The compliment delighted him. "Monsieur," he cried, "I am fortunate to have encountered you. I desire to know you better. Permit me! I call myself--Bertrand Du Gazet. I am a native of Paris, but I have spent half my life in America, where I acquired a certain fortune. I have but just returned to France, to find my relatives and old friends dead and widely scattered, and myself utterly forgotten. It is a sad home-coming."
"Truly," I said politely. "My name, monsieur, is Henri Belloc, and, strange to say, I too have long been a stranger to my country. This very day I have come back to Paris after an absence of many years. And, like you, I have none to welcome me."
"We are then comrades in misfortune," he declared, beaming upon me the while. "I drink, monsieur, to our better acquaintance."
"And I," said I, raising my _pet.i.t verre_ to my lips. "I drink to its speedy ripening into friendship."
He put one hand upon his heart and extended to me the other, which I warmly pressed.
"I am a bachelor," he observed.
"I, too, monsieur."
"Of all the things in this world, I like the gaming table," said he.
"The dice are fine thought killers, monsieur."
"I loved once a beautiful woman, and she betrayed me."
"It is a habit of the accursed s.e.x, from which I also have suffered."
"Monsieur!" he cried, "I perceive well that we are destined to be friends. We have not only a similarity of thought and sentiment, but also of experience."
"Garcon," I shouted, "a bottle of champagne and two gla.s.ses."
The wine was brought and we pledged each other with effusion.
"I made my fortune out of oil," said Du Gazet.
"I made mine upon the Stock Exchange," said I.
"Mine is so great that I could not spend it in ten years, though I lost a thousand francs a night."
"Mine is even more considerable, M. Du Gazet."
He nodded and gave me a beaming smile. "Have you any plans for the evening, M. Belloc?"
"None," I replied.
"Then allow me to be your mentor. I know a place not far from here where one may woo the G.o.ddess Fortune to be kind. It is true that last night I lost five thousand francs by hazard of the wheel, but I would like well to recoup myself, and shall do so, as you shall see--if you will be so good as to come with me."
"With pleasure," I cried, and sprang to my feet.
I suspected by then that my new friend was nothing more or less than the tout of some gaming house. But I was reckless, and the companionship of any rascal seemed preferable to being left alone. A moment later we were strolling arm in arm down the Rue St. Germain L"Auxerrois. Chatting amiably together, we came, at the end of some few minutes, to the Rue St. Denis, up which we turned. Shortly after pa.s.sing the Rue Mauconseil, we entered a narrow unnamed side-street, which was nevertheless flanked with respectable-looking houses of antique but substantial architecture. Before the door of one of these M. Du Gazet stopped, and giving me a meaning glance, he proceeded to scratch upon the panels with his ring. The signal was immediately responded to. The door opened a few inches, and a voice from the interior darkness demanded our business.
"Montereau," replied my guide.
"Enter!" cried the voice, and the door swung wide.
M. Du Gazet took my arm and conducted me in silence down a dark, thickly carpeted hall. We had barely half traversed it, however, when the door keeper suddenly turned on an electric lamp, and I perceived before us a wide staircase, supported on double rows of marble columns, that led to the floor above.
"Good!" exclaimed my mentor. "I detest gloom. Come, my friend."
Nothing loth, I followed him up the stairs, and a moment later we reached a landing-stage that was filled with huge palms growing in tubs of earthenware. A liveried attendant guarded a closed door that was half screened with fronds.
He looked at us inquiringly, but M. du Gazet muttered some pa.s.s-word in his ear, and he ushered us forthwith into an immense brilliantly illuminated apartment, which was spa.r.s.ely thronged with well-dressed men and women, and furnished in imitation of the Casino at Monaco.
One table was devoted to roulette, a second to rouge et noir, and a third to baccarat. All were occupied, but, because perhaps of the earliness of the hour, there were not many onlookers. M. du Gazet led me to the second named, and after watching the game for about a quarter hour, we were both able to secure chairs at the board, owing to the evil fortune of the individuals we displaced. Like most other votaries of chance, I had and have a method. It is simple if unscientific, and it consists in backing each colour alternately seven times in succession. I at first contented myself with small stakes, being anxious to watch my mentor. M. du Gazet, however, much to my surprise, for I still believed him to be a tout, began to gamble in earnest from the moment he sat down, and each time he staked five hundred francs.
"Truly," thought I, "if he is a tout, he must have an interest in the bank, or he would not be trusted with so much money."
After I had seen him lose four thousand francs, I ceased to doubt his honesty, for his appearance was transformed. The born gambler"s spirit gleamed out of his eyes. His face had a.s.sumed a warm fixed flush, and he was absorbed in his game to the absolute oblivion of every other circ.u.mstance. I spoke to him in order to make sure, but he cursed me in an undertone without turning his head. He had in fact forgotten my existence.
Feeling more at ease, I immediately increased my stakes, betting on the red. Luck favoured me, and I won steadily; on the red five times out of seven, on the black almost without a break. At the end of an hour, so large a heap of gold and notes had acc.u.mulated on the table before me, that it interfered with my elbow room, and I was obliged to stand up in order to make my game. The room had by then become filled with people, and an interested crowd had a.s.sembled to watch me play. Success had made me excited, and given me a measure of the gambling fever. I increased my stakes to the limit and won again and again. The exclamations of the onlookers became each moment more loud and unrestrained, so that the croupier"s directions could only be heard at intervals: "Faites vos jeux, Messieurs et Mesdames. Faites vos jeux!
Rouge perd. Noir gagne! Faites vos jeux!"
I was in the act of stretching out my hand to place a large sum upon the black for the seventh time in succession, when some inexplicable instinctive feeling compelled me to look up from the board and into the face of a new-comer who stood watching the game from behind the chair of my immediate _vis-a-vis_. The man was a negro. With a queer thrill of apprehension I looked at him more closely, and then for a second I was almost stunned with surprise. He was Jussieu, the infernal canting negro surgeon, who at the instance of his master, Sir Charles Venner, had inflicted upon my bound and defenceless body tortures which made me shudder to remember, and who on his own account had dared to lecture and insult me. Before I could collect my scattered wits our eyes met, and the recognition became mutual. The villain started back a pace and glared at me, his eyes rolling in his head. He was attired in a fashionably cut evening suit, in which he tried to ape the gentleman, but his immaculate linen threw out his broad black face and hands into bold and hideous relief, and he looked like nothing but a monster. For a moment I shook with rage, and a murderous impulse almost overwhelmed me. Then came a wiser thought, and I grew calm. I said to myself: "Since the jackal is here, the lion cannot be far away. I shall make this scoundrel lead me to his master"s lair!"
Holding him with my eyes, I fumbled with my hands upon the table, and began to stuff my winnings into my pockets. The crowd exclaimed in astonishment, but I paid them no heed. Before, however, I was half through with my business, Jussieu tore his eyes from mine and hurried towards the door. I sent my chair crashing behind me with a backward kick and seized Du Gazet by the shoulder.
"Look after my money!" I cried. "I shall see you later at the hotel."
Without awaiting a response, I broke through the crowd and darted after Jussieu. He had already pa.s.sed the door, but I caught up with him half way down the stairs, and, seizing him by the shoulder, obliged him to pause.
"What, Monsieur Jussieu!" I snarled, "would you run away from an old friend? That is not kind in you."
"You mistake, m"sieur!" he cried. "That is not my name."
"Perhaps not," I muttered. "It will, however, serve my turn. Come, monsieur!" I slipped my arm through his and urged him down the stairs.
Although a larger man than me, he yielded like a coward to my imperious demand, protesting volubly the while, however, that I had made a great mistake, that his name was Grenier, and that he had never set eyes on me.
He was still protesting when we reached the street. But as soon as the door of the gambling house had closed behind us I cut him short.
"Look you, Jussieu!" I growled, "I have in my pocket a revolver that is loaded in every chamber. Take me at once to your master, Sir Charles Venner, or, by the Lord, I shall put a bullet through your head!"
"Monsieur," he began, "I a.s.sure you----"
"Silence!" I interrupted. "Another word and you are a dead man!"
A hasty glance had shown me that the street was deserted. I produced my pistol, therefore, as I spoke and presented it to his breast.
The negro started back, rolling his eyes like a maniac, but he spoke no word. He was shivering with fear. I smiled and returned the weapon to my pocket. Thereupon I gripped his arm and muttered in his ear: "Proceed!"
Uttering a sort of groan, he set off slowly for the Rue Saint Denis.
"Quicker!" I commanded. He increased his pace. We turned the corner, and a smart walk brought us quickly to the Rue D"Enghien. Turning into that street the negro stopped presently before the door of a large three-storied house, whose every window was closely shuttered.
"We have arrived, monsieur," he muttered in a hollow voice.