Dan won the first day, and the second, and the third--as those playing with him meant that he should. But the stakes were small. Dan himself fretted because they were so small. It was his own suggestion, his own insistence, that the stakes should be raised. Immediately, then, Dan's luck slumped. It worried him only a little at first--more, as the ill fortune continued.
On the fourth day, Jess, one of the painted women of the place, leaned over him so closely that the heavy musk of her perfume deadened his senses. She whispered her admiration of his play. Dan forgot that she was the wife without the law of Fingie Whalen, who sat across the table from him, ferret-faced and with slender, agile fingers that touched the deck of cards always with the soft delicacy of a caress. Jess's praise fattened Dan's pride in his own skill. He insisted loudly on larger stakes, which were accepted grudgingly by his fellow players. There were four others at the table with him. Despite his experience in cities further East, he had no least suspicion that the odds of the game were four to one. He lost a most attractive pot on a full house of kings with treys. The event angered him. A little later, a pot that had been raised around the board until it was of admirable proportions, was lost by him to one who held a humble, but efficient, flush.
Dan was not an honest man. His losses irritated him. He believed, by reason of a certain dexterity in legerdemain, that he could thus cajole fortune. He misjudged his company. When he possessed himself of four aces, and held them concealed in his hand, he failed to note the eyes of Fingie Whalen, which had followed his every movement.
But this same Fingie, being a master of his craft, said nothing until after the bets had run high and it had come to the show-down. Dan had forced the betting to a point where the chips and bills and gold on the table totaled a most respectable sum. He swept the pot toward him, after a contemptuous glance at the four-of-a-kind which Fingie had offered against him. His own four aces were indisputably winners.
But Fingie Whalen thrust out an imperative hand in restraint.
In the same instant, his fingers closed in a viselike grip on Dan's left hand. Dan was the stronger man. But, in the moment of surprise, his muscles yielded. His hand was pulled forward--it lay open on the table.