Ronicky Doone Part 23

"Nothing. Go ahead."

"Well, in he went to Jerry's room. I listened at the door. I heard him call Jerry, and then Jerry groaned like he was half dead.

"'I don't know you,' says Jerry.

"'You will before I'm through with you,' says the other.

"'Who the devil are you?' asks Jerry.

"'Doone is my name,' says he.

"'Then go to the devil till one o'clock,' says Jerry. 'And come back then if you want to. Here's my time for a beauty sleep.'

"'If it's that time,' says Doone, 'you'll have to go ugly today. I'm here to talk.'

"I heard Jerry sit up in bed.

"'Now what the devil's the meaning of this?' he asked.

"'Are you awake?' says Doone.

"'Yes, but be hung to you!' says Jerry.

"Don't be hanging me,' says Doone. 'You just mark this day down in red--it's a lucky one for you, son.'

"'An' how d'you mean that?' says Jerry, and I could hear by his voice that he was choking, he was that crazy mad.

"'Because it's the day you met me,' says Doone; 'that's why it's a lucky one for you.'

"'Listen to me,' says Jerry, 'of all the nervy, cold-blooded fakers that ever stepped you're the nerviest.'

"'Thanks,' says Doone. 'I think I am doing pretty well.'

"'If I wanted to waste the time,' says Jerry, 'I'd get up and throw you out.'

"'It's a wise man,' says Doone, 'that does his talking from the other side of a rock.'

"'Well,' says Jerry, 'd'you think I can't throw you out?'

"'Anyway,' says Doone, 'I'm still here.'

"I heard the springs squeal, as Jerry went bouncing out of bed. For a minute they wrestled, and I opened the door. What I see was Jerry lying flat, and Doone sitting on his chest, as calm and smiling as you please.

I closed the door quick. Jerry's too game a boy to mind being licked fair and square, but, of course, he'd rather fight till he died than have me or anybody else see him give up.

"'I dunno how you got there,' says Jerry, 'but, if I don't kill you for this later on, I'd like to shake hands with you. It was a good trick.'

"'The gent that taught me near busted me in two with the trick of it,'

said Doone. 'S'pose I let you up. Is it to be a handshaking or fighting?'

"'My wind is gone for half an hour,' says Jerry, 'and my head is pretty near jarred loose from my spinal column. I guess it'll have to be hand-shaking today. But I warn you, Doone,' he says, 'someday I'll have it all out with you over again.'

"'Any time you mention,' says Doone, 'but, if you'd landed that left when you rushed in, I would have been on the carpet, instead of you.'

"And Jerry chuckles, feeling a pile better to think how near he'd come to winning the fight.

"'Wait till I jump under the shower,' says Jerry, 'and I'll be with you again. Have you had breakfast? And what brought you to me? And who the devil are you, Doone? Are you out of the West?'

"He piles all these questions thick and fast at Doone, and then I seen right off that him and Doone had made up to be pretty thick with each other. So I went away from the door and didn't listen any more, and in about half an hour out they walk, arm in arm, like old pals."

It was perfectly clear to John Mark that Ronicky had come there purposely to break the link between him and young Jerry Smith. It was perfectly plain why he wanted to do it.

"How much does Jerry owe me?" he asked suddenly.

The other drew out a pad and calculated for a moment: "Seven thousand eight hundred and forty-two," he announced with a grin, as he put back the pad. "That's what he's sold himself for, up to this time."

"Too much in a way and not enough in another way," replied John Mark.

"Listen, if he comes back, which I doubt, keep him here. Get him away from Ronicky--dope him--dope them both. In any case, if he comes back here, don't let him get away. You understand?"

"Nope, but I don't need to understand. I'll do it."

John Mark nodded and turned toward the door.

Chapter Eighteen

_The Spider's Web_

Only the select attended the meetings at Fernand's. It was doubly hard to choose them. They had to have enough money to afford high play, and they also had to lose without a murmur. It made it extremely difficult to build up a clientele, but Fernand was equal to the task. He seemed to smell out the character of a man or woman, to know at once how much iron was in their souls. And, following the course of an evening's play, Fernand knew the exact moment at which a man had had enough. It was never twice the same for the same man. A rich fellow, who lost twenty thousand one day and laughed at it, might groan and curse if he lost twenty hundred a week later.

It was Fernand's desire to keep those groans and curses from being heard in his gaming house. He extracted wallets painlessly, so to speak.

He was never crooked; and yet he would not have a dealer in his employ unless the fellow knew every good trick of running up the deck. The reason was that, while Fernand never cheated in order to take money away from his customers, he very, very frequently had his men cheat in order to give money away.

This sounds like a mad procedure for the proprietor of a gaming house, but there were profound reasons beneath it. For one of the maxims of Fernand--and, like every gambler, he had many of them--was that the best way to make a man lose money is first of all to make him win it.

Such was Monsieur Frederic Fernand. And, if many compared him to Falstaff, and many pitied the merry, fat old man for having fallen into so hard a profession, yet there were a few who called him a bloated spider, holding his victims, with invisible cords, and bleeding them slowly to death.

To help him he had selected two men, both young, both shrewd, both iron in will and nerve and courage, both apparently equally expert with the cards, and both just as equally capable of pleasing his clients. One was a Scotchman, McKeever; the other was a Jew, Simonds. But in looks they were as much alike as two peas out of one pod. They hated each other with silent, smiling hatred, because they knew that they were on trial for their fortunes.

Tonight the Jew, Simonds, was dealing at one of the tables, and the Scotchman, McKeever, stood at the side of the master of the house, ready to execute his commissions. Now and again his dark eyes wandered toward the table where the Jew sat, with the cards flas.h.i.+ng through his fingers. McKeever hungered to be there on the firing line! How he wished he could feel that sifting of the polished cardboard under his finger tips. They were playing Black Jack. He noted the smooth skill with which Simonds buried a card. And yet the trick was not perfectly done. Had he, McKeever, been there--

At this point he was interrupted by the easy, oily voice of M. Fernand.

"This is an infernal nuisance!"

McKeever raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation. Two young men, very young, very straight, had just come into the rooms. One he knew to be Jerry Smith.