Flashman And The Tiger

"If Cumming was cheating," I asked them, "why on earth did he use the brightest chips—the red fivers?" I indicated the open box. "Look at ’em, they stand out a mile! And to make ’em even more conspicuous, he laid them on a white paper! Hang it all, sir, if he’d wanted to be caught he couldn’t have been more obvious!"

They couldn’t explain it, and Bertie said testily that what I’d said might very well be true, but it didn’t alter the fact that he’d been seen padding his stakes, whatever blasted colour they were, and what was to be done, eh?

I said I’d heard the stories of young Wilson and Levett, but what about the other three? Williams said that after the first night’s play young Wilson had told his mother what he and Levett had seen; Wilson’s sister and her husband, a chap called Lycett Green, had also been informed, and they’d resolved to keep an eye on Cumming the next night, Tuesday. Young Wilson had arranged for a long table to be set up in the billiard room, covered with baize and with a chalk line round the margin beyond which the stakes would be placed—that way, they thought, Cumming wouldn’t be able to cheat. I couldn’t believe my ears.

"Were they mad?" says I. "They were sure the man was a swindler, yet they were prepared to play with him again—and spy on him? And they never thought to tell old Wilson, the father of the family, or anyone senior?"

Coventry looked stuffed at this, and Bertie muttered about the shocking state of Society nowadays, ignorant upstarts who knew no better, and he was a fool to have come within a hundred miles of the confounded place, etc., etc. Williams said that Mrs Wilson had wanted at all costs to avoid a scandal, and if they hadn’t played it would have looked odd, and people might have talked … and so on, and so forth.

"Very well, what happened on the Tuesday night?" I asked. "Was he seen juggling his chips again?"

"Twice, at least," says Williams. "He was seen to push a £10 counter over the line after his highness had declared baccarat to the bank." Meaning the bank had lost. "On another occasion he used his pencil to flick a £5 counter, increasing his £2 stake to £7, which," he added gloomily, "was what I, as croupier, paid him."

"But you saw nothing irregular yourself?"

"No … tho' I recall that at one hand—I can’t tell which—Cumming called out to his highness, `There is another tenner due here, sir,' and from what I have learned this evening I believe it may have been on an occasion when he … when he played … ah, wrongly." He was one of your decent asses, Williams, and didn’t like to say it plain.

"I remember distinctly telling him to put his stakes where I could see ’ern," says Bertie. "But I suspected nothing." "Who was sitting by him—the second night?"

Coventry gave a start. "Why, my wife—Lady Coventry. But I believe she gave her place up to Lady Flashman for one or two coups, did she not, Williams?"

"Why, so she did," says Williams, turning to me. "I remember now—Cumming was advising your wife about her stakes, Flash-man." He gave a ruptured grin. "They were being rather jolly about it, you know; she was … well, I gathered she did not know much about the game, and he was helping her."

"I don’t suppose she saw anything fishy," says Bertie bitterly. I knew what he meant: if Cumming had worn a black mask and made ’em turn out their pockets at pistol-point, she’d have thought it was all in the game.

"Well, there you are, Flashman," says Bertie. He flung down in a chair, a picture of disgruntled anxiety. "You know as much as we do. It’s past belief. That Gordon-Cumming, of all men …" He gave a despairing shrug. "But there can be no doubt of it … can there?" He was positively yearning at Coventry and Williams. "They are certain of what they saw?"

Sure as a gun, they told him, so I intruded the kind of question that occurs only to minds like mine.

"And you’re satisfied they ain’t lying?" says I, and was met by exclamations of dismay, paws in the air, whatever next?

"Of course they’re not!" barks Bertie. "Heavens above, man, would they invent such a dreadful thing?"

"It’s about as likely as Bill Cumming cheating for a few sovs," I reminded him. "But there it is, one or t’other—unless Levett and young Wilson were drunk and seeing double."

"Really, Flashman!" cries Williams. "And the other witnesses, on the second night? You’ll hardly suggest that Mrs Wilson or Mrs Lycett Green were—"