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The Card-Sharp
by
It seemed to me, if he wished his family to believe he were returning repentant, his course in the smoking-room would not help to reassure them. I suggested as much.
“If you get into ‘trouble,’ as you call it,” I said, “and they send a wireless to the police to be at the wharf, your people would hardly–“
“I know,” he interrupted; “but I got to chance that. I GOT to make enough to go on with–until I see my family.”
“If they won’t see you?” I asked. “What then?”
He shrugged his shoulders and sighed lightly, almost with relief, as though for him the prospect held no terror.
“Then it’s ‘Good-night, nurse,'” he said. “And I won’t be a bother to anybody any more.”
I told him his nerves were talking, and talking rot, and I gave him the sleeping-draft and sent him to bed.
It was not until after luncheon the next day when he made his first appearance on deck that I again saw my patient. He was once more a healthy picture of a young Englishman of leisure; keen, smart, and fit; ready for any exercise or sport. The particular sport at which he was so expert I asked him to avoid.
“Can’t be done!” he assured me. “I’m the loser, and we dock to-morrow morning. So tonight I’ve got to make my killing.”
It was the others who made the killing.
I came into the smoking-room about nine o’clock. Talbot alone was seated. The others were on their feet, and behind them in a wider semicircle were passengers, the smoking-room stewards and the ship’s purser.
Talbot sat with his back against the bulkhead, his hands in the pockets of his dinner coat; from the corner of his mouth his long cigarette-holder was cocked at an impudent angle. There was a tumult of angry voices, and the eyes of all were turned upon him. Outwardly at least he met them with complete indifference. The voice of one of my countrymen, a noisy pest named Smedburg, was raised in excited accusation.
“When the ship’s surgeon first met you,” he cried, “you called yourself Lord Ridley.”
“I’ll call myself anything I jolly well like,” returned Talbot. “If I choose to dodge reporters, that’s my pidgin. I don’t have to give my name to every meddling busybody that–“
“You’ll give it to the police, all right,” chortled Mr. Smedburg. In the confident, bullying tones of the man who knows the crowd is with him, he shouted: “And in the meantime you’ll keep out of this smoking-room!”
The chorus of assent was unanimous. It could not be disregarded. Talbot rose and with fastidious concern brushed the cigarette ashes from his sleeve. As he moved toward the door he called back: “Only too delighted to keep out. The crowd in this room makes a gentleman feel lonely.”
But he was not to escape with the last word.
His prosecutor pointed his finger at him.
“And the next time you take the name of Adolph Meyer,” he shouted, “make sure first he hasn’t a friend on board; some one to protect him from sharpers and swindlers–“
Talbot turned savagely and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, go to the devil!” he called, and walked out into the night.
The purser was standing at my side and, catching my eye, shook his head.
“Bad business,” he exclaimed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m told they caught him dealing from the wrong end of the pack,” he said. “I understand they suspected him from the first–seems our surgeon recognized him–and to-night they had outsiders watching him. The outsiders claim they saw him slip himself an ace from the bottom of the pack. It’s a pity! He’s a nice-looking lad.”
I asked what the excited Smedburg had meant by telling Talbot not to call himself Meyer.
“They accused him of travelling under a false name,” explained the purser, “and he told ’em he did it to dodge the ship’s news reporters. Then he said he really was a brother of Adolph Meyer, the banker; but it seems Smedburg is a friend of Meyer’s, and he called him hard! It was a silly ass thing to do,” protested the purser. “Everybody knows Meyer hasn’t a brother, and if he hadn’t made THAT break he might have got away with the other one. But now this Smedburg is going to wireless ahead to Mr. Meyer and to the police.”