"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.
I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a shudder passed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by Ormsby's foot,—a large and heavy one,—lay an upturned card, the jack of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed eyes.
At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one who had entered noiselessly.
"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards. I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"
Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the table with the deepest interest.
Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.
"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"
"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia commanded.
"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious plain Saxon terms."
"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I could put into the blow.