It was resolved, therefore, that Basil should play, with the aid of the unseen electric influences, for one evening only. The whole thing had been worked out, and it had been found that it would be easy, if nothing went wrong, for him to win an enormous sum even within a few hours. Directly that was accomplished Deschamps would pack his apparatus and return to Paris. Basil would remain at Monte Carlo for a few days and venture a few small sums to avoid suspicion. After that he would rejoin his friend.
There was a low knock at the door, an interval of silence, and then five more distinct taps.
Deschamps knew that Basil was without, and he quietly unlocked the door and let in his friend.
Basil, tall, foreign looking, and in the most scrupulously chosen evening dress, entered the dingy little bedroom with its litter of machinery and tools. The door was locked behind him and the partners were alone together.
Deschamps started. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "your sang froid is admirable. You are—how do you call it?—cool as a cucumber. Froid comme un concombre. Look at me; I tremble all over, moi!"
Basil shrugged his shoulders. "What is the use?" he said briefly. "I have been nervous enough up to the present, but now the moment has arrived I have just got to keep cool. The biggest strain is on me, and if I fail now all our plans are over and it means"—he threw out his hands with a foreign gesture—"well, we won't talk of what it means."
"You are marvellous!" said the excitable little Frenchman. "You have no tremor, no compunction."
Basil shook his head. "I am strung up to go through with it," he answered, "and take what comes—fortune or prison. As for compunction, it seems to me a good deed to rob the proprietors of this hell if one can, considering all the stories I have heard during the few hours I have been here, and the evil passions I have seen displayed on all sides. And, moreover, we do it for the sake of science, to confer an inestimable benefit on the world!"
"Bien," Deschamps answered. "Now, have you got the card absolutely safe? Let's compare it with mine for the last time."