The Cheat (Holman)/Chapter 9
They immediately stepped into another world—brilliant lights, ice tinkling against glasses, a fog of tobacco smoke, and the low, monotonous voice of the bankers at the two roulette tables in the high-ceilinged living room opening from the foyer hall. There were possibly a dozen people, mixed men and women and for the most part rich New Yorkers from the neighboring summer estates, already at play when Lucy's party arrived. Lucy led the way to the least heavily patronized table. The thick-jowled, gray-haired proprietor nodded to her as she passed but not without bestowing a searching glance at her companions.
Lucy's party watched a turn of the wheel in silence. The thin voice of the croupier, silence, then the swish of the disks being drawn toward him. Rao-Singh bought two hundred dollars' worth of chips and pushed half of them toward Carmelita without a word. Her eyes were shining. It must be terribly thrilling to play and win.
"Try your luck," the Prince was suggesting. "There's a hundred. Take my advice and place it upon 23."
Carmelita shook her head doubtfully. "No, I thank you. I really couldn't think of risking your chips. I might lose."
He shrugged his shoulders and tossed his chips to the banker to place upon the number which he had recommended. Then he drew out his jeweled cigarette case, supplied Carmelita and lit it for her, and struck a match for himself—all without glancing at the wheel as it spun. He hardly seemed to hear the banker announce that Number 23 had won but accepted his winnings indifferently.
"Rao is a wizard on the wheel," Lucy declared with as near a flash of admiration as she ever offered. "A few more trips here with him and we shall be barred, I'm afraid. He is uncanny."
"Please tell me your secret," asked Carmelita, trying to say it lightly but interested in spite of herself.
"I could probably give you some mystifying answer," he smiled. "Because I am an Indian and come from a mystic land you would believe me. But really it is just luck—luck and a bit of mathematics and what you Americans eall a 'hunch.'"
To prove it he risked the entire amount he had won upon another number. Again the, spin of the shiny spoke brought success to the Hindu. Three times he repeated this until it seemed as if he had cast some sort of a spell upon the game. The others of Lucy's party stopped playing to watch him, and Hayden, the usually impassive proprietor of the establishment, sauntered over to view this turbaned raider upon his bankroll.
It was Carmelita's first experience in stich a palace of chance. It seemed so fascinating to be risking huge sums of money upon the fickle turn of a wheel. In the thrill of it she quite forgot that there might be a moral side to this, that the whole purpose of this elaborate menage and its aristocratic patrons was outside the law. She leaned forward in her interest, pressing against the arm of Rao-Singh, watching his every action. Lucy and the others were all playing. Why not?
"Just try it once," he urged again. "I'll lend you a hundred—you can pay me back." She hesitated a moment, then yielded.
"Put it upon the odd group of three," he suggested. She obeyed. And in half a minute she had doubled the money and was offering the Prince back hisloan. He accepted it without demur. "You haven't finished already?" he asked. And, once having made the plunge, it seemed to Carmelita that it was foolish to stop. If she lost her hundred on the next turn she could quit and would still be even.
Rao-Singh's amazing foresight proved cor= rect again and Carmelita again had the exhilarating pleasure of seeing the now somewhat worried croupier push the disks toward her. There was no stopping her now. The Indian gave up his own winning streak to coach her and even Lucy's dead eyes came to life as her guest's winnings rose. Again and again the banker pushed Carmelita's winnings toward her. They totaled over six thousand dollars.
"You must really try Monte Carlo next," drawled Lucy between spins of the wheel. "You would be sure to break the bank."
But at last Carmelita's luck began to turn. After two losing plays in succession Rao-Singh said significantly. "You are tired, are you not? At least it is better so. You will win no more to-night." She wanted to go on but she obeyed him.
Although the croupier was rather insistent that she continue and the suave Hayden expressed a quiet surprise that madame was stopping so soon, Rao-Singh drew her aside and asked the banker for her winnings. To her astonishment, for she had herself kept no accurate account of the score and was really playing more for the exultation of winning than for the actual material gain, the cheque handed to Carmelita was for five thousand dollars.
"It is really yours," she said to Rao-Singh, offering it to him. "I played with your money and your good fortune. Please take it."
He held up a declining hand. "Not at all. Don't feel guilty about accepting it. They are taking many times that amount away from other people to-night."
As the Hodge party was leaving, Jim Hayden, owner of Canary Cottage, reserved a special bow for Carmelita at the door. "Madame will come again?" he invited. "Perhaps," smiled Carmelita but at the time she did not think that she would.
It was in the early morning hours when Lucy Hodge's Canary Cottage expedition reached home and Carmelita, tired from her strenuous day and night, excused herself and retired to her suite.
There, pink toes curled beneath her, she sat for a few minutes thoughtfully upon her bed, her eyes resting upon a small, framed photograph of Dudley which she had sentimentally thrust into her suitcase just before leaving home. He wouldn't approve of her evening, she knew. But she had had a glorious time. It seemed to her that life was somewhat topsy-turvy. The poor boy worked so hard to provide them with a bare living and here she had by hardly turning a hand accumulated practically his whole year's salary in a couple of hours.
Carmelita did not believe that there is any special virtue in money earned by arduous toil. In Wall Street, where Dudley spent his days, there were men making fortunes in a few minutes by much the same process as she had acquired this miraculous five thousand dollars. She picked up the check and experienced anew the delicious thrill which the unexpected possession of it gave her. The money had been taken from other people who could doubtless easily afford to lose it. And she needed money so badly.
There are times when yielding to temporary temptation seems the easiest and most natural act in the world.
In the end Carmelita kissed the photograph of her good-looking American husband and, snapping off the bed-light, went to sleep.