The Mark Of Cain

“Now you are free of the Cockpit for the night,” he said, genially. “It’s a livelier place, in the small hours, than that classical Olympic we’ve just left.”

They went upstairs, passing the doors of one or two rooms, lit up but empty, except for two or three men who were sleeping in uncomfortable attitudes on sofas. The whole of the breadth of the first floor, all the drawing-room of the house before it became a club, had been turned into a card-room, from which brilliant lights, voices, and a heavy odor of tobacco and alcohol poured out when the door was opened. A long green baize-covered table, of very light wood, ran down the centre of the room, while refreshments stood on smaller tables, and a servant out of livery sat, half-asleep, behind a great desk in the remotest corner. There were several empty chairs round the green baize-covered table, at which some twenty men were sitting, with money before them; while one, in the middle, dealt out the cards on a broad flap of smooth black leather let into the baize. Every now and then he threw the cards he had been dealing into a kind of well in the table, and after every deal he raked up his winnings with a rake, or distributed gold and counters to the winners, as mechanically as if he had been a croupier at Monte Carlo. The players, who were all in evening dress, had scarcely looked up when the strangers entered the room.

“Brought some recruits, Cranley?” asked the Banker, adding, as he looked at his hand, “J’en donne!” and becoming absorbed in his game again.

“The game you do not understand?” said Cranley to one of his recruits.

“Not quite,” said the lad, shaking his head.

“All right; I will soon show you all about it; and I wouldn’t play, if I were you, till you know all about it. Perhaps, after you know all about it, you’ll think it wiser not to play at all At least, you might well think so abroad, where very fishy things are often done. Here it’s all right, of course.”

“Is baccarat a game you can be cheated at, then – I mean, when people are inclined to cheat?”

“Cheat! Oh, rather! There are about a dozen ways of cheating at baccarat.”

The other young men from Maitland’s party gathered round their mentor, who continued his instructions in a low voice, and from a distance whence the play could be watched, while the players were not likely to be disturbed by the conversation.

“Cheating is the simplest thing in the world, at Nice or in Paris,” Cranley went on; “but to show you how it is done, in case you ever do play in foreign parts, I must explain the game. You see the men first put down their stakes within the thin white line on the edge of the tabla Then the Banker deals two cards to one of the men on his left, and all the fellows on that side stand by his luck. Then he deals two to a chappie on his right, and all the punters on the right, back that sportsman. And he deals two cards to himself. The game is to get as near nine as possible, ten, and court cards, not counting at all. If the Banker has eight or nine, he does not offer cards; if he has less, he gives the two players, if they ask for them, one card each, and takes one himself if he chooses. If they hold six, seven, or eight, they stand; if less, they take a card. Sometimes one stands at five; it depends. Then the Banker wins if he is nearer nine than the players, and they win if they are better than he; and that’s the whole affair.”

“I don’t see where the cheating can come in,” said one of the young fellows.

“Dozens of ways, as I told you. A man may have an understanding with the waiter, and play with arranged packs; but the waiter is always the dangerous element in that little combination. He’s sure to peach or blackmail his accomplice. Then the cards may be marked. I remember, at Ostend, one fellow, a big German; he wore spectacles, like all Germans, and he seldom gave the players anything better than three court cards when he dealt One evening he was in awful luck, when he happened to go for his cigar-case, which he had left in the hall in his great-coat pocket. He laid down his spectacles on the table, and someone tried them on. As soon as he took up the cards he gave a start, and sang out, ‘Here’s a swindle! Nous sommes volés!’ He could see, by the help of the spectacles, that all the nines and court cards were marked; and the spectacles were regular patent double million magnifiers.”

“And what became of the owner of the glasses?”

“Oh, he just looked into the room, saw the man wearing them, and didn’t wait to say good-night. He just went!”

Here Cranley chuckled.

“I remember another time, at Nice: I always laugh when I think of it! There was a little Frenchman who played nearly every night. He would take the bank for three or four turns, and he almost always won. Well, one night he had been at the theatre, and he left before the end of the piece and looked in at the Cercle. He took the Bank: lost once, won twice; then he offered cards. The man who was playing nodded, to show he would take one, and the Frenchman laid down an eight of clubs, a greasy, dirty old rag, with théâtre français de nice stamped on it in big letters. It was his ticket of readmission at the theatre that they gave him when he went out, and it had got mixed up with a nice little arrangement in cards he had managed to smuggle into the club pack. I’ll never forget his face and the other man’s when Théâtre Français turned up. However, you understand the game now, and if you want to play, we had better give fine gold to the waiter in exchange for bone counters, and get to work.”

Two or three of the visitors followed Cranley to the corner where the white, dissipated-looking waiter of the card-room sat, and provided themselves with black and red jetons (bone counters) of various values, to be redeemed at the end of the game.

When they returned to the table the banker was just leaving his post.

“I’m cleaned out,” said he, “décavé. Good-night,” and he walked away.

No one seemed anxious to open a bank. The punters had been winning all night, and did not like to desert their luck.

“Oh, this will never do,” cried Cranley. “If no one else will open a bank, I’ll risk a couple of hundred, just to show you beginners how it is done!”

Cranley sat down, lit a cigarette, and laid the smooth silver cigarette-case before him. Then he began to deal.

Fortune at first was all on the side of the players. Again and again Cranley chucked out the counters he had lost, which the others gathered in, or pushed three or four bank-notes with his little rake in the direction of a more venturesome winner. The new-comers, who were winning, thought they had never taken part in a sport more gentlemanly and amusing.

“I must have one shy,” said Martin, one of the boys who had hitherto stood with Barton, behind the Banker, looking on. He was a gaudy youth with a diamond stud, rich, and not fond of losing. He staked five pounds and won; he left the whole sum on and lost, lost again, a third time, and then said, “May I draw a cheque?”

“Of course you may,” Cranley answered. “The waiter will give you tout ce qu’il faut pour écrire, as the stage directions say; but I don’t advise you to plunge. You’ve lost quite enough. Yet they say the devil favors beginners, so you can’t come to grief.”

The young fellow by this time was too excited to take advice. His cheeks had an angry flush, his hands trembled as he hastily constructed some paper currency of considerable value. The parallel horizontal wrinkles of the gambler were just sketched on his smooth girlish brow as he returned with his paper. The bank had been losing, but not largely. The luck turned again as soon as Martin threw down some of his scrip. Thrice consecutively he lost.

“Excuse me,” said Barton suddenly to Cranley, “may I help myself to one of your cigarettes?”

He stooped as he spoke, over the table, and Cranley saw him pick up the silver cigarette-case. It was a handsome piece of polished silver.

“Certainly; help yourself. Give me back my cigarette-case, please, when you have done with it.”

He dealt again, and lost.

“What a nice case!” said Barton, examining it closely. “There is an Arabic word engraved on it.”

“Yes, yes,” said Cranley, rather impatiently, holding out his hand for the thing, and pausing before he dealt. “The case was given me by the late Khédive, dear old Ismail, bless him! The word is a talisman.”

“I thought so. The case seemed to bring you luck,” said Barton.

Cranley half turned and threw a quick look at him, as rapid and timid as the glance of a hare in its form.

“Come, give me it back, please,” he said.

“Now, just oblige me: let me try what there is in luck. Go on playing while I rub up my Arabic, and try to read this ineffable name on the case. Is it the word of Power of Solomon?”

Cranley glanced back again. “All right,” he said, “as you are so curious – j’en donne!”

He offered cards, and lost. Martin’s face brightened up. His paper currency was coming back to him.

“It’s a shame,” grumbled Cranley, “to rob a fellow of his fetich. Waiter, a small brandy-and-soda! Confound your awkwardness! Why do you spill it over the cards?”

By Cranley’s own awkwardness, more than the waiter’s, a little splash of the liquid had fallen in front of him, on the black leather part of the table where he dealt. He went on dealing, and his luck altered again. The rake was stretched out over both halves of the long table; the gold and notes and counters, with a fluttering assortment of Martin’s I O U’s, were all dragged in. Martin went to the den of the money-changer sullenly, and came back with fresh supplies.

“Banco?” he cried, meaning that he challenged Cranley for all the money in the bank. There must have been some seven hundred pounds.

“All right,” said Cranley, taking a sip of his soda water. He had dealt two cards, when his hands were suddenly grasped as in two vices, and cramped to the table. Barton had bent over from behind and caught him by the wrists.

Cranley made one weak automatic movement to extricate himself; then he sat perfectly still. His face, which he turned over his shoulder, was white beneath the stains of tan, and his lips were blue.

“Damn you!” he snarled. “What trick are you after now?”

“Are you drunk, Barton?” cried some one.

“Leave him alone!” shouted some of the players, rising from their seats; while others, pressing round Barton, looked over his shoulder without seeing any excuse for his behavior.

“Gentlemen,” said Barton, in a steady voice, “I leave my conduct in the hands of the club. If I do not convince them that Mr. Cranley has been cheating, I am quite at their disposal, and at his. Let anyone who doubts what I say look here.”

“Well, I’m looking here, and I don’t see what you are making such a fuss about,” said Martin, from the group behind, peering over at the table and the cards.

“Will you kindly – No, it is no use.” The last remark was addressed to the captive, who had tried to release his hands. “Will you kindly take up some of the cards and deal them slowly, to right and left, over that little puddle of spilt soda water on the leather? Get as near the table as you can.”

There was a dead silence while Martin made this experiment.