Part 7

Wenk noticed that the latter looked at no one but himself and Basch. He therefore accepted the challenge, and threw himself eagerly and wholeheartedly into the struggle, impelled by some mysterious power that incited him against the banker. He forgot himself altogether, and no longer played for the purpose of observing and discovering. He abandoned himself to the game and played like all those whom he had come to rescue from the gaming-table. He even forgot the lovely lady. When he first realized this, he was ashamed, and for the first time during the evening he glanced round the room to see whether Hull were there.

But it was not Hull who now sat behind Cara Carozza. Wenk’s search was vain; Hull was not present. Cara sat with a stranger behind a player with whom she was sharing the stakes. Then Wenk came to himself. He stopped playing and at once left the hall, sorely vexed with himself. When he was on the winding stair he turned and saw that the stranger with the fair sandy beard was also rising from the table.

Wenk had ordered his car to call for him at the house where the musical party was held, and did not remember this till he had walked some distance. Then he retraced his steps and drove home. He went to bed at once, but he could get no sleep, for the thought continually recurred that he had made a mistake to come away, that he ought to have stayed and talked to Basch.

He got out of bed again and went through a bundle of depositions in order to quiet his conscience. In going through these documents, written by men who were strangers to him, he got the impression that all of them, losing so much that they could not but ascribe it to foul play, must have sat at the gaming-table very much as Basch did. Had he remained and behaved in a sensible fashion, he would have had an opportunity of seeing for himself at first hand what had hitherto reached him through the testimony of others.

Then Wenk became thoroughly discouraged. “I must set to work in quite another way,” he said to himself. “Goodwill and industry are not sufficient. Self-denial and inexorable self-discipline and a little more cunning are necessary! I must make use of every ruse that my opponent displays.... I must make use of disguise and secret spying. I must be prepared to stake myself on the game ... must be myself the snare, if I do not want to be caught in it like a silly pigeon.... A State official with a false beard ... a Browning concealed in his fist ... a jockey-cap, a tall hat, a wig, and so on, like the cinema stage....”

In the looking-glass he contemplated his clean-shaven face, finding that when he made grimaces, drew down the corners of his mouth, stretched his jaws, and tried the effect of a beard made out of paper shavings, his features lent themselves very well to disguise.

The next day he procured a complete outfit from the Criminal Investigation Department. With the help of a Secret Service expert, he tried all the necessary arts, learned to plaster on a beard, to alter his complexion, make himself look younger or older, change his appearance by scars, and so on. He could now make up as a country cousin, a dispatch-bearing cyclist, a taxicab driver, a porter, waiter, steward, window-cleaner, an “unemployed,” and other characters. In the morning he made an exhaustive examination of the criminal museum which the police had collected, studied the photographs he found there, returned to his various make-ups, and worked with the zeal of a fanatic.

Thus the day passed, and by evening he felt he had become a stronger man. He was at once more discreet and yet more daring. He would have liked to make a tour at once of all the gaming-houses in the city.

He went only to Schramm’s, however. He had long been considering whether he should not appear there in some sort of disguise, more for the purpose of making a trial of it and learning to feel at home in it than for actually starting upon his work. He was still more anxious to go in the hope of meeting the sandy-bearded man again and seeing him play, for he was desirous of atoning for his shortcomings of the previous evening, which had left a painful impression upon his mind. He would have liked to meet Basch again and talk to him about the evils of gambling, from which he had suffered so much. He went, therefore, just as he was.

It was already late when he got there. Hull was present, but he saw neither the fair-bearded stranger nor Basch. He only heard that the former had left immediately after him, a fact which all had noticed. After he left, Basch had remained sitting as if utterly prostrate. He had not played again, and suddenly he vanished. No one knew him well. He had never been to Schramm’s before.

The lady who sat behind him estimated that his losses must have been thirty to thirty-five thousand marks. The blond stranger had won it all, but he did not win until he began to hold the bank. Everything had been absolutely in order. The attendant who furnished the cards was thoroughly reliable.

While talking about the previous night’s play they stopped their game. Then Cara said:

“There are people who are born players, and if they take only one card in their hands it is sure to be an ace. They can do what they like; the power is stronger than they are; it is their guiding spirit, their God.”

But Elsie did not agree with her. She thought that every player once in his life came upon a series of lucky days. They lay stretched out before him, handed to him by his good fairy, for every man had a good fairy. One must not give up expecting to meet with those times of good fortune, for one day one could gather in the winnings as quickly as ripe apples in the autumn....

No one knew the man with the sandy beard. Basch had brought him to Schramm’s, and the first evening they had gone away together. He might be a dethroned prince, he was so imperious and abrupt in his speech. A dethroned prince in want of money, no doubt.

“I have a strange feeling,” said Hull, “as if I had already played against him once....”

“Nonsense!” said Cara.

In his mind the fancy grew stronger. “It is not so much that I have played with him, but as if he had done me some very serious internal injury, affecting my very blood; but how, and when, and where, I have no idea. It must have been in a dream.”

“He has evil eyes,” said a woman’s voice, which Wenk seemed to recognize. He looked in that direction, but with the bright light on the table the corner seemed as dark as a cave and he could descry no one.

Cara answered the voice in the darkness in a tone that seemed to have anger in it: “Evil eyes! What do you mean by that? Surely at the gaming-table no one looks like a saint!”

From the corner there came the words, “He seemed to look at Basch like a beast of prey eyeing his victim!”

“That was exactly the impression he gave me!” exclaimed Wenk.

He at once rose hastily and went to the corner, entered the dark niche and started back, for the speaker was the beautiful unknown! A glow suffused Wenk’s features and his heart began to beat violently, as if its strokes must be heard. Then he pulled himself together, saying, “I really must be mad! I am searching for a criminal and am about to fall in love with someone whom I may have to send to prison to-morrow. This is really idiotic!” He recovered his presence of mind, bowed to the stranger and said:

“I should be greatly interested, madam, to hear how you reached a conclusion which so exactly resembles my own?”

“It cannot be anything else,” said the lady, smiling, “than an unusual evidence of secret sympathy between me and a State official!”

“She knows me, then!” said Wenk to himself in astonishment. “But how could that come about, except through Cara Carozza? A State official, guardian and representative of the law, and avenger of any breach of it, himself violating its rules! It was absolutely fantastic. Yes, it must have been the Carozza girl.” From the niche he looked into the brilliantly lighted room, where the dyed tresses of the dancer gleamed forth between the heads. “So it was you!” he said to himself; “you want to bring my plans to nought, you good-for-nothing!...”

Then he remembered the glance the blond had given her that first evening, and he ended, “You are his decoy!” Now he realized the connection between them. It was the dancer who brought the blond his victims. He breathed a threat: “Just you wait; I am taking it all in!”

“Our agreement seems to have struck you forcibly,” said the lady, interrupting his thoughts.