by Grant Allen
X
THE EPISODE OF THE GAME OF POKER
"Seymour," my brother-in-law said, with a deep-drawn sigh, as weleft Lake George next day by the Rennselaer and Saratoga Railroad,"no more Peter Porter for me, _if_ you please! I'm sick of disguises.Now that we know Colonel Clay is here in America, they serve nogood purpose; so I may as well receive the social consideration andproper respect to which my rank and position naturally entitle me."
"And which they secure for the most part (except from hotel clerks),even in this republican land," I answered briskly.
For in my humble opinion, for sound copper-bottomed snobbery,registered A1 at Lloyd's, give _me_ the free-born American citizen.
We travelled through the States, accordingly, for the next fourmonths, from Maine to California, and from Oregon to Florida,under our own true names, "Confirming the churches," as Charlesfacetiously put it--or in other words, looking into the managementand control of railways, syndicates, mines, and cattle-ranches. Weinquired about everything. And the result of our investigationsappeared to be, as Charles further remarked, that the Sabeans whoso troubled the sons of Job seemed to have migrated in a body toKansas and Nebraska, and that several thousand head of cattle seemedmysteriously to vanish, a la Colonel Clay, into the pure air of theprairies just before each branding.
However, we were fortunate in avoiding the incursions of the Colonelhimself, who must have migrated meanwhile on some enchanted carpetto other happy hunting-grounds.
It was chill October before we found ourselves safe back in NewYork, en route for England. So long a term of freedom from theColonel's depredations (as Charles fondly imagined--but I will notanticipate) had done my brother-in-law's health and spirits a worldof good; he was so lively and cheerful that he began to fancy histormentor must have succumbed to yellow fever, then raging in NewOrleans, or eaten himself ill, as we nearly did ourselves, on agenerous mixture of clam-chowder, terrapin, soft-shelled crabs,Jersey peaches, canvas-backed ducks, Catawba wine, winter cherries,brandy cocktails, strawberry-shortcake, ice-creams, corn-dodger,and a judicious brew commonly known as a Colorado corpse-reviver.However that may be, Charles returned to New York in excellenttrim; and, dreading in that great city the wiles of his antagonist,he cheerfully accepted the invitation of his brother millionaire,Senator Wrengold of Nevada, to spend a few days before sailing inthe Senator's magnificent and newly-finished palace at the upperend of Fifth Avenue.
"There, at least, I shall be safe, Sey," he said to me plaintively,with a weary smile. "Wrengold, at any rate, won't try to take mein--except, of course, in the regular way of business."
Boss-Nugget Hall (as it is popularly christened) is perhaps thehandsomest brown stone mansion in the Richardsonian style on allFifth Avenue. We spent a delightful week there. The lines had fallento us in pleasant places. On the night we arrived Wrengold gavea small bachelor party in our honour. He knew Sir Charles wastravelling without Lady Vandrift, and rightly judged he would preferon his first night an informal party, with cards and cigars, insteadof being bothered with the charming, but still somewhat hamperingaddition of female society.
The guests that evening were no more than seven, all told, ourselvesincluded--making up, Wrengold said, that perfect number, an octave.He was a nouveau riche himself--the newest of the new--commonlyknown in exclusive old-fashioned New York society as the GildedSquatter; for he "struck his reef" no more than ten years ago; andhe was therefore doubly anxious, after the American style, to be"just dizzy with culture." In his capacity of Maecenas, he hadinvited amongst others the latest of English literary arrivals inNew York--Mr. Algernon Coleyard, the famous poet, and leader of theBriar-rose school of West-country fiction.
"You know him in London, of course?" he observed to Charles, witha smile, as we waited dinner for our guests.
"No," Charles answered stolidly. "I have not had that honour.We move, you see, in different circles."
I observed by a curious shade which passed over Senator Wrengold'sface that he quite misapprehended my brother-in-law's meaning.Charles wished to convey, of course, that Mr. Coleyard belonged toa mere literary and Bohemian set in London, while he himself movedon a more exalted plane of peers and politicians. But the Senator,better accustomed to the new-rich point of view, understood Charlesto mean that _he_ had not the entree of that distinguished coterie inwhich Mr. Coleyard posed as a shining luminary. Which naturallymade him rate even higher than before his literary acquisition.
At two minutes past the hour the poet entered. Even if we had notbeen already familiar with his portrait at all ages in The StrandMagazine, we should have recognised him at once for a genuine bardby his impassioned eyes, his delicate mouth, the artistic twirl ofone gray lock upon his expansive brow, the grizzled moustache thatgave point and force to the genial smile, and the two white rows ofperfect teeth behind it. Most of our fellow-guests had met Coleyardbefore at a reception given by the Lotus Club that afternoon, forthe bard had reached New York but the previous evening; so Charlesand I were the only visitors who remained to be introduced to him.The lion of the hour was attired in ordinary evening dress, withno foppery of any kind, but he wore in his buttonhole a daintyblue flower whose name I do not know; and as he bowed distantly toCharles, whom he surveyed through his eyeglass, the gleam of a bigdiamond in the middle of his shirt-front betrayed the fact that theBriar-rose school, as it was called (from his famous epic), had atleast succeeded in making money out of poetry. He explained to us alittle later, in fact, that he was over in New York to look afterhis royalties. "The beggars," he said, "only gave me eight hundredpounds on my last volume. I couldn't stand _that_, you know; for amodern bard, moving with the age, can only sing when duly wound up;so I've run across to investigate. Put a penny in the slot, don'tyou see, and the poet will pipe for you."
"Exactly like myself," Charles said, finding a point in common."_I'm_ interested in mines; and I, too, have come over to lookafter my royalties."
The poet placed his eyeglass in his eye once more, and surveyedCharles deliberately from head to foot. "Oh," he murmured slowly. Hesaid not a word more; but somehow, everybody felt that Charles wasdemolished. I saw that Wrengold, when we went in to dinner, hastilyaltered the cards that marked their places. He had evidently putCharles at first to sit next the poet; he varied that arrangementnow, setting Algernon Coleyard between a railway king and a magazineeditor. I have seldom seen my respected brother-in-law so completelysilenced.
The poet's conduct during dinner was most peculiar. He kept quotingpoetry at inopportune moments.
"Roast lamb or boiled turkey, sir?" said the footman.
"Mary had a little lamb," said the poet. "I shall imitate Mary."
Charles and the Senator thought the remark undignified.
After dinner, however, under the mellowing influence of someexcellent Roederer, Charles began to expand again, and grew livelyand anecdotal. The poet had made us all laugh not a little withvarious capital stories of London literary society--at least two ofthem, I think, new ones; and Charles was moved by generous emulationto contribute his own share to the amusement of the company. He wasin excellent cue. He is not often brilliant; but when he chooses, hehas a certain dry vein of caustic humour which is decidedly funny,though not perhaps strictly without being vulgar. On this particularnight, then, warmed with the admirable Wrengold champagne--thebest made in America--he launched out into a full and embroidereddescription of the various ways in which Colonel Clay had deceivedhim. I will not say that he narrated them in full with the samefrankness and accuracy that I have shown in these pages; hesuppressed not a few of the most amusing details--on no otherground, apparently, than because they happened to tell againsthimself; and he enlarged a good deal on the surprising clevernesswith which several times he had nearly secured his man; but still,making all allowances for native vanity in concealment and addition,he was distinctly funny--he represented the matter for once in itsludicrous rather than in its disastrous aspect. He observed also,looking around the table, th
at after all he had lost less byColonel Clay in four years of persecution than he often lost byone injudicious move in a single day on the London Stock Exchange;while he seemed to imply to the solid men of New York, that hewould cheerfully sacrifice such a fleabite as that, in return forthe amusement and excitement of the chase which the Colonel hadafforded him.
The poet was pleased. "You are a man of spirit, Sir Charles," hesaid. "I love to see this fine old English admiration of pluck andadventure! The fellow must really have some good in him, after all.I should like to take notes of a few of those stories; they wouldsupply nice material for basing a romance upon."
"I hardly know whether I'm exactly the man to make the hero of anovel," Charles murmured, with complacence. And he certainly didn'tlook it.
"_I_ was thinking rather of Colonel Clay as the hero," the poetresponded coldly.
"Ah, that's the way with you men of letters," Charles answered,growing warm. "You always have a sneaking sympathy with the rascals."
"That may be better," Coleyard retorted, in an icy voice, "thansympathy with the worst forms of Stock Exchange speculation."
The company smiled uneasily. The railway king wriggled. Wrengoldtried to change the subject hastily. But Charles would not be putdown.
"You must hear the end, though," he said. "That's not quite theworst. The meanest thing about the man is that he's also ahypocrite. He wrote me _such_ a letter at the end of his lasttrick--here, positively here, in America." And he proceeded to givehis own version of the Quackenboss incident, enlivened with sundryimaginative bursts of pure Vandrift fancy.
When Charles spoke of Mrs. Quackenboss the poet smiled. "The worstof married women," he said, "is--that you can't marry them; theworst of unmarried women is--that they want to marry you." But whenit came to the letter, the poet's eye was upon my brother-in-law.Charles, I must fain admit, garbled the document sadly. Still, evenso, some gleam of good feeling remained in its sentences. ButCharles ended all by saying, "So, to crown his misdemeanours, therascal shows himself a whining cur and a disgusting Pharisee."
"Don't you think," the poet interposed, in his cultivated drawl, "hemay have really meant it? Why should not some grain of compunctionhave stirred his soul still?--some remnant of conscience made himshrink from betraying a man who confided in him? I have an idea,myself, that even the worst of rogues have always some good in them.I notice they often succeed to the end in retaining the affectionand fidelity of women."
"Oh, I said so!" Charles sneered. "I told you you literary men havealways an underhand regard for a scoundrel."
"Perhaps so," the poet answered. "For we are all of us human. Lethim that is without sin among us cast the first stone." And then herelapsed into moody silence.
We rose from table. Cigars went round. We adjourned to thesmoking-room. It was a Moorish marvel, with Oriental hangings.There, Senator Wrengold and Charles exchanged reminiscences ofbonanzas and ranches and other exciting post-prandial topics; whilethe magazine editor cut in now and again with a pertinent inquiryor a quaint and sarcastic parallel instance. It was clear he had aneye to future copy. Only Algernon Coleyard sat brooding and silent,with his chin on one hand, and his brow intent, musing and gazing atthe embers in the fireplace. The hand, by the way, was remarkablefor a curious, antique-looking ring, apparently of Egyptian orEtruscan workmanship, with a projecting gem of several large facets.Once only, in the midst of a game of whist, he broke out with asingle comment.
"Hawkins was made an earl," said Charles, speaking of some Londonacquaintance.
"What for?" asked the Senator.
"Successful adulteration," said the poet tartly.
"Honours are easy," the magazine editor put in.
"And two by tricks to Sir Charles," the poet added.
Towards the close of the evening, however--the poet still remainingmoody, not to say positively grumpy--Senator Wrengold proposed afriendly game of Swedish poker. It was the latest fashionablevariant in Western society on the old gambling round, and few of usknew it, save the omniscient poet and the magazine editor. It turnedout afterwards that Wrengold proposed that particular game becausehe had heard Coleyard observe at the Lotus Club the same afternoonthat it was a favourite amusement of his. Now, however, for a whilehe objected to playing. He was a poor man, he said, and the restwere all rich; why should he throw away the value of a dozen goldensonnets just to add one more pinnacle to the gilded roofs of amillionaire's palace? Besides, he was half-way through with an odehe was inditing to Republican simplicity. The pristine austerityof a democratic senatorial cottage had naturally inspired him withmemories of Dentatus, the Fabii, Camillus. But Wrengold, dimly awarehe was being made fun of somehow, insisted that the poet must takea hand with the financiers. "You can pass, you know," he said, "asoften as you like; and you can stake low, or go it blind, accordingas you're inclined to. It's a democratic game; every man decides forhimself how high he will play, except the banker; and you needn'ttake bank unless you want it."
"Oh, if you insist upon it," Coleyard drawled out, with languidreluctance, "I'll play, of course. I won't spoil your evening.But remember, I'm a poet; I have strange inspirations."
The cards were "squeezers"--that is to say, had the suit and thenumber of pips in each printed small in the corner, as well as overthe face, for ease of reference. We played low at first. The poetseldom staked; and when he did--a few pounds--he lost, with singularpersistence. He wanted to play for doubloons or sequins, and couldwith difficulty be induced to condescend to dollars. Charles lookedacross at him at last; the stakes by that time were fast risinghigher, and we played for ready money. Notes lay thick on the greencloth. "Well," he murmured provokingly, "how about your inspiration?Has Apollo deserted you?"
It was an unwonted flight of classical allusion for Charles, and Iconfess it astonished me. (I discovered afterwards he had cribbedit from a review in that evening's Critic.) But the poet smiled.
"No," he answered calmly, "I am waiting for one now. When it comes,you may be sure you shall have the benefit of it."
Next round, Charles dealing and banking, the poet staked on hiscard, unseen as usual. He staked like a gentleman. To our immenseastonishment he pulled out a roll of notes, and remarked, in a quiettone, "I have an inspiration now. _Half-hearted_ will do. I go fivethousand." That was dollars, of course; but it amounted to athousand pounds in English money--high play for an author.
Charles smiled and turned his card. The poet turned his--and wona thousand.
"Good shot!" Charles murmured, pretending not to mind, though hedetests losing.
"Inspiration!" the poet mused, and looked once more abstracted.
Charles dealt again. The poet watched the deal with boiled-fishyeyes. His thoughts were far away. His lips moved audibly. "Myrtle,and kirtle, and hurtle," he muttered. "They'll do for three. Thenthere's turtle, meaning dove; and that finishes the possible. Laureland coral make a very bad rhyme. Try myrtle; don't you think so?"
"Do you stake?" Charles asked, severely, interrupting his reverie.
The poet started. "No, pass," he replied, looking down at his card,and subsided into muttering. We caught a tremor of his lips again,and heard something like this: "Not less but more republican thanthou, Half-hearted watcher by the Western sea, After long years Icome to visit thee, And test thy fealty to that maiden vow, Thatbound thee in thy budding prime For Freedom's bride--"
"Stake?" Charles interrupted, inquiringly, again.
"Yes, five thousand," the poet answered dreamily, pushing forwardhis pile of notes, and never ceasing from his murmur: "For Freedom'sbride to all succeeding time. Succeeding; succeeding; weak word,succeeding. Couldn't go five dollars on it."
Charles turned his card once more. The poet had won again. Charlespassed over his notes. The poet raked them in with a far-away air,as one who looks at infinity, and asked if he could borrow a penciland paper. He had a few priceless lines to set down which mightotherwise escape him.
"This is play," Charles said pointedly. "_Will_
you kindly attend toone thing or the other?"
The poet glanced at him with a compassionate smile. "I told you Ihad inspirations," he said. "They always come together. I can't winyour money as fast as I would like, unless at the same time I ammaking verses. Whenever I hit upon a good epithet, I back my luck,don't you see? I won a thousand on _half-hearted_ and a thousand on_budding_; if I were to back _succeeding_, I should lose, to acertainty. You understand my system?"
"I call it pure rubbish," Charles answered. "However, continue.Systems were made for fools--and to suit wise men. Sooner or lateryou _must_ lose at such a stupid fancy."
The poet continued. "For Freedom's bride to all _ensuing_ time."
"Stake!" Charles cried sharply. We each of us staked.
"_Ensuing_," the poet murmured. "To all _ensuing_ time. First-rateepithet that. I go ten thousand, Sir Charles, on _ensuing_."
We all turned up. Some of us lost, some won; but the poet hadsecured his two thousand sterling.
"I haven't that amount about me," Charles said, in that austerelynettled voice which he always assumes when he loses at cards;"but--I'll settle it with you to-morrow."
"Another round?" the host asked, beaming.
"No, thank you," Charles answered; "Mr. Coleyard's inspirationscome too pat for my taste. His luck beats mine. I retire from thegame, Senator."
Just at that moment a servant entered, bearing a salver, with asmall note in an envelope. "For Mr. Coleyard," he observed; "andthe messenger said, _urgent_."
Coleyard tore it open hurriedly. I could see he was agitated. Hisface grew white at once.
"I--I beg your pardon," he said. "I--I must go back instantly. Mywife is dangerously ill--quite a sudden attack. Forgive me, Senator.Sir Charles, you shall have your revenge to-morrow."
It was clear that his voice faltered. We felt at least he was a manof feeling. He was obviously frightened. His coolness forsook him.He shook hands as in a dream, and rushed downstairs for hisdust-coat. Almost as he closed the front door, a new guest entered,just missing him in the vestibule.
"Halloa, you men," he said, "we've been taken in, do you know? It'sall over the Lotus. The man we made an honorary member of the clubto-day is _not_ Algernon Coleyard. He's a blatant impostor. There'sa telegram come in on the tape to-night saying Algernon Coleyard isdangerously ill at his home in England."
Charles gasped a violent gasp. "Colonel Clay!" he shouted, aloud."And once more he's done me. There's not a moment to lose. Afterhim, gentlemen! after him!"
Never before in our lives had we had such a close shave of catchingand fixing the redoubtable swindler. We burst down the stairs in abody, and rushed out into Fifth Avenue. The pretended poet had onlya hundred yards' start of us, and he saw he was discovered. But hewas an excellent runner. So was I, weight for age; and I dashedwildly after him. He turned round a corner; it proved to leadnowhere, and lost him time. He darted back again, madly. Delightedwith the idea that I was capturing so famous a criminal, I redoubledmy efforts--and came up with him, panting. He was wearing a lightdust-coat. I seized it in my hands. "I've got you at last!" I cried;"Colonel Clay, I've got you!"
He turned and looked at me. "Ha, old Ten Per Cent!" he called out,struggling. "It's you, then, is it? Never, never to _you_, sir!" Andas he spoke, he somehow flung his arms straight out behind him, andlet the dust-coat slip off, which it easily did, the sleeves beingnew and smoothly silk-lined. The suddenness of the movement threwme completely off my guard, and off my legs as well. I was clingingto the coat and holding him. As the support gave way I rolled overbackward, in the mud of the street, and hurt my back seriously. Asfor Colonel Clay, with a nervous laugh, he bolted off at full speedin his evening coat, and vanished round a corner.
It was some seconds before I had sufficiently recovered my breath topick myself up again, and examine my bruises. By this time Charlesand the other pursuers had come up, and I explained my condition tothem. Instead of commending me for my zeal in his cause--which hadcost me a barked arm and a good evening suit--my brother-in-lawremarked, with an unfeeling sneer, that when I had so nearly caughtmy man I might as well have held him.
"I have his coat, at least," I said. "That may afford us a clue."And I limped back with it in my hands, feeling horribly bruised anda good deal shaken.
When we came to examine the coat, however, it bore no maker's name;the strap at the back, where the tailor proclaims with pride hishandicraft, had been carefully ripped off, and its place was takenby a tag of plain black tape without inscription of any sort. Wesearched the breast-pocket. A handkerchief, similarly nameless,but of finest cambric. The side-pockets--ha, what was this? I drewa piece of paper out in triumph. It was a note--a real find--theone which the servant had handed to our friend just before at theSenator's.
We read it through breathlessly:--
"DARLING PAUL,--I _told_ you it was too dangerous. You should havelistened to me. You ought _never_ to have imitated any real person. Ihappened to glance at the hotel tape just now, to see the quotationsfor Cloetedorps to-day, and what do you think I read as part of thelatest telegram from England? 'Mr. Algernon Coleyard, the famouspoet, is lying on his death-bed at his home in Devonshire.' By thistime all New York knows. Don't stop one minute. Say I'm dangerouslyill, and come away at once. Don't return to the hotel. I am removingour things. Meet me at Mary's. Your devoted, MARGOT."
"This is _very_ important," Charles said. "This _does_ give us a clue.We know two things now: his real name is Paul--whatever else it maybe, and Madame Picardet's is Margot."
I searched the pocket again, and pulled out a ring. Evidently he hadthrust these two things there when he saw me pursuing him, and hadforgotten or neglected them in the heat of the melee.
I looked at it close. It was the very ring I had noticed on hisfinger while he was playing Swedish poker. It had a large compoundgem in the centre, set with many facets, and rising like a pyramidto a point in the middle. There were eight faces in all, some ofthem composed of emerald, amethyst, or turquoise. But _one_ face--theone that turned at a direct angle towards the wearer's eye--was _not_a gem at all, but an extremely tiny convex mirror. In a moment Ispotted the trick. He held this hand carelessly on the table whilemy brother-in-law dealt; and when he saw that the suit and number ofhis own card mirrored in it by means of the squeezers were betterthan Charles's, he had "an inspiration," and backed his luck--orrather his knowledge--with perfect confidence. I did not doubt,either, that his odd-looking eyeglass was a powerful magnifier whichhelped him in the trick. Still, we tried another deal, by way ofexperiment--I wearing the ring; and even with the naked eye I wasable to distinguish in every case the suit and pips of the card thatwas dealt me.
"Why, that was almost dishonest," the Senator said, drawing back.He wished to show us that even far-Western speculators drew a linesomewhere.
"Yes," the magazine editor echoed. "To back your skill is legal;to back your luck is foolish; to back your knowledge is--"
"Immoral," I suggested.
"Very good business," said the magazine editor.
"It's a simple trick," Charles interposed. "I should have spottedit if it had been done by any other fellow. But his patter aboutinspiration put me clean off the track. That's the rascal's dodge.He plays the regular conjurer's game of distracting your attentionfrom the real point at issue--so well that you never find out whathe's really about till he's sold you irretrievably."
We set the New York police upon the trail of the Colonel; but ofcourse he had vanished at once, as usual, into the thin smoke ofManhattan. Not a sign could we find of him. "Mary's," we found aninsufficient address.
We waited on in New York for a whole fortnight. Nothing came of it.We never found "Mary's." The only token of Colonel Clay's presencevouchsafed us in the city was one of his customary insulting notes.It was conceived as follows:--
"O ETERNAL GULLIBLE!--Since I saw you on Lake George, I have runback to London, and promptly come out again. I had business totransact there, indeed, which I have now comp
leted; the excessiveattentions of the English police sent me once more, like greatOrion, "sloping slowly to the west." I returned to America in orderto see whether or not you were still impenitent. On the day of myarrival I happened to meet Senator Wrengold, and accepted his kindinvitation solely that I might see how far my last communicationhad had a proper effect upon you. As I found you quite obdurate,and as you furthermore persisted in misunderstanding my motives, Idetermined to read you one more small lesson. It nearly failed; andI confess the accident has affected my nerves a little. I am nowabout to retire from business altogether, and settle down for lifeat my place in Surrey. I mean to try just one more small coup; and,when that is finished, Colonel Clay will hang up his sword, likeCincinnatus, and take to farming. You need no longer fear me. I haverealised enough to secure me for life a modest competence; and asI am not possessed like yourself with an immoderate greed of gain,I recognise that good citizenship demands of me now an earlyretirement in favour of some younger and more deserving rascal. Ishall always look back with pleasure upon our agreeable adventurestogether; and as you hold my dust-coat, together with a ring andletter to which I attach importance, I consider we are quits, andI shall withdraw with dignity. Your sincere well-wisher, CUTHBERTCLAY, Poet."
"Just like him!" Charles said, "to hold this one last coup over myhead in terrorem. Though even when he has played it, why should Itrust his word? A scamp like that may say it, of course, on purposeto disarm me."
For my own part, I quite agreed with "Margot." When the Colonel wasreduced to dressing the part of a known personage I felt he hadreached almost his last card, and would be well advised to retireinto Surrey.
But the magazine editor summed up all in a word. "Don't believethat nonsense about fortunes being made by industry and ability,"he said. "In life, as at cards, two things go to producesuccess--the first is chance; the second is cheating."