CHAPTER VI. A STARTLING SEQUENCE

As the deal ended, a deep sigh of relief rose from the several players at the table, as from men long submerged in water. Their suppressed excitement had been intense, fairly painful at times, and this halt between the deals was a welcome respite.

Except Moses Flood and the deformed cuekeeper, only one man in the room saw what Moses Flood was doing. Before the deal was half out, Nick Carter detected the gamester’s design, as well as the marvelous dexterity with which it was executed. And Nick readily guessed, too, the true occasion for it. Once more he leaned nearer to Chick and said softly:

“Do you see what Flood is doing?”

“I see that Kendall is winning,” whispered Chick.

“Like a race-horse. You are witnessing a bit of unselfish work that places Flood in a class all his own,” murmured Nick, with some feeling.

“What do you mean?”

“He is dealing so as to insure himself a loser, and forcing Kendall to win.”

“The deuce you say!”

“Mark me, Chick,” added Nick. “He will make Kendall win a sum sufficient to square him at the bank—ninety thousand dollars.”

“Good God!” muttered Chick. “Do you think so?”

“Wait and see.”

“What will you do about Kendall in that case?”

“I shall be governed by what I observe,” whispered Nick. “Be careful to give no sign that we are wise to anything. This is one of the most extraordinary episodes I ever witnessed.”

“But what object can Flood have in——”

“Hush! I can guess what it is, and for all the world I would not get in his way. I will explain it to you later. No more now, Chick. They’re off again.”

Flood again had shuffled and stripped the cards, then placed them in the deal box. Looking at his coldly stoical face, one would have said that he was utterly unconscious of his losses.

“You have emptied the chip-rack, Kendall,” said he deliberately. “Count me back twenty thousand dollars’ worth of your chips. I will note the sum, and pay you at the end of your play.”

He had no fear that the player would quit on the strength of such a proposition. He knew him too well—and his dire need to win more.

“Suppose my good luck continues?” said Kendall doubtfully.

“Ah, that is not likely,” said Flood calmly. “But you shall have all that you can win. I think you know me to be a man of my word.”

Kendall would have preferred to have the money, but he offered no further objection. He returned the chips desired, and Flood made a memorandum of the amount.

Then the next deal began. It was a repetition of the former, save that now and then, in order to keep the other players in check, Flood was compelled to let Kendall lose. But the latter won heavily on the deal as a whole, his bets being pressed to four figures, and when the final turn was made he had forty-five thousand dollars due him from the bank.

The intense strain to which Moses Flood was subjecting himself was beginning to tell on him. His teeth were hard set. The muscles of his jaw were rigid, and the veins about his temples were purple and swollen. The pupils of his dilated eyes were like points of electric light.

Despite his efforts to the contrary, other players were beginning to win by his manipulation of the cards, and Flood felt that the play must be brought to an end. As he dealt the cards and put them in the box for the third deal, he decided upon the surest and speediest method. He sized the chips in front of Kendall, then made a rapid turn.

One double was in the box. Kendall staked a thousand.

He won his bet fairly, and Flood lost six hundred to the other players. He bit his lip as he paid the bets.

Then he glanced down at the next turn to come, and saw that Kendall was destined to lose. The outsiders also were upon the card to win, following fortune’s favorite. Moses Flood could have won all the bet by making an honest turn. Instead, he took a card—and lost all.

He paid the bets without a change of countenance—then sat back in his chair.

“With this memorandum and the chips in front of you,” said he, looking across at Kendall, “I owe you forty-five thousand dollars. You may bet the entire amount on a case card.”

“What’s the objection to continuing as we’re going?” cried Kendall, aghast at the offer. “I’m doing well enough as it is.”

Flood’s cold features underwent no change.

“You may make the bet suggested, Kendall, or come down to the limit,” he said firmly.

“You cannot get even by that,” growled Kendall sullenly.

“Nor can you win so rapidly.”

“Your proposition goes, does it?”

“What I say in this place always goes.”

Kendall sat silent for several moments. He already had won half of the sum he so direfully needed, but he could not believe that fortune would favor him much longer. He was a ruined man when he entered the place, and with only half the desired sum he still was ruined. To win the bet suggested meant to him—redemption. There was no alternative but to accept the offer.

Flood knew absolutely how Kendall would size up the situation, that he would take this one chance to square himself. He was not surprised, therefore, when the latter cried hoarsely:

“I’ll make the bet!”

“Give me all of your chips,” said Flood calmly.

Kendall stacked them upon the layout.

Flood transferred them to the chip-rack, then tossed a marker, a small, square piece of ivory, across the table.

“That goes for forty-five thousand, Kendall,” said he. “Bet it on any card you please.”

A hush like that of a death chamber fell over the room.

A fortune was to hang on the turn of a single card.

Not another man placed a bet.

The color of the marker, white, seemed to give nerve to Cecil Kendall. If it had been a black one, he would have shrunk and hesitated. As it was, he played a three-time loser to win, tossing the marker upon the card, and then sat back in his chair, half fainting, and waited the turn that was to decide his fate.

The excitement was intense, utterly indescribable, yet not a sound broke the deathly stillness.

Moses Flood alone appeared to be calm—but the condition was external only. He leaned a little forward, that he might look down on the box on which every eye was focused, and anticipated each coming turn.

He made one turn and there was no decision of the enormous bet. He then made another, a third, a fourth, and still there was no decision.

Then he hesitated.

Kendall was breathless. His eyes were fixed, staring wildly at the deal box, and his teeth were chattering. He was like a man yearning for pardon even under the muzzles of guns that hung upon the command to fire.

Could he endure the suspense? Would reason sustain the strain? Or would he suddenly reach forward and withdraw the bet?

Looking down upon the deal box, Moses Flood saw the coming turn.

He saw that Kendall was fated to lose his bet.

Despite his iron will, Flood began to tremble. To accomplish his sublime object, he was obliged to take a false card. Could he do it in his present state and under the glance of every eye? He ground his teeth, knit his heavy brows, and the blood in the arteries of his neck seemed as if to burst its confines.

Still he hesitated—then the gong on the door broke the awful silence.

Every eye turned involuntarily toward the bell.

Flood’s hands moved with lightning like rapidity. They took the false card undetected. The turn was made—and Cecil Kendall had won!

He leaped to his feet, caught blindly at his chair, then cried wildly:

“No more! Not another bet! Not for life itself will I make another bet!”

Flood rose, with face fairly transfigured, and pointed to the sleeping man on the couch.

“Peace!” he sternly commanded, with a voice that silenced all. “Do not wake young Royal. He is in no shape to go home to his father and sister!”

Nick Carter leaned over and gripped Chick hard by the wrist.

“By all the gods, Chick,” he muttered huskily, “from this hour my money goes on Moses Flood!”

It was not strange, this feeling on the part of the great detective, for he, at least, knew what Moses Flood had done, and why he had done it.

“Let there be no disturbance here,” said Flood, now quite calmly. “John, go and answer the bell. And you, Mr. Kendall, come into my private room, and I will pay your winnings.”

Kendall tried to speak, but his voice died in his swelling throat.

The man who had rung the bell was the returning dealer, Tom Bruce.

Flood beckoned him to the table.

“Continue the game, Mr. Bruce,” said he gravely. “Gentlemen, I do not wish the episode of this evening to be noised abroad, and those of you who are my friends will govern yourselves accordingly.”

“Oh, we’ll keep mum about it, Mose!” cried several promptly.

As Flood passed the humpback, who was replacing the bar on the door, he laid his hand on the man’s shoulder and said softly:

“Not a word of this, John, for your life!”

“Trust me, sir!”

Moses Flood knew that he could trust him, and he believed that no other man on earth knew what he had done there that night. He locked the brace deal box in the drawer from which he had taken it, but kept the deck of strippers in his hand when he led Cecil Kendall into his private room.

As the door closed upon the two men, Nathan Godard sauntered nearer to Bruce and said carelessly:

“I’m going out to supper, Tom. I have one or two errands to do, and may be out a bit longer than usual.”

“All right, Nate,” nodded Bruce, who had taken his seat at the table. “Do not hurry back, as the boss said that he was going away.”

“I’ll return in about an hour,” added Godard.

Then he took his hat and departed.

Neither Nick Carter nor Chick observed him.

The eyes of both were fixed upon the closed door of Flood’s private room.