"Oh, good evening, onlookers." "I seem to be stuck." "I don't suppose you see a place for a red seven." "No, of course not." "This program isn't in color." "That's right." "You can't distinguish colors, can you?" "There's nothing to winning, really." "That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind and no scruples whatsoever." "Tonight's play is called "The Crack of Doom. "" "As the title suggests," ""The Crack of Doom" is a story about Mason Bridges, his wife, Jessie, his secretary, Della, his friends, Tom Ackley and Sam Clinker." "And it begins in the club car of a New York-Chicago streamliner." "Can I get you a fresh one, Mason?" "No thanks." "Pass the word, boys." "What's up?" "Compartment B, next car." "Anyone who can tell the difference between an ace and a deuce is welcome." "I'm a purist." "Five card stud or nothing." "A lamb to the slaughter." "We'll need one more to make a good seven-handed game." "What do you say, Mason?" "No." "Thanks, but I don't play poker." "It's only a fifty cent limit." "I wouldn't care if it were a ten cent limit or a one cent limit." "I don't play poker." "Oh, come on, Mason." "Be a good sport." "No, thank you!" "What's eating him?" "I don't know." "I've never seen Mason act like that before." "In college he was always ready to gamble on anything." "Well, come on." "Well, how'd you do?" "Win a little, lose a little." "Say, what's this sudden aversion to poker?" "It isn't sudden." "Ignore the adjective then." "Poker nearly ruined me once." "Huh?" "I wouldn't go through that again for anything you could name." "Sounds ominous." "Let's hear it." "Come on." "Well, you know me as an honest man, right, Tom?" "True." "Well, I am." "I always have been." "Except once." "Once, for a few hours I was a thief." "Oh, come off it, Mason." "I've known you since you were in college." "That's..." "Good heavens, that must be..." "Thirteen years." "But there was a time in there of about five years when we never saw each other." "Look, maybe you'd rather not tell me about it, hmm?" "No." "No, maybe my experience will throw a little light on some other poor sinner." "Even you." "Well, let's see." "It all began a couple of years after graduation." "I'd settled in Clifford Hills." "In those days, I was in real estate investments with three partners." "I was the inside man, the office manager." "Sam Clinker is here for the Whitman property." "Well, business is business." "Oh, Mr. Whitman phoned a few minutes ago." "He won't be able to keep the appointment." "He'd like to make it for 10:00 tomorrow instead." "It's all right with me if it's all right with Clinker." "Ask him to come in." "Will you come in, Mr. Clinker?" "Afternoon, Sam." "Mason." "Am I early?" "Whitman just phoned." "He's been detained." "He'd like to make it the first thing in the morning." "The way you fellows operate out here, I don't see how you ever do any business." "Well, this isn't Wall Street, Sam." "We like the slower tempo." "Yes, so I've noticed." "Even in your poker games." "We don't bull the game, if that's what you mean." "Well, tonight we're going to eliminate the ribbon clerks." "My place. 8:00." "Table stakes." "No limit." "Bother you, Mason?" "Not really." "But I don't like what's happening to something that started out a couple of years ago as a friendly little game among neighbors." "Mason, friendship ceases when the first card is dealt." "Maybe so." "But at least nobody got hurt." "This no-limit stuff of yours is brutal." "Everybody gets five cards." "But you've got a bigger bank roll, Sam." "The weight of your money wins for you." "So I'm a bad poker player?" "I didn't say that!" "I merely said you have a terrific advantage over anyone who has to hedge a bet." "Of course, if you can't afford it..." "If I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't sit in." "Fine." "I'll reserve a seat for you." "No, not tonight." "Tonight may be your night." "The bank's closed." "Would you keep this money in the safe for Whitman?" "Oh, sure." "There's $10,000 even." "I'll give you a receipt for it." "No, never mind." "I trust you, Mason." "You're an honest man." "See you at 8:00." "You need a change of luck, Mason." "Cut yourself a winner." "Ace is good for $10." "I'll stay." "Worth another card." "I'll stay." "Try it once." "I'm out." "Not me." "Ace, jack." "A hundred." "That's too rich for my blood." "I'm anemic." "A hundred to you, Mason." "I'll go along." "Fives." "Your tens, your jacks." "Two pair." "Cost you $200, Mason." "I'll see you." "Full up." "Aces over jacks." "Beats me." "Well, that's it." "I'm clean." "You can give this to the janitor." "Mason." "Yeah?" "If you get a new bank roll, come on back." "Sure." "We'll be here for hours." "Yeah, the night's still young." "And the cards are terrible." "Okay, pal, you won the deal." "I had lost nearly $1,000." "But the queer vanity of the poker player kept telling me I could get Clinker," "if I just had a new bankroll." "So I headed for the office." "I did have money in the bank." "My wife and I, that is." "Nine thousand dollars." "But the bank was closed till morning and I had to get back into that game." "I had to wipe the smile off Clinker's face." "Subconsciously I may have known that what I intended doing wasn't honest," "but, actually, at the time it didn't worry me." "You see, it was common practice in our office to take whatever cash we needed and leave a note or a personal IOU which we always made good within a day or two." "So I helped myself to $4,000 of Sam Clinker's money." "Tom, I didn't feel a bit dishonest because, you see, I had $9,000 in the bank." "As a matter of fact, I was kind of amused at the idea of using Clinker's money to win back some of mine." "Well, you can guess what happened." "You lost." "In an hour." "You couldn't believe the bad run of luck that I had." "I'd been playing with scared money and there still wasn't enough to buck Clinker's bankroll." "As I recall, I left there with a certain sense of relief." "I'd learned my lesson and in the morning I'd draw $4,000 out of the bank." "Thank havens for that savings account." "I must have said that a dozen times on the way home." "In between wondering how you were gonna explain it to your wife." "I kept telling myself she'd be a good sport about it." "Jessie." "Jessie, wake up." "It's important." "I've got to talk to you." "What?" "I've got to have some money the first thing in the morning as soon as the bank opens." "You've gotta have what?" "I've gotta have money, $4,000." "But the account's been cleaned out." "Oh, I'm sorry." "I'm so sorry." "Jessie, what's the matter?" "I don't know how to tell you." "I tried so many times." "Please don't be angry with me." "Listen to me, Jessie." "Where is that money?" "I didn't know how to tell you." "I..." "I tried!" "Tell me now." "Tell me now!" "I got a tip on the stock market." "One of the girls doubled her money in a month." "So I invested half of our savings in an oil company." "I though it would be such a wonderful surprise for you." "When they struck oil, we could have used the money to build our house right away." "I understand." "You said you invested half the money." "What did you do with the rest of it?" "Please don't be angry." "They didn't find oil, they had to drill deeper." "I couldn't stop then." "I had to invest the rest of the money." "The whole $9,000?" "Yes." "I've ruined us, haven't I?" "If we're ruined it's my doing, not yours." "Whatever happens, it's my fault." "No." "No, it's my fault because I didn't tell you." "That's the wrong part of it." "Now, look." "Look, you just take it easy and everything's gonna be all right." "Everything's gonna be all right, Jessie." "Now, come on." "Come on, lie down." "Come on." "Come on." "Come on." "I'll work something out." "I went home that night knowing that I was a fool, but an honest fool." "But I left a thief." "Seems to me that's a question of ethics." "Hmm?" "Well, you said it was standard office procedure to leave IOU's for cash." "Not strictly business-like, but the principle of the thing wasn't dishonest." "Oh, but that's the trouble with gambling, Tom." "It leaves you in kind of a moral fog." "You can't distinguish the finer points of honor." "When I thought I had the money, I wasn't a crook." "But the moment I learned I didn't have it, I was." "But it was only $4,000." "You could have borrowed that much." "Yes, my partners, I think, would have stood by me for the sake of the firm." "But everybody would have found out." "I'd have been disgraced," "I'd have had to start all over again." "I went back to my office." "I don't know how long I sat there trying to figure a way out, thinking of Jessie, and what it would be like beginning again at the bottom." "Then my thoughts took a different turn." "Since I was already a thief, why not go all the way?" "With the rest of Clinker's money, I might win back everything." "If I lost..." "But a thief never believes he's going to get caught or he wouldn't be a thief." "I had been a crook for only an hour or two, but already I was thinking like one." "Cash me in." "Boys, we've got company again." "Deal me in." "What are you gonna use for money?" "Six thousand dollars." "Brand new bills." "That's right." "I hope you've kept a record of the serial numbers, Mason." "I always do." "Just to be safe." "Go ahead, deal." "He was laying it right on the line." "If I didn't produce his $10,000 in the morning, he'd prove me a thief." "Well, we never had liked each other." "And he'd jump at the chance to send me to jail." "I know the type." "Well, we started to play." "There wasn't any of the usual banter." "No one spoke except to name their bets." "The game went on for hours." "When I'd play recklessly I'd do pretty good and I'd begin to win, you know?" "And then I'd..." "I'd begin thinking about going to jail, and I'd pull in and play conservatively and I'd lose." "And then it came." "The hand I'd been waiting for." "The hand that would save me." "Pair of tens, pair of queens and a king." "Queens bet." "Pair of queens, bet." "Three and" "two is 500." "No place for an orphan." "Just you and me, Mason." "Five..." "Raise you five." "Five hundred." "Last card, gentlemen." "Three tens." "A third lady." "Your bet, Mason." "Three queens, bet." "Three queens bet a thousand." "Thousand and I'll raise you a five, ten..." "Fifteen hundred." "See your raise and bump you $2,000." "For heaven's sake, Mason!" "Wait a minute." "You know, of course, I've got four tens." "I don't know anything of the kind, Clinker." "I think you're trying to steal the pot with three tens and a fat bankroll." "The way you've been trying to steal good pots for the last six months." "You're bluffing, Mason." "I don't think you've got a queen in the hole." "Are you expressing an opinion, or making a bet?" "Two thousand." "And raise you two." "Table stakes." "That's right." "Mason's all in." "No house rules?" "No house rules." "Can you get some more money?" "You'll take a check?" "Sure." "Go ahead." "Don't be a fool, Mason." "You haven't got that kind of money!" "The man knows what he's doing." "He wouldn't be fool enough to try to pass a worthless check." "You can go to jail for that." "Don't worry about me." "I'll see your $2,000" "and I'll raise you three." "It begins to look as if you really do have four queens." "It'll cost you exactly $3,000 to take a look at my hole card." "It wasn't a queen." "It was a jack." "The jack of spades, to be exact." "I'd misread my hole card." "I'd been playing it for a queen, but it was a jack." "And Clinker had four tens." "Oh, he had them, all right." "And four tens beats three queens." "I was ruined." "In moments like that, Tom, your whole life doesn't flash by you." "You just stop thinking altogether." "I'll bet Clinker was loving it." "I couldn't say." "I sat there with a dead spine holding up a dead head and waited for the crack of doom." "Your bet, Sam." "Three thousand." "No sense throwing good money after bad." "Looks like you got them, kid." "Your pot." "I gotta take a look at that card." "Jack." "He was bluffing." "Mason, you stole that pot!" "Shut up!" "I'll bet that's not the first thing you stole tonight." "You'll never know, Clinker." "I need a drink." "Join me?" "No, thanks." "Porter, refill here." "My bluff had worked because I didn't know I was bluffing." "I wouldn't have had the nerve if I had known." "Who would?" "The irony of it was that I got involved by not knowing in the first place." "Thought I had $9,000 in the bank and I didn't." "I thought I had four queens and one was a jack." "Two mistakes in the same night and they canceled each other out." "You know, for a while, you know those years we didn't see each other," "I thought you meant that you'd..." "Prison?" "No." "But I don't think going to prison could have driven the point home any harder." "I got a reprieve." "And I decided right then and there that I'd never gamble again." "And that's why I wouldn't join you, even in a game of penny ante." "It's getting kind of late." "I think I'll turn in." "Good night, Tom." "Good night, Mason." "Porter, bring me one of those, too, will you?" "Bet you for the drinks, Tom." "Not on your life, brother!" "I hope you weren't displeased by the lack of bloodshed in tonight's story." "It's impossible for us to stage a murder every night." "We're running out of victims." "Of course, we could replenish our supply by changing this into an audience-participation show." "However, for the present, at least," "I think we'll muddle along the old way." "That's all for tonight." "Next time I appear, we shall have another story to tell you." "And I hope you'll allow us to come into your living room." "It's terribly stuffy, closed up in this dusty television set." "Good night."