“But he’s going away in the morning,” added another; “you must look sharp, Jonas.” And Jonas intimated he had been promised that a cheque should be sent him in the morning.
Next morning a cab drove rapidly to the Norfolk, and Jonas, jumping out excitedly, said: “Look here, you chaps,” and he waved a cheque excitedly.
“Let’s have a look at it,” asked Ernest Neville. “Why, man, it isn’t signed.” And Jonas’s face lengthened inordinately as he realised the terrible omission.
Shouting for a cab after a hurried glance at a railway guide, he in due time reached the station, and had the satisfaction of seeing the last carriage slowly receding from view.
It was the winter that Garcia—a Spanish miscreant—who had won colossal sums at every hell in Europe, had just been detected in a trick that had long baffled the ingenuity of the world.
The scheme was nothing less than procuring the contract for the supply of cards at the principal gambling resorts of Nice, Monaco, St. Petersburg, Homburg, Paris, and Ostend.
Shiploads of his ware thus found their way into every quarter, and wherever he played he was confronted by his own cards. Knowing their backs as well as their faces, the result was obvious, and it was only after innumerable golden harvests that a clumsy accident brought the fraud to light in a salon in the Champs-Elysées.
The scare thus created had not been lost upon the Riviera, and every precaution that ingenuity could devise was taken to make foul play impossible.
It was during this winter, too, that the culprit, detected cheating at the Raleigh, put an end to his career.
Le Cercle de la Méditerranée is one of those majestic buildings that meets the enormous revenue required for its support by making the pastime of cards an absolute luxury. On the first floor is a spacious saloon, with no better light than that afforded by plate-glass panels communicating with the card room and other chambers; liberally provided with lounges, weary punters resorted to it for repose, and waiters, when not otherwise occupied, hovered near it as within easy call of everywhere. In the adjoining room cards were usually set for possible whist and ecarté, or until every available spot was required for the more exciting claims of chemin de fer.