Part 41 (1/2)
”I needed the money,” he said in a low voice, his eyes lowered, ”and--and I had bad luck with it.”
”Yeah, I know, the cattle dying and all.”
”Cattle! What cattle?” Mr. Dale stared blankly at Racey. ”Oh, them!
h.e.l.l, they didn't have nothin' to do with it, them cattle didn't. I'd worked out a system, Racey--a system to beat roulette, and I was sh.o.r.e it was all right. By Gawd, it was all right! They was nothin' wrong with that system. But I had bad luck. I had most awful bad luck.”
”And the system, I take it, didn't work?”
”It didn't--against my bad luck.”
Mr. Dale again dropped his eyes, and Racey stared down at the hump-shouldered old figure with something akin to pity in his gaze.
Certainly he was sorry for him. He was not in the least scornful despite the fact that it did not seem possible that any sensible man could be such a fool. A system--a system to beat roulette! And bad luck! The drably ancient and moth-eaten story with which every unsuccessful gambler seeks to establish an alibi.
”Whose wheel was it?” said Racey.
”Lacey's at Marysville.”
”In the back room of the Sweet Dreams, huh? An' there's nothing crooked about Lacey's wheel, either. It's as square as Lacey himself.”
”Lacey's wasn't the only wheel. They was McFluke's, too.”
So McFluke had a wheel, had he? This was news to Racey Dawson.
”How long has McFluke been runnin' a wheel?” inquired Racey.
”Quite a while,” was the vague reply.
”A year?”
”Maybe longer. I dunno.”
”Funny it never got round.”
”It was a private wheel. Only for his friends. Nothin' public about it.”
”Who used to play it besides you?” persisted Racey, hanging to his subject like a bull-pup to a tramp's trousers.
Mr. Dale wrinkled his forehead. ”Besides me? Lessee now. They were Doc Coffin, Nebraska Jones, Honey Hoke, and Punch-the-breeze Thompson.”
”n.o.body else?”
”Aw, Galloway and Norton and that bunch,” Mr. Dale said, shamefacedly.
Racey nodded his head slowly. A crooked wheel. Of course it was crooked. Why not? That Dale, Galloway, Norton, and a few other gentlemen of the neighbourhood were under their wives' thumbs to such a degree that they did not dare to gamble openly was a matter of common knowledge. What more natural than that someone should provide them with a private gambling place? With such cappers as Nebraska and his gang, losers would not feel equal to making much of an outcry. It must be a paying occupation for McFluke, Nebraska, or whoever was at the bottom of the business.
Racey nodded again and squatted down on his heels. He picked up a stick and squinted along its length.
”None of my business, of course,” he said, casually, ”but would you mind telling me how much you lost to McFluke?”
”About seven thousand.”