Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "Now you are a little boy again a sulky little boy. But it is not my fault. I came here as quickly as I could; not one moment sooner could I comer"

  "You have no business here at all," Marvin said. "I believe every bad woman in Paris must come to this building."

  She raised her eyebrows. "I do not know how to distinguish the good from the bad, and it would be interesting if you would tell me. It is the fashion to come here. You will see Madame de Stael here, and Madame de Senlis, as well as many of the laundresses, butchers' wives and cooks' daughters that Bonaparte has honored with titles. Ladies who come to our house for dinner come here to play; and some of them, I think, are quite, quite good, though I am not sure what you mean by 'good.' You are doomed to be an unhappy young man if you think that no woman is a good woman unless she has made no mistakes and had no desires, ever; and in case you wish that sort of good woman, you must be careful to marry a plaster saint out of a church."

  "Well," Marvin said uncertainly, "well "

  She dismissed the matter with a movement of her shoulder. "You tell me now about our system. I have seen enough to know that you have discovered one."

  Marvin drew up a chair to the booth's table and fumbled in his pocket. "I'm sure of one thing," he said, "and that is there's no system

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  at all by which you or anyone else can be sure of winning." He brought out a thin packet of bank notes. "Still, it's possible to be lucky for a while. I've won enough to buy food and get new clothes for Argandeau; so here's the money you loaned me, over and above my father's eleven dollars, plus 6 per cent interest for nineteen years."

  "Pout for your 6 per cent and your nineteen yearsl" she cried. "Tell me how it was donel"

  "Why," he said, "it's simple enough. Any child must quickly learn that his money will vanish like smoke at roulette, unless he plays the even chances the black or the red, the odd or the even, the first eighteen numbers or the last eighteen. To stake your money on a single number is like throwing it in the fire."

  "Sometimes it is possible to win on a single number," she said. "It is exciting, thatl"

  Marvin only laughed.

  "To win by the even chances is too slowl" she objected, then.

  "Of course it's slowl It's slow, and hard work; and you must be tireless, and keen in your judgment."

  "You make it seem like a business rather than a game."

  "So it isl So is everything else, if you want to win. I've been told there are some countries, even, where people make almost a business of love."

  "Very well," she said impatiently. "We play on the even chances. What then?"

  "Well," Marvin said, "when I studied the game I found that people met disaster most frequently from overreaching themselves. They'd become impatient, after many small winnings; so they'd bet largely and lose everything in two turns of the wheel. Therefore, it was necessary to find a method to prevent that a method that would aim to win a small amount of money in a short time, and to begin again whenever the small amount had been won."

  He set down some marks on a sheet of paper and she came and leaned against his shoulder, watching him. "For convenience," he said, "we'll say we're playing with plaques of one franc each." On the paper were five upright marks, close together. "Each of these marks," Marvin continued, "represents one franc. It might easily represent five francs, or ten, or a hundred, but we'll call it one franc. Suppose, now, that you start to play, having in mind that you wish to win five francs, and that when five francs have been won, you must start from the beginning to win another five. You have a line of figures five ones five one-franc marks. You must play, always,

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  the figures at each end of the line. That is, you play a one and a one two francs and you play them, say, on the red. If you win, you receive two francs from the croupier, and you cross off the two end figures. That leaves three ones. You still play the numbers on each end both ones. If you win, you receive two more francs and cross off the end figures. That leaves a single figure, which you play one franc on an even chance. If you win, you cross off the last number and receive one franc. Then you've won five units in this case, francs. If each unit had been ten francs, you'd have won fifty. So your venture is finished; your numbers are entirely crossed out. Therefore you set down five more ones and start over again."

  She tossed her head. "And if I lose, I double, eh? That is no system!"

  Marvin ignored her words. "Again you commence by playing the end numbers two ones. You lose. This time you cannot cross out a figure; instead you must add the Figure ~ to your row of ones a number greater by one than the last number. Then you play the two end numbers a one and a two three francs. If you lose you add the Figure 3 and again play the ends a one and a three. If again you lose, you add a four, and play a one and a four. This time you may win; if you do, you cross off the one and the four, and play the end figures of those that remain a one and a three. If you again win, cross off the one and the three, and play a one and a two; but if you should lose, add a figure larger by one than the last number not crossed off. When finally the numbers are entirely crossed out you'll again have won five units five francs so once more you write down your five ones for a new venture."

  "Why," she said slowly, "I think there may be something in it. It seems simple, also." Her arm, resting on his shoulder, slipped around his neck, and with the impulsiveness of a child she pressed her cheek to his.

  "Yes, it's simple," Marvin admitted, "but there's danger in it, none the less, as there is in almost everything that's exciting."

  She withdrew her arm and stood a little away from him, arranging her hair and glancing at him from beneath her elbow.

  "The danger," Marvin continued, "will come when you've lost repeatedly. There may come a time, then, when you're setting down larger and larger figures with each loss, and must stake thirty or forty or fifty francs on each play, again and again, in order to win only five francs eventually. It's not likely to happen often, but when it happens, I advise you to go cautiously to stop playing entirely when

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  your wagers, on a single game, have become as large as your previous day's winnings."

  "Poufl" she cried gaily. "Go cautiously, indeedl Come, we shall play your system and I shall show you there is no need for caution!" She seized him by the arm and tugged at him.

  Marvin rose slowly. "Then you think you can win with this system?"

  "But of courser You have won and I shall winl" She swayed against him, her blue eyes laughing up into his and her red lips a little parted.

  Marvin put his arm about her. "Then you're satisfied with what I've done?" He lifted her and kissed her, kissed her a second time, and in the small and tawdry booth there was a moment of breathless silence.

  At length she laughed softly. "We play now."

  "It's what you wanted?" he persisted. "What you expected?"

  "Yes, it is something new, and so easy that I cannot understand why nobody has discovered it before."

  "Then there's still time today for you to go with me to see Mr. Barnet at the Legation; and with good luck I can be in Calais tomorrow."

  "But we must playl" she protested. "Today you remain with me; tomorrow will be time enough to see this ambassador of yours."

  Marvin shook his head. "There's my brig to be got ready. I've waited and waited until I'm near bursting from doing nothing. There were two American privateer captains in here yesterday, but today they've gone to Lorient, and tomorrow they're putting to sea. How

  do you think I felt, sitting here and elbowing all the all the well,!

  sitting here in Paris when they were starting out to comb the Channet for British ships?"

  "British shipsl" she exclaimed. "I think there is something in your mind besides British ships."

  He nodded. "There's the loan you're making me, and the 300 per

  cent profit I've promised to pay you on it. I've got that to think about, l


  and other things as well." Seemingly as an afterthought, he added, "The sooner I get to sea, the sooner I'll be back with your gold."

  "And the sooner you get to sea, the sooner you'll catch up with the lady who left you for another man, oh?"

  Marvm took her hands in his. "A lady who has a husband of her own, and an uncle as affectionate as one I could mention, should never bother her pretty head about a lady I haven't seen for many a long week and may never see again." He kissed her almost roughly,

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  threw back the curtain of the booth and drew her after him into the crowd that surged and gabbled between the roulette tables. On his way to the door, he tapped Argandeau on the shoulder and motioned to him to follow.

  Argandeau clasped his forehead in despair. "It is against met" he whispered hoarsely. "I am playing forty-two francs at one throw, and these buzzards have one hundred and thirty-seven francs of my moneyl"

  "Leave it and be ready to start for Calais," Marvin told him. "we'll be on shipboard at this time tomorrow!"

  1

  XXVIII

  Tree outer room of the Legation of the United States of America was a small and dingy cubicle, presided over by a contemptuous lady with green eyes and hair the color of untended brass, and it seemed to Marvin, standing humbly before her with the black-haired girl beside him, that she was filled with the need of supplying the grandeur that her surroundings lacked, and of upholding, by means of haughtiness and pride, the dignity of the country that she thought she represented.

  "Mr. Barnet is engaged," she told Marvin disdainfully. "You can sit down and wait" she nodded her head toward an inner room "but you should have come earlier. I think it's too late for him to see anyone else."

  "But I must see him today," Marvin protested. "If you'll tell him it's important - "

  The contemptuous lady eyed him coldly. "Leave your card, and ids possible you can see the secretary."

  Marvin looked helplessly at his companion, who sighed gently. "I seem to recall," she said to the contemptuous lady, "that Mr. Barnet was brought here from Havre in order to act and to think on behalf of Mr. Barlow, who has gone to Russia. Perhaps I am mistaken."

  The voice of the contemptuous lady was hard. "No, you're not mistaken."

  "In that case," the black-haired girl said softly, "it will be interesting to the Minister of Foreign Affairs to learn that there is yet another who is thinking and acting on behalf of Mr. Barlow. He will be pained, I have no doubt, to know that the thinking for your great country is done in a room" she touched a finger tip to the windowpane that overlooked the dickering street lights of the Rue St. Honore "where the outlook is so obscured."

  "Obscured!" the green-eyed lady cried indignantly. "Obscured! I'll have you know that window was washed last week, ma'aml"

  "In that case," the black-haired girl said, "you can doubtless see the advisability of going at once to Mr. garnet, regardless of who is with

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  him, and telling him that Comtesse Edmond de Perigord, Duchesse de Courland, must see him at once. At once, you understand!"

  The green-eyed lady stared at her unbelievingly; then rose suddenly to her feet and hurried from the room. As for the black-haired girl, she made adjustments in the curls under her bonnet of yellow silk, glancing quickly at Marvin beneath her elbow as she did so a way she had, and not an unpleasant one either, he thought. "You see," she said, "how often it is that even a woman may help a man."

  The green-eyed lady returned breathless. "Please come inl" she gasped. "I wouldn't have I didn't know "

  The black-haired girl stopped her with a gesture. "It is forgotten; but hereafter, for the sake of your countrymen, for whom I have great sympathy, I hope that the outlook from this room will be somewhat clearer."

  The three of them passed through a large waiting room in which sat a strange figure of a woman an angular, broad-shouldered woman who seemed to have no feet or legs, and whose face, bent over huge knitting needles that clacked and Glittered, was screened from them by an enormous white headgear so constructed that sharp white wings protruded beyond her broad shoulders and shook with the violence of her knitting. Before her, on the floor, rested two empty boat-shaped shoes of felt, each shoe large enough to hold a healthy infant. At the sound of footsteps she looked up. Her face was long and brown; her eyebrows as bushy as newborn black ducklings; and from under them her beady eyes stared with a suspicion made more piercing by the sudden silence of her knitting needles.

  Madame de Perigord tapped Marvin's arm. "See therel" she said. "A wounded grenadier, no doubt! It would be like this little butcher of ours" she made a Napoleonic gesture "to seize even the women to throw against the guns!"

  The angular woman rocked mightily in her chair, and from under her black skirt two hamlike feet, covered with wrinkled white stockings, thumped to the floor and groped for the felt shoes.

  Marvin and his companion left her groping, and entered a smaller anteroom, the anteroom of the Minister's office. The door into the office was open; and in the doorway, looking up into the face of a tall gray-haired man who was bidding her farewell, stood a bonneted girl whose dress of grey satin clung with unwrinkled smoothness to her flat back and slender figure. She turned, and as her eyes fell on Marvin, she seemed for a moment to flame into sudden radiance. Her eyes, deep in the shadow of her bonnet's brim, held sparks of light.

  CAPTAIN CAUTION 459 "Why, Danl" she exclaimed. "You're I'm - "

  The tall man smiled. "You know this lady? You're just in time to wish her luck. A brave young lady, I tell her, to take out a letterof-marque at such a time."

  Marvin breathed heavily, as if incapable of thought or motion. "A letter-of-marqueP" he mumbled. "A letter-of-marque?"

  Corunna Dorman glanced from Marvin to the black-haired girl and back to Marvin again; and her face grew blank. "Why, yes," she said, "a letter-of-marque." She smiled gravely at the tall American beside her, bowed slightly to Marvin, and made as though to pass.

  "Waitl" Marvin said. "A letter-of-marque. That means you're getting a ship for - " He stopped, seeming to swallow the word he had meant to speak.

  "It means," Corunna said, "that Captain Slade helped me when I was deserted by everyone else."

  "Slade," Marvin said thickly. "Slade."

  "Captain Slade," Corunna said gently, "has been the soul of energy and generosity."

  Marvin looked at her and said nothing.

  "You must excuse me," the black-haired girl said suddenly. "I must not keep Mr. Barnet waiting." She smiled sweetly at Marvin. "When you have finished talking with this lady, you must join us quickly if you are to have your commission today." She went to Barnet and gave him her hand; then, as she passed through the doorway, she added over her shoulder, "Do not be long Danl"

  "Waitl" Marvin said. "Waitl" But garnet, bewildered, followed the black-haired girl into his office and closed the door behind him.

  "So you're to have a commission!" Corunna said. "How strange! Are you getting one from America because the English wouldn't give you oneP"

  Marvin stared at her. "The English? What do you meant"

  Corunna returned his gaze steadily. "Oh, you can set your mind at restl I haven't told anybody."

  "Told anybody what?"

  "How you brought down the English on the Olive Branch. Ill do nothing to stop you here." She made a faint movement of her hand toward garnet's office. "I thought I thought your own conscience would be punishment enough." She lowered her eyes.

  "Brought down the English?" Marvin repeated stupidly. "How I brought down the English? I?"

  She looked up at him. "You thought I'd never know, I suppose. You've forgotten how news spreads among sailors."

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  "Newel" Marvin said. "Why, there never was a sailor's tale that wasn't a damned lielLike barbers, they never get things right, and you know ill What is it you're trying to say? What is it Slade said, damn himl You couldn't truly think it was I -
" He stopped, staring at her. "You dol By God, you dol You little fooll Slade told you, and you believed himl You little fooll You little fooll"

  He checked himself suddenly, turned away from her; then turned back to face her and spoke more quietly: "I take it you're now Mrs. Slade," he said.

  She looked at him with a steady eye. "Do you?" she asked.

  "I wouldn't ask you the question, whether you are or not," he said.

  "Wouldn't you?"

  "Do you think I care?" he burst out. "Do you think I care on my own account any more? Well, I don'tl I'll tell you what I care about: Your father was my friend, and that means I care about his daughter's safety. Yes, and that she isn't fooled by a pack of lies; so, husband or no husband, I'll speak outl Husband or no husband, you've believed a rat out of the swamps of Africa, and that's what he isl"

  "He's kind and generous!" Corunna cried. "You can't say these things!" She knotted her bonnet strings. "Let me pass, pleasel"

  "Then it's truer" Marvin whispered. "You're sailing with Sladel"

  "Nor" she said. "He's sailing with mel With mel He's a brave officer and a resourceful man, and as captain I'm glad to have him for a first officers Let me passl"

  "I've got a vessel, Corunna," Marvin said. "You don't know what you're doingl There's a cabin for you on our brig, Corunna."

  "A cabinl What for? For me to do needlework in?"

  He was silent, gnawing at his lip and staring at her.

  "That's your opinion still, I suppose?" she persisted. "A woman's judgment is too uncertain to let her handle a ship?"

  "Why, yesl That's my opinion! It's my opinion that most women take chances at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons."

  "Oh, dear mel"

  "What's more," Marvin continued, "it's my opinion that most women don't believe what's told them unless it's as unreliable as their own desires. If I told you as much truth about him as he's told you lies about me - "