The Mammoth Book of Haunted House Stories (Mammoth Books) (85 page)

“Not for a single second did I entertain the idea of owing my happiness to those accursed millions. I offered up my heart to God as a burnt-offering, I distributed the millions I had won to the poor, and I came here, gentlemen, to await the death which spurns me – the death I dread!”

“You have never played since those days?” I asked.

“I have never played from that time until now.”

Allan had read my thoughts. He too was dreaming that it might be possible to rescue from his monomania the man whom we both persisted in considering insane.

“I feel sure,” he said, “that so great a sacrifice has won you pardon. Your despair has been undoubtedly sincere, and your punishment a terrible one. What more could Heaven require of you? In your place
I should try
—”

“You would try – what?” exclaimed the man, springing from his seat.

“I should try whether I were still doomed to win!”

The man struck the table a violent blow with his clenched fist.

“And so this is all the remedy you can suggest! So this is all the narrative of a curse transcending all things earthly has inspired you with? You seek to induce an old lunatic to play, with the object or demonstrating to him that he is not insane! For I read full well in your eyes what you think of me: ‘He is mad, mad, mad!’ You do not believe a single word of all I have told you. You think I am insane, young man! And you, too,” he added, addressing Allan, “you think I am insane – mad, mad, mad! I tell you that I have seen the devil! Yes, your old madman has seen the devil! And he is going to prove it to you. The cards! Where are the cards?”

Espying them on the edge of the table, he sprang on them.

“It is you who have so willed it. I had harboured a supreme hope that I should die without having again made the infernal attempt, so that when my hour had come I might imagine that Heaven had forgiven me. Here are your cards! I will not touch them. They are yours. Shuffle them – deal me which you please – ‘stack’ them as you will. I tell you that I shall win. Do you believe me now?”

Allan had quietly picked up the cards.

The man, placing his hand on his shoulder, asked, “You do not believe me?”

“We shall see,” replied Allan.

“What shall the stakes be?” I inquired.

“I do not know, gentlemen, whether you are well off or not, but I feel bound to inform you – you who have come to destroy my last hope – that you are ruined men.”

Thereupon he took out his pocket-book and laid it on the table, saying:

“I will play you five straight points at ecarte for the contents of this pocket-book. This just by way of a beginning. After that, I am willing to play you as many games as you see fit, until I cast you out of doors picked clean, your friends and yourself, ruined for the rest of your lives – yes, picked bare.”

“Picked bare?” repeated Allan, who was far less moved than myself. “Do you want even our shirts?”

“Even your souls,” cried the man, “which I intend to present to the devil in exchange for my own.”

Allan winked at me, and asked:

“Shall we say ‘Done,’ and go halves in this?”

I agreed, shuffled the pack, and handed it to my opponent.

He cut. I dealt. I turned up the knave of hearts. Our host looked at his hand and led. Clearly he ought not to have played the hand he held – three small clubs, the queen of diamonds, and the seven of spades. He took a trick with his queen, I took the four others, and, as he had led, I marked two points. I entertained not the slightest doubt that he was doing his utmost to lose.

It was his turn to deal. He turned up the king of spades. He could not restrain a shudder when he beheld that black-faced card, which, in spite of himself, gave him a trick.

He scanned his hand anxiously. It was my turn to call for cards. He refused them, evidently believing that he held a very poor hand; but my own was as bad as his, and he had a ten of hearts, which took my nine – I held the nine, eight, and seven of hearts.

He then played diamonds, to which I could not respond and two clubs higher than mine. Neither of us held a single trump. He scored a point, which, with the one secured to him by his king, gave him two. We were “evens,” either of us being in a position to end matters at once if we made three points.

The deal was mine. I turned up the eight of diamonds. This time both of us called for cards. He asked for one, and showed me the one he had discarded – the seven of diamonds. He was anxious not to hold any trumps. His wish was gratified, and he succeeded in making me score another two points, which gave me four.

In spite of ourselves, Allan and I glanced towards the pocket-book. Our thoughts ran: “There lies a small fortune which is shortly to be ours, one which, in all conscience, we shall not have had much trouble in winning.”

Our host dealt in his turn, and when I saw the cards he had given me I considered the matter as good as settled. This time he had not turned up a king, but the seven of clubs. I held two hearts and three trumps – the ace and king of hearts, the ace, ten, and nine of clubs. I led the king, my opponent followed with the queen; I flung the ace on the table, my opponent being compelled to take it with the knave of hearts, and he then played a diamond, which I trumped. I played the ace of trumps; he took it with the queen, but I was ready for him with my last card, the ten of clubs. He had the knave of trumps! As I had led he scored two, making “four all.” Our host smothered a curse which was hovering on his lips.

“No need for you to worry,” I remarked, “no one has won yet.”

“We are about to prove to you,” said Allan, in the midst of a deathly silence, “that you can lose just like any ordinary mortal.”

Our host groaned, “I cannot lose.”

The interest in the game was now at its height. A point on either side, and either of us would be the winner. If I turned up the king the game was ended, and I won twelve thousand francs from a man who claimed that he could not lose. I had dealt. I turned up the king – the king of hearts. I had won!

My opponent uttered a cry of joy. He bent over the card, picked it up, considered it attentively, fingered it, raised it to his eyes, and we thought that he was about to press it to his lips. He murmured:

“Great heavens, can it be? Then – then I have lost!”

“so it would seem,” I remarked.

Allan added, “You now see full well that one should not place any faith in what the devil says.”

The gentleman took his pocket-book and opened it.

“Gentlemen,” he sighed, “bless you for having won all that is in this book. Would that it contained a million! I should gladly have handed it over to you.”

With trembling hands he searched the pocket-book, emptying it of all its contents, with a look of surprise at not finding at once the twelve thousand francs he had deposited in its folds. They were not there!

The pocket-book, searched with feverish hands, lay empty on the table.
There was nothing in the pocket-book! Nothing!

We sat dumbfounded at this inexplicable phenomenon – the empty pocket-book! We picked it up and fingered it. We searched it carefully, only to find it empty. Our host, livid and as one possessed, was searching himself, and begging us to search him. We searched him – we searched him, because it was beyond our power to resist his delirious will; but we found nothing – nothing!

“Hark!” exclaimed our host. “Hark, hark! Does it not seem to you tonight that the wind sounds like the voice of a dog?”

We listened, and Makoko answered, “It is true! The wind really seems to be barking – there, behind the door!”

The door was shaking strangely, and we heard a voice calling, “Open!”

I drew the bolts and opened the door. A human form rushed into the room.

“It is the steward,” I said.

“Sir, sir!” he ejaculated.

“What is it?” we all exclaimed, breathlessly, wondering what was about to follow.

“Sir, I thought I had handed you your twelve thousand francs. Indeed, I am positive I did so. Those gentlemen doubtless saw me.”

“Yes, indeed,” from all of us.

“Well, I have just discovered them in my bag. I cannot understand how it has happened. I have returned to bring them back to you –
once more
. Here they are.”

The steward again pulled out the identical envelope, and a second time counted the twelve one-thousand-franc notes, adding:

“I know not what ails the mountainside tonight, but it terrifies me. I shall sleep here.”

The twelve thousand francs were now lying on the table. Our host cried:

“This time we see them there, there before us! Where are the cards? Deal them. The twelve thousand in five straight points, to see, to know for certain. I tell you that I wish to know –
to know
.”

I dealt. My opponent called for cards; I refused them. He had five trumps. He scored two points. He dealt the cards. He turned up the king. I led. He again had five trumps. Three and two are five! He had won!

Then he howled; yes, howled like the wind which had the voice of a dog. He snatched the cards from the table and cast them into the flames. “Into the fire with the cards Let the fire consume them!” he shrieked.

Suddenly he strode towards the door. Outside a dog barked – a dog raising a death-howl.

The man reached the door, and speaking through it asked:

“Is that you, Mystere?”

To what phenomenon was it due that both wind and dog were silent simultaneously?

The man softly drew the bolts and half opened the door. No sooner was the door ajar than the infernal yelping broke out so prolonged and so lugubrious that it made us shiver to our very marrow. Our host had now flung himself upon the door with such force that we could almost think he had smashed it. Not content with having pushed back the bolts, he pressed with his knees and arms against the door, without uttering a sound. All we heard was his panting respiration.

Then, when the death-like yelping had ceased, and both within and without silence reigned supreme, the man, turning towards us and tottering forward, said:

“
He has returned! Beware!
”

Of a sudden my hand is gripped in the vice I know so well. I look round. I am face to face with our host, who says to me in a voice which seems to come from another world:

“
Do not open it!
”

Next morning we did not ask our host to give us the opportunity of winning back our money. We fled from his roof without even taking leave of him. Twelve thousand francs were sent that evening to our strange host through Makoko’s father, to whom we had told our adventure. He returned them to us, with the following note:

“We are quits. When we played, both the first game, which you won, and the second one, which you lost, we
believed
, you and I, that we were staking twelve thousand francs. That must be sufficient for us. The devil has my soul, but he shall not posses my honour.”

We were not at all anxious to keep the twelve thousand francs, so we presented them to a hospital in La Chaux-de-Fonds which was in sore need of money. Following upon urgent repairs, to which our donation was applied, the hospital, one winter’s night, was so thoroughly burned to the ground that at noon of the following day nothing but ashes remained of it.

The Judge’s House

Bram Stoker