Читать книгу The Promise - James B. Hendryx - Страница 9

Mr. LINCOLN S. TARBEL

Municipal Investigator

"You see," explained its owner, "it has reached the ears of the managing editor of my paper in South Bend that vice in various forms flourishes in Chicago! Thereupon he immediately sent for me and ordered a sweeping investigation."

Further information was forestalled by the entrance of a suave-mannered individual who introduced himself as a cigar salesman, and who was readily induced to take a hand in the game.

The lightning-like glances that passed between the newcomer and the Western Mr. Johnson, while entirely unnoted by the investigator of municipal vice, aroused the interest of the athletic young man to the point of assenting to make the fourth. Here, evidently, was something about to be pulled off, and he decided to be actively among those present.

The game progressed through several uneventful deals. Suddenly Johnson, scrutinizing a hand dealt him by the cigar salesman, emitted a low whistle.

"If we were playing poker now I'd have something to say!"

"Oh, I don't know! I've got some poker hand myself," opined the dealer. "Discard one, to make a five-card hand, and I bet you five dollars I beat you."

"You're on!" Each produced a bill which he handed to the athletic young man to hold.

"Three eights and a pair of deuces," boasted the Westerner, exposing the full hand upon the board.

"Beats three kings," admitted the other, ruefully laying down his hand. The winner pocketed the money with an exaggerated wink in the direction of the newspaper youth who had been an interested spectator.

The game progressed, and before many deals another challenge was passed and accepted between the two. This time it was the salesman who profited to the extent of twenty-five dollars which he received from the stakeholder with the remark that he would bet his whole roll on a jack full any old day.

The elderly gentleman smoked in silence and amused himself by mentally cataloguing the players. Suddenly his attention became riveted.

What he saw jarred harshly upon his estimate of the athletic young man who, at the conclusion of his deal, dexterously slipped some cards beneath the table from his pile of tricks, then, bunching the pack, passed it to the Westerner for the next deal.

He was on the point of exposing this cheap bit of knavery when the young man glanced in his direction. Something in the steady gaze of the gray eyes, though for the life of him he could not have told what, stayed his purpose, and he settled into his seat, more puzzled than before.

"If it had been any one of the others," he thought to himself; "and then to think that he turns around and with a look virtually makes me a party to his tuppenny trickery!"

His reflections were cut short by a sharp exclamation from the investigator of vice who, in spite of his desire to appear composed, was evidently laboring under great excitement.

"I'll bet twenty-five dollars I've got the best poker hand this time!" He was staring at his tight-gripped cards. Johnson looked his hand over—and with a careless:

"Here's where I get even," tossed the amount to the athletic young man, who laid his cards upon the table. The cigar salesman broke in:

"Hold on! I'm in on this, too! Got a pretty fair hand myself. And just to show you sports I'm game, I'll make it a hundred."

He passed a handful of bills to the stakeholder and glared defiantly at the newspaper person who was in the act of returning a bill-fold to his pocket.

"Why, that is all I've got!" he gasped, "and it's expense-money!"

"Well, of course," the other replied, "if you don't care to see my hand, and I don't mind telling you it's more than a middling good one——"

"I'll bet"—the hand that extracted the neatly folded bills from the leather case shook and the voice rose to a ludicrous falsetto—"I've got you beat, and if I had any more money with me I'd come back at you."

"You've got a watch there," remarked Mr. Johnson. "Let's see it. I ain't going to stay for the raise. My three sevens don't look as good as they did."

"I paid fifty dollars for it!" piped the youth, passing the watch across the board. Both men examined it.

"Oh, well, I don't know anything about watches, but I'll take your word for it. Stick her up—here's the fifty."

"I've got four aces!" squealed the reporter as he spread them out face upward. He stared wildly at the other, and his hands made wet marks where they touched the board.

"No good," remarked his opponent blandly. "Mine's hearts—all in a row, with the jack at the top." One by one he laid them down—a straight flush. South Bend stared incredulously at the cards.

"All right, Mr. Stakeholder," laughed the salesman, "pass over the kale. Just slip out a five for your trouble."

"Just a minute." The voice of the stakeholder was quiet and his lips smiled. The two across the board bristled aggressively and the plucked one sniffled.

"Well"—there was an ugly note in the cigar salesman's voice—"a straight flush beats four aces, don't it?"

"Oh, yes, there is no question as to that. Are these the same cards we have been using?"

"Of course they are! What do you mean?" asked the dealer.

"Oh, nothing. I just wanted to know. Our friend here has the right to know that he got a square deal. Count the cards." The look of apprehension on the faces of the two men faded into smiles.

"Sure thing. That's fair enough," acquiesced the dealer, proceeding to gather the cards from the board. Slowly and deliberately he counted; "fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two," he finished. "Here, captain, count them yourself." He handed them to the youth, who mechanically ran them through.

"They are all here," he admitted.

"Now, that is funny," smiled the stakeholder, "because last deal I dropped several cards onto the floor. This gentleman saw me do it."

He nodded toward the elderly gentleman, who was now keenly interested, and reached under the table.

"See—here they are. And, by the way, the nine and ten of hearts are among them. And now, you cheap crooks," he added as he flung a handful of bills onto the board, "take your money and beat it!"

The two men opposite looked for an instant into the narrowing gray eyes, noted a certain tightening of the square jaw and the clenching of a pair of very capable fists, and tarried not upon further orders. Sweeping the money into their pockets they quit the compartment, casting venomous back glances toward the young man whose lips could smile while his eyes threatened.

"Here is yours, kid. And let me put you wise to something. The first thing you do when you strike Chicago, buy a ticket to South Bend. They are waiting for you in the wicked town—they can see you coming. The next ones will spring a real live game, green goods, or wire tapping. They will roll you before you can locate a rescue mission. About the only form of vice they will give you time to investigate will be what the taxi boy does to you.

"The cold-deck stunt you just fell for, sonny, is so old it totters. It is the identical trick that started the coolness between Brutus and Julius Cæsar."