The Crime and the Criminal

But he was not the "fortunate individual." He drew a blank. He was shortsighted. He had to peer at it closely before he saw it was a blank.

"As the Colonel says-not yet. My time will come."

Poindexter sat by Rudini-the Honourable Jem. I always thought it was rather a shame to drag him in. He was only a boy, just out of his teens. He said nothing when he got the bag; he made up in eloquence of looks for paucity of words. There was a white, drawn look about his face which made him look as old as any one of us. He fumbled with the mouth of the bag, as though it was not large enough for him to get his hand in. When he did get one hand in, he dropped the bag from the other. Pendarvon laughed.

"Upon my word, you're shivering, Jem; is it with joy?"

The Honourable picked up the bag.

"What's it to do with you what I am shivering at?"

He stared at the card he drew. Then he gasped, "Thank God, it's blank!"

Pendarvon laughed again. I believe that the laughter which they say is heard in hell must sound like his.

"Why, Jem, one would almost think that you were glad."

The Honourable said nothing. He tried to stare at Pendarvon. But it was a failure. He put his head down on the table. And he cried. He was only a lad.

Old Shepherd came after the boy. When he saw that it was his turn he did a very curious thing. He got off his chair and he went on to his knees, and he said-

"I am going to pray."

He closed his eyes, and he clasped his hands in front of him. I suppose he prayed. I know we stared. Pendarvon was shaking with laughter-it was with soundless laughter for once in a way. I suppose that the man prayed for at least five minutes. I wonder that we were still so long. I was on the point of politely requesting him to cut it short when he rose from his knees. He put his hand into the bag. He drew a blank.

"My prayer," he said, "has not been answered. I fear, sometimes, that it will remain unanswered to the end."

What he meant it is not for me to say. It was plain that, as I have observed already, he was stark mad. In the next chair was Teddy Hibbard. He turned to Shepherd-

"I say, old chap, what was it you wanted?"

"The Honour of the Club. I am waiting and watching and hoping for the end."

"Are you? Then if I get it I'll give it you; a beginning's more my line."

He also drew a blank. When he perceived what it was he held it out towards Pendarvon and winked, "I'm not sorry." With a dexterous movement he threw it across the table, so that if Pendarvon had not put up his hand and stopped it it would have struck him in the face. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it, see."

When Silvester took the bag he began to shake it.

"We're getting warm." He turned to Shepherd. "I echo what Teddy's said. If I draw the Honour of the Club I'll pass it on to you."

Shepherd shook his head.

"That will not do. I must draw the lot myself."

Silvester held out the bag to him. "Would you like to have another try?"

"I must draw it, in due order, in my proper turn."

"It strikes me that you're not quite so anxious as you make out. I don't mind owning that my anxiety is all the other way. I should like to have a little longer run before I earn my diploma."

He drew a blank. Next to him sat Archie. Silvester passed him the bag, with a laugh-a queer laugh, which had in it a hysteric note.

"Try your luck, Beaupré-three shies a penny!"

Archie looked him in the face.

"There is no necessity for me to try my luck, Silvester. I know it before I try. I knew it before I came into this room. You fellows drawing was but a mere matter of form. I am to draw the Honour of the Club. It is written in the skies."

His voice rang through the room. I noticed that Pendarvon tugged at his beard, and stared at him, as if he could not make him out. But I, knowing the man as I did, knew his mood. Slipping his hand quickly into the bag, in an instant he drew it out. Without glancing at the card which he had drawn he held it up to us between his fingers. "See! The Honour of the Club!"

It was.

There was silence. Approaching the card to his face, Archie touched it with his lips.

"Welcome, thou dreadful thing!" He half rose to his feet. "Gentlemen, did I not tell you? As you perceive, the fortune of war is mine!"

I stood up as he sat down.

"Bumpers, gentlemen." They filled and rose. "Beaupré, feeling, as we must, that the Honour of the Club could not possibly be in better or in more deserving hands, we tender you our best congratulations on your good fortune as you know full well."

Then they all said in a sort of chorus as they drank, "We do."

"You have the prospect, nay, the certainty, of good sport before you, Beaupré-sport of a rare and of a most excellent kind. I speak from my own experience. That this day month you may have as pleasant a story to tell as mine-Beaupré, I can wish you no better wish than that."

Then Archie spoke. He held the Honour of the Club out in front of him while he was speaking.

"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I have not words with which to thank you. I would I had. They would indeed be warm. Mr. Chairman, to you I would particularly say that your good wishes strike me deep. They cut into my heart. For my fondest hope as I listen and as I look at you, with this piece of pasteboard held in my safe keeping, thinking of all that you have done on behalf of its twin brother, is that I may play half as well the man." He bowed round the table. "I thank you."

And he sat down.

CHAPTER XVII

A LITTLE GAME

Six or seven of us were in the street outside the club when the meeting was over. Where the rest had vanished to I do not know. There was not a cab to be seen. I doubt if a cab ever does ply for hire in that locality. Besides, what would be one cab among so many? The night was fine. Archie put his arm through mine.

"Come along, lets pad the hoof, my dears."

Off we went, the lot of us abreast. We had not gone a dozen yards before we came upon a policeman coming along as if the pavement had been in his family for years.

"Now, officer," cried Silvester, "make way!"

The officer slowed. He thrust his thumbs into his belt. He surveyed us with a genial grin which might almost have suggested that we were friends of his.

"What are you gentlemen doing here? This isn't the sort of place for the likes of you. If some of the chaps caught sight of those shirt-fronts of yours they might rumple 'em a bit."

Silvester pulled up the collar of his coat.

"My dear Mr. Policeman, how you frighten us! Could you tell us where we are or which is the way to anywhere?"

The officer jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"If you go straight on, through Strutton Ground, it'll take you out into Victoria Street, but you'll find it a roughish way."

We did find it a roughish way. We also found that there were some roughish people thereabouts, especially the proprietors of the costers' barrows. It must have been at least eleven, but they were carrying on a market in the gutter as briskly as if it had been the middle of the day. I said to Archie, as soon as I saw what sort of place it was, that we had better sneak through in single file, and thank our stars when we found ourselves out of it. But the others didn't seem to see it. They were bent on improving the shining hour. And they improved it. When I did begin to understand that I was in Victoria Street, at last, some gentleman had borrowed my hat, and I had to tie a handkerchief under my chin to keep the rest of my hair on my head.

"A lively five minutes," observed Teddy, picking what were either pieces of a potato or of an onion from his eye.

I moved a little from him. Owing to his having been upset among the dried fish on a coster's barrow he smelt a bit strong. Silvester held up something in the air.

"I've got a cabbage, and, by jove, I believe some one's got my watch."

There was a roar of voices issuing from the street through which we had come.

"Here they are again!" I cried. "I've had enough of it. I'm off. Hi! cabby!"

Two hansoms were prowling by. I jumped into one. Two or three of the fellows followed me. We drove away from our friends of Strutton Ground with a parting yell, the rest of the fellows in the second hansom bringing up the rear.

They would not let us in at the Criterion. The individual at the door seemed to think that there was something in our appearance which was not exactly what it ought to be. Silvester presented him with the cabbage for which, quite unintentionally, he had exchanged his watch. But so far from allowing that handsome contribution to the family larder-it had cost Eugene perhaps fifty pounds-to melt his heart, the stiff-necked Cerberus actually threatened us with the police. So we adjourned to the tavern at the corner till they turned us out. Then we went for a quiet stroll along Piccadilly, seven abreast, which soon landed us in the thick of a row. It was a fight of giants while it lasted. But the police were one too many. They bore the Honourable off in triumph. We followed him in a body to Vine Street Station, where every one was most polite. But they wouldn't hear of bail. A policeman had a most dreadful eye, and he made out that it was Jem. So we had to leave him in the hands of cruel strangers to spend the night. Poor Jem!

When we got outside, being all of us so clear-headed and in such a thoroughly judicial frame of mind, Archie proposed that we should adjourn to his place and have a hand at cards. We belonged to perhaps two dozen clubs between us, but they were none of them sufficiently cerulean-though blue enough-to have admitted us without our first having gone through the ceremony of going home and washing ourselves and changing our clothes. So, as that sort of thing would have been an awful bore, we snapped at Archie's kind invite. And some uncivil policeman coming up and suggesting that it would be well for our own health and for the health of the neighbourhood if we stood not on the order of our going, we tumbled into a couple of cabs and went.

Archie's rooms were in Wilton Street. As the cabs drew up at his door, Pendarvon came strolling up. He pulled up at the sight of us. He stared. He appeared surprised. As every one who had been favoured with a near view of us during the last hour or so had appeared surprised, however much we might feel wounded, we could scarcely openly resent such an exhibition on the part even of a friend.

"What on earth have you fellows been doing?" he inquired. "You don't seem to me to have a whole suit of clothes between you."

Archie explained-

"My dear Pendarvon, if you had been doing what we have been doing, you would look as we are looking. Come inside!"

So Pendarvon entered with the rest of us.

When we were in we found that with Pendarvon we were six. We had been seven without him. The Honourable we had dropped at Vine Street, and Lister, for anything any one seemed to know to the contrary, was a clear case of lost, stolen, or strayed. Of the six, Gravesend was obviously no good for cards. He fell asleep as soon as he had found a chair to do it on. It did not seem to rouse him to any appreciable extent even when he tumbled off. The best we could do for him was to put him comfortably to bed on the hearthrug in Archie's bedroom. There was no fear of his doing himself a mischief if he rolled about.

Of the five who were left, Teddy was not exactly fit. But as the idea of leaving him out, filled him with nothing else but wrath, we cut him in. Silvester had quenched his thirst, but I do not think I ever saw him too drunk to play. He presented a truly remarkable spectacle as regards attire. The gentleman who had borrowed his watch, or some of his friends, had taken away the large portion of his shirt to wrap it up in. His coat was slit right down his back. Waistcoat he had none. And he had tied his braces round his waist in order to retain possession of what was left him of his trousers. However, with the assistance of one of Archie's dressing-gowns, he managed. The more Archie drinks, the more he's in the vein. As for me, I was ready to play for my boots. And Pendarvon was as sober as a judge.

Beaupré made it poker-poker is his pet game. We began with a ten shilling ante, and a ten pound limit. It made a pretty game, while it lasted. In the first jack-pot, when it came to threes, Silvester declared that all his cash was gone. It was he began the IOU's. Teddy's luck was wonderful. Before very long very nearly all our ready-money had gone his way. I had ten tenners and gold when I began. They soon paid a visit to Teddy. Pendarvon seemed to have a pocket full of money. He brought out a whole sheaf of bank-notes to give our appetites a twist.

Teddy had just taken another plump jack-pot when Beaupré ran dry. He replenished his pockets at his desk. When he came back, Pendarvon was about to deal.

"Don't you think," he said, "that this is a little slow? Suppose we double the limit. Teddy, I suppose you don't object."

Teddy said he didn't. More than half drunk, and fancying himself in the vein, he was not likely to object. I took it that Archie had already lost a hundred and fifty. I saw that he had only brought about another century to table. I guessed-for reasons-that he was squeezed for funds. I suspected that he might not care to plunge deeper than we were already. And so, to save him, I struck in.

"So far as I am concerned, I am content to go on as we are. It's good enough for me."

To my surprise, and to my amusement, Archie was quite vehement upon the other side.

"Rubbish! This sort of thing's only fit for babes, not men! Reggie, where's your courage-make it twenty."

So we made the limit twenty pounds.

Luck began to slip away from Teddy-small wonder either! He did some outrageous bluffing, against Pendarvon, too, who is one of the hardest men to bluff there is about. Teddy waxed wild. He and Pendarvon were the only two left in. They raised each other till there was, perhaps five hundred in the pool. Then Pendarvon saw him. Teddy threw down his cards with a curse.

"Ace high."

"Fours."

Pendarvon showed four sevens. Teddy had paid for his whistle.

After that, the luck, and, for the matter of that, the play too, went dead against him. He kept on drinking-he was not in the least fit for poker, but he would keep on playing. Archie, too, kept on the shady side. Silvester about held his own. I had an occasional hand worth backing. Pendarvon and I bid fair to share the spoils.

One round we all came in. I was first bettor. Silvester was blind. I opened with the limit. Each man went the limit better in his turn. When there was four hundred in the pool Silvester went out. Another round or two and Teddy went. There was over five hundred in the pool. Pendarvon had raised the limit over Archie. It was sixty pounds for me to come in. I had a straight, knave high. I saw the sixty. Archie saw it, and went twenty better. Pendarvon raised him twenty. I saw the forty. Archie scribbled another IOU-he had been reduced for some time to paper. He had raised again. Pendarvon followed suit. I thought that it was enough for me, and went. The two kept at it. There must have been over a thousand in before Pendarvon saw. Archie laid down his hand, with a smile, as though he felt sure that, this time, the luck was his.

"A full-queens high."

Pendarvon laughed.

"Not good enough! I take this pool-I pip you."

He also had a full-with three kings on top. Silvester spoke.

"Will somebody kindly stick a penknife into Teddy."

I looked up-poor Teddy was asleep. When, however, we charged him with it, he endeavoured to wake up and call us names. He insisted on continuing to play. It proved to be as much as he could do to pick up his cards-more than he could do to see them when picked up. The very next round, when asked if he proposed to cover the ante, he threw down his cards face upwards on the table, observing that it was no good coming in on a hand like that. He had held three queens! I struck. I declined to go shares in a robbery.

"Teddy," I remarked, "if you'll take my advice you'll go home to bed. Just now poker's not your line."

"I'm not feeling very well," he said. "I hate this game; it makes me ill. Let's play something else."

"We will. We'll sing 'Rock-a-by, baby,' and play at going to sleep. Come along, Teddy, let me offer you the temporary loan of my arm."

Archie interposed.

"Hang it, Reggie, you're not going! Put the beggar to sleep alongside Gravesend on the rug."

"I'm not going to sleep on the rug," said Teddy, "I hate the rug."

We compromised, putting him to bed on the couch in Archie's bedroom. It seemed unlikely that he would fall off, since he was asleep before we had the whole of him laid down. While we were together in the bedroom, I said a private word to Archie.

"If you'll hearken to the wisdom of the wise, old man, you'll cut it. You're not in the vein."

He chose to misunderstand my meaning.

"Do you mean I'm drunk?"

"I think I am-at least too drunk for poker; and too sleepy, also. If you'll allow me, I'll get home."

Archie looked at me in the way I knew, all his Scotch temper in his eyes.

"Are you afraid, or broke? Or what the devil's up?"

Pendarvon called from the next room.

"Are you fellows having a little game by yourselves?"

I jerked my thumb towards Pendarvon as Archie and I went in together.

"That's just what is up-the devil."

We four went at it again. I reckoned that at that time Archie had lost about two thousand pounds-nearly the whole of it to Pendarvon in IOU's. His heavier losses all came afterwards. Silvester also lost. He made a very nasty loser. He allowed things to escape his tongue which, under other circumstances, might have brought the sitting to a prompt and a turbulent close. Pendarvon, to whose address Silvester's little observations were principally directed, seemed to take it for granted that the fact of his being three-parts drunk covered a multitude of sins. For my part, on the whole I won. By degrees, as Silvester's sulkiness increased, the game resolved itself into a sort of triangular duel. Archie went for Pendarvon, and Pendarvon went for me. As he found, for the most part, that his assaults were unavailing, and that my mood was beatific, Pendarvon began to follow Silvester's lead and lose his temper. Not, however, on Silvester's lines. The more enraged he grew, the more he laughed. I knew the gentleman so well.

Archie began to play like a lunatic. Once Silvester declined to come in. I had four knaves; it was the second four hand I had had within a very few minutes. Of course, I started to back it for all I was worth. What Archie and Pendarvon had was more than I could guess; I did not much care. I felt that, whatever they had, I was about their match. I had taken one card, wishing them to suppose that I had drawn to two pairs. Archie had had two. I took it that he had started with a triplet. Pendarvon had had three; apparently he had opened with a pair. It seemed from the betting that they had both improved their hands, for neither seemed disposed to tire. The pool crept up to a thousand. Then Archie found fault with the rate of progression.

"Confound this limit! It's child's play; we shall be at it all night. Will either of you see me for £500?"

Pendarvon hesitated, or appeared to.

"Having fixed a limit, isn't it rather against the rules to travel outside? But, so far as I am personally concerned, I don't mind seeing your five hundred, and raising you another five. What do you say, Townsend?"

"I object. At this point of the game to change the points in such a fashion would simply be to plunder you. I hold the winning hand."

Archie became excited, and not quite civil.

"That's rot. I say ditto to Pendarvon, Reggie. Will you pay a thousand to see our hands?"

"I will do this. I will agree to each man tabling a thousand, and showing his hand."

"Done!" Archie scribbled an IOU. "Now, Pen, down with your thousand."

Pendarvon counted out a heap of Archie's IOU's, laughing as he did so.

"I hope that's good enough."

I drew a cheque on a sheet of paper.

"Now, Archie, if you please, let us see your hand."

He faced his cards.

"A straight flush!" he cried.

For a moment he took my breath away. That he could have drawn two cards for a straight flush had not entered into my philosophy. My next feeling was that the thing looked ugly. For a man with a straight flush in his hand to propose to increase the stakes was-well, not the thing. While words were coming near my lips, Pendarvon leaned towards him.

"Where is your straight flush? Show it us?" Then, with a laugh, "That's not a straight flush."

Archie stared at his cards.

"What do you mean?" Then, with a shout, "I'm damned if it is!"

As he recognised the fact, he seemed to me to turn quite green, and he swore. In his haste, giving only a single glance at his cards, he had let himself in. It was all but a straight flush-a case of the miss which is as good as a mile. His hand was four, five, seven, eight, and nine of hearts. It was a flush, but not a straight flush-he had overlooked the absence of the six. The curious part of the thing was that he should have drawn to such a hand.

Pendarvon faced his cards.

"I fancy, Archie, that I am better than you."

He was. He had a full. Three aces and a pair of kings. No wonder he had been willing to back his luck. I don't know what his feelings were when he found that I could show still more.

"Fours. I think that takes it."

It did.

As I scooped the plunder, Silvester rose.

"Show four whenever you like-eh, Townsend?"

His tone was disagreeable, and meant to be.

"I wish I could."

"I should say that your wish was gratified. It occurs to me that this is distinctly a game at which the soberest wins."

We looked at him. He looked back at us. He was evidently in a state of mind in which he was disposed to pick a quarrel with us, either separately or altogether. The thing to do was not to gratify his whim. He treated Archie to a peculiarly impertinent stare. "That was an odd mistake of yours. I'm drunk, but I'm not drunk enough for that, and I never could be." He gave Pendarvon a turn-"You didn't choose your cards badly. But it's only a question of courage. Take my tip, next time you make it fours." He lurched away from the table. "I'm off. You're welcome to what you've got-cut it up between you."

He staggered from the room. Archie rose, intending, as host, to see him off the premises. Pendarvon caught him by the arm.

"Let the beggar see himself out. If we have luck he may break his neck as he goes downstairs. He's made a bid for it." It seemed that he had. We could hear him stumble down two or three steps at a time. We listened. There was the sound of another stumble. Pendarvon laughed. "Bid number two."

Directly afterwards we heard him fidgeting with the handle of the front door. Archie grew restless.

"He'll raise the dead if he goes on like that much longer. Let me go down, and let him out."

We heard the door open, and immediately afterwards shut with a bang.

"He's let himself out. I fancy a little more rapidly than he intended. I'll bet an even pony that he's gone face foremost into the street. Let's hope it." Pendarvon picked up a pack of cards. "It's my deal. What are we going to do?"

Getting up, Archie helped himself to another soda and whiskey.

"Who'll have some?" We both of us did. "Let's play unlimited. I'm sick of this." Pendarvon raised his glass.

"Here's to you, Archie; you're a gambler."

"I thank the stars I am. Have you any objection, Reggie?"

I shrugged my shoulders, perceiving that remonstrance would be thrown away.

"I'm at your service."

"Then we'll play unlimited."

And we did.

It was a warmish little game. There is something about unlimited poker which appeals to one. The spirit of the gamble gets into one's veins like the breath of the battle into the nostrils of the soldier. One feels that it is a game for men, and that the manhood which is in one has a chance to score. Archie evidently meant going for the gloves. He never bet less than a hundred, and a thousand-in pencil on a scrap of paper-was as nothing to him. If we wanted to be in that game we too had to treat thousands as if they had been sovereigns. At the beginning the luck went round to him-possibly because it took some little time to make his methods ours. He bluffed outrageously. With a pair one was not disposed, at the commencement, to pay a thousand to see his cards. The result was that he scooped pool after pool. When he had made it plain that, if we wanted him to show, we should have to pay, we began to pay.