“What rot!”
“No more rot than lots of other systems.... See that tall woman in grey just crossing the hall. Nobody knows who she is, and what’s more, nobody’s ever seen her face. She always wears that thick veil. They call her Number One, because she goes from table to table, always playing on the number one. At night she goes off to Nice in a covered car. Some say she’s an Indian Princess, some say it’s cancer. Any way, nobody knows what’s behind that veil. She’s one of the Casino’s mysteries.”
“What queer characters!”
“Queer! Why, we all get queer if we stay here long enough. I’m queer. You’ll get queer. MacTaggart’s getting queerer every day. Yep, it’s a queer place.... Say, if I was a writing man I could make a dozen books out of it. There’s a mine of material here. It’s fantastic; it ain’t real. It’s a stage show. Yes siree, it’s the queerest place on earth.”
They sauntered over to the “Hall of Gloom,” and sat on a padded bench near the door of the private rooms. As they watched the stream of people coming and going, Hugh noticed two ladies, one matronly, the other old and decrepit. They were dressed alike, with big roses in their hats and feather boas.
“Mother and daughter,” said Mr. Gimp. “They’re known as the two Roses. The mother’s over eighty, but she simply cannot stay away from the Rooms. She sits at the table, her face level with the cloth, her hands clutching a few counters. Sometimes she has fits and has to be carried out. She should be on her knees in some church instead of goggling and gasping over that bloody board.... There was another old lady, nice, serene, gentle, fat, who used to be known as ‘Queen Victoria,’ because she resembled the late Queen. She held a kind of levée every day in the Rooms. But her friends took her home to England, and they say she nearly died of lonesomeness there. There’s lots like that, old folks tottering on the edge of the tomb. They’d die in the Rooms if you’d let ’em.... Just look at that table over there. There’s a man that’s blind and beside him a woman that’s paralyzed. I tell you, folks come here that have to be carried to the table. They’re half dead.”
“Do many die in the Rooms?”
“Suicide? Not on your life. It’s considered bad form. As the English say: ‘It’s a thing that’s simply not done....’ By God! if I wanted to do it, I’d give ’em a jar. I’d go to that centre table and lean well over the wheel; then I’d start pumping lead into my bean. I’d cover that table with gore. A bucket of blood. I’d spatter my brains over the damned croupiers. I can see the Chef de Partie wiping them out of the corner of his eye....”
“What a ghastly idea! I hope you’re not seriously thinking of such a thing.”
Mr. Gimp cackled with laughter. “You don’t know me, son. I’m not that sort. Still I’ve got a kind of idea in my old head I’ll make a sensational exit. I have a notion that when I go, I’ll go with a bang. I don’t just know how, but there it is....”