Kitabı oku: «The White Lie», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XXI.
THE GREEN TABLE
One afternoon a fortnight later Ralph Ansell, well dressed, and posing as usual as a wealthy American, who had lived for many years in France, stood at the window of his room in the expensive Palace Hotel at Trouville, gazing upon the sunny plage, with its boarded promenade placed on the wide stretch of yellow sand.
In the sunshine there were many bathers in remarkable costumes, enjoying a dip in the blue sea, while the crowd of promenaders in summer clothes passed up and down. The season was at its height, for it was the race week at Deauville, and all the pleasure world of Paris had flocked there.
Surely in the whole of gay Europe there is no brighter watering place than Trouville-sur-Mer during the race week, and certainly the played-out old Riviera, with the eternal Monte, is never so chic, nor are the extravagant modes ever so much in evidence, as at the Normandie at Deauville, or upon the boarded promenade which runs before those big, white hotels on the sands at Trouville.
Prices were, of course, prohibitive. The casino was at its gayest and brightest, and the well-known American bar, close to the last-named institution, Ansell patronised daily in order to scrape acquaintance with its chance customers.
Having been up playing cards the greater part of the night before, he had eaten his luncheon in bed, and had just risen and dressed.
He gazed out of his window down upon the sunny scene of seaside revelry, as a bitter smile played upon his lips.
“What infernal luck I had last night,” he muttered, between his teeth. Then glancing at the dressing-table, his eyes fell upon the hotel bill, which had come up on the tray with his déjeuner. “Fourteen hundred and eighteen francs,” he muttered, “and only those three louis to pay it with.”
Those last three louis had been flung carelessly upon the table when he had undressed at six o’clock that morning.
He took them in his palm and looked at them.
“Not a word from Ted,” he went on, with a sigh. “I wonder what can have happened. Has he got a bit more out of the Michelcoombe woman and cleared out? No,” he added, “he’s a white man. He’d never prove a blackguard like that.”
Ralph Ansell had not recalled his own dastardly action when he robbed, deserted, and trapped his accomplice, Adolphe Carlier.
For a long time he remained silent as slowly he paced the small, well-furnished room, his hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, his eyes fixed upon the carpet. His fertile, inventive brain was trying to devise some subtle means to obtain money. He was a genius regarding schemes, and he put them before his victims in such an inviting and attractive way that they found refusal impossible. For some of the wildest of schemes he had been successful in subscribing money – money which had enabled him to live well, to travel up and down Europe, and pose as a man of considerable means.
Railway concessions in the Balkans, the exploitation of oil in Roumania, of tin in Montenegro, and copper in Servia, had all been fruitful sources of income, and now when they had failed he had fallen back upon his skill at cards.
On the previous night, at a disreputable but luxuriant gaming-house situated only a few dozen paces from the hotel, he had met his match. His opponent was too wary, and he had lost very considerably. Indeed, all that remained to him were those three golden louis.
And with that slender capital he intended that night to retrieve his lost fortune. It is usually easy for the cheat to retrieve his fortune. So with a laugh he lit a fresh cigarette, put his three louis in his pocket, and muttered, “I wish to Heaven Ted would come over here. We might work something big. I’ll wire him.”
Then, examining himself in the glass, and settling his tie, he walked out at three o’clock in the afternoon, his first appearance that day.
Emerging from the lift into the hall, he passed through the low-built lounge, where a number of summer muslin-dressed idlers were chatting and laughing, and strode out upon the boards placed upon the golden sea-sands outside the hotel.
Trouville is unique. Other watering-places have a drive along the sea-front, but the gay little bathing “trou” has no sea-front. The hotels abut upon the actual sands, just as Arcachon abuts upon its shallow oyster-beds.
Ansell had not gone half-a-dozen yards along the plage before he met a young Englishman whose acquaintance he had made in a night café on the previous evening – a young cavalry officer, who greeted him merrily, believing him to be the well-known American financier. Even the men who are “British officers and gentlemen” in these days are prone to bow the knee to American dollars, the golden key which unlocks the door of the most exclusive English society. Only the old-fashioned squire of the country village, the old-fashioned English hunting gentleman, will despise the men who aspire to society because they can buy society’s smiles.
He walked with the young fellow as far as the casino. Ansell did not even know his name, and as he had already summed him up as living on his pay, with a load of debts behind, he did not trouble even to inquire. Only wealthy “mugs” interested him.
Entering the casino, they had a drink together, then smoked and chatted.
Ansell was half inclined to tell a tale and borrow a “fiver,” but so clever was he that he feared lest the young fellow might speak of it in Trouville. Therefore he stood at the bar laughing merrily, as was his wont, and keeping a watchful eye upon any man who entered. He could fascinate other men by cheery good humour, his disregard for worry, his amusing optimism, and his brightness of conversation.
His training as a crook had surely been in a good school, yet there were times when, before his vision, arose the face of the true, honest girl whom he had married, and whom he had so cruelly treated. Sometimes, just as at that hour when he stood at the bar of the great gilded casino, laughing gaily, he would reflect upon his married life, and wonder where Jean was and how she fared.
The young Englishman, Baldwin by name, was spending the season at Trouville with his mother, who rented a pretty villa in the vicinity, and he, being on leave, was idling amid the mad gaiety of Paris-by-the-Sea.
He was much taken by the manners and airy talk of the rich American, whom he found much less vulgar than many he had met in London society. He made no ostentatious show, though it was whispered throughout Trouville that he was one of the wealthiest men in Wall Street. What would young Baldwin have thought if he had seen those three precious louis?
Until five o’clock Ansell chatted and smoked with him, all the time his brain busy to invent some fresh scheme to obtain funds. Then, punctually at five, he took leave of his friend, and entering a fiacre, drove along to Deauville, that fashionable village of smart villas, with its big, white casino and its quaintly built but extremely select Hotel Normandie.
At the latter he descended and, entering, passed through the big lounge where the elegant world and the more elegant half world were chattering and taking their tea after the races. He knew the big hotel well, and many men and women glanced up and remarked as he passed, for Silas P. Hoggan had already established a reputation.
Finding nobody to speak to, he took a seat in a corner, drank tea because it was the correct thing to do, smoked a cigarette, and became horribly bored.
Those who saw him reflected upon the great burden which huge wealth as his must be, little dreaming that, after all, he was but a blackmailer and an ingenious swindler.
Presently he looked in at the casino, where he found a French Baron whom he knew, and then, after a further hour in the café, he returned to his hotel in Trouville, where he dressed carefully and later on appeared at dinner.
Whenever funds were especially low, Ralph Ansell always made it a rule to order an expensive dinner. It preserved the illusion that he was wealthy. He was especially fond of Russian Bortch soup, and this having been ordered, it was served with great ceremony, a large piece of cream being placed in the centre of the rich, brown liquid.
The dinner he ate that night was assuredly hardly in keeping with the ugly fact that, within the next four days, if funds were not forthcoming, he would find himself outside the hotel without his newly-acquired luggage.
Truly his luck was clean out.
After dinner he sat outside the hotel for an hour, watching people pass up and down the plage. The evening was close, and the sand reflected back the hot rays of the sun absorbed during the day.
He was thinking. Only those three louis remained between him and starvation. He must get money somehow – by what means it mattered not, so long as he got it.
Suddenly, with a resolve, he rose and, passing along the plage, arrived at a large, white house overlooking the sea, where, on the second floor, he entered a luxuriously-furnished suite of rooms where roulette was in full swing.
Many smartly-dressed men and women were playing around the green table – some winning, some losing heavily.
The room, filled to overflowing, was almost suffocating, while, combined with the chatter of women and the lower voices of men, was the distinctive sound of the clink of gold as the croupier raked it in or paid it out.
To several acquaintances Ralph nodded merrily as he strolled through the room, until suddenly he came upon two men, wealthy he knew them to be, with whom he had played cards on the previous night.
“Ah, messieurs!” he cried, greeting them merrily. “Are you prepared to give me my revenge – eh?”
“Quite, m’sieur,” was the reply of the elder of the men. “Shall it be in the next room? There is a table free.”
“At your pleasure,” was “The American’s” reply. The man who had proved so shrewd on the previous night was absent, but the two other men were, he knew, somewhat inexperienced at cards.
They passed into the adjoining room and there sat down, a stranger joining them. Others were playing in the same room, including at least a couple of “crooks” well known to Ansell – one man an elegantly-dressed Italian and the other a Spaniard. The summer resorts of Europe prove the happy hunting-ground for the knights of industry.
The cards were dealt, and the game played.
At the first coup Ralph Ansell won three hundred francs, though he played fairly. Again and again he won. His luck had returned.
In half an hour he had before him a pile of notes and gold representing about three hundred pounds.
His face, however, was sphinx-like. Inveterate gambler that he was, he never allowed his countenance to betray his emotion. Inwardly, however, he was elated at his success, and when the stranger, a middle-aged Russian Baron, proposed to stake an amount equal to his winnings, he quickly welcomed the proposal.
In an instant he was on the alert. Now was the moment to perform one of his clever card-sharping tricks, the trick by which he had so often won big sums from the unsuspecting.
He placed two one-hundred franc notes aside in case he should lose; then the cards were dealt, and the game played.
Only at that moment did the “crook” realise what an astute player the stranger was.
He tried to cheat, and, though he performed the trick, nevertheless his opponent actually beat him.
He bit his lip in anger.
Then, pushing the money across to the Baron, he rose from the table and bade his companions good-night, though the sun was beginning to shine in between the drawn curtains of the stuffy room.
CHAPTER XXII.
DISCLOSES A SCHEME
At noon next day, while Ansell was lying lazily in bed in the Palace Hotel reading the Matin, a page entered with a letter.
He tore it open, and found that it was dated from the railway buffet at Calais-Maritime, and read:
“Dear Ralph, – Impossible to send oof. Lady Michelcoombe squeezed dry. Husband knows. So lie low. – Ted.”
He crushed the letter in his hand with an imprecation. His mine of wealth had suddenly become exhausted.
From the address it was plain that Ted Patten was flying from England. Lord Michelcoombe had discovered the truth. Probably his wife had confessed, and explained how she had been trapped and money extracted from her. Well he knew that the penalty for his offence was twenty years’ penal servitude.
It was all very well for Ted to advise him to “lie low,” but that was impossible without ample funds. The “crook” who is big enough to effect a big coup can go into safe retirement for years if necessary. But to the man who is penniless that is impossible.
He rose and dressed even more carefully than usual. Afterwards he took his déjeuner in the big salle-à-manger and drank half a bottle of Krug with it. Like all men of his class, he was fastidious over his food and wines. The afternoon he spent idling in the casino, and that night he again visited the private gaming house with his two hundred francs, or eight pounds, in his pocket.
It proved a gay night, for there was a dance in progress. In the card-room, however, all was quiet, and there he again met the Russian, who, however, was playing with three other men, strangers to him.
After he had critically inspected the company, he at length accepted the invitation of a man he did not know to sit down to a friendly hand. In those rooms he was believed to be the wealthy American, as he represented himself to be.
The men he found himself playing with were Frenchmen, and very soon, by dint of “working the trick,” he succeeded in swindling them out of about fifty pounds.
Then suddenly his luck turned dead against him. In three coups he lost everything, except two coins he had kept in his pocket.
Again, with a gambler’s belief in chance, he made another stake, one of five hundred francs.
The cards were dealt and played. Again he lost.
His brows knit, for he could not pay.
From his pocket he drew a silver case, and, taking out his card:
Silas P. Hoggan,
San Diego, Cal
handed it to the man who had invited him to play, with a promise to let him have the money by noon next day.
In return he was given a card with the name: “Paul Forestier, Château de Polivac, Rhone.”
The men bowed to each other with exquisite politeness, and then Ralph Ansell went out upon the moonlit plage with only two pounds in his pocket, laughing bitterly at his continued run of ill-luck.
That night he took a long walk for miles beside the rocky coast of Calvados, through the fashionable villages of Beuzeval and Cabourg, meeting no one save two mounted gendarmes. The brilliant moon shone over the Channel, and the cool air was refreshing after the close, stuffy heat of the gaming-house.
As he walked, much of his adventurous past arose before him. He thought of Jean, and wondered where she was. Swallowed in the vortex of lower-class life of Paris – dead, probably.
And “The Eel”? He was still in prison, of course. Would they ever meet again? He sincerely hoped not.
As he walked, he tried to formulate some plan for the future. To remain further in Trouville was impossible. Besides, he would have once more to sacrifice his small belongings and leave the hotel without settling his account.
He was debating whether it would be wise to return to Paris. Would he, in his genteel garb, be recognised by some agent of the Sûreté as “The American”? There was danger. Was it wise to court it?
At a point of the road where it ran down upon the rocky beach, upon which the moonlit sea was lapping lazily, he paused, and sat upon the stump of a tree.
And there he reflected until the pink dawn spread, and upon the horizon he saw the early morning steamer crossing from Havre.
He was broke!
Perhaps Ted Patten had treated him just as he had treated Adolphe. That letter might, after all, be only a blind.
“He may have got money, and then written to frighten me,” he muttered to himself. “Strange that he didn’t give an address. But I know where I shall find him sooner or later. Harry’s in Paris is his favourite place, or the American Bar at the Grand at Brussels. Oh, yes, I shall find him. First let me turn myself round.”
Then, rising, he walked back to Trouville in the brilliant morning, and going up to his room, went to bed.
Whenever he found himself in an hotel with no money to pay the bill, he always feigned illness, and so awakened the sympathies of the management. In some cases he had lain ill for weeks, living on luxuries, and promising to settle for it all when he was able to get about.
He had done the trick at the Adlon, in Berlin, till found out, and again at the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York. This time he intended to “work the wheeze” on the Palace at Trouville, though he knew that he could not live there long, for the short season was nearly at an end, and in about three weeks the hotel would be closed.
But for a fortnight he remained in bed – or, at least, he was in bed whenever anyone came in. The doctor who was called prescribed for acute rheumatism, and the way in which the patient shammed pain was pathetic.
This enforced retirement was in one way irksome. Wrapped in his dressing-gown, he, after a week in bed, was sufficiently well to sit at the window and look down upon the gay crowd on the plage below, and sometimes he even found himself so well that he could appreciate a cigar.
The manager, of course, sympathised with his wealthy visitor, and often came up for an hour’s chat, now that the busiest week of his season was over.
All the time Ansell’s inventive brain was busy. He was devising a new scheme for money-making, and concocting an alluring prospectus of a venture into which he hoped one “mug,” or even two, might put money, and thus form “the original syndicate,” which in turn would supply him with funds.
He knew Constantinople, the city where the foreign “crook” and concession-hunter abounds. Among his unscrupulous friends was an under-official at the Yildiz Kiosk, with whom he had had previous dealings. Indeed, he had paid this official to fabricate and provide bogus concessions purporting to be given under the seal of the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. For one of these concessions – for mining in Asia Minor – he had paid one thousand pounds two years ago, and had sold it to a syndicate in St. Petersburg for ten thousand. When the purchasers came to claim their rights they found the document to be a forgery.
He was contemplating a similar coup. He had written to Youssof Effendi asking if he were still open for business, and had received a telegram answering in the affirmative. Therefore, after days of thought, he had at last decided upon obtaining a “concession” for the erection and working of a system of wireless telegraphy throughout the Turkish Empire, and opening coast stations for public service.
His ideas he sent in a registered letter to his accomplice in Constantinople, urging him to have the “concession” prepared in his name with all haste.
And now he was only waiting from day to day to receive the document by which he would be able to net from some unsuspecting persons a few thousand pounds.
True, the bogus documents concerning the mining concession had borne the actual seal of the Grand Vizier, but though an inquiry had been opened, nothing had been discovered. Corruption is so rife in Turkey that the Palace officials ever hang together, providing there is sufficient backsheesh passing. Ralph knew that, therefore he was always liberal. It paid him to be.
A few days before the date of the closing of the hotel a large, official envelope, registered and heavily sealed, was brought up to Mr. Hoggan’s room by a page, and Ralph, opening it, found a formidable document in Turkish, which he was unable to read, bearing four signatures, with the big, embossed seal of the Grand Vizier of the Sultan.
With it was an official letter headed “Ministère des Affaires Étrangers, Sublime Porte,” enclosing a translation of the document in French, and asking for an acknowledgment.
The imitation was, indeed, perfect. Ralph Ansell rubbed his hands with glee. In Berlin he could obtain at least ten thousand pounds for it, if he tried unsuspicious quarters.
But he wanted ready money to pay his hotel bill and to get to Germany.
An hour later, when the manager came up to pay his usual morning visit, he expressed regret that he had to close the hotel, and added:
“We have still quite a number of visitors. Among them we have Mr. Budden-Reynolds, of London. Do you happen to know him? They say he has made a huge fortune in speculation on the Stock Exchange.”
“Budden-Reynolds!” exclaimed Ralph, opening his eyes wide. “I’ve heard of him, of course. A man who’s in every wild-cat scheme afloat. By Jove! That’s fortunate. I must see him.”
The introduction was not difficult, and that same evening Mr. Budden-Reynolds, a stout, middle-aged, over-dressed man of rather Hebrew countenance, was ushered into the “sick” financier’s room.
“Say, sir, I’m very pleased to meet you. I must apologise for not being able to come down to you, but I’ve had a stiff go of rheumatism. I heard you were in this hotel, and I guess I’ve got something which will interest you.”
Then, when he had seated his visitor, he took from a drawer the formidable registered packet, and drew out the Turkish concession.
The speculator, whose name was well known in financial circles, took it, examined the seal and signatures curiously, and asked what it was.
“That,” said Silas P. Hoggan, grandly, “is a concession from the Sultan of Turkey to establish wireless telegraph stations where I like, and to collect the revenue derived from them. Does it interest you, sir?”
Hoggan saw that the bait was a tempting one.
“Yes, a little,” replied the speculator grandly.
“It’s a splendid proposition! I’m half inclined to go with it straight to the Marconi Company, who will take it over gladly at once. But I feel that we shall do better with a private syndicate, who, in turn, will resell to the Telefunken, the Goldsmidt, or Marconi Company.”
“I think you are wise,” was the reply.
“There’s a heap of money in it! Think of all the coast stations we can establish along the Levant, the Dardanelles, and the Black Sea, to say nothing of the inland public telegraph service. And this, as you will see by the French translation, gives us a perfectly free hand to do whatever we like, and charge the public what we like, providing we give a royalty of five per cent. to the State.”
Then he handed Mr. Budden-Reynolds the letter from the Sublime Porte, together with the French translation.
The letter the speculator read through carefully, and then expressed a desire to participate in the venture.
Ansell’s bluff was superb.
The two men talked over the matter, “The American” drawing an entrancing picture of the enormous sums which were bound to accrue on the enterprise until, before he left the room, Mr. Budden-Reynolds declared himself ready to put up three hundred and fifty pounds for preliminary expenses if, in exchange, he might become one of the original syndicate.
Upon a sheet of the hotel notepaper a draft agreement was at once drawn up, but not, however, until Ansell had raised many objections. He was not eager to accept the money, a fact which greatly impressed the victim.
An hour later, however, he took Mr. Budden-Reynolds’ cheque, signed a receipt, and from that moment his recovery from his illness was extremely rapid.
Early next morning he handed in the cheque to a local bank for telegraphic clearance – which would occupy two days – and then set about packing.
On the second day, at three o’clock in the afternoon, he drew the money, paid his hotel bill with a condescending air, and prepared to depart for Constantinople, for, as he had explained to his victim, there were several minor points in the concession which were not clear, and which could only be settled by discussion on the spot.
Therefore he would go to Paris, and take the Orient Express direct to the Bosphorus.
He had been smoking with Budden-Reynolds from four till five, and then went out to the American bar for an apéritif.
When, however, he returned and ascended to his room to dress for dinner, he was suddenly startled by a loud knock on the door, and his friend Budden-Reynolds bustled in.
Facing “The American” suddenly, he said, purple with rage:
“Well, you’re about the coolest and most clever thief I’ve ever met! Do you know that your confounded Turkish concession isn’t worth the paper it’s written upon?”
“What do you mean?” asked Ansell, with an air of injured innocence.
“I mean, sir,” cried the speculator, “I mean that you are a thief and a swindler, and I now intend to call in the police and have you arrested for palming off upon me a bogus concession. As it happens, my son is in the British Consulate in Constantinople, and, having wired to him to investigate the facts, he has just sent me a reply to say that the Grand Vizier has no knowledge of any such concession, and that it has not been given by him. Indeed, the concession for wireless telegraphy in Turkey was given to the Marconi Company a year ago, and, further, they have already erected two coast-stations on the Black Sea.”
Mr. Silas P. Hoggan, of San Diego, Cal., unscrupulous as he was, stood before his irate visitor absolutely nonplussed.
