Part 11 (1/2)
”Can't you find him?” asked Sir Francis. Larssen shook his head. ”Gad, that's curious. Why doesn't he write? Bad form, you know. But when a man's lived all his life in the backwoods of Canada, I suppose one can't expect him to know what's what.”
Olive studied the s.h.i.+powner keenly as they drove to their hotel. His ma.s.sive strength of body and masterful purpose of mind, showing in every line of his face, attracted her strongly. Olive wors.h.i.+pped power, money, and all that breathed of them. Here was the living embodiment of money and power.
After dinner that evening all three went to the Casino. The order had been given to Sir Francis Letchmere's valet that he was to bring over to the Salle de Jeux any telegram or 'phone message that might arrive.
Larssen was keenly interested in the throng of smart men and women cl.u.s.tered around the tables. Here was the raw material of his craft--human nature. Moths around a candle--well, he himself had lit many candles. The process of singeing their wings intrigued him vastly.
Olive explained the game to him with a flush of excitement on her cheeks. He noted that flush and made a mental note to use it for his own ends. She took a seat at a roulette table and asked him to advise her where to stake her money. Sir Francis preferred _trente-et-quarante_, and went off to another table.
”I can see you've been born lucky,” she whispered to Larssen.
”I'll try to share it with you,” he answered, and suggested some numbers with firm, decisive confidence. Though he had keen pride in his intellect and his will, he had also firm reliance on his intuitive sense. With Lars Larssen, all three worked hand in hand.
Olive began to win. Her eyes sparkled, and she exchanged little gay pleasantries and compliments with the s.h.i.+powner.
”We've made all the loose hay out of _this_ suns.h.i.+ne,” said Larssen after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. ”Now we'll move to another table.”
Olive obeyed him with alacrity. She liked his masterful orders. Here was a man to whom one could give confidence.
”Five louis on _carre_ 16-20,” he advised suddenly when they had found place at another table.
Without hesitation she placed a gold hundred-franc piece on the intersecting point of the four squares 16, 17, 19, 20. The croupier flicked the white marble between thumb and second finger, and it whizzed round the roulette board like an echo round the whispering gallery of St Paul's. At length it slowed down, hit against a metal deflector, and dropped sharply into one of the thirty-seven compartments of the roulette board. A croupier silently touched the square of 16 with his rake to indicate that this number had won, and the other croupier proceeded to gather in the stakes.
Forty louis in notes were pushed over to Olive.
At this moment Sir Francis' valet came up to Larssen with a telegram in his hand. The latter opened and scanned it quickly.
”What is it?” asked Olive.
”A tip to gamble the limit on number 14,” replied Larssen smilingly.
Olive placed nine louis, the limit stake, on number 14, and two minutes later a pile of bank-notes aggregating 6300 francs came to her from the croupier's metal box.
”You're Midas!” she whispered exultantly.
”Midas has a hurry call to the 'phone,” he answered.
For the telegram was from Sylvester, and it read:--
”Fourteen replies to hand. Fourteen J. Riviere's scattered about France.”
CHAPTER X
LARSSEN TURNS ANOTHER CORNER
”Clifford is a very shrewd man of business,” remarked Larssen, drinking his third cognac at Ciro's at the end of a dinner which was a masterpiece even for Monte Carlo, where dining is taken _au grand serieux_. He did not sip cognac, but took it neat in liqueur gla.s.sfuls at a time. There was a clean-cut forcefulness even in his drinking, typical of the human dynamo of will-power within.
Sir Francis puffed out a cloud of cigar-smoke with an air of reflected glory. He had helped to capture Matheson as a son-in-law, and a compliment of this kind was therefore an indirect compliment to himself.