Dr. Mabuse, master of mystery : $b a novel

How it begins

The distinguished-looking elderly gentleman introduced himself and, as usual, nobody caught the name. He wore a suit of fashionable and well-cut clothes, however, and his scarf-pin was a single white pearl in a somewhat quaint setting, its dazzling purity recalling the whiteness of a lovely blonde’s shoulders, as Karstens remarked. Moreover, he at once placed a sum of twenty thousand marks upon the table in front of him. He had been brought to the club by young Hull, the heir to an industrial concern worth millions, into which his father allowed him to dip freely. Play was started immediately, and the stranger courteously agreed to the game proposed, which was vingt-et-un.