The Sack of Monte Carlo 6

The Sack of Monte Carlo 6

I must just mention, however, that, after my sad interview with her in

Kensington Gardens, I at once wrote to Mr. Thatcher and told him exactly

what had occurred, informing him of my intention to come down at

Christmas and try and settle matters with his daughter. At the same time

I begged him to send me up the clothes and portmanteaus I had left

behind me at “The French Horn.” They arrived, accompanied by a scrawl

from Mr. Thatcher, urging me to be a man and bear up and all would come

right, and enclosing a rather larger bill than I fancied I owed, but

which I thought it politic to pay without protest of any kind.

 

Even the old lady, his mother, sent me a line, in a very upright fist,

kindly informing me “brighter days were in store.” A simple prophecy,

that long has ceased to interest me; since I have invariably had it from

the innumerable fortunetellers, by cards and tea-leaves and the crystal,

whom for years past I have rather foolishly been in the habit of

consulting, but never derived any real benefit from.

 

As for my great idea to sack Monte Carlo, it came to me one morning

(quite unexpectedly, as I have said) when I was lying in bed, trying to

summon up resolution to rise for another dull and irksome day. It was

still a long time off Christmas, and life was lying on me with extreme

heaviness; for, as I think I have explained, I am in the militia, and

when once my month’s training is over have nothing to do with myself

except live on my eight hundred a year and amuse myself as best I can;

and my idleness was rendered further indigestible at this period by the

unhappy state of my relations with dear Lucy, whom I could neither see

nor write to.

 

But the idea that I should get a small, resolute party together, and

raid the tables at Monte Carlo, brought a new interest into my life; and

after making a few quiet and judicious inquiries (for I had never been

there), I determined to set about the affair in earnest and see if I

could get any one to join me.

 

My first efforts in that direction, as is generally the case with

anything new and startling, were not at all successful; but the more

opposition and ridicule I met with, the more obstinate and determined I

became. As for the morality of the affair, that, as I have said, has

never troubled me from first to last. Does any one think of calling the

police immoral when they go and raid a silver gambling-hell in Soho? For

the life of me I have never been able to see the difference between us,

except that _in our case_ there was needed a greater nerve and address.

 

Now my sister, Mrs. Rivers, the wife of the publisher, lives in Medworth

Square, S. W., and, on considering her intimates, I made up my mind to

approach the Honorable Edgar Fanshawe first. He has a brother in the

Foreign Office, and relations scattered about everywhere in government

employ, so I decided he would be a good man to have with us in case the

affair proved a _fiasco_ and we all got into trouble, a chance that

naturally had to be provided for.

 

Fanshawe, I should explain, was at one time in the Guards, but now

writes the most dreadfully dull historical novels, which my

brother-in-law publishes, and no one that I have ever met reads. Every

autumn, sure as fate, among the firm’s list of new books you see

announced, _Something or Other, a Tale of the Young Pretender_; or,

_Something or Other Else, an Episode of the Reign of Terror_; with

quotations from the _Scots Herald_, “this enthralling story”; or, from

the _Dissenters’ Times_, “no more powerful and picturesque romance has

at present issued,” etc. Or _The Leeds Commercial Gazette_ would declare

it “the best historical novel since Scott,” which I seem to have heard

before of many other dull works.

 

Fanshawe is a purring, mild, genteel, rather elderly person, who listens

to everything you are good enough to say most attentively and politely,

with his head on one side, and never will be parted from his opera-hat.

When I attacked him one night after dinner in Medworth Square he was in

his usual autumnal condition of beatitude at the excellence of the

reviews of his latest historical composition (which, as usual, scarcely

sold), and beamed on me with delighted condescension, stuffing

quantities of raisins.

 

“What shall you be doing in January?” I cautiously began. “Would you be

free for a little run over to Monte Carlo?”

 

Unfortunately, the Honorable Edgar is the sort of person who, half an

hour after dinner, will undertake to do anything with anybody, and then

write and get out of it immediately after breakfast next morning, when

he’s cold; so I quite expected the reply that Monte Carlo in January

would suit him exactly, and what hotel did I propose to stay at?

 

“Now I’ve an idea,” I went on, drawing a little closer. “You’ve been to

Monte Carlo, of course, and know what a quantity of money there is in

the place.”

 

“Some of it mine,” smiled Fanshawe. “I beg your pardon for interrupting

you.”

 

“Well,” I said, “how would you like to join a little party of us for the

purpose of getting it back?”

 

“A syndicate to work a system?”

 

“Nothing so unprofitable.”

 

“I don’t know of any other way.”

 

“My idea,” I went on, sinking my voice, “is shortly this: that half a

dozen of us should join and take a yacht—a fast steam-yacht—”

 

“Rather an expensive way of doing it, isn’t it?” objected Fanshawe, in

alarm. He doesn’t mind what he pays to have his books published, but is

otherwise mean.

 

“Not when you consider the magnitude of the stakes.”

 

“Why, the most you can win, even if you break the bank, is only a

hundred thousand francs!”

 

“But consider the number of the tables, to say nothing of the reserve in

the vaults, and the money lying about already staked!”

 

The old boy looked puzzled, but nodded his head politely all the same.

“That’s true,” he said, vaguely.

 

“The place is not in any sense guarded, as no doubt you remember.”

 

“No, I don’t know that I ever saw a soldier about, except one or two,

very bored, on sentry go, up at Monaco. But what has that to do with

it?”

 

“Why, half a dozen resolute men with revolvers could clear the whole

place out in five minutes,” I murmured, seductively. “The steam-yacht

lies in the harbor, we collect the money, or as much of it as half a

dozen of us can carry away, and, once on board the lugger—”

 

Fanshawe pushed his chair back and stared at me.

 

“—We go full-steam ahead to one of the Greek islands, divide the swag,

scuttle the steamer, make our way to the Piræus, inspect the Acropolis,

and come home, _viâ_ Corfu, as Cook’s tourists. Or go to the Holy Land,

eh, by way of completely averting suspicion?” And I winked and nudged

him, nearly falling over in my effort to get at his frail old ribs.

 

“My dear friend!” gasped the startled Fanshawe; “why propose such an

elaborate pleasantry? It’s like school-boy’s talk in a dormitory.”

 

“I never felt further from my school-days in my life,” I answered with

determination. “The affair is perfectly easy—easier than you think. All

it wants is a little resolution, and the money’s ours.”

 

“But it’s simple robbery.”

 

“Oh, don’t imagine,” I at once replied, “I propose anything so coarse as

burglary and the melting-pot. No; I say to myself, here is the most

iniquitous establishment in Europe, simply reeking with gold, of which

an enormous surplus remains at the end of the year to be divided,

principally among Semitic Parisians, who lavish it on their miserable

pleasures. Here, on the other hand, are numerous deserving

establishments in London—hospitals and so on—with boards out, closing

their wards and imploring subscriptions. The flow of gold has evidently

got into the wrong channels, as it always will if not sharply looked

after. Be ours the glorious enterprise to divert it anew—”

 

“My good friend,” interrupted Fanshawe, “if I thought you serious—”

 

“Never was more serious in my life!”

 

“But, gracious me, suppose you’re all caught?”

 

“Oh, there is a prison up at Monaco, I believe,” I answered, lightly;

“but they tell me prisoners come and go just as they please. That

doesn’t in the least alarm me. Besides, Europe would be on our side—at

all events, the respectable portion of it—and would hail our _coup_

with rapture, even if it ended in failure. And with your brother in the

Foreign Office, they’d soon have you back. Now what do you say? Will you

make one?”

 

“My dear Blacker, you really must be crazy!”

 

“At a given signal, when the rooms are fullest, some of us—two would be

enough—drive the gamblers into a corner and make them hold up their

hands. The others loot the tables and the vaults. Then we turn out the electric light—”