Chance in Chains: A Story of Monte Carlo

And through this motley and brilliant crowd – the strangest crowd in Europe, in the strangest place – Ethel and her mother moved as if in a dream.

In the mind of the old lady a fierce and feverish greed flared like a naphtha lamp. In the mind of the girl there was but one thought, crystallised into a name – Basil! Basil! Basil!

They were near the end of the last salon and coming up to the long swing doors when Ethel started violently and half stopped.

Standing at one of the tables, within two or three yards of her, was a tall, well-built man in evening dress. His back was towards her, and there was something so absolutely familiar in the shoulders, the poise of the stranger, that she gasped.

For a moment she thought she saw Basil Gregory again – dear Basil, who was far away at the electric light works in Paris.

Then the stranger made a half turn. He was clean shaved, his complexion was swarthy, his hair was black. He was dressed also in the height of the French fashion.

No! It was not Basil, though even now there was something strangely reminiscent of her lover to the girl's eyes.

With a sigh, she passed out of the Atrium with her mother. They got their cloaks and walked slowly down the hall to the Condamine. The air was "all Arabia." A huge moon rode high in the heavens and washed the Mediterranean with silver. The flowers of the gardens sent forth an overpowering perfume – the night was sweet and dear.

"Basil! Basil! Basil!"

" … To-morrow, my dear, we will get properly to work on the system. To-morrow!"

CHAPTER VIII

It was six o'clock on the following evening.

In a tiny room high up in the Hôtel Malmaison, above the servants' quarters, and on the roof, indeed – for the valet of Monsieur Montoyer was asthmatic and must breathe the freshest air possible – Emile Deschamps was standing.

The blinds were drawn, the room was lit by candles stuck in bottles, and presented the air more of a workshop than a bedroom.

The bed was littered with pliers, coils of insulated wire, strips of thin india-rubber, and a tube of vulcanised paste for making joints. Upon a large mahogany table close to the window stood a complicated apparatus.

At one end there was a battery of Leyden jars, then came the intricate induction coil upon a polished stand, its brass terminals glittering in the light of the candles. Beyond was the interrupter magnet and beyond that again the stout "seven-sixteens" wire which led to the electric light casing in the wall, where the hotel current had been tapped to take the place of a dynamo.

Upon that part of the table where the interrupter magnet was, there was an apparatus which in some degree resembled the keyboard of a typewriter. No letters were on these keys however. They bore numbers only, from one to thirty-six, with the addition of a nought to represent zero.

Deschamps, in list slippers, was walking nervously up and down the room. Perspiration shone upon his face. His eyes had a fixed introspective stare. He was obviously in a state of the highest possible tension.

Up and down the room he paced, like some caged animal, and every now and again he rolled a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled a few whiffs of pungent blue smoke, and threw it away. Now and then he poured himself out a cup of strong coffee from a little cafetière which stood upon the mantelshelf. On the hearth burned a small glowing fire of the mountain wood and fir cones which are used upon the Riviera, and beside it stood a soldering "iron" of copper, a file, and a bottle of zinc chloride solution.

Deschamps looked at his watch.

"Basil is late," he muttered to himself, mopping his brow as he did so with a very dingy handkerchief. "Mon Dieu, if only this were over!"

He resumed his walk, thinking deeply, checking off each incident of the great adventure, the great fight of science against the precautions and wariness of the most complete and cunning organisation in Europe.

The plans of the partners had been altered and modified. As the preparations continued in Paris and the scheme was discussed a thousand times, and with an infinity of detail which crystallised more and more into definiteness, the most important thing that was at length determined on – and the Carnet brothers had been in thorough agreement – was that play should only last for one night. The confederates had thought that phenomenal winnings, protracted over two or three days, would inevitably give rise to suspicion. These suspicions would, in all human probability, be absolutely wide of the real mark. But, at any rate, they would be certain to result in the wheel at the table where Monsieur Charles Edouard Montoyer made his colossal coups being changed for another.

It was resolved, therefore, that Basil should play, with the aid of the unseen electric influences, for one evening only. The whole thing had been worked out, and it had been found that it would be easy, if nothing went wrong, for him to win an enormous sum even within a few hours. Directly that was accomplished Deschamps would pack his apparatus and return to Paris. Basil would remain at Monte Carlo for a few days and venture a few small sums to avoid suspicion. After that he would rejoin his friend.

There was a low knock at the door, an interval of silence, and then five more distinct taps.

Deschamps knew that Basil was without, and he quietly unlocked the door and let in his friend.

Basil, tall, foreign looking, and in the most scrupulously chosen evening dress, entered the dingy little bedroom with its litter of machinery and tools. The door was locked behind him and the partners were alone together.

Deschamps started. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "your sang froid is admirable. You are – how do you call it? – cool as a cucumber. Froid comme un concombre. Look at me; I tremble all over, moi!"

Basil shrugged his shoulders. "What is the use?" he said briefly. "I have been nervous enough up to the present, but now the moment has arrived I have just got to keep cool. The biggest strain is on me, and if I fail now all our plans are over and it means" – he threw out his hands with a foreign gesture – "well, we won't talk of what it means."

"You are marvellous!" said the excitable little Frenchman. "You have no tremor, no compunction."

Basil shook his head. "I am strung up to go through with it," he answered, "and take what comes – fortune or prison. As for compunction, it seems to me a good deed to rob the proprietors of this hell if one can, considering all the stories I have heard during the few hours I have been here, and the evil passions I have seen displayed on all sides. And, moreover, we do it for the sake of science, to confer an inestimable benefit on the world!"

"Bien," Deschamps answered. "Now, have you got the card absolutely safe? Let's compare it with mine for the last time."

From out of his pocket Basil drew an oblong slip of card. Upon it, written in a cypher invented by himself and Deschamps, in which they had perfected themselves during the last week or two, were a series of numbers. Above each number was marked the time – 9:5, 9:15, etc., etc.

They went through the cards together finding them to correspond in every detail.

"And now for the watches," said Deschamps. From a kit bag in the corner of the room he produced a leather case, containing two handsome gold chronometers. "I have kept them there until now," he said, "in order that they might not become magnetised by the electric work I have been doing."

With the utmost care and nicety he adjusted the timepieces so that they did not vary, one from the other, by a single second. Then he gave one chronometer to Basil, and returned the other to the portmanteau.

"I have been playing all the day," Basil said, "with the hundred and fifty louis we reserved for that. Sometimes I lost, sometimes I won. But I spread my money about with supreme indifference. Always I put down a maximum stake, and I played upon a number. Of course, I lost many times, but I am sure I gave the desired impression to the croupiers at our table where the marked wheel is, that I was a wealthy gambler indifferent as to whether I won or lost. Towards the end I had a stroke of luck. I had put nine louis on 7, and 7 turned up. So that I won 6,300 francs. I had heard that the rule forbidding all tips to the croupiers had been recently abrogated; so that I feed the men in my neighbourhood magnificently. I shall get a seat at our table all right if I am punctual when the Casino opens for the evening play."

"And what are you going to do now?" Emile asked anxiously. "Will you stay here with me?"

"I don't think so, mon ami," Basil returned. "We have worked out every possible detail. The more we talk about it, the more nervous we shall become. I shall go to my room, have a little fish and a single glass of wine, and then stroll round the gardens in the fresh night air until it is time to go in." He held out his hand. "Good luck, old fellow!"

Deschamps grasped it and nodded, too full of emotion and excitement to answer.

Then Gregory quietly left the room and descended to his own.

As he walked down the passage he heard the click of the lock being shot into its place and knew that Deschamps would be alone with his machinery till midnight.

CHAPTER IX

Into the glittering rooms Basil Gregory strolled.

He had left the Hôtel Malmaison but five minutes before. The metal check for his light coat and opera hat was in his waistcoat pocket, and as he walked slowly up the Atrium, smoking a cigarette, he seemed – even in an environment where some of the most important people in the world congregate – a very distinguished person indeed.

As he came up to the doors quick-eyed officials in their black frock coats – carrion-crows people have called them – made their bows and pushed open one of the great cedar portals.

Already the word had gone round that this tall and cool gentleman was an unknown millionaire, who was pleased to amuse himself for an hour or two at the tables.

Basil entered. People were still dining. The rooms were full – they always are full – but of the ordinary and hungry crowd who do little more than venture a few francs, and hardly dare take a chair at any table when one is vacant.

Basil sauntered up to the right hand table in the large central salon. Some people call this table the "suicides' table," others give that sinister designation to another. Be that as it may, Basil found a chair and sat down – on the left of the croupier who spins the wheel and his colleague who sits behind him on a higher chair and directs the whole operations of the table.

Basil sat down, took out his watch and placed it upon the space of green baize before him. Then he drew twenty or thirty gold coins from his pocket, and a couple of five hundred franc notes.

The official who sat above the man who turned the wheel smiled down at the newcomer. It was a slack time. The table was half deserted, the rush of the diners had not yet begun.

Basil took out his cypher card and placed it carefully behind a little rampart of gold coins.

The croupier spun, and before the "Rien ne va plus" was uttered Basil had shoved his usual maximum of nine louis upon number 3 – sitting as he did close to the wheel which divided the two long tables.

Twenty-eight turned up. Basil saw his money raked away, with the few other stakes that were adventured, with a broad smile.

No one could possibly have noticed the quick glance he gave at his watch. But that glance signified to him that for the next five minutes number "11" would be certain to win.

He put the maximum upon number 11.

He glanced again at his watch, as the croupiers began to croak their "Faites vos jeux" and gazed moodily round the table, which was now beginning to fill up. At that moment – a supreme moment to him – he was conscious of no particular emotion at all.

When asked about it afterwards by a certain intimate friend he always said, "Really, I felt nothing whatever."

The weary yellow-faced slave of the wheel did his duties.

All the money upon the table, at that moment, was upon even chances, upon the dozens, the transversales, or the columns. No single person had played direct upon a number – a thirty-five to one chance.

The big triangles of red and black at the far end of the table were both piled with gold and notes, the borders of several numbers were covered with adventurous stakes.

There was a swift "click" as the ball went home.

Number 11 had turned up.

Basil Gregory had the impulse to rise from his seat and go striding up and down those glittering halls, hugging his secret, spurning those other players who knew nothing.

Everything had occurred exactly as he had planned with Emile Deschamps. At the precise moment arranged between them the wireless message had come to the spinning ball and it had fallen, as it was directed, obedient to the unseen and unsuspected powers of science.

He drew towards him six thousand three hundred francs – two hundred and fifty two English pounds!

He looked at his watch again. The next slot in the wheel that was to be magnetised was 33. But it was not yet time. It had been arranged that he was to lose occasionally in order to divert suspicion.

He placed the maximum of nine louis upon zero. To his consternation, zero won. Again he received the enormous sum of six thousand and odd francs. He leant back in his chair, outwardly indifferent and calm, but throbbing in every nerve and pulse with wild excitement. It was true then!

A few hundred yards away, in the little bedroom on the roof, Emile Deschamps was pressing key after key with absolute precision. And as he pressed the little spinning ball, flung from the hand of the croupier, must perforce obey the invisible power that vibrated through the air.

That he had won upon zero – when he meant to lose – seemed only a minor incident in the riot of his progress.

The one man in the crowded halls of that palace – the one and only man – who could control Fortune herself, he sat there outwardly cold and impassive, while his mind and nerves were torn and wrenched as by opposing forces.

He was now more than five hundred pounds to the good, and as yet he had only played one coup of the many agreed upon by the secret code.

Already the people at the table were glancing at each other and at the impassive young man who staked a maximum each time, and had already won twice en plein– so unprecedented a thing to do.

He was a Russian prince, it was whispered. His French was so perfect – though it was not absolutely the French of a Frenchman – that the whispering people round the table thought he could be none other than a Russian. That he was English never occurred to anyone, for no Englishman speaks French as Basil Gregory spoke it.

The wheel was turning again, and everyone watched to see what the unperturbed figure by the croupier would do.

This time, with a glance at his cypher card, and also at his watch, Basil backed red and not a number.

Each number in the wheel has its corresponding colour, red or black, and it was as easy for him to win on an even chance as it was upon a chance of thirty-five to one. He backed red, and, far away at the top of the Hôtel Malmaison, Emile Deschamps pressed the key which magnetised the slot 18 in the wheel upon the green table – 18 being a red number.

Basil placed the maximum upon red – that is, two hundred and forty pounds.

Red turned up. He had now won nearly eight hundred pounds, and round his chair were grouped a crowd of people three feet deep.

People were flocking from other tables, drawn by that nameless unknown mental telegraphy which tells the whole Casino when big wins are being made.

The whole of the great rooms became electric with an atmosphere of excitement. There was not a sound as the people thronged to Basil's table – at Monte Carlo the greatest successes, the most disastrous failures, happen in silence.

But, in that tense atmosphere, there was more than sound – there was a pressing together and focussing of human minds, converging upon one spot to witness the battle.

"Faites vos jeux, messieurs."

"Le jeu est fait."

"Rien ne va plus."

A rattle, a hushed silence – the player who had put a maximum of nine louis upon number 13 had lost!

Men and women nodded and whispered, whispered and nodded. "Monsieur's luck was about to change, n'est-ce 'pas?" "It is not going to be a big run after all, hein?"

Once more the wheel spun.

Monsieur, with extraordinary daring, placed the maximum upon 6.

Six turned up.

In front of Basil Gregory was a pile of gold, still more important and significant a bundle of crinkled blue and white notes.

He took the notes up with cool deliberation, folded many of them, and put them into the breast pocket of his coat, stretched out his hand, and put the maximum upon black.

"Noir, dix-neuf," the croupier croaked, and another two hundred and forty pounds was pushed over by the rakes to add to Basil's store.

By this time almost everyone at the table was playing as Basil played.

If he staked upon an 8, the number was plastered and covered with gold and notes.

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. Habitués of 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 against Basil. 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 special occasion, 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 – the spectacles, 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 Fortune to-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 suddenly the 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 back in 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, we cannot go 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 only unconcerned 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 other tables were deserted, and, far away through the great halls, those who were playing trente-et-quarante rose 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 commissionaires came 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 the pension in the Rue Grimaldi. Your success, monsieur, unnerved them. They have been sent home in a voiture."

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 each other, 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.