Chapter VIII: Part 8

“It was blackmail; but the plain-clothes man was not correct, though he had every excuse for making the mistake. There is one quiet, retiring personage in this drama who has been signally overlooked in all the clamour.”

“You mean----?”

“I suggest that if Miss Linknorth had been subpœnaed for the inquest and asked to account for her movements after leaving the theatre on Thursday last it might have turned public speculation into another channel--though probably a wrong one.”

“Miss Linknorth!” The idea certainly turned Mr Carlyle’s thoughts into a new channel.

“Has it occurred to you what an extraordinary act of self-effacement it must have been on the part of this young unknown actress to allow her well-earned success to be credited to another? As Enniscorthy reminded us, ladies of the profession are rather keen on their chances.”

“Yes; but Stokesey, you remember, insisted on keeping it dark.”

“I am not overlooking that. But although it was to Stokesey’s interest to keep up the fiction, and also to the interest of everyone else about the theatre--people who were merely concerned in the run of the piece--it would have richly paid the Linknorth to have her identity established while the iron was hot, whatever the outcome. A paragraph to the Press the next day would have done it. There wasn’t a hint. I am not overlooking the fact that Miss Linknorth’s name now appears on the programme, but that is an unforeseen development so far as she is concerned, and her golden opportunity has gone by. With the exception of the first row of the pit and of the gallery you won’t find that one per cent. of the house now really knows who created ‘Mary Ryan’ or regards the Linknorth as anything but a makeshift.”

“Then what was the incentive?”

“Suppose it has been made worth Miss Linknorth’s while? It is not necessarily a crude question of money. Friendship might make it worth her while, or ambition in some quarter we have not looked for, or a dozen other considerations--anything but the box-office of the Argosy Theatre, which certainly did not make it worth her while.”

“Yes, that is feasible enough, Max, but how does it help us?”

“Do you ever have toothache, Louis?” demanded Carrados inconsequently.

“No, I am glad to say,” admitted Mr Carlyle. “Have you got a turn now, old man? Never mind this confounded ‘shop.’ I’ll go and then you can----”

“Not at all,” interposed Carrados, smiling benignly at his friend’s consideration; “and don’t be too ready to condemn toothache indiscriminately. I have sometimes found it very stimulating. The only way to cure it is to concentrate the mind so terrifically that you forget the ache. Then it stops. I imagine that a mathematician could succeed by working out a monumental problem. I have frequently done it by ‘discovering’ a hoard of Greek coins of the highest art period on one of the islands and classifying the find. On Monday night I thought that I was in for a devil of a time. I at once set myself to discover a workable theory for everyone’s conduct in this affair, one, of course, that would stand the test of every objection based on fact. The correct hypothesis must, indeed, be strengthened by every new circumstance that came out. At twelve o’clock, after two hours’ mental sudation, I began to see light--excuse the phrase. By this time the toothache had gone, but I was so taken up with the idea that I called out Harris and drove to Scotland Yard then and there on the chance of finding Beedel or one of the others I know.... Why on earth didn’t you let me have that ‘Fool!’ message, Louis?”

“My dear fellow,” protested Mr Carlyle, “I can’t beat up for advice on every day of my life.”

“At all events it might have saved me an hour’s strenuous thinking.”

“Well, you know, Max, perhaps that would have left you in the middle of the toothache. Now the message----?”

“The message? Oh, that settled it. You may take it as assured, Louis, that although Miss Roscastle’s departure from the theatre was hurried, in order to allow her to catch the boat-train from Charing Cross, she had enough time to think out the situation and to secure Miss Linknorth’s allegiance. Whether Stokesey knows any more than he admits, we need not inquire. The great thing is that Miss Roscastle had some reason--some fairly strong reason--for not wanting her absence from the cast to become public. We agreed, Louis, that a better engagement would alone satisfactorily explain her defection. What better engagement would you suggest--it could scarcely be a theatrical one?”

“A brilliant marriage?”

“Our minds positively ident, Louis. ‘A brilliant marriage’--my exact expression. One, moreover, that suddenly becomes possible and cannot be delayed. One--here we are on difficult ground--one that may be jeopardised if at that early stage Miss Roscastle’s identity in it comes to light, or if, possibly, her absence from London is discovered. That sign-post,” said Carrados, with his unseeing eyes fixed on the lengthening vistas that rose before his mind, “points in a good many directions.”

“The blackmailer?” hazarded Carlyle.

“I gave a good deal of attention to every phase of that gentleman’s presence,” replied Carrados. “It corroborates, but it does not entirely explain. I would say that he merely intervened. In my view, Miss Roscastle would have acted precisely as she did if there had been no Mr Hay. At all events he _did_ intervene and had to be dealt with.”

“It had occurred to me, Max, whether it was Miss Linknorth’s job to impersonate the other?”

“It may have been originally. If so, it failed, for Hay proceeded with his demand. His price was five hundred pounds in English or French gold--an interesting phase of your ordinary blackmailer’s antipathy to paper--merely an _hors d’œuvre_ to the solid things to come, of course. But he was not dealing with a fool. Whether Miss Roscastle frankly had not five hundred pounds just then, or whether she was better advised, we cannot say. She temporised, the Linknorth being the intermediary. Then the dummy pieces? Hay _was_ a menace and had to be held off. At one point there may well have been the pretence of handing over the cash and then at the last moment some specious difficulty, necessitating a short delay, is raised. That would account for the otherwise unnecessary detail of the lead counterfeits, for there is no need of them on Thursday. Then, when the danger is past, when the tricked scoundrel has lost his sting, _then_ there is no attempt at evasion or compromise. ‘Fool! What does it matter now?’ is the contemptuously unguarded message and the five hundred doits are pressed upon him to complete his humiliation. Why doesn’t it matter, Louis? Is there any other answer than that Miss Roscastle is safely married?”

“It certainly looks like it,” agreed Mr Carlyle. “But if there was anything so serious as to have compromised the marriage, surely Hay could still have held it over her, as against her husband?”

“If it was as against the husband before--yes, perhaps. But suppose the chink in the armour was the good grace of some third person whose consent was necessary? This brilliant marriage.... Well, I don’t commit myself any further. At any rate, in the lady’s estimation she is safe, and if she had deliberately sought to goad Hay into suicide she couldn’t have done better. He read the single line that shattered his greedy dreams and its disdainful triumph struck him like a whip. He had spent literally his last penny on pressing his unworthy persecution, and now he stood, beggared and beaten, on the Embankment at midnight--‘he, a gentleman.’ ... It doesn’t matter how he took it. He went over, and the muddy waters of the Thames closed over the last page of his rotten history.”

“Max!” exclaimed Mr Carlyle with feeling. “Remember the poor beggar, with all his failings, is dead now. Not that I should mind,” he added cheerfully, “but I saw him afterwards, you know. Enniscorthy had the sense to keep away. And, by Gad! Max, that reminds me that this is rather rough on my confiding young client--running up a bill to have a successful rival sprung upon his hopes. Have you any idea who he is?”

“Yes,” admitted Carrados, “I have an idea, but to-day it is nothing more than that. When does Enniscorthy return?”

“He ought to be back in London on Friday morning.”

“By then I should know something definite. If you will make an appointment with him for Friday at half-past eleven I will look in on my way through town.”

“Certainly, Max, certainly.” There was a note of faithful expectation in Mr Carlyle’s voice that caused his friend to smile. He crossed the room to his most-used desk and opened one of the smaller drawers.

“For this simple demonstration, Louis, I require only two appliances, neither of which, as you will see, is a rabbit or a handkerchief. In other and saner words, there are only two exhibits. That is from _The Morning Mail_; this is from the Westminster street refuse tip.”

“This” was a small brown canvas bag. Traces of red sealing-wax still marked the neck and across it were stamped the words:

BANQUE DE L’UNION
CLAIRVAUX

Mr Carlyle looked inside. It was empty, but a few specks of dull grey metal still lodged among the cloth. He turned to the other object, as Carrados had indicated an extract from the daily Press. It was a mere slip of paper and consisted of the following paragraph:

“From Clairvaux, in the Pas de Calais, France, where he purchased a
country estate when he was driven into exile, it is reported that
ex-King Constantine of Villalyia has been lying dangerously ill for
the past week.”

“Quite so, quite so,” murmured Carlyle, quietly turning over the cutting to satisfy himself that he was reading the right side.

* * * * *

“I see that you haven’t anything very hopeful to report,” said Mr Enniscorthy--he and Max Carrados had entered Mr Carlyle’s office within a minute of each other two days later--“but let me have it out.”

“It isn’t quite a matter of being hopeful or the reverse,” replied the blind man. “It is merely final to your ambition. You know Prince Ulric of Villalyia?”

“I have been presented. He hunted in Ireland last season.”

“He knew Miss Roscastle?”

“They were acquainted, she has told me.”

“It went deeper than you imagined. Miss Roscastle is Princess Ulric of Villalyia to-day.”

“Una! Oh,” cried Enniscorthy, “but--but that is impossible! You don’t mean that she----”

“I mean exactly what I say. They were married within a week of her disappearance from London.”

Enniscorthy’s pained gaze went from face to face. The fatal presentiment that had always just robbed him of the heroic--the fear that he might be making an ass of himself--again assailed him.

“But isn’t Ulric in the line of succession? They couldn’t be really married without the king’s consent. Of course Villalyia is a republic now, but----”

“But it may not be to-morrow if the expected war breaks out? Quite true, Mr Enniscorthy. And in the meanwhile the forms and ceremonies are maintained at the exile Court of Clairvaux. Yet the king gave his consent.”

“Gave his consent! For his son to marry an actress?”

“Ah, there was a little sleight of hand there. He only knew Miss Roscastle as Miss Eileen O’Rourke, the last representative of a line of Irish kings. She was a Miss O’Rourke?”

“Yes. Roscastle was only her stage name. The O’Rourkes were a very old but impoverished family.”

“Royal, we may assume. This business was the outcome of one of the interminable domestic squabbles that the Villalyia Petrosteins seemed to wage in order to supply the Continental comic papers with material. Ex-King Constantine recently quarrelled simultaneously and irrevocably with his eldest son Robert and his first cousin Michael. Robert, who lives in Paris, has respectably married a robust minor princess who has presented him with six unattractive daughters and now, by all report, stopped finally. Hating both son and cousin almost equally, old Constantine, who had fumed himself into a fever, sent off for his other son, Ulric, and demanded that he should at once marry and found a prolific line of sons to embitter Robert and cut out the posterity of Michael. Prince Ulric merely replied that there was only one woman whom he wished to marry and she was not of sufficiently exalted station, and as she refused to marry him morganatically--yes, Mr Enniscorthy--there was no prospect of his ever marrying at all. The king suddenly found that he was very ill. Ulric was obdurate. The constitution allowed the reigning monarch to sanction such an alliance, provided there were no religious difficulties, and I understand that Miss Roscastle is a Catholic. Constantine recognised that if he was to gratify his whim he must consent, and that at once, as he was certainly dying. As things were, Ulric would probably renounce and marry ignominiously or die unmarried and the hated Michaels would step in, for, once king, the conventional Robert would never give his consent to such an alliance. Besides, it would be a ‘damned slap in the face’ to half the remaining royalty of Europe, and Constantine had always posed as a democratic sovereign--that was why his people ran him out. He coughed himself faint and then commanded the lady to be sent for.”

“If only Una had confided in me I would--yes, I would willingly have flown to serve her.”

“I think that Miss Roscastle was well qualified to serve herself,” responded Carrados dryly. “Now you can put together the whole story, Mr Enniscorthy. Many pages of it are necessarily obscure. What the man Hay knew and threatened--whether it was with him in view or the emissaries of the hostile Robert and Michael that she took the sudden chance of concealing her absence and cloaking her identity--what other wheels there were, what other influences at work--these are only superfluities. The essential thing is that, in spite of cross-currents, everything went well--for her, and perhaps for you; the lady’s married and there’s an end of it.”

“I hope that she will be as happy as I should have tried to make her,” said Enniscorthy rather shakily. “I shall always think of her. Mr Carrados, I will write to thank you when I am better able to express myself. Mr Carlyle, you know my address. Good-morning.”

“A very manly way of taking it and very properly expressed--very well indeed,” declared Mr Carlyle with warm approval as the door closed. “Max, that is the outcome of good blood--blood and breeding.”

“Nonsense, you romantic old humbug,” said Carrados with affectionate contempt. “I have heard exactly the same words in similar circumstances once before and they were spoken by a Canning Town bricklayer’s labourer.”

One incident only remains to be added. A month later Mr Carlyle was passing the Kemble Club when he became conscious of someone trying to avoid him. With a not unnatural impulse he made for his acquaintance and insisted on being recognised.

“Ah, Mr Stokesey,” he exclaimed, “_Call a Spade----_ is still going strong, I see.”

“Mr Carlyle, to be sure,” said the manager. “Bother me if I didn’t mistake you for a deadhead who always strikes me for a pass. Good heavens! yes; they come in droves and companies to see the part that the romantic Princess Ulric of Villalyia didn’t create! I’ve had three summonses for my pit queue. Didn’t I tell you it was a gamble? When I have to find a successor--_when_, mind, I say--I’m going to put on _You Never Can Tell_! What?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

VII

The Ingenious Mr Spinola

“You seem troubled, Parkinson. Have you been reading the Money Article again?”

Parkinson, who had been lingering a little aimlessly about the room, exhibited symptoms of embarrassed guilt. Since an unfortunate day, when it had been convincingly shown to the excellent fellow that to leave his accumulated savings on deposit at the bank was merely an uninviting mode of throwing money away, it is not too much to say that his few hundreds had led Parkinson a sorry life. Inspired by a natural patriotism and an appreciation of the advantage of 4½ over 1¼ per cent., he had at once invested in consols. A very short time later a terrible line in a financial daily--“Consols weak”--caught his agitated eye. Consols were precipitately abandoned and a “sound industrial” took their place. Then came the rumours of an impending strike and the Conservative press voiced gloomy forebodings for the future of industrial capital. An urgent selling order, bearing Mr Parkinson’s signature, was the immediate outcome.

In the next twelve months Parkinson’s few hundreds wandered through many lands and in a modest way went to support monarchies and republics, to carry on municipal enterprise and to spread the benefits of commerce. And, through all, they contrived to exist. They even assisted in establishing a rubber plantation in Madagascar and exploiting an oil discovery in Peru and yet survived. If everything could have been lost by one dire reverse Parkinson would have been content--even relieved; but with her proverbial inconsequence Fortune began by smiling and continued to smile--faintly, it is true, but appreciably--on her timorous votary. In spite of his profound ignorance of finance each of Parkinson’s qualms and tremors resulted in a slight pecuniary margin to his credit. At the end of twelve months he had drawn a respectable interest, was somewhat to the good in capital, and as a waste product had acquired an abiding reputation among a small but choice coterie as a very “knowing one.”

“Thank you, sir, but I am sorry if I seemed engrossed in my own affairs,” he apologised in answer to Mr Carrados’s inquiry. “As a matter of fact,” he added, “I hoped that I had finished with Stock Exchange transactions for the future.”

“Ah, to be sure,” assented Carrados. “A block of cottages Acton way, wasn’t it to be?”

“I did at one time consider the investment, but on reflection I decided against property of that description. The association with houses occupied by the artisan class would not have been congenial, sir.”

“Still, it might have been profitable.”

“Possibly, sir. I have, however, taken up a mortgage on a detached house standing in its own grounds at Highgate. It was strongly recommended by your own estate agents--by Mr Lethbridge himself, sir.”

“I hope it will prove satisfactory, Parkinson.”

“I hope so, sir, but I do not feel altogether reassured now, after seeing it.”

“After seeing it? But you saw it before you took it up, surely?”

“As a matter of fact, no, sir. It was pointed out to me that the security was ample, and as I had no practical knowledge of house-valuing there was nothing to be gained by inspecting it. At the same time I was given the opportunity, I must admit; but as we were rather busy then--it was just before we went to Rome, sir--I never went there.”

“Well, after all,” admitted Carrados, “I hold a fair number of mortgage securities on railways and other property that I have never been within a thousand miles of. I am not in a position to criticise you, Parkinson. And this house--I suppose that it does really exist?”

“Oh yes, sir. I spent yesterday afternoon in the neighbourhood. Now that the trees are out there is not a great deal that can be actually seen from the road, but I satisfied myself that in the winter the house must be distinctly visible from several points.”

“That is very satisfactory,” said Carrados with equal seriousness. “But, after all, the title is the chief thing.”

“So I am given to understand. Doubtless it would not be sound business, sir, but I think that if the title had been a little worse, and the appearance of the grounds a little better, I should have felt more secure. But what really concerned me is that the house is being talked about.”

“Talked about?”

“Yes. It is in a secluded position, but there are some old-fashioned cottages near and these people notice things, sir. It is not difficult to induce them to talk. Refreshments are procurable at one of the cottages and I had tea there. I have since thought, from a remark made to me on leaving, that the idea may have got about that I was connected with the Scotland Yard authorities. I had no apprehension at the time of creating such an impression, sir, but I wished to make a few casual inquiries.”

Carrados nodded. “Quite so,” he murmured encouragingly.

“It was then that I discovered what I have alluded to. These people, having become suspicious, watch all that is to be seen at Strathblane Lodge--as it is called--and talk. They do not know what goes on there.”

“That must be very disheartening for them.”

“Well, sir, they find it trying. Up to less than a year ago the house was occupied by a commercial gentleman and everything was quite regular. But with the new people they don’t know which are the family and who are the servants. Two or three men having the appearance of mechanics seem to be there continually, and sometimes, generally in the evening, there are visitors of a class whom one would not associate with the unpretentious nature of the establishment. Gentlemen for the most part, but occasionally ladies, I was told, coming in taxis or private motor cars and generally in evening dress.”

“That ought to reassure these neighbours--the private cars and evening dress.”

“I cannot say that it does, sir. And what I heard made me a little nervous also.”

Something was evidently on the ingenuous creature’s mind. The blind man’s face wore a faintly amused smile, but he gauged the real measure of his servant’s apprehension.

“Nervous of what, Parkinson?” he inquired kindly.

“Some thought that it might be a gambling-house, but others said it looked as if a worse business was carried on there. I should not like there to be any scandal or exposure, sir, and perhaps the mortgage forfeited in consequence.”

“But, good heavens, man! you don’t imagine that a mortgage is like a public-house licence, to be revoked in consequence of a rowdy tenant, surely?”

Parkinson’s dubious silence made it increasingly plain that he had, indeed, associated his security with some such contingency, a conviction based, it appeared, when he admitted his fears, on a settled belief in the predatory intentions of a Government with whom he was not in sympathy.

“Don’t give the thing another thought,” counselled his employer. “If Lethbridge recommended the investment you may be sure that it is all right. As for what goes on there--that doesn’t matter two straws to you, and in any case it is probably idle chatter.”

“Thank you, sir. It is a relief to have your assurance. I see now that I ought to have paid no attention to such conversation, but being anxious--and seeing Sir Fergus Copling go there----”

“Sir Fergus Copling? You saw him there?”

“Yes, sir. I thought that I remembered a car that was waiting for the gate to be opened. Then I recognised Sir Fergus: it was the small dark blue car that he has come here in. And just after what I had been hearing----”

“But Sir Fergus Copling! He’s a testimonial of propriety. Do you know what you are talking about, Parkinson?”

The excellent man looked even more deeply troubled than he had been about his money.

“Not in that sense, sir,” he protested. “I only understood that he was a gentleman of position and a very large income, and after just listening to what was being said----”

Carrados’s scepticism was intelligible. Copling was the last man to be associated with a scandal of fast life. He had come into his baronetcy quite unexpectedly a few years previously while engaged in the drab but apparently congenial business of teaching arithmetic at a public school. The chief advantage of the change of fortune, as it appeared to the recipient, was that it enabled him to transfer his attention from the lower to the higher mathematics. Without going out of his way to flout the conventions, he set himself a comparatively simple standard of living. He was too old and fixed, he said, to change much--forty and a bachelor--and the most optimistic spinster in town had reluctantly come to acquiesce.

Carrados had not forgotten this conversation when next he encountered Sir Fergus a week or so later. He knew the man well enough to be able to lead up to the subject and when an identifiable footstep fell on his ear in the hall of the Metaphysical (the dullest club in Europe, it was generally admitted) he called across to the baronet, who, as a matter of fact, had been too abstracted to notice him or anyone else.

“You aren’t a member, are you?” asked Copling when they had shaken hands. “I didn’t know that you went in for this sort of thing.” The motion of his head indicated the monumental library which he had just quitted, but it might possibly be taken as indicating the general atmosphere of profound somnolence that enveloped the Metaphysical.

“I am not a member,” admitted Carrados. “I only came to gather some material.”

“Statistics?” queried Copling with interest. “We have a very useful range of works.” He suddenly remembered his acquaintance’s affliction. “By the way, can I be of any use to you?”

“Yes, if you will,” said Carrados. “Let me go to lunch with you. There is an appalling bore hanging about and he’ll nab me if I don’t get past under protection.”

Copling assented readily enough and took the blind man’s arm.

“Where, though?” he asked at the door. “I generally”--he hesitated, with a shy laugh--“I generally go to an A.B.C. tea-shop myself. It doesn’t waste so much time. But, of course----”

“Of course, a tea-shop by all means,” assented Carrados.

“You are sure that you don’t mind?” persisted the baronet anxiously.

“Mind? Why, I’m a shareholder!” chuckled Carrados.

“This suits me very well,” remarked the ex-schoolmaster when they were seated in a remote corner of a seething general room. “Fellows used to do their best to get me into the way of going to swell places, but I always seem to drift back here. I don’t mind the prices, Carrados, but hang me if I like to pay the prices simply to be inconvenienced. Yes, _hot_ milk, please.”

Carrados endorsed this reasonable philosophy. Carlton or Coffee-house, the Ritz or the tea-shop, it was all the same to him--life, and very enjoyable life at that. He sat and, like the spider, drew from within himself the fabric of the universe by which he was surrounded. In that inexhaustible faculty he found perfect content: he never required “to be amused.”

“No, not statistics,” he said presently, returning to the unfinished conversation of the club hall. “Scarcely that. More in the nature of topography, perhaps. Have you considered, Copling, how everything is specialised nowadays? Does anyone read the old-fashioned, unpretentious _Guide-book to London_ still? One would hardly think so to see how the subject is cut up. We have ‘Famous London Blind-alleys,’ ‘Historical West-Central Door-Knockers,’ ‘Footsteps of Dr Johnson between Gough Square and John Street, Adelphi,’ ‘The Thames from Hungerford Bridge to Charing Cross Pier,’ ‘Oxford Street Paving Stones on which De Quincey sat,’ and so on.”

“They are not familiar to me,” said Sir Fergus simply.

“Nor to me; yet they sound familiar. Well, I touched journalism myself once, years ago. What do you say to ‘Mysterious Double-fronted Houses of the outer Northern Suburbs’? Too comprehensive?”

“I don’t know. The subject must be limited. But do you seriously contemplate such a work?”

“If I did,” replied Carrados, “what could you tell me about Strathblane Lodge, Highgate?”

“Oh!” A slow smile broke on Copling’s face. “That is rather extraordinary, isn’t it? Do you know old Spinola? Have you been there?”

“So far I don’t know the venerable Mr Spinola and I have not been there. What is the peculiarity?”

“But you know of the automatic card-player?”

The words brought a certain amount of enlightenment. Carrados had heard more than once casual allusions to a wonderful mechanical contrivance that played cards with discrimination. He had not thought anything more of it, classing it with Kempelen’s famous imposture which had for a time mystified and duped the chess world more than a century ago. So far, also, some reticence appeared to be observed about the modern contrivance, as though its inventor had no desire to have it turned into a popular show: at all events not a word about it had appeared in the Press.

“I have heard something, but not much, and I certainly have not seen it. What is it--a fraud, surely?”

Copling replied with measured consideration between the process of investigating his lightly boiled egg. It was plain that the automaton had impressed him.

“I naturally approached the subject with scepticism,” he admitted, “but at the end of several demonstrations I am converted to a position of passive acquiescence. Spinola, at all events, is no charlatan. His knowledge of mathematics is profound. As you know, Carrados, the subject is my own and I am not likely to be imposed on in that particular. It was purely the scientific aspect of the invention that attracted me, for I am not a gambler in the ordinary sense. Spinola’s explanation of the principles of the contrivance, when he found that I was capable of following them, was lucid and convincing. Of course he does not disclose all the details of the mechanism, but he shows enough.”

“It is a gamble, then, not a mere demonstration?”

“He has spent many years on the automaton, and it must have cost thousands of pounds in experiment and construction. He makes no secret of hoping to reimburse his outlay.”

“What do you play?”

“Piquet--rubicon piquet. The figure could, he claims, be set to play any game by changing or elaborating the mechanism. He had to construct it for one definite set of chances and he selected piquet as a suitable medium.”

“It wins?”

“Against me invariably in the end.”

“Why should it win, Copling? In a game that is nine-tenths chance, why should it win?”

“I am an indifferent player. If the tactics of the game have been reduced to machinery and the combinations are controlled by a dispassionate automaton, the one-tenth would constitute a winning factor.”

“And against expert players?”

Sir Fergus admitted that to the best of his knowledge the figure still had the advantage. In answer to Carrados’s further inquiry he estimated his losses at two or three hundred pounds. The stakes were whatever the visitor suggested--Spinola was something of a grandee, one inferred--and at half-crown points Sir Fergus had found the game quite expensive enough.

“Why do people go if they invariably lose?” asked the blind man.

“My dear fellow, why do they go to Monte Carlo?” was the retort, accompanied by a tolerant shrug. “Besides, I don’t positively say that they always lose. One hears of people winning, though I have never seen it happen. Then I fancy that the novelty has taken with a certain set. It is a thing at the moment to go up there and have the rather bizarre experience. There is an element of the creep in it, you know--sitting and playing against that serene and unimpressionable contrivance.”

“What do the others do? There is quite a company, I gather.”

“Oh yes, sometimes. Occasionally one may find oneself alone. Well, the others often watch the play. Sometimes sets play bridge on their own. Then there is coffee and wine. Nothing formal, I assure you.”

“Rowdy ever?”

“Oh no. The old man has a presence; I doubt if anyone would feel encouraged to go too far under Spinola’s eye. Yet practically nothing seems to be known of him, not even his nationality. I have heard half-a-dozen different tales from as many cocksure men--he is a South American Spaniard ruined by a revolution; a Jesuit expelled from France through politics; an Irishman of good family settled in Warsaw, where he stole the plans from a broken-down Polish inventor; a Virginia military man, supposed to have a dash of the negroid, who suddenly found that he was dying from cancer and is doing this to provide a fortune for an only and beautiful daughter, and so on.”

“Is there a beautiful daughter?”

“Not that I have ever seen. No, the man just cropped up, as odd people do in great capitals. Nobody really knows anything about him, but his queer salon has caught on to a certain extent.”

Now any novel phase of life attracted Carrados. The mixed company that Spinola’s enterprise was able to draw to an out-of-the-way suburb--the peculiar blend of science and society--was not much in itself. The various constituents could be met elsewhere to more advantage, but the assemblage might engender piquancy. And the man himself and his machine? In any case they should repay attention.

“How does one procure the entrée?” he inquired.

Copling raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“You also?” he replied. “Oh, I see; you think----Well, if you are going to discover any sleight-of-hand about the business I don’t mind----”

“Yes?” prompted Carrados, for Sir Fergus had pulled up on an obvious afterthought.

“I did not intend going up again,” said Copling slowly. “As a matter of fact, I have seen all that interests me. And--I suppose I may as well tell you, Carrados--I made someone a sort of promise to have nothing to do with gambling. She feels very strongly on the subject.”

“She is very wise,” commented the blind man.

Elation mingled with something faintly apologetic in the abrupt bestowal of the baronet’s unexpected confidence.

“It was really quite a sudden and romantic happening,” he continued, led on by the imperceptible encouragement of his companion’s attitude. “She is called Mercia. She does not know who I am--not that that’s anything,” he added modestly. “She is an orphan and earns her own living. I was able to be of some slight service to her in the science galleries at South Kensington, where she was collecting material for her employer. Then we met there again and had lunch together, and so on.”

“At tea-shops?”

“Oh yes. Her tastes are very simple. She doesn’t like shows and society and all that.”

“I congratulate you. When is it to be?”

“It? Oh! Well, we haven’t settled anything like that yet. Of course this is all in confidence, Carrados.”

“Absolutely--though the lady has done me rather an ill turn.”

“How?”

“Well, weren’t you going to introduce me to Mr Spinola?”

“True,” assented Sir Fergus. “And I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” he added valiantly. “I need not play, and if there is any bunkum about the thing I should certainly like to see how it is done. What evening will suit you?”

An early date had suited both, and shortly after eight o’clock--an hour at which they were likely to find few guests before them--Carrados’s car drew up at Strathblane Lodge. By arrangement he had picked up Copling, who lived--“of all places in the world,” as people had said when they heard of it--in an unknown street near Euston. Parkinson, out of regard for the worthy man’s feelings, had been left behind on the occasion and in ignorance of his master’s destination.

The appearance of the place was certainly not calculated to reassure a nervous investor. The entirely neglected garden seemed to convey a hint that the tenant might be contemplating a short occupation and a hasty flight. Nor did the exterior of the house do much to remove the unfortunate impression. Only a philosopher or an habitual defaulter would live in such a state.

The venerable Mr Spinola received them in the salon set apart for the display of the automaton and for cards in general. It was a room of fair proportions--doubtless the largest in the house--and quite passably furnished, though in a rather odd and incongruous style. But probably any furniture on earth would have seemed incongruous to the strange, idol-like presence which the inventor had thought fit to adapt to the uses of his mechanism. The figure was placed on a low pedestal, sufficiently raised from the carpet on four plain wooden legs for all the space underneath to be clearly visible. The body was a squat, cross-legged conception, typical of an Indian deity, the head singularly life-like through the heavy gilding with which the face was covered, and behind the merely contemplative expression that dominated the golden mask the carver had by chance or intention lined a faint suggestion of cynical contempt.

“You have come to see my little figure--Aurelius, as we call him among ourselves?” said the bland old gentleman benignly. “That is right; that is right.” He shook hands with them both, and received Mr Carrados, on Sir Fergus’s introduction, as though he was a very dear friend from whom he had long been parted. It was difficult indeed for Max to disengage himself from the effusive Spinola’s affection without a wrench.

“Mr Carrados happens to be blind, Mr Spinola,” interposed Copling, seeing that their host was so far in ignorance of the fact.

“Impossible! Impossible!” exclaimed Spinola, riveting his own very bright eyes on his guest’s insentient ones. “Yet,” he added, “one would not jest----”

“It is quite true,” was the matter-of-fact corroboration. “My hands must be my eyes, Mr Spinola. In place of seeing, will you permit me to touch your wonderful creation?”

The old man’s assent was immediate and cordial. They moved across the room towards the figure, the inventor modestly protesting:

“You flatter me, my dear sir. After all, it is but a toy in large; nothing but a toy.”

A weary-looking youth, the only other occupant of the room, threw down the illustrated weekly that he had picked up on the new arrivals’ entrance and detained Copling.

“Yes, I had been toying a little before you arrived,” he remarked flippantly. “I came early to cut Dora Lascelle off from the idle crowd and the silly little rabbit isn’t coming, it appears. I didn’t want to play, because, for a fact, I have no money, but the old thing bored me to hysterics. Good God! how he can talk so little on anything really entertaining, like _The Giddy Flappers_ or Trixie Fluff’s divorce, and so much about strange, unearthly things that no other living creature has ever seen even in a dream, baffles my imagination. What’s an ‘integral calculus,’ Copling? No, don’t tell me, after all. Let me forget the benumbing episode as soon as possible.”

“Do you wish for a game, Sir Fergus?” broke in Spinola’s soft voice from across the room. “Doubtless Mr Carrados might like to follow someone else’s play before he makes the experiment.”

Copling hesitated. He had not come to play, as he had already told his friend, but Max gave no sign of coming to his assistance.

“Perhaps you, Crediton?” said the mathematician; but young Crediton shook his head and smiled wisely: Copling was too easy-going to stand out. He crossed the room and sat down at the automaton’s table.

“And the stake?”

“Suppose we merely have a guinea on the game?” suggested the visitor.

Spinola acquiesced with the air of one to whom a three-penny bit or a kingdom would have been equally indifferent. The deal fell to Copling and the automaton therefore had the first “elder hand,” with the advantage of a discard of five cards against its opponent’s three.

Carrados had already been shown the theory of the contrivance. He now followed Spinola’s operations as the game proceeded. The old man picked up the twelve cards dealt to the automaton and carefully arranged them in their proper places on a square shield that was connected with the front of the figure. As each fell into its slot it registered its presence on the delicate mechanism that the figure contained.

“The discard,” remarked Spinola, and moved a small lever. The left hand of the automaton was raised, came over the shield which hid its cards from the opponent, touched one with an extended finger, and affixing it by suction, lifted the selected card from the slot and dropped it face downwards on the table.

“A little slow, a little cumbersome,” apologised the inventor as the motions were repeated until five cards had been thrown out. “The left hand is used for the discard alone, as a different movement is necessary.” He picked up the five new cards from the stock and arranged them as he had done the hand. “Now we proceed to the play.”

Crediton strolled across to watch the game. He stood behind Copling, while Carrados remained near the automaton. Spinola opened the movements.

“Aurelius has no voice, of course,” he said, studying the display of cards, “so I--point of five.”

“Good,” conceded the opponent.

Spinola registered the detail on one of an elaborate set of dials that produced a further development in the machinery.

“Spades,” he announced, declaring the suit that he had won the “point” on. “Tierce major.”

“Quart to the queen--hearts,” claimed Copling, and Spinola moved another dial to register the opponent’s advantage.

“Three kings.”

“Good,” was the reply.

“Three tens,” added the senior player, as his three kings, being good against the other hand, enabled him to count the lower trio also. “Five for the point and two trios--eleven.” Every detail of the scoring and of the ensuing play was registered as the other things had been.

This finished the preliminaries and the play of the hands began. The automaton, in response to the release of the machinery, moved its right arm with the same deliberation that had marked its former action and laid a card face upwards on the table. For the blind man’s benefit each card was named as it was played. At the end of the hand Copling had won “the cards”--a matter of ten extra points--with seven tricks to five and the score stood to his advantage at 27--17.

“Not bad for the junior hand,” commented Crediton. “Do you know”--he addressed the inventor--“there is a sort of ‘average,’ as they call it, that you are supposed to play up to? I forget how it goes, but 27 is jolly high for the minor hand, I know.”

“I have heard of it,” replied Spinola politely. Crediton could not make out why the other two men smiled broadly.

The succeeding hands developed no particular points of interest. The scoring ruled low and in the end Copling won by 129 to 87. Spinola purred congratulation.

“I am always delighted to see Aurelius lose,” he declared, paying out his guinea with a princely air.

“Why?” demanded Crediton.

“Because it shows that I have succeeded beyond expectation, my dear young sir: I have made him almost human. Now, Mr Carrados----”

“With pleasure,” assented the blind man. “Though I am afraid that I shall not afford you the delight of losing, Mr Spinola.”

“One never knows, one never knows,” beamed the old man. “Shall we say----”

“Half-crown points--for variety?”

“Very good. Ah, our deal.” He dealt the hands and proceeded to dispose the twelve that fell to the automaton on the shield. There was a moment of indecision. “Pray, Mr Carrados, do you not arrange your cards?”

“I have done so.” He had, in fact, merely spread out his hand in the usual fan formation and run an identifying finger once round the upper edges. The cards remained as they had been dealt, face downwards.

“Wonderful! And that enables you to distinguish them?”

“The ink and the impression on a plain surface--oh yes.” He threw out the full discard as he spoke and took in the upper five of the stock.

“You overwhelm us; you accentuate the tiresome deliberation of poor Aurelius.” Spinola was hovering about the external fittings of the figure with unusual fussiness. When at length he released the left hand it seemed for an almost perceptible moment that the action hung. Then the arm descended and carried out the discard.

“Point of five,” said Carrados.

“Good.”

“In spades. Quint major in spades also, tierce to the knave in clubs, fourteen aces”--_i.e._ four aces; “fourteen” in the language of piquet as they score that number. He did not wait for his opponent to assent to each count, knowing, after the point had passed, that the other calls were good against anything that could possibly be held. “Five, twenty, twenty-three, ninety-seven.” Having reached thirty before his opponent scored, and without a card having so far been played, his score automatically advanced by sixty. That is the “repique.”

“By Jove!” exclaimed Crediton, “that’s the first time I’ve ever known Aurelius repiqued.”

“Oh, it has happened,” retorted Spinola almost testily.

The play of the hand was bound to go in Carrados’s favour--he held eight certain tricks. He won “the cards” with two tricks to spare and the round closed at 119--5.

“You look like being delighted again, Mr Spinola,” remarked Crediton a little cruelly.

“Suppose you make yourself useful by dealing for me,” interposed Carrados. “Of course,” he reminded his host, “it does not do for me to handle any cards but my own.”

“I had not thought of that,” replied Spinola, looking at him shrewdly. “If you had no conscience you would be a dangerous opponent, Mr Carrados.”

“The same might be said of any man,” was the reply. “That is why it is so satisfactory to play an automaton.”

“Oh, Aurelius has no conscience, you know,” chimed in Crediton sapiently. “Mr Spinola couldn’t find room for it among the wheels.”

The second hand was not eventful. Each player had to be content to make about the “average” which Crediton had ingenuously discovered. It raised the scores to 33--130. Two hands followed in the same prudent spirit; the fifth--Carrados’s “elder”--found the position 169--67.

“Only two this time,” remarked Carrados, taking in.

“Jupiter!” murmured Crediton. It is unusual for the senior hand to leave even one of the five cards to which he is entitled. It indicated an unusually strong hand. The automaton evidently thought so too. It availed itself of all the six alternative cards and, as the play disclosed, completely cut up its own hand to save the repique by beating Carrados on the point. It won the point, to find that its opponent only held a low quart, a tierce and three kings. As a result Carrados won “the cards” and the score stood 199--79. The discard was, in fact, an experiment in bluff. Carrados _might_ have held a quint and fourteen kings for all the opposing hand disclosed.

“What on earth did you do that for?” demanded Copling. He himself always played an eminently straightforward game--and generally lost.

“I’ll bet I know,” put in Crediton. “You are getting rather close, Mr Spinola--the last hand and you need twenty-one to save the rubicon.” The “rubicon” means that instead of the loser’s score being deducted from the winner’s in arriving at the latter’s total, it is _added_ to it--a possible difference of nearly 200 points.

“We shall see; we shall see,” muttered Spinola with a little less than his usual suavity.

Whatever concern he had, however, was groundless, for the game ended tamely enough. Carrados ought to have won the point and divided tricks, leaving his opponent a minor quart and a solitary trio--about 15 on the hand. By a careless discard he threw away both chances and the final score stood at 205--112. Copling, who had come to regard his friend’s play as rather excellent, was silent. Crediton almost shrieked his disapproval and seizing the cards demonstrated to his heart’s content.

“Ninety-three and the hundred for the game--twenty-four pounds and one half-crown,” said the loser, counting out notes and coin to the amount. “It has been an experience for both of us--Aurelius and myself.”

“And certainly for me,” added Carrados.

“Look here,” interposed Crediton, “Aurelius seems off his play. If you don’t mind taking my paper, Mr Spinola, I should like another go.”

“As you please,” assented the old man. “Your undertaking is, of course----” The gesture suggested “quite equal to that of the cashier of the Bank of England.” The venerable person had, in fact, regained his lofty pecuniary indifference. “The same point?”

“Right-o,” cheerfully assented the youth.

“I will go and think over my shortcomings,” said Carrados.

He started to cross the room to a seat and ran into a couch. With a gasp Copling hastened to his assistance. Then he found his arm detained and heard the whisper.

“Sit down with me.”

Across the room the play had begun again and with a little care they could converse without the possibility of a word being overheard.

“What is it?” asked Sir Fergus.

“The golden one will win. It is only when the cards are not exposed that you play on equal terms.”

“But I won?”

“Because it is well to lose sometimes and, by choice, when the stake is low. That witless youth will have to pay for both of us.”

“But how--how on earth do you suggest that it is done?”

“Look round cautiously. What eyes overlook Crediton’s hand as he sits there?”

“What eyes? Good gracious! is there anything in that?”

“What is it?”

“There is a trophy of Japanese arms high up on the wall. An iron mask surmounts it. It has glass eyes. I have never seen anything like that before.”

“Any others round the walls?”

“There is a stuffed tiger’s head on our right and a puma’s or something of that sort on the left.”

“In case a suspicious player asks to have the places changed or holds his cards awkwardly. Working the automaton from other positions is probably also arranged for.”

“But how can a knowledge of the opponent’s cards affect the automaton? The dials----”

“The dials are all bunkum. While you were playing I took the liberty of altering them and for a whole hand the dials indicated that you must inevitably be holding eight clubs and four spades. All the time you were leading out hearts and diamonds and the automaton serenely followed suit. The only effective machinery is that indicating the display of cards on the shield and controlling the hands, and that is worked by a keyboard and electric current from the room below. The watcher behind the mask telephones the opposing hand, the discard and the take-in. The automaton’s hand has already been indicated below. You see the enormous advantage the hidden player has? When he is the minor hand he knows everything that is to be known before he discards. When he is the elder he knows almost everything. By concentrating on one detail he can practically always balk the pique, the repique and the kapot, if it is necessary to play for safety. You remember what Crediton said--that he had never known Aurelius repiqued before. The leisurely manipulation of the dials gives plenty of time. An even ordinary player in that position can do the rest.”

Copling scarcely knew whether to believe or not. It sounded plausible, but it reflected monstrously.

“You speak of a telephone,” he said. “How can you definitely say that such a thing is being used? You have never been in the room before and we’ve scarcely been here an hour. It--it may be awfully serious, you know.”

Carrados smiled.

“Can you hear the kitchen door being opened at this moment or detect the exact aroma of our host’s mocha?” he demanded.

“Not in the least,” admitted Copling.

“Then of course it is hopeless to expect you to pick up the whisper of a man behind a mask a score of feet away. How fearfully in the dark you seeing folk must be!”

“Can you possibly do that?” Even as he was speaking the door opened and a servant entered, bringing coffee and an assortment of viands sufficiently exotic to maintain the rather Oriental nature of entertainment.

“Stroll across and see how the game is going,” suggested Carrados. “Have a look at Crediton’s discard and then come back.”

Sir Fergus did not quite follow the purpose, but he nodded and proceeded to comply with his usual amiable spirit.

“It stands at 137 to 75 against Crediton and they are playing the last hand. Our young friend looks like losing thirty or forty pounds.”

“And his discard?”

“Oh--seven and nine of clubs and the knave of hearts.”

Carrados held out a slip of paper on which he had already pencilled a few words. The baronet took it, looked and whistled softly. He had read: “Clubs, seven, nine. Hearts, knave.”

“Conjuring?” he interrogated.

“Quite as simple--listening.”

“I suppose I must accept it. What staggers me is that you can pick out a whisper when the room is full of other louder sounds. Now if there had been absolute stillness----”

“Merely use. There’s nothing more in it than in seeing a mouse and a mountain, or a candle and the sun, at the same time. Well, what are we going to do about it?”

Copling began to look acutely unhappy.

“I suppose we must do something,” he ruminated, “but I must say that I wish we needn’t. I mean, I wish we hadn’t dropped on this. You know, Carrados, whatever is going on, Spinola is no charlatan. He does understand mathematics.”

“That makes him all the more dangerous. But I should like to produce more definite proof before we do anything.... Does he ever leave us in the room?”

“I have never known it. No, he hovers round his Aurelius.”

“Never mind. Ah, the game is finished.”