Читать книгу The Poisoned Paradise - Robert William Service - Страница 15

As she sat alone in the corner of her compartment, these events passed through her mind and she sighed deeply. She felt very lonely, rather frightened. She blamed herself for having bought a first class ticket at Marseilles, but the journey in the crowded second-class from Paris had so fatigued her that she had decided to be extravagant.

Even in her jaded state the scenery seemed to her to be of dreamlike beauty. It was not until Nice had been reached that its too exorbitant claims on her admiration began to weary her. They must be very close now. It was long, that journey, especially when one has been so ill. She must tidy up a bit. She rose and began to arrange her hair, that stupid hair of which she had so much. It tumbled turbulently down and she had to take out all her hair-pins and let it fall around her like a golden shower. As she looked up apprehensively, she saw a young man staring at her from the corridor. She was vexed. She caught the mutinous tresses hurriedly and bunched them around her head. When she had finished with her pins and combs, she looked around again. The young man had gone.

She liked the Pension which had been recommended to her, because every one left her alone. The first day she gave to exploring the gardens and getting her bearings; the second she presented herself at the Casino and asked for a card. Fortunately, she had been warned that on no account must she divulge the fact that she worked. It is significant that a woman who earns her living honestly is refused admission to the Casino while a prostitute is welcomed. The administration knows that the small wage earner brings little grist to their mill, while the demi-mondaine plays their game. Margot filled in her application with the usual phrase: "Sans occupation."

Although she had made up her mind to gamble she was more than prudent. For the first week she did nothing but watch the tables with concentrated attention; then she bought a note-book with shiny covers and began to take down numbers. She would stand by a table for two or three hours, until her column of figures was quite a long one. Then, finding a quiet seat in the Café de Paris, she would sip a cup of chocolate and study them. She felt encouraged by the fact that a number of women, with negligible capital, were undoubtedly making a living at the Casino. Shabby, anxious creatures she saw them hovering like hawks over the tables, waiting to get in on "a safe thing," and going away finally with a few pieces of gain. They had lived thus for years.

"Surely," she thought, "with two thousand francs of capital, I can win a louis a day."

The next step was to make up her mind how she would play. She must adopt a method, and concentrate on it. After long reflection she decided that the most cautious way of playing was to stake on two of the three dozens. In this way she would only have one dozen against her. From the examination of her figures, and the columns of permanencies published in a paper whose colour was the green of hope, she found that the first dozen seemed to come a little less frequently than the other two, and that it had a greater tendency to repeat. Here was a hint for her. She would wait until the first dozen had asserted itself strongly, then, as it were, retired exhausted. She would put five francs on the second and five francs on the third dozen. She would be covering thus twenty-four of the thirty-six numbers. If either of her two dozens won, she would receive fifteen francs, a gain of five francs. As soon as she had won four times, and had made a louis, she would stop. She furthermore decided that she would always play a flat stake, and would never make a progression. In the long run a progression was always fatal. If she lost a louis on any one day, she would stop for that day and not court disaster by trying to retrieve her losses.

As she pressed through the crowd and put her first stake on the table, she felt her heart beat wildly. She thought every one was watching her.

"Here is a new one," she imagined them saying. "Another poor little chicken come to be plucked. Look how her hand trembles as she puts her two white counters on the table. One would imagine she was playing for thousands."

But after all every one was absorbed in the game, and no one paid any attention to her. The ball spun around. She had won.

"Ah!" she thought, "it is always specially arranged that the beginner wins."

And she played again with more confidence. The player has the advantage over the bank in that he may select his moment of play. (Unfortunately he generally selects the wrong moment.) Margot waited for what seemed to her a favourable moment and staked again. Again she won. Her second and third coups were equally successful. She was strangely elated, far more so than the extent of her gain really warranted. She had been excited and anxious before, now a happy reaction set in. She changed the white counters she had gained for a twenty franc bill, which she regarded with a rare pleasure. How strange to make money so easily! Playing as prudently as this it did not seem possible to lose. Just think! if she had only played with louis-stakes instead of five franc ones.... Or even with hundred franc placques.... A sudden vision of fortune dazzled her. "If ..." Ah! that pregnant "if" that gamblers use in victory and defeat. The tragedy of that "if." The virus was already in her veins, and she went home to dream of whirring roulette wheels and the smiles of fortune.

She awaited the second day with a passion of eagerness. But alas! things did not go so well. When she had made three wins she had a loss. With chagrin she watched her two pieces swept away. She was now only one ahead. She won her next three coups, however, and retired with her louis of gain.

The third day she had a hard fight. It was as if the Casino had said: "Tut! Tut! we must not let this slip of a girl get our money so easily. We must begin to baulk her a bit."

She played all morning and afternoon, winning and losing, and winning again. Try as she would, she could not get them to give her a louis. At seven o'clock she retired from the fight, only a poor five francs the winner. She was fearfully tired, her head ached, and the smile of fortune seemed transformed into the wryest of grins.

The fourth day she had no trouble and her confidence came back. But the fifth ... the first dozen came up seven times running and broke to the third. By all the laws of average it was due to rest a bit and allow the equilibrium to establish itself. It was, therefore, with a confidence almost insolent, that the girl staked on the second and third dozen. She was so sure of winning that she felt as if the money were already in her hands, and did not even wait to watch the spinning wheel. She had reached down to secure her winnings when to her surprise she saw both her stakes being raked in. The number two had declared itself.

Next time it would come right, and again she staked on the second and third dozen. She waited almost listlessly. To her dismay she saw her stakes swept off a second time. There must be a mistake.... No, the ball was resting in the slot marked twelve.

She sat down on one of the leather-padded lounges. It was not the money she had lost that worried her, but the fact that her system had proven untrustworthy. She hated to be beaten like that. A mixture of resentment and anger dominated her,—a mood most dangerous to a gambler. She rose, and going back to the table put one louis on the second dozen and another on the third. She won. She had regained all that she had lost.

She did not play any more that day. She went to the Café de Paris, and, having ordered a jug of chocolate, sat down to think. It was evident that to gain four straight wins every day, was too great a strain on her system. Well, then, instead of playing four coups with five francs each time, why not play a single coup with a louis for the stake? In this way she would not tire herself out with long play, nor exhaust her luck. Accordingly the next day she began playing on these lines.

For a time all went well. She found that with average luck she won three times out of four. Then a spell of bad luck set in, and in spite of the care with which she played she found her gains were reduced to two out of three. This left her no profit. She must do something to raise her average. She thought the matter over. If she had to have a certain proportion of losses, why not let them be fictitious ones? Why not let her losses be made with imaginary stakes and her gains with real ones? She made up her mind that, playing with her usual care, she would wait until she had lost twice in her head, before playing on the table a third time for a win. It needed lots of patience; often she had to wait for two hours before her chance came, but with this method she won three times out of four. However to develop a system in theory and put it into practice are two very different things. To play a system one must be as emotionless as a machine; systems make no allowance for human passion and impulse, and this she soon found to her cost.

It happened one day that, when she went to the Rooms in the afternoon, she staked as usual a louis on the second and another on the third dozen, after having watched the wheel for awhile. The number eleven came up. Now according to her system she should have called her day a loss and gone home. But on this particular afternoon her mood was mutinous. She determined to try again. She re-staked in the same fashion, and the eleven repeated. She was furious with herself for being so weak and foolish. It would take her four days to regain her losses. It was too tedious, too discouraging. Well, it could not be helped now. She walked to the door, but just as she reached it she hesitated. Her irritation grew. No, she would not let them beat her. Going back to the table she fumbled in her bag and drew forth two notes of a hundred francs each. She handed them to the croupier.

"Second and third dozen, please."

She was strangely calm now, but she could not bear to see the ball spin. She turned and went to another table, pretending to watch the play there. She forbade herself to look back, then when she heard the ball drop, she glanced round. The croupiers were cleaning up the tables, but the rake swung clear of the hundred francs she had put on the middle dozen. She had won.

Again she snatched victory from defeat. She had retrieved her losses and had a louis to boot. But strange to say she felt no elation. She had been reckless and risked two hundred francs. It must not happen again, she told herself.

It was soon evident that if her average wins were three out of four, with a stake of two louis, and she made only one coup, her gains would only aggregate five francs a day. That would never do. After much reflection and analysis of her figures, she decided to play with placques of a hundred francs each. In this way she would gain a hundred francs every four days; and even, if she allowed five francs for a possible zero every time she played, she would still make her louis a day. This was the plan she finally adopted. Her system, in short, was to play only a flat stake, never a progression. She played only one coup a day, stopping if she lost, and took two fictitious losses before actually playing on the table. She played a hundred francs on the second, and a hundred francs on the third dozen after an exhausted run of the first dozen. She put five francs on zero.

It was very much like hard work, and needed both patience and judgment, but it was possible for her to go on playing this system for six months without mishap, and in the end just about even up.