Basil snapped his fingers as if an idea had just come to him. "By Jove, Emile!" he said, "how on earth shall we manage at Monte Carlo? We cannot work with batteries. First of all, we could never get them into the hotel without being seen, and even if we did, we shouldn't have enough power."
"You don't know the Principality," Emile answered. "All the hotels have the completest installation of electric light possible. It will be the simplest thing to tap one of the mains and connect it with our new portable transformer. We can get exactly what current we require."
"Good," Basil said, realising how deeply his friend had gone into the technical side of the great coup.
Edouard Carnet spoke. "If you will come here to-morrow at midday," he said, "having already resigned your posts at the Société Générale, I will have drawn a sufficient sum of money from the bank to enable you to make all necessary purchases. Then we can go ahead as fast as we like."
"But don't forget this, brother," Charles Carnet interposed, "our new wheels must be dispatched to Monaco. As a matter of fact, they are expecting them immediately, but a telegram saying that we require another fortnight will put that right. We have had to take a little extra time before now, during the past years. A fortnight, however, is as much grace as we shall be able to get and preserve our friendly relations with the Administration. Will you be able to do all that is necessary in the construction of the apparatus within a fortnight?"
"It will be quick work," Deschamps replied, "but it can be done. My friend and myself can construct the necessary apparatus for sending the waves, and we can also, with your co-operation, prepare the wheel and tune the slots for the reception of the vibrations."
Then Basil spoke. "Look here, Emile," he said, "a thought strikes me. Of course, I don't know anything about the Casino, and I have never been to the South of France, but won't it look strangely suspicious if we win day by day at the same table? Won't they change the wheel?"
"That is exactly what they will do, monsieur," Edouard Carnet replied to him. "Of course, when a man wins a large sum at one table he always goes to the same table to play. It is his lucky table. But there was a case some years ago when a little syndicate of players--by means of the most careful calculations--noticed that the wheel of the table where they made their game had a slight bias. They traded on the fact for several days, and won an enormous sum of money. It was one of our wheels, but there must have been a flaw in the wood, or we had not allowed for the expansion of the metal, owing to the greater heat of the South. At any rate, as a result, the wheels have been constantly changed ever since."