Linnet: A Romance
with almost incredible persistence. Still, Franz was annoyed to think
that so many lucky shots, at so even a game, should all go for nothing.
And he himself—why, he could win at this play like wildfire. If only he
could find such a pigeon to pluck! He’d drain his man dry of all he had
at a sitting!
“Come, put a louis on it!” he exclaimed at last, with a “Who’s afraid”
sort of air, to the reluctant stranger.
The Coloradan hesitated. He pulled out a purse full of notes and gold.
“No; I can’t go to a louis,” he answered, gingerly, after a pause. “I’ve
such beastly bad luck. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll lay you ten
francs on it!”
His air was candid enough to disarm the most suspicious mind. He played,
and lost. Franz picked the coins up nimbly. “Try it again,” he said,
with a broad smile; and Joaquin Holmes tried it. Four times running
Franz won; then the American lost patience. “I’ll go you a louis,” he
cried, warming up, and drawing a coin from his purse. Franz took him,
and won it. At that, Holmes, as the Robbler thought, lost his head and
grew frantic. He plunged; he doubled; he lost; he cursed his luck; and
once more he boldly plunged again. Now and then, to be sure, he won; but
’twas always on the times when he omitted to double. This was a
first-rate game, Franz thought; he was winning back his own again.
After a while, the Seer pulled up his chair, and settled down to it
seriously. “I’m a devil of a gambler,” he said, with a smile, “when once
I get well into it. I won’t leave off now till you’ve broken my bank,
and got my bottom dollar. I’ve eight hundred pounds here”—which was a
simple trade lie—“and I won’t stop now till I’ve lost every penny of
it.”
Ha, ha; that was game! They buckled to in earnest. Franz played with a
will. He won, won, won; he laughed loud; he picked up gaily; then,
suddenly, strange to say, he lost, lost, lost again. All at once, the
Seer’s fingers seemed to go like lightning. He dealt fast and furious;
he doubled every time; luck had somehow changed; he was winning now
heavily. Franz didn’t think quite so well of the game as it proceeded;
he began to regard it, in fact, as little short of a swindle. But, as
his pile diminished, the Seer gave him scant time to reflect between
deals. “Stake! I double you!” Flash went the card; the Seer raked in the
money. That was very strong champagne, and Franz’s head was reeling.
Still he played, played, played, lost, lost, lost, yet played again. His
pile was dwindling now with appalling rapidity. He took a pull at the
brandy and soda the Seer had obligingly placed by his side. What was
this? The affable stranger was clearing him out every time. Franz began
to suspect a plant. Could the man be a swindler?
He glanced at his little heap. A cold thrill coursed through him. Only
seven louis left! When those seven were gone—why, then he would be
penniless!
The Seer dealt again. With a loud German oath, Franz seized his hand and
stopped it. “I _saw_ you do it,” he cried. “You rogue, I’ve found you
out! You felt one card, changed it, and then pushed out another.”
The Seer sprang up angrily. “That’s an imputation on my _honour_,” he
cried, standing up and facing him with an air of indignant virtue. “I’m
an English gentleman. If you insult me like that——”
But before he could say another word,—quick as thought, a knife flashed
in the air with unspeakable swiftness. The Seer’s hand darted into his
pocket for the trusty six-shooter. It was dagger against pistol, Tyroler
against Westerner. But Franz was too sharp for him. Before the
Coloradan’s deft fingers could reach the trigger of the revolver, that
keen blade was buried deep in his exposed left breast—buried deep and
gurgling. Without a word, without a groan, the American dropped back
short into the easy-chair he had that moment quitted. Blood spurted from
the wound—spurted fast in little jets. It had penetrated his heart. He
was dead in a second.
In less time than it takes to say it, Franz realised what he had done,
and pulled himself together from his paroxysm of passion. Leaving the
notes where they lay, he crammed his own gold hastily into his waistcoat
pocket. He let the knife stop in the wound; it was in no way
compromising. Then he opened the door, and walked calmly out, and down
the broad stone steps, and into the streets of Monte Carlo.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE PIGEON FLIES HOME
A Robbler’s not a man to be lightly discomposed by the mere accident
that he happens to have committed a murder. Franz’s first impulse,
indeed, as he left that blood-stained room, was to run away
helter-skelter from the scene of his hasty crime—to disappear into
space—London, the Tyrol, anywhere—without even going back to his hotel
at Nice to reclaim his portmanteau. But second thoughts showed him how
foolish so precipitate a retreat would be. By adopting it, he would be
throwing away many valuable chances which now told in his favour. It was
wholly to the good, for example, that he’d happened to give his name all
along the line as Karl von Forstemann from Vienna. Even if the
authorities found reason to suspect him of having killed this man
Holmes, they’d lost much useful time in trying to track down the
imaginary Von Forstemann; while he himself might be making his way
quietly across the length and breadth of the continent, meanwhile, under
his own true name as Franz Lindner of the London Pavilion. Though, to be
sure, there was no reason why they should ever suspect him. Hundreds of
people flock in and out of Monte Carlo every day; hundreds of people
come and go at every hotel, unnoticed. Besides, it wasn’t likely the
body’d be discovered till to-morrow morning; and by that time, _Gott sei
dank_, he’d be safe and away across the Italian frontier.
It was early still—only a little past ten. Tremulous and startled by
the magnitude of his crime, he strolled about for awhile to cool himself
in the Casino gardens. Then a happy thought struck him—he’d go in and
play for a bit to avoid suspicion. Hot at heart as he was, but trying
his best to look unconcerned, he passed into those huge over-heated
rooms once more, and played for half-an-hour with very languid
attention. The greater stake now in jeopardy made it difficult for him
when he won to remember even to take up his money; he let it lie once or
twice on the board till it doubled and trebled itself. But that was all
to the good; it suited his book well: people noticed only the more how
coolly he was playing. Strange to say, he was winning, too, when he
cared so little whether he won or lost—winning pounds at a time on
every turn of the tables. It was a master-stroke of policy, and Franz
plumed himself not a little on being clever enough to think of it. How
could people ever say it was _he_ who killed the man, when he’d spent
half the night at play in the gambling rooms of the Casino?
At eleven, he left off, several pounds to the good, and strolled down to
the station with well-assumed carelessness. He returned in a carriage
with the two jolly young Englishmen. Casually, on the way, he mentioned
to them that he was going to leave Nice next morning. At the hotel they
broke another bottle of champagne together. Franz sat up, and talked
excitedly, and even sang comic songs; he was afraid to go to bed; though
still self-possessed, and by no means panic-stricken, he was nervous and
agitated.
That night, he never undressed. He lay in his clothes on the bed, and
slept by snatches fitfully. In the morning, he rose early, and looked
hard for spots of blood as he washed and dressed himself. But he had
done his work far too neatly to spatter his clothes. “Coffee, quick, and
my bill!” he said to the waiter who answered the bell; “I want to catch
an early train at the station for England.” He said England on purpose,
though he meant it to be Italy. With a true Tyroler’s instinct, he would
strike straight home—by Milan, Verona, and the Brenner, to St Valentin.
At the station, he took a through ticket, first-class, for Genoa. He had
to pass Monte Carlo, and he did so with repugnance. Yet he wasn’t much
afraid; the Robbler instinct was still strong within him. A couple of
fat Frenchmen got into the carriage at Monaco; they were talking of some
tragedy that had happened last night at an hotel at La Condamine. Franz
pricked up his ears but tried to look unconcerned. “Somebody dead?” he
inquired in his Teutonic French, with a show of languid interest.
“Yes; another suicide,” one of the Frenchmen answered, shrugging his
shoulders, with a smile. “_Que voulez-vous?_ An Englishman—a fellow
called Holmes—or, some say, an American. He stabbed himself last night,
after losing heavily. He was stopping at my hotel: he went to bed all
well; the servants knocked this morning—got no answer—went in and
found the body in a _fauteuil_, where the _malheureux_ had stabbed
himself.”
Franz’s eye gleamed bright. So at first they had put the best
interpretation upon it! The mere suspicion of a suicide might give him a
start that would enable him to escape. He shrugged his shoulders in
return. “A common episode of life as things go at Monte Carlo!” he
murmured, philosophically.
The Frenchmen got out and left the train at Mentone. At Ventimiglia,
Franz crossed the frontier with a beating heart; so far, at least, no
telegram to arrest or detain him. All morning, the train crawled on at a
snail’s pace towards Genoa. Franz chafed and grumbled, eating his heart
out with impatience. At San Pier d’Arena, the junction-station, he took
his portmanteau in his hand, and re-booked for Milan. There he spent
that second night in fear and trembling. On his way up to an hotel, he
bought a copy of an evening paper—the _Corriere della Sera_. The same
story still—_Suicidio a Monte Carlo_.
He didn’t sleep much; but he slept—that was ever something. At seven
o’clock, he was up, and walked out towards the Cathedral. But that mount
of marble, with its thousand spires and its statued pinnacles in the
myriad niches, had no power on such a day to arrest his attention;
beside the great west door, he was looking for a boy with a morning
newspaper. Soon he found one, and tore it open under the arcades of the
Piazza. He knew no Italian, but by the aid of his scanty French he could
make out the meaning of one sinister paragraph. “It is now believed that
the man Holme or Holmes, who was found stabbed in his room at the Hotel
des Étrangers, at Monte Carlo, yesterday morning, met his death by foul
means, and not, as was at first suspected, by suicide. The doctors who
have examined the wound concur in the opinion that it could hardly by
any possibility be self-inflicted. Holmes is now known to have been a
notorious card-sharper, and it is surmised that he may have been
murdered in a fit of revengeful passion by one of his victims, several
of whom he is said to have duped during the last few days in the
neighbourhood of the Casino. No clue, however, has as yet been obtained
to the name or personality of his supposed assailant.”
Murder! they called it murder to stab that cheating rogue! and they took
him for a murderer just because he’d revenged himself! When they’d got
as far as that, it was probable before long they’d track the deed home
to Herr Karl von Forstemann. Franz saw clearly enough now what his next
move must be. Herr Karl von Forstemann must disappear as if by magic
from this earthly scene, and Franz Lindner of St Valentin, and of the
London Pavilion, that honest and simple-minded Tyrolese musician, must
at once replace him.
He paid his bill at the hotel, took a cab to the station instead of the
omnibus, and caught the through train to Venice direct—throwing the