Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

I

The distinguished-looking elderly gentleman introduced himself and, as usual, nobody caught the name. He wore a suit of fashionable and well-cut clothes, however, and his scarf-pin was a single white pearl in a somewhat quaint setting, its dazzling purity recalling the whiteness of a lovely blonde’s shoulders, as Karstens remarked. Moreover, he at once placed a sum of twenty thousand marks upon the table in front of him.

He had been brought to the club by young Hull, the heir to an industrial concern worth millions, into which his father allowed him to dip freely. Play was started immediately, and the stranger courteously agreed to the game proposed, which was vingt-et-un. The stakes were unlimited, and the first one to hold the bank was Ritter.

At first there was nothing unusual about the game. Gains and losses alternated, but soon it was noticed that Hull was losing, and this began just at the time when it was the elderly gentleman’s turn to play banker. At the start it was hundred-mark notes that Hull lost, but he played on calmly, resigned to his ill-luck. Notes of smaller value were now mingled with the piles of thousands the visitor had put in front of him.

It was only outwardly, however, that Hull appeared undisturbed. He felt a good deal of excitement within, and a veil seemed to be obscuring his mental vision. His banknotes fluttered across to the stranger without his appearing aware of the fact. His senses seemed to be imprisoned in a delicate, invisible web, pressing ever more and more closely upon him.

He drank a brandy and soda, and then ordered a bottle of champagne. The only effect of that was to make him open another compartment of his pocketbook and bring out the thousand-mark notes which he had procured from the bank that morning. His bad luck became really fantastic. Even when he held good cards it seemed as if in some obscure region of his mind a mysterious warning sealed his lips, and instead of staking a substantial sum, he wagered a trifling amount merely.