When we had visited the rooms with Bailey Thompson the night before, and explained our plan in detail on the spot, we had, by his advice, and very wisely, reversed it. Previously, we had designed to begin at the first, the roulette tables, and drive the people gradually before us into the last room, towards the trente-et-quarante; but that, as he pointed out, would force us to work with our backs to the exit and bring us between two fires as it were; whereas, if we began in the farthest rooms and cleared the trente-et-quarante tables first, we should have our faces to the doors, and, by driving everybody before us, secure the further advantage of increasing the confusion that would arise from the people rushing in to see what was wrong and meeting the people rushing out. And through that surging, terrified mass we ought to have no difficulty in forcing a passage, if only we kept our unloaded revolvers up to the mark and frowned unflinchingly.
As for masking ourselves, which we had also at first designed, Thompson was strongly against it; it would all take time, and might only obscure our vision; for, as he truly pointed out, that sort of thing scarcely ever fits properly.... I gave a nervous glance at my watch, and found it nearly ten-twenty.
I was standing just by the last roulette table, and saw one or two little things that, as I have said, are still distinctly photographed in my memory. There were two young men standing behind me, and one said, “I’ll just chuck a louis on the table and see where it will fall.” It fell on the number eighteen, and eighteen actually turned up! He laughed excitedly as the croupier pushed him thirty-five times his stake. “That’s not bad for my one gentle little louis, eh?” he giggled.
Opposite, a brown-faced English yachtsman, over from Mentone, was steadily backing the colors with notes of five hundred francs. He was always right; he changed from side to side, and always hit the right red or black. He was watched by two common Englishmen, with long upper lips and ridiculous pantaloon beards, dressed in shiny broadcloth. “That feller’s won another twenty-pound,” said one of them, gaping. “We must bring Louisa in to see this.”
Now it was past the ten-twenty, and I moved off into the trente-et-quarante rooms.
Every one who has been to Monte Carlo knows that the four trente-et-quarante tables are in the two end rooms, two in each.
In the right-hand room were to be stationed Brentin, Parsons, and I, with three of the sailors; in the left, Forsyth, Masters, and Hines, with the other three. Brentin was to give the signal in our room—“Levez les mains!”—and Hines in the other, while the immediate discharge of the “Devil among the Tailors” outside on the terrace would, we hoped, increase the confusion and alarm within. It was rather awkward that we were forced to go to work a little out of sight of each other; for, though there is an opening between the rooms, we meant to begin well at the back, and the opening did not so far reach as to bring us in sight of each other.
It was close on the twenty-five minutes past ten, and so alarmed was I at the difficulties which, now we were actually on the spot ready to overcome them, loomed so desperately large, that I would willingly have sacrificed half my income to be allowed to leave without even making the attempt.
On one side of me was Brentin; on the other a very pretty, smart young Englishwoman, standing with a purse in her hand, watching the run on black. As in a dream, I noticed all the details of her dress, the white facings of her dark jacket on the cuffs and pockets, the piquant spots on her veil. Quietly, as though she were paying for a pair of gloves, she staked all the gold she had left, about twenty pounds, and lost that. She searched her purse, found it quite empty, snapped it leisurely, and sauntered away. Brentin whispered me he had seen her stake roll after roll of notes, and lose them all. Beautifully dressed, with a hanging, jewelled little watch and many neat gold bracelets, I had often seen her strolling about the gardens, neither speaking to nor looking at any one; now I found myself stupidly wondering who she was, even envying her, notwithstanding her totally cleaned-out condition.
The relentless minutes stole on. I looked piteously at Brentin, glaring with resolution straight in front of him, his hand in his pocket fingering his revolver; at Parsons, white as this paper, his legs bending under him.