knife. He turned his head at a sound which was blown from forward. He sprang down and leaned over the rail in an attitude of deep contemplation of the sea and fog.
Saidee Isaacs glided to his side. She pressed her hat against his cap as she said tersely:
“I only got away from the game for a minute. I can’t make it out. Here’s a deck of the cards which we were using. Look them over, Chester. They seem all right. I have got to put the deck back or it will be missed.�
“His glasses?� asked Fay. “What kind are they? I couldn’t see from the port-hole.�
“They’re very thick and smoky.� Saidee Isaacs glanced apprehensively forward. “They’re thick, Chester. I can hardly see his eyes through them. He said that they had been weakened by a mustard-gas attack at Ypres.�
Fay rapidly scanned the back of the cards, then turned them over and held them toward the light from a deck-bulb.
“He never was nearer Ypres than London or Calais,� he said, shuffling the deck by a practiced motion. “He’s an awful liar!�
The girl clutched his sleeve and narrowed her dark eyes. “Hurry!� she said. “Is there anything wrong with the cards? He’s won three hundred pounds from that Russian. How does he do it?�
Fay bunched the cards and ran his fingers over their edges. He replaced them in the box and handed the box back to the girl.
“I don’t know,â€� he said, glancing squarely at her. “There’s nothing wrong with the cards—no edge-work, no marking on the back, no pin-pricks. The light’s good here. I didn’t see a thing wrong. It’s in the glasses he wears.â€�