Part 6 (1/2)
VII
”I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire,”
observed Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. ”That is one of the few old-fas.h.i.+oned, respectable gambling places left to us.
The town is not what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the good old days!”
The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side streets and alleys stygian. ”None too safe, either,”
Sansome understated the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with footlights. Here sat a dozen ”n.i.g.g.e.r minstrels” with banjos strumming, and bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole length at one side--an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long, with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front of them glittered crystal gla.s.ses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily.
Down the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games could be played--faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice.
Beyond these gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace. Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual gla.s.s prisms and globes, revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded top and foot-lights occupied all vacant s.p.a.ces in the walls. They were ”valued” at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was advertised. ”Leda and the Swan,” ”The Birth of Venus,” ”The Rape of the Sabines,” ”Cupid and Psyche” were some of the cla.s.sic themes treated as having taken place in a warm climate. ”Susannah and the Elders” and ”Salome Dancing” gave the Biblical flavour. The ”Bath of the Harem” finished the collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet.
The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air.
There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on; but, on the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes--floppy old slouch hats, worn flannel s.h.i.+rts, top boots to which dried mud was clinging. These men were as well treated as the others.
Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way toward the farther corner. As Keith pa.s.sed near one of the close groups around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes of the man in charge, cold, pa.s.sionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features; the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty.
The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting.
They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised quite abundantly in England, but more rarely seen in native Americans--the lean-faced, rather flat-cheeked, high-cheek-boned, aquiline-nosed, florid-complexioned, silent, clean-built sort that would seem to represent the high-bred, finely drawn product of a long social evolution. These traits when seen in the person of a native-born American generally do represent this fineness; but the English, having been longer at the production of their race, can often produce the outward semblance without necessarily the inner reality. Many of us even now do not quite realize that fact; certainly in 1852 most of us did not. Morrell was dressed in riding breeches, carried a short bamboo crop, smiled engagingly to exhibit even, strong, white teeth, and had little to say.
”A beverage seems called for,” remarked Judge Caldwell, a gross, explosive, tobacco-chewing man, with a merry, reckless eye. The order given, the conversation swung back to the topic that had occupied it before Keith and Sansome had arrived.
It seemed that an individual there present, Markle by name--a tall, histrionic, dark man with a tossing mane--conceived himself to have been insulted by some one whose name Keith did not catch, and had that very afternoon issued warning that he would ”shoot on sight.” Some of the older men were advising him to go slow.
”But, gentlemen,” cried Markle heatedly, ”none of you would stand such conduct from anybody! What are we coming to? I'll get that----as sure as G.o.d made little apples.”
”That's all right; I don't blame yo',” argued Calhoun. Bennett. ”Do not misunderstand me, suh. I agree with yo', lock, stock, an' barrel. My point is that yo' must be circ.u.mspect. Challenge him, that's the way.”
”He isn't worth my challenge, sir, nor the challenge of any decent man.
You know that, sir.”
”Well, street shootings have got to be a little, a little----”
He fell silent, and Keith, looked up in surprise to see why. A man was slowly pa.s.sing the table. He was a thick, tall, strong man, moving with a freedom that bespoke smoothly working muscles. His complexion was florid; and this, in conjunction with a sweeping blue-black moustache, gave him exactly the appearance of a gambler or bartender. Only as he pa.s.sed the table and responded gravely to the formal salutes, Keith caught a flash of his eye. It was gray, hard as steel, forceful, but so far from being cold it seemed to glow and change with an inner fire, The bartender impression was swept into limbo forever.
”That's one good reason why,” said Calhoun Bennett, when this man had gone on.
But Markle overflowed with a torrent of vituperative profanity. His face was congested and purple with the violence of his emotions. Keith stared in astonishment at the depth of hatred stirred. He turned for explanation to the man next him, Judge Girvin, a gentleman of the old school, weighty, authoritative, a little pompous.
”That is Coleman,” Judge Girvin told him. ”W.T. Coleman, the leader of the vigilance movement of last year.”
”That's why,” repeated Calhoun Bennett, with quiet vindictiveness, ”lawlessness, disrespect foh law and order, mob rule. Since this strangler business, no man can predict what the lawless element may do!”
This speech was the signal for an outburst against the Vigilance Committee, so unanimous and hearty that Keith was rather taken aback.
He voiced his bewilderment.
”Why, gentlemen, I am, of course, only in the most distant touch with these events; but the impression East is certainly very general that the Vigilantes did rather a good piece of work in clearing the city of crime.”