“All right, sir.”
“You, Godard, may rearrange that sideboard, if you will. It looks as if it had been struck by lightning. The cues can declare it if I overpay.”
“Not much danger of that, Mr. Flood,” smiled Godard, as the two men at once complied.
Flood made no reply. He wheeled the lookout’s chair a little to one side, as if it was in his way. In fact, however, he wanted no one in it during the next half-hour.
Then he took the dealer’s seat at the table, that which Tom Bruce had vacated.
“You may draw the curtains back of me, John, and close the window. I feel a draft,” said he, addressing the cuekeeper.
He never called him by his nickname. In his sight the deformed man’s affliction was great enough as it was. This showed of what the nature of Moses Flood was capable.
He had removed his coat and opened his vest. He was rather slow in his movements, and not without an object. He had been on fire within. He now was cooling down. He was setting his nerves to the extraordinary task he saw before him.
As the humpback left the window, Flood turned as if to see that it was closed. For the moment his face was averted from the several players. Only Humpty Green could see it, and he caught from Flood’s eyes a flash that thrilled him through and through. It was a magnetic telegram, an unuttered command. It was understood, and the cuekeeper was startled; but even the cuekeeper in a faro-bank commands his emotions. Without a change of countenance he resumed his seat.
Meantime, Nick Carter and Chick had sauntered over to the sideboard, then dropped into two chairs near the wall, where they sat, quietly talking and pretending to be sizing up the game.