For some time after this all went well with the two swindlers. Laforcade established himself in luxury, and gave his days to pleasure. Bianco ran all the risk; the other had nothing to do but sit at home and receive his share of the profits. It is true he could keep no check upon his associate, to see that he divided the spoil equitably; but, holding the sword of Damocles over him, he could always threaten him with exposure if the profits were not sufficiently great.
At length, however, Bianco began to tire of the arrangement, which perhaps was only natural. Besides, the supply of marked cards was beginning to run short, and could not be depended upon much longer. This being so, the prime mover of the plot having won as much as he possibly could, promptly vacated the scene of his exploits.
The unfortunate Laforcade thus found himself, as the Americans say, 'left.' The prospect was not altogether a pleasant one for him. He had acquired expensive tastes which he might no longer be enabled to indulge; he had accustomed himself to luxuries he could no longer hope to enjoy. He had not the skill of the departed Bianco; yet, nevertheless, he was compelled to (metaphorically) roll up his sleeves and work for his living. Things were not so bad as they might have been. There was still a good number of falsified cards in use; so he determined to make the best possible use of his opportunities while they remained.
He therefore set to work with ardour, and success largely attended his efforts. At last, however, the crash came. He was detected in cheating, and the whole secret of the marked cards was brought to light.
Even in this unfortunate predicament Laforcade's good-fortune, strange to say, did not desert him. He was taken before the Tribunal, tried, and acquitted. Absolutely nothing could be proved against him. It is true the cards were marked, but then, so were nearly all the others in Havana. Laforcade did not mark them, as was proved in the evidence. He did not import them. To all intents and purposes he had nothing to do with them whatever. It could not even be proved that he knew of the cards being marked at all. Thus the case against him broke down utterly, and he got off scot free. It is, nevertheless, presumable that he did not long remain in that part of the world. As to what became of Bianco, nothing is known. Possibly his record concluded with the familiar words 'lived happily ever after'; but most probably not. The end of such men is seldom a happy one.
The recital of the above-mentioned circumstances will serve to accentuate the contention that it is impossible wholly to guard against cheating. Here was a case in which the utmost caution was observed, in order to exclude cheats and impostors from a club; and yet it is seen that, within a very short time, two men of the sharp persuasion contrived to effect an entrance. If this is possible in the case of a club, where there is not only a committee to investigate the bona fides of every applicant for membership, but also a large body of members presumably alive to their own interests who have to be satisfied of the fitness of the candidates for election, what chance has a mere private individual of protecting himself against the sharp and his insidious ways? Those two men, Bianco and Laforcade, must have had friends among the inhabitants of Havana, friends who would have been horrified to know the real character of those whose intimacy they found so agreeable. Among the dupes of those two adventurers there must have been some who would have resented bitterly any aspersion of the honesty of their associates. We have seen the return they gained for their friendship, and what has happened once may happen again.
There is only one course to pursue of which it can be said that it is absolutely safe. It is an extremely objectionable one, no doubt; but we are speaking, just now, of absolute safety. There is nothing for it but to suspect your best friend, if he is a gambler. The desire for gain affects equally the high and the low. The instinct of theft is rife alike in rich and poor. To use a colloquialism, all are tarred with the same brush. The only difference is that what is called stealing in the poor starving wretch who takes a loaf, to save the parish the expense of a funeral, becomes, in the case of his more fortunate and richer fellow-sinner, merely a little intellectual peculiarity, which is dignified with the name of kleptomania. The poor man envies the rich man his wealth; the rich man envies the poor man his solitary ewe lamb. Instances of this kind have never been wanting at any time in the world's history, and even in matters of everyday life; but once a man becomes a gambler, there is every prospect that his desire for gain will eventually overmaster all the finer feelings of his nature. You doubt it? Well, search the columns of your newspaper, and every day you shall find at least one case where some foolish fellow has stolen property, or money, entrusted to his care, and has devoted the proceeds of his theft to gambling purposes. There is every reason in the world for suspecting anyone of dishonesty who is found to have taken to gambling. If it is not so, then all history lies, and past experience counts for nothing.
Closely allied to the subject of conspiracy is that of the maintenance of places in which gambling is systematically carried on, in defiance of the law, and in spite of the utmost watchfulness of the police. It is true that one of the most familiar head-lines upon the newspaper placards is: 'Raid on a Club! The accused at Bow Street.' Every week our attention is attracted by some announcement of that kind, made in letters six inches high. But we hardly ever give the matter a second thought; the whole thing is too common an occurrence. Yet not one tithe of these gambling-dens is ferreted out. Crushed here to-day, they spring up there to-morrow. They are perennial. Like the phœnix, they arise from their own ashes—but under another name. And where the players are to be found, there will the sharps be gathered together. That is a thing which goes without saying, and is open to no manner of doubt.
In these cases, of course, both sharps and flats are drawn together by one common bond of union—that of defeating the aim of the law for the suppression of gaming-houses. The dupe merely sees in the efforts of the Government to protect him from the consequences of his folly an unwarrantable interference with the liberty of the subject. Therefore, he conspires with the sharp to run counter to the law, and thus plays right into the hands of his natural enemy. That he suffers in consequence is no one's fault but his own; unfortunately, it is not he alone who suffers. Those who are nearest, and should be dearest, to him are those who suffer most.
The devices resorted to by the occupants of clandestine gaming-houses in order to conceal all traces of the appliances used for the purpose of gambling would fill many volumes in their description, but as they do not form part and parcel of our subject we cannot enter into an account of them. Probably one of the most ingenious ideas ever conceived for the immediate removal of all signs of gaming apparatus in the event of a police raid, was that which was actually utilised at a so-called club a good many years ago. The plan was briefly this. Upon the fire in the card-room a large kettle of water was kept constantly boiling, ostensibly for the purpose of diluting the ardent liquors imbibed by the members. The whole of the gaming utensils, dice-boxes and everything else, were made of one of the alloys known as fusible metals, which melt at a lower temperature than boiling water. An alloy of bismuth, tin, lead and cadmium can be made to melt at a far lower temperature than that of boiling water. In the event of a raid being made upon the club, then, the whole of the appliances were put into the kettle, where they at once melted, and even though any one looked in the kettle during the search there was nothing to be seen.