If there had been anything depressing to the club about the news of George Tustin Bishop’s death, there was no outward indication. Play went on with the smooth decorum of an exclusive club where men were gentlemen and the loss of a few hundred dollars was merely one of life’s amusing incidents to be dismissed with a well-bred shrug of the shoulders.

  Later on, when the play became more spirited, some of the stooges would lose large sums with a patronizing smile, then begin to rake in great sacks of chips with a sophisticated lift of the eyebrow to indicate a complete control of the emotions.

  The suckers who didn’t stand a chance of winning a dime would be tempted to ape their “well-bred” neighbors at the table, and they, too, would shrug off their losses with a patronizing smile, wait in vain for “luck” to turn, and then go outside really to beef.

  There are, of course, a few square gambling houses in the United States. Somehow I had the impression The Green Door wasn’t one of those few.

  I watched for a while, then went over and bought a twenty-dollar stack of chips. The man who presided over the wheel flashed a diamond as his well-manicured, skillful fingers slid the chips out to me in a careless ges- ture. His entire attitude seemed to say that the place was broad-minded, and if a piker wanted to get a stack of chips for twenty dollars, it was quite all right with the management. They were running a democratic house.

  I bet five dollars on red and the wheel came black. I doubled my bet on red. Red came up and paid off. I put two dollars on number three and number thirty came up. I put another two dollars on number three and number seven came up.

  Again I put two dollars on number three and number three came up. The man in charge of the game paid off and honored me with a quizzical glance. Some of the other people began to size me up.

  I left two dollars on the three and played two dollars on the twenty.

  The twenty came up, and the man in charge once more slid out a stack of chips.

  He also paused to adjust his tie.

  I put two dollars on the five.

  There was a nervous feminine laugh. I saw the flash of bare shoulder as an arm reached across so that the flesh all but brushed my cheek. A young vision said, “I hope you don’t think I’m forward, but with luck like yours I’m not going to pass up a chance to ride along.”

  “Not at all,” I said politely, and looked her over.

  She was blond, with a cute, upturned nose, a rosebud mouth, and a figure which could well have won prizes in any bathing-beauty parade.

  She smiled up at me with just the right amount of cordiality and then almost instantly became somewhat coldly aloof, as though suddenly realizing that, after all, she didn’t know who I was and our acquaintanceship had stemmed from the fact that we happened to be standing at a roulette table together.

  The wheel spun, the ball clattered, and number seven came up.

  I put two dollars on number ten. The blonde put two dollars right on top of mine.

  The wheel spun and we lost.

  I put two dollars on number twenty-seven. The blonde hesitated a moment, then put a dollar bet on the top of mine.

  The wheel spun, the ball clattered, and number twelve came.

  I heard the blonde sigh. I put two dollars on number seven and a dollar on number three.

  The blonde hesitated, then, as though trying bravely to conceal the fact that this was her last dollar, she put a chip on number three, right on top of mine.

  The ball spun around and popped into a pocket. The blonde saw it before I did. She gave a startled squeal and grabbed my arm in an ecstasy of enthusiasm that she couldn’t quite control.

  “We’ve done it!” she cried. “We’ve done it! We’ve won!”

  The man at the wheel gave her a fatherly glance of dignified, quiet amusement and paid us off.

  We bet together three or four times more, then we won again.

  I was beginning to get a fair-sized pile of chips.

  The blonde nervously took a cigarette case from a black bag and tapped the cigarette on the side of the polished silver. She inserted it in her mouth, and I snapped a match into flame.

  She leaned forward for the light.

  I could see the long curling eyelashes, the mischievous glint of saucy hazel eyes, as she looked me over with demure interest.

  “Thank you,” she said, and then after a moment added, “for everything.”

  “Don’t thank me,” I told her.

  “Lots of people wouldn’t like to have me — well, share their luck.” Her glance was of the type to inspire a man to say that it would be a pleasure to share everything he had with her on a permanent basis.

  I merely smiled.

  Her hand rested on mine for an instant as she moved her pile of chips an inch or two along the side of the table.

  Abruptly she said, “It means so much, so very, very much to me, and I was down to my last dollar.”

  We lost three or four more bets, then I put five dollars on a number. She suddenly felt lucky and put ten dollars above my five.

  The number paid off.

  Her scream of delight was almost instantly suppressed as though she was afraid she might be put out, but she looked up at me and her eyes were dancing. Once more her hand was on my arm, the fingers digging in through the coat. “Oh,” she said, and then after a moment, “Oh!”

  The man at the wheel paid off my bet, seemed to frown with annoyance as he paid off the blonde’s bet. It was a sizable bunch of chips.

  She leaned against me. I could feel her tremble.

  “I’ve got to go where I can sit down,” she said. “Please — Please, what can I do about my — about my chips?”

  “Cash them in, if you wish,” the dealer said carelessly, “and then you can buy in again when you get ready to play.”

  “Oh, I — Very well.”

  Her weight was heavy against me as though her knees were getting ready to buckle.

  “Please,” she said in a half-whisper, “can you help me over to a chair?”

  I gave a quick glance at my stack of chips and at hers.

  The man at the wheel caught my eye and nodded. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, with the gesture of one who disdains to consider money of any great importance.

  I took the girl’s arm and helped her out to a table at the bar.

  A waiter hovered over us solicitously as soon as we were seated.

  “The occasion,” I said, “would seem to call for celebration. Would you care for champagne?”

  “Oh, I’d love it. I have to have — something. Oh, it means so much! Would you — Could you—”

  “Certainly,” I said, “if you wish. I’ll see about getting your money for you. Do you know how much you had coming?”

  She shook her head.

  “Under those circumstances, I’m afraid you’d better attend to the financial transaction yourself.”

  “Oh, it’s quite all right. I know you’re on the up-and-up. I — I wouldn’t have had a thing if it hadn’t been for you, Mr.—”

  “Lam,” I said.

  “I’m Miss Marvin,” she said, smiling. “My friends call me Diane.”

  “My name’s Donald.”

  “Donald, I’m just too absolutely, completely flabbergasted to get up and walk into that room. My legs just seem to turn to water. I — Well, I just wish you could see my knees.”

  “It’s an idea,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, making a little slap at me. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  One of the assistant managers bent gravely over the table. “Did you people wish to cash in your chips,” he asked, “or would you prefer to have them brought to you here in the bar? You can use them to pay for anything in the house.”

  “Let’s hang on to them,” she said instantly. “Could you — Well, could they be brought out here?”

  “But certainly.”

  He bowed, vanished, and a moment later came back with a plastic container in which my chips had been placed, and a polished wooden rack in which the girl’s chips were stacked.

  “We took the liberty of changing some of these chips,” he said, “so they wouldn’t be so bulky. The blue chips represent twenty dollars each.”

  “Those blue chips — twenty dollars for each one?”

  “That’s right.”

  Her fingers caressed the edges of the gold-embossed chips. “Each one,” she said in an awed half-whisper, “twenty dollars.”

  The waiter brought champagne, popped the cork, spilled ice out of the glasses and filled them to the brim.

  We touched glasses.

  “Here’s luck,” I said.

  “Here’s to you,” she countered. “You’re my luck.”

  We sipped the champagne. Her eyes studied me. She said abruptly, “I’m betwixt and between.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She said, “I need money. I have just about half enough here. I’ll be frank with you. I was down to my last cent. I came up here and invested every cent I could scrape up to buy chips. I made up my mind I’d either get what I wanted or be completely broke, and then I’d—”

  Her voice trailed away into a significant silence.

  “Then you’d what, my dear?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t gone that far. Either sell myself or kill myself, I guess.”

  I said nothing.

  She studied me thoughtfully. “What should I do? Should I quit now, play it safe and try to raise the rest of the money some other way, or should I go ahead and gamble?”

  “On those matters,” I said, “I give no advice.”

  “You’ve been my inspiration, my luck. You’ve brought me success. Everything was going bad for me. And then you came along.”

  I said nothing.

  Abruptly the floor manager glided up to the table. “Would you mind stepping into the office?” he asked Diane.

  “Oh,” she said, her knuckles suddenly white as she pressed her fist against her lips. “What have I done now?”

  The manager’s smile was reassuring. “Nothing,” he said. “Only I have been asked to invite you to step into the office, Miss Marvin, and the boss would like to see Mr. Lam, too.” ‘

  I glanced at my watch. It was thirty-five minutes from the time I had entered the place. I still hadn’t seen anything of Horace B. Catlin.

  Abruptly Diane Marvin pushed back the chair. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Probably something about my credit — about — I don’t know.”

  The floor manager escorted us deferentially to a big door marked Private.

  He swung the door open without touching it, apparently by putting weight on a concealed button.

  “Right this way, please,” he said, standing aside.

  I followed Diane into an office.

  The floor manager didn’t come in. The door clicked shut behind us. I turned to look. There was no knob on the door.

  There were comfortable chairs grouped in a half-circle around a table on which were glasses, a decanter, ice, and soda.

  A plain door at the far end of the office opened and Hartley L. Channing said, “Right this way, please.”

  We walked in.

  Channing shook hands with both of us. “How are you, Lam?” he said.

  “Fine,” I told him.

  He didn’t say anything to Diane.

  She walked on into the inner office and I followed.

  This was a room fixed up both as a den and an office. There were a television set, a radio, phonograph, a safe, filing cabinet, a desk, and comfortable lounging chairs. There were bookcases, paneled walls, indirect lighting, and there wasn’t a window in the place. An air conditioning unit kept a stream of fresh air flowing in and out.

  Channing turned to Diane and said, “You can lay off, Diane. He’s not a fish.”

  She said indignantly, “Well, then, why the hell didn’t I get the signal? I—”

  “Keep your shirt on,” he told her. “There’s been a mix-up.”

  “I’ll say there’s been a mix-up! I had things coming along just fine and—”

  “That’ll do,” he told her. “You can go now. Forget you’ve seen this man, that you’ve been here, forget everything.”

  Without a word to me she got up and flounced out through the door.

  I couldn’t tell whether she had the combinations so that she knew how to open the door which had no knob, or whether there was some secret connection at Channing’s desk by which he could open it.

  Channing and I looked at each other across the desk.

  “I’d like to see the card by which you got past the doorman, Lam.”

  I smiled at him.

  “Well?” he said, extending his hand. “I’m waiting.”

  I said, “The card was good enough to get me in. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

  “No.”

  I made no move.

  Channing frowned. “You certainly aren’t naïve enough to think I don’t control the situation here,” he said.

  I said, “I certainly hope you aren’t naive enough to think I’d let you know what I’m thinking.”

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

  “It’s got me this far.”

  “That may not prove to be entirely beneficial — for you.”

  I stole a glance at my wrist watch. I had a little over nineteen minutes to go.

  I said, “Perhaps you and I might talk without chasing each other around in circles, and really get somewhere.”

  “I want to see that card.”

  I said nothing.

  I didn’t see Channing give the signal — probably a concealed button somewhere under the desk — but abruptly the door from the outer office opened and a man in a tuxedo stood quietly on the threshold.

  “Mr. Lam,” Channing said, “had a card when he entered the place.”

  The newcomer said nothing.

  “He doesn’t wish to produce that card,” Channing said. “I’d like very much to look at it.”

  The man moved forward, smiling serenely. “The card, Mr. Lam,” he said.

  I made no move.

  The man hesitated briefly by my chair.

  Channing nodded.

  The man reached forward and grabbed my wrist. I tried to jerk the arm free. I might as well have tried to pull against a steel cable.

  Swift, efficient fingers did things to the wrist. The other hand hit against my elbow. My arm doubled around, flew up against my back, the wrist was doubled into a grip that pulled the tendons until it was all I could do to keep from screaming.

  “The card,” Channing said.

  I twisted my body, trying to ease the tension and the pain as much as possible.

  “Of all the damn fools,” Channing said, and came over to search me.

  I was powerless to make a move.

  Channing’s hand shot into my inside pocket, came out with my wallet. He deftly extracted the card I had used in entering the place, started to put the wallet back, then thought better of it and took the wallet and the card over to his desk.

  “That’s all, Bill,” he said.

  The man in the tuxedo released the grip on my wrist.

  I dropped back into the chair. My arm felt as though every tendon in it had been pulled out of place.

  Channing started to tell Bill to go, then thought better of it. “Stick around, Bill,” he said.

  Channing said, “Lam, I don’t like this. You sat around in front for several hours with a companion. The man is still down there waiting for you. I suppose if you don’t appear within a certain time he’s to come and get you or else call the police. Is that it?”

  “You’re talking. I’m listening.”

  “I suppose you feel that gives you a paid-up policy of life insurance.”

  “I’ll run my business,” I said, “you run yours.”

  He examined the card carefully.

  “This is a genuine card,” he said. “It not only bears my signature but it has the little secret mark on it that you wouldn’t even know was there. It’s a genuine card. Where did you get it?”

  “It was given to me.”

  He shook his head. “Those cards aren’t obtained in that way.”

  I said nothing.

  He studied the card again, then looked over at me and I didn’t like what I saw in his eyes.

  “Lam,” he said, “I’m not going to tell you how I know, but this is one of the cards that were given to George Bishop for distribution to a very select few.

  “Ordinarily George kept his connection with this place completely secret, but for the few people whom he knew he could trust, he had some special cards. This is one of those cards. Now where did you get it?”

  “It was given to me.”

  “You know, Lam, there’s just a chance, just an outside chance that you’ve been over talking with Irene Bishop. I wouldn’t like that.”

  I said nothing.

  He picked up my wallet, started going through it, became motionless. “Well, I’m damned,” he said, half under his breath. “You’ve got four more cards — all given to George Bishop!”

  I realized then how foolish I had been to keep this evidence on me. There undoubtedly was a secret mark on each of those cards.

  For ten or fifteen seconds he sat there, saying nothing.

  I stole another glance at my wrist watch. I had eleven minutes to go, then Danby would call the police if he followed instructions. I hoped he’d follow instructions. I didn’t care particularly about having the police butt in at this stage of the game, but I could see that things might be getting just a little out of hand.

  Abruptly Channing said, “Bill, there’s a man waiting down there in the guy’s car. I had assumed he was just an errand boy carrying a life insurance policy for this guy, but I think we’d better make sure.”

  “Yes?” Bill said.

  “Go down and bring him in,” Channing said.

  “Suppose he doesn’t want to come?”

  “I told you to bring him in.”

  Bill started moving for the door.

  I knew I had to stall for ten and a half minutes.

  “We might talk first,” I said.

  “We might talk afterward,” Channing retorted.

  I got up out of the chair, said, “I think I’m tired of being pushed around.”