Across the heavy oaken door there was an opening, barred by a grill of ironwork that covered the entire paneling.
When Herrick pushed the button, a buzzer sounded somewhere inside the house. There was a moment more of waiting. Then the panel opened noiselessly, and a heavy-faced man, with a dark, drooping mustache, looked at them.
The light in the vestibule fell full on Herrick’s face, the man having thrust back his silk hat.
Clink!—the panel closed. Snap!—the door opened.
Herrick walked in at their head, and they followed. The heavy-faced man who had opened the door said:
“Hello, Charley,” and Herrick returned, “Good evening, Mike.”
The door closed behind them, and they had crossed the portal of one of the most palatial gambling-houses in New York.
At the pressure of the button the buzzer within had sounded its warning, as the deadly diamond-back rattler of the Bad Lands sounds a warning before striking its victim.
Frank had heard that Dick Canfield’s place was in every way different from others of its sort; he had heard that there was nothing about it suggestive of commonness and vulgarity. That buzzer was a disappointment to him. In his rovings round the world, fate had led him once or twice to the doors of gambling-dens, and in every instance the pressure of a button had been followed by the sound of the buzzer within. This was true at the door of Dick Canfield’s, in the aristocratic neighborhood close to Fifth Avenue, and it was also true at the doors of cheap dens which flourished on Sixth Avenue.
Herrick led the way to a reception-room at the right of the entrance. The door of this room was flanked by heavy porphyry columns, and the room was a marvel of decorative art. A fireplace of exquisite design faced the door. It was a fine, big, open fireplace, handsomely carved and supported by onyx columns.