A Royal Flush of Hearts

by Gordon Young

 

A Royal Flush of Hearts

by Gordon Young

I KNEW as soon as he sat in the game that he was playing for more than the money represented in his stack of chips.

He had the face of one whose ancestors hadn't worked in their shirt sleeves for many generations, but it had a worn, desperate, tense expression. Even then his face looked youthful. He wasn't more than twenty-three or twenty-four.

They were not all thoroughbreds who came to Johnny Blix's snug little apartment; but most of them had money. I got a good deal of it. Johnny thought he was indebted to me for certain minor favors in the past which he appreciated far more than I thought they were worth.

He knew that poker was more than a science with me. 1t was an art. The sand-papered tips of my fingers were almost like eyes, and I could feel and understand faint indentations on the cards that not many people could have discovered without a strong magnifying glass.

Johnny was a square gambler—as square as professional gamblers ever are, and any stranger really got a run for his money on his roulette table, though of course if the luck got to breaking too hard against the house, Johnny would press a little button with his toe and that made it very hard for the lucky man to put his money on the color or number that won.

Nor did I play poker for my health. I wasn't hoggish about winning, and didn't attract attention to my consistent luck, but with the minimum of effort, and some enjoyment, I managed to have an income somewhat above the demands I made on it.

It wasn't every night or every week that I marked or held out cards. I knew and could practise about every trick that was ever devised to make the other fellow lose at poker; and many of them were what is called ethical. In poker, as in law, there are certain rules laid down by which you can cheat the other fellow. Some men use their face as a mirror and reflect into it the quality of the hands they hold.

The young aristocrat was not one of these. He was inscrutable as an oriental. He played his cards well but desperately. I went after him. I liked him, but I was determined to break him. I knew from the way he was playing that there was something back of the game, and I was interested.

Some people go to the movies for their excitement and amusement. I like to take mine off the streets and hot from the hearts of people who are living tragedies. Into some of these little dramatic episodes I now and then force myself as a super.

Every time the boy stayed in a pot where I happened to have an interest, I boosted. I didn't win them all, or didn't get a winning percentage, but that was an incident. I wanted to make him lose.

It was a stiff game, a big game even for Johnny's where the stakes were always high. ` I have seen honest men win up into four figures between sunset and dawn, and sometimes they did it in spite of all I could do. Even a gambler who uses art instead of science can't dictate to luck: he can only increase his percentage, or chance of winning. It's different in roulette. Under a properly constructed wheel there is a delicate mechanism that arbitrarily puts the ball into the color that the man who has his toe on the button wants.

The boy was playing with good nerve, too. He played hard. He plunged and he bluffed and twice he caught me with a good hand, but not good enough, and materially reduced the number of blue chips before me.

Then I went after him in earnest. I stowed four tens in my pocket and waited. I could palm half a deck in either hand, and nobody would ever spot it with a casual look, so I had no trouble in switching those tens to my hand when he boosted the pot high as a house and stood pat. I drew two cards—it was a mere detail to get rid of the extra one before the show-down—and he stood pat.

He figured that he had me beaten, and calculated to give me another severe trimming. But his house-full on aces wasn't worth the paper it took to print the cards. That gave him a hard jolt.

I put three kings a pair of deuces into my pocket and waited. Soon I caught him again—this time with a flush, and I knew that he had gone just about to the bottom of his pile. I boosted it so high the next time he stayed that he came in for only a show-down, and we both lost. But I had broken him. That was what I wanted.

He didn't say a word. He just sat there for a minute looking rather dazed, bit his lips, sighed and got up.

I cashed in and followed him out of the room.

He looked around, recognized me and said nervously:

“Did you have it in for me? You played like it.”

I looked at him steadily, and with just a touch of sympathy in my tone I asked if it really meant much to him to lose.

“Meant much? Meant much! My God,” he fairly shouted, his nerves were that unstrung, “it meant everything! I simply had to win!”

With a gulp of despair and a sudden relaxation of his body he added—

“And I didn't?

“What're you going to do? Bump yourself off?” I asked a bit coldly.

“No. Bump somebody else off!”

He meant it, too.

“That's all right if you can get away with it,” I said indifferently. “But the law says if you knock out a man's tooth you have to give up an eye.”

”Law!” he sneered.

Then by the contrast of the ugly expression, I became aware that he was handsome, and unsophisticated. Some boys have hard faces at ten, and wear a perpetual sneer, and have seen and know things that make the sneer fitting. He was not such at past twenty.

I raised my eyebrows quizzingly. And he answered:

“You can kill a snake and it's all right. But if you kill a reptilian man, it's the electric chair for you. —— such a law!”

Some people who knew something about me might have thought it passing strange had they heard me holding forth on the merits of the law and explaining how if the activities of the “reptilian man” were called to its attention the law would move toward him majestically, with the menacing sword of justice ready to strike.

“Yes,” he retorted scornfully, “and put into the papers the very thing I would pay any price to keep out.”

After that it was easy to get him to talk. We went to a quiet saloon and sat down. He was young enough to look askance at my glass of ginger ale, preferring a little neat brandy himself, tossing it down as men in trouble do when most in need of a cold, instead of a hot brain.

It made me impatient to hear him talking about his “life being ruined” if his parents found out the girl had a secret past, and that if her blackmailer wasn't bought off he might as well kill the fellow and then shoot himself.

When I think of all the good courage that people waste in killing themselves, I come near to losing the laboriously acquired poise and calmness I have solicitously developed for nearly twenty years; and when I hear young, healthy men talking about “life being ruined” because something interferes with the paternal pocketbook, I do lose it; but when I hear of a man or woman rubbing their bellies on the ground before a blackmailer, I get angry and show it.

Blackmailers simply capitalize cowardice as bankers capitalize confidence. A blackmailer can't last any longer without people are afraid of him than a banker can if people are afraid of him. The best way to deal with a blackmailer is to tell him to go to the devil or to the newspapers with his incriminating letters. And if he goes to the newspapers, or to the girl you want to marry, or to your employer—what of it?

It's better to be wounded than to run away. If a community won't respect you, or a girl won't love you, or an employer won't have you because of some mistake in other years, well, there are other communities, other girls and other employers. Most of all there is yourself. I sometimes wonder how those people who have submitted to blackmail feel when they stand before a mirror.

I WOULD have left Mr. Earnest Norcross fumbling with his empty glass and gone back to Johnny Blix's except that I thought there must be a deeper streak of honor in him than was readily perceptible if he was willing himself to trust and marry a girl who evidently had made some kind of a desperate mistake that his family and friends wouldn't overlook. All interesting women have made mistakes; but those most interesting have been clever enough to conceal them.

However, when I expressed myself on blackmailers, he told me with a good deal of fire that I didn't know of what I was talking.

He was not entirely sober, and was much piqued by the parochial, lofty. way in which I had spoken of disregarding blackmailing threats and facing the issue.

He put up to me one of the strangest situations I have heard of; and had I had the respect for the law and conventions that corresponded with my comments on the subject when I first approached him, I would have felt it my duty as a pious, respectable citizen to protest—much less, actively to take a small part in allowing him to cheat the State, the Church, his friends and be myself an accessory before and after the fact to polyandry.

His parents, particularly his mother, were firm Catholics. The woman—she wasn't much more than a girl—had been married before. She had never been divorced and didn't propose to get one, for the very act of applying for it would destroy the secrecy she had laboriously constructed almost from the day of her marriage when she found that her husband was an unconscionable blackguard.

She had never intended to marry, but Norcross had met her and wooed her and won her heart. She tried to put him aside, saying it was impossible. He had pressed her for an explanation. She had confided to him the truth; and he recklessly but earnestly said he didn't care a ——; that he loved and wanted her.

So bitterly humiliated and ashamed had she been of her mistake—a mistake made impulsively while at a small mining camp in Colorado—that she had bribed the clerk to destroy the page of the register.

But the marriage certificate remained. It was in the hands of one Tobias E. Findley, her husband.

She had paid monthly toll to him almost ever since; though when she destroyed the page of the register she had also planned to buy the certificate outright and so eliminate all evidence and try to forget the wretched experience. But Findley had refused to surrender such an income-producing document, except for an amount far too exorbitant for her to consider.

She loved Norcross, and against the wishes of her heart tried to persuade him that marriage would be impossible. Even if she could get a divorce his parents would set their faces against her, and perhaps against him.

But he said a divorce was useless. That she wasn't the wife of Findley any more than if she had never seen him; and that he wasn't going to allow a legal technicality to keep him from the woman he loved.

Then he made a mistake. He went to Findley and tried to negotiate for the certificate. The astute rascal instantly saw possibilities for an increased income. He not only raised his originally prohibitive price for the certificate, but frightened Norcross into believing that if he, too, did not begin at once contributing regularly that he would make the certificate public.

I was confident, as soon as Norcross told me that so cunning a crook would not be in haste to kill the goose that laid his golden. eggs. But Norcross was young, inexperienced, and made the error of hastening to meet Findley's demand.

Since that hour he had constantly beset and tormented the boy for money.

“I simply have to have it!” he said with a gesture of helplessness. “My father is now suspicious because I've gone through so much more than my allowance. I thought I could win it. I've been playing at the Bristol—that's Findley's hang out. He gambles there all the time. But a fellow there that took a liking to me, one of the house men I think, told me to try Johnny Blix's. Said I could get a square deal there.”

“Findley suggested that you play poker for it?”

“Yes?

“Probably gets a commission on what you lose there, and sees that you never have a chance to win. How much does he have to have tomorrow morning?”

He told me. I was surprised at the nerve of the scoundrel. Inside of a month he had made that boy dig up something over $5,000; and that didn't include another $1,500 that he had dropped playing poker in an effort to raise funds. No wonder his father was growing suspicious.

“How do you know he has the certificate?”

“I'm not that green. I made him show it to me. He keeps it in a safe at the Bristol.”

Sometimes my mind works with amazing rapidity. I deserve no credit for so-called rapid thinking. It is done automatically. Almost in an instant I had considered the feasibility of getting the Bristol raided, of holding it up—I have done things as desperate for no more cause—of kidnapping Findley and making the certificate the ransom price. But the aftermath to each of these was likely to be embarassing.

However I had hit upon a plan that could be tried and would be harmless if it failed, in which case something else might be done.

It is not exactly natural in me to be suspicious, but I. have cultivated suspicion until it has become instinctive. I had no reason for not thinking the girl was all right, but it was just as well to make sure.

I told Norcross that if he could arrange for me to meet her I would try to get the certificate away from Findley.

”I'll pay you anything—anything—if you give me time.” He grasped at my offer of assistance as a falling man grasps at a spider's web.

“We'll discuss my fee after I see Miss Rankine.”

”But I can't pay him that thousand tomorrow.”

“Tell him not to get excited; that you are doing some planning to get the lump sum he asked.”

“But that's impossible!”

“I know it. He doesn't. He knows your father—or knows who he is.”

“That's it. He says if I don't pay up regularly that he'll go to father.”

It's a very small detail, perhaps, but I liked to see that the boy didn't call his father “the Old Man.”

“He won't be in a hurry to go to your father. You tell him—Findley—that you have explained the situation to a friend, and he is trying to help you out. But that Findley will have to part with the certificate. Sell out for a lump sum.”

“You wouldn't trust me——”

“No. Not even if I had that much money. But the fact that he keeps it stowed in the safe of William Bristol's palatial gambling joint has given me an inspiration. Poker players and diplomats have to use their heads. Most people simply use a checking account. You say this house man that tipped you off that Johnny Blix's was a square joint took a liking to you?”

“Yes.”

I knew that Johnny—as does every other gambler doing business under police protection—kept ringers scattered through the rival joints to tip players off that such and such a place is a square house; but Johnny had that reputation.

“Did this fellow seem thick with Findley?”

“I should say not. Every time they got into the same game they bucked each other. Just like you did me.”

“What's his name?”

“Watson.”

I told him to wait a minute, and going to the telephone I called up Johnny and asked him if he knew a fellow named Watson that loafed around the Bristol. Johnny said that he did. I asked if he was all right, and the answer was satisfactory.

^I didn't ask if Watson was a ringer. That was none of my business. But I did ask Johnny if he would get in touch with Watson and say to him that “I am a friend of yours and that he can go the limit with me. That I am O. K.” Johnny said he would do it right away.

I coached the boy a little more in what to tell Findley the next morning, and he promised to introduce me to Miss Rankine in the afternoon. Then we parted; but first he pressed my hand, and without being maudlin said a lot of things he probably wouldn't have said if he had drank ginger ale instead of two or three glasses of brandy. But he was young, and he was grateful, believing that I was actually snatching him from what looked but a moment before to be a wretched, inextricable predicament.

I HAD an appointment with Watson the next morning and we talked matters over. He knew that I wanted to get something belonging to Findley out of the safe, to get it so I could keep it and be open about it, but I didn't say what it was. He agreed to do as I suggested. The fact that extremely high stakes were the rule at the Bristol, it being a more pretentious joint than Johnny's, made him think as I did; that is, that it would help some in getting Findley into the game.

In the afternoon Norcross took me to meet Miss Rankine. She lived with an older, married sister; and they were obviously refined, comfortably wealthy, attractive people.

With my first glance at her I understood why the boy wanted to marry her though she did have a husband, and whether or not she got a divorce. I sympathized with him, too. There was no question of her being dishonest—even if she was going to marry again without that divorce. A lot of crooked people go through life scrupulously keeping technically honest; and a lot of honest people have the misfortune to be technically at counter with the law.

Of course, I consider that her real mistake started in not openly getting a divorce from Findley as soon as she found out what he was; but having set her heart on secrecy, and worked for it, she had come to feel that death even would be better, and certainly less shameful, than to have the sordid scandal exposed. Her family position was such that the newspapers would have had a great time for a few days.

Miss Rankine plainly showed alarm when Norcross told her that I was going to help them and knew everything. She caught her breath and bit her knuckles, looking at me apprehensively with startled, wide eyes—brown eyes, they were.

A more beautiful woman I have seldom seen. There are many who have perfect features, charming gowns, an abundance of wonderful hair, a graceful body, just as she had; but there are few so young as she who have had their emotions so strongly stirred; in whose heart the fires of tragedy have glowed without flaming up devastatingly. After all, it is only those people whose characters are without reproach and who have suffered that are beautiful. Any artist of quality will tell you that, just as one first called my attention to it.

Miss Rankine showed, however, all nervousness; and the stress of especially the past few weeks had marked, but far marred, her face. She would be more beautiful, I knew, as soon as Watson and I, who were taking the rôle of grave-diggers, had thrown the last shovelful upon her past.

I told her I did not inquire from curiosity, but because I wanted to make sure that every possibility of Findley's getting any other evidence to replace his precious certificate had been eliminated; and asked her to tell in detail just how the marriage came about and all she had done to conceal it.

“It was five years ago,” she said. “I was only eighteen, and, unfortunately, I was intensely romantic. I was with my father out West on a trip. He was interested in mines, and was unexpectedly called up to some camp far from the railroad. He didn't think it best for me to make the trip and left me at the hotel.

“I met Mr. Findley. I had met him before father left, but being lonely I then saw a good deal of him. He swept me off my feet. He made me think he was wonderful, and spoke as though he were a man of affairs; and so skilfully and subtly conveyed to me that he was a real gentleman, that I foolishly married him one afternoon—but at twelve o'clock, noon that is, I hadn't expected to.

“We were walking back to the hotel, and he was telling me how pleased father would be! Just imagine, and I was silly enough not only to listen to him, but to believe him! We were walking back to the hotel, when suddenly he stopped and stood staring a moment at a man across the street. I knew something was wrong from the way he acted and was greatly frightened, asking him what was the matter.

“He said, 'It's all right, kid. I'll explain later. Don't believe anything you hear,' and he left me. He ran.

“I shuddered. The way he said 'kid!' I wasn't too frightened to notice that.

“The man across the street came over to me and asked, 'Wasn't that Toby Findley?' I said it was. He looked at me appraisingly and said: 'I guess you're all right. But you're in bad company, little girl.'”

“I begged him to tell me what was the matter, and he did. He was a detective from Denver. He was after Findley for some kind of robbery. He showed me the warrant—and that made me remember that Findley had my marriage certificate in his pocket.

“I was sick with fear and shame. I thought when they caught Findley they would learn I was his wife. But they didn't. He had a chance to hide at first and get into another camp. He never told that we were married. I thought he did it to protect me, and admired him for it. I spent a miserable week before father returned, and I was in torment as to whether or not to tell him. Father was very stern.

“I know now that the reason Findley went to the penitentiary without telling any one that I was his wife—and he wrote me asking that I say nothing about it; as though I were anxious to—was that he knew father wouldn't waste any time in getting a divorce for me. And he wanted a hold on me when he came out of prison.

“He was sent to prison for two years. Father died about eight months before Findley came out. I had thought and thought the situation over, and determined to wipe out every bit of evidence of that marriage. I was encouraged because I had been fortunate enough not to have anybody notice that Findley had been recently married when they caught him. But it had been several days before the detective caught him, and then in another camp close by.

“When father died I came into some money, and I followed the plan I had decided upon and went back to Colorado. I didn't tell the clerk what name on the register I was anxious to have out of it, but paid him a big price to tear out one particular page. He said himself the chances were that no one would ever discover it.

“I went to the justice that married us, and asked if he kept a record of the people he married. He said that he kept no personal record. Simply recorded the license.

“So in one way and another I made sure that I had gotten rid of every record. I couldn't, of course, find the witnesses. I remembered that they had been two people who just happened to be there. I feel satisfied that they don't even remember the marriage; and if the certificate is destroyed, their names will be lost.

“I wrote Findley to come to me as soon as he was out of prison and sent him the money. He tried to make me think I was his wife. I offered to pay him for the certificate, and never dreamed that he could be so detestable as he was. He laughed and said I could pay him a regular monthly income and he would keep the certificate. I told him no, and said I wanted it myself.

“His price. was outrageous. It was simply unpayable. There was nothing I could do but mail him bills every month. I did have judgment enough not to send checks!”

Both she and Norcross were nervously eager to know what plans I had, and begged me to tell them if they might really hope that I would succeed, and he offered me a large, specific fee for success.

“I can't tell you a thing. Along about midnight we may know more about it. As for the fee—we'll discuss that later—after the 'success.' I believe Miss Rankine has covered the tracks about as well as is possible. But if we get the certificate, I suggest that you send rapidly as you can some wise legal friend out to Colorado to go over the ground again and make sure. Also he might investigate Findley's record thoroughly. Perhaps we can turn the tables and blackmail him into leaving the country. Things like that have been done before to my certain knowledge.

“I don't want to raise up any false hopes, but if you two can be here between eleven and perhaps one or two o'clock tonight, I may be able to bring or telephone something that will be of interest.”

 

Before I left, I had Norcross repeat just what he had told Findley that morning about expecting to raise money to buy the certificate. Evidently Findley had believed him.

Crooks have an idea that there is absolutely no bottom to the purse of a millionaire, or a millionaire's son. With Findley expecting to receive a large sum, an enormously large sum of money in cold cash, within the next twenty-four hours, I calculated that he would be a little more reckless than usual in the four-handed game Watson was arranging for that evening.

I ARRIVED at the Bristol promptly at nine o'clock, and was shown into a private room where sat Findley, Watson, and another party, a Mr. Jones. The game had been arranged ostensibly to trim me. I was supposed to be a wealthy young man who thought he could play poker.

I had notified the Bristol that I liked a game of cards, but I wanted to play for money. I wanted big stakes. I couldn't get any enjoyment out of the ordinary games. I wanted one that had no limit but the sky. In other words, I had talked like the typical easy mark with a fat roll.

Mr. Watson and Mr. Jones had been delegated to trim me; and when Findley had been permitted to overhear the plan, he had insisted upon being allowed to sit in the game. He never overlooked a chance to pick up easy money.

There is no need for me to go into details about the game or the money involved. Those who don't understand much about poker would find it unintelligible, and those who do would probably find it tedious; and to specify even the approximate amount of the stakes is unnecessary, for to some it might seem unbelievable, and to others it might seem insignificant. It is sufficient to say that every man at the table was an experienced gambler and each of us regarded it as a stiff game, an exceptionally stiff game for even the Bristol.

Jones and Watson were house men. That is, they were men employed by the Bristol to sit in games and make sure that nobody got away with too much money. They could be crooked when necessary, and often thought it was. Findley was playing for himself, but counted on a kind of friendship with Jones and Watson which would permit him to cheat as much as he pleased providing I was the only one who lost by it—and he didn't get caught.

My idea was to break Findley. I was willing to lose moderately if Findley would lose heavily. This would have been practically impossible if Watson had not stood in with me. I don't believe the man ever lived who could hold his own against three clever, crooked gamblers; but there have been many men who, with a capable and secret partner, can beat two other fellows.

I didn't play my game entirely with cards. As a usual thing I don't talk much while playing. But this time I showed a mean, insolent streak, and inside of ten minutes I had Findley's “goat;” that is, I had him hating me and nursing the hope to show me that he was a good player, that he didn't give away his hands on his face, that he could bluff and not get caught, that he had learned to play the game more than a month before, that he wasn't afraid of a raise, and did dare to raise back—all of which things I had banteringly accused him of not doing, or daring to do.

Watson with little side remarks, apparently friendly enough, but shrewdly calculated to rub Findley's fur the wrong way, helped get him excited.

Findley was a man superficially impressive. He was big, had the carriage of a military man, a fine straight nose, a shock of dark, slightly grayed hair, but I wouldn't have trusted him with anything I wasn't anxious to lose.

Jones was a silent, cadaverous individual, who played cards and did nothing else.

Inside of half an hour I complained that the light hurt my eyes, and put on a pair of blue glasses. This gave me the advantage of staring at anybody's hands while they shuffled or held cards without him being able to see that my eyes were on him.

I kept my eyes steadily on Findley, even while talking to Watson. With my hat pulled low and behind the blue glasses, Findley couldn't tell I was watching him, and I had no trouble in seeing him palm cards and slip them up his sleeve. Besides, he was a bit clumsy.

I knew he was getting ready to make a “killing;” so I quietly put a few cards which I had selected into my pocket and waited.

Findley was in a bad position for the good of his hands. He sat to the left of me and had Watson on his left; so when Watson and I raised each other, he was whipsawed more than once into discarding the best hand of the three. It was a no-limit game, and the boosts were strenuous.

It was along toward midnight, and Findley had brought out several times a hand he had secretly picked and stowed away. But up until this particular moment neither Watson nor I had remained, much to Findley's disgust, whenever I saw him quietly exchange the cards that had been dealt for cards that he had up his pocket, and begin betting as if the resources of Rockefeller were at his command. And he had been losing consistently too. This time I was ready and waiting for him.

Watson raised him. Jones dropped out, and I raised Watson. Findley came back with a raise that took all of his chips and he threw a roll of bills on to the table. Watson threw down his hand, and withdrew from the pot. I called Findley and hit him with another raise.

“That's all the ready I have,” he said.

“This is a no-limit game,” I sneered. “It's a wonder you didn't bring along more than car-fare.”

He winced.

I made further remarks about people who tried to play in a man-sized game with only chicken-feed in their pockets.

Findley asked Watson to loan him money, and showed his hand on the side. Watson refused, but signalled me for heaven's sake to get out while I could, because I couldn't win.

I wasn't in the mood to get out of the pot. Watson thought I was playing a square game. I don't let every Tom, Dick and Harry know that I can manipulate the cards.

Findley showed the hand to Jones, and he started to loan the money, but a nudge from Watson changed his mind.

The psychological moment had arrived.

Watson, carefully coached, asked—

“Say, Toby, haven't you got any collateral around here?”

Findley looked thoughtfully a moment, studied the table and. then said to me:

“I've got a little piece of paper in the safe that's worth more money than has passed over this table tonight. I don't want to put it up. I won't sell it. I just want to get a little credit on it until to-morrow. I'll have plenty of money then. Of course, you have to take my word for it that it's good. But my word's good—you've made a big bluff and I want to call you. If I had the money I'd raise!”

“Aw, forget it,” I sneered. “Raise nothing. Go ahead, ring in your precious document, and if it's worth anything, raise on it. I'll show you you can't bluff me with talk like that. Is it worth anything, Watson?”

Watson said he didn't know what it was, but he had heard Bristol say Findley called it his “gold mine.”

“Bring it on,” I said.

“I won't have to show you what it is?” he asked.

“No,” I jeered. “You won't have to show what it is—unless you're looking for a chance to crawfish! Besides, you're going to redeem it tomorrow, aren't you?”

Watson went with a note to Bristol and came back with the document, while Findley and I sat watching each other to see that neither made a false move with his cards; although I knew I could make any kind of false move I pleased right under his nose and he wouldn't see. He didn't play poker as a fine art.

He threw the precious envelope on to the table and said—

“I call you.”

“Call me! I thought you were going to raise. Bah! Give me one card,” I said to Jones, who was dealing.

“None for me,” said Findley. He was standing pat.

I reached into my pocket for a cigaret-case; and no one could tell that in the same hand that brought out the cigaret-case were five cards—very desirable cards in poker. And when I removed a cigaret and restored the case, I had just ten cards in my hand. But when I casually pushed the deck to one side to make room for my elbows, I had laid five cards on top of it, and no one saw a thing out of the way.

I didn't spend two hours every morning practising, shuffling, dealing from the bottom, palming, stacking, marking and catching cards with the feel of my fingertips, without acquiring the dexterity of a professional magician. Poker was to me as music to Paderewski, and I made my living by it and enjoyed it as an art.

Ostensibly I had drawn one card after making heavy bets. Everybody around the board thought I had four of a kind. Watson's face was a study in apprehension and disappointment.

Jones never moved a muscle, but sat with quiet eyes watching and saying nothing.

Findley was beside himself with excitement. He begged me to let him play his mysterious document for what he thought it was worth, promising faithfully to redeem it the next day, and emphasizing again and again the arrangements he had made to collect a large amount of money from an old debt. It was good as gold, he assured me almost hysterically.

I deliberated. I said:

“But that's hardly fair to me—and if you lose, you'll say I coaxed you into it. How do I know that isn't a Chessie Chadwick bluff?”

If I would only take his word! He was well known. Watson knew him. Jones knew him. Bristol knew him. He had independent means. He was good for any amount. That paper would be redeemed tomorrow—the rising of the sun wasn't any more sure than that he could redeem that paper.

“All right. Let her go,” I said recklessly.

His voice was high, hysterical as he called out:

“I'll raise you $20,000. Now come in you tin horn, you piker. Get aboard that if you dare!”

I will say it to my credit now—for after the show-down I couldn't claim any credit—that I never batted an eyelid. I simply reached into my pocket, drew out a check-book and wrote a check for $20,000, and on à bank where I didn't have one-fourth of that amount deposited!

“I call,” I said.

Findley jumped up gleefully and spread his five cards face upward on the table, and began raking in the pot.

”Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” I said. “Let's have a look.”

“Your fours ain't worth a ——!” he shouted. “I've got a straight flush, jack high.”

“Who said I had fours?” I demanded indignantly.

“You drew one card.”

“Of course I drew one card. I needed a nine or an ace—and I caught the ace!”

I spread before his astonished eyes a royal flush in hearts—the highest possible hand in poker.

I wasn't taking any chances with Findley. I knew enough to steal as big a hand as the deck contained. He hadn't dared go so strong. It was a raw thing to do, but when I thought of that boy and girl sitting together anxiously waiting and watching for the ringing of the telephone, with their whole future hopes and happiness shuffling and slipping back and forth across the green cloth of the table, there was no chance too desperate for me to take.

Findley crumpled into his chair and sat with open mouth and glazed eyes, staring at the hand which has but one chance in exactly 649,739 of being dealt honestly.

I tore up my own check, cashed in, stuck the marriage certificate into my pocket and stood up.

Findley was crouching forward on the table, leaning on his elbows and with face distorted was glaring at me. He knew no man would have played a four-card, even royal, flush as I had played it before the draw, without being sure that the other needed card would come into the hand.

“You stole that!” he began menacingly.

But he didn't finish. I leaned over and with open palm struck him full on the mouth.

Never, but once before, had a man called me a cheat—while looking into my face. The other man was near-sighted. He apologized when I brought my face close enough for him to see it distinctly. For what does it profit me to have all the arts of a magician at cards if there is the weakness in my eyes that permits any disgruntled loser to dare accuse me of cheating?

But Findley was well-nigh insane. He knew well he could never redeem the fabulous amount he owed me. He felt dimly that I had bilked him of his precious income, that I had deliberately trapped him.

He arose from the floor, for mine is not a gentle arm when I am angry, and in his uplifted hand a sinister bit of steel flashed as he lunged forward at me.

Watson leaped up and grabbed at him. But Watson was slow.

I shot from my pocket—one made specially to accommodate the rebound of a large automatic; and as I did it I was aware of thankfulness for the thick, practically sound-proof rooms of the Bristol, which, selected with a view of keeping the raiders of the district attorney's office outside, in case police protection proved inadequate, would not permit the report of the gun to reach the street.

Findley's arm, shattered; dropped weakly like a broken stick and the dagger fell noiselessly onto the thick carpet.

Noisy, excited men rushed in from the room outside.

“Here, what's the matter? What's the matter?” shouted William Bristol himself, terribly frightened, for gun-play was bad for his business and a death would have caused even the friendly police to clamp on the lid.

Jones, quietly, as if there were not a nerve in his body, almost listlessly, explained:

“He pulled a knife and Mr. Everhard stopped him. Broke his arm. —— pretty shooting.”

Bristol looked from me to Findley and back to me. Then he began abusing Findley.

I poured a few drops from the half-emptied glass of ginger ale by my place at the table on to the smoldering cloth in my pocket and remarked to Watson that it was a shame because the suit was new.

Then I interrupted Bristol.

“Let me say a word or two, Mr. Bristol. This fellow Findley's an ex-con, and I don't know what all else, in addition to being a blackmailer. And quite incidentally he doesn't even know the rudiments of poker. He seems to think he can draw again after the show-down—” I kicked the dagger away from beside the table—“and if you want to call the police—” I was bluffing, but bluffing safely—“I'll swear to a complaint for assault with intent to kill against him.

“But I want this—this blackmailer—to know that inside of a half-hour the little document I have here will be in the hands of the party to whom it belongs.”

Having said that and listened to Bristol's protest against anybody swearing to any kind of a complaint, and to his round and satisfying abuse of Findley and apology to me for having had my life endangered in his establishment, I left.

As I went out of the door Watson put his hand on my shoulder and whispered:

“I take my hat off to you, Mr. Everhard. I didn't think anybody could do it.”

“What? Shoot like that?”

“No. Fill a royal flush in a pot like that.”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes and smiled slightly. He understood.

THAT'S about all there was to it.

I took a taxi and reached Miss Rankine's a few minutes before one o'clock. She and the boy were beside themselves with anxiety and were worn with waiting and hoping against hope hour after hour.

They were too happy and relieved even to talk when I handed the certificate to Miss Rankine.

She uplifted her face and said softly but earnestly:

“Thank God! It's over at last!”

Both thought, and said, they were making a bungling of thanking me. Their words didn't come fluently nor gracefully. But they were giving real thanks.

I withdrew my hand from Norcross—he had pressed it every since I came in—and struck a match, holding it up significantly.

Miss Rankine, after a puzzled glance, understood, and unfolding her marriage certificate touched a corner of it to the tiny flame, and silently we stood watching the fire eat its way up and across the parchment, wiping out, reducing to ashes, the record of an impulsive mistake.

I started to leave at once. I knew they wished to be alone in the first hour of full, complete happiness.

But Norcross spoiled the dramatic effect—it is strange how few people have in their own affairs the true dramatic sense; that's why they must read novels and go to the theaters—by speaking of my fee and asking how I did it.

I told him that I had had a long earnest conversation with Findley over a green-clothed table and after some arguing, he had begged me to let him bet the certificate against a few dollars that he could pick out a better poker hand than I could.

“And you remember,” I said, “that as a usual thing, I hold pretty good poker hands. And though he had first choice he didn't seem to know the value of cards. A slip quite apt to prove costly, you know. And as for a fee—supposing you send me post-cards from every place you stop while on your honeymoon.”

So it is that among my few cherished trinkets I have a large bundle of colored post-cards from various cities in Europe, and particulalry from those in Italy. And tied up with these cards is a wedding invitation—the only one I ever received to the formal wedding of a millionaire. And I think just as much of it as if I had attended. But as a little present, I sent to the bride a specially designed clasp pin of enamel—a royal flush of hearts.