Rayton lit his pipe, reflected for half a minute, and then gave his guest a brief and colorless version of the story. He told it grudgingly, wishing all the while that Harley had asked him not to repeat it.
Nash straddled his long, thin legs toward the fire. "So that's the yarn, is it?" he sneered. "And do you believe it?"
"Believe it? What Harley told me?"
"Yes."
"Certainly I do."
"Then you are more of a fool than I took you for. Don't you see it's all a game of Harley's to keep that young cub away from his sister? He doesn't want to have such a lout hanging 'round all the time for fear it may scare some one else away—some one who'd be a better catch. So he rigged the card and invented the fine story."
Rayton withdrew his pipe from his lips and stared at his guest blankly.
"Oh! that was easy," continued Nash complacently. "I thought, until you told me that yarn, that I really had hold of a problem worth solving. But it is easy as rolling off a log. Here is the marked card. See, it is marked in red chalk. A man could do that in two winks, right under our noses." He handed the card to Rayton—the cross-marked six of clubs. Rayton took it, but did not even glance at it. His gaze was fixed steadily upon his guest.
"I don't quite follow you," he said—"or, at least, I hope I don't."
"Hope you don't follow me? What do you mean?"