"What are you braying about, now, Reginald?" asked old Wigmore, who still sat at the table, smoking his pipe and gazing at the scattered cards.
"A joke of Harley's. It was quite unintentional, I think," returned Rayton.
The old man shot a keen glance at the other from under his shaggy eyebrows. "Those marks on the card seemed to hit him hard," he remarked. "I can't make it out. He is a prosperous, steady-going chap, without any crazy notions or troubles, and very clear-headed, I have always heard. Now, why should two red marks on the six of clubs cause him to make a fool of himself? It was young Marsh, I believe, who had the card dealt to him."
"Yes, David Marsh got the card," replied Rayton.
"Then why didn't he raise a row, if there's anything terrible in those marks?"
"It did not mean anything to him, evidently; but I'd swear it did to Harley. I've heard of such things at home in England. I don't take any stock in them myself."
"Neither do I. But it's queer that the marks should have been there."
"Yes," said Rayton, and stepped over to the table.
"You needn't look for the card," said the old man. "Nash took it away with him. Last fall he tracked a moose across a plowed field, and he has considered himself something of a detective ever since."
The young Englishman laughed with a preoccupied note. He stood in front of the open stove, warming the seat of his London-cut breeches.