Read Online Mediterranean Nights by Dennis Wheatley - Free Book Online Page A

“beginner’s luck” I shall cry—or go home to bed!’
    â€˜All right, I won’t,’ he smiled, ‘but all the same, if I played I’d always follow anyone who was new to it.’
    â€˜It must have been just about the time when you turned up that I started to lose,’ she said, then mentally kicked herself as she realised that she had admitted noticing him in the rooms.
    Sally knew that he had seen her slip, but he did not charge her with it. Instead he leant across the table and said earnestly:
    â€˜Look here, if my presence has been responsible for your bad luck, it’s in my power to change it yet.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜Let me lend you a few
milles
.’
    Sally turned away her head. ‘No thank you,’ she said, a trifle coldly.
    â€˜Please,’ he begged. ‘I don’t mean a big sum, nothing that you couldn’t repay by selling an odd piece of jewellery or something.’
    â€˜I thought you were urging me just now not to gamble any more?’
    â€˜I was—I should be still if you had any money left. In any case you can’t hope to get your two thousand back, but you might pick up a bit—borrowed money always brings luck.’
    Sally was thinking quickly. She had been so certain somehow that tonight she was going to make a pile. Not tomorrow night, which would be her last in Monte Carlo, but tonight. There was that old ring her godmother had left her—it must be worth quite a lot. During her stay in Monte Carlo she had unconsciously absorbed the atmosphere of superstition with its talk of ‘lucky days—unlucky seats—charms, systems, and amulets’—it was not the first time that she had heard that saying, ‘Borrowed money is lucky’. What if there was something in it after all?
    â€˜One
mille
? she declared suddenly, ‘one
mille
and no more. If I lose it I’ll send you the money from England, if you don’t mind that?’
    â€˜Of course not.’ He finished his champagne and stood up. ‘Come along and get some chips.’ They changed the thousand-franc note at the
caisse
, and he handed her the plaques. Sally chose a table that she had never played at before and secured a vacant place near the croupier. The rooms were crowded now, but there was little noise, only the quiet calling of the croupiers, and the click—click—click as the ivory ball rattled in the wheel of fortune. The cigar smoke hung heavily in the close, still air—the covered lights threw their brilliance on the baize-covered table.
    At first Sally played carefully, and as is usually the case when care is brought into the game, found her capital diminishing in driblets. Then she came home on a number—that heartened her and she began to play more freely. The game swung first one way—then the other; but whenever she got up to a
mille
in addition to her borrowed money she went down again; then, when she had been playing for about half an hour a long run on her slender resources began—she found herself reduced to a bare nine plaques.
    â€˜Go for a number,’ he advised, leaning over her shoulder, ‘it is your only chance.’
    â€˜All right,’ Sally agreed, smiling, ‘neck or nothing this time.’ She chose the number seven and covered it—one in the centre, one on each side, and one on every corner.
    â€˜
Rien ne va plus, Messieurs, Mesdames
,’ came the soft call of the croupier; the little white ball was jumping from slot to slot in the slowing wheel—it hesitated, then dropped into number seven.
    Where Sally’s nine plaques had been were now the equivalent of one hundred and forty-five. Unsmiling, the croupier flicked them towards her with his rake. She drew them in, setting aside the ones of higher value. Again she covered the seven—again it won: the croupier threw her two big plaques and a number of smaller ones. She shifted