“You are up quite a bit after the first game.” Oberlin’s face was without expression—save his eyes, which were decidedly flinty. “What say you to raising the stakes to finish out this game? Perhaps onepièce d’orper hand?”
“House rules prevent wagers over ten francs,” the dealer interjected, apièce d’orbeing equivalent to twenty francs.
“Ten francs then. Perhaps we will play elsewhere another time. For higher stakes.” Oberlin’s eyes rested unmistakably on Isobel before returning to Nate.
Fournier guffawed loudly, drawing attention to their table.
Oberlin had thus far won most of the pot money this game; Nate had the better position, however, having one stake remaining in his dish. Oberlin would negate his winnings if he lost the game and thus the pot with the raised stakes. His willingness to risk his gains did not smack of desperation; by his clothing and jewelry he was well-to-do enough to absorb a loss.
He was gauging Nate’s character, just as Nate gauged his. What was Oberlin’s true purpose here if not cards?
If Nate won the game and took the pot, he would come out well ahead. If he lost playing for ten francs per remaining hand, he’d be at a deficit for the game but with a net gain for the night. And he’d already decided this was his final game of the evening despite it only being the second. He was convinced by now that Fournier was exactly as he appeared, but Oberlin was an unknown. Oberlin’s conspicuous interest in Isobel made him uneasy; there was something calculated, perhaps even predatory, in the way Oberlin looked at her. He mistrusted it, particularly combined with Oberlin’s evident antipathy towards him. And he had no one in here who might back him up, with Baudelaire a room away.
He pushed coins forward, decision made. “Ten francs.”
“C’est merveilleux!” Fournier rubbed his hands together. “We are in for a show.”
A crowd had gathered around the table. Nate sensed Isobel somewhere close behind him. Oberlin’s cold eyes fixing briefly, avariciously, behind him confirmed it.
His cards on the first hand remained stubbornly low, too low to risk knocking, because he determined after three rounds that Oberlin was almost certainly collectingpiquesand thus had to consider his own discards accordingly.
Oberlin laid outtrente-et-unon the table after his sixth draw.
Nate tossed the final five-franc stake from his dish and tenfrancs for the hand into the game pot. The dealer dealt them both three cards.
His opening cards were excellent: queen-two ofpiquesand queen oftrèfles. Managed well, he could quickly build a higher hand in eithertrèflesorpiqueswhile keeping the possibility for three queens, a score second in points only totrente-et-un.
Oberlin made his first move, keeping the card he drew off the stock and discarding the seven oftrèfles. Middle pips weren’t junk cards, so Oberlin discarding that as his opening move might signal that Oberlin was not collectingtrèfles.
The seven would improve Nate’s hand from twelve to seventeen while keeping both queens, a calculated risk but worth it at this stage. He picked it up, discarding the two ofpiques.
Although Oberlin moved the cards around in his hand after drawing off stock in an attempt to conceal it, he’d kept the stock card, discarding the eight ofcœurs, middle pips again but of a different suit. Oberlin was building a suit, neithertrèflesnorcœurs.
His own draw was the eight ofpiques. Not a major improvement over the seven oftrèflesbut worth keeping, particularly as discarding thetrèflehe had just picked up off discard might misdirect Oberlin. Sure enough, he observed a gleam of interest in Oberlin’s eye and just the slightest derisive lift at the corner of his mouth at the reappearance of the seven.
Oberlin drew off the stock and again kept it, this time discarding the five ofcarreaux. Likely at this point that he was collectingcarreaux, discarding the lowest cards. He might try knocking with it in another hand or two given Nate’s discards signaled an abrupt change in suits.
This draw would therefore determine his strategy for the remainder of the hand. He drew off stock, first sliding the card among the rest. Tilting his hand to examine the new card, the hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
He discarded the eight ofpiques. He would lose if Oberlin madetrente-et-unon his next draw. If Oberlin did not, the game was his.
Oberlin knocked rather than draw a card. Nate declined the opportunity to exchange a card, and Oberlin laid out his cards, smirking: the king-knave-ten ofcarreaux, thirty points. At worst, knocking with thirty and both of them out of stakes, Oberlin’s total should have tied with his own, thereby winning Oberlin the game as elder hand.
Quietly he turned up his cards one at a time.La dame de piques.La dame de trèfles. The final card he’d again drawn:la dame de cœurs, the queen of hearts. Three queens, totaling 30.5 points.
The assembled crowd erupted. More than one person slapped his shoulder, among them Fournier, who called for more wine. As the dealer gathered in his winnings from the table, Nate briefly scanned the faces of the onlookers who’d drifted over to watch the conclusion of the second game. No one caught his eye as out of place or interested in anything more than the dramatic conclusion to a tense game.
He caught Oberlin’s gaze. Oberlin returned the stare briefly, almost malevolently, before disgustedly pushing his chair back from the table without another word.
Fournier—sloppily working through another bottle of strongvin doux naturel—asked him if he was certain he did not wish to play his usual third game. No? Well then, he hoped very much M.Beaumont would return another night soon.
Oberlin was the concern now. He’d sought out Isobel immediately after quitting the table; he was crowding her, touching her sleeve with too much familiarity. She had a brittle smile fixed on her face, shaking her head at something Oberlin asked and shrugging her arm to dislodge his hand.
He quickly excused himself from the table, moving behindIsobel. He banded one arm across her midsection. “This beauty has come with me tonight,” he said lazily, “as I’ve informed you once before.”
Annoyance—and something darker?—flashed across Oberlin’s face.
He stroked a hand down Isobel’s hip, keeping his eyes on Oberlin. “You do not wish to desert me for M. Oberlin, do you,chérie?”
