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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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The Popular Magazine, 7 Jan 1923, with
"Where the Goddess Chance Holds Court"
James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
Mr. Robert Henry Blane—"The Texan Wasp"—travels on business and travels fast—with the most famous man-hunter of Europe hot on his heels. Go with him on his journeys and you will see all the great cities of Europe; perhaps you'll miss visiting some of the places mentioned in the guide books but he'll take you to others more interesting and while you travel with him you'll never know a dull moment. In this issue, just as a starter, Mr. Blane attends to a small affair in the Casino at Monte Carlo.
THE Calais-Méditerranée Express rolled into Monte Carlo station at eleven-fifty on a morning in February, not one minute behind time. The Calais-Méditerranée is a train de luxe and by its aid one can get from Piccadilly to the Casino at Monte Carlo under twenty-eight hours.
From its big carriages there alighted rich old men and women fleeing from the cold breezes of the north; saucy, well-gowned young women; fat and vulgar lady gamblers carrying pet dogs and funny hand bags; also a big sprinkling of smartly dressed undesirables with sharp eyes and keen features.
At the steps of one of the big brown sleeping cars a little discussion arose. A quiet, red-cheeked English maid, her arms filled with the wraps of her elderly mistress, was rudely hustled by a fat and oily gentleman of color who was followed by six attendants as dark as their master.
The colored man's boorishness brought a protest. It came from a tall, athletic man in the early thirties, who possessed that curious indescribable manner that comes, as the poet said, "from manly strength and courage high."
"Pardon, George," he murmured, addressing the colored person, "you are walking on the heels of this young lady. You must be more careful."
"George!" screamed the boor. "What do you mean by calling me George?"
The slightest flicker of cold contempt appeared in the gray eyes of the tall man. "It is just my name for all colored folk," he said softly. "But that is not the point in dispute. Let me advise you to apologize immediately when you tread on the heels of a white lady. Immediately! Do you understand?"
The oily colored man took a deep breath that suggested an inward fear of imminent suffocation, then he delivered himself in a voice sharpened by the file of indignation. "How dare you speak like that to me, sah?" he screamed. "I am the Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa!"
The proverbial iced cucumber would be considered a warm commodity if compared to the cold manner of the tall man. "To me you are just an unmannerly negro," he said slowly. Then, as the colored man grew apoplectic with temper, he added: "Roll your words once round before you let them out. When I first started to roam I used to write the words Houston, Texas, after my name on the hotel registers."
The six attendants of the maharaja gathered round their shocked and speechless ruler, jabbering violently in Hindustani. It looked as if they might make a joint attack on the Texan but as they jabbered there came a diversion. A youth of eighteen or thereabouts, a supple, Panlike youngster, tore up the platform, hurled himself through the circle of excited Orientals and seized the grip of the tall man.
"I knew I'd see you again!" cried the youth. "Don't you remember tellin' me that you were comin' to this dump? I've watched this train for five days. I said to myself 'this will be his boat' 'cause this rattler stacks up with the Lake Shore and the Panhandle Express. It's the nobbiest packet that ever made a face at a signal box. Don't you—say, what's up with the bunch of ragheads?"
The tall man smiled and the smile made him strangely handsome.
It blotted out the fine lines bitten by the mordant of Old Man
Care. It flung the fighting look from the gray eyes and enthroned
the sprite of mirth in its place. A slight scar on the right jaw
that had a sinister look when the mouth was tight closed was for
the moment not noticeable.
"Nothing, Jimmy," he answered. "They're a little excited because they're visiting a gambling joint and they don't know exactly where to put their feet."
The youth surveyed the maharaja and his six attendants as a bright terrier might survey seven sleek rats. "D'ye want me to biff a couple of 'em?" he asked eagerly.
"Oh, Lord, no!" cried the tall man. "Come away."
The two pushed the Orientals aside and walked down the platform, the tall man, immediately forgetful of the colored crowd, questioning his companion.
"Now what in thunder brought you here?" he asked.
The youngster was voluble. "A guy wrote me the day after you tossed me the fifty francs at Marseilles," he began, "and he—say, boss, I'm never goin' to forget you for that fifty francs an'—"
"Shut up and tell what brought you here," ordered the other.
"Well, this guy wrote and said that he had heard about me from a sport who saw me box at the Prado Arena in Marseilles, an' he said in his letter, he says, if you're the real Just-So Kid that fought the Red Apache in Paris take the first train to this place and you can have a fight that will make 'em howl for you all over France."
"And has the scrap come off?" inquired the tall man.
"Not yet, not yet," murmured the youth. "Friday is the night, boss. At nine in the evenin' o' that blessed day I'm goin' to tear the champeenship o' the Alpes-Maritimes from a feller who looks slower than a dollar bill fallin' from a ten-story winder when you're waitin' for it on the sidewalk. He knows as much about fightin' as a one-legged jack rabbit an' when—"
"Jimmy," interrupted the tall man, "I'm going up in the elevator to the terrace. Be a good boy and give my bag to the porter from the Hôtel de Paris. Yes, I'll be at the fight. I'll see you before then."
"Sure you will!" cried the Just-So Kid. "This is a small burg an' Barnum's dwarf couldn't hide in it. Say, d'ye know I thought that this joint from the advertisin' it got was as big as Cincinnaty or N'Awlyns, but it's smaller 'n Helena, Arkansaw. Were you ever—"
The elevator heaved itself upward before the Just-So Kid could put his question, but he showed no displeasure as he turned and trotted out of the station. "Some prince, he is," he murmured. "Chucks coin around like a darky tossin' hen-feed. Guess I'll tote his grip up to the hotel meself. Porters is careless insects an' I guess I'd have starved to death if he hadn't tossed me fifty francs at Marseilles."
The tall man of the Calais-Méditerranée Express stepped from the elevator to the Casino terrace overlooking the sea. His gray eyes feasted on the glorious view—probably the most wonderful view in the world. To the right the Rock of Monaco with the palace of the prince; to the left the picturesque coast-line sweeping down to the Italian border.
"Wow, it's great to be back here!" he murmured. "I've seen cattle ranches bigger than the whole of this principality, yet this place is the romantic heart of the world."
He walked swiftly along the terrace, returned the salute of one of the picturesque guards who was clever enough to see something more than usually distinguished in the look of the stranger, crossed the Place du Casino and sprang lightly up the steps of the Hôtel de Paris. He gave to an observer the belief that he was a very happy and carefree man.
There are men who can walk into a hotel as if they were conferring an honor on the hostelry. The tall man was one of these. The war has killed much of the old-time respect that the European hotel keeper had for the visiting American, but all the prewar servility came back with a bounce as the tall man swung through the door. The head concierge bowed so low that he had secretly to disengage his well-groomed whiskers from the lowest button of his vest; an assistant manager with a black beard chopped off abruptly, a la Ptolemy, fell upon a pen and thrust it into an inkwell in a manner that suggested the unfortunate implement was being punished for an indiscretion. Monsieur Ptolemy pushed forward the police registration slip and asked whimperingly if the distinguished-looking visitor would fill it in.
The tall man nodded, then smiled at the Just-So Kid who suspicious of all hotel people had resolutely resisted all attempts to take the grip from him. "Thought I'd cling to it till you came," he explained. "These Frenchies have treacle flips they tell me."
The Texan, in a bold, dashing hand filled in the form tendered by the hotel manager. After the italicized words he wrote the required description of himself thusly:
Name: Blane.
Christian names: Robert Henry.
Citizen of United States of America.
Date of birth: April 22, 1891.
Identification papers: United States passport.
"And what can I give you, Monsieur Blane?" inquired the fawning manager. "Do you wish a suite?"
"There was, if I remember rightly," said Robert Henry Blane, "an interesting adornment on the outside walls of your hotel. The names of the big capitals of the world were carved in the stone. London, Paris, Moscow, New——"
"They are still there," interrupted the manager. "Yes, monsieur, they are there now."
"Then I would like the room directly over New York," said Mr. Blane. Turning to the Just-So Kid he remarked: "I want that room, Jimmy, because I always think that directly over New York lies heaven."
The assistant manager rushed to his diagram. Mentally he consigned all foreigners and crazy Americans in particular to a more sunny clime than the Riviera. Why should this stranger want the room directly over the words "New York?" Why not another just....
"It has just been made empty!" he cried, interrupting his own unuttered thoughts.
"Then it will be made full," mimicked the man from Texas. "Bring the grip along, Jimmy. I want you to do an errand for me. It's an important errand that I wouldn't trust to every one, so I'm glad that you waited."
"You can trust me with your life," said the Just-So Kid. "I'd lay down in this scrap on Friday night if you told me to. If you hadn't tossed me that fifty at Marseilles I'd be teachin' angels how to stop a left uppercut by now. You saved—"
"Jimmy." interrupted the tall man, "the dollar is high in France but if these people hear you thanking me for fifty francs I wouldn't be surprised to see it drop with a bang. Be patriotic. Talk as if we were all millionaires. Now if you win that fight...."
"If I win it!" snorted the Just-So Kid. "Say, boss, that feller has as much hope of beatin' me as a zoo turtle has o' beatin' a Kentucky thoroughbred once round Lexington."
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane smiled. He was beginning to like the Just-So Kid.
Mr. Blane and the little pugilist were ushered into the splendid apartment that overlooked the famous Terrace and the Avenue de Monte Carlo and after the servile attendant had taken himself elsewhere the Texan turned to the Just-So Kid.
"Jimmy," he said quietly, "I want you to take a message to a friend. I trust you, so I can tell you right now that I do not want you to go up the street bawling out anything that I tell you."
"When I was a kid," said the pugilist, "they called me 'The Tomb' 'cause I was so silent."
Monsieur Blane investigated a wallet and took from it a slip of paper on which were mystical signs and numbers. With a pencil he decoded the cryptogram, then addressed the youth.
"My friend lives in a little cottage on the Crête des Mules, Jimmy. It's a cottage with green shutters on the south side of the road before you get to the cemetery. And you must walk there. Do you understand? He is a bit of a hermit and he hates carriages and taxicabs."
"I'll walk," said the prize fighter. "What'll I tell him?"
"Tell him," said Mr. Blane, speaking very slowly, "that 'The Texan Wasp' is at the Hôtel de Paris. That's all."
"I'm on my way," said the Just-So Kid. "Bonjour, as these geeks say."
After the departure of the youth Monsieur Robert Henry Blane,
alias The Texan Wasp, drew a chair to the window, lit a thin,
flat cigar made of specially grown Algerian tobacco and sat for a
few minutes contemplating the view.
"A great old dump," he murmured. "We have nothing like it in the States. Palm Beach buzzes a little but this place is an all-the-year-round circus. Jimmy is surprised to find that there's only ten thousand people here, but then they're the right sort, as the shark said when he picked the champion fat man out of the bunch of bathers."
Monsieur Blane after finishing his cigar bathed and descended to the wonderful dining room. He celebrated his arrival at Monte Carlo by lunching luxuriously. He amazed the pompous maître d'hôtel who had made it a life business of patronizing Americans by the knowledge he displayed. He chose after much thought a lobster which he ordered to be served with sauce tartare; a chicken of Bresse—for which Savarin longed during his years of exile—baby peas that had been brought up from the plain of Lombardy that very morning, and a bottle of Bellet, the wine grown at the back of Nice and which has no reputation outside the district. "The devil knew of it without me telling him," said the maître d'hôtel to the head chef. "Be careful what you do. He knows things. He is an American because his passport is American, but I bet he knows many places besides Monte Carlo. I attempted to advise him but he looked at me like a viper looking at a frog and I stopped. Sometimes you meet one of those Americans of his type and they are bad. Yes, they are bad."
The chef did his best and Mr. Blane feeling in good spirits after the meal decided to visit the Casino and pay his respects to the Goddess Chance. Men turned and looked at him as he walked the short distance from the steps of the Hôtel de Paris to the doors of the Casino. A very striking figure was The Texan Wasp. Simpering young women flung bold glances up into his sun-tanned face. He, so it seemed from the glances of those who passed him, represented the queer quality that we call romance. He was tall and strong and handsome, and to strength, good looks and a frank air of deviltry life had added a subtle compound that went out from him. He had seen things, he had met life, he knew queer ports and strange men.
He hummed softly the lines of one of Adam Lindsay Gordon's poems:
"No game was ever yet worth a rap for a rational man to play,
Into which no danger, no mishap, could possibly find a way."
Quite close to the steps of the Casino a wide-eyed, full-lipped woman, showing the faded relics of a beauty that must have been true Arlesian, approached him with a basket of little rosebuds.
"Buy a flower, monsieur?" she murmured.
The Texan Wasp smiled and shook his head.
"Only buy three flowers, monsieur," she whispered. "Three only, monsieur."
The Wasp without showing any excitement halted and went slowly about the work of selecting a bud. "Who sent you?" he asked, after a little interval. He put the question in French.
"I am the wife of Pierre," she answered in the same tongue. "The youth brought your message and my husband sent me to warn you."
"Of what?"
"Of danger! Great danger!"
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane compared two buds with an intentness that would make an observer believe that his happiness lay upon the decision. "And where is the thorn?" he asked softly.
"Here," answered the woman. "Here in the town. It is Number Thirty-seven."
The Texan Wasp, with the manner of a prince, took a rosebud, handed the woman a new and unsoiled five-franc note and passed up the steps into the Casino. The information, seemingly important in the eyes of the giver, made no change in his manner.
He turned to the left, presented his passport and demanded a ticket of admission. They are careful nowadays at Monte Carlo. Years ago a visiting card would admit one to the Shrine of the Spinning Ball but now a passport must be shown before the admission ticket is issued.
The Wasp checked his cane, for the visitor is not allowed to carry a cane into the sacred chamber; the attendant at the door punched the ticket and waved him forward into the throne room of the Goddess Chance. In the mind of The Wasp the words of the flower seller were running round and round the section which scientists call "the central conscious area:" "It is Number Thirty-seven."
Robert Henry Blane was no piker. His was not the manner of a piker. He bought one thousand francs' worth of chips and found himself a seat at the second table to the right.
He staked a hundred-franc chip and lost. He staked five more and failed to pick the numbered receptacle into which the whirling ivory ball would drop. He staked a seventh time on thirteen, which number also held the stack of a player who was betting the limit. The Wasp had not noticed the player but he had noted the fact that some one at the end of the table was playing high.
The pile of chips on thirteen was raked in as the voice of the spinner announced that eighteen was the winner and as the croupier gathered in the spoil Monsieur Robert Henry Blane was made suddenly aware of the identity of the plunger whose stack of chips shared with his own the unlucky thirteen. A queer, explosive yell came from the end of the table and The Wasp on looking up found the round beady eyes of the Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa fixed upon him. A fat be-ringed hand was thrust out as the colored ruler screamed his sorrows to the world.
"He has cursed my luck!" he screamed. "The American pig! I will not play if he remains. He must be put out. I was winning till he came to this table! He has cursed my good luck!"
Those sleek, crafty officials of the Casino who detest disturbances were at the side of the colored man in an instant. A scene of any kind is the last thing desired in the Shrine of the Spinning Ball. They endeavored to soothe the maharaja but the conceited native potentate refused to be soothed. He continued to scream out threats regarding Robert Henry Blane and the only person around the table who seemed utterly indifferent to the threats was Monsieur Blane himself. He sat with a look of boredom upon his handsome face, staking with careless indifference, seemingly deaf to the ravings of the other.
A person of authority came, a fat, pompous person with white pudgy hands, the fingers of which were so round and fat that they looked as if they were newly inflated. He delivered an ultimatum to the Oriental and it had its effect. The maharaja thrust back his chair and waddled out, followed by his attendants.
The Texan Wasp glanced indolently at the man with the fat white hands, then his eyes strayed to a person immediately behind him, a man that The Wasp knew he had never seen before but who was—and this information came to him with uncanny force from some subconscious depth—a factor in his future life.
The gray eyes of the Texan, trained to work at lightning speed, licked up the outstanding characteristics of the other's face and reported them to the nimble brain. They told of cold, merciless eyes that looked like brown-tinted and hard-frozen hailstones. They reported a mouth that was a lipless line with downturned corners. They reported a nose bred of battles, a short, big-nostriled nose that suggested an ability to analyze the air it breathed; a chin that had thrust peace to the winds.
The Wasp, watching the table, staked and thought. He reasoned softly with himself, combating the instinctive dislike of the person who had been attracted to the table by the yells of the Oriental. His manner was cool as he thought over the matters gathered up in the one quick glance.
"It is he," whispered instinct. "Of course it is he!"
"Why?" questioned the logical section of Mr. Blane's brain.
"He looks the thing!" answered instinct. "Didn't the wife of Pierre say that he was here? Well, look at the silly faces of the mob in this room and compare those faces with his. It's he! It's No. 37!"
The gray eyes of The Wasp glanced at the seat vacated by the maharaja. The seat was occupied by the man with the merciless eyes. For a single instant those eyes of the other "hooked" the wandering glance of The Wasp and new details were carried to the brain of the Texan. "He's a little interested in you," they recorded. "He has taken a seat so that he can watch you. He's playing the lowest stake."
The Wasp, emotionless as a machine, played on. He staked as if his whole mind was on the play but as he staked he felt that the gaze of the other was playing over him like an invisible flame. He didn't glance again in the direction of the cold-eyed one but he felt the other's glances upon his face, his hands, his chest. It was a test of endurance under fire. Annoyance and hate, the foolish resenters of suspicion, were promptly throttled by Mr. Robert Henry Blane and with an equanimity that was remarkable he slowly gambled his dwindling pile of chips.
It took an hour of slow play, then he pushed back his chair and without a glance at the other strolled slowly from the room. Curiously he felt that the eyes of the other were licking at his back as he walked away.
The Texan Wasp dined at his hotel and went up to his room when he had finished. He switched off the lights of the splendid chandelier and sat at the window. He watched the Avenue de Monte Carlo, watched it intently. Trams ran from a point directly beneath him at hourly intervals for Beaulieu, Villefranche and Nice. At the moments of their departure there was momentary activity in the avenue but during the intervals it was nearly deserted. An occasional Casino guard came up from the terrace, peered around, then drifted down a path into the shrubbery.
A man walked up from the direction of Monaco and halted on the opposite side of the avenue. He stared up at the darkened window of the room directly over the words "New York" carved on the outer wall. The Wasp became alert. The man on the other side of the avenue lighted a cigar.
The man in the shadows opposite pulled three times fiercely at his cigar so that the red top glowed viciously with each pull. He hid it for an interval within his palm then pulled once. Again it was hidden then sucked at viciously for twelve consecutive times.
The Texan Wasp counted not with figures but with the letters of the alphabet. The first three pulls represented "c," the following pull was "a," the twelve distinct illuminations of the cigar point denoted the letter "l."
The signaling went on. There came another "l," then "i" and "t," then in swift succession "o," and "f," the latter repeated twice.
"Call it off," murmured The Wasp repeating the message. For a moment he remained inactive, then he lit a cigarette and moved it slowly so that it made an interrogation point to the man on the other side of the avenue.
The answer came back swiftly, spelled out by the glowing tip of the cigar. "Me for Paris. Thirty-seven is here."
Far off, in the direction of the Italian border, there came through the still night the whistle of a Paris-bound express leaving the station at Cap Martin-Roquebrune. The man on the avenue heard. He sprang down the steps leading to the terrace and went at headlong speed toward the elevator. There was no doubt about his desire to put his threat into immediate execution.
The Texan Wasp sat for fully ten minutes after the
disappearance of the man that he had chosen as his lieutenant,
then he hurriedly seized a light overcoat and an English
traveling cap and descended to the street. He walked swiftly to
the Palais des Beaux-Arts and sprang into a taxicab.
"To the Riviera Palace Hôtel!" he ordered. "Get a move on! Hurry!"
The cab swung up toward Beausoleil, climbing swiftly. There was a scared sickle moon swinging through a trailing mist.
A hundred yards before they reached the hotel The Wasp tossed his cap from the window of the cab, then immediately signaled the chauffeur. "I dropped my cap," he explained. "Turn back."
The taxi rolled back down the slope, The Wasp scrutinizing the road up which they had come. It was a road that gave little shelter to pursuers and the Texan evidently was satisfied that no follower was upon his trail. He leaped out and recovered the cap, then addressed the chauffeur. "Don't bother to turn round. I'll walk the rest of the way. Here's your fare."
The taxi plunged forward toward the many-lamped town between the hill and the sea and The Wasp after watching its tail light disappear turned to the east and struck up the hill in the direction of the cottage that he had described to the Just-So Kid immediately after his arrival.
The cottage was in darkness. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane knocked softly, then after an interval he made a noise with his finger nails that resembled the scratching of a small dog seeking admittance.
A light appeared within, a wan, yellow light, the door was cautiously opened and a pair of blinking eyes peered out at the visitor.
"It's Blane, Pierre," snapped the caller. "Open up, can't you?"
"I didn't know you," mumbled the other as The Wasp pushed himself into the room. Then with a quick change in his voice the occupant cried: "Why did you come here? What do you want? I sent my wife to warn you!"
The Texan Wasp from his great height looked down at the undersized man in the nightshirt. A pathetic figure was the cottage dweller. A fear-ridden wretch showing by his actions that terror had roweled him over many years.
"Now, now, Pierre, don't get scared about nothing," said The Wasp. "Let's talk."
The nightshirted one, candle in hand, led the way into a back room that was filled with the unholy odor of chemicals. He pointed to a rush-bottomed chair, placed the candle in the broken neck of a bottle, then turned upon Robert Henry Blane.
"You know he is here?" he stammered. "You know and yet you stay?"
"Why shouldn't I stay?" asked the smiling visitor. "I saw him this afternoon and I think he looks a nice, gentle—"
"Gentle!" screamed the other. "He is as gentle as a Gaboon viper! He is a devil! A swine! Gentle? He is the spawn of the devil himself!"
"But he looks so quiet!" teased the Texan.
"Ah, he looks it!" cried the Frenchman. "He is! Yes, he is quiet! He follows like a bloodhound! I know! I know!" He glanced nervously at the door and lowered his voice. "He followed me that time from Paris to Dijon! On my heels! I fled to Toulouse and I watched the railway station night and day from a peephole that I had bored in the shutter of the hotel room—I stayed at the Hôtel Chaubard, in front of the station. He got there two days after me! Yes! By the bones of the blessed St. Amélie he came out of the station with his head in the air sniffing like a dog! Aye, like a hound on the trail of a rabbit!
"I scurried to Marseilles and from Marseilles to Draguignan! I rented a little cabin in the woods at Draguignan. 'Here,' I said to myself, 'that bloodhound will never find you!' Ah, what happened? I took a walk one morning and he stepped from behind a bush! 'Pierre,' he said, 'I think you had better take a trip to Paris with me. The Côte d'Azur is not the place for a weak man in the hot summertime.'"
"It was a bit of bad luck for you," said The Wasp, "but that sea trip to New Caledonia was possibly the making of you. I think you told me that you were in bad health just then and all doctors recommend a little sea trip—"
"A little sea trip?" screamed the man in the nightshirt. "Why—why that hell is twelve thousand miles away! Twelve thousand miles! Think of being that far from Paris! I did not think it possible to get that far from Paris! And that bloodhound sent me there for life!"
The Wasp regarded the little man with the cold eye of a psychologist contemplating the effect of fear. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane was interested and a little amused. So far as he was concerned terror was an unknown sensation.
The little man stepped closer to his visitor and laid a bony hand on his shoulder. "Go away and forget that you have ever seen me!" he said earnestly. "Please! Please go! I would have carried out my part of the contract if the devil had not arrived. I have everything ready as I said I would. But now—no, no! I tell you that I will not! When I think of him I can see the nickel mines, the cowardly warders, the rotten food, everything! Listen! I can see the black fins of the sharks that followed the raft on which Mathieu and I drifted to Australia! Black fins like plow shares! They followed us for days across the hot seas to the Barrier Reef! Go away! Go away!"
The Texan Wasp rose. The little man seized his coat with bony fingers and half dragged him to the outer door. All the horror of the French penal settlement had been unloosed afresh within his mind and he wished to get rid of the tempter. "Go, go!" he cried. "Yes, yes, I know that you are clever and that you are not afraid of man or devil, but I am afraid! He is a wizard and he can read what is in your mind when you are a hundred miles away. How did he know that I was going to Toulouse and from there to Draguignan? How? How? Answer me! I tell you that he knows you are here now!"
The Wasp laughed softly. "Don't get so scared, Pierre," he said softly. "It's all right. Don't worry. If you would just give me what I want—"
"I'll give you nothing!" gasped the other. "Nothing! I am through with the business! Through with it!"
He opened the outer door and half thrust his visitor on to the roadway. The hysteria of fear gave his thin hands strength.
The Texan Wasp walked down the hill toward the town. He
thought over the terror produced in the minds of two of his
friends by the arrival of No. 37 at Monte Carlo. The man who had
signaled him from the avenue was a person of nerve, yet he had
left abruptly; the little man in the cottage was a stuttering
idiot with fear.
"Some terrorist, that chap," murmured The Wasp. "It's a good job that he has no knowledge of my face. He seemed to be interested though. Perhaps it suggested possibilities of wickedness to him."
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane thought over this idea as he tramped along. He told himself that evidently there was a criminal face, and admitting that there was it was quite evident that the warpings and lines that go to make up the criminal physiognomy must start somewhere.
"There may be a master wrinkle from which all the others branch out," murmured The Wasp a little delighted with the thought he had brought forward. "A sort of a key wrinkle. If a clever physiognomist located this he would——"
Monsieur Blane broke off abruptly and with one quick spring took refuge behind a clump of bushes. Some one was coming up the deserted road.
The halting footsteps of the approaching person stirred the suspicion of the Texan. They were tentative, undecided.
The Wasp crouched. He held his breath and waited. It was impossible to see a person at a distance greater than five paces. The scared moon was smothered in white mist.
The pedestrian came closer. The Wasp lowered his head so that the upper part of the unknown would show against the sky. With unblinking eyes he watched. There flashed through his mind the words of the terrified Pierre who had asserted that a certain person could read what was in the mind of another even if that other were a thousand miles away.
The man on the road halted. He turned, head tilted as if sniffing the air. The Wasp bent lower. A semiluminous patch of sky directly behind the man on the road helped him. He recognized him! The pedestrian was No. 37.
The Wasp, crouching behind the bushes, thought that there really was something canine in the actions of the man-hunter. For fully a minute he stood, evidently undecided, then he flung himself swiftly forward like a dog to whose nostrils had come a whiff of the prey.
The Wasp waited. The other breasted the hill. For a hundred yards he went forward swiftly, then the keen ears of Monsieur Blane discovered that he had turned and was descending rapidly.
The Texan thrust his hand into a specially constructed pocket in the left breast of his vest. His muscular fingers touched the butt of a tiny Browning. Questions were clamoring for answers within his brain. What had brought the extraordinary person up the hill? Was he interested in the movements of Monsieur Robert Henry Blane? If so, why?
The extraordinary hunter of criminals whose working alias was known from the "Old Port" of Marseilles to the filthy dens of Limehouse and from the "Thieves' Quarter" of Naples to the water front of Libau went by with his head bowed as if in deep thought. The echo of his shuffling feet on the pounded limestone of the roadway came back to the Texan for some minutes, then silence settled down again upon the slope.
The Wasp rose and looked down at the twinkling lights of the City of Chance. He was a little puzzled. He scaled a fence on the seaward side of the road, struck down the hill till he reached the Boulevard du Midi, then at a languid pace he headed for the grounds of the Casino. He had, with infinite care, dusted his shoes and trousers, leaving not the slightest trace of the limestone dust.
He entered the grounds from the east side and walked slowly around the Casino till he reached the terrace. There he found himself a seat immediately in front of the little bridge that crosses the railway track, the bridge over which the pigeon shooters go to the little elevator that takes them down to the shooting ground beside the sea.
The Wasp considered pigeon shooters as he sat upon the seat. He wondered what were the thoughts of the conceited fools who went across the little bridge. Then, suddenly, the little bridge became of importance! It became part of a network that was forming in his mind. It became very important. It was just a small bridge over the track of the Paris, Lyon et Méditerranée but....
The Just-So Kid interrupted the musings of The Texan Wasp. The Just-So Kid strolled across from the band stand and saluted with proper deference.
"Hello, Jimmy," said The Wasp. "Tomorrow is the night of nights, eh? I hope you're feeling fit?"
"Fit?" growled the little pugilist. "Why, I'm so fit that I can't keep my feet on the gravel. I just want to fly. A feller from the old U. S. saw me go a few rounds yesterday an' he went dippy on me. He's some boy plunger. Bet a French punter ten thousand francs to three thousand that I would put this yap away before the fourth round."
"Who's the plunger?" asked The Wasp.
"Chap from Boston," answered the little pugilist. "He's makin' the arms of those croupier geeks ache rakin' in his money. They're thinkin' o' buildin' bigger tables so as he'll have plenty o' space to stack his chips. His name is Allerton—"
"His name is what?" snapped The Wasp.
"Allerton," answered the Just-So Kid. "George Allerton."
"What is he like?"
"A tall, white-faced chap of about twenty-four. Looks as if the strongest thing he ever matched himself against was a cocktail but he certainly does keep those boys with the coin-rakes busy. He's in there now buckin' the old wheel like as if he was the Rainbow Division hoppin' a dugout. He's—"
"I'll see you again, Jimmy," interrupted The Wasp. "I want to look him over."
The Texan Wasp found the plunger. It was an easy matter. At
two tables in the big room the huddled group of onlookers told
that high play was in progress. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane
strode to the first and found that the person bucking the ivory
ball was his old friend the Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa. He stepped
across to the other table and found that the crowd had gathered
to see the futile efforts of Mr. George Allerton of Boston to
break the bank.
Mr. Allerton had no system. He played wildly and luck had completely deserted him. So much so that The Wasp, studying the faces of the onlookers saw upon them that queer look of terrifying prescience that we sometimes see upon the faces of those who watch, as through a veil, the approach of tragedy. Even the croupiers, those cold-eyed accomplices of the relentless zero, watched the plunger as if they too were startled at the rather sickening manner in which the boot of fate was applied to his fortune.
Again and again Allerton staked and lost. The ivory ball ate up his pile with remarkable gluttony. It chattered a challenge to him as it whizzed around the bowl, seeking, with devilish cunning, a number that the young man had not backed.
"Come on!" chattered the Ivory Ball. "I am easy money! Every one thinks they can beat me, but do they?
"I pay the rates and keep the prince!
I make the boldest plungers wince!
I whirl and spin
In the house of sin,
And the devil looks on with an affable grin
In our shrine at Monte Carlo!"
The Texan Wasp, standing immediately behind the player whose reckless plunging had attracted a crowd, lifted his eyes and looked across the green table. Standing in the second row of the spectators, a seemingly uninterested watcher of Allerton's play, was No. 37.
A spirit of challenge rose in the breast of The Texan Wasp. There came a little flame of resentment against the man-hunter. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane, to whom fear was an unknown quantity, recalled the words of the terrified chemist. "When I think of him," the chemist had said, "I can see the nickel mines, the cowardly warders, the rotten food, everything!"
The Wasp leaned forward and touched the shoulder of the young plunger. The white face of the youth swung round upon him with a suddenness that was proof of disorganized nerves.
The Wasp spoke. "Don't you think you've had enough for one sitting?" he asked quietly.
"What's my business got to do with you?" snapped the plunger.
"Oh, nothing," answered the smiling Mr. Blane. "I just thought that your luck was out and I know how it is when that happens. One gets pigheaded and fights that infernal ball."
The young man regarded the face of The Wasp with eyes that showed evident puzzlement. He looked as if he was trying to pin down some fleeting memory.
"Seems as if I knew you," he stammered. "I don't know where but—but—what's your name anyhow?"
"What does my name matter?" murmured Mr. Blane. "No, you don't know me."
"Seems as if I did."
"No, no."
"Well, what are you buttin' in for?"
"Because you're an American and you're up against a run of bad luck."
The Wasp glanced swiftly across the table as he spoke. No. 37 had thrust himself forward, wedging his body in between two sitting players in an effort to hear the conversation that was taking place between the distinguished-looking Blane and the youthful plunger. And Mr. Blane smiled as he noted the efforts of the person who was taking the rather unusual interest in his actions. It was not the soft, whimsical smile that appeared on his face at the railway station when the Just-So Kid had offered to punch the Orientals; it was a hard smile that seemed to accentuate the whiteness of the scar on the right jaw.
The white-faced plunger was still staring at the face of The Wasp. Suddenly he spoke. "I don't want your advice in any old matter of mine!" he cried. "Mind your own business! Some one sent you, didn't they? Some one sent you!"
"No one sent me," said The Wasp quietly.
"That's a lie!" screamed the other. "Some one sent you to talk stuff to me! Well, clear out! I can manage this little merry-go-round without any advice from you."
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane, showing an utter indifference to the crowd packed around the table, moved slowly away. He passed out of the main room into the vestibule, languidly examined one of the charming landscapes by Jundt, then passed out into the grounds. Mr. Blane was puzzled. He was puzzled about the interest which No. 37 was showing in him. He was perfectly certain that the distinguished and extraordinarily successful detective had never seen him before, yet it was quite evident that Mr. Blane's presence at Monte Carlo interested him.
"Perhaps there is something in that master-crime-wrinkle idea of mine," murmured The Wasp. "Possibly it can be detected in infants in the cradle. It's a great idea. The kids that had it could be specially treated, sort of brought up on special food and all that."
Another matter puzzled The Wasp as he walked slowly round the beautiful grounds. Young Allerton had accused him of being the emissary of some one. He had screamed his belief again and again. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane wondered who young Allerton suspected of having such a great interest in his welfare.
"The darn young fool," growled Mr. Blane. "He'll lose every cent he's got in bucking that marble."
He looked at his watch. It was eleven-ten. The ivory ball and its antagonists had another fifty minutes in which to battle before the tired croupiers called it a day.
The Texan Wasp looked for a vacant seat on the Place du Casino. They were all occupied but he finally found a bench with only one occupant in the rather shadowy part of the Place farthest away from the glare of the electric lights that illuminated the gambling place and the Cafe de Paris. He took the unoccupied end of the bench, merely glancing at the female figure who sat motionless on the seat.
Robert Henry Blane, one time of Houston, Texas, made a quiet review of his position. It did not altogether thrill him. He had arrived at Monte Carlo on a very well-defined mission but matters had taken a strange turn. A confederate that he always had looked upon as a person of great nerve and daring had bolted hurriedly; another very necessary accomplice whose knowledge of chemicals was superior to that of any other man in Europe apparently had become a fear-ridden lunatic. The fleeing confederate might have been dispensed with but the chemist was necessary. Furthermore the author of all the trouble, the man-hunter with eyes like frozen hailstones, was taking more than a proper interest in Monsieur Blane himself.
The Wasp, momentarily forgetful of the other occupant of the bench, leaned back and softly whistled a little tune of his college days. It soothed him and as he whistled he wondered lazily why it had floated into his mind. Possibly the talk with young Allerton had stirred memories of other days. The young man's efforts to remember the name of Mr. Blane had naturally made Blane himself think of the days when he had come in contact with the other.
His musings were suddenly interrupted by the other occupant of the bench. To the ears of The Texan Wasp there floated a halting, whispered query. The voice thrilled him.
"Pardon," murmured the lady in the shadow, "you—you—oh, it is the tune that you are whistling! It is—it is something that I knew in the long ago. It is—it is 'When Betty Goes to Boston,' isn't it?"
By a great effort Robert Henry Blane controlled himself. "It is," he said quietly.
There was a soft silence for more than a minute. The music of the Hungarian band at the Cafe de Paris ceased; a breeze, thuriferous and intoxicating, came up from the age-old Sea of Romance and stirred the palms. It was a wonder night.
The voice of honey came again to the ears of The Wasp. "I thought it was. I knew some one who—who whistled it in—in Boston. It is strange that I should hear it in Monte Carlo. I was so—so startled that I spoke to you. Forgive me."
Robert Henry Blane called upon his self-possession. The sang-froid that had made the inquisitiveness of No. 37 an easy thing to withstand bolted in the presence of the voice. He blessed the shadows thrown by the palms.
"Your voice too," murmured the girl on the bench, "it—it sounds so much like the voice of the young man who used to whistle the tune. So much like it that I thought—I thought...." She paused and Mr. Blane steadied himself and took up the challenge.
"Yes?" he questioned.
"That I—I thought it was he!" whiskered the girl. The words were rushed out softly. To The Wasp they seemed like a little prayer.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"But you—but you might be the same person," persisted the sweet voice. "You might be! His name—his first name was Bob."
Robert Henry Blane had recovered his impassivity. His voice was cold and even as he answered. "My name is not Bob," he said. "If you are in trouble and I could help, won't you forget that it is not Bob and tell me if I can do anything?"
Again came the soft silence. A clock far up the hillside struck the half hour. The Texan Wasp told himself that the black-coated flayers that work for the Goddess Chance had thirty minutes more in which to skin young Allerton.
The girl spoke quietly. "Thank you very much," she said. "It is very kind of you to say that. I—I am in trouble, but—-but it is nothing that you could help me with. If you were—if you were the person I thought you were I would tell you, but now I cannot."
The Texan Wasp, eyes directly to the front, put a question. "Is it some friend that has got caught in the gambling cobweb?" he asked.
"Yes," came the soft answer.
"There is a young American playing heavily," said Mr. Blane. "Is he the person?"
"He has lost much," she answered, evading the direct question as if she thought an answer not necessary. "And—and it is not—not his money."
"Is it much?" asked The Wasp.
"Oh, yes! It is an awful lot."
"Could I ask how much? It is impertinent of me but—but I am an American although I am not—not the Bob you knew."
"It is ninety thousand francs," whispered the girl and her horror at the size of the losses thrust itself in a queer way into her words. "That is," she went on, "if he loses what he has with him to-night. He is my brother, you know."
The Texan Wasp considered the words "you know" for a moment, then he spoke. "I can't tell you how awfully sorry I am," he said softly. "It is dreadful for you."
There was a long interval of silence, then the girl rose. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane, bareheaded, sprang to his feet. The two faced each other, standing some six feet apart. The man, for the first time, looked directly at the girl. She was slight and supple and the queer light that filtered through the trees fell upon a face that was very beautiful.
"Good night," she said softly. "I thank you for your sympathy. Perhaps I was—I was wrong to speak to you, but I thought —I thought that you were the man I knew. And—and I wanted to tell him something."
Robert Henry Blane bowed. The girl turned away, then as if prompted by a sudden afterthought she swung around and spoke hurriedly. "I wanted to tell him that I always believed in him," she said quickly. "You see—you see something happened. He—he was blamed for something some one else did and—and he went away. But I—I always believed in him."
She floated away across the Place and up the Avenue de la Costa leading to the Hermitage Hôtel. A clock boomed twelve. The worship of the Goddess of Chance was over for the day.
The Texan Wasp did not sleep that night. He walked the floor
of his room at the Hôtel de Paris and memory dragged out of the
past a thousand tormenting scenes that ran like hot films before
his eyes. He tried to thrust the pictures back into the cell
where they had been safely imprisoned till the girl had spoken to
him but they defied the old verbal brooms of "I-don't-care" and
"It-can't-be-helped" with which the man tried to sweep them into
the abyss of forgetfulness.
Many of the scenes brought him untold agony. There was a memory picture of a night when he sat with a girl on the stoop of an old house in Beacon Street, Boston; another of a spring day on Lake Kezar in Maine when eyes that held the sweetness of the world were turned sympathetically upon a broad-shouldered college boy who babbled of the things he would do when he went out into the world.
"You might be the governor of the State of Massachusetts or—or of Texas," the girl had murmured.
"I—I might," growled the egotistic young giant. It was dreadful stuff to remember.
Dawn found Robert Henry Blane sitting at the window watching the Sea of Romance turn into a mesh of silver under the rays of the rising sun. On the Avenue du Monte Carlo the Just-So Kid breezed along in a morning walk. The little pugilist lifted a hand in salute to the figure at the window but The Wasp did not see. Those phantoms of "The Man You Might Have Been" were grilling him without a moment's rest.
It was midday when The Texan Wasp left his room. Although he had spent the night without sleep he was alert and keen-eyed. Possibly a bright observer would have detected upon his face a knowledge of what he intended to do and was determined to do.
There was there that "look of shaping plans" of which the Little Corsican spoke.
Mr. Blane met the Just-So Kid immediately in front of the hotel, a very happy Just-So Kid on account of the nearness of the fight.
"To-night's the clambake," cried the little pugilist. "I'm goin' to hop at him like a hobo hoppin' at a pie. Gee, do you get longin's for pie? I wake up o' nights an' think about the pies my mother used to make. To-night I'm goin' to think that geek is a section o' deep dish an' that I'm the same hungry kid as used to work in the mill."
The Texan Wasp smiled. "I hope you will win, Jimmy," he said.
"I'll win if the Casino doesn't fall down an' kill me," growled the Just-So Kid. "An' there doesn't seem to be any chance o' this joint fallin' down. There's too many fools handin' the croupier guys coin to keep it in repair. They tell me that they skinned that Boston plunger who put some coin on me. Well, roun' about nine-thirty to-night he'll collect three thousand francs on my win so he'll have that much to make a new start with."
A taxicab driver looked at The Texan Wasp as if he—the driver—considered The Wasp a person whom Fate had willed to be the perpetual prey of chauffeurs and Mr. Blane accepted the challenge.
"Riviera Palace," he ordered, then to the Just-so Kid he remarked: "I'll be at the ringside to-night, Jimmy. I know you'll win. Think of the U. S. and the pies your mother used to make. Château Thierry was won in the kitchens of New England."
Pierre Chabanier, the little chemist, was startled when he saw
the face of The Texan Wasp. He tried to close the door on the big
American but The Wasp was powerful. He thrust the door open and
the chemist a little terrified of the gray eyes backed away from
him.
"Pierre," said the visitor, "I am not going to ask you for anything; I'm going to take it. There's a taxicab waiting down the road. Get your things together and the chauffeur will drive you and your wife to Monaco where you can catch the four-thirty-three express for Paris. Here's a thousand francs. Now tell me all about the valuable things in your collection and then get. Don't talk about anything else! I won't listen to you."
The chemist protested violently. He would explain nothing and he would not leave. He chattered like a monkey; The Wasp looking at him with cold eyes.
Suddenly the big Texan spoke. "You've got to go," he said. "I am using your cottage for an appointment this evening."
"An appointment? Who with?"
"Our friend."
"What friend?"
The Texan Wasp smiled. "The gentle-man that sent you on the long sea voyage. I sent him a message—"
"You are mad!" screamed the chemist.
"You—you—you—" He turned and made a rush for the door but Monsieur Robert Henry Blane sprang upon him and held him tight.
"Not for a moment, Pierre," he said softly. "I want you to explain a few things to me, then you can beat it. It's better for you to go away. Now come in here and tell me all about this stuff in the back room. Stop protesting or I'll break your neck. You fell down on your contract and you're squealing like a trapped rabbit. Shut up! Explain this stuff and you can go. I'm supplying the funds, you idiot! And No. 37 knows you are here. Yes he does. I found him nosing along the road the other evening."
The lower jaw of the chemist sagged. His little yellow eyes were the thrones of fear. A queer moisture appeared upon his face and he would have fallen if The Wasp had not held him upright.
"Now," said Monsieur Blane, "talk fast. No technical stuff. Just tell me quickly how to do what you agreed to do and funked on. No harm will come to you. Your wife and you will be the other side of Marseilles when I start operations."
The terrified chemist stammered explanations, and The Wasp asked simple questions. "How long before it works? And the radius? I see. No danger of killing any one? Good. It's simple. I'll just need these two things, eh? Now get. The chauffeur has his instructions. I'll see you some day in Paris."
Madame Chabanier had hurriedly gathered together their small effects while the chemist and The Wasp were speaking and now with an old valise in her hand she rushed to the side of her husband. "Come," she cried, "let us go! He fears nothing, but he is mad! They are all mad, these Americans!"
The chemist emitted a queer whimpering cry, gripped his wife's arm, stumbled through the doorway and went at a jog-trot down the road to where the taxicab was waiting. A very terrified man was Pierre Chabanier. Fear brought the smell of New Caledonia to his nostrils.
Monsieur Blane alone in the cottage calmly gathered up the articles whose value and use he had discussed with the chemist, stowed them neatly about his person and slipped out the rear door. He crept along a stone wall that went down the hill toward the town, and turned into a little by-lane where he luckily found a carriage in which he drove to his hotel.
The Texan Wasp spent the afternoon in his room. He locked the
doors and drew the heavy curtains together. Once in the long ago
an inquisitive person had used a trench periscope from the window
of a room directly beneath the apartment occupied by Monsieur
Blane and he had never forgotten the lesson he learned on that
occasion.
He examined the articles that he had brought from the cottage of the chemist, examined them unhurriedly but with a fierce intensity that spoke highly of their value. They were strange little devices, the result of long investigation on the part of a man who was easily the leader in his own particular line. There was a small nickel flask with shoulder straps that would permit of it being worn around the neck of the person needing it. From it came a thin tube with a small, flesh-colored mask that would fit tightly over the nose. It weighed altogether less than half a pound and The Wasp, fingering it, wondered over the ingenuity of the chemist who had made it.
There was also a small brass cylinder upon which was fitted a heavy screw cap. Very heavy was the cylinder if judged by its size. It was but six inches in length and about three inches in circumference, yet it weighed over three pounds. "It's nearly solid," murmured Monsieur Blane. "Whatever is inside it must be powerful indeed."
Five score times during the afternoon did the strong fingers of The Wasp grip the heavy screw cap of the brass cylinder. The thing fascinated him. It had all the strange mystery of the vessel which the fisherman in the "Arabian Nights" fished up in his net from the sea. Monsieur Blane walked around it as it lay upon the table. He stroked it gently. He spoke to it softly.
It came four o'clock. The Wasp with much thought prepared a telegram, then he consulted the time-table of the Paris, Lyon, et Méditerranée. A train for Marseilles and Paris would pass Monte Carlo at six-twenty. He rang for a bell hop and dispatched the telegram. "Our cold-eyed friend should be delighted with my invitation to a talkfest," he soliloquized. "Another little walk up the hill to Pierre's cottage will take the conceit out of him."
He overhauled his valise; a wonderfully fitted up valise that had been specially made for him. Mr. Blane examined it with regret. He liked nice things. He went over every article it contained, tearing off names and the addresses of the makers. These he burned.
At five-thirty he descended to the office. He asked for his account and paid it in new hundred-franc bills.
"Will I get your luggage clown, sir?" asked the assistant manager.
"Not yet," answered The Wasp. "I am going to have a final flirtation with the Goddess Chance. That is why I am paying you now."
The assistant manager grinned. He knew the results of many flirtations between his guests and the goddess of the Casino.
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane walked quietly across the Place du Casino. The big electric arcs illuminated the gardens and the front of the Casino so that all the fairy beauty of the Shrine of Chance was evident. The seats were filled with loungers; a constant stream passed through the big doors: picturesque guards strolled up and down. A warm wind from Africa played writh the exotic trees that the kind Société Anonyme des Bains de Mer which controls the Casino had gathered from the ends of the earth to make the place delightful to those simple devotees who come to challenge the wheel.
The Texan Wasp entered the Casino and passed into the gaming room where feverish gamblers sat with hunched shoulders and battled gamely with the torture wheel.
The Texan Wasp walked from table to table. Now and then he glanced at his watch. He had a schedule that had to be followed carefully. A queer schedule. He tried to keep his mind fixed upon it but at times there slipped into the fabric of definite plans the thought of a girl with a voice of honeyed sweetness who had asked about a song. The words of the song itself slipped up out of the past and filled the ears of Monsieur Blane, making him momentarily deaf to the monotonous announcements of the spinner. A queer little song:
For every boy is filled with joy,
And every heart's a lost one;
And Boylston Street is paradise
When Betty goes to Boston.
"Why—why," murmured The Wasp, "I—I wrote that song. I had forgotten. That's curious."
At the second table The Wasp found the Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa. A very excited maharaja at the moment. He was winning heavily and a brace of attendants were busy gathering up the piles of chips which came to their master.
Monsieur Blane looked for Allerton but the young American was absent. The rakes of the croupiers evidently had dragged the last franc from his pockets. But there was no lack of antagonists for the ivory ball. They fought for places at the green-covered tables.
The Texan Wasp made the round of the tables and again consulted his watch. There were five minutes to spare between the hour and the moment that the schedule went into operation. He decided that he would sit down on one of the big leather lounges built close to the walls of the gaming room and on which plungers can total up their losses or winnings in quiet comfort. Very soft and beautiful are the lounges. They soothe the loser and thrill the winner.
A minute passed. Monsieur Robert Henry Blane fingered the little brass cylinder in his coat pocket.
Two minutes passed. Three.
Monsieur Blane, perfectly calm, slipped his right hand beneath his vest and felt the nickel flask. Again he looked at his watch. It was within a minute of the moment when the schedule went into effect. Curiously, although his mind was fixed upon the task in front of him, the ridiculous little tune would persist. He rose from his seat with the words "And Boylston Street is paradise" ringing softly in his ears.
The Texan Wasp took a step forward, turned with lightning suddenness and dropped back into his seat. The watchful gray eyes had made a discovery. The Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa had left the table and, accompanied by his two attendants, was waddling toward an angle of the lounge quite close to where The Wasp was sitting!
The angle of the lounge hid Monsieur Blane when he dropped back on the cushions. He heard the contented grunt of the fat potentate as the maharaja dropped upon the broad cushions. He heard the sharp orders in Hindustani addressed to the two secretaries.
Around the angle there came to the ears of The Wasp a thrilling murmur. The maharaja was counting his winnings! The two attendants had cashed the chips and the colored ruler was enjoying the luxury of tallying his thousand-franc bills.
Monsieur Blane slid softly along the seat. The floor was thinned. Sensational play was in progress at the nearest table and the loungers moved upon the spot.
From around the corner of the lounge came the fat throaty whisper of the counting maharaja.
"Sixty thousand; sixty-five; seventy!"
Closer, still closer to the angle slid The Wasp. Thrilling were the words that came to his ears. He hurriedly calculated the distance between himself and the maharaja.
The colored potentate had made a great killing. "Eighty thousand," he grunted. "Eighty-five; ninety; a hundred thousand!"
Monsieur Blane had a desire to whistle. The maharaja had beat the ivory ball out of a hundred thousand francs!
The strong fingers of The Texan Wasp's right hand slipped into the pocket that carried the brass cylinder. They unscrewed the top and, at the same moment Monsieur Blane, leaning forward to avoid observation, slipped over his own nose the small rubber mask connected with the nickel flask strapped beneath his vest.
A cry went up from the nearest table. A bigger plunger than the maharaja had cornered the attention of the onlookers. The strollers converged upon the point. The Wasp blessed the unknown whose play was the magnet for the unoccupied.
"Hundred and four thousand," chanted the maharaja. "Hundred and seven, eight, nine." The Wasp thrust the open mouth of the brass cylinder toward the angle of the lounge. There was excitement at the nearest table. The new plunger had cornered the attention of all. None noticed the actions of Monsieur Blane.
Suddenly the voice of the maharaja weakened. It became a sleepy whisper. It died away into a murmur that was barely discernible. He had counted to one hundred and eleven thousand francs.
The Wasp screwed the top upon the brass cylinder and slipped the rubber mask from his nose. Cautiously he thrust his head around the angle of the lounge. The Maharaja of Behan-Gudsa and his two attendants were fast asleep!
The right hand of Monsieur Blane was thrust forward and an enormous wallet that was slipping softly from the fat knees of the sleeping ruler was transferred swiftly into the pocket of the Texan.
Monsieur Robert Henry Blane rose. The door of the gambling
room was thirty feet away. He lounged carelessly toward it. He
had thrown his schedule to the wind because the unexpected had
occurred. Now he had to substitute a new plan.
Monsieur Blane glanced at the table where the new plunger was proving a lode-stone for the watchers, then he turned his gaze ahead. Coming toward him from the entrance to the gaming room was No. 37.
The mind of the Texan was an alert piece of mechanism. It acted with a suddenness that surprised the cold-eyed man-hunter. He, the man-hunter, bargained on The Wasp making straight for the door; The Wasp had different views. He swung to the left; hurled himself through a small waiting room and sprang through the window, clutching the leaden spout as he disappeared!
No. 37 showed a speed that was remarkable. As The Wasp touched the earth of the terrace on the seaward side of the Casino he glanced upward. The feet of the man-hunter were swinging in the air above his head.
The alarm had been sounded. Into the quiet of the evening there went up the yells of officials, the screams of women; somewhere in the distance a gong clanged loudly. The Shrine of the Goddess Chance had been violated!
The brain of The Texan Wasp concentrated on the situation. It was a cool, logical brain and it reasoned coldly in spite of the commotion. "The bridge!" it cried. "The bridge! If the express is swinging through you have a chance!"
From somewhere close came the long, drawn-out whistle of a speeding express. It cut through the yells and screams as if it wished to call the attention of Monsieur Blane to its nearness. He hurled himself across the terrace. "Quick!" screamed the alert brain. "The bridge! The bridge! Faster! Faster!"
The terrace was in commotion. Figures, strangely cubistic in the light, converged upon the path of The Texan Wasp. A shot answered the scream of the locomotive and a leaden hornet buzzed by the head of the flying Texan. The gong clanged louder.
It was a matter of forty yards to the bridge—the little bridge over which the pigeon shooters go to shoot the birds that, unloosed in the face of the big sea, turn back on the guns that butcher them. The arc lights lit a pillow of smoke that surged up out of the cutting. Again came the scream of the locomotive. The Texan Wasp hurled himself toward the bridge.
Curiously in those last few yards his mind registered a little happening. A man had run toward him but had made no attempt to stop him. He had stood as if astonished by the flight of Monsieur Blane and his action produced a strange climax. As The Wasp hurled himself over the rail of the bridge he looked back. The man who had run toward him and stopped had got himself directly in the path of the nearest pursuer. They collided as the fugitive dropped upon the rolling, lurching wagon of the thundering express!
The wagon tore itself from beneath Monsieur Blane as he fell upon it. Like a bobcat on a galloping deer he clawed for something to grip. He was swept backward nearly the full length of the car, hurled side-wise till his legs protruded over the edge, then just when hope seemed lost his strong hands gripped the cap of a lamp and limpet-like he drove off into the night in the direction of Monaco.
On the afternoon following the escape of The Texan Wasp, Miss
Betty Allerton, sitting alone in her room at the Hôtel Hermitage,
received a visitor. A rather strange visitor. He was a supple
young man of about eighteen and he appeared before her with a
much bandaged head. He had refused to state his business to the
hotel attendants and when he walked into the sitting room of the
girl she looked at him in amazement.
"I'm afraid I don't know you," murmured the girl. "What is it that you wish to see me about?"
The young man waved a threatening cap at the sleek black-coated attendant who had shown him in. "Beat it, bo," he said quietly. "The tale isn't for you."
The servant disappeared and the young man spoke. "I guess you don't know me," he began. "Your brother might, but you don't. I'm an American scrapper called the Just-So Kid an' some one—"
Miss Betty Allerton gave a little gasp of astonishment. The Just-So Kid paused and looked at her inquiringly.
"I bet your brother went an' told you that I throwed him down last night," he continued after a slight pause. "I didn't throw him down but I don't blame him for thinkin' I did. You see it was like this. Some one—some one I know an' who's been a good friend to me was in a hurry to catch a train an' some one else didn't want him to catch it. Sabe? Well, quite accidentally I stood in the track of the chap that didn't want my friend to catch the train. Unnerstan'?
"That feller was runnin' faster than a bootleggin' airplane. He hit me like a heavyweight rhinoceros an' when I come to my full senses the people was comin' away from that fight because I wasn't there. Guess you've read about it in the papers? 'Bout the hurry o' my friend, I mean? They wired to the next station to tell him some-thin' but he had stepped off in between. Anyhow that's why I wasn't at the fight. After I came out o' the trance the geek who ran into me had the cold nerve to ask me if I stepped in front o' him on purpose. What d'ye think of that for iced front?"
Miss Betty Allerton did not answer. Her wonderful eyes were fixed upon the prize fighter.
"It wasn't to tell you all that stuff that I came here," went on the Just-So Kid. "This friend o' mine sent me to-day a package an' told me to give it to you. He said I was to give it to you with my own hands 'cause he thinks the same as me that a lot o' these hotel geeks have treacle flips. Well, here it is."
He stepped forward and handed the girl a large square envelope. She took it with trembling fingers and with the eyes of the Just-So Kid upon her she tore it open. Her big eyes were ashine with emotion as she shook the envelope. From it there fell a shower of thousand-franc bills, the large, beautifully printed bills of the Banque de France! They fell into her lap, fivescore of them, and she forgot the little pugilist as she sat staring at them. She was murmuring softly—the youth thought it was a prayer.
The Just-So Kid backed quietly toward the door. He opened it softly, stepped into the passage, closed the door with the same care and tiptoed gently away.
Halfway to the stairs he had an encounter. A white-faced young man going in the opposite direction stopped with a little snarl and with uplifted finger began to stammer violently regarding cowardice and the general fate of traitors.
The Just-So Kid thrust out a strong right hand and gripped the long white finger raised in admonition. He bent it backward till its owner howled with pain.
"Lissen a me, bo," hissed the pugilist. "I didn't throw you down but I'm not goin' to tell you what stopped me. But I'll tell you this! If I catch you goin' into that Casino to tire the arms o' these croupier geeks I'm goin' to give you what I didn' hand out to the champeen o' the Alpes-Maritimes. Do you get me? I've got my order from a prince who passed me some coin when I was thinkin' o' becomin' a boxin' instructor to the angels, so watch your step, sonny. Watch your step!"
The Just-So Kid thrust Mr. Allerton from him and walked proudly down the stairs. He was covered with bruises and he had lost the opportunity to win a title but he was very happy.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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