glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose.
'How's the luck going to be tonight, Eddie?' chaffed Kilgarry, opening two new decks of cards and spilling them on the cloth.
'You'll be surprised,' retorted the young man. 'I'm going to give you two gasbags a beautiful beating tonight.'
'Attaboy,' chirped Yoring encouragingly.
Simon had taken one glance at the cards, and that had been enough to assure him that Mr Naskill would have been proud to claim them as his product. After that, he had been watching Mercer's back as he worked over the drinks. Yoring was still polishing his pince-nez when Mercer turned to the table with a glass in each hand. He put one glass down beside Yoring, and as he reached over to place the other glass in front of the Saint the cuff of his coat sleeve flicked the pince-nez out of Yoring's fingers and sent them spinning. The Saint made a dive to catch them, missed, stumbled and brought his heel down on the exact spot where they were in the act of hitting the carpet. There was a dull scrunching sound, and after that there was a thick and stifling silence.
The Saint spoke first.
'That's torn it,' he said weakly.
Yoring blinked at him as if he was going to burst into tears.
'I'm terribly sorry,' said the Saint.
He bent down and tried to gather up some of the debris. Only the gold bridge of the pince-nez remained in one piece, and that was bent. He put it on the table, started to collect the scraps of glass and then gave up the hopeless task.
'I'll pay for them, of course,' he said.
'I'll split it with you,' said Mercer. 'It was my fault. We'll take it out of my winnings.'
Yoring looked from one to another with watery eyes.
'I--I don't think I can play without my glasses,' he mumbled.
Mercer flopped into the vacant chair and raked in the cards.
'Come on,' he said callously. 'It isn't as bad as all that. You can show us your hand and we'll tell you what you've got.'
'Can't you manage?' urged the Saint. 'I was going: to enjoy this game, and it won't be nearly so much fun with only three.'
The silence came back, thicker than before. Yoring's eyes shifted despairingly from side to side. And then Kilgarry crushed his cigar butt violently into an ash tray.
'You can't back out now,' he said, and there was an audible growl in the fruity tones of his voice.
He broke the other pack across the baize with a vicious jerk of his hand that was as eloquent as a movement could be.
'Straight poker--with the joker wild. Let's go.'
To Simon Templar the game had the same dizzy unreality that it would have had if he had been super- naturally endowed with a genuine gift of clairvoyance. He knew the value of every card as it was dealt, knew what was in his own hand before he picked it up. Even though there was nothing mysterious about it, the effect of the glasses he was wearing gave him a sensation of weirdness that was too instinctive to overcome. It was mechanically childish, and yet it was an unforgettable experience. When he was out of the game, watching the others bet against each other, it was like being a cat watching two blind men looking for each other in the dark.
For nearly an hour, curiously enough, the play was fairly even: when he counted his chips he had only a couple of hundred dollars more than when he started. Mercer, throwing in his hand whenever the Saint warned him by a pressure of his foot under the table that the opposition was too strong, had done slightly better; but there was nothing sensational in their advantage. Even Mr Naskill's magic lenses had no influence over the run of the cards, and the luck of the deals slightly favoured Yoring and Kilgarry. The Saint's clairvoyant knowledge saved him from making any disastrous errors, but now and again he had to bet out a hopeless hand to avoid giving too crude an impression of infallibility.
He played a steadily aggressive game, waiting patiently for the change that he knew must come as soon as the basis of the play had had time to settle down and establish itself. His nerves were cool and serene, and he smiled often with an air of faint amusement; but something inside him was poised and gathered like a panther crouched for a spring.
Presently Kilgarry called Mercer on the third raise and lost a small jackpot to three nines. Mercer scowled as he stacked the handful of chips.
'Hell, what's the matter with this game?' he protested. 'This isn't the way we usually play. Let's get some life into it.'
'It does seem a bit slow,' Simon agreed. 'How about raising the ante?'
'Make it a hundred dollars,' Mercer said sharply. 'I'm getting tired of this. Just because my luck's changed we don't have to start playing for peanuts.'
Simon drew his cigarette to a bright glow.
'It suits me.'
Yoring plucked at his lower lip with fingers that were still shaky.
'I dunno, ole man----'
'Okay.' Kilgarry pushed out two fifty-dollar chips with a kind of fierce restraint. 'I'll play for a hundred.'
He had been playing all the time with grim concentration, his shoulders hunched as if he had to give some outlet to a seethe of violence in his muscles, his jaw thrust out and tightly clamped; and as the time went by he seemed to have been regaining confidence. 'Maybe the game is on the level,' was the idea expressed by every line of his body, 'but I can still take a couple of mugs like this in any game.'
He said, almost with a resumption of his former heartiness:
'Are you staying long, Mr Templar?'
'I expect I'll be here for quite a while.'
'That's fine! Then after Mr Yoring's got some new glasses we might have a better game.'
'I shouldn't be surprised,' said the Saint amiably.
He was holding two pairs. He took a card, and still had two pairs. Kilgarry stood pat on three kings. Mercer drew three cards to a pair, and was no better off afterwards. Yoring took two cards and filled a flush.
'One hundred,' said Yoring nervously.
Mercer hesitated, threw in his hand.
'And two hundred,' snapped Kilgarry.
'And five,' said the Saint.
Yoring looked at them blearily. He took a long time to make up his mind. And then, with a sigh, he pushed his hand into the discard.
'See you,' said Kilgarry.
With a wry grin, the Saint faced his hand. Kilgarry grinned also, with a sudden triumph, and faced his.
Yoring made a noise like a faint groan.
'Fix us another drink, Eddie,' he said huskily.
He took the next pack and shuffled it clumsily. His fingers were like sausages strung together. Kilgarry's mouth opened on one side and he nudged the Saint as he made the cut.
'Lost his nerve,' he said. 'See what happens when they get old.'
'Who's old?' said Mr Yoring plaintively. 'There ain't more 'n three years----'
'But you've got old ideas,' Kilgarry jeered. 'You could have beaten both of us.'
'You never had to wear glasses----'
'Who said you wanted glasses to play poker? It isn't always the cards that win.'
Kilgarry was smiling, but his eyes were almost glaring at Yoring as he spoke. Yoring avoided his gaze guiltily and squinted at the hand he had dealt himself. It contained the six, seven, eight and nine of diamonds, and the queen of spades. Simon held two pairs again but the card he drew made it a full house. He watched while Yoring discarded the queen of spades and felt again that sensation of supernatural omniscience as he saw that the top card of the pack, the card Yoring had to take, was the ten of hearts.
Yoring took it, fumbled his hand to the edge of the table, and turned up the corners to peep at them. For a
