Simon smiled. He was still immodest enough to enjoy the sensation that his name could sometimes cause.
"That's what they call me."
"Of course I've read about you, but — Well, it sort of… " The young man petered out incoherently. "And I'd have argued with you about crooks!.. But — well, you ought to know. Do you think I've been a mug?"
The Saint's brows slanted sympathetically.
"If you took my advice," he answered, "you'd let these birds find someone else to play with. Write it off to experience, and don't do it again."
"But I can't!" Mercer's response was desperate. "She — she was telling the truth. I've lost money that wasn't mine. I've only got a job in an advertising agency that doesn't pay very much, but her people are pretty well off. They've found me a better job here, starting in a couple of months, and they sent us down here to find a home, and they gave us twenty thousand dollars to buy it and furnish it, and that's the money I've been playing with. Don't you see? I've got to go on and win it back!"
"Or go on and lose the rest."
"Oh, I know. But I thought the luck must change before that. And yet — But everybody who plays cards isn't a crook, is he? And I don't see how they could have done it. After she started talking about it, I watched them. I've been looking for it. And I couldn't catch them making a single move that wasn't above-board. Then I began to think about marked cards — we've always played with their cards. I sneaked away one of the packs we were using last night, and I've been looking at it this morning. I'll swear there isn't a mark on it. Here, I can show you."
He fumbled feverishly in a pocket of his beach robe and pulled out a pack of cards. Simon glanced through them. There was nothing wrong with them that he could see; and it was then that he remembered Mr. J. J. Naskill.
"Does either of these birds wear glasses?" he asked.