Devil's Cub Read online

  He returned to the contemplation of the table. At Vidal’s right hand, Mr Fox lolled in his chair, busy with a gold toothpick. He raised a languid hand in greeting to Carlisle. ‘Coming in, my lord? Take the bank?’

  A heap of gold and paper lay before Vidal. Carlisle shook his head. ‘Not I, Fox.’

  The Marquis tossed off what remained in his glass. ‘I’ll throw you for it,’ he offered.

  ‘I advise against it, my lard,’ one of the players said mincingly. ‘Vidal has had the devil’s luck all this week.’

  ‘I’m not dicing to-night,’ Carlisle replied. ‘If you have a place at the table, Mr Comyn here is of a mind to play.’

  My lord paused in the act of refilling his glass, and again looked up at Mr Comyn. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ he said carelessly. ‘I thought I knew you. Do you want to throw for the bank?’

  ‘I thank your lordship, but I would prefer to throw against the bank,’ replied Mr Comyn, and sat down beside Lord Rupert Alastair.

  Lord Carlisle, having done what he could to prevent his protégé from joining the table, shrugged fatalistically, and withdrew.

  ‘Raise you to a hundred, gentlemen,’ Vidal said, and lay back in his chair, feeling in his capacious coat-pocket for his snuff-box. He pulled it out, and opened it, and took a pinch, flashing a quick look round the table. A gentleman in puce satin, and a very large stock buckle, protested that fifty was deep enough.

  Mr Fox lifted weary eyebrows, and stretched out his hand for Vidal’s snuff-box. He regarded it closely, and remarked with a sigh: ‘Le Sueur. Email en plain. Very pretty. A hundred, I think you said?’ He put it down and picked up the dice-box.

  Someone at the other end of the table said that the game went too deep, but was overruled.

  ‘Standing out, Cholmondley?’ asked the Marquis.

  ‘By God, I’m not, then! You’ve too many of my notes under your hand, Vidal. Keep it at fifty.’

  ‘Raising you to a hundred,’ the Marquis repeated.

  Mr Fox took the dice. ‘A hundred it is, and those afraid of it stand out,’ he drawled. He called a main of eight and threw fives. ‘Rot you, Vidal,’ he said good-humouredly, and scribbled his name on a slip of paper, and pushed it across the table.

  The red-faced gentleman seated midway down the table opposite Lord Rupert Alastair looked under his brows at the Marquis, and said loud enough to be heard: ‘I’d say it was time another man held the bank. This is a damned one-sided game.’

  His neighbour, Mr Bowling, saw the glitter in the Marquis’s eye, and nudged him warningly. ‘Easy, now, easy, Montague,’ he said quietly. ‘Ever known the luck to run evenly?’

  Someone standing amongst the spectators said beneath his breath: ‘Vidal’s three parts drunk. There’ll be trouble soon.’

  Drunk the Marquis might be, but his speech and intellect were unimpaired. He lay back in his chair, one hand in his breeches pocket, the other with its long fingers curled round the stem of his wineglass; and his hard stare challenged the dissatisfied player. ‘Had enough, Quarles?’

  The tone was an insult. Mr Fox took snuff, and looked sideways under the incredible arch of his brows. Lord Rupert picked up the dice-box. ‘Ah, you’re wasting time. I’ll call seven.’ He threw and lost. ‘Rabbit it, I’ve called ’em for the last hour, and the cursed dice turn up aces and threes.’

  Montague Quarles said with bitter distinctness: ‘Enough? No, by God, but let someone else hold the bank! What do you say, gentlemen?’ He looked round the table, but met with no response till Lord Cholmondley said gruffly: ‘I’m satisfied. Egad, I hope we know how to stand against a run of bad luck. Too much talk, is what I say.’

  The Marquis was still looking at Montague Quarles. ‘There’s a matter of some four thousand pounds in the bank. Throw you for it.’

  ‘Come, that’s fair enough!’ declared a bluff man on the Marquis’s left.

  Mr Quarles said angrily: ‘Damned if I will! Not against you, my lord!’

  ‘My God, do we sit all night arguing?’ Bowling cried. ‘Let’s be done with this!’ He took up the dice-box, called a main and threw. Vidal pushed a little pile of guineas towards him, and the game went on.

  Money passed backwards and forwards, but the bank was still an easy winner at the end of a couple of hours’ play. The Marquis was drinking steadily. So were several others, notably Mr Quarles, whose scowl deepened with each glass. On the Marquis the wine seemed to have little or no effect. His hand was steady enough, and there was only that glitter in his eyes to betray to one who knew him how much he had drunk.

  My Lord Rupert, another heavy drinker, had reached the rollicking stage, and was sitting with his wig askew. Mr Fox had broached his second bottle, and seemed somnolent. My Lord Rupert won a little, lost again, and called up the table to his nephew: ‘Rot you, Vidal, this is poor sport! Quicken the game, my boy!’

  ‘Take the bank, Rupert?’

  My lord pulled his pocket linings out, and began to count the guineas that lay before him. It was a difficult business. ‘I make it eleven,’ he announced with a hiccough. ‘Can’t start a bank on ’leven guineas, Vidal. Can’t start bank at Timothy’s on less than sixty guineas.’

  The Marquis said recklessly: ‘Raise you to two hundred, gentlemen.’

  Mr Fox nodded. Bowling pushed back his chair. ‘I’m out,’ he said. ‘That’s too deep for me, Vidal.’

  ‘Bank can’t win for ever,’ the Marquis replied. ‘Stay the course, Jack, the night’s young yet.’

  Mr Bowling blinked at the clock on the far wall. ‘Young? I make it past four.’

  ‘That’s young, ain’t it?’ said Lord Rupert. ‘Four? Why, that’s devilish young!’

  Mr Bowling laughed. ‘Oh, I protest! I’m a man of sedate habits. Do you mean to take your breakfast here? I’m for my bed.’

  ‘Sit it out!’ recommended Lord Cholmondley. ‘We’ll break Vidal yet. Vidal! Is that bay mare by Sunshine out of Mad Molly still in your stables? I’ll stake my Blue Lightning against the mare I break your bank before six.’

  The Marquis poured more wine. ‘Make it five, and I’ll take you.’

  Mr Fox opened his eyes. ‘What’s amiss? You for bed too?’

  ‘I don’t sit after five,’ the Marquis said. ‘I’m for Newmarket and back again.’

  Lord Cholmondley gaped at him. ‘God save us all, it’s not the day of your race? Man, you’re crazy to think to drive to Newmarket! Damme, Vidal, you’re drunk. You can’t do it! And here’s me with a cool five hundred backing you!’

  ‘Be calm, my loved one,’ mocked Vidal. ‘I drive best when I’m drunk.’

  ‘But up all night – no, blister me, that’s too much. Get to bed, you madman!’

  ‘What, to save your stake for you? Be damned if I do! My coach calls for me at five. Does the bet stand? You’ll break my bank before five – your colt to my mare.’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ Cholmondley said, slapping the table with his open hand. ‘Got an hour, ha’n’t I? Time enough. Where’s the betting-book?’

  The bet was duly entered. The waiter was about to remove the book when the Marquis drawled: ‘I’ll lay you a further five hundred I reach Newmarket under the given time, Cholmondley – play or pay.’

  ‘Done!’ said Cholmondley promptly. ‘Now I’m for you, my boy. Playing two hundred!’

  ‘Two hundred it is,’ the Marquis agreed, and put up his eyeglass to watch the throw of the dice.

  Cholmondley called sixes. Lord Rupert looked solemnly at the dice as they fell on the table. ‘Deuce ace,’ he declared. ‘Bank can’t win for ever, eh, Vidal?’

  Mr Quarles, who had been tapping an impatient foot, burst out: ‘I’d say my Lord Vidal can’t lose!’

  The eyeglass dangled on its black ribbon from between my lord’s fingers. ‘Would you?’ said