Prince Fortunatus Part 54

As they sat at supper, with this big bottle before them, Lionel said,

"It will be a bad thing for me if young Miles doesn't show up to-night."

"I should have thought it would have been an excellent thing for you if Miles had never entered this club," his companion observed.

"That's true," said Lionel, rather gloomily. "But my only chance now is to get some of my property back, and I can only get it back from him.

You fellows are no use to me--not if I were winning all along the line."

"Look here, Moore," said the young man, in a more serious tone, "you may say it's none of my business; but the way you and that fellow Miles have been going on is perfectly awful. If the committee should hear about it, there will be a row, and no mistake!"

"My dear boy," Lionel protested, as he pushed the unnecessary bottle to his neighbor, "the committee have nothing to do with understandings that are settled outside the club. You don't see Miles or me handing checks for 200 or 300 across the table. How can the committee expel you for holding up three fingers or nodding your head?"

"Well, then, you'll excuse me saying it, but he's a young a.s.s, to gamble in that fashion," Johnny remarked, bluntly. "What fun does he get out of it? And it's quite a new thing with him--that's the odd business. I know a man who was at Merton with him; and certainly Miles got into a devil of a sc.r.a.pe--which cut short his career there; but it had nothing to do with gambling. He never was that way inclined at all; it's a new development, since he joined this club. Well, I suppose he can do what he likes. The heir to a baronetcy and such a place as Petmansworth can get just as much as he wants from the Jews."

"My good man, he doesn't need to go to the Jews," said Lionel, with grim irony.

"Where does he get all that money from? Do you think his father is fool enough to encourage him in such extravagance? I should hope not! At the same time I wish I had a father tarred with something of that same brush."

"Where does he get all the money from? So far he has got it from me,"

Lionel said, with a bit of a shrug. "He doesn't need to go to his father, or to the Jews either, when he can plunder me. And such a run of luck as he has had is simply astounding--"

"It isn't luck at all," the other interrupted. "It's your play. You play too bold a game--too bold when you know he is going to play a bolder.

Twice running he caught you last night bluffing on no hand at all; and I don't know what fabulous stakes were up--with your nods and signs. It's no use your trying to bluff that fellow. He won't be bluffed."

"The thing is as broad as it's long, man," Lionel said, impatiently. "If he is determined to see me every time, he must be caught when I have a good hand--it stands to reason. The only thing is that my luck has been so confoundedly bad of late."

"Yes; and when the luck's against you, you go betting on no hands at all--with Miles waiting for you!" his companion exclaimed. "All right; every man must play the game his own way. You don't seem to have found it profitable so far."

"Profitable!" Lionel said, with a dark look in his eyes. "I can tell you I am in a tight corner, and I reckoned on to-night to settle it one way or the other--not with you fellows, I can't get anything worth while out of you, but with Miles. And now he's gone away home with--"

He stopped in time; ladies' names are not mentioned in clubs--at least, not in such clubs as the Garden.

"The odd thing is," continued Johnny, as he lit a cigarette, and definitely refused to have any more of the wine, "the extremely odd thing is that he doesn't seem to care to win from the rest of us. He lets us share our modest little pots as if they weren't worth looking at. It's you he goes for, invariably."

"And he's gone for me to some purpose," Lionel said, morosely. "I'm just about broke--broke five or six times over, if it comes to that--and by that pennyworth of yellow ribbon!"

"You needn't call him names," said Johnny, as he lay back in his chair.

"Upon my soul I think Miles is somebody in disguise--a priest--an Inquisitor--somebody with a mission--to punish the sin of gambling. What does he care about the game? Nothing--I'll swear it! He's only watching for you. He's an avenger. He has been sent by some superior power--"

"Then it must have been by the devil," said Lionel, with a sombre expression, "for he has got the devil's own luck at his back. Wait till I get four of a kind when he is betting on a full hand--and then you'll see his corpse laid out!" This was all he could say just then; for here was the young man himself, who must have come back from the Edgeware Road in a remarkably swift hansom.

Almost directly there was an adjournment to the card-room; and the players took their places.

"I propose we have in the joker,"[2] Lionel called aloud, as the cards were dealt for deal.

[Footnote 2: The joker is a fifty-third card, of any kind of device, which is added to the pack; the player to whom it is dealt can make it any card he chooses. For example, if the other four cards he holds are two queens and two sevens, he can make the joker card a third queen, and thus secure for himself a full hand.]

"I don't see the fun of it," objected the young man who had been Lionel's companion at the supper-table. "You never know where you are when the joker is in. What do you say, Miles?"

"Oh, have it in by all means," Percival Miles said, with his eyes fixed on the table.

And perhaps it was that Lionel was anxious and nervous (for much depended on the results of this night's play), but he seemed to feel that the pale young man who sat opposite him appeared to be even more cold and implacable in manner than was usual with him. He began to have superst.i.tious fears--like most gamblers. That was an uncanny suggestion his recent companion had put into his head--that here was an avenger--a deputed instrument--an agent to inflict an awarded punishment. At the same time he tried to laugh at the notion. Punishment--from this stripling of a boy! It was a ludicrous idea, to be sure. When Lionel had in former days accepted his challenge to fight, it was with some kind of impatient resolve to teach him a wholesome lesson and brush him aside.

And he had regarded his running after Miss Burgoyne with a sort of good-natured toleration and contempt; there were always those young fools in the wake of actresses. But that he, Lionel, should be afraid of this young idiot? What was there to be afraid of? He was no swashbuckler--this pallid youth with the thin lips, who concentrated all his attention on the cards, and had no word or jest for his neighbors.

How could there be anything baleful in the expression of eyes that were curiously expressionless? It was a pretty face (Lionel had at one time thought), but now it seemed capable of a good deal of relentless determination. Lionel had heard of people shivering when brought into contact with the repellent atmosphere that appeared to surround a particular person; but what was there deadly about this young man?

The game at first was not very exciting, though now and again the joker played a merry trick, appearing in some unexpected place, and laying many a good hand low. Indeed, it almost seemed as if Lionel had resolved to recoup himself by steady play; and so far there had been no duel between him and young Miles. That was not distant, however. On this occasion Lionel, who was seated on the left of the dealer--in other words, he being age--when the cards were dealt found himself with two pairs in his hand, aces and queens. It was a pretty show. When the time came for him to declare his intention, he said,

"Well, I'm just going to make this another ten shillings to come in."

That frightened no one; they all came in; what caused them to halt and reflect was that, on Lionel being subsequently asked how many cards he wished to have, he said,

"None, thank you."

Not a syllable was uttered; there were surmises too occult for words.

The player on Lionel's left bet an humble two shillings. The next player simply came in. So did the third--who was Mr. Percival Miles. Likewise the dealer; in fact, they were all prepared to pay that modest sum to inspect the age's hand. But Lionel wanted a higher price for that privilege.

"I'm coming in with the little two shillings," said he, "and I will raise you a sovereign."

That promptly sent out the player on his left; his neighbor also retired. Not so the pallid young man with the thin lips.

"And one better," he said, depositing another sovereign.

The dealer incontinently fled. There only remained Lionel and his enemy; and the position of affairs was this--that while Lionel had taken no additional cards, and was presumably in possession of a straight or a flush (unless he was bluffing), Miles had taken one card, and most likely had got two pairs (unless he was finessing). Two pairs against two pairs, then? But Lionel had aces and queens.

"And five better," Lionel said, watching his enemy.

"And five better," said the younger man, stolidly.

And now the onlookers altered their surmises. No one but a lunatic would challenge a player who had declined to take supplementary cards unless he himself had an exceptionally strong hand, or unless he was morally certain that his opponent was bluffing. Had Miles "filled," then, with his one card; and was a straight being played against a straight, or a flush against a flush? Or had the stolid young man started with fours?

The subdued excitement with which this duel was now being regarded was enthralling; they forgot to protest against the wild raising of the bets; and when Lionel and his implacable foe, having exhausted all their money, had recourse of nods--merely marking their indebtedness to the pool on a bit of paper lying beside them--the others could only guess at the amount that was being played for. It was Lionel who gave in; clearly that insatiate bloodsucker was not to be shaken off.

"I call you."

"Three nines," was the answer, and Miles laid down on the table a pair of nines and the joker. The other two were worthless; clearly, he had taken the one card as a blind.

"That is good enough--take away the money," Lionel said, calmly; and the younger man, with quite as expressionless a face, raked over the pile of gold, bank-notes, and counters.

There was a general sense of relief; that strain had been too intense.

"Very magnificent, you know," said the player who was next to Lionel, as he placed his ante on the table, "but it isn't poker. I think if you fix a limit you should stick to it. Have your private bets if you like; but let us have a limit that allows everybody to see the fun."

"Oh, certainly, I agree to that," Lionel said, at once. "We will keep to the sovereign limit; and Mr. Miles and I will understand well enough what we are betting when we happen to play against each other."

Thereafter the game went more quietly, though Lionel was clearly playing with absolute carelessness; no doubt his companions understood that he could not hope to retrieve his losses in this moderate play. He seemed tired, too, and dispirited; frequently he threw up his cards without drawing--which was unusual with him.

"Have a drink, old man, to wake you up?" his neighbor said to him, about half-past two.