Leslie Charteris - The Happy Highwayman

"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 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 supernaturally 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.