The Sack of Monte Carlo 15

The Sack of Monte Carlo 15

On the left, heavy doors are constantly swinging. You can hear, if you

listen, as they swing, the faint, enticing clink of the five-franc

pieces within.

 

“Oh, my friends,” murmured Brentin, as we moved towards them, “support

me!”

 

He presented his pink card with a low bow to the two men guarding the

entrance; we followed, and the next minute were palpitating in the

stifling atmosphere of the last of the European public infernos.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

MRS. WINGHAM AND TEDDY PARSONS—HE FOOLISHLY CONFIDES IN HER—I

MAKE A SIMILAR MISTAKE

 

 

NOW there was staying at our hotel, among other quiet people, a quiet

old lady, whom, from her accent and the way she occasionally stumbled

over an h, I took to be the widow of a well-to-do tradesman, a suburban

_bon marché_, or stores. She played regularly every afternoon till

dinner-time, dressed in black, with a veil down just below the tip of

her nose, and worn black kid gloves, staking mostly on the _pair_ or

_impair_ at roulette; and every evening she sat in the hotel over a bit

of wood-fire, reading either _Le Petit Niçois_ or an odd volume of

_Sartor Resartus_, which, with some ancient torn _Graphics_, formed the

library of the “Monopôle.” Her name I discovered afterwards to be Mrs.

Wingham.

 

It was only the third evening after our arrival that, going into the

reading-room to write my daily loving letter to Lucy, there I found Mrs.

Wingham and Teddy Parsons seated each side of the fire, talking away as

confidentially as if they had known each other all their lives. Bob

Hines, who had taken to gambling and couldn’t be kept away from the

rooms, and Brentin had gone down to the Casino.

 

Few things I know more difficult than to write a letter and at the same

time listen to a conversation, and I soon found myself writing down

scraps of Teddy’s inflated talk, working it, in spite of myself, into my

letter to Lucy—talk all the more inflated as I had come into the room

quietly at his back, and he didn’t know I was there.

 

He was telling the old lady all about his father, the colonel, and how

he had fought through the Crimea without a scratch. Yes, he was in the

army himself—at least, the auxiliary portion of it: the second line. He

lived most of the year at Southport, when he wasn’t out with his

regiment, or hunting and shooting with friends, and always came up to

London for the Derby and stayed in Duke Street. He was very fond of a

bit of racing, and, in fact, owned some race horses—or, rather, “a

chaser”—

 

“A what, sir?” asked the old woman, who was listening to him with her

mouth open.

 

“A chaser—a steeple-chaser, don’t you know—‘Tenderloin,’ which was

entered for the Grand National, and would be sure to be heavily backed.”

 

No, he didn’t care much about gambling; a man didn’t get a fair run for

his money at Monte Carlo, the bank reserved too many odds in their own

favor; to say nothing, as I knew, of his being kept very short of

pocket-money by the colonel. And then he was actually fool enough to

say, with a self-satisfied laugh, that he’d a notion the right way to

treat the bank was to raid it.

 

“Raid it, sir?” cried the old woman.

 

“Yes, certainly, raid it; go into the rooms with a pistol and shout

‘Hands up, everybody!’ and carry off all the money on board a yacht, and

be off, full speed.” Did Mrs. Wingham know if it had ever been tried?

 

From that to confiding our whole plan would have been only one step; but

just at that moment in came Mrs. Sellars and Miss Marter, the only two

other English ladies in the hotel, and Teddy and Mrs. Wingham fell to

talking in whispers.

 

Mrs. Sellars, who was a stout, comfortable-looking person, with a large

nose, a high color, and an expansive figure, generally attired in a

blouse and a green velveteen skirt, was given to walking up and down the

reading-room, moaning in theatrical agony over the disquieting news from

South Africa. If she didn’t get a letter from her husband in the

morning, she didn’t know what she should do; it was weeks since she had

heard from him; something told her he was dead—and so on. Every

distressed turn she took brought her nearer the ramshackle piano; so at

last Miss Marter, mainly to stop her (for old maids don’t take much

interest in other women’s husbands, alive or dead), with some asperity

remarked, “Sing us something, dear; it will calm you.”

 

Then she came to me and said, excitedly, “_Do_ you mind if I bring down

my little dog? I always ask, as people sometimes object. It is the

dearest little dog, and always sits in my lap.”

 

Teddy gave a violent start when he heard me answer, and knew he was

detected. He got up, and, pretending to hum, immediately left the room.

I didn’t like to follow at once, as I felt inclined; it would look as

though Mrs. Sellars’s threatened singing drove me away. But the moment

she finished I meant to go and give the wind-bag a good blowing-up, and

meantime went on with my letter.

 

Mrs. Sellars hooted “’Tis I!” and “In the Gloaming,” and was beginning

“Twickenham Ferry” when she broke down over the accompaniment, rose, and

came to the fire. Miss Marter was sitting one side of it, stroking her

torpid little terrier, and Mrs. Wingham (who was focussing _Sartor

Resartus_ through her glasses) on the other.

 

“Thank you, dear,” said Miss Marter. “I hope you feel calmer.”

 

“I shall never be calmer,” Mrs. Sellars moaned, “till George is home

again at my side.”

 

“Well, dear,” Miss Marter maliciously replied, looking down her long

nose, “you know you insisted on his going.”

 

So I left the two ladies to squabble as to who was mainly responsible

for George’s being in South Africa in such ticklish times, and went in

search of Teddy.

 

He was neither in the _fumoir_ nor his bedroom, so down I went to the

rooms.

 

There I found Bob Hines punting on the middle dozen and the last six at

roulette, with a pile of five-franc pieces before him.

 

“Those your winnings?” I whispered; to which he gave the not over-polite

reply, “How can you be such a fool?”

 

So I knew he was losing, and went off in search of Brentin.

 

I found him in an excited circle watching a common-looking Englishman at

the _trente-et-quarante_ tables, who with great coolness was staking the

maximum of twelve thousand francs, two at a time, one on _couleur_ and

one on black. In front of him the notes were piled so high that, being a

little man, he had to press them down with his elbows before he could

use his rake. Sometimes he won one bundle of notes, neatly pinned

together and representing the maximum; sometimes both, as _couleur_ and

black turned out alike. Rarely he lost both. Others were staking, but

mostly only paltry louis, or the broad, shining five-louis pieces one

only sees at Monte Carlo. There was the usual church-like silence,

broken only by the dry, sharp tones of the croupier’s harsh voice, “_Le

jeu est fait!_” and then, sharper still, “_Rien ne va plus!_”

 

Once the tension was broken by a titter of laughter, as a withered

little Italian with a frightened air threw a five-franc piece down on

the board and the croupier pushed it back. The poor devil apparently

didn’t know that gold only may be staked at _trente-et-quarante_.

 

I plucked Brentin by the sleeve and drew him to a side seat against the

wall. “I hope that gentleman may be staking here this day week,” he

chuckled. “Notes are easy to carry, and I myself have seen him win sixty

thousand francs.”

 

When he heard about Teddy he was furious. It was all I could do to

prevent him from going off at once to the hotel and insisting on his

leaving Monte Carlo by the next train.

 

“I allow,” he said, “I was precipitate with Bailey Thompson, but at

least we drew something out of him in the way of information. But to

confide in a blathering old woman, who has nothing to do but eat and

talk—”

 

I went back to the hotel, only to find Teddy’s bedroom door locked, and

to have my knocking greeted with a loud, sham snore. Mrs. Wingham I

found still in the reading-room, alone, still focussing _Sartor

Resartus_ with her shocked and puzzled __EXPRESSION__.

 

“Your friend has just gone up to bed,” she remarked, “if you are looking

for him.”

 

I thanked her, and, sitting the other side of the fire, proceeded to

draw her out. She soon told me Teddy was so like a nephew of hers she

had recently lost she had felt obliged to speak to him. She noticed him

at once, she said, the first evening at dinner, and felt drawn to him

immediately. What a fine, manly young feller he was, and how full of

sperrit.

 

Yes, I said, he was, and often had very ingenious ideas—for instance,

that notion of his to raid the tables I had overheard him discussing

with her. But, then, there was all the difference in the world between

having an idea and the carrying it out, wasn’t there? Merely as a matter

of curiosity, what did she think of the notion—she, who doubtless knew

the place so well?

 

The artful old woman—Bailey Thompson’s sister, if you please, and spy,

as it afterwards turned out; hence his recommending us the “Monopôle,”

so that she might keep an eye on us and report—the artful old woman

looked puzzled, as though she were trying to remember what it was Teddy

had said on the subject. Then she began to laugh. “Oh, I didn’t think

much of that. Why, look at all the people there are about! Why, you’d

need a ridgiment!”

 

Now, will it be believed that I, who had just been so righteously

indignant with Parsons for his talkative folly, did myself (feeling

uncommonly piqued at her scornful tone) immediately set out to prove to

her the thing was perfectly possible, and then and there explain in

detail how it could all be successfully done, and with how small a

force. I did, indeed, so true as I am sitting writing here now, in our

flat in Victoria Street.

 

Mrs. Wingham listened to me attentively, laughing to herself and saying,

“Dear! dear! so it might!” as she rubbed her knuckled old hands between

her black silk knees. When I had done, I felt so vexed with myself I

could have bitten my tongue out.

 

I rose, however, and, observing, “Of course, it is an idea and nothing

else, and never will be realized,” bade her good-night and left the

room, feeling uncommonly weak and foolish. She murmured, “Oh, of

course!” as I closed the noisy glass door behind me and went up-stairs to bed.