are ready to declare love to any good-looking woman with money. Remember your dearest Ernest."

Mention of that name caused me a twinge.

"I have forgotten him!" I cried hotly. "I have forgiven—all that belongs to the past."

She laughed again.

"And you will go on the Continent with me?" she asked. "You will go to commence life afresh. What a funny thing life is, isn't it?"

I responded in the affirmative. Truth to tell, I was very glad of that opportunity to escape from the eternal shopping in the High Street and the round of Kensington life, which daily reminded me of the man whom I had loved. Ulrica knew it, but she was careful to avoid all further mention of the grief that was wearing out my heart.

At the outset of our pilgrimage to the South of Europe we went to Paris. In the gay city two women with money and without encumbrances can have a really good time. We stayed at the "Chatham," a hotel much resorted to by our compatriots, and met there quite a lot of people we knew, including several rather nice men whom we had known in London, and who appeared to consider it their duty to show us the sights, many of which we had seen before.

Need I describe them? I think not. Those who read these lines probably know them all, from that sorry exhibition of terpsichorean art in the elephant at the Red Windmill down to the so-called cabarets artistiques of the Montmartre, "Heaven," "Hell," and the other places.

Each evening we dined at six, and went forth pleasure-seeking, sometimes unattended, and at others with our friends. We were catholic in our tastes. We saw La Bohême at the Opera, and attended a ball at the Bullier; we strolled along the carpeted promenade of Aspasia at the Folies Bergères, and laughed at the quadrilles at the Casino, and at that resort of the little work-girls, the Moulin la Galette; we listened to the cadence of Sarah Bernhardt's wonderful voice, and to the patter of the revue at La Scala; we watched the dancing of La Belle Otero and the statuesque poses of Degaby. Truly, we had our fill of variety theatres.

In common, too, with the foreigner who goes to "see life" in Paris, we did the round of the restaurants—from supper at the Cafê de Paris, or the Cafê Américain, to the humble two-franc dinner at Léon's in the Rue St. Honoré, or the one-franc-fifty lunch at Gazal's in the Place du Théâtre Français. We had our meal, too, one evening at that restaurant which is seldom even mentioned in respectable circles, the "Rat Mort," in the Place Pigalle. Yes, with money one is seldom triste in Paris, and I was really sorry when, in the last week of the year, after Felicita had packed our trunks, we set out for the Riviera.

Travelling on those abominable gridirons which on the Continent are called railways, is absolutely disgusting after our own English lines, with their dining-cars and other comforts. Of all the railways that intersect the Continent, the P.L.M., which has a monopoly to the Mediterranean, is the most inconvenient, disobliging, and completely abominable. To obtain the smallest comfort on the eighteen-hour journey between Paris and Nice, an addition of three pounds is charged upon the first-class fare, and that for a single night in a third-rate sleeping-car! Ulrica said it was termed the train de luxe only because it looks swagger to travel by it. We occupied a couple of berths in it, but agreed that the additional three pounds were ill-spent indeed, for the badly-cooked food was absurdly dear.

Moreover, as the water for toilet purposes gave out before reaching Lyons, we had to buy bottles of mineral water, and perform our ablutions in a mixture of Vichy Celestins and eau-de-cologne. It was remarked by an old and apparently experienced traveller that the water in the wagons lits is purposely scanty in order to increase the takings of the restaurant cars; and I certainly believed him.

For a woman young in years I have had considerable experience of European railways, from the crawling Midi of France to the lightning Nord; but for dirt and dearness, commend me to the great highway to the Riviera. To take a small trunk from Paris to Nice costs more than the fare of one's maid; while to those who do not pay for the train of luxury, but travel in the ordinary padded horse-boxes, the journey means a couple of days of suffocation and semi-starvation.

"My dear Carmela," said Ulrica, while we were on the journey, "I've thought of a plan. Why not go to some cheap hotel, or even pension at Nice, and play at Monte Carlo with the money we save?"

I had never seen the far-famed Monte Carlo, but as the idea of economy seemed an excellent one, I at once endorsed her suggestion, and that same night we found ourselves at one of those pensions which flourish so amazingly well at Nice.

CHAPTER II TELLS SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE

Reader, have you ever lived in an English pension on the Riviera? Have you ever inhabited a small cubicle containing a chair, a deal table, a narrow bed—with mosquito curtains—and a hung-up looking-glass, and partaken of that cheap, ill-cooked food, the stale-egg omelette and the tough biftek, served in the bare salle-à-manger by one of those seedy, unshaven waiters who appear to be specially bred for the cheap Riviera boarding-houses? Have you ever spent an evening with that mixed crowd of ascetic persons who nightly congregate in the fusty salon, play upon a cracked piano, screech old-fashioned sentimentalities, exhibit their faded finery, paste jewels and bony chests, and otherwise make the hours, following dinner absolutely hideous? If not, a week of this life will be found to be highly amusing.

"My dear," Ulrica whispered, as we followed the proprietress, a buxom Frenchwoman in black satin, along the bare, white-washed corridor to our rooms, "hotel or work-house—which?"

There was a comfortless look everywhere, even though the spread of the blue sea and the palm-planted Promenade des Anglais were magnificent parts of the view, and the warm winter sunshine streamed into our tiny rooms—chambers so small that our trunks had to be placed in the corridor.

We changed our frocks and went down to dinner, discovering the salle-à-manger by its smell. What a scene presented itself at that table d'hôte! The long table was crowded by a host of dowdy women, generally wearing caps of soiled lace and faded ribbons, with one or two dismal-looking and elderly men. Of spinsters there were not a few, and of widows many, but one and all possessed the stamp of persons of small means struggling perseveringly to obtain their fill for the ten francs par jour which they paid for their "south rooms."

As new-comers, we were directed to seats at the bottom of the table; and after we had suffered from a watery concoction which the menu described as potage, we proceeded to survey our fellow-guests in that cheap and respectable pension.

That they were severely respectable there could certainly be no doubt. There were a couple of drawling English clergymen, with their wives—typical vicars' wives who patronised their neighbours; two or three sad-faced young girls, accompanied by ascetic relatives; a young Frenchman who eyed Ulrica all the time; one or two hen-pecked husbands of the usual type to be found in such hostelries of the aged; and an old lady who sat in state at the extreme end of the table, and much amused us by her efforts at juvenility. Besides ourselves, she was apparently the only person who had a maid with her; and in order to exhibit that fact, she sent for her smelling-salts during dinner. She was long past sixty, yet dressed in a style becoming a girl of eighteen, in bright colours and lace, her fair wig being dressed in the latest Parisian style, and the wrinkles of her cheeks filled up by various creams and face powders.

"That old crow is an absolute terror!" observed Ulrica to me in an undertone, and out of sheer devilry she at once commenced a conversation with this rejuvenated hag, who, as we learned later, was an exportation from one of the London suburbs.

The conversation, started by Ulrica and continued by myself, proved most amusing to us both. The old woman whose name was Blackett, had just enough to live upon, we afterwards discovered, but came each year to the pension in order to cut a dash as a grande dame. Her fingers were covered with paste jewels, and her finery was all of that cheap and tawdry kind which affects the nerves as well as the eyes.

"Oh, yes!" she said, in a carefully cultivated voice, intended to show good breeding, "if this is your first visit to the Riviera, you'll be quite charmed—everyone is charmed with it. As for myself—" and she sighed,—"I have been here each year for I don't know how long."

"And there is lots to see?"

"Lots. Only you must drive, you know. I myself drive at all hours of the day, and when the moon is up I go for moonlight drives into the mountains."

How romantic, I thought.

"I have my own coachman, you know," she added. "I keep him all the year round."

She had led up to the conversation merely in order to inform us of her generosity.

So throughout the meal, which occupied nearly two hours, by reason of inadequate waiting, we continued to draw her out, humour her egotism, and cause her to make a most ridiculous display of herself, until at last, my sentiment changing, I felt genuinely sorry for her.

"Certainly," I remarked to Ulrica as we left the table, "this is the most extraordinary collection of tabbies I've ever met."

"My dear," she said, "what has been puzzling me all the evening is their place of origin. Some, I regret to say, are actually our own compatriots. But where do they come from?"

"It's a special breed peculiar to pensions on the Riviera," I remarked; and together we ascended to the frowsy drawing-room, where the red plush-covered furniture exuded an odour of mustiness, and the carpet was sadly moth-eaten and thread-bare.

Around the central table a dozen angular women of uncertain age grouped themselves and formed a sewing-party; a retired colonel, who seemed a good fellow, buried himself in the Contemporary; a decrepit old gentleman wearing a skull-cap and a shawl about his shoulders, heaped logs upon the fire and sat with his feet on the fender, although the atmosphere was stifling, while somebody else induced a young lady with a voice like a file to sing a plaintive love-song, accompanied by the untuned piano.

During my previous winters in the South I had stayed at hotels. In my ignorance of the ways of cheap visitors to the Riviera, I believed this congregation to be unique, but Ulrica assured me that it was typical of all English pensions along the Côte d'Azur, from Cannes to Bordighera, and I can now fully endorse her statement.

To describe in detail the many comic scenes enacted is unnecessary. The people were too ludicrous for words. One family in especial endeavoured to entice us to friendliness. Its head was a very tall, muscular, black-haired French-woman, who had married an Englishman. The latter had died fifteen years ago, leaving her with a son and daughter, the former a school boy of sixteen, and the latter a fair-haired and very freckled girl of perhaps twenty. The woman's name was Egerton, and she was of that dashing type who can wear scarlet dresses at dinner, and whose cheeks dazzle one's eyes on account of the rouge upon them. She was loud, coarse, and vulgar. For the benefit of all the others, she spoke daily of the delicacies prepared by her own chef, sneered at the food of the pension, and ordered special messes for her own consumption. Before we had known her an hour she had given us a description of the wonderful interior of her house in Rome, enumerated her servants, and gave us to understand that she was exceedingly well-off, and quite a superior person. The people one meets

on the Riviera are really very entertaining.

Ulrica was grimly sarcastic. As we had neither intention nor inclination to associate with this superior relict, we politely snubbed her, taking care that it should not be done in secret.

"I don't think our effort at economy has met with very much success," I remarked to Ulrica, when about a week later I sat over the cup of half-cold coffee, the stale egg, the hunk of bread and the pat of rancid butter, which together formed my breakfast.

"No, a week of it is quite sufficient," she laughed. "We'll leave to-morrow."

"Then you've given notice?"

"Of course. I only came here for a week's amusement. We'll go on to the 'Grand.'"

So on the following day our trunks were called for by the hotel omnibus, and we took up our quarters in that well-known hotel on the Quai St. Jean Baptiste. Ulrica had known the Riviera ever since her girlhood. With her parents she had gone abroad each autumn, had seen most of the sights, and had thus received her education as a smart woman.

We were in the salon of the "Grand" on the night of our arrival, when suddenly someone uttered my name. We both turned quickly, and to our surprise saw two men we knew quite well in London standing before us. One was Reginald Thorne, a dark-haired and more than usually good-looking youth of about twenty-two or so, while the other was Gerald Keppel, a thin, fair-moustached young man, some seven years his senior, son of old Benjamin Keppel, the well-known South African millionaire. Gerald was an old friend, but the former I knew but slightly, having met him once or twice at dances, for in Kensington he was among the chief of the eligibles.

"Why, my dear Miss Rosselli!" he cried enthusiastically as we shook hands. "I'm so awfully glad to meet you! I had no idea you were here. Gerald was here dining with me, and we caught sight of you through the glass doors."

"Then you're staying here?" I asked.

"Yes. Gerald's staying with his guv'nor. He has a villa out at Fabron. Have you been here long?"

"We've been in Nice a week," interposed Ulrica, "and we haven't found a single soul we know until now. I feel sure you'll take pity upon our loneliness, Mr. Thorne, won't you?"

"Of course!" he laughed. "I suppose you go to Monte Carlo?"

"You men think of nothing but roulette and dinners at the 'Paris,'" she responded reproachfully, adding: "But after all, should we be women if we had no soul for gambling? Have you had any luck this season?"

"Can't complain," he smiled. "I've been staying over there for ten days or so. Gerald has had quite a run of good fortune. The other night he won the maximum on the zero-trois three times."

"Congratulations, my dear Gerald!" exclaimed Ulrica approvingly. "You shall both take us over one day and let us try our fortune—if Mr. Thorne is agreeable."

"Delighted, I'm sure," answered the latter, glancing at me; and by the look he gave me I felt convinced that my suspicions, aroused in London about a year before, were not quite groundless. His glance was a convincing proof that he admired me.