Thorne Guy
Chance in Chains: A Story of Monte Carlo

There was a click as the blocks came home, and then, in an instant, the long workshop was flooded with white light, while at the far end of it the motor, and the lathe it drove, began to hum and clatter with a sudden, disconcerting noise.

Edouard Carnet ran to the lathe and pulled down the tumbler switch. The noise stopped, but the brilliant illumination remained, and entirely changed the aspect of the room.

The great fire glowed a dull red now. The shadows shrivelled up into the corners and disappeared. Every object in the workshop was distinct and well-defined.

"A thousand thanks, monsieur," said the little men. "Another glass of wine! We will go back to the fireside and drink in light and comfort."

The four of them found their way back to their seats, and began to talk again. The eyes of the newcomers, however, were straying round the workshop with a curiosity they could hardly disguise. The place had been mysterious before, and strangely picturesque in the half light. It was mysterious no longer, but a picturesqueness lingered still, while there was much that neither of them were able to understand.

Suddenly Deschamps gave an exclamation. His eye had fallen upon something which interested and excited him, something which called up golden visions.

"Tiens!" he cried, jumping up from his seat, and going over to the adjacent table. "And what have we here?"

Upon the table was a circular basin – rather larger than an ordinary washing basin – beautifully made of polished black ebony, and with a rim that curved over upon the inside. Upon the inward curve of the basin, at regular distances, were diamond-shaped bosses of bright metal, while the whole of the bottom of the instrument consisted of a series of tin compartments painted black and red alternately, each compartment having a number painted upon it in white. These compartments were fixed to a moving disc, which could be rapidly rotated by means of a silver upright terminating in a sort of capstan, and rising above the sides of the bowl in the exact centre.

Emile Deschamps knew very well what this was. He was of the South. He had been born near that fairy city on the Mediterranean where the Goddess of Chance rules supreme.

"Then you make roulette wheels?" he cried, turning excitedly to the two little men. "But this one is superb! It is larger than you can buy in the shops. It is full size indeed – exactly as they are used at Monte Carlo!"

With fingers that actually trembled, the young man twirled the silver capstan, and immediately the painted slots in the bowl became merged in a trembling blur of colour, as the disc revolved noiselessly, but at great speed.

"It is perfect!" Emile went on, with a chuckle of excitement and delight. "It runs as sweetly and truly as those in the Casino itself! Basil, look here! See how delicate and beautiful this work is!"

The brothers Carnet had risen to their feet also, and were standing side by side. Their bird-like faces were wreathed with gratified smiles. They bowed together like a grotesque toy.

"Messieurs," said Brother Edouard, "we thank you for what you have said. The wheel is, indeed, as you say, a masterpiece! But it would be odd if it were not so, for, for twenty years my brother and myself have done nothing else than make just these wheels. Every single piece of it is our handiwork. We forge the nickel for the pivot and capstan, and we silver-plate it ourselves. We select the wood, we turn it – no other hands but ours touch the wheels. Brother Charles here even turns the ivory balls." He stepped up to the table, pulled out a long drawer, and lifted from it a walnut box lined with green baize, in which were a dozen small balls of ivory, the size of a large marble.

"See!" he cried; "these also!"

Basil had been examining the delicate and beautifully made machine with great interest while the Carnets had been speaking. He also had an eye for perfect workmanship, and it needed not the excited enthusiasm of his friend for him to realise that he saw it here.

At the same time, he could not quite understand the sort of fever into which the sight of the roulette wheel had thrown Deschamps. It seemed exaggerated to the Englishman. Here was good workmanship, it was true. But why this torrent of excited words?

"For twenty years!" Deschamps cried. "Then; indeed, monsieur, that explains it! But surely it cannot pay you to devote your life to this work, though it is certainly the finest I have ever seen, and far superior to anything one can buy in the shops!"

The two brothers chuckled; and then Charles took up the tale.

"Our wheels are not for sale," he said. "I must let you into a little secret, which, as our guests and men of honour, you will preserve. My brother and I make all the roulette wheels for the Casino at Monte Carlo. We have been employed by the Administration for many, many years. As you may well conceive, it is important that these machines should be perfect in every detail. Millions of francs depend upon it. We are retained at a large figure to construct the wheels. Every two years all the wheels at Monte Carlo are changed. There are twelve roulette tables generally in use. Every two years we send twelve wheels and the old ones are returned to us to be broken up. We can just make twelve within the two years. This one is the last of the new batch which will be dispatched to the south in three days in charge of two commissionaires from Monaco, who will never leave them out of their sight until they arrive at their destination."

Basil listened to this explanation with interest. He had never been to Monte Carlo, though, in common with the rest of the world, he had heard many fabulous tales of the great gambling centre of the world. He saw, however, that Emile's imagination was profoundly stirred, and he listened, half dreamily, to the quick fire of eager questions and courteous answers which passed between Deschamps and his hosts.

When this had a little died down, Emile turned to him and noticed his half-abstracted, half-amused expression.

"Ah, mon ami," he said, "you wonder at me! This leaves you cold. It means nothing to you. To me, who have been, I myself, in those glittering halls of Chance, upon the edge of the Mediterranean, this machine brings intoxicating visions. It tells of men and women at the last gasp of hope, ruined in fortune, friendless, and with the whole face of the world set against them like a wall of polished brass. It tells me of a man like this entering through the great doors and issuing forth again within a few short hours, rich beyond his rosiest dreams, able to command all that life has to offer, the divine sense of power flowing in his veins, the cold brass wall gone and in its place a garden of roses! See!"

With a swift motion of his hands he picked up one of the little ivory balls and twirled the capstan in the disc. The painted slots began to revolve, more slowly than before.

Then, and obviously with a practised hand, Emile Deschamps held the ball between the thumb and two first fingers of his right hand, gave a swift motion of his wrist, and the little ivory cylinder whirled round the top of the basin under the overhanging lip, with that curious droning sound that no one who has ever heard it can quite forget.

Click! crack! crack! The speed of the ball lessening, it was now rattling upon the diamond-shaped bosses on the side of the bowl, losing momentum with every moment, until it dropped upon the revolving disc below – revolving in the opposite direction to itself.

And now there was a succession of sharp taps, as the little ball was tossed by the edges of the slots hither and thither, furiously jumping from one to the other, flung back for an instant upon the sloping side of the basin, returning to its mad career over the slots.

And then – a sudden final click as it fell to rest. Silence!

Immediately Deschamps put his finger upon the top of the capstan and stopped the revolutions of the slots.

"Seven – red!" he cried. "Ah! if I had put but nine little golden louis upon that number, within a quarter of a minute I should have been richer by six thousand three hundred francs, more than twice what I earn in a whole year, Basil! In twenty little seconds! Now, do you see what this thing may mean?"

Basil found himself strangely affected by his friend's enthusiasm. He knew nothing of roulette. He had occasionally seen a small wheel in a toy shop, but this so concrete illustration of the game startled him more than he would have been willing to admit.

The thin voice of Edouard Garnet broke in. "Yes, monsieur," he said, "that is one vision, but there are others. Who should tell of those unhappy men who have followed the Goddess of Chance even to the very gates of death, until they have opened and closed upon them at last. Somewhere in the kingdom of Monaco there is a hidden graveyard; none know where it is. And in that dishonoured plot lies hundreds of nameless ones, who have yielded up their all – happiness, honour, life – to the ebony basin."

Basil started. The words seemed to come strangely from the actual artificer of the wheel of fortune. Deschamps also looked curiously at the little man, whose face had suddenly gone grey and whose voice trembled. "But, monsieur," he said, in a hesitating voice.

The other made a gesture with his hand. "Yes, yes," he replied, "I well know what you would say – such words come strangely from me or from my brother. But, monsieur" – he tapped the rim of the bowl with a thin hand – "this is the very last of these engines of hell that I or Charles will ever make!"

He paused, struggling with some deep emotion. "We had a nephew," he continued, "my brother and I; the only relative left to us in the world. We loved him as if he had been a son. We saved, invested, and worked solely for him. We are rich, monsieur! Not only have our earnings been large, but we have saved, and invested our savings in safe rents. All, all was to have been his. Aristide was young, clever, and, backed by the fortune we could leave him, would have taken a high place in the world. He had gone to Marseilles on business for us, entrusted with a considerable sum of money. Some friends took him to Monte Carlo – it was only three months ago. He lost this money of ours at the tables – lost it by means of one of the very wheels we had made – and in despair he killed himself, though God knows how gladly we would have forgiven him. We have now completed our last contract for the Administration. We have resigned our position, and for the future others shall make the wheels. We will touch them no more."

"Never again," Charles Carnet echoed his brother, but he looked lovingly at the glittering thing upon the table nevertheless. "No one will make the wheels like us again," he said with a sigh.

The four men, oddly assorted as they were, gathered round the fire once more. There was but little conversation now. They gazed into the glowing heart of coals and wood-blocks, each busily occupied with his own troubled thoughts.

Basil Gregory, warmed and comfortable as he was in body, felt very low in spirits. One of those moments had come to him when life seems a spoilt and futile thing. The future stretched before him in imagination like some great Essex marshland at evening, when the colour fades out of everything, the leaden tides creep inwards from the sea, and the curlews pipe to each other with melancholy voices, like souls sick for love. There was nothing, nothing! A dreary round of ill-paid mechanical duties, a long engagement which would probably never end in marriage, one of the most epoch-making inventions the world could ever know, locked up in his mind and that of his friend, Emile Deschamps.

Thus the thoughts of the poor Englishman, Basil Gregory, as he gazed into the rose-pink and amethyst heart of the fire.

The two old men were sadly remembering the recent loss of the bright-faced boy that had meant everything in their narrow, patient lives.

Sadness lay like a veil upon the faces of all three.

But Emile Deschamps' face was not sad. It was set and rigid. Not a feature of it moved. The brow was wrinkled and knotted with thoughts. There was a fixed and smouldering fire in the eyes. Once Basil looked at his friend and wondered what intense and concentrated thought was burning and glowing in the great executive brain of the Southerner. Had he known, had an inkling of it reached him, he would have leapt to his feet in the wildest excitement he had ever known.

For, indeed, the fickle Goddess of Chance was abroad this night, and had led their footsteps to this secluded workshop. Unseen, unfelt by any save only Emile Deschamps, she was hovering in the room where the wheels of her votaries were made.

About dawn a low wind arose and wailed around the quarter of the wood-turners. The deep mist vanished as grey light began to filter in through the glass roof of the workshop. With many thanks the two young men bade their hosts farewell, and went out into the chill morning air.

A pressing invitation to come again whenever they liked, piped in unison by Brother Charles and Brother Edouard, was the last sound they heard as their feet echoed up the deserted street towards the great main thoroughfares of Paris.

CHAPTER III

The next day was cold, but bright and sunny. From ten o'clock in the morning until déjeuner at twelve o'clock, Ethel McMahon endeavoured to instil some rudimentary knowledge of English into the minds of the fifteen-year-old daughters of prosperous tradesmen of the Luxembourg district at the academy for young ladies of the Demoiselles de Custine-Seraphin, two elderly ladies in whom parsimony and the proprieties struggled for mastery.

With many a sigh and shrug of disgust her demure charges had struggled with the intricacies of our language, had conjugated the verb "to love" in unexpected fashions, had laboriously assimilated the information that "ze weadder is going to be ver' fin to-day," and so forth.

At twelve, together with her fellow-teachers, Mademoiselle Marie and Mademoiselle Augustine de Custine-Seraphin, Ethel had taken the second breakfast of thin soup, pallid mutton, and stale tartines au confiture. At one she was free – free till nine o'clock in the evening. And as she came downstairs from her room dressed to go out, her face was so radiant and changed in expression that Mademoiselle Marie de Custine-Seraphin tossed her head as the girl passed, and gave it as her undoubted opinion to her sister that la jeune anglaise was certainly going to do more than spend a quiet afternoon and evening with her invalid mother.

"Figure to yourself, Augustine; her face was of the most beaming, her eye had sparkle, her cheeks were colour of rose. Ca fait un amant, n'est-ce pas?"

"A la jeunesse, comme à la jeunesse," her sister replied with a shrug, and went on making up the account of Mademoiselle Hortense Dubois, the well-to-do butcher's daughter who was leaving school that quarter.

Ethel McMahon hurried out of the quiet street in which the school was situated, walking towards the Luxembourg.

She was a typically Irish girl in feature, with those dark-blue eyes, like hot Venetian water, that hair black as a bog-oak root, that complexion of cream and roses that is hardly seen anywhere outside the Isle of Unrest. She was tall and walked with a swing, as she threaded her way among the chic and mincing Parisiennes towards her mother's tiny flat in the Rue Paczensky.

Dull as the girl's life was, hard as she worked all day, her youth and vitality were stronger than the power of circumstances. Vivid and impulsive in all she did, a constant spring of hope welled up within her, and she was certain that sooner or later – she believed very soon – everything in her life would come right. Dear Basil would get some lucrative appointment, the great invention would be financed by some kindly millionaire who would appear in the nick of time. They would get married, her mother would be able to live in the far healthier air of the Alps, as the doctor had ordered. Day in and day out Ethel was convinced that all would be well, and whenever she saw her lover she comforted and inspirited him as if they were indeed husband and wife.

Mrs. McMahon's flat of two rooms and a kitchen was high up in the great drab block of buildings, and, small as it was, the rent, as is the case with all flats in Paris, was proportionately high.

As she entered the hallway Ethel was handed a bundle of letters by the concierge. She did not examine them at the moment, but ran lightly up the stairs to the flat.

Mrs. McMahon was seated by the window of the sitting-room. A lace pillow with its pins and reels of thread was upon the table before her, and her thin hands were moving quickly and deftly over it hither and thither.

It was Mrs. McMahon's specialty to copy old Valenciennes lace, which she did for a firm in the Rue de Rivoli. The labour was intense, the process wearingly long, but the few hundred francs earned during the year by this means helped to pay the rent.

She was a tall, faded woman. The hair, which had once been as black as her daughter's, was now scanty and iron-grey. All the light had faded from the blue eyes, and she was painfully thin. She returned her daughter's caresses without much animation, and sat back in her old-fashioned chair with her hands lying idly in her lap, gazing at the girl in a lack-lustre way as she moved quickly about the room, taking off her hat and stole of cheap fur, giving a touch to the furniture here and there, and putting a little bunch of dark-red asters, which she had bought, into a vase upon the dining-table.

"Well, Ethel, I suppose you have no news? I hope those old cats" – Mrs. McMahon was accustomed to refer to the Demoiselles de Custine-Seraphin in this way – "I hope those old cats have been behaving themselves better. I cannot think why you stay with them. Surely a girl with your knowledge of French as well as English, and with your appearance, could get something better to do. The salary they pay you is disgraceful."

Ethel shook her head brightly; this was an old ground of debate between herself and the querulous invalid. "My dear mother," she said, "I really cannot afford to wait for anything better to turn up. If I could, possibly I might get something better to do, but that would mean coming home for perhaps three or four months, and you know we cannot possibly afford that. While I am at the school, of course, I cannot go looking after another post. So I must make the best of it, that's all."

Mrs. McMahon coughed fretfully. "How horrified your poor dear father would have been," she said, "at the life you are leading now! It is my one consolation that Providence has spared him that!"

Ethel said nothing in answer, though she had her doubts upon the subject. The late Captain McMahon had retired from the Irish Guards soon after getting his company and marrying pretty Miss Persse of county Galway. There were not wanting those who said that his retirement was more or less compulsory owing to rather too pronounced successes while holding the bank at baccarat or chemin de fer. Be that as it may, Ethel's memory of her childhood in various more or less shady Continental resorts was by no means a pleasant one. Captain McMahon had been one of those people whose whole philosophy is summed up in the expression, "Hang it, the luck must turn!" He had wooed fortune wherever a casino or gambling hell was to be found upon the Continent of Europe; he had wooed her in vain; the luck never did turn.

However, it was doubtless owing to this persistent optimism inculcated by her father that Ethel herself was enabled to bear up against the drab monotony of her life. She also felt instinctively that "the luck must turn." As for Mrs. McMahon herself, while she affected a consistent despair and the gloomiest outlook upon the future, she secretly nourished the most extravagant hopes, and was as much a gambler in temperament as her husband had been in action. Only the most limited opportunities of exercising her passion were given her, but of these she took advantage to the full.

"I cannot think," the elder lady went on, "what that lover of yours can be about. Oh, I have nothing to say against Basil," she said hurriedly, as she saw Ethel's colour begin to rise, and her mouth to harden into mutiny. "Basil is a good fellow enough, and, of course, I know he is very clever at his electricity, and so on. He and that young Frenchman, Monsieur Deschamps, have no doubt got a fortune in their heads, as you are always telling me. All that I can say is that it seems likely to stay there. With your blood Ethel, for both the Persses and the McMahons rode straight for anything they wanted, I wonder at your choosing a boy like Basil, who seems to have no initiative, no dash. Ah, well! I suppose there are no soldiers of fortune nowadays. But, still, with your name and your appearance, I think you might have done better for yourself."

Ethel knew it was useless to answer anything to this. She let her mother run on until she was tired, and then began to make tea, with a little spirit kettle.

As she was doing this, she noticed the little pile of letters that the concierge had handed to her. The top one had not come by post, and was unstamped. Ethel knew the writing very well. It was that of the clerk who sent out demands and receipts for the rent at the office.

"Ah!" she said; "here is the receipt for the quarter's rent." She had given her mother the money to pay it some time ago, and without thinking what she was doing, she opened the envelope.

Mrs. McMahon rose from her seat in considerable agitation. Her hands trembled a little, and a bright colour came into her wan face.

"Why, mother," Ethel said in alarm, "this is not a receipt at all! This is a letter from the office saying that the rent is much overdue, and pressing for immediate payment. I gave you the money!" The words died away from her lips as she saw the old lady, a picture of embarrassment, standing before her.

"My dear," said Mrs. McMahon, in a shaking voice, "you really must allow me to manage the household finances in my own way. I am older and more experienced in life than you. I have temporarily – er – well, invested the rent money in the hopes, in the almost certainty, that in a day or so I shall be repaid a hundred-fold."

Ethel sat down at the table with a deep sigh. "Oh, mother!" she said in a pleading voice, "how could you, how could you really? I suppose that it is one of those wretched lotteries again. I should not like to think how many precious francs have been simply thrown away in the last year or two. Hundreds and hundreds. It is simply madness to spend two or three hundred francs on a ticket for one of the wretched things when we have hardly money for the necessaries of life."

The old lady began to cry weakly. "I did it for the best, Ethel," she said. "I am sure I thought that my bad luck could not go on much longer. I had such hopes this time."

Ethel saw her opportunity. While her mother was in this state of penitence she might perhaps make a lasting impression.

"Mother," she said, earnestly, "gambling nearly ruined my grandfather; it quite ruined father. We could not be much worse off than we are, but don't throw away the last thing that keeps us from absolute starvation. Do not destroy the roof over our heads! If there were only something in it, I should not so much mind. To win anything in these affairs robs nobody. But there never is anything in it, worse luck. From us, at any rate, the spirit of Chance has turned her head; gambling of any sort is ruin."

"It is – it is," the old lady sobbed, now thoroughly broken down. "Oh, that I had never been drawn into it, had never had the poison instilled into my blood! But this is the last time, Ethel, dear; it is the last time, I promise you. And how to pay the rent I do not know."

Ethel sighed heavily. The rent could be paid this time, she knew. She had been fortunate in securing some extra English lessons during the last quarter – lessons which were given privately to a girl of about her own age, and which had brought her in a few louis; but she had wanted this money so badly for clothes. It was dreadful to go out with Basil on their rather rare holidays and to look dowdy and shabby, as she was only too conscious of being. She knew – what pretty girl does not? – how important decent clothes are, and she longed that her lover should see her dressed like other maidens in the restaurants and minor places of amusement where he was able to take her. And now – that was another little dream gone. The old brown coat and skirt and the imitation astrachan muff and stole would have to do for the rest of the winter; there was bitterness in the thought which no man can fathom.

"Oh, well," she said in a dull voice, "I have saved up a little, and I suppose it will be enough for the rent. But, oh, mother, how could you do it!"

"Never again! never again!" wailed the old lady, and with a dull pain at her heart Ethel left the room and went into the little kitchen to fetch the tea things.

She was a little longer in the kitchen than she had anticipated. Tears were in her eyes also, and it required all her resolution and self-control to keep them back, and to preserve her ordinary composure. At last, with a heavy sigh and trying to twist her face into the semblance of a smile, she took up the tray and went back into the sitting-room, resolved to comfort her mother as well as she could.

Mrs. McMahon, to her daughter's immense surprise, was standing by the window, very erect, with all traces of recent tears and penitence absolutely gone from her face. There was a superior and almost haughty smile upon the old lady's lips.

Ethel stared in wild astonishment at this transformation.

"Put the things down, my dear," said Mrs. McMahon, in a calm and patronising voice. "Perhaps when you have heard what I have got to say, you will realise the wisdom of trusting to older and more experienced people. I do not blame you, Ethel; you are but a child after all and can know nothing of the world. But I do ask you to trust to the wisdom and judgment of your elders in future. If you do so, and allow yourself to be guided by me in everything, then we shall very soon be relieved from our present position, and be able to return to that place in society which our birth and connections warrant."

Ethel dropped the tray some inches upon the table with a crash. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes were wide.

Mrs. McMahon looked down upon her daughter – she was slightly taller than Ethel when she stood erect – with a kindly and compassionate smile, as one looks at a beloved but tiresome and fretful child.

"I suppose," she said, "that a little sum of two thousand five hundred francs would be sufficient to pay the rent?"

Ethel gasped.

"I suppose," Mrs. McMahon continued, "that you would regard a return of a hundred pounds for an investment of ten fairly remunerative?"

Ethel murmured something or other, she hardly knew what.

Then Mrs. McMahon condescended to explain. Her eagerness burst through, her high comedy manner vanished.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" she cried, "the luck has turned at last! After all these years! Look! look!"

With shaking hands she held out some papers to Ethel. A typewritten sheet was headed, "Königlich-Preussiche-Klassen-Lotterie," and stated in French that Mrs. McMahon, who had purchased the eighth of a ticket in the famous Berlin lottery, had thereby won a sum of 2,000 Marks German, or – was added in parentheses – 2,500 francs. A pink draft upon the Crédit Lyonnais was enclosed for the sum.

"Oh, mother!" Ethel gasped, in the sudden shock, "two thousand five hundred francs! A hundred pounds!" And, quite forgetful of her former strictures, she hugged the trembling old lady again and again. "We are rich! we are rich!" she cried, and a vision crossed her mind of an inexpensive hat she had but lately seen in the Rue de Rivoli – a perfect duck of a hat!

They sat down to tea, and never was there a happier meal. Ethel was to meet Basil at six, and he was to take her out to dinner.

"Oh, mother," she said, "how delighted Basil will be to hear the news! I am so sorry I spoke as I did, but it all seemed so hopeless. I see now that I was wrong."

Mrs. McMahon smiled. "My dear," she said, "remember that it is a rule in life that nothing venture, nothing have. This money seems a great deal, no doubt, and it certainly more than repays all that I have spent to get it, so that we are on the right side, after all, as your poor dear father used to say. But it is a principle in these affairs – and you will admit now that I know something about them – always to follow up your luck. It is the people who do not do that who never deserve to have any, and very rarely do have any."

Ethel did not quite understand what the elder lady meant, but she nodded. "Go on, mother dear," she answered.

Mrs. McMahon, who for the last two or three minutes had been sitting lost in thought, turned to her daughter. Her face was grave, but it showed a strangely suppressed excitement, and there was an odd glimmer in her eyes. "First of all, dear," she said, "we must pay the rent. Your little savings will not be required, after all. You can renovate your wardrobe, and I will add something to help you. More especially, you will have to get a really good evening gown, and a smart hat to wear with it."

Ethel stared. "But, mother," she said, "surely that is an extravagance? I never go anywhere where a smart evening gown is wanted. And you know what such things cost."

"A smart evening gown," Mrs. McMahon went on, almost as if she were talking to herself. "We must spend as little as possible upon it, but it must be decent. For myself, I have something that will do – that is, in the first instance."

"What are you talking about, mother dear?" Ethel asked.

"Now listen, Ethel," her mother replied. "A chance has come to us. It may well be our one and only chance. We must grasp it, or let it go by for ever. Fortune always turns her face away from those who refuse to follow when she beckons. I have a plan. We must take Fortune at the flood, as I said. To begin with, we must tell Basil Gregory nothing whatever of this little bit of good fortune which has befallen us. You must not say a word to him about it, or even hint at it."