HE went to the house agent on the main street and from him procured the exact position of Madame Serpilot’s residence. “An old madame?” said the agent. “No, monsieur, I cannot say that she is old. And I cannot say that she is young.”
He thought a moment, as though endeavouring to find some reason for this reticence on the subject of her age, and then added:
“I have not seen her. Madame is a widow,” he went on. “Alas! there are so many in France as the result of the terrible war.”
“Then she is young,” said Timothy. “They didn’t send old men to the front.”
“She may be young,” replied the agent, “or she may be old. One does not know.”
He called the assistant who had shown the lady the house and had taken the documents for her to sign. The assistant was aged sixteen, and at the age of sixteen most people above twenty are listed amongst the aged. He was certain she was a widow and very feeble, because she walked with a stick. She always wore a heavy black veil, even when she was in the garden.
“Is it not natural,” said the house agent romantically, “that the madame who has lost all that makes life worth living should no longer desire the world to look upon her face?”
“It may be natural in Monte Carlo,” said Timothy, “but it is not natural in London.”
He located the house on a large plan which the obliging agent produced, and went back to the hotel, firmly resolved to take the first opportunity of calling on Madame Serpilot and discovering what object she had in view when she arranged to endanger his young life.
Mary was waiting for him, a little impatiently for one who had such a horror of gambling.
“We have to get tickets at the Bureau,” she said, “and the concierge says we must have special membership cards for the Cercle Privée.”
The tickets were easy to procure, and they passed into the great saloon where, around five tables, stood silent ovals of humanity. The scene was a weird one to Timothy and fascinating too. Besides this, all the other gambling games in the world, all the roulette tables and baccara outfits, were crude and amateurish. The eight croupiers who sat at each table in their black frock coats and their black ties, solemn visaged, unemotional, might have been deacons in committee. The click of rakes against chips, the whirr of the twirling ball, the monotonous sing-song announcement of the chief croupier—it was a ritual and a business at one and the same time.
It was amazing to reflect that, year in and year out, from ten o’clock in the morning until ten o’clock at night (until midnight in the Cercle Privée) these black-coated men sat at their tables, twirling their rakes, watching without error every note or counter that fell on the table, separating notes from chips with a deftness that was amazing, doing this in such an atmosphere of respectability that the most rabid anti-gambler watching the scene must come in time to believe that roulette was a legitimate business exercise.
Through the years this fringe of people about the table would remain, though units would go out, and as units went out new units would replace them, and everlastingly would sit shabby old men and women with their cryptic notebooks, making their tableaux with red and black pencils, religiously recording the result of every coup, staking now and again their five-franc pieces, and watching them raked to the croupier with stony despair or drawing with trembling hands the few poor francs which fortune had sent them.
Timothy was very silent when they passed the portals of the Cercle Privée, into that wonderful interior which, viewed from the entrance room, had the appearance of some rich cathedral.
“What do you think of them?” asked Mary.
He did not answer at once.
“What did you think of the people?” she demanded again. “Did you see that quaint old woman—taking a chance? I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I really didn’t mean to be——”
“I know you didn’t,” said Timothy, and sighed.
The roulette table did not attract him. He strolled off to watch the players at trente et quarante. Here the procedure was more complicated. One of the officials dealt two lines of cards, ending each when the pips added to something over thirty. The top line stood for black, the lower line for red, and that which was nearest to thirty won. After mastering this, the process was simple; you could either back the red or the black, or you could bet that the first card that was dealt was identical with the colour that won, or was the reverse.
The game interested him. It had certain features which in a way were fascinating. He noticed that the croupier never spoke of the black. The black might have had no existence at the trente et quarante table; either “red won” or “red lost.” He staked a louis and won twice. He staked another and lost it. Then he won three coups of a louis and looked around uncertainly, almost guiltily, for Mary.
She was watching the roulette players, and Timothy took a wad of bills from his pocket and counted out six milles. That was another thing he was to discover: there were three classes of players—those who punted in one or five louis pieces, those who bet handsomely in milles (a thousand-franc note is a “mille” and has no other name), and those who went the maximum of twelve thousand francs on each coup.
Money had no value. He threw six thousand down to the croupier and received in exchange six oblong plaques like thin cakes of blue soap. He put a thousand francs on the black and lost it. He looked round apprehensively for Mary, but she was still intent upon the roulette players. He ventured another thousand, and lost that too. A young Englishman sitting at the table looked up with a smile.
“You’re betting against the tableau,” he said. “The table is running red to-night. Look!” He showed a little notebook ruled into divisions, and long lines of dots, one under the other. “You see,” he said, “all these are reds. The table has only swung across to black twice for any run, and then it was only a run of four. If you bet against the table you’ll go broke.”
At any other place than at the tables at Monte Carlo advice of this character, and intimate references to financial possibilities, would be resented. But the Rooms, like the grave, level all the players, who are a great family banded together in an unrecognised brotherhood for the destruction of a common enemy.
“I’ll take a chance against the table,” said Timothy, “and I shall go broke, anyway.”
The Englishman laughed.
The four thousand francs he had left went the same way as their friends and Timothy changed another six thousand and threw two on the black. Then, acting on the impulse of the moment, he threw down the remaining four.
“Timothy!”
He turned at the shocked voice and Mary was standing behind him.
“Do you gamble like that?” she asked.
He tried to smile, but produced a grimace.
“Why, it is nothing,” he said, “it is only francs, and francs aren’t real money, anyway.”
She turned and walked away and he followed. The Englishman, twisting round in his chair, said something. Timothy thought he was asking whether he should look after his money and answered “Certainly.”
The girl walked to one of the padded benches............