second he sat quite still, with only his mouth working. And then, as if the accumulation of all his misfortunes had at last stung him to a wild and fearful reaction like the turning of a worm, a change seemed to come over him. He let the cards flatten out again with a defiant click and drew himself up. He began to count off hundred-dollar chips. . . .
Mercer, with only a pair of sevens, bluffed recklessly for two rounds before he fell out in response to the Saint's kick under the table.
There were five thousand dollars in the pool before Kilgarry, with a straight, shrugged surrenderingly and dropped his hand in the discard.
The Saint counted two stacks of chips and pushed them in.
'Make it another two grand,' he said.
Yoring looked at him waveringly. Then he pushed in two stacks of his own.
'There's your two grand.' He counted the chips he had left, swept them with a sudden splash into the pile. 'And twenty-nine hundred more,' he said.
Simon had twelve hundred left in chips. He pushed them in, opened his wallet and added crisp new bills.
'Making three thousand more than that for you to see me,' he said coolly.
Mercer sucked in his breath and whispered: 'Oh boy!'
Kilgarry said nothing, hunching tensely over the table.
Yoring blinked at him.
'Len' me some chips, ole man.'
'Do you know what you're doing?' Kilgarry asked in a harsh strained voice.
Yoring picked up his glass and half emptied it. His hand wobbled so that some of it ran down his chin.
'I know,' he snapped.
He reached out and raked Kilgarry's chips into the pile.
'Eighteen hunnerd,' he said. 'I gotta buy some more. I'll write you a check----'
Simon shook his head.
'I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'I'm playing table stakes. We agreed on that when we started.'
Yoring peered at him.
'You meanin' something insultin' about my check?'
'I don't mean that,' Simon replied evenly. 'It's just a matter of principle. I believe in sticking to the rules. I'll play you a credit game some other time. Tonight we're putting it on the line.'
He made a slight gesture towards the cigar box where they had each deposited five thousand-dollar bills when they bought their chips.
'Now look here,' Kilgarry began menacingly.
The Saint's clear blue eyes met his with sapphire smoothness.
'I said cash, brother. Is that clear?'
Yoring groped through his pockets. One by one he untangled crumpled bills from various hiding places until he had built his bet up to thirty-two hundred and fifty dollars. Then he glared at Kilgarry.
'Len' me what you've got.'
'But----'
'All of it!'
Reluctantly Kilgarry passed over a roll. Yoring licked his thumb and numbered it through. It produced a total raise of four thousand one hundred and fifty dollars. He gulped down the rest of his drink and dribbled some more down his chin.
'Go on,' he said thickly, staring at the Saint. 'Raise that.'
Simon counted out four thousand-dollar bills. He had one more, and he held it poised. Then he smiled.
'What's the use?' he said. 'You couldn't meet it. I'll take the change and see you.'
Yoring's hand went to his mouth. He didn't move for a moment, except for the wild swerve of his eyes.
Then he picked up his cards. With trembling slowness he turned them over one by one. The six, seven, eight, nine--and ten of diamonds.
Nobody spoke; and for some seconds the Saint sat quite still. He was summarizing the whole scenario for himself, in all its inspired ingenuity and mathematical precision, and it is a plain fact that he found it completely beautiful. He was aware that Mercer was shaking him inarticulately and that Yoring's rheumy eyes were opening wider on him with a flame of triumph.
And suddenly Kilgarry guffawed and thumped the table.
'Go to it,' he said. 'Pick it up, Yoring. I take it all back. You're not so old, either!'
Yoring opened both his arms to embrace the pool.
'Just a minute,' said the Saint.
His voice was softer and gentler than ever, but it stunned the room to another immeasurable silence. Yoring froze as he moved, with his arms almost shaped into a ring. And the Saint smiled very kindly.
Certainly it had been a good trick, and an education, but the Saint didn't want the others to fall too hard. He had those moments of sympathy for the ungodly in their downfall.
He turned over his own cards, one by one. Aces. Four of them. Simon thought they looked pretty. He had collected them with considerable care, which may have prejudiced him. And the joker.
'My pot, I think,' he remarked apologetically.
Kilgarry's chair was the first to grate back.
'Here,' he snarled, 'that's not----'
'The hand he dealt me?' The texture of Simon's mockery was like gossamer. 'And he wasn't playing the hand I thought he had, either. I thought he'd have some fun when he got used to being without his glasses,' he added cryptically.
He tipped up the cigar box and added its contents to the stack of currency in front of him, and stacked it into a neat sheaf.
'Well, I'm afraid that sort of kills the game for tonight,' he murmured, and his hand was in his side pocket before Kilgarry's movement was half started. Otherwise he gave no sign of perturbation, and his languid self- possession was as smooth as velvet. 'I suppose we'd better call it a day,' he said without any superfluous emphasis.
Mercer recovered his voice first.
'That's right,' he said jerkily. 'You two have won plenty from me other nights. Now we've got some of it back. Let's get out of here, Templar.'
They walked along Ocean Drive, past the variegated modernistic shapes of the hotels, with the rustle of the surf in their ears.
'How much did you win on that last hand?' asked the young man.
'About fourteen thousand dollars,' said the Saint contentedly.
Mercer said awkwardly: 'That's just about what I'd lost to them before. ... I don't know how I can ever thank you for getting it back. I'd never have had the nerve to do it alone. . . . And then when Yoring turned up that straight flush--I don't know why--I had an awful moment thinking you'd made a mistake.'
The Saint put a cigarette in his mouth and struck his lighter.
'I don't make a lot of mistakes,' he said calmly. 'That's where a lot of people go wrong. It makes me rather tired, sometimes. I suppose it's just professional pride, but I hate to be taken for a mug. And the funny thing is that with my reputation there are always people trying it. I suppose they think that my reactions are so easy to predict that it makes me quite a setup for any smart business.' The Saint sighed, deploring the inexplicable optimism of those who should know better. 'Of course I knew that a switch like that was coming --the whole idea was to make me feel so confident of the advantage I had with those glasses that I'd be an easy victim for any ordinary cardsharping. And then, of course, I wasn't supposed to be able to make any complaint because that would have meant admitting that I was cheating, too. It was a grand idea, Eddie-- at least you can say that for it.'
Mercer had taken several steps before all the implications of what the Saint had said really hit him.
'But wait a minute,' he got out. 'How do you mean they knew you were wearing trick glasses ?'
'Why else do you imagine they planted that guy on the train to pretend he was J. J. Naskill?' asked the Saint patiently. 'That isn't very bright of you, Eddie. Now, I'm nearly always bright. I was so bright that I smelt a rat directly you lugged that pack of marked cards out of your beach robe--that was really carrying it a bit too far, to
