After a short time had passed thus, he rose and went to the group wherein Dr. Mabuse was standing, saying, “We were going to play baccarat!”
“So we were!” answered Mabuse. “Shall we be likely to find enough players?”
Then Told grew wide awake and eager. “It will be fine, playing baccarat with you. Herr Wendel, will you join us, eh?”
“I must attend to my social duties among the ladies,” answered the Privy Councillor, “but you will soon be able to find partners!”
Six gentlemen quickly gathered round the card-table which stood in a part of the room leading to the conservatory. The lamp with its enormous shade hung low over the table, leaving the rest of the room in the half-light. In the conservatory, to which a glass door led, the ghostly branches of foreign palms could be seen outlined against the glass, and in the moonlight they looked like stiff forms stretching their dark limbs heavenwards.
They cut the cards to see who should be the first to hold the stakes. The visitors crowded round the card-table and Countess Told stood in the dim light, looking down upon it. Mabuse saw her smooth white skin gleaming from the rich dark red dress she wore. His bearing was cold and gloomy, and scarcely a word escaped his lips. The feelings that arose within him were sternly suppressed, and his thoughts were busy with Count Told alone. When anyone addressed him, he answered abruptly. He seemed to pay great attention to the game, but he played by leaps and bounds.
Soon the gentlemen who had begun their game with modest stakes began to imitate his example, and there was no unanimity in the value of the stakes. Beside a stake of a mark or two there stood a fifty-mark note, and then one for two hundred. The small stake seemed to feel ashamed; it rapidly became twenty, and still faster it grew to a hundred, to two hundred. … Very soon there was no player who ventured less than a hundred marks. When they began they found time for conversation between the end of the hand and the fresh deal, but after a time the talk grew less, and then ceased. The onlookers, too, became silent. The contest between the players grew more pronounced, the game feverish, and this excitement spread to the spectators.
The Countess noted the high stakes her husband wagered. “He has never played before,” she thought. “What is the matter with him?”
The Count was winning. He let his winnings accumulate. It seemed as if he were a horse, urged and threatened onward by an eager rider. He threw his money down. It was now his turn to hold the stakes. It seemed to him as if the moment in which he should deal the cards and undertake the manifold risks of gain or loss would be a supreme experience for him, yielding rich secrets of wonderful joy. He grew excited, and his fantasies played about the room.
The Countess turned aside in the half-light, constrained at her husband’s incomprehensible actions. Suddenly the full light of the lamp fell upon her, revealing where her slender breast rose white and stately from the enclosing circle of her gown.
“North and south!” said Mabuse, as he contemplated her lovely figure, “north and south, your turn is coming,” and his tone was sinister and threatening. Then he turned his glance away, and it fell upon Count Told’s hands as he took over the bank at this moment. He dealt the cards out, and hesitated a moment as if perplexed at some strange occurrence. He was relieved when he had distributed the pack. He won considerable sums, and it was singular that the same feeling of perplexity recurred. He won a second time, and now this seemed to happen continually. Players and spectators alike were astonished at the run of luck the Count’s game exhibited.
“Look at your husband,” said someone, turning to the Countess; “he is winning every hand.”
They all cast a glance at the Countess and then quickly returned to their cards. The Count dealt the cards once more. He disclosed his cards; he had two picture cards and was about to buy another.
“Halt!” cried a voice suddenly, like the voice of a drill sergeant, and a hand was laid roughly on the table, reaching the white and delicate hand of the Count, on which the jewelled ring was sparkling, and turning it over. Then all the company saw that the Count had been about to take a card from underneath the pack instead of the one that lay on the top. The card was a nine.
“Aha, a nine! Now I understand your luck, you gudgeon! You are a common cheat!”
They all sprang up in confusion. Count Told sat still in his chair, in a state of utter collapse. He seemed absolutely crushed, finding no word to say.
“Give the money here!” cried the harsh voice again. “All of it!” The tone was threatening.
The spectators and the players were crowding together, and a cry rang through the obscurity. Through the hasty movements of the powerful man who had seized the Count, one man had fallen to the ground, dragging another down with him. The latter clutched at the tablecloth, and it was pulled off, money and cards being strewn over the floor, people flinging themselves upon it. Suddenly the electric lights went out, but Dr. Mabuse, who had waited for the cry from the dark corner, rushed to the fainting Countess, lifted her in his arms and with one spring bore her under the palms and out into the garden under the moonlight, through the shrubbery and to the wall leading to the street. He lifted her over, and
