The Grell Mystery Part 29

The game of faro is one that makes no strenuous demands on the skill of the players. It is chance pure and simple, and therein lies its fascination. While baccarat or chemin-de-fer are almost invariably games to be most in favour when the police raid a gambling-house in the West End, at the other side of the town it is invariably discovered that faro holds first place in the affections of gamblers. In its simplest form it is merely betting on the turn of each card throughout a pack.

Although it was broad daylight, the room in which the operations took place was shuttered and had the blinds drawn. A three-light gaselier beat down on a big table in the centre of the room, round three sides of which were ranged a dozen or fifteen men eagerly intent on the operations of the banker. A heavy-jowled man with overhanging black eyebrows, he was seated in a half-circle cut into the centre of one side of the table. In front of him was a bright steel box sufficiently large to contain a pack of cards with the face of the top card discernible at an opening at the top. The cards were pressed upwards in the box by springs, and at the side a narrow opening allowed the operator to push the cards out one at a time, thus disclosing the faces of those underneath and deciding the bets. On each side of the box were the discarded winning and losing cards, and on the dealer's left a tray which served the purpose of a till in receiving or paying out money. A cloth with painted representations of the thirteen cards of a suit was pinned to the table nearest to the players, and they placed stakes on the cards they fancied would next be disclosed. Twice the box would click out cards amid a dead silence. Those who had staked out money on the first card disclosed won, those who had staked on the second lost.

There was often dead silence while the turn was being made, save for the click of a marker shown on the wall and guarded by a thick-set little man with red hair, fierce eyes, and an enormous chest. But directly afterwards babel would break out, to be sternly quelled by the heavy-jowled man.

"I 'ad set on sa nine," ... "Say, that king was coppered," ... "I ought ter have split it."

The jargons of all the world met and crossed at such time. It was rarely that there arose a serious quarrel, for Keller and his myrmidons had a swift way of dealing with malcontents. When a man became troublesome, the fierce-eyed little marker with the big chest would tap him on the shoulder.

"That's enough, you," he would say menacingly.

If the warning were not sufficient the left hand of the little man would drop to his jacket pocket, and when it emerged it would be decorated with a heavy bra.s.s knuckle-duster. It took but one blow to make a man lose all interest in the game, and thereafter he would be handed over to the tender mercies of "Jim," a giant of a door-keeper, who after dark would drop him into the street at some convenient moment, with a savage warning to keep his mouth shut lest a worse thing befall him.

This was the place Heldon Foyle had made up his mind to enter single-handed--a place in which the precautions against surprise were so complete that every article which could be identified as a gambling implement was made of material which could be readily burnt, or soluble at a temperature lower than that of boiling water. A big saucepan was continually simmering on the fire, so that the implements could be dropped in it at a second's notice.

But Heldon Foyle had hopes. At the worst he could only fail. He returned to Scotland Yard and shut himself up for twenty minutes in the make-up room. When he reached Smike Street again he was no longer the spruce, upright, well-dressed official. A grimy cap covered tousled hair. His face was strained, his eyes bloodshot and his moustache combed out raggedly. A set of greasy mechanic's overalls had been drawn over his own clothes. He walked uncertainly.

Green and the local inspector saw him reel past the public-house in which they still remained, as affording an excuse to be near the spot, and reel up Smike Street. Towards the end he appeared confused and gravely inspected several houses before approaching the gambling-joint.

He rapped on the door with his knuckles, ignoring both the knocker and the bell. It opened a few inches wide, enough for the scowling face of Jim the door-keeper to appear in the aperture.

Supporting himself with one hand on the door-post, Foyle leered amiably at the Cerberus. "h.e.l.lo, old sport, I want t'come in. Open the door, can't you?"

"Git out of it, you drunken swab. You don't live here," said Jim, taking stock of the drunken intruder and coming to a quick decision.

The door slammed. Foyle beat a tattoo on the panels with his hands, swaying perilously to and fro the while. Again the door opened the cautious six inches, and Jim's face was not pleasant to look on as he swore at the disturber.

"Tha'ss allri', ol' sport," hiccoughed Foyle. "I want to come in. A Bill Reid tol' me if I wanted--hic--game I was to come here. You know ol'

Bill Reid"--this almost pleadingly--"he'll tell you I'm allri', eh?"

The door-keeper of the gaming-house holds an onerous responsibility. On him depends the safety of the gamblers from interference by the representatives of law and order. Jim's suspicions were lulled by Foyle's quite obvious drunkenness. Nevertheless, a drunken man who had apparently been told of the place was a danger so long as he remained clamouring for admittance on the step. Jim tried tact.

"There's nothing doing now," he explained. "You go away and come back to-night. It'll be a good game then."

"Tha'ss a lie," said Foyle, with an a.s.sumption of drunken gravity. "Old Bill Reid he says to me, he says----"

But Jim had lost the remainder of his small stock of patience. He jerked the door again in Foyle's face, pulled off the chain and leapt out, his intention of throwing the other into the street and so ending the argument once for all written on every line of his stalwart figure.

That was his programme. But Foyle had also his programme. He had got the door open. All that remained between him and the entrance was the muscular figure of Jim. He suddenly became sober. The door-keeper's hand grasping at his collar clutched empty air. The detective's head dropped.

Jim was met half-way by a short charge and Foyle's shoulder caught him in the chest. Both men were forced by the momentum of the charge back through the open door and fell in a heap just within.

At ordinary times the two would have been fairly evenly matched. Both were big men, though the door-keeper had slightly the advantage in size.

He had, however, been taken by surprise and received no opportunity to utter more than a stifled oath before his breath was taken away. Inside the house Foyle stood on no ceremony in order to silence his opponent before those within could be alarmed. He had fallen on top of Jim.

Pressing down on him with head and knee, he swung his right fist twice.

Jim gave a grunt and his head rocked loosely on his neck. He had, in the vernacular of the ring, been put to sleep.

The effects of a knockout blow, however deftly administered, do not last long. The detective's first move was to close the street door, leaving the bolts and chains undone, so that it was fastened merely by the catches of the Yale locks. Then he whipped a handkerchief about the unconscious man's mouth, and silently dragging him to a sitting posture, handcuffed his wrists beneath his knees, so that he was trussed in the position schoolboys adopt for c.o.c.k-fighting. He surveyed his handiwork critically, and, a new idea occurring to him, unlaced the man's boots, and, taking them off, tied the laces round the ankles. That would prevent the man rattling his boots on the floor when he came to, and so have given the alarm.

The inner door had been left open by Jim, a lucky circ.u.mstance for Foyle, as otherwise he would have been at a loss, for it was of stout oak and he must have made considerable noise in forcing it. Yet he did not make any attempt to soften his footsteps as he climbed the stairs.

He hoped to be taken as an ordinary client long enough, at any rate, to discover the whereabouts of Ivan. Once that was achieved he was reckless as to his ident.i.ty becoming known.

He needed no guide to the right door, for the clink of money and the exclamations of many voices guided him. He threw it open and entered the faro room with quiet a.s.surance. Beyond a quick glance from Keller no one took any notice of him. They took it for granted that Jim had gone into his _bona-fides_ and that he was "square."

He took up a position at the end of the table nearest the door, and apparently watched the game before staking. In reality he was studying the faces of the players. He was uncertain whether he would find Ivan there, but he had calculated that the Russian would at least be watching, if not taking a hand, if only as a means of pa.s.sing the time during his voluntary imprisonment. And he was right. Seated at the table two or three paces away was the Russian, lost to all save the turn of the card.

Foyle bent over and staked a coin. At the same moment Ivan's eyes met his in puzzled recognition. There was a crash and the gambler sprang up, overturning the chair. His hand was outstretched, the finger pointing at the detective.

"That man--how did he get in here?" he cried, with something like alarm.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

For a second or a trifle more a dead silence followed Ivan's denunciation. Heldon Foyle backed towards the door, dragging with him a chair which he had clutched with some idea of using it as a s.h.i.+eld should there be a rush. There arose an angry snarl among the gamblers, for with them suspicion was quick. A rush of crimson had swept across Ivan's face at the first alarm. He e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed something excitedly in Russian, and then went on in English--

"He is a police officer. I know him. It is the man Foyle of Scotland Yard."

At the mention of the word police the hubble died down a little. Heldon Foyle, leaning quietly on the back of the chair, took advantage of the lull.

"Yes, I am a police officer," he admitted confidently. "The place is surrounded. It will pay you to behave yourselves--you over there, put that knife away, do you hear?"

The order was sharp and authoritative, and the Greek in whose hand the detective had caught the gleam of steel thrust it back hastily into the sheath at his belt. There were men there who would have thought little of murder, and Foyle knew that once they were roused to fighting-pitch he stood little chance. At the first sign of flinching on his part they would be on him like a pack of wolves. He held them for the moment only, as a lion-tamer holds his beasts under control--by fearless domineering a.s.sumption of authority. They were like a flock of sheep. Only two men he feared--Ivan and Keller. Both were men above the average intelligence, and both had more reason to fear the law than the others.

If either of them took the initiative he might be placed in an ugly position. He felt for his whistle while they remained inactive, uncertain.

"Let's teach the dog a lesson," hissed a venomous voice--that of Keller.

"He's trying to bluff us."

"Boot him, boys," incited Ivan, edging forward and so creating a movement towards the detective.

Heldon Foyle put his whistle between his teeth and gripped the heavy chair with both hands. As the rush came he blew the whistle three times in the peculiar arrangement of long and short blasts that is the special police call, and swung the chair down with all his force on the leading man. It was Keller. The gaming-house keeper dropped, stunned, and the detective swept the chair sideways and so forced a clear s.p.a.ce about himself. Again the whistle thrilled out, and Ivan dodging sideways seized one of the legs of Foyle's unwieldy weapon. Menacing faces besieged the detective on all sides. Other hands a.s.sisted the Russian to hold the chair. And still no help came. Once the door opened and the wrinkled leathern face of a Chinaman protruded through the slit, took in the scene with quick understanding and disappeared. That was all the notice taken of the row by the habitues of the opium den on the high floor. The two or three clients who were stretched on the low couches were either entirely under the influence of the drug or too listless to worry about anything short of an earthquake--if even that would have aroused them.

It was with small hope that the superintendent sounded his whistle again. A heavy blow on the face laid open his cheek, and he saw the little red-headed man who had slipped on his heavy bra.s.s knuckle-duster dodge back into the crowd. He relinquished his hold of the chair and defended himself with his hands. He carried a pistol in his pocket, but, imbued with the traditions of the London police, he would not use a lethal weapon save in the last extremity. Inch by inch he sidled along the wall, fighting all the while until he reached the corner. Here the crowd could only come at him from the front.

A knife was thrown and a bottle crashed against his shoulder. The crisis had come. He dropped his guard and his hand closed over his pistol.

Those nearest to him recoiled as the muzzle was thrust into their faces.

"He daren't shoot," insisted a voice which Foyle recognised as that of Ivan.

In fact, the gibe was partly true. The detective had himself well in hand, and he knew that even though he were justified, a wounded man would lead to an inquiry which at the very least would prevent his going on with the Grell investigation for some time. But to let the taunt pa.s.s would invite disaster. He dropped the weapon to his thigh, forefinger extended along the barrel to help his aim, and pressed the trigger with his second finger twice. The reports were deafening in the confined s.p.a.ce of the room, and one man put his hand to his head with a sharp cry. He need not have disturbed himself, for the bullets had pa.s.sed over him and were buried in the opposite wall.

"We'll see whether I daren't fire," said Foyle grimly. "Come on. Who'd like to be the first?"

There was no answer to his challenge, for from below came the sound of a crash and the quick tread of many men racing up the stairs. One or two of the gamblers turned white, and Foyle felt the tension of his nerves relax. Half-a-dozen men, headed by Green and Penny, were rus.h.i.+ng into the room.

A little gurgling laugh burst from the superintendent, and he waved his hand about the room. "You see, Penny, it could be done, single-handed.

That is Ivan over there. Take good care of him, Green. Keller is that man knocked out down there." And, swaying, he crashed forward to the floor in a dead faint.

When he came round he was lying on a couch with his injured face and shoulder neatly bandaged. There were only two other persons in the room, Green and one of the local detectives, who were systematically making an inventory of everything in the room. The superintendent struggled to a sitting position and the movement brought Green to his side.