As I glanced about me I noticed several people I knew intimately, and four or five I knew only by sight, people well known in Society. I was on the point of bowing to one woman I knew, who, looking up, had caught my eye; just in time I remembered that she would not recognize me in my disguise. Then a man nodded to me, and I nodded back. He looked rather surprised at seeing me, I thought, and at once it flashed across me that of course he was under the impression that I was Sir Aubrey Belston, and probably he had heard that Sir Aubrey was travelling round the world.
Gastrell, after a few minutes' conversation, found us places at a table where "Sandown Park" was being played. As I seated myself I found, facing me, Jasmine Gastrell, and for some moments I felt uncomfortable. I could feel her gaze upon my face as she scrutinized me closely, but even she did not penetrate my disguise.
"Lord Cranmere" sat upon the opposite side of the table, "Baron Poppenheimer" on my side, two seats from me. On my right was one of the unintelligent-looking women I had met at Connie Stapleton's dinner party at the Rook Hotel in Newbury; on my immediate left a man I did not know. Connie Stapleton I had looked about for, but she was nowhere visible.
So this was one of the ways Gastrell amassed moneyhe ran a gaming-house! I now began to see his object in cultivating the acquaintance of people of rank and wealth; for I had long ago noticed that Jasmine and Hugesson Gastrell never missed an opportunity of becoming acquainted with men and women of position. Also I began to grasp Preston's line of action. Disguised as the Earl of Cranmere, who was known to be extremely rich, he had cleverly ingratiated himself with the Gastrells and led them on to think him rather a fool who could easily be gulled. Jack had more than once told me how artfully Preston played his cards when on the track of people he suspected and wished to entrap, so that I could well imagine Preston's leading the Gastrells on to ensnare himas they no doubt supposed they were doing. For that he would not have been admitted to this gambling denit evidently became one at nightunless the Gastrells had believed they could trust him and his friends implicitly, I felt certain.
My friends tell me that I am a rather good actor, and Preston's coaching in Sir Aubrey Belston's mannerisms and ways of talking had given me a measure of self-confidence. When, thereforeI had played for a quarter of an hour and won a good dealJasmine Gastrell suddenly addressed me, I did not feel disconcerted.
"I mean to follow your lead," she said. "You are so extraordinarily lucky. How is it you manage to win every time?"
"Not every time," I corrected. "It's quite easy if you set about it in the right way."
"I wish I knew the right way," she answered, fixing her eyes on me in the way I knew so well. "Won't you tell me how you do it?"
"Different people must 'do it,' as you put it, in different ways," I said. "Forgive my asking, but are you superstitious?"
She broke into rippling laughter.