Banks nodded, and sipped his whisky and water. "Yes, about eight," he answered. "We don't keep city hours."
"Do you expect the marked card to turn up again?" asked Captain Wigmore, fixing him with a keen glance.
The New Yorker looked slightly disconcerted, but only for a fraction of a second.
"Yes, I am hoping so," he admitted. "I want to see those marks. Do you think there is any chance of the thing working to-night?"
"That is just what I want to know," returned the captain. "If the devil is at the bottom of that trick, as Jim Harley would have us all believe, I see no reason why he should neglect us to-night. But, seriously, I am convinced that we might play a thousand games and never see those two red crosses on the face of a card again. It was chance, of course, and that the Harleys should have that family tradition all ready was a still more remarkable chance."
Mr. Banks nodded. "We'll look for you about eight o'clock," he said, and then, very swiftly for a man of his weight, he sprang from his chair and yanked open the door. There, with his feet at the very threshold, stood Timothy Fletcher. Banks turned to the captain with a gesture that drew the old man's attention to the old servant's position.
"I'd keep my eye on this man, if I were you," he said. "I have caught him both at lying and eavesdropping to-day."
"Timothy, what the devil do you mean by such behavior?" cried Wigmore furiously.
Timothy leered, turned, and walked slowly away.
Mr. Banks mounted his horse and set out for Doctor Nash's at a bone-wrenching trot.