“I tell you.... You play with my thousand francs, playing hundred franc stakes, and I’ll take the risk of you losing. When you win you can pay me a quarter of your gains.”
“All right. That’s fair enough. I’ll start to-morrow if ye like.”
Hugh gave MacTaggart a mille note, and every evening MacTaggart hunted him up and handed over a hundred and sometimes two hundred francs.
2.
For weeks the great system of the professor had been successful. His bank book showed a credit of over two million francs. Every day accompanied by Hugh, he made his triumphal entry into the Casino surrounded by an excited and admiring throng. He made no other public appearance and was a storm centre of curiosity. Hugh acted as the old man’s manager and saw to it that his mystery was preserved. He interviewed reporters, and kept off the curious; for the professor was fast becoming a character of international fame. The great press agencies chronicled his success; the great dailies paragraphed him; his portrait graced the picture page of the Daily Mail. There were articles about him in the illustrated weeklies; and even the monthly journals devoted to science began to consider him seriously. He and Hugh were snapshotted a dozen times a day. All the well-known roulette players, Speranza, Dr. Ludus, Max Imum and Silas Doolittle wrote long letters to the papers diagnosing his famous system. Never had the Casino had such advertising—yet it was costing them too much.
The old man never broke the bank. There was nothing sensational about his play. It was almost monotonous in its certitude; it had the air even of a commercial transaction in which he had come to collect a daily debt. It was this cold-blooded, business-like precision that alarmed them. It was almost cynical; it seemed to say: “Look out. I’m letting you off easy now, but when I proceed to tighten up the cinch, God help you.”
An imaginative reporter had said that Hugh was the professor’s nephew, and they both agreed to adopt this suggestion. Indeed, as time went on, Hugh himself began to think of the old man as a real uncle. At times it seemed almost impossible that they were not related.
Hugh had taken to smoking excellent cigars. Why not? MacTaggart was turning in over a thousand a week. He felt some compunction in accepting this; but MacTaggart was making three times as much for himself, and was more than satisfied. He could well afford to be extravagant in other directions as well. There was Mrs. Belmire, for instance. He took her to dinner a great deal, and out motoring as well. Apart from that he and Margot still lived in the same simple way.
One morning as Hugh sat smoking in the professor’s den, he observed the old man closely.
“He’s easily good for another ten years,” he thought. “Looks rather like Karl Marx, burly shoulders, clear, shrewd eyes. A sane man except for his fanatic obsession to down the Casino.”