“The face—is that the side with the numbers on?” Fandorin inquired.
“Yes. Now the punter places a bet—let’s say, ten rubles. The banker begins dealing. He lays the top card from his deck faceup to the right (that’s called the ‘forehead’) and the next card to the left (that’s called the ‘dreambook’).”
Forehead—R., dreambook—L., Erast Fandorin wrote down diligently in his notepad.
“Now the punter reveals his nine. If the forehead also happens to be a nine, no matter what the suit, then the banker takes the stake. That’s called ‘killing the nine.’ Then the bank, that’s the sum of money that is being played for, increases. If the dreambook turns out to be a nine, then that’s a win for the punter, he’s ‘found the nine.”
“What if there’s no nine in the pair?”
“If there doesn’t happen to be a nine in the first pair, the banker lays out the following pair of cards. And so on until a nine does show up. That’s all there is to the game. Elementary, but you can lose your shirt on it, especially if you’re the punter and you keep doubling up. So get it into your head, Fandorin, that you must only play as the banker. It’s simple: you deal a card to the right, a card to the left; a card to the right, a card to the left. The banker will never lose more than the first stake. Don’t play as the punter, and if you have to because you’ve drawn lots, then set a low stake. In stoss you can’t have more than five rounds, and then the remainder of the bank goes to the banker. Now you can go and collect two hundred rubles from the cashier’s office to cover your losses.”
“A whole two hundred?” gasped Fandorin.
“Not a ‘whole two hundred’ but a ‘mere two hundred.’ Do your best to make that amount last you all night, if you lose everything quickly, you don’t have to leave immediately—you can hang about for a while. But don’t arouse any suspicion. Is that clear? You’ll be playing every evening until you come up with a result. Even if it becomes clear that Zurov is not involved—well, that’s a result, too. One scenario less.”
Erast Fandorin moved his lips as he stared at his crib.
“Hearts—are they the red ones?”
“Yes, sometimes they’re called cors, from coeur* Get along to the costume section—they’ve made an outfit in your size, and by lunchtime tomorrow they’ll run you up an entire wardrobe for every possible occasion. Quick march, Fandorin. I’ve got enough to do without talking to you. Come straight back here from Zurov’s place. I’m spending the night in the department today.”
And Brilling stuck his nose back into his papers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
which the jack of spades turns up most inopportunely
IN THE SMOKE-FILLED HALL THE PLAYERS WERE seated at six green card tables—in some places in compact groups, in others in fours or twos. There were also observers loitering beside each table: fewer around games where the stakes were low and rather more where the excitement of the spiel was spiraling upward. Wine and hors d’oeuvres were not served at the count’s establishment. Those who wished could go into the drawing room and send a servant out to a tavern, but the gamblers only ever sent out for champagne to celebrate some special run of luck. On all sides there resounded abrupt exclamations incomprehensible to the non-gambler:
“Je coupe.”*
“Je passe.”
“Second deal.”
“Retournez la carte.”**
“Well, gentleman, the hands are dealt!”—and so forth.
The largest crowd was standing around the table where a high-stakes game was taking place, one against one. The host himself was dealing and a sweaty gentleman in a fashionable, overtight frock coat was punting. The punter’s luck was clearly not running. He repeatedly bit his lips and became excited, while the count was the very image of composure, merely smiling sweetly from under his black mustache as he drew in the smoke from a curving Turkish chibouque. The well-tended, strong fingers with their glittering rings dealt the cards adroitly—one to the right, one to the left.
Among the observers, standing demurely at the back, was a young man with black hair whose face bore no resemblance to that of a gambler. It was immediately obvious to a man of experience that the youth came from a good family, had wandered into a gaming hall for the first time, and felt entirely out of place. Several times old stagers with brilliantined partings in their hair had proposed that he might like to ‘turn a card,’ but they had been disappointed. The youth never staked more than five rubles and positively refused to be ‘wound up.’ The experienced card master Gromov, a man known to the whole of gambling Moscow, even threw the boy some bait by losing a hundred rubles to him, but the money was simply wasted. The rosy-cheeked youth’s eyes did not light up and his hands did not begin to tremble. This was an unpromising mark, a genuine ‘louser.’
And in the meantime Fandorin—for of course it was he—believed that he had been slipping through the hall like an invisible shadow without attracting anyone’s attention. In all honesty, he had not yet done a great deal of this ‘slipping.’ Once he had noticed an extremely respectable-looking gentleman slyly appropriate a gold half imperial from a table and walk off with a highly dignified air. Then there were the two young officers who had been arguing in loud whispers in the corridor, but Erast Fandorin had not understood a word of their conversation: the lieutenant of dragoons was heatedly asserting that he was not some ‘top spinner’ or other and he did not ‘play the Arab’ with his friends, while the cornet of hussars was upbraiding him for being some kind of ‘fixer.’
Zurov, beside whom Fandorin had found himself every now and then, was clearly in his native element in this society, by far the biggest fish in the pond. A single word from him was enough to nip a nascent scandal in the bud. Once at a mere gesture from their master two thug-gish lackeys took hold of the elbows of a gentleman who refused to stop shouting and had carried him out the door in an instant. The count definitely did not recognize Erast Fandorin, although Fandorin did catch his quick, unfriendly gaze on himself several times.
“Fifth round, sir,” Zurov declared, and for some reason this announcement drove the punter to a paroxysm of excitement.
“I mark the duck!” he shouted out in a trembling voice and bent over two corners on his card.
A low whisper ran through the watching crowd as the sweaty gentleman tossed back a lock of hair from his forehead and cast a whole bundle of rainbow-colored bills onto the table.
“What is a ‘duck’?” Erast Fandorin inquired in a bashful whisper of a red-nosed gentleman who seemed to him to be the most good-humored.
“That signifies the quadrupling of the stake,” his neighbor gladly explained. “The gentleman desires to take his revenge in full in the following round.”
The count indifferently released a small cloud of smoke and exposed a king to the right and a six to the left.
The punter revealed the ace of hearts.
Zurov nodded and instantly tossed a black ace to the right and a red king to the left.
From somewhere Fandorin heard a whisper of admiration: “Exquisitely done!”
The sweaty gentleman was a pitiful sight. His glance followed the heap of banknotes as it migrated to a position beside the count’s elbow and inquired timidly, “Would you perhaps care to continue against an IOU?”
“I would not,” Zurov replied lazily. “Who else wishes to play, gentlemen?”
His gaze unexpectedly came to rest on Erast Fandorin.