The Guests Of Hercules Part 47

n.o.body trusts anybody else at Monte Carlo. The tradespeople are after us like wolves. They've taken everything we had worth taking, except the clothes on our backs. Now do you wonder I want him to get what he can out of the Casino? We must be off somewhere, to-night, before these brutes of tradesmen know we're away from the villa for good. They've probably nosed out something by this time."

"Come along, Miss Grant, if you're really willing to see me through this," Dauntrey said, clinging to those bare rocks of conventionality which still rose above the waters of despair.

"Unless," Eve broke in quickly, "you'd rather lend us enough to get us out of the whole sc.r.a.pe? Some day----"

"Oh, cut that, Eve," her husband interposed. "I wouldn't take any more of Miss Grant's money even if she'd give it, for it would be giving, not lending."

"That depends on you. If you're so mean-spirited that you can't earn our living, I suppose we'll have to beg the rest of our lives, unless I go on the stage or something," said Eve. "You always do your best to crush every idea of mine."

"Just now I can't lay my hands on any money," Mary explained gently, anxious to keep the peace. "I was on my way----" She was about to mention the jewellery she wished to sell, but Eve, too impatient to hear the excuses she expected, cut her short.

"Oh, well, the next best thing is to help Dauntrey squeeze as much as he can out of the Casino. Use your influence. I know he won't speak up for himself. He's an English peer, when all's said and done! It would make a big scandal if he committed suicide because he'd lost everything in their beastly place. The papers all over the world would be full of it.

The Casino wouldn't like that much. You can point it out."

Mary shivered and felt sick. She heard Lord Dauntrey mutter something under his breath, and saw him turn away. It was indescribably repulsive that his wife should speak in his presence of his possible suicide. The girl felt a sudden horror of Lady Dauntrey, yet she did not cease to pity her; and she was infinitely sorry for the cowed and wretched man whom she had always liked.

They started together for the Casino, Mary not yet understanding precisely what was to be done, but willing to give her services. For the moment her own troubles seemed small and easy to overcome, compared with the shipwreck of this miserable pair who had called themselves her friends.

x.x.xIV

Dauntrey walked with his head down, his hat pulled over his eyes and his hands in his pockets. Mary noticed that, though the wind was the coldest she had known at Monte Carlo, he wore no overcoat. She wondered if even that had been taken from him by the people to whom he owed money. Once he looked back lingeringly. "Eve must have gone to sit down," he said; and then, in shamed apology, "the poor girl is almost mad, and so am I.

You mustn't think too much of what pa.s.sed between us. We--we love each other, and come what may I believe we always will."

"I'm certain of that," Mary answered, in a warm voice which came from her heart.

They had walked on for a moment or two in silence, when Dauntrey asked abruptly: "Do you know what you're letting yourself in for?"

"Not quite," Mary admitted. "But whatever it is, I don't think I shall much mind if I can help you."

"I believe you really can help," he a.s.sured her. "I'm going to apply for what's called the _viatique_. It's a sum of money the Casino people grant to--to us broken gamblers, if we can prove that we've lost a lot.

It's a way of getting rid of us, without too much trouble to themselves or--as my wife said--danger of scandal. They'll give a ticket second cla.s.s, to take you home if you're dead broke, even if your home's as far off as Bombay, and enough money to pay for your food on the journey.

It's very decent of them--generous, considering they don't ask you to come here and gamble, and that they always play fair. But a railway ticket and a few louis in my pocket are no good in my case. I've Eve to think of--and some sort of a future, G.o.d help me! She hopes because I happen to have a t.i.tle which used to be of some importance I may bluff them into giving me a good lump sum. I'm afraid there isn't much in that. n.o.body ever heard of their offering more than two thousand francs, so far as I know, and that was exceptional, a cla.s.sic sort of case. But it may be they'll be influenced by you. Every one knows you're going to marry the Duke di Rienzi's son. And you've been rather a famous gambler.

You're of some importance. Heaven knows I'm not! If I get something worth what I have to go through, you'll be the one to thank--to say nothing of the moral support. I've gone to pieces so the last few days, I doubt if I could have faced this alone."

They came to the Casino, and Mary was challenged by one of the doorkeepers because of her bag. He reminded her politely that no one was allowed to go in with a parcel of any description. "Ever since a lady tried to blow us all up with a bomb in a paper package," he added, smiling.

"I'll leave my bag in the _vestiaire_," Mary promised; and being well known she was allowed to pa.s.s.

The attendant in whose care she indifferently placed the locked jewel-case had no idea that he guarded valuables worth two thousand pounds or more. The hand-bag had a modest air of containing a few pretty trifles for a toilet in a motor car.

Mary's heart had begun to beat fast, for Lord Dauntrey's face was so pale and rigid that she realized his dread of an ordeal and began to share it. It was many days since she had entered the Casino. The atrium, once so familiar, almost dear to her eyes, looked strange. It was odd to find there the same faces she had often seen before. She felt as if years had pa.s.sed since she was one of those who eagerly frequented this place. What if Vanno could see her now? she thought. He would not like to have her come to the Casino with Lord Dauntrey, yet if she could make him understand all, she told herself that he would not be angry. Angelo might be, and even unforgiving, but not Vanno.

"Where must we go to ask for the _viatique_?" she inquired of Dauntrey in a low voice, looking anxiously at the different closed doors, behind which any mystery might hide, for few ever saw them open.

"We have to go through the Salle Schmidt," he answered doggedly.

That seemed worse than she had thought, but she said nothing. She found herself suddenly missing Hannaford, and wishing that his calm face with its black bandage might appear among all these faces that meant nothing to her. If he were here he would stand by them, or perhaps go alone with Lord Dauntrey in order to spare her. He had always tried to save her from everything disagreeable, from the very beginning of their friendship until its end.

The mellow golden light in the great gaming room, and the somnolent musky scent which she had called the "smell of money," seized upon Mary's imagination with renewed vividness, even as on the first night when as a stranger she timidly yet eagerly entered the Casino. She felt again the powerful influence of the place, but in a different way. The pleasant, kindly animal to which she had likened the Casino was now a mighty monster, who must be approached with caution and even fear, whose gentle, feline purring was the purr of a tiger sitting with claws in sheath. How the great golden beast could strike and tear sometimes, the desperate face of her companion told. Mary feared for his sake that people might read the lines of misery, and whisper that here was one of Monte Carlo's wrecks.

She had often noticed in the gilded Salle Schmidt those four long mirrors in the corners, which could only be known as doors when some inspector or other functionary pressed his foot on a trigger level with the floor in front of one of them. When this was done, a mirror would instantly move so promptly that Mary had named those doors the "open sesames."

Now, when she had walked with Dauntrey to the farthest door on the right-hand side of the room, he stopped. Near by stood two blue-coated, gold-braided Casino footmen, as if keeping guard; and suddenly Mary remembered that these or other footmen were always hovering at that spot. Often, too, she had seen shamed and sad-looking men and women sitting dejectedly on the leather cushioned seat by the side of the door. She had never thought about them particularly, but in this moment of enlightenment she guessed why they haunted this corner, like starved birds waiting in the hope of crumbs. She was thankful to see that the seat was deserted. It would have been terrible to be one of those who had to wait while everybody who knew the secret of the door pa.s.sed by and saw, and stared curiously or pityingly. She began to understand how it was that Eve's shattered nerves had forbidden her to come and "stand by" Lord Dauntrey.

Leaving the girl a pace or two behind, he squared his shoulders and went up to the footmen. Mary could not hear what he said, but the Casino servant's answer was distinctly audible. It was politely spoken, yet there was, or seemed to be, in the man's manner a slight indifference, and even disdain, which would not have been there in addressing a successful, not a broken, gambler.

"Monsieur is engaged at present, but will be free in a few moments," she heard.

Dauntrey came quickly back to her, as to a refuge. The eyes of both footmen rested upon her for an instant. They were almost, but not quite, expressionless. Under control yet visible was surprise and animal curiosity. The men knew Miss Grant by sight and reputation as "one of the lucky ones," and she felt that they were wondering if she too had lost all, and come whining to the "management" for a _viatique_.

"For heaven's sake let's stand out of the way," Dauntrey whispered, "so every one won't know what we're after." They moved to a little distance, and Lord Dauntrey began trying to make conversation, but could think of nothing to say. Long pauses fell. Both tried not to look at the mirror door, but their eyes were drawn there, as if by an unseen power behind it. They could see themselves and each other in the gla.s.s. Mary thought that no one could help noticing how anxious and strained were their faces.

After some moments, which seemed long, the door opened without sound and a woman appeared. She hung her head, and her face was concealed with a veil such as Princess Della Robbia had worn when she came to Rose Winter's flat. A footman with a yellow paper in his hand preceded the drooping figure, steering toward the outer door of the Salle Schmidt, as if going to the atrium. He had a peculiarly stolid air, as if performing a business duty to which he was so used that he could do it very well while other matters engaged his thoughts.

"_She's_ got something, anyhow," mumbled Lord Dauntrey, in a sickly voice. "Come along, please. It's our turn now."

He identified Mary with his own interests, as if they were intimately hers. Politely, or perhaps in cowardice, he stood aside to let her go before him. Immediately and without noise the door was closed behind them.

Mary's hands were cold. A little pulse was beating in her throat, and its throbbing made her feel slightly sick. She looked up, wide-eyed, into the face of a man who had dismissed the veiled woman, and stood waiting to receive them.

He was spare, elderly, black-coated, almost absurdly respectable looking, with his gray beard and mild gaze behind gold-rimmed pince-nez.

The small bare room with its plain desk and two or three chairs made a bleak background for the neat figure of the man. The austerity of the closet-like enclosure, in contrast with the magnificence outside, seemed meant as a warning to let pet.i.tions be brief, to the point, and above all strictly within the bounds of reason.

"What do you wish me to do for you?" As he asked this question, with cool civility, the benevolent yet cautious eyes peered through their gla.s.s screen at Mary; and the thought sprang into her mind that this elderly man of commonplace appearance had perhaps listened to more harrowing stories of human misery and ruin than any other person in the world. Even the most popular father confessor of the church could scarcely have heard as many agonizing appeals. He must be able to discriminate between truth and falsehood, to read faces and judge voices, for no doubt, as Mary guessed, people must often come to him swearing they had lost many thousands of francs, when in reality their losses amounted only to a few hundreds.

Dauntrey, whose hand was unsteady, held out his season card of admission to the Casino. "I suppose you know who I am," he said.

The man in the black coat looked at the name on the card, and inclined his head slightly as if in affirmation.

"I've lost all I had in the world," Dauntrey went on in a dead voice, "and all my wife had. I've been here since the beginning of December and had the most cursed luck. I--Miss Grant will bear me out. She was staying at our house. You've seen her before no doubt. One of your lucky ones. You--you'll have to do something decent for me. Unfortunately I've got into debt--my rent--and tradesmen. No good having a scandal. You've had a lot out of me--close on ten thousand pounds. You can afford to give me back 10 per cent., can't you?"

The official's face hardened. He looked a man who could be obdurate as well as benevolent. "I regret," he replied in English, "that it is impossible to give any such sum. Nothing like it has ever been granted, not even to those who have lost great fortunes. If the Casino made such presents it would cease to exist. And I cannot help thinking that my lord in excitement exaggerates his losses. I have heard that he has lost not more than four thousand pounds, and that three fourths of that sum belonged to his friends, for whom he kindly played. In my lord's case, two first-cla.s.s tickets to London----"

"Of no use whatever," Dauntrey broke in sharply. "What would you have me do when my wife and I get to England without a penny?"

"After all, that is your lordship's affair."

Dauntrey's face crimsoned, and the veins stood out in his temples. Then the red faded, leaving him yellow pale.

"It will be your affair if I kill myself here, as I shall be driven to do if you won't help me. My name will cause some little sensation after I'm dead, if it never made any stir while I lived."

"Couldn't the Casino spare Lord Dauntrey five hundred pounds, at least?"

Mary begged, stumbling to the rescue. "It would be so dreadful for everybody concerned if--if--anything happened."

"The administration cannot allow itself to be threatened," its mouthpiece answered.