Free Lucy by M.C. Beaton

audience was crowding around the table, their faces like the faces at a bullfight.
    Lucy found herself suddenly praying for some bad luck, any bad luck. It was uncanny; it was frightening the way the right cards winked up at her from her hand. A world where people worked hard for their daily bread seemed infinitely far away and infinitely desirable. A new element had crept into the room, an element of danger. Lucy decided she must be overtired.
    Bands of smoke snaked in front of her eyes. A woman in the watching crowd across the table made a sudden movement and her jewels blazed and flashed.
    There was an infinitesimal signal between one of the players and the bank, and new packs of cards were produced. “She must have won about twenty thousand pounds,” said a high, silly voice somewhere behind Lucy. The player who had signaled toward the bank looked momentarily at Lucy. Something not quite human flickered in the back of his reptilian eyes and Lucy shuddered. She was now aware of the source of the feeling of danger. And still MacGregor was silent.
    Sweat was now running down under her wig and making rivulets in the gray powder. The journey to Herrenbad had been exhausting. MacGregor had traveled on as if driven by demons. They had accumulated a fortune already, he had explained. Herrenbad would be their last killing and then Lucy could relax.
    Desperately she twisted her head and looked back. She found herself looking up into the eyes of a stranger. Where, oh where, was MacGregor?
    MacGregor was at the moment propping up the bar with his old acquaintance, Jeremy Brent, who, by some surprising coincidence, had happened to appear at the Herrenbad casino. MacGregor had been very wary and suspicious and had left the table where Lucy was playing to accompany Jeremy Brent to the bar to see if he could detect any sinister motives in the young man’s sudden reappearance.
    But the young man had been disarming to say the least. He had remarked indifferently that Miss Balfour-MacGregor had obviously not yet entered the convent. She intended to give her winnings to the nuns, MacGregor had said, and Jeremy had received that whopper without so much as a bunk. As the whiskey sank in the glass MacGregor began to revise his opinion of Mr. Brent. He was a pleasant young fellow and obviously in funds. Perhaps he might even be a possible suitor for Lucy. He had never believed that anything would come of that Andrew Harvey business. Not that Lucy wasn’t an exceptionally pretty girl, but then the handsome viscount had already been pursued by a legion of very pretty girls.
    Jeremy was beginning to wonder if Mr. Balfour-MacGregor had hollow legs or bottomless, elastic-sided boots. He had already consumed nearly a bottle of the best imported Scotch whiskey and seemed ready to consume another. Jeremy wondered if he should somehow manage to court Harriet Balfour-MacGregor (the fictitious name MacGregor had given to his “other daughter”), or simply follow them back to their hotel and take the money. He fingered the small pistol he had concealed inside his frock coat pocket. If Harriet had won enough, that might be the easiest way. But he didn’t believe the story about the convent for one minute.
    Alarm bells were beginning to penetrate the pleasant fog in MacGregor’s brain. He had almost drunk himself sober, a state he knew, from long experience, that would not last very long.
    “It’s getting late,” he said, getting to his feet. “No, no. Don’t ask me to take another one, Mr. Brent. It’s late and my poor little Harriet will be looking for me.”
    With Jeremy close at his heels, MacGregor pushed through the press of people around the baccarat table and gave a loud cough. Lucy rose immediately to her feet and dizzily surveyed the pile of plaques beside her. She had no idea how much she had won. The crowd parted silently to let them through. She gave one startled look at Jeremy and immediately lowered her eyes. She walked to