CHAPTER V. A TURN OF LUCK.

The effect of Moses Flood’s entrance into his gambling place was magical. It was as if a king had come into the presence of half-a-dozen squabbling courtiers.

Godard shrank back in his lookout chair and relapsed into silence. The several players who had risen in the brief excitement resumed their seats with an air of unconcern, and the dealer continued his shuffling of the cards.

“What’s the trouble?” Flood quietly demanded.

He halted for a moment, erect and motionless, with his piercing eyes bent darkly on the scene.

“Nothing much, sir,” rejoined the humpback, as he dropped the bar across the closed door. “A bit of backcap, that’s all. It’s over now.”

“It had better be,” was the significant response.

Flood’s keen eyes had taken in the situation, yet his coldly dispassionate countenance masked his feelings as with a veil of ice. He passed back of the table, gravely greeting the several players, then paused to gaze down at the sleeping youth on the couch.

“Did he come in with you?” he asked, turning soberly to Cecil Kendall.

“Yes,” replied the latter, with a faint smile crossing his pale face. “We have been over to Boston. Only returned this noon.”

“He has been drinking heavily, hasn’t he?”

“Rather.”

“Wayward fool!”

“I tried to dissuade him,” muttered Kendall. “He’s in no shape to go home, so we dropped in here.”

Flood’s face was clouded with a censorious frown as he turned away to place his hat on a rack near-by.

Godard had made no further remarks, but sat staring oddly at Kendall, who now appeared to ignore him.

The humpback had resumed his position at the end of the table, with his legs curled under him in his chair, with his ungainly head drawn down between his shoulders, and his attention directed upon the movements of the dealer, who had thrust the cards into the box and was about to start a new deal.

Just then, however, Moses Flood approached him from behind and detained him with a significant touch on the shoulder.

Bruce did not commence to deal.

“How are they coming, Kendall?” Flood quietly asked, with a glance at the former’s chips.

“Rocky,” said Kendall, with a sickly smile.

“That so?”

“Win these, Mose, and you have my pile. I shall be down and out, in more senses than one.”

Flood knew too well what he meant, yet his countenance did not change by so much as a shadow. He addressed the dealer, saying gravely:

“Go and get your supper, Tom, and I will deal while you are out,” said he. “I shall wish to be away for an hour or two after you return.”

“All right, sir.”

“You, Godard, may rearrange that sideboard, if you will. It looks as if it had been struck by lightning. The cues can declare it if I overpay.”

“Not much danger of that, Mr. Flood,” smiled Godard, as the two men at once complied.

Flood made no reply. He wheeled the lookout’s chair a little to one side, as if it was in his way. In fact, however, he wanted no one in it during the next half-hour.

Then he took the dealer’s seat at the table, that which Tom Bruce had vacated.

“You may draw the curtains back of me, John, and close the window. I feel a draft,” said he, addressing the cuekeeper.

He never called him by his nickname. In his sight the deformed man’s affliction was great enough as it was. This showed of what the nature of Moses Flood was capable.

He had removed his coat and opened his vest. He was rather slow in his movements, and not without an object. He had been on fire within. He now was cooling down. He was setting his nerves to the extraordinary task he saw before him.

As the humpback left the window, Flood turned as if to see that it was closed. For the moment his face was averted from the several players. Only Humpty Green could see it, and he caught from Flood’s eyes a flash that thrilled him through and through. It was a magnetic telegram, an unuttered command. It was understood, and the cuekeeper was startled; but even the cuekeeper in a faro-bank commands his emotions. Without a change of countenance he resumed his seat.

Meantime, Nick Carter and Chick had sauntered over to the sideboard, then dropped into two chairs near the wall, where they sat, quietly talking and pretending to be sizing up the game.

“There’s your man, all right,” murmured Chick, when Kendall’s name was mentioned.

“Yes,” nodded Nick. “That is about what I expected.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“Not at present. I’m not sure that he is guilty of embezzlement, and Gilsey wished to give him till to-morrow to report at the bank.”

“You’ll keep an eye on him, eh?”

“Rather.”

“Yet——”

“Wait a bit,” muttered Nick. “By Jove! there’s something out of the ordinary going to come off here.”

“Think so?”

“Look at Flood’s face. It’s as colorless as marble.”

“So ’tis, Nick.”

“There is something in the wind. He has got rid of his dealer and sent his lookout from the chair. By all that’s good and great, Chick, I believe he’s up to some extraordinary move.”

“You’ll wait to see?”

“I should say so.”

None of this was overheard by others, and the two detectives gave no sign of observing anything unusual. It took Nick’s keen eyes and broad experience, moreover, to detect in Moses Flood the slightest indication of what he had in mind.

Flood had reverted to the table, and the light again fell full on his face. It was pale, yet composed; stern, yet not evil; expressive, yet changeless.

He was thinking of the girl to whose hand he had aspired, of the rector whose censorious words still were ringing in his ears; and he was thinking, too, of the wretched man seated opposite, a man who had fallen lower and sinned deeper than he had ever done.

He was about to do what only one man in millions would have done. He believed what the rector had told him, that Dora Royal loved this man, who, were his sin to be brought home to him, would become a criminal at law and an outcast of society.

For the sake of the girl, and to preserve her happiness, Moses Flood, looking for no return, not so much even as a smile of gratitude, was about to secretly sacrifice a goodly part of his fortune upon the altar of his own hopeless affection.

He had spoken the truth, this man, when he said, “Even a gamester may love nobly, and be capable of great self-sacrifice.”

Yet his face was a mask, hiding the emotions within.

One man only among all his observers could read it aright—Nick Carter.

Flood laid aside the deal box lately used, and took another from a lower drawer of the table, of which he alone had the key.

The box appeared to be precisely like the other—but it was not. With slight manipulation, the dealer could lower an invisible plate within, thus widening the slot through which the cards were dealt, allowing the passage of two cards instead of one. The mechanism could not be discovered, except with close examination, and even then a novice would not detect it.

“What’s the matter with the other box?” demanded a player, at once betraying a gambler’s suspicions.

“Nothing that I know of,” said Flood coldly. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, for no reason. I wondered why you shifted, that’s all.”

“Because I wanted to,” said Flood. “I prefer to work with my own tools. Are you suspicious? If so, you are not invited to play.”

“That’s true enough.”

“If my word is of weight with you, however, you may be sure that a false card was never dealt in this place, to my knowledge.”

And he spoke the truth.

“The game is strong enough without it,” smiled Kendall, over whom, as over all, Moses Flood seemed to exercise a strangely magnetic influence.

The latter made no reply, but took from the same drawer a deck of cards bound with a rubber, which he deliberately removed and threw to the floor. They were well seasoned, and of a rare and expensive quality, and unique design. They were of the kind known as “crazy backs.”

Nick Carter recognized them the moment his gaze lighted on them. He leaned nearer to Chick and whispered quietly:

“I begin to suspect what’s coming off here, Chick. That’s a brace box, for a hundred.”

“The dickens! Do you think so?”

“I do, indeed. And that deck of cards he has just brought up, Chick, is a deck of strippers.”

“What are strippers, Nick?”

“Cards used for dealing one kind of a brace game,” whispered Nick. “They are cut just the least bit wider at one end than the other. The narrow ends of the cards forming the middle of the layout are turned one way in shuffling, and those comprising the ends of the layout are turned the other.”

“What’s the idea of that?”

“Simple as two and two,” replied Nick softly. “After shuffling the deck, the dealer takes the wide end of the cards between his thumbs and middle fingers, and with a movement so rapid as to defy detection, he strips them apart. Then he holds in one hand the cards corresponding to the ends of the layout, and in the other those comprising the middle. After putting them together, and placing them in the box, he knows almost to a certainty which cards are to win and which to lose throughout the deal.”

“The devil you say!” muttered Chick. “Then there must, indeed, be something coming off here.”

“Wait and see.”

Now, a word concerning the brace game Nick had partly described. Suppose that a player bets heavily upon an end card of the layout to win.

The dealer sees that the bet is placed correctly, and for him to win the amount wagered it is necessary for him to reverse the combination of the cards. What does he do? He presses down on the secret plate in the box, and in making the turn, instead of dealing two cards, a winner and a loser, he deals three, and so adroitly that the deception is not observed. This reverses the combination, and the player referred to must lose. It is called “taking a card.”

But it is necessary, also, that the cues should show correctly at the end of the deal. The cuekeeper watches the dealer attentively. The latter, after taking a card, signs by prearranged signals to the former, who raps once with a chip against the side of the cue-rack, which signifies that the card taken is recorded, and at the end of the deal the cues are right.

Sometimes the cards are marked also, that the dealer may know each turn before making it. This is called “dealing at sight.”

What is all this that has been described? It is one way by which men thrust their hands into their brother’s pocket and rob him. It is more ignoble than stopping one in the darkness, and commanding him, at the point of a weapon, “Stand and deliver!” It is one of the methods by which is dealt the perfidious “brace faro!”

Such was the box and such the cards which Moses Flood had placed on the table before him.

The goggle eyes of Humpty Green began to open wider, his ungainly face to grow pale and grave. He had never known of such in the place, but the master had commanded and the menial would obey. He drew his chair closer to the table.

Amid that momentous silence which invariably marks the opening of a new deal, Moses Flood, his pale features fixed like marble, his eyes steadfastly intense, his white hands nerved to their performance, began to shuffle the cards. His movements were rapid and graceful. In the flash of an eye he had stripped the deck asunder, cut it, and placed it in the box. A six showed at the top; the ends of the layout were winners, the middle losers.

Flood sat back in his chair and waited the placing of bets. With an experienced eye he sized Kendall’s remaining chips; there were about six hundred dollars’ worth. The other players were wagering small amounts, and he gave them no attention. His mind was upon the man directly opposite.

Kendall’s hand trembled when it placed his first bet. He went on to the six to lose. He believed that he alone of all the world knew his dire need of winning.

This bet was wrongly placed, and Flood knew it, yet made a turn. There was no decision, but a king had showed winner, and Kendall coppered the next. In a spirit of antagonism he was bucking the cards.

Moses Flood leaned forward and glanced down upon the box. He could see the edges of the three top cards. They were marked by small, red dots, invisible to the players. Suddenly he made the turn. It was done like a flash. His forefinger touched for an instant the left lower corner of the box, and the silence was broken by the quick, responsive rap of the cuekeeper. He had taken a five. The cue was marked up, and the combination was reversed.

Cecil Kendall had won his first bet—and the face of the humpback was a study; for, by taking the card, the dealer, contrary to all precedent, had forced himself to lose!

Humpty Green decided that Moses Flood had made a mistake.

The good luck seemed to encourage Kendall. He placed another bet—and won. He doubled the amount, and won again. He moved bet and payment to the corner of a card, and said in tones tremulous despite him:

“That goes both ways.”

He whispered the turn—it was followed by a rap from the cuekeeper.

The latter’s face was now livid from uprising excitement, and his eyes like glowing coals. There could be but one meaning to what he saw—Moses Flood was indeed dealing a “brace game,” but he was dealing it against himself, and forcing Cecil Kendall to win! With form quivering in his chair, the menial looked at the master. He might as well have looked at the ceiling.

To Kendall it seemed like the interposition of fate. The spirit of fortune inspired him. He observed that his last bet topped the limit, yet he had not been stopped.

“How high can I go?” he asked suddenly, looking up at the dealer.

“Till I call you down,” answered Flood, with unmoved countenance.

“Look out, or I’ll break you,” laughed Kendall nervously, his face flushed, his eyes glowing.

“You cannot break me,” replied Flood, with calm gravity.

“How much can I win?”

The question came with strangely abrupt eagerness.

“Ninety thousand dollars,” was the nonchalant rejoinder.

A momentary pallor swept over Kendall’s face at the mention of the sum, and his glittering eyes flashed for an instant on Flood; but the latter’s countenance, void of insinuation, was as cold and calm as a sea of ice. The player’s brow darkened slightly, and his lips became drawn in the intensity of his mental action. Had he known what the humpback, shaking in his chair, knew at that moment, he would have won the sum in half-a-dozen turns.

“God!” he cried to himself. “What would that be to me! it would place me on my feet again! It would make me a man again—a man worthy of life and of her! God above, is it possible to win it?”

He saw a possibility, one chance in a hundred, and took it. He was well worthy his reputation of a high-roller. Down he went upon the layout with his chips; now betting one, now two, now three hundred dollars on a card.

The chips before him gathered like Arctic snow. One, two, three thousand dollars was passed—and yet he won. His face burned as from fever. He was on fire within. He could scarcely comprehend what was taking place, but that it was was sufficient; and a fervent hope, banishing sober contemplation, urged him on. He pressed his bets from two to three, and from three to five hundred, yet Moses Flood never spoke. He was glad to see him do so, for the other players, astounded by the seeming run of luck, were beginning to follow Kendall.

The silence, oppressive in its intensity, was broken only by the occasional rap of the cuekeeper and the labored breathing of the sleeping youth upon the sofa.

“Last turn,” said the humpback suddenly, his voice deep and husky in his throat. “An ace, five, and seven in.”

Then, for the first time during the deal, did Moses Flood glance at the cue-rack, and raising his eyes, like stars in his stoical face, he gave its keeper a look of such intensity that the fellow fairly shuddered in his chair. It was a command of silence which he dared not disobey.

Cecil Kendall placed his bets, and Flood made the turn.

The cues were right, despite the fact that six cards had been taken, and the humpback breathed a sigh of relief.

Something like an exclamation of triumph, half suppressed, broke from Kendall’s lips. He had called the turn and emptied the check-rack.

The recreant cashier of the Milmore Trust Company had won twenty thousand dollars on the deal.

He had experienced a wonderful turn of luck.