Thinking While Doing Explorations in Educational Design Build Stephen Verderber (Editor)
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- 5. Thinking While Doing: Explorations in Educational Design/Build Stephen Verderber Ted Cavanagh Arlene Oak (Eds.) Birkhäuser Basel
- 7. For every student who has worked on a design/build project while in architecture school
- 8. Table of Contents Foreword 7 Richard Harris Acknowledgements 13 1 Introduction 17 Ted Cavanagh, Stephen Verderber and Arlene Oak 2 Territories of Educational 29 Design/Build Stephen Verderber 3 History andTheory of Gridshell 47 Architecture Ramsey K. Leung 4 The Chéticamp Farmers’ Market 73 Ted Cavanagh 5 Care Ethics in Educational 101 Design/Build Kaitlin Sibbald and Melanie Frappier 6 The Social Epistemology of Thinking 111 While Making Architecture Letitia Meynell 7 The Lafayette Strong Pavilion: 129 An Unhurried Building W. Geoff Gjertson
- 9. 8 Interdisciplinary Engagement 161 Through Design/Build Education Arlene Oak 9 Building as Social Medium: 177 Anthropological Perspectives in Design/Build Claire Nicholas 10 Student Perspectives in 193 Educational Design/Build Stephen Verderber 11 The Sonoran Pentapus Pavilion 217 at the University of Arizona Christopher Trumble 12 The Design/Build Exchange as 249 Knowledge Transference Patrick Harrop, Simon Doucet and Stephen Verderber 13 Engineering Considerations in 263 Design/Build Education Stephen Verderber Interview with Anthony Spick and Christopher Trumble 14 Theory-Practice Hybrids: 281 The Cape Breton Highlands Gridshell Ted Cavanagh 15 Reflections—A Conversation 327 Arlene Oak and Stephen Verderber Afterword, Part I 343 Thomas J. Mouton Afterword, Part II 349 W. Geoff Gjertson List of Contributors 357 Illustration Credits 363 Index 369
- 11. 7 TWD Foreword Foreword The creative process begins with idea formulation, followed by an ability to transform ideas into a finished project.Thus, for any creative endeavour, a combination of imagination and practical skills is es- sential. In building design, where it is virtually impossible for a single individual to perform the entire operation of design and construction, this combination of skills is highly complex, requiring an ability to communicate in a specialised, sophisticated way. To study (and teach) design in architecture, a clear understand- ing of the design process is a prerequisite. However, construction practitioners themselves do not always fully understand the social and personal underpinnings of architectural creativity. For example, in structural engineering there can be much misunderstanding of what constitutes architectural design. Sometimes it is taken to be only the process of sizing structural members. However, for success, it becomes essential that the structural engineer recognise that the design process is about far more—including choosing an appropri- ate structural system, coordinating with specialists in architecture and environmental design, choosing appropriate materials of con- struction and identifying the best construction methods. As little as 15% of the structural engineer’s responsibility is analysis, and then merely setting down a satisfactory justification in numbers.This job requires creating a design that meets the needs of the functional brief while working within a multifaceted team to deliver specialist skills alongside others in achieving a successful outcome.Thus, the design process functions as a highly fertile area of study for anthropologists, sociologists, historians and philosophers. Those who teach courses in construction science have a respon- sibility to provide skills often associated with vocational training. However, education in structural design must be focused on moving beyond the development of practical skills in calculation, drawing and modelling to also instill confidence by means of communicating an awareness of the broader design context.This level of knowledge can then help to drive the entire creative process with the aim of provid- ing effective solutions to complex, multidisciplinary problems.These solutions must not only be buildable and affordable but also provide a physical, visible template on which the occupants of the completed building can impose their own uses. A successful building is one that opens up new opportunities, opportunities invariably not foreseen by those who initially commissioned the structure or even by those who designed the built project. Design creativity that is fully reflective of local cultural traditions and local materiality is the catalyst for ulti- mate success. Much of the learning that occurs in an architecture design course involves the student’s immersion in the design process in a studio en- vironment.To successfully move across a sequence of studio courses over multiple academic years requires students to demonstrate an ability to work with increasingly demanding functional briefs as they proceed through the curriculum. Ideally, all architectural professional education curricula should include a Design and Make or a design/ build element, but the requisite instructional and faculty resources are rarely earmarked to enable this. In most mainstream undergraduate
- 12. 8 TWD Foreword curricula, the time required to make this type of experience available for every student makes it nearly impossible to incorporate full-scale design/build projects into the coursework.Thus, the full understand- ing of the design and construction process is invariably delivered to the young graduate by means of tutelage under experienced practi- tioners, post-university. For a fortunate small number of students in architectural educa- tion, there are a handful of institutions in the world that specialise in design/build courses. At the Rural Studio at Auburn University in Alabama, final-year architecture students take two academic terms to design and build a project for communities located in Hale County, Alabama.The Rural Studio was founded by Samuel Mockbee, D. K. Ruth and Andrew Free- ar, who is originally from Yorkshire, England. It is he who has directed it since 2002.This remarkable curriculum delivers its course to fifth- year undergraduate students, who are immersed in designing/making real projects for real people.The built projects’ successes and failures are apparent for all to see—some of the projects are well cared for, and subsequently thrive, while those that do not meet the needs of the people they are intended for become unused and derelict. At Hooke Park in England, Andrew Freear advised his alma mater, the Architectural Association, on the establishment of their Design and Make Masters Course at their Woodland Campus. In these courses, graduate students develop designs for extending the facilities of that campus. In Finland, Professor Pekka Heikkinen at Aalto University offers a one-year intensive programme focusing on wood and wooden architecture. His Wood Program is a unique and challenging course, designed to attract graduate-level students (as well as recent graduate architects with some professional practice experience).The course deals with topics such as ecology of forests and wood; technical prop- erties of wood; wood as a building material; centuries-old traditions in wood building design and construction; maintenance and renovation of wooden buildings; and modern wood-based architecture. Only the Rural Studio, year after year, delivers large-scale design/ build courses to undergraduates, and the scale of these projects requires time and resources beyond the constraints of a typical under- graduate course. Months are required to achieve the construction of a full-size building structure, and yet only days are often available to achieve such an outcome in a normal course timeframe.To en- able aspects of design/build to be incorporated into a more typical undergraduate programme, the process of design needs to be more rigorously studied so that it can be better understood in this learning context. Given how few large-scale design/build courses exist in the world, the success of the multi-year Thinking While Doing (TWD) project is both remarkable and laudable.The recording of what was achieved, in this book, enables others to understand this process far better so they too will be able to structure multi-year studio-based curricula well positioned for the assessment of learning outcomes at the core of the design/build learning experience. A successful work of architecture requires that the structure reflect its local conditions, climatically, materially and socio-culturally. By utilising a multidisciplinary approach to the study of this process, the
- 13. 9 TWD Foreword TWD research project captured these parameters in its fundamental concept.TheTWD project has been large, as it was a collaboration between 10 universities in Canada and the United States. It has been a long project, running from 2013 to 2019, and it maintained momen- tum only achievable due to the commitment, dedication and determi- nation of everyone involved. It is a remarkable achievement. By structuring the project to include the Design/Build Group (dbG), the Design/Build Exchange (dbX) and the Insight Group (IG), there has been a clear and rational division between the design/construction activities and the interdisciplinary study of the fundamental learning. The dbG was led by the professors who coordinated the design and construction of the series of gridshell pavilion structures presented in this book.The interdisciplinary IG team of scholars was drawn from the social sciences and humanities as well as architecture, and brought together a sociologist, anthropologist, philosopher and historian. Building design is a complex process. Successful buildings ad- dress the social and material circumstances that form the context of their geographic locale. As described by Arlene Oak in her introduc- tion to theTWD project, in Chapter 1, the research reported here re- flects numerous field studies and analyses on topics that include the craft expertise, technical skill development, cross-disciplinary collab- oration between academic institutions, the nuances of conversational negotiation and the inner workings of knowledge transference. In good research, the first task is to define the typology at hand. Without this, too many random variables will needlessly blur the results and make coherent interpretation next to impossible.To allow theTWD interdisciplinary research-based team to carry out their studies in a consistent, comparable manner, all of the built structures were held constant to a single typology, and correctly, this decision was made early on. The ambitious scope of this project called for a building type that allowed for creative expression while being of a scale and construc- tion method attainable within the specifics of the individual briefs. The choice of gridshell pavilions met these criteria.The five studios reported are CS1 (Chéticamp), CS2 (Lafayette), CS3 (Arizona), CS4 (Charlotte) and CS5 (Cape Breton Highlands). Of these, four projects were constructed, two in Canada and two in the United States. Chéti- camp Farmers’ Market (2014–2016) is the first project and is described in Chapter 4.The Lafayette Strong Pavilion is presented in Chapter 7, the Sonoron Pentapus Pavilion inTucson at the University of Arizona in Chapter 11, and the Highlands Pavilion in Cape Breton National Park (2016–2019) in Chapter 14. In the first project, CS1, through the simple handling of materials, model making and close collaboration with the structural engineers, the team of students and their teacher were able to establish an understanding of constraints as well as have the member sizes and materials of construction fully endorsed. Although the building span is small, the complexity of the process of design and construction would be revealed by means of the essential knowledge and skill sets acquired through practical experience.The team for this project was small, yet it crystallised a body of expertise ready to be used to seed the following larger projects. In Chapter 7, the second project, CS2, subtitled “An Unhurried Building, ” was expressed as a small, highly detailed artefact. What a
- 14. 10 TWD Foreword wonderful opportunity – to allow the proper time to maximise com- munity involvement and develop a site-specific project to satisfy a wide range of objectives.This project was created by a team based at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.The initial project schedule of four months eventually extended to 18, reinforcing the need to allow sufficient time to take in the larger process – providing the students with an understanding that design and construction is about more than a linear sequence of tasks. It consists of a complex web of con- nections and communications, generating a wide range of emotional responses from optimism to despair and back again. The third project, CS3, departed from the others in that it was built in steel, a material chosen in response to the harsh, arid Arizona climate.This built project represents a significantly different design process, providing the humanities-based researchers with an under- standing of how the design and construction process in design/build can lead to such different building solutions. The fourth project built, CS5, the Highlands Pavilion in Cape Bret- on National Park, was the second gridshell pavilion designed by the Dalhousie University–based team, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with much assistance from the US-basedTWD faculty studio directors.The level of ambition was raised, with the outcome a sophisticated building carefully situated in its landscape. It also provides its users with a re- source supportive of a wide range of activities.Together, the builtTWD structures represent an upward knowledge trajectory insofar as the confidence of prior success fueled ambitions for increasingly larger, more sophisticated buildings. It is unfortunate that CS3, the third building in this series, intended for a site in Charlotte, North Carolina, remains unbuilt at this writing due to circumstances beyond the control of theTWD project team. However, there was also something to learn from this, that not all stu- dio-based projects proceed to a successful built outcome. Regardless, much was learned by everyone who worked on this project. The consistencies achieved by employing a single structural typology made it possible to apply at each successive construction site lessons learned from the previous case studies. Similarly, this pre-validated and reaffirmed the structural type as viable in a wide variety of site and climatic contexts.The systematic accumulation of deeper understandings and skills required to work with this structural typology is well documented in this book.This fueled the increasingly progressive upward ambitions of each built project. Forms were chosen that were capable of delivering the require- ments particular to each site and building use. Studies conducted in each case enabled the students to acquire an understanding of how their building would sit in its landscape and the structural system that would best resist wind forces, which, for lightweight structures, is invariably the most severe loading condition.The design process progressed through studies of material palettes most appropriate to the locality, and the most appropriate details of construction. Physical scale models were built to acquire an understanding of the engineer- ing principles at work. Once the design was formulated, construction logistics were studied, materials procured, personnel mobilised and construction undertaken. The same procedure was replicated by each university–based student team on each of the constructed projects. As this occurred,
- 15. 11 TWD Foreword the humanities and social science-based researchers observed and documented this process at each of the five institutions, capturing the actions and thoughts of participants as the five project teams various- ly created progressively more complex building forms.The relevance of this research reaches beyond the immediate architectural teaching/ learning environment into the realm of allowing the layperson a deep- er understanding of the design process more generally.Through these multidisciplinary investigations of the live process, the complexity of design itself is revealed and set down in this book.The results will be of benefit to both teachers of design and also practitioners. In the contemporary world of competitive design bids and con- stant pressures to cut costs, there is a tendency for design to be taken for granted as a mere series of tasks to be optimised as a means to reduce construction costs. As a matter of fact, however, the com- plexities of the creative process require adequate time and opportu- nity to succeed—with time provided to allow thoughts to build and be set down, and opportunities for interdisciplinary interactions to occur in order for solutions to mature.This book provides the reader with insight into the design and construction process and the way in which the design/build approach informs the university-level learning experience, while simultaneously providing a detailed account of an evolving architectural/structural type. This book is an excellent account of a remarkable project. Richard Harris Honorary Professor The University of Bath United Kingdom
- 17. 13 TWD Acknowledgements An interdisciplinary project of this scope and duration requires the collaborative contributions of many. In the case of the Thinking While Doing (TWD) experience, over 200 individuals have contributed to the overall effort, spanning two countries. I would like to thank everyone involved; perhaps this book will provide some context to frame the larger multi-year project of which you were an important part. I dedi- cate this book to you all. First, the impetus for theTWD project was the straightforward and highly effective external governmental support provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), based in Ottawa.There, research is always a priority. SSHRC’s straightforward reporting procedures between theTWD team leadership and home institution (Dalhousie) allowed us to concentrate on the architectural work at hand; this was an indispensable aid from start to finish. We thank the president of SSHRC, Ted Hewitt. We also thank the many people at SSHRC who consistently worked in support of our project and in particular our main contact people: AnnaTorgerson, Gianni Rossi and AdamYates.The partners in the project were Arlene Oak at the University of Alberta, Robert Miller and Chris Trumble at the University of Arizona, Ken Lambla at the University of North Carolina– Charlotte, Geoff Gjertson at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette, Ursula Hartig at Technische Universität Berlin and Blair Pardy at Parks Canada. Important collaborators on the team are Greg Snyder, Letitia Meynell, Melanie Frappier, Stephen Verderber, Patrick Harrop, Claire Nicholas and Johanna Beth Amos. Over the last six years, theTWD project was coordinated out of Dalhousie University with the help of Alex Morier, Philippa Keri Ovonji-odida, Jessica Wyss, Johanna Beth Amos, MatthewTimmons, Christina MacNeil and Queena Crooker-Smith. Additionally, thanks go out to Christine Macy, Dean of Architecture and Planning, and Diogo Burnay, Director of the School of Architecture. The Chéticamp Farmers’ Market: the Dalhousie UniversityTWD design/build team included Xan Hawes, Evan Hoyles, Nina Hitzler, Noah Jacobson, Amanda Kemeny, Kaitlyn Labrecque, Katelyn Latham, Megan Lloyd, John Marshall, Elijah Montez, Fraser Plaxton, Abbey Smith, Daniel Smith and Julia Weir.The hosts at Le Conseil des Arts included Paul Gallant, Joeleen Larade, Clarence LeLièvre, and Stephane Sogne.The University of Louisiana at LafayetteTWD student team consisted of Olivia Almeida, Nouf Alalushi, Richard Arcuri, Joseph Artall, Kelly Bergeron, Jolee Bonneval, Caleb Boulet, Erika Flowers, Joshua Floyd, Patrick Flynn, Emily Girlinghouse, Breanna Hinton, Lavell Johnson, Khoa Le, Brooke Leblanc, Katie Leleaux, Wendy Meche, Benjamin Magallon,Thomas Mouton,Tran Nguyen, Michael Perry, Robert Poche, Jessica Prejean, Daniel Richard, Christopher Rush, Sarah Simar and AdamTraweek. Many thanks to Professor Greg Snyder and his team ofTWD stu- dents at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His dedicated students worked over two terms to design, prototype, and fabricate full-scale components of their fantastic gridshell structure. The University of ArizonaTWD project team consisted of Alex Mayer, Ali Dowd, Andrew Christopher, Antoinette Escobar, Ayse Forier,
- 18. 14 TWD Ben Gallegos, Christina Kukurba, Dan Jacques, Drew Cook, Ed Bilek, Edson Pinto, Emily Cole, Jessica McQuillen, Josh Fowler, Katie Roch, Kevin Murney, Kevin Reid, KevinYingst, Kyle D’Alessio, Mahmood Al Musawi, Mathew Sprott, Prabhs Matharoo, QuanTrang, Ryan Stucka, Sarah Brausch, Sophia Urbaez,T. Frederickson,Thong Phan,Trevor Cordivari, Will Ruoff and Zhengchun Jiang. The Cape Breton Highlands Gridshell: theTWD design/build team included 115 people from many different universities.The project was initiated in 2015 with the help of Alex Moirier, Lawrence Freisen,Tracey Bendrien, Stephane Sogne, Cassie Burhoe, Lydia Lovett-Dietrich, and Jessica Wyss.The design/build work that began in 2016 included: from Dalhousie University—Alex Moirier, Philippa Keri Ovonji-odida, Cristien Murphy, Abbey Smith, Cassie Burhoe, Emily Cassidy, Jane Casson, Jasper Crace, Laura Day, Sarah Dede, Karl Gruenewald,Andre Kott, Lydia Lovett-Dietrich, Josh Nieves, Andrew Nocente,Thomas Schreiber-Costa, XinranTang, Valerie Chang,Yen Pang (Jim) Chou, Connor Clark, James DeMartini, Robin Ellis, John Mella, Jody Miller, Isaac Neufeld, Ellen Penner, Mahta Safavi-Khalifeh-Soltani, Kyle Smith-Windsor, Adam Sparkes, Mallory Swing, BardiaTajik, Bingyu Sun, Jinjing Wang, Ning Xu, Jie (Amy) Zhou, James DeMartini, Ben Harrison, and Lachlan MacDonald; from the University of Arizona—Asher Caplan, Marco Contreras, Kyle D’Alessio, John Georges, Jeffrey Moser and Michael Vo; from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte—Matt Allen, Calum Dodson, Alex Shuey and Nate White. The design/build work continued in 2017 and included: from Dalhousie University—Philippa Keri Ovonji-odida, Alix Lanyon-Taylor, John Marshall, Abbey Smith, Jessica Wyss, Kristina Bookall, Megan Burt, Shaili Chauhan, Liam Healy, Lucien Landry, Ruth Vandergeest, Paryse M. Beatty, Alex Caskey, Matthew A. Gillingham, Andrew Secco, Sumaiya B.Taher, Ning Xu, Abdullah Akram and Kimberley Hoimyr; from the University of Arizona—Marco Contreras, Jerrick Tsosie, Michael Hernandez, and Moshe Wilke; from the University of North Carolina Charlotte—Alicia Foreman, Constanza Gonzalez and Drue Stroud. The design/build work continued in 2018 and included: from Dal- housie University—Liam Healey, Hannah Newton, SuetYing (Julie) Leung, Zewei Zhang, Michael Maclean, Paulette Cameron, Kaley Doleman, Shane Hauser, Chelsea Kinnee, Bea Casiano, Natalie Steele, Kaling Zhang and Andrew Gilmour; from the University of Arizona— Cameron Behning, JerrickTsosie, and Ellie Franzen; from the Univer- sity of Hertfordshire—Sam Healy and Ilona Hay; from the University ofToronto—Esther Bogorov, Peter Dowhaniuk, Oussama El-Assir, Jeremy Keyzer, Aseel Sadat, Lucas Siemucha, Joshua Silver, Anton Skorishchenko, Martin Drozdowski (2017),Timothy Bool and Ramsey Leung (2016). The sponsor/hosts at Parks Canada deserve extra special mention. They are Blair Pardy, Kelly Deveaux and Jerry LeBlanc as does Black- well Engineering, based inToronto. At the University ofToronto, the contributions of Stephen Verderber to this book were ably assisted byTimothy Boll, Gabriel Valdivieso, Ramsey Leung and Joshua Silver. Special thanks to Ramsey Leung for theTWD chapter he contributed on the history of gridshell structures, and to Joshua Silver for his editorial work and sustained
- 19. 15 TWD commitment in assembling the many moving parts of theTWD book manuscript throughout 2018. TheTWD Insight project team included Simon Doucet, who worked diligently on developing the dbX ontology while at the University of Montreal, and more recently at the University of Waterloo. John M. Cays, Professor and Associate Dean at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, simultaneously served as project liaison with the Asso- ciation of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), based in Wash- ington, DC. Kendall Nicholson, at ACSA in Washington, James Forren and Jean-Pierre Chupin, Ursula Hartig, working with Professor Philipp Misselwitz at theTechnische Universität Berlin, along with Peter Fat- tinger, Simon Colwell, Sergio Palleroni and Nina Pawlicki partnered with Dalhousie University in an Erasmus Mundi grant received from the European Union to develop an educational design/build project database in Europe, a database that was launched in 2017.This was instrumental in helping develop the North American dbX, as was the association with SEED and with Jane Anderson at Live Projects Network. The Insight project team contributions of Arlene Oak were assisted by Amber Appah, Karly Coleman and Robyn Stobbs, all from the Uni- versity of Alberta. Katie Francisco, Kylin Jensen and Bethany Kraft, all from the University of Nebraska, assisted with the contributions of Claire Nicholas. Jonathan Longrad assisted with the contributions of Letitia Meynell, and Melanie Frappier collaborated with Kaitlin Sibbald; all were based at Dalhousie University. Lastly, and importantly, special thanks are due to our editor for the publisher, Andreas Müller. Andreas, based in Berlin, provided expert guidance and helpful suggestions throughout the development of the manuscript. Thank you all. Ted Cavanagh, Ph.D. Professor of Architecture Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada
- 20. Another Random Scribd Document with Unrelated Content
- 21. principality, who will attend to your wants as a loser or take charge of your winnings. On the left, heavy doors are constantly swinging. You can hear, if you listen, as they swing, the faint, enticing clink of the five-franc pieces within. “Oh, my friends,” murmured Brentin, as we moved towards them, “support me!” He presented his pink card with a low bow to the two men guarding the entrance; we followed, and the next minute were palpitating in the stifling atmosphere of the last of the European public infernos.
- 22. CHAPTER XIII MRS. WINGHAM AND TEDDY PARSONS—HE FOOLISHLY CONFIDES IN HER—I MAKE A SIMILAR MISTAKE Now there was staying at our hotel, among other quiet people, a quiet old lady, whom, from her accent and the way she occasionally stumbled over an h, I took to be the widow of a well-to-do tradesman, a suburban bon marché, or stores. She played regularly every afternoon till dinner-time, dressed in black, with a veil down just below the tip of her nose, and worn black kid gloves, staking mostly on the pair or impair at roulette; and every evening she sat in the hotel over a bit of wood-fire, reading either Le Petit Niçois or an odd volume of Sartor Resartus, which, with some ancient torn Graphics, formed the library of the “Monopôle.” Her name I discovered afterwards to be Mrs. Wingham. It was only the third evening after our arrival that, going into the reading-room to write my daily loving letter to Lucy, there I found Mrs. Wingham and Teddy Parsons seated each side of the fire, talking away as confidentially as if they had known each other all their lives. Bob Hines, who had taken to gambling and couldn’t be kept away from the rooms, and Brentin had gone down to the Casino. Few things I know more difficult than to write a letter and at the same time listen to a conversation, and I soon found myself writing down scraps of Teddy’s inflated talk, working it, in spite of myself, into my letter to Lucy—talk all the more inflated as I had come into the room quietly at his back, and he didn’t know I was there. He was telling the old lady all about his father, the colonel, and how he had fought through the Crimea without a scratch. Yes, he was in the army himself—at least, the auxiliary portion of it: the second line. He lived most of the year at Southport, when he wasn’t out with his regiment, or hunting and shooting with friends, and always came up to London for the Derby and stayed in Duke Street.
- 23. He was very fond of a bit of racing, and, in fact, owned some race horses—or, rather, “a chaser”— “A what, sir?” asked the old woman, who was listening to him with her mouth open. “A chaser—a steeple-chaser, don’t you know—‘Tenderloin,’ which was entered for the Grand National, and would be sure to be heavily backed.” No, he didn’t care much about gambling; a man didn’t get a fair run for his money at Monte Carlo, the bank reserved too many odds in their own favor; to say nothing, as I knew, of his being kept very short of pocket-money by the colonel. And then he was actually fool enough to say, with a self-satisfied laugh, that he’d a notion the right way to treat the bank was to raid it. “Raid it, sir?” cried the old woman. “Yes, certainly, raid it; go into the rooms with a pistol and shout ‘Hands up, everybody!’ and carry off all the money on board a yacht, and be off, full speed.” Did Mrs. Wingham know if it had ever been tried? From that to confiding our whole plan would have been only one step; but just at that moment in came Mrs. Sellars and Miss Marter, the only two other English ladies in the hotel, and Teddy and Mrs. Wingham fell to talking in whispers. Mrs. Sellars, who was a stout, comfortable-looking person, with a large nose, a high color, and an expansive figure, generally attired in a blouse and a green velveteen skirt, was given to walking up and down the reading-room, moaning in theatrical agony over the disquieting news from South Africa. If she didn’t get a letter from her husband in the morning, she didn’t know what she should do; it was weeks since she had heard from him; something told her he was dead—and so on. Every distressed turn she took brought her nearer the ramshackle piano; so at last Miss Marter, mainly to stop her (for old maids don’t take much interest in other women’s husbands, alive or dead), with some asperity remarked, “Sing us something, dear; it will calm you.” Then she came to me and said, excitedly, “Do you mind if I bring down my little dog? I always ask, as people sometimes object. It is
- 24. the dearest little dog, and always sits in my lap.” Teddy gave a violent start when he heard me answer, and knew he was detected. He got up, and, pretending to hum, immediately left the room. I didn’t like to follow at once, as I felt inclined; it would look as though Mrs. Sellars’s threatened singing drove me away. But the moment she finished I meant to go and give the wind- bag a good blowing-up, and meantime went on with my letter. Mrs. Sellars hooted “ ’Tis I!” and “In the Gloaming,” and was beginning “Twickenham Ferry” when she broke down over the accompaniment, rose, and came to the fire. Miss Marter was sitting one side of it, stroking her torpid little terrier, and Mrs. Wingham (who was focussing Sartor Resartus through her glasses) on the other. “Thank you, dear,” said Miss Marter. “I hope you feel calmer.” “I shall never be calmer,” Mrs. Sellars moaned, “till George is home again at my side.” “Well, dear,” Miss Marter maliciously replied, looking down her long nose, “you know you insisted on his going.” So I left the two ladies to squabble as to who was mainly responsible for George’s being in South Africa in such ticklish times, and went in search of Teddy. He was neither in the fumoir nor his bedroom, so down I went to the rooms. There I found Bob Hines punting on the middle dozen and the last six at roulette, with a pile of five-franc pieces before him. “Those your winnings?” I whispered; to which he gave the not over-polite reply, “How can you be such a fool?” So I knew he was losing, and went off in search of Brentin. I found him in an excited circle watching a common-looking Englishman at the trente-et-quarante tables, who with great coolness was staking the maximum of twelve thousand francs, two at a time, one on couleur and one on black. In front of him the notes were piled so high that, being a little man, he had to press them down with his elbows before he could use his rake. Sometimes he won one bundle of notes, neatly pinned together and representing the maximum; sometimes both, as couleur and black
- 25. turned out alike. Rarely he lost both. Others were staking, but mostly only paltry louis, or the broad, shining five-louis pieces one only sees at Monte Carlo. There was the usual church-like silence, broken only by the dry, sharp tones of the croupier’s harsh voice, “Le jeu est fait!” and then, sharper still, “Rien ne va plus!” Once the tension was broken by a titter of laughter, as a withered little Italian with a frightened air threw a five-franc piece down on the board and the croupier pushed it back. The poor devil apparently didn’t know that gold only may be staked at trente-et-quarante. I plucked Brentin by the sleeve and drew him to a side seat against the wall. “I hope that gentleman may be staking here this day week,” he chuckled. “Notes are easy to carry, and I myself have seen him win sixty thousand francs.” When he heard about Teddy he was furious. It was all I could do to prevent him from going off at once to the hotel and insisting on his leaving Monte Carlo by the next train. “I allow,” he said, “I was precipitate with Bailey Thompson, but at least we drew something out of him in the way of information. But to confide in a blathering old woman, who has nothing to do but eat and talk—” I went back to the hotel, only to find Teddy’s bedroom door locked, and to have my knocking greeted with a loud, sham snore. Mrs. Wingham I found still in the reading-room, alone, still focussing Sartor Resartus with her shocked and puzzled expression. “Your friend has just gone up to bed,” she remarked, “if you are looking for him.” I thanked her, and, sitting the other side of the fire, proceeded to draw her out. She soon told me Teddy was so like a nephew of hers she had recently lost she had felt obliged to speak to him. She noticed him at once, she said, the first evening at dinner, and felt drawn to him immediately. What a fine, manly young feller he was, and how full of sperrit. Yes, I said, he was, and often had very ingenious ideas—for instance, that notion of his to raid the tables I had overheard him discussing with her. But, then, there was all the difference in the world between having an idea and the carrying it out, wasn’t there?
- 26. Merely as a matter of curiosity, what did she think of the notion— she, who doubtless knew the place so well? The artful old woman—Bailey Thompson’s sister, if you please, and spy, as it afterwards turned out; hence his recommending us the “Monopôle,” so that she might keep an eye on us and report—the artful old woman looked puzzled, as though she were trying to remember what it was Teddy had said on the subject. Then she began to laugh. “Oh, I didn’t think much of that. Why, look at all the people there are about! Why, you’d need a ridgiment!” Now, will it be believed that I, who had just been so righteously indignant with Parsons for his talkative folly, did myself (feeling uncommonly piqued at her scornful tone) immediately set out to prove to her the thing was perfectly possible, and then and there explain in detail how it could all be successfully done, and with how small a force. I did, indeed, so true as I am sitting writing here now, in our flat in Victoria Street. Mrs. Wingham listened to me attentively, laughing to herself and saying, “Dear! dear! so it might!” as she rubbed her knuckled old hands between her black silk knees. When I had done, I felt so vexed with myself I could have bitten my tongue out. I rose, however, and, observing, “Of course, it is an idea and nothing else, and never will be realized,” bade her good-night and left the room, feeling uncommonly weak and foolish. She murmured, “Oh, of course!” as I closed the noisy glass door behind me and went up-stairs to bed. A few minutes later, remembering I had left my book on the table where I had been writing to Lucy, I went down-stairs again to fetch it. Mrs. Wingham was still there, sitting at the table writing a letter. The envelope, already written, was lying close by my book, and I couldn’t help reading it. It was positively addressed to “Jas. B. Thompson, Esq., 3 Aldrich Road Villas, Brixton Rise, S. E. London.” I felt so faint I could scarcely get out of the room again and up the stairs. But such is our insane confidence, where we ourselves and our own doings are concerned—such, at any rate, was mine in my lucky
- 27. star—that I really felt no difficulty in persuading myself the whole thing was merely a coincidence, and that the writing of the letter had nothing whatever to do with either my or Teddy Parsons’s divulgations; more especially as the Bailey, on which Thompson evidently piqued himself, was omitted. And I determined to say nothing about it to Brentin, partly because I didn’t care about being blackguarded by an American, and partly because I felt convinced it was all an accident, and nothing would come of it. Nor, in my generosity, did I do more to Teddy Parsons than temperately point out the folly he had been guilty of, and beg him to be more careful in future, which he very cheerfully promised, and for which magnanimity of mine he was, as I meant he should be, really uncommonly grateful.
- 28. CHAPTER XIV ARRIVAL OF THE AMARANTH—ALL WELL ON BOARD—THEIR FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE ROOMS The next afternoon, soon after four, the Amaranth arrived in harbor. Bob Hines was gambling, as usual, but Brentin, Teddy, and I went down to the Condamine to meet them. Teddy and Brentin had had their row out in the morning, to which I had listened in silence— with the indulgent air of a man who doesn’t want to add to the unpleasantness—and now were pretty good friends again. It was clearly understood, however, that no new acquaintances were to be made, male or female, and that henceforth any one of us seen talking to a stranger was immediately to be sent home. I fear the party from the Amaranth did not have a very good impression of Monte Carlo to begin with, for they landed in the Condamine, just where the town drain-pipes lie, and came ashore, each of them, with a handkerchief to the nose. “So this is the Riviera!” snuffled my good sister. “I understood it was embosomed in flowers.” They all looked very brown and well, and seemed in high spirits. As for the yacht, she had behaved splendidly all through, and the conduct and polite attentions of Captain Evans and the crew had been above all praise. The only difficulty had been to explain away the shell and the three cannon; for which Forsyth had found the ingenious excuse that they were wanted for the Riff pirates, in case we determined to voyage along the African coast, where they are said to abound and will sometimes attack a yacht. We all strolled up the hill together, and, such were their spirits, nothing would content the new arrivals but an immediate visit to the rooms. Miss Rybot, especially, was as cheerful as a blackbird in April; she had come there to gamble, she said, and gamble she would at once. She and Masters were evidently on the best of terms, and
- 29. even the captious Brentin was pleased with what people who write books call her “infectious gayety.” “You have your own little schemes,” she cried, “and I have mine. I am going to win fifty pounds to pay my debts with, and then I am going home, whether you have finished or not. And if I haven’t finished, you will all have to leave me here.” They were soon provided with their pink admission-cards (ours had that morning, after the usual pretended scrutiny and demur, been exchanged for white monthly ones), and, after leaving their cloaks, passed through the swing-doors into the rooms. It was just that impressive hour—the only one, I think, at Monte Carlo—when the Casino footmen, in their ill-fitting liveries, zigzagged with faded braid, bring in the yellow oil-lamps with hanging green shades, and sling them from the long brass chains over the tables. The rest of the rooms lie in twilight, before the electric light is turned up. Dim figures sweep noiselessly as spectres over the dull-shining parquet floor, and, like a spear, I have seen the last long ray of southern sunshine strike in and touch the ghastly hollow cheek of some old woman fingering her coins, lifeless and mechanical as Charon fingering his passage-money for the dead; but, just over the tables, the yellow light from the lamp falls brilliant, yet softly, brightly illuminating the gamblers’ hands and some few of their faces, throwing the white numbers on the rich green cloth as strongly into relief as though newly sewn on there of tape. “Faites votre jeu, messieurs!” croaks the croupier, in his dry, toneless voice. With deft fingers he spins the active, rattling little ball. “Le jeu est fait!” The white ball begins to tire, drops out of its circuit. “Rien ne va plus!” A few seconds of leaping indecision and restlessness, before the ball falls finally into a number and remains there, while the board still spins. “Trente-six!—Rouge, pair et manque!” The croupiers’ rakes are busy, pulling in the money lost; the money won is thrown with dull, heavy thuds and clinks on to the
- 30. table. In a few moments it is begun all over again. “Faites votre jeu, messieurs!” “So this is Monte Carlo!” whispered my sister, in the proper, hushed tones, as though asking me for something to put in the collection. “My one objection is, no one looks in the least haggard or anxious. I understood I should see such terrible faces, and they all look as bored as people at an ordinary London dinner-party. Take me round.” Brentin came with us, and we visited each of the busy roulette- tables in turn. Monte Carlo was very full, and round some of the tables the crowd was so deep it was impossible to get near enough to look, much less to play. But between the tables there were large vacant spaces of dull-shining, greasy parquet; the tables looked like populous places on the map, and the flooring like open country. Here and there stood the footmen, straight out of an old Adelphi melodrama; some of them carried trays and glasses of water, and some gave you cards to mark the winning numbers and the colors. “It is not quite so splendid and gay as I imagined,” my sister observed. “In fact, it’s all rather dim and dingy. Do you know it reminds me of the Pavilion at Brighton more than anything else. And how common some of the people are! Isn’t that your friend, Mr. Hines?” Bob Hines was sitting in rather a melancholy heap, with a pile of five-franc pieces in front of him, and a card on which he was morosely writing the numbers as they came up. “Let’s ask him how he’s doing?” “Never speak to a gambler,” I whispered; “it’s considered unlucky.” “Judging from his expression, he will be glad to get something back in your raid! And why seat himself between those two terrible old women?” “They look,” Brentin murmured, “like representations of friend Zola’s the fat and the lean. Sakes alive! they’d make the fortune of a dime museum. Those women are freaks, ma’am, freaks.” Hines was sitting between two ladies; one, with a petulant face of old childishness, was enormously stout. Her eyebrows were
- 31. densely blackened, her pendulous cheeks as dusty with powder as the Mentone road. She was gorgeously overdressed; her broad bosom, fluid as of arrested molten tallow, was hung with colored jewels, like a bambino. With huge gloved hands and arms she was wielding a rake, whereof poor Bob had occasionally the end in his face. Beside her, on the green cloth, lay a withered bunch of roses, dead of her large, cruel grasp. At her back stood her husband, a German Jew financier, who couldn’t keep his pince-nez on. Continually he smoothed his thin hair and tried to get her away, grumbling and moving from leg to leg; for hours he would stand behind her chair, supplying her with money, for she nearly always lost. Occasionally she grabbed other people’s stakes, or they grabbed hers. Then she was sublime in her horrible ill-humor; half rising, with her great arms resting on the table, she shouted at the croupiers to be paid, in harsh, rattling, fish-fag tones. The sunken corners of her small mouth were drawn upward; the deep-set eyes worked in dull fury; you saw short, white teeth that once had smiled in a pretty Watteau face. Now the body was old and torpid and swollen; but the rabbit intelligence was still undeveloped, except in the direction of its rapacity. Poor Bob Hines! He was indeed badly placed! On his other side sat a lath-and-plaster widow in the extensive mourning of a Jay’s advertisement. Her face was yellow and damaged as a broken old fresco at Florence; thin, oblong, brittle, only the semi-circular, blackened eyebrows seemed alive. The dyed, pallid hair looked dead as a Lowther Arcade doll’s; dead were her teeth, her long, thin, griffin hands with curved nails. Decomposition, even by an emotion, was somehow palpably arrested; perhaps she was frozen by the bitter chill of fatal zero. Horrible, old, crape-swathed mummy, one would have said she had lost even her husband at play. Who could ever have been found to love her? At whom had she ever smiled? at what had she ever laughed or wept? Bride of Frankenstein’s monster, she worked her muck-rake with the small, dry, galvanized gestures of an Edison invention. Poor Bob Hines! It sickened me to think these women, and others perhaps worse, were of the same sisterhood with Lucy. What a day when we should sweep them all
- 32. out before us, as the fresh autumn wind sweeps the withered leaves across the walks of Kensington Gardens! “So this is Monte Carlo!” murmured my sister again. “It stifles me! Take me out to the Café de Paris and give me some tea.” As she took my arm and we went down the steps, “Easier place, however, to raid,” she remarked, “I never saw. As for the morality of it, I was a little doubtful at first, but now—”
- 33. CHAPTER XV INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON ADVENTURE—UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL OF LUCY—HER REVELATIONS—DANGER AHEAD So a few days passed, and, pleasantly idle though it all was, it began to be time for us to think seriously of our purport in being at Monte Carlo at all. Our party had very easily fallen into the ways of the place, and appeared to be enjoying themselves, each in their own fashion, amazingly. “Here’s Teddy’s got a bicycle,” as I said to Brentin, “and is always over at Mentone with friends. Bob Hines does nothing but gamble, and is scarcely ever with us, even at meal-times. He lives on sandwiches and hot grog Américaine at the Café de Paris. Forsyth struts about in fancy suits, making eyes at the ladies, and Masters is all day at the back of Miss Rybot’s chair, supplying her with fresh funds and taking charge of her winnings.” “C’est magnifique,” yawned Brentin, “mais ce n’est pas la guerre.” “It’s worse,” I said; “it’s Capua, simply, and must be put a stop to.” “I know if I were here a fortnight longer,” yawned my sister, “with nothing to do, I should desert my husband and child and be off into Italy along the Corniche with white mice.” “Turn pifferari; exactly,” said Brentin. “Therefore, sir, we must move in this business, and the sooner the better, or the golden opportunity will slip by us, never to return. And that’s all there is to it. We will summon a council of war this evening on board the Amaranth and fix the day finally.” “Well, all I ask is,” said my sister, “that in case of failure Miss Rybot and I are afforded every opportunity of escape. I don’t want to give those Medworth Square people the chance of coming and crowing over me in a French prison. Besides, it wouldn’t do Frank’s business any good, if I were caught.” “Why, just think what a book you could make of it,” I murmured —“Penal Servitude for Life; by a Lady. Rivers would make his
- 34. fortune.” What would have been, after all, the end of our adventure, whether the sunshine might not have softened us into finally abandoning the enterprise altogether—to my lasting shame and grief!—I cannot take upon myself to say. All I know for certain is, that if our hands had not been, in a measure, forced—if circumstances had not made it rather more dangerous for us to go back than to go on—our party would at any rate have needed an amount of whipping into line which would as likely as not have driven them into restive retirement, instead of the somewhat alarmed advance which was ultimately forced on us and turned out so entirely successful. And as it is my particular pride to think I owe the undertaking, in the first place, to my love for Lucy, so it is my joy to reflect how the final carrying of it out was due to her affection for me, that drove her to journey—quite unused to foreign parts as she was—right across Europe, alone, and give me timely warning of the dastardly scheme on foot for our capture and ruin. It was the very afternoon following the morning of our brief conversation on the terrace that I went back early to the hotel, with some natural feelings of depression and irritation at the growing callous inertia of our party. I was going up to my room, when from the reading-room I heard the sound of the piano. I stopped in some amazement, for there was being played an air I never heard any one but Lucy play. It was an old Venetian piece of church music (by Gordigiani, if I remember right), and I had never heard it anywhere but at “The French Horn,” on the rather damaged old cottage piano in the little room behind the bar. I stole down-stairs again, and, my heart beating, opened the glass door noiselessly. It was Lucy! and the next moment, with a little scream, she was in my arms. I took her to the sofa; for some moments she was so agitated she couldn’t speak, nor could I, believing, indeed, it was a ghost, till I felt the soft pressure of her arms and the warmth of her
- 35. cheek as her head lay on my shoulder, while she trembled and sobbed. “Don’t be frightened,” I murmured. “It’s really I. Now, don’t cry; be calm and tell me all about it. We are both safe; we love each other. Nothing else in the world matters.” At last, in broken tones and at first with many tears, she told me the whole story. I listened as though I were in a dream, and my bones stiffened with anger and apprehension. The gist of it was briefly this: that one day Mr. Crage had come down to “The French Horn” and had an interview with her father in the bar-parlor. He had come to put an end to Mr. Thatcher’s tenancy, a yearly one, and turn him out of the inn, unless, as he suggested, exactly like a villain on the stage, Lucy would, for her father’s sake, engage to marry him, in which case he might remain, and at a reduced rent. Thatcher, who, after all, is a gentleman, declared the idea preposterous, more particularly as his daughter was already engaged, with his full consent and approbation. “Oh, ah!” snarled Crage—“to that young cockney who was down here at Christmas. Suppose you call her in, however, and let her speak for herself.” Whereupon Lucy was sent for and told of Crage’s iniquitous proposal, of which Thatcher very properly urged her not to think, but to refuse there and then. “Oh, ah!” Crage had grinned. “The young cockney has enough for you all and won’t grudge it, I dare say. He’s gone to Monte Carlo, ain’t he?” Yes, said Lucy, Mr. Blacker had, and had promised her not to gamble. “Gamble or not,” sneered Crage, “I know what he is up to. The police are already on his track. Why, I shouldn’t be the least surprised to hear he’s already in their hands, and condemned to penal servitude for life.” On hearing that, poor Lucy said she thought she should have dropped on the floor, like water. But she has the courage of her race, and, telling the old man in so many words he was mad, turned to leave the room.
- 36. Now, it’s an odd thing that the old wretch, though he never minded being called a liar, never could bear any reflection on his sanity—it was the fusty remains, I suppose, of his old professional Clement’s Inn pride; so he lost his temper at once, and with many shrieks and gesticulations told them the whole story. That—as I have written—Bailey Thompson was a detective, frequently in the “Victoria” smoking-room in the course of his duty; and that Brentin had actually confided in him—as we know—all that we were going to do, that he was an old friend of Crage’s, dating from the Clement’s Inn days, and on Christmas night had divulged the whole scheme just as he had received it from us, telling him with much glee, being a season of jollity and good-will, how he was going to follow us to Monte Carlo and make every disposition to catch us in the act. Crage added that Bailey Thompson had rather doubted at first whether we weren’t humbugging him; but having since heard from his sister, Mrs. Wingham, that she believed we were really in earnest, was already somewhere on his way out to superintend our capture in person. “I didn’t know what to do,” cried Lucy, piteously; “I could only laugh in his face and tell him he was the victim of a practical joke.” “Practical joke!” Crage had screamed; “you wait till they’re all in prison; perhaps they’ll call that a practical joke, too. Now, look here, Thatcher, you’re a sensible man; you break off this engagement before the scandal overtakes you all, and I’ll treat you and your daughter handsomely. You shall stay on in the inn, or not, just as you please, and the day we’re married I’ll settle Wharton on dear Lucy here. I sha’n’t live so very much longer, I dare say,” he whined —“I’m eighty-two next month—and then she can marry the young cockney, if she wants to, when he’s done his time. Don’t decide now; send me up a note in the course of the next few days. Hang it! I won’t be hard on you; I’ll give you both a fortnight.” And with that and no more the wicked old man had stumped out of the bar parlor. Lucy’s mind was soon made up. Notwithstanding her father’s expostulations, she had determined to come after me and learn the truth for herself; and as he couldn’t come with her, to come alone.
- 37. She hadn’t written, for fear of my telegraphing she was not to start. And here she was, to be told the truth, to be reassured, to be made happy once more; if possible, to take me home with her. “Oh, it’s not true, Vincent, dearest!” she murmured. “It’s all a fable, isn’t it? You’re not even dreaming of doing anything so dangerous and foolish?” Now, deep and true as is my affection for Lucy, I should have been quite unworthy of her if I had allowed myself to be turned from so deeply matured and worthy a purpose as ours merely by her tears. The more I had seen of Monte Carlo, the more sincerely was I convinced of its worthlessness, and the dignity of a serious effort to put a stop to it. For it is simply, as I have written, a cocotte’s paradise and nothing more; and if, by any effort of mine, I could close it, I felt I should be rendering a service to humanity only second to Wilberforce and the Slave Trade. What a glorious moment if only I could live to see a large board stuck out of the Casino windows with À Vendre on it, to say nothing of the boards taken in from outside the London hospitals and the closed wards in working order again, full of sufferers! So I calmed dear Lucy and told her how glad I was to see her; that above all things she must trust me and believe what I was doing and going to do was for the best and would turn out not unworthy of nor unserviceable to her in the long-run; more especially, if only it were, as we had every reason to believe it would be, successful. After some further talk, she promised to say no more and to trust me entirely, both now and always, begging me only to assure her I was not angry, and that what she had done in coming was really for my benefit and welfare. I told her truly she had rendered me the greatest possible service, and that I loved her if possible more deeply for this new proof of her devotion than before. Then I telegraphed to her father of her safety, got her something to eat, and sent her off early to bed after her long journey (she had come second-class, poor child, and had stopped once at least at every
- 38. station, and twice at some), and at nine o’clock we went down to the Condamine to go on board the Amaranth for our council of war. On the way down I told Brentin the reason of Lucy’s sudden visit, and the new danger from Bailey Thompson, who by this time was clearly on his way after us, if indeed he hadn’t already arrived. At the same time, I candidly confessed to my indiscretion with Mrs. Wingham, and the letter I had seen her writing to her brother. We found no difficulty in agreeing we both had behaved like arrant fools, and might very fairly be pictured as standing on the romantic, but uncomfortable, edge of a precipice. “But we must go on, sir,” said Brentin, with decision. “It will never do to back out now, after coming so far and spending so much money. We must never allow this shallow detective trash to frighten us; we must meet him in a friendly spirit, and find some means to dump him where he may be both remote and harmless. The Balearic Isles, for choice.” “What about the band of brothers?” I asked. “How will they regard these fresh revelations?” “That’s the difficulty,” replied Brentin, thoughtfully. “We must exercise care, sir, or they’ll be scattering off home like Virginia wheat-ears.”
- 39. CHAPTER XVI COUNCIL OF WAR—CAPTAIN EVANS’S DECISION—I GO TO THE ROOMS AND CONFIDE IN MY SISTER When the band of brothers in the saloon on board the Amaranth heard all, or rather so much as we thought fit delicately to tell them, they turned—collectively and individually—pale. “Then there’s an end of it,” chattered Teddy. “It was a fool’s journey from the beginning, and the sooner we all go home again the better.” “The sooner you go, sir,” retorted Brentin, “the easier we shall all breathe. Is there any other palpitating gentleman desires to climb down?” “One moment, first,” said Hines; “before we decide to break up, can’t we consider whether there may not be a way of either stopping your friend Bailey Thompson en route, or at least rendering him powerless when he arrives? The fact is,” he diffidently continued, “I have lost a good deal of money here, and don’t altogether care about leaving it without an effort of some kind to get it back, to say nothing of the lark of the thing, which I take it has been one of its chief recommendations from the first.” To say nothing, too, of the fact—as I knew—that before leaving Folkestone he had sent out a circular to the parents of his boys to announce the addition of a swimming-bath and a gymnasium to his establishment, the non-erection of which would surely cause him to look more foolish than a schoolmaster cares about. And what would the boys say who had cheered him loudly at the end of last term, when, in a neat speech, he had announced his generous intention? “Spoken like ay white man!” cried Brentin. “Why, whoever supposed that in an enterprise of this magnitude there would not arise danger and difficulties? They are only just beginning, gentlemen; if any of you, therefore, still desire to shirk, he has only to say the word. Conveyance to the shore is immediately at his
- 40. service; he can this moment go and pack his grip and be way off home. We shall be well rid of him.” There was a pause, and then Forsyth said: “Aren’t you going, Parsons?” Teddy lighted a cigarette nervously and replied: “Well, dash it all, let’s hear what’s proposed first.” “No, sir!” shouted Brentin, thumping the table. “You go or you stay, one or the other; we will have no ha-alf measures. The time for them has elapsed.” “Very well,” stammered the unhappy Parsons, “if you are all going to stay, of course I must stay too. I thought the affair was all over, that’s why I spoke. I wasn’t thinking, you know, of deserting my pals.” “Bravo!” cried Hines, sardonically. “You ain’t exactly a hero, Parsons, but I dare say you’ll do very well.” “There is just one thing I should like to point out,” Arthur Masters observed, “before we go any further. The affair is assuming a somewhat grave aspect, and it is of course possible that, in spite of all precautions, we may, after all, be captured, either on shore or, later, on board the yacht.” “Hear! Hear!” Teddy murmured. “Now, is it fair to get Captain Evans and the crew into difficulties without letting them know what we are going to do, and giving them the chance of refusing to join us first?” “Well, sir,” objected Brentin, “we always meant to tell him, but not until the last moment, when we should have claimed their assistance, if only in removing the boodle. You see, gentlemen, the British sailor is a fine fellow, but he is apt to tank-up and get full— full as ay goat, gentlemen—and in that condition he is confiding. Now we have unfortunately been confiding when dry, but the British sailor—” “We must risk that,” Masters replied. “And, after all, once they are told and have consented, they can be refused permission to go on shore again before we start.” “Well,” said Forsyth, “why not have Captain Evans in and tell him now; then he can use his discretion as to telling the crew at all till
- 41. the last moment, or selecting the most trustworthy and sober of them for his confidence at once.” So we decided to send for Captain Evans before going any further. When he stepped into the saloon, smart and sailor-like, peaked cap in hand, Brentin begged him to be seated, and gave him one of his longest and blackest cigars. Then, “Captain Evans,” he said, “we have sent for you so that in case of this affair of ours going wrong you may not have any cause of complaint against us.” “Aye, aye, sir!” said the captain, “and what affair may that be?” He listened with the deepest attention and in complete silence while our scheme was unfolded. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, when Brentin had finished, “I will be perfectly frank with you. Your scheme is your own, and you know best how far it is likely to fail or to succeed. But if it fails and we are all caught, I shall never be able to persuade the authorities I was an innocent party, and there will be an end to any future employment. I have a wife and a fine little boy to think of, gentlemen; how am I going to support them?” “Your objection is perfectly fair, captain,” said Brentin. “My answer to it is, that if you get into trouble, I will personally undertake to make you an allowance of £150 per annum for the period dooring which you remain out of a berth. In the case of success, and the boodle being considerable, you must trust us to make you such a present or solatium as shall in my opinion repay you for any risks you may have run. How will that do?” “That will do, gentlemen, thank you,” the captain replied. “And what about the crew?” “We shall be glad if you will select six of the most elegant of your men, whose assistance will be needed in the rooms on the night. Clothes will be provided for them, and their duties will be explained in good time. As for the others, if they are to be told, they must not be allowed on shore. To-day is Wednesday; we propose to start Friday. Till Friday they must be confined on board.”
- 42. “With the exception of the cook, gentlemen,” urged the captain. “He has to go on shore marketing.” “Then don’t tell the cook. Now, do we understand each other?” “Aye, aye, sir!” “One question, captain,” said Brentin, as he rose. “The French corvette has left the harbor, I understand?” “Yes, sir, she sailed to Villefranche yesterday.” “And the Saratoga, what of her?” “She’s away over at San Remo, sir, and returns some time to- night or to-morrow.” “Thank you, Captain Evans; that will do. Good-evening.” “My friends,” he said, as the captain closed the door, “this is going to cost a lot of money; let us hope we shall all come out right side up.” “And now, what about Bailey Thompson?” Bob Hines asked. “Our plan is obvious,” Brentin replied. “I must board the Saratoga first thing in the morning, reintrodooce myself to Van Ginkel, confide in him and beg him to take Thompson on board for us, and be off with him kindly down the coast. East or west, he can dump him where he pleases, so long as he does dump him somewhere and leave him there like dirt. How does that strike you, gentlemen?” “If only he can be got to go!” I answered; “and Mrs. Wingham? You must remember it was he who advised us to go to the Monopôle, no doubt giving the old lady instructions to keep an eye on us and report.” “Well,” said Brentin, “Mr. Parsons here is her friend. He must manage to let her know we don’t start operations till Saturday. That will put her off the scent. And now, gentlemen, let us discuss details and positions.” I left them to their discussion and went on shore to find my sister and Miss Rybot, who were at the rooms. My sister knew nothing whatever about Lucy—still less of her being at Monte Carlo. I had to make a clean breast of it all, and get her to take Lucy on board the yacht in the morning, so as to be out of Bailey Thompson’s way. I found them without much difficulty, full as the rooms were. Miss Rybot was seated, playing roulette, rather unsuccessfully, if I might
- 43. judge from her ill-humored expression. Facing her, standing staring at her pathetically, with a soft hat crushed under his arm, was a tall, blond, sentimental-looking young German. “Tell that man to go away, please,” she said to me, crossly. “He’s been standing there staring at me the last half-hour, and he brings me bad luck. Tell him I hate the sight of him. Tell him to go away at once.” I explained that I was scarcely sufficient master of German for all that. “Keep my place, please,” she said, imperiously, and went round to the young man, who received her with a fascinating smile. “Vous comprenez le Français?” I heard her say to him, folding her arms and looking him resolutely full in the face. “Oui, mademoiselle.” “Alors, allez-vous-en, sivooplay,” she went on; “je n’aime pas qu’un homme me regarde comme ça. Vous me portez de la guigne. Allez-vous-en, ou j’appelle les valets. C’est inouï! Allez-vous-en! Vous avez une de ces figures qui porte de la guigne toujours. Entendez- vous? toujours!” With that, entirely unconcerned, she resumed her seat, while the young German, who had hitherto been under the impression he had made a conquest, strolled off somewhat alarmed to another table. My sister I found in the farther rooms watching the trente-et- quarante. “Hullo, Vincent!” she said. “Council over? Dear me, I wish I hadn’t promised Frank not to play; my fingers are simply tingling. However, I’ve been playing in imagination and lost 40,000 francs, so perhaps it’s just as well.” I drew her to a side seat and soon told her all about Lucy and her arrival, softening down the Bailey Thompson part for fear of alarming her unduly; giving other reasons for the dear girl’s sudden descent on us, all more or less true. My good sister was as sympathetic as usual, only she entreated me to be sure I was really serious and in earnest this time. “You know, Vincent,” she said, “you have so often come moaning to me about young ladies, and I have so often asked them to tea
- 44. and taken them to dances for you, and nothing whatever has come of it.” “But that hasn’t been my fault,” I answered. “I have simply got tired of them, that’s all. This time I am really in earnest.” “So you always were!” she laughed, “up to a certain point. Why, you’re a sort of a young lady-taster.” “Well,” I replied, “how are you to know what sort of cheese you like unless you taste several?” “Rather hard on the cheese, isn’t it? The process of tasting is apt to leave a mark.” “Oh, not in the hands of an adroit and respectable cheesemonger’s assistant.” “Vincent,” said my sister, severely, “don’t be cynical, or I’ll do nothing.” All the same, she knew what I said was true. Men would, I believe, always be faithful if only they could feel there was anything really to be faithful to. But they meet an angel at an evening party, and then, when they go to call, they find the angel fled and the most ordinary young person in her place; one scarcely capable of inspiring a school-boy in the fifth form to the mediocre height of the most ordinary verse-power. But with Lucy! Sympathetic readers don’t, I am sure, look for protestations from me where she’s concerned. At least, not now. The end of our talk was, it was arranged between us Lucy should go on board the Amaranth in the morning and there remain. And the next morning there she was comfortably installed, and already looking forward to the Friday evening, when she was told we were going to make a move out of harbor, and probably go home by way of the Italian coast, and possibly by rail from Venice. Everything else was kept from her carefully, which is, I think, the worst of an adventure of this kind; one is driven to subterfuge even with those one loves best.
- 45. CHAPTER XVII ENTER MR. BAILEY THOMPSON—VAN GINKEL STANDS BY US—WE SHOW THOMPSON ROUND AND EXPLAIN DETAILS—TEDDY PARSONS’S ALARM The Bailey Thompson problem confronted us in propriâ personâ that very same afternoon, the Thursday, at about half-past four, when, as we were some of us sitting outside the Café de Paris at tea, I saw him strolling round the central flower-beds in front of the rooms. He wore one of the new soft straw hats, a black frock-coat, tan shoes, and the invariable dog-skin gloves, and over his arm he carried a plaid shawl. In short, he looked like what he was, Scotland Yard en voyage. I pointed him out to Brentin, who immediately jumped up, crossed the road, and greeted him with effusion. Then he brought him over and introduced him to our party, among whom, luckily enough, was seated Mr. Van Ginkel. Now I don’t want to say anything uncivil in print about a gentleman who rendered us later a service so undeniable, and, indeed, priceless; but I cannot help observing that Van Ginkel, on the whole, was one of the dreariest personalities I ever came in touch with. He was about Brentin’s age, fifty-four or so, but he appeared years older; his hair and beard were almost white, and his face was so lined, the flesh appeared folded, almost like linen. He had some digestive troubles that kept him to a milk diet, and he would sit in entire silence looking straight ahead of him, searching, as it were, for the point of time when he should be able to eat meat once more. Brentin had boarded the Saratoga early that morning on its return, and given a full account of our scheme and its difficulties. Van Ginkel had listened in complete silence; and when Brentin had told him of Bailey Thompson, and our earnest desire to get him out of the way, ending by asking him to be so friendly as to take him on
- 46. board and keep him there till we had finished, Van Ginkel had just remarked, “Why, certainly!” and relapsed into silence again. “He has very much altered,” Brentin had whispered, after presenting me; when Van Ginkel shook me by the hand, said “Mr. Vincent Blacker,” in the American manner, and was further entirely dumb. “He was the liveliest freshman of my class and the terror of the Boston young ladies, especially when he was full. As, of course, you know from his name, he is one of the oldest families of Noo York State.” “Yes,” I replied, “and he looks it.” Bailey Thompson sat with us for some little time outside the “Café de Paris,” and made himself uncommonly agreeable, according to his Scotland Yard lights. He told us, the hypocrite, he usually came to Monte Carlo at this time of the year, and usually stayed at the “Monte Carlo Hotel,” just where the road begins to descend to the Condamine, once Madame Blanc’s villa. Where were we? Oh! some of us were at the “Monopôle” and some on board the yacht. Really? Why, the “Monopôle” was the hotel he had recommended us, wasn’t it? He hoped we found it fairly quiet and comfortable, and not too dear, did the arch- hypocrite! When my sister rose to go back to the rooms and look after Miss Rybot, Van Ginkel roused himself to ask her to lunch with him the next day, Friday, on board the Saratoga, and go for a sail afterwards to Bordighera. He managed the affair like an artist, for he didn’t immediately include Bailey Thompson in the invitation, as though he knew too little of him just for the present. It was not till later, as we strolled down to the Condamine—he, Thompson, Brentin, and I— that he asked us to come on board the yacht and see over it, and not till finally as we were leaving that (as though reminding himself he must not be impolite) he begged the detective to be of the party, if he had no other engagement of the kind. Thompson—simple soul!—was enchanted to accept, and, as we went back on shore in the boat, went off into raptures at the beauty of the yacht and the politeness of the owner in asking him on so short an acquaintance.