My neighbors were a type I detest,—Peruvians, I judged by the barbarous Spanish clang of their French; sleek, oily, anointed with perfume from their lacquered hair to their equally shining boots, tailored, corsetted, manicured and with that fawning look so unpleasantly suggestive of the oriental. One was playing for small stakes while his companion looked on, but I noticed that both were narrowly watching the English woman and exchanging whispered comments.
Something was in the wind and my submerged sense of suspicion began to stir.
“Flute!” cried one of the South-Americans, which is a strong imprecation in French, “She wins like a fiend.”
“Zut,” replied the other as his last chip passed under the rake.
I turned to my own play, a system which I picked up in Buenos Ayres, a sure winner of small amounts. After two hours I was four and a half francs ahead and the pastime was beginning to bore me. Rising, I saw that the Peruvians had separated, one having crossed to the other side of the table directly back of the English woman while the other loitered near the croupier’s desk.
In a flash I divined their plan just in time to act. As the man near the croupier engaged him in conversation I saw the other’s hand shoot out and seize a large pile of bank-notes weighted down with a stack of golden louis. I could not possibly reach the fellow or the louis, but I could and did reach the door.
As our paths converged I saw that in his left hand he held an automatic. Acting entirely on instinct I threw in his face a handful of small change, keys, pen-knife, etc., from my trouser pocket. At the same instant I dove. His bullet roared, harmless, over my head and together we crashed to the marble floor. The thief had never seen a foot-ball game and expected something entirely different.
As we struggled he attempted to turn the weapon on me but my grip was like steel. The room was in an uproar. Hither and yon we threshed about over the polished pavement. In one of our gyrations my foot caught under the teak-wood base of a huge Japanese jar. Fascinated I watched it tremble, totter ... and fall into a thousand fragments about us. Then the confusion was punctuated by a sharp report and my adversary lay suddenly still. He had shot himself during the struggle, whether by accident or design I can not say.
Rising I looked about and tendered a handful of golden coins and billets-de-banque to the tall, masterful woman who stood near me.
“Top-hole,” she said, quite simply. “You must come to see me.”