Marie Belloc Lowndes - The Chink in the Armour

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"This is not a grand entrance to our beautiful Casino," said M. Polperro,
ruefully, "but no matter, it is lovely once you get inside!" and he
chuckled happily.

When in front of the great glass doors, he touched Chester on the arm.

"I wonder whether M'sieur would care to become a member of the Club," he
said in a low voice. "I do not press M'sieur to do so! But you see, both
Madame Bailey and her friends are members of the Club, and it is almost
certain that it is there we shall find them. I fear it is no use our
going to the Playing Rooms downstairs."

The Playing Rooms? Sylvia a member of a club? And--for Chester's quick,
legal mind had leapt on the fact--of a gambling club?

No, that was incredible.

"I think there must be some mistake," he said distantly. "I do not think
that Mrs. Bailey is a member of a club."

M. Polperro looked very much surprised.

"Oh, yes, indeed she is," he answered confidently. "It is only the quite
common people who content themselves, M'sieur, with risking a franc and
playing the little games. But just as M'sieur likes--" he shrugged his
shoulders. "I do not press M'sieur to become a member of the Club."

Without answering, Chester paid the couple of francs admission for
himself and his companion, and they walked slowly through the lower
rooms, threading their way through the crowd.

"You see, M'sieur, I was right! Madame Bailey is in the Club!"

"Very well. Let us go to the Club," said Chester, impatiently.

He was beginning, or so he thought, to understand. The Club was evidently
a quiet, select part of the Casino, with a reading room and so on. Sylvia
had probably made friends with some French people in her hotel, and they
had persuaded her to join the Club.

He was beginning to throw off his tiredness; the unaccustomed atmosphere
in which he found himself amused and interested, even if it rather
shocked him.

Ten minutes later he also, thanks to the kind offices of M. Polperro, and
by the payment of twenty francs, found himself a member of the Club; free
of that inner sanctuary where the devotees of the fickle goddess play
with gold instead of silver; and where, as even Chester could see, the
people who stood round the table, risking with quiet, calculating eyes
their twenty-franc pieces and bank-notes, were of a very different social
standing from the merry, careless crowd downstairs.

In the Baccarat Room most of the men were in evening clothes, and
the women with them, if to Chester's eyes by no means desirable or
reputable-looking companions, were young, pretty, and beautifully
dressed.

Still, the English lawyer felt a thrill of disgust at the thought that
Sylvia Bailey could possibly be part of such a company.

Baccarat was being played at both tables, but the crowd of players
centred rather round one than the other, as is almost always the way.

M. Polperro touched his companion on the arm. "And now, M'sieur," he said
briefly, "I will with your permission depart home. I think you will find
Madame Bailey at that further table."

Chester shook the owner of the Villa du Lac cordially by the hand. The
little man had been really kind and helpful. It was a pity there was no
vacant room in his hotel.

He made his way to the further table, and gradually reached a point of
vantage where he could see those of the players who were seated round the
green cloth.

As is generally the case when really high play is going on, the people
who were playing, as also those watching them, were curiously quiet.

And then, with a shock of surprise which sent the blood to his cheeks,
Chester suddenly saw that Sylvia Bailey was sitting nearly opposite to
where he himself was standing.

There are certain scenes, certain human groupings of individuals, which
remain fixed for ever against the screen of memory. Bill Chester will
never forget the sight which was presented to him in the Lacville Casino
by the particular group on which his tired eyes became focussed with
growing amazement and attention.

Sylvia was sitting at the baccarat table next to the man who was acting
as Banker. She was evidently absorbed in the fortunes of the game, and
she followed the slow falling of the fateful cards with rather feverish
intentness.

Her small gloved hands rested on the table, one of them loosely holding a
tiny ivory rake; and on a bank-note spread open on the green cloth before
her were two neat piles of gold, the one composed of twenty-franc, the
other of ten-franc pieces.

Chester, with a strange feeling of fear and anger clutching at his heart,
told himself that he had never seen Sylvia look as she looked to-night.
She was more than pretty--she was lovely, and above all, alive--vividly
alive. There was a bright colour on her cheek, and a soft light shining
in her eyes.

The row of pearls which had occasioned the only serious difference which
had ever arisen between them, rose and fell softly on the bosom of her
black lace dress.

Chester also gradually became aware that his beautiful friend and client
formed a centre of attraction to those standing round the gambling-table.
Both the men and the women stared at her, some enviously, but more with
kindly admiration, for beauty is sure of its tribute in any French
audience, and Sylvia Bailey to-night looked radiantly lovely--lovely and
yet surely unhappy and ill-at-ease.

Well might she look both in such a place and among such a crew! So the
English lawyer angrily told himself.

Now and again she turned and spoke in an eager, intimate fashion to a man
sitting next her on her left. This man, oddly enough, was not playing.

Sylvia Bailey's companion was obviously a Frenchman, or so Chester felt
sure, for now he found himself concentrating his attention on Mrs.
Bailey's neighbour rather than on her. This man, to whom she kept turning
and speaking in a low, earnest tone, was slim and fair, and what could be
seen of his evening clothes fitted scrupulously well. The Englishman,
looking at him with alien, jealous eyes, decided within himself that the
Frenchman with whom Sylvia seemed to be on such friendly terms, was a
foppish-looking fellow, not at all the sort of man she ought to have
"picked up" on her travels.

Suddenly Sylvia raised her head, throwing it back with a graceful
gesture, and Chester's eyes travelled on to the person who was standing
just behind her, and to whom she had now begun speaking with smiling
animation.

This was a woman--short, stout, and swarthy--dressed in a bright purple
gown, and wearing a pale blue bonnet which was singularly unbecoming to
her red, massive face. Chester rather wondered that such an odd, and
yes--such a respectable-looking person could be a member of this gambling
club. She reminded him of the stout old housekeeper in a big English
country house near Market Dalling.

Sylvia seemed also to include in her talk a man who was standing next the
fat woman. He was tall and lanky, absurdly and unsuitably dressed, to the
English onlooker, in a white alpaca suit and a shabby Panama hat. In his
hand he held a little book, in which he noted down every turn of the
game, and it was clear to Chester that, though he listened to Mrs. Bailey
with civility, he was quite uninterested in what she was saying.

Very different was the attitude of the woman; she seemed absorbed in
Sylvia's remarks, and she leant forward familiarly, throwing all her
weight on the back of the chair on which Mrs. Bailey was sitting.
Sometimes as she spoke she smiled in a way that showed her large, strong
teeth.

Chester thought them both odd, common-looking people. He was surprised
that Sylvia knew them--nay more, that she seemed on such friendly terms
with them; and he noticed that the Frenchman sitting next to her--the
dandyish-looking fellow to whom she had been talking just now--took no
part at all in her present conversation. Once, indeed, he looked up and
frowned, as if the chatter going on between Mrs. Bailey and her fat
friend fretted and disturbed him.

Play had again begun in earnest, and Sylvia turned her attention to the
table. Her neighbour whispered something which at once caused her to take
up two napoleons and a ten-franc piece from the pile of gold in front of
her. Very deliberately she placed the coins within the ruled-off space
reserved for the stakes.

Bill Chester, staring across at her, felt as if he were in a
nightmare--gazing at something which was not real, and which would
vanish if looked at long enough.

Could that lovely young woman, who sat there, looking so much at home,
with the little rake in her hand be Sylvia Bailey, the quiet young widow
whose perfect propriety of conduct had always earned the praise of those
matrons of Market Dalling, whom Chester's own giddier sisters called by
the irreverent name of "old cats"? It was fortunate that none of these
respectable ladies could see Sylvia now!

To those who regard gambling as justifiable, provided the gambler's
means allow of it, even to those who habitually see women indulging in
games of chance, there will, of course, be something absurd in the point
of view of the solicitor. But to such a man as Bill Chester, the sight
of the woman for whom he had always felt a very sincere respect, as well
as a far more enduring and jealous affection than he quite realised,
sitting there at a public gaming table, was a staggering--nay, a
disgusting--spectacle.

He reminded himself angrily that Sylvia had a good income--so good an
income that she very seldom spent it all in the course of any one year.
Why, therefore, should she wish to increase it?

Above all, how could she bear to mingle with this queer, horrid crowd?
Why should she allow herself to be contaminated by breathing the same
air as some of the women who were there round her? She and the stout,
middle-aged person standing behind her were probably the only
"respectable" women in the Club.

And then, it was all so deliberate! Chester had once seen a man whom he
greatly respected drunk, and the sight had ever remained with him. But,
after all, a man may get drunk by accident--nay, it may almost be said
that a man always gets drunk by accident. But, in this matter of risking
her money at the baccarat table, Sylvia Bailey knew very well what she
was about.

With a thrill of genuine distress the lawyer asked himself whether she
had not, in very truth, already become a confirmed gambler. It was with
an assured, familiar gesture that Sylvia placed her money on the green
cloth, and then with what intelligent knowledge she followed the
operations of the Banker!

He watched her when her fifty francs were swept away, and noted the calm
manner with which she immediately took five louis from her pile, and
pushed them, with her little rake, well on to the table.

But before the dealer of the cards had spoken the fateful words: "_Le jeu
est fait. Rien ne va plus!_" Mrs. Bailey uttered an exclamation under her
breath, and hurriedly rose from her chair.

She had suddenly seen Chester--seen his eyes fixed on her with a
perplexed, angry look in them, and the look had made her wince.

Forgetting that she still had a stake on the green cloth, she turned away
from the table and began making her way round the edge of the circle.

For a moment Chester lost sight of her--there were so many people round
the table. He went on staring, hardly knowing what he was doing, at the
four pounds she had left on the green cloth.

The cards were quickly dealt, and the fateful, to Chester the
incomprehensible, words were quickly uttered. Chester saw that Sylvia,
unknowing of the fact, had won--that five louis were added to her
original stake. The fair-haired Frenchman in evening dress by whom Mrs.
Bailey had been sitting looked round; not seeing her, he himself swept up
the stake and slipped the ten louis into his pocket.

"Bill! You here? I had quite given you up! I thought you had missed the
train--at any rate, I never thought you would come out to Lacville as
late as this."

The bright colour, which was one of Sylvia's chief physical attributes,
had faded from her cheeks. She looked pale, and her heart was beating
uncomfortably. She would have given almost anything in the world for
Bill Chester not to have come down to the Club and caught her like
this--"caught" was the expression poor Sylvia used to herself.

"I am so sorry," she went on, breathlessly, "so very sorry! What a wretch
you must have thought me! But I have got you such a nice room in a
pension where a friend of mine was for a time. I couldn't get you
anything at the Villa du Lac. But you can have all your meals with me
there. It's such good cooking, and there's a lovely garden, Bill--"

Chester said nothing. He was still looking at her, trying to readjust his
old ideas and ideals of Sylvia Bailey to her present environment.

Sylvia suddenly grew very red. After all, Bill Chester was not her
keeper! He had no right to look as angry, as--as disgusted as he was now
doing.

Then there came to both a welcome diversion.

"_Ma jolie Sylvie!_ Will you not introduce me to your friend?"

Madame Wachner had elbowed her way through the crowd to where Chester and
Mrs. Bailey were standing. Her husband lagged a little way behind, his
eyes still following the play. Indeed, even as his wife spoke L'Ami Fritz
made a note in the little book he held in his hand. When in the Baccarat
Room he was absolutely absorbed in the play going on. Nothing could
really distract him from it.

Sylvia felt and looked relieved.

"Oh, Bill," she exclaimed, "let me introduce you to Madame Wachner? She
has been very kind to me since I came to Lacville."

"I am enchanted to meet you, sir. We 'oped to see you at dinner."

Chester bowed. She had a pleasant voice, this friend of Sylvia's, and she
spoke English well, even if she did drop her aitches!

"It is getting rather late"--Chester turned to Sylvia, but he spoke quite
pleasantly.

"Yes, we must be going; are you staying on?" Sylvia was addressing the
woman she had just introduced to Chester, but her eyes were wandering
towards the gambling table. Perhaps she had suddenly remembered her five
louis.

Chester smiled a little grimly to himself. He wondered if Sylvia would be
surprised to hear that her neighbour, the fair Frenchman to whom she had
been talking so familiarly, had "collared" her stakes and her winnings.

"No, indeed! We, too, must be going 'ome. Come, Fritz, it is getting
late." The devoted wife spoke rather crossly. They all four turned, and
slowly walked down the room.

Sylvia instinctively fell behind, keeping step with Monsieur Wachner,
while Chester and Madame Wachner walked in front.

The latter had already taken the measure of the quiet, stolid-looking
Englishman. She had seen him long before Sylvia had done so, and had
watched him with some attention, guessing almost at once that he must
be the man for whom Mrs. Bailey had waited dinner.

"I suppose that this is your first visit to Lacville?" she observed
smiling. "Very few of your countrymen come 'ere, sir, but it is an
interesting and curious place--more really curious than is Monte Carlo."

She lowered her voice a little, but Chester heard her next words very
clearly.

"It is not a proper place for our pretty friend, but--ah! she loves
play now! The Polish lady, Madame Wolsky, was also a great lover of
baccarat; but now she 'as gone away. And so, when Mrs. Bailey come 'ere,
like this, at night, my 'usband and I--we are what you English people
call old-fashioned folk--we come, too. Not to play--oh, no, but, _you_
understand, just to look after 'er. She is so innocent, so young, so
beautiful!"

Chester looked kindly at Madame Wachner. It was very decent of
her--really good-natured and motherly--to take such an interest in poor
Sylvia and her delinquencies. Yes, that was the way to take this--this
matter which so shocked him. Sylvia Bailey--lovely, wilful, spoilt
Sylvia--was a very young woman, and ridiculously innocent, as this old
lady truly said.

He, Chester, knew that a great many nice people went to Monte Carlo, and
spent sometimes a good deal more money than they could afford at the
tables. It was absurd to be angry with Sylvia for doing here what very
many other people did in another place. He felt sincerely grateful to
this fat, vulgar looking woman for having put the case so clearly.

"It's very good of you to do that," he answered awkwardly; "I mean it's
very good of you to accompany Mrs. Bailey to this place," he looked round
him with distaste.

They were now downstairs, part of a merry, jostling crowd, which
contained, as all such crowds naturally contain, a rather rowdy element.
"It certainly is no place for Mrs. Bailey to come to by herself--"

He was going to add something, when Sylvia walked forward.

"Where's Count Paul?" she asked, anxiously, of Madame Wachner. "Surely he
did not stay on at the table after we left?"

Madame Wachner shook her head slightly.

"I don't know at all," she said, and then cast a meaning glance at
Chester. It was an odd look, and somehow it inspired him with a prejudice
against the person, this "Count Paul," of whom Sylvia had just spoken.

"Ah, here he is!" There was relief, nay gladness, ringing in Mrs.
Bailey's frank voice.

The Comte de Virieu was pushing his way through the slowly moving crowd.
Without looking at the Wachners, he placed ten louis in Sylvia's hand.

"Your last stake was doubled," he said, briefly. "Then that means, does
it not, Madame, that you have made thirty-two louis this evening? I
congratulate you."

Chester's prejudice grew, unreasonably. "Damn the fellow; then he was
honest, after all! But why should he congratulate Mrs. Bailey on having
won thirty-two louis?"

He acknowledged Sylvia's introduction of the Count very stiffly, and he
was relieved when the other turned on his heel--relieved, and yet puzzled
to see how surprised Sylvia seemed to be by his departure. She actually
tried to keep the Count from going back to the Club.

"Aren't you coming to the Villa du Lac? It's getting very late," she
said, in a tone of deep disappointment.

But he, bowing, answered, "No, Madame; it is impossible." He waited a
moment, then muttered, "I have promised to take the Bank in a quarter
of an hour."

Sylvia turned away. Tears had sprung to her eyes. But Chester saw nothing
of her agitation, and a moment later they were all four out in the kindly
darkness.

CHAPTER XX

Even to Chester there was something grateful in the sudden stillness in
which he and the three others found themselves on leaving the Casino.

"Not a very safe issue out of a place where people carry about such a lot
of money!" he exclaimed, as they made their way up the rough little lane.
"One could half-throttle anyone here, and have a very good chance of
getting off!"

"Oh, Lacville is a very safe place!" answered Madame Wachner, laughing
her jovial laugh. "Still, considering all the money made by the Casino,
it is too bad they 'aven't made a more splendid--what do you call it--?"

"--Approach," said L'Ami Fritz, in his deep voice, and Chester turned,
rather surprised. It was the first word he had heard Monsieur Wachner
utter.

Sylvia was trying hard to forget Count Paul and his broken promise, and
to be her natural self.

As they emerged into the better-lighted thoroughfare, where stood a row
of carriages, she said, "I will drive with you to the Pension Malfait,
Bill."

Madame Wachner officiously struck in, "Do not think of driving your
friend to the Pension Malfait, dear friend! We will gladly leave Mr.
Chester there. But if 'e does not mind we will walk there; it is too fine
a night for driving."

"But how about your luggage?" said Sylvia, anxiously. "Has your luggage
gone on to the Pension?"

"Yes," said Chester, shortly. "Your landlord very kindly said he would
see to its being sent on."

They were now close to the Villa du Lac. "Of course, I shall expect you
to lunch to-morrow," said Sylvia. "Twelve o'clock is the time. You'll
want a good rest after your long day."

And then Chester started off with his two strange companions. How very
unlike this evening had been to what he had pictured it would be! Years
before, as a boy, he had spent a week at a primitive seaside hotel near
Dieppe. He had thought Lacville would be like that. He had imagined
himself arriving at a quiet, rural, little country inn, and had seen
himself kindly, if a little shyly, welcomed by Sylvia. He could almost
have laughed at the contrast between the place his fancy had painted and
the place he had found, at what he had thought would happen, and at what
had happened!

As they trudged along, Chester, glancing to his right, saw that there
were still a great many boats floating on the lake. Did Lacville folk
never go to bed?

"Yes," said Madame Wachner, quickly divining his thoughts, "some of the
people 'ere--why, they stay out on the water all night! Then they catch
the early train back to Paris in the morning, and go and work all day.
Ah, yes, it is indeed a splendid thing to be young!"

She sighed, a long, sentimental sigh, and looked across, affectionately,
at L'Ami Fritz.

"I do not feel my youth to be so very far away," she said. "But then, the
people in my dear country are not cynical as are the French!"

Her husband strode forward in gloomy silence, probably thinking over the
money he might have made or lost had he played that evening, instead of
only noting down the turns of the game.

Madame Wachner babbled on, making conversation for Chester.

She was trying to find out something more about this quiet Englishman.
Why had he come to Lacville? How long was he going to stay here? What was
his real relation to Sylvia Bailey?

Those were the questions that the pretty English widow's new friend
was asking herself, finding answers thereto which were unsatisfactory,
because vague and mysterious.

At last she ventured a direct query.

"Are you going to stay long in this beautiful place, Monsieur?"

"I don't know," said Chester shortly. "I don't suppose I shall stay very
long. I'm going on to Switzerland. How long I stay will a little bit
depend on Mrs. Bailey's plans. I haven't had time to ask her anything
yet. What sort of a place is the Villa du Lac?"

He asked the question abruptly; he was already full of dislike and
suspicion of everything, though not of everybody, at Lacville. These
Wachners were certainly nice, simple people.

"Oh, the Villa du Lac is a very respectable 'ouse," said Madame Wachner
cautiously. "It is full of respectable--what do you call them?--dowagers.
Oh, you need have no fear for your friend, sir; she is quite safe there.
And you know she does not often go to the Casino"--she told the lie with
bold deliberation. Some instinct told her that while Chester was at
Lacville Sylvia would not go to the Casino as often as she had been in
the habit of doing.

There was a pause--and then again Madame Wachner asked the Englishman a
question:

"Perhaps you will go on to Switzerland, leaving Mrs. Bailey here, and
then come back for her?"

"Perhaps I shall," he said heavily, without really thinking of what he
was saying.

They were now walking along broad, shady roads which reminded him of
those in a well-kept London suburb. Not a sound issued from any of the
houses which stood in gardens on either side, and in the moonlight he saw
that they were all closely shuttered. It might almost have been a little
township of empty houses.

Again the thought crossed his mind what a dangerous place these lonely
roads might be to a man carrying a lot of gold and notes on his person.
They had not met a single policeman, or, indeed, anyone, after they had
left the side of the lake.

At last Madame Wachner stopped short before a large wooden door.

'"Ere we are!" she said briskly. "I presume they are expecting you, sir?
If they are not expecting you, they will probably 'ave all gone to bed.
So we will wait, will we not, Ami Fritz, and see this gentleman safe in?
If the worst came to the worst, you could come with us to our villa and
sleep there the night."

"You are awfully kind!" said Chester heartily--and, indeed, he did feel
this entire stranger's kindness exceptional.

How fortunate that Sylvia had come across such a nice, simple, kindly
woman in such a queer place as Lacville!

But Madame Wachner's good-natured proposal had never to be seriously
considered, for when her vigorous hand found and pulled the bell there
came sounds in the courtyard beyond, and a moment later the door swung
open.

"Who's there?" cried M. Malfait in a loud voice.

"It is the English gentleman, Mrs. Bailey's friend," said Madame Wachner
quickly; and at once the Frenchman's voice softened.

"Ah! we had quite given up M'sieur," he said amiably. "Come in, come in!
Yes, the bag has arrived; but people often send their luggage before they
come themselves. Just as they sometimes leave their luggage after they
themselves have departed!"

Chester was shaking hands cordially with the Wachners.

"Thank you for all your kindness," he said heartily. "I hope we shall
meet again soon! I shall certainly be here for some days. Perhaps you
will allow me to call on you?"

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