'I told you so!'
Mercer's fists clenched.
'By God, if I don't murder those swine----'
She caught his wrist as he almost jumped up from the table.
'Eddie, that won't do you any good.'
'It won't do them any good either! When I've finished with them----'
'But that won't get any of the money back.'
'I'll beat it out of them.'
'But that '11 only get you in trouble with the police. That wouldn't help. . . . Wait!' She clung to him frantically. 'I've got it. You could borrow Mr Templar's glasses and play them at their own game. You could break Yoring's glasses--sort of accidentally. They wouldn't dare to stop playing on account of that. They'd just have to trust to luck, like you've been doing, and anyway, they'd feel sure they were going to get it all back again later. And you could win everything back and never see them again.' She shook his arm in her excitement. 'Go on, Eddie. It 'd serve them right. I'll let you play just once more if you'll do that!'
Mercer's eyes turned to the Saint, and Simon pushed the glasses across the table towards him.
The young man picked them up slowly, looked at the cards through them again. His mouth twitched. And then, with a sudden hopeless gesture, he thrust them away and passed a shaky hand over his eyes.
'It's no good,' he said wretchedly. 'I couldn't do it. They know I don't wear glasses. And I--I've never done anything like that before. I'd only make a mess of it. They'd spot me in five minutes. And then there wouldn't be anything I could say. I--I wouldn't have the nerve. I suppose I'm just a mug after all. ...'
The Saint leaned back and put a light to a cigarette and sent a smoke ring spinning through the fronds of a potted palm. In all his life he had never missed a cue, and it seemed that this was very much like a cue. He had come to Miami to bask in the sun and be good, but it wasn't his fault if business was thrust upon him.
'Maybe someone with a bit of experience could do it better,' he said. 'Suppose you let me meet your friends.'
Mercer looked at him, first blankly, then incredulously; and the girl's dark eyes slowly lighted up.
Her slim fingers reached impetuously for the Saint's hand.
'You wouldn't really do that--help Eddie to win back what he's lost----'
'What would you expect Robin Hood to do?' asked the Saint quizzically. 'I've got a reputation to keep up -- and I might even pay my own expenses while I'm doing it.' He drew the revealing glasses towards him and tucked them back in his pocket. 'Let's go and have some dinner and organize the details.'
But actually there were hardly any details left to organize, for Josephine Grange's inspiration had been practically complete in its first outline. The Saint, who never believed in expending any superfluous effort, devoted most of his attention to some excellent lobster thermidor; but he had a pleasant sense of anticipation that lent an edge to his appetite. He knew, even then, that all those interludes of virtue in which he had so often tried to indulge, those brief intervals in which he played at being an ordinary respectable citizen and promised himself to forget that there was such a thing as crime, were only harmless self-deceptions--that for him the only complete life was still the ceaseless hair-trigger battle in which he had found so much delight. And this episode had everything that he asked to make a perfect cameo.
He felt like a star actor waiting for the curtain to rise on the third act of an obviously triumphant first night when they left the girl at the Roney Plaza and walked over to the Riptide--'that's where we usually meet,' Mercer explained. And a few minutes later he was being introduced to the other two members of the cast.
Mr Yoring, who wore the pince-nez, was a small pear-shaped man in a crumpled linen suit, with white hair and bloodhound jowls and a pathetically frustrated expression. He looked like a retired businessman whose wife took him to the opera. Mr Kilgarry, his partner, was somewhat taller and younger, with a wide mouth and a rich nose and a raffish manner: he looked like the kind of man that men like Mr Yoring wish they could be. Both of them welcomed Mercer with an exuberant bonhomie that was readily expanded to include the Saint. Mr Kilgarry ordered a round of drinks.
'Having a good time here, Mr Templar?'
'Pretty good.'
'Ain't we all having a good time?' crowed Mr Yoring. 'I'm gonna buy a drink.'
'I've just ordered a drink,' said Mr Kilgarry.
'Well, I'm gonna order another,' said Mr Yoring defiantly. No wife was going to take him to the opera tonight. 'Who said there was a Depression? What do you think, Mr Templar?'
'I haven't found any in my affairs lately,' Simon answered truthfully.
'You in business, Mr Templar?' asked Mr Kilgarry interestedly.
The Saint smiled.
'My business is letting other people make money for me,' he said, continuing strictly in the vein of truth. He patted his pockets significantly. 'The market's been doing pretty well these days.'
Mr Kilgarry and Mr Yoring exchanged glances, while the Saint picked up his drink. It wasn't his fault if they misunderstood him; but it had been rather obvious that the conversation was doomed to launch some tactful feelers into his financial status, and Simon saw no need to add to their coming troubles by making them work hard for their information.
'Well, that's fine,' said Mr Yoring happily. 'I'm gonna buy another drink.'
'You can't,' said Mr Kilgarry. 'It's my turn.'
Mr Yoring looked wistful, like a small boy who has been told that he can't go out and play with his new air gun. Then he wrapped an arm around Mercer's shoulders.
'You gonna play tonight, Eddie?'
'I don't know,' Mercer said hesitantly. 'I've just been having some dinner with Mr Templar----'
'Bring him along,' boomed Mr Kilgarry heartily. 'What's the difference? Four's better than three, any day. D'you play cards, Mr Templar?'
'Most games,' said the Saint cheerfully.
'That's fine,' said Mr Kilgarry. 'Fine,' he repeated, as if he wanted to leave no doubt that he thought it was fine.
Mr Yoring looked dubious.
'I dunno. We play rather high stakes, Mr Templar.'
'They can't be too high for me,' said the Saint boastfully.
'Fine,' said Mr Kilgarry again, removing the last vestige of uncertainty about his personal opinion. 'Then that's settled. What's holding us back?'
There was really nothing holding them back except the drinks that were lined up on the bar, and that deterrent was eliminated with a discreetly persuasive briskness. Under Mr Kilgarry's breezy leadership they piled into a taxi and headed for one of the smaller hotels on Ocean Drive, where Mr Yoring proclaimed that he had a bottle of scotch that would save them from the agonies of thirst while they were playing. As they rode up in the elevator he hooked his arm affectionately through the Saint's.
'Say, you're awright, ole man,' he announced. 'I like to meet a young feller like you. You oughta come out fishin' with us. Got our own boat here, hired for the season, an' we just take out fellers we like. You like fishin'?'
'I like catching sharks,' said the Saint, with unblinking innocence.
'You ought to come out with us,' said Mr Kilgarry hospitably.
The room was large and uncomfortable, cluttered with that hideous hodgepodge of gilt and lacquer and brocade, assembled without regard to any harmony of style or period, which passes for the height of luxury in American hotel furnishing. In the centre of the room there was a card table already set up, adding one more discordant note to the cacophony of junk, but still looking as if it belonged there. There were bottles and a pail of ice on a pea-green and old-rose butterfly table of incredible awfulness.
Mr Kilgarry brought up chairs, and Mr Yoring patted Mercer on the shoulder.
'You fix a drink, Eddie,' he said. 'Let's all make ourselves at home.'
He lowered himself into a place at the table, took off his pince-nez, breathed on them and began to polish them with his handkerchief.
Mercer's tense gaze caught the Saint's for an instant. Simon nodded imperceptibly and settled his own
