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.