With another blow of the axe, Garrick disclosed wires running down through the leg of the table to the floor and under the carpet to buttons operated by the man who ran the game.

“What does it mean?” I asked blankly.

“It means,” he returned, “that they had little enough chance to win at a straight game of roulette.  But this wheel wasn’t even straight with all the odds in favor of the bank, as they are naturally.  This game was electrically controlled.  Others are mechanically controlled by what are called the ‘mule’s ear,’ and other devices.  You can’t win.  These wires and magnets can be made to attract the little ball into any pocket the operator desires.  Each one of the pockets contains an electro-magnet.  One set of electro-magnets in the red pockets is connected with one button under the carpet and a set of batteries.  The other series of little magnets in the black pockets is connected with another button and the batteries.”

He had picked up the little ball.  “This ball,” he said as he examined it, “is not really of ivory, but of a composition that looks like ivory, coating a hollow, soft-iron ball inside.  Soft iron is attracted by an electro-magnet.  Whichever set of magnets is energized attracts the ball and by this simple method it is in the power of the operator to let the ball go to red or black as he may wish.  Other similar arrangements control the odd or even, and other combinations, also from push buttons.  There isn’t an honest gambling machine in the whole place.  The whole thing is crooked from start to finish,—­the men, the machines,——­”

“Then a fellow never had a chance?” repeated Dillon.

“Not a chance,” emphasized Garrick.

We gathered about and gazed at magnets and wires, the buttons and switches.  He did not need to say anything more to expose the character of the place.

Amazing as we found everything about us in the palace of crooks, nothing made so deep an impression on me as the fact that it was deserted.  It seemed as if the gamblers had disappeared as though in a fairy tale.  Search room after room as Dillon’s men did they were unable to find a living thing.

One of the men had discovered, back of the gambling rooms on the second floor, a little office evidently used by those who ran the joint.  It was scantily furnished, as though its purpose might have been merely a place where they could divide up the profits in private.  A desk, a cabinet and a safe, besides a couple of chairs, were all that the room contained.

Someone, however, had done some quick work in the little office during those minutes while Garrick was opening the great ice-box door with his hydraulic ram, for on every side were scattered papers, the desk had been rifled, and even from the safe practically everything of any value had been removed.  It was all part of the general scheme of things in the gambling joint.  Practically nothing that was evidential that could be readily removed had been left.  Whoever had planned the place must have been a genius as far as laying out precautions against a raid were concerned.