The young man gazed after her in silence, and his fist clenched on a handful of sand as if he would have liked to hurt it.
"Oh hell," he said expressively.
Simon drew a cigarette out of the packet beside him and tapped it meditatively on his thumbnail while the awkward hiatus made itself at home. His eyes seemed to be intent on following the movements of a small fishing cruiser far out on the emerald waters of the Gulf Stream.
"It's none of my damn business," he remarked at length, "but isn't there just a chance that the girl friend may be right? It's happened before; and a resort like this is rather a happy hunting ground for all kinds of crooks."
"I know it is," said the other sourly. He turned and looked at the Saint again miserably. "But I am pigheaded, and I can't bear to admit to her that I could have been such a mug. She's my fiancée — I suppose you guessed that. My name's Mercer."
"Simon Templar is mine."
The name had a significance for Mercer that it apparently had not had for Mr. Naskill. His eyes opened wide.
"Good God, you don't mean — You're not the Saint?"
Simon smiled. He was still immodest enough to enjoy the sensation that his name could sometimes cause.
"That's what they call me."
"Of course I've read about you, but — Well, it sort of… " The young man petered out incoherently. "And I'd have argued with you about crooks!.. But — well, you ought to know. Do you think I've been a mug?"
The Saint's brows slanted sympathetically.
"If you took my advice," he answered, "you'd let these birds find someone else to play with. Write it off to experience, and don't do it again."
"But I can't!" Mercer's response was desperate. "She — she was telling the truth. I've lost money that wasn't mine. I've only got a job in an advertising agency that doesn't pay very much, but her people are pretty well off. They've found me a better job here, starting in a couple of months, and they sent us down here to find a home, and they gave us twenty thousand dollars to buy it and furnish it, and that's the money I've been playing with. Don't you see? I've got to go on and win it back!"
"Or go on and lose the rest."
"Oh, I know. But I thought the luck must change before that. And yet — But everybody who plays cards isn't a crook, is he? And I don't see how they could have done it. After she started talking about it, I watched them. I've been looking for it. And I couldn't catch them making a single move that wasn't above-board. Then I began to think about marked cards — we've always played with their cards. I sneaked away one of the packs we were using last night, and I've been looking at it this morning. I'll swear there isn't a mark on it. Here, I can show you."
He fumbled feverishly in a pocket of his beach robe and pulled out a pack of cards. Simon glanced through them. There was nothing wrong with them that he could see; and it was then that he remembered Mr. J. J. Naskill.
"Does either of these birds wear glasses?" he asked.
"One of them wears pince-nez," replied the mystified young man. "But—"
"I'm afraid," said the Saint thoughtfully, "that it looks as if you are a mug."
Mercer swallowed.
"If I am," he said helplessly, "what on earth am I going to do?"
Simon hitched himself up.
"Personally, I'm going to have a dip in the pool. And you're going to be so busy apologizing to your fiancee and making friends again that you won't have time to think about anything else. I'll keep these cards and make sure about them, if you don't mind. Then suppose we meet in the bar for a cocktail about six o'clock, and maybe I'll be able to tell you something."
When he returned to his own room the Saint put on Mr. Naskill's horn-rimmed glasses and examined the cards again. Every one of them was clearly marked in the diagonally opposite corners with the value of the card and the initial of the suit, exactly like the deck that Naskill had given him; and it was then that the Saint knew that his faith in Destiny was justified again.
Shortly after six o'clock he strolled into the bar and saw that Mercer and the girl were already there. It was clear that they had buried their quarrel.
Mercer introduced her: "Miss Grange — or you can just call her Josephine."
She was wearing something in black and white taffeta, with a black and white hat and black and white gloves and a black and white bag, and she looked as if she had just stepped out of a fashion plate. She said: "We're both ashamed of ourselves for having a scene in front of you this afternoon, but I'm glad we did. You've done Eddie a lot of good."
"I hadn't any right to blurt out all my troubles like that," Mercer said sheepishly. "You were damned nice about it."
The Saint grinned.
"I'm a pretty nice guy," he murmured. "And now I've got something to show you. Here are your cards."
He spread the deck out on the table and then he took the horn-rimmed glasses out of his pocket and held them over the cards so that the other two could look through them. He slid the cards under the lenses one by one, face downwards, and turned them over afterwards, and for a little while they stared in breathless silence.
The girl gasped.
"I told you so!"
Mercer's fists clenched.
"By God, if I don't murder those swine—"
She caught his wrist as he almost jumped up from the table.
"Eddie, that won't do you any good."
"It won't do them any good either! When I've finished with them—"
"But that won't get any of the money back."
"I'll beat it out of them."
"But that'll only get you in trouble with the police. That wouldn't help. Wait!" She clung to him frantically. "I've got it. You could borrow Mr. Templar's glasses and play them at their own game. You could break Yoring's glasses — sort of accidentally. They wouldn't dare to stop playing on account of that. They'd just have to trust to luck, like you've been doing, and anyway, they'd feel sure they were going to get it all back again later. And you could win everything back and never see them again." She shook his arm in her excitement. "Go on, Eddie. It 'd serve them right. I'll let you play just once more if you'll do that!"
Mercer's eyes turned to the Saint, and Simon pushed the glasses across the table towards him.
The young man picked them up slowly, looked at the cards through them again. His mouth twitched. And then, with a sudden hopeless gesture, he thrust them away and passed a shaky hand over his eyes.
"It's no good," he said wretchedly. "I couldn't do it. They know I don't wear glasses. And I–I've never done anything like that before. I'd only make a mess of it. They'd spot me in five minutes. And then there wouldn't be anything I could say. I–I wouldn't have the nerve. I suppose I'm just a mug after all…"
The Saint leaned back and put a light to a cigarette and sent a smoke ring spinning through the fronds of a potted palm. In all his life he had never missed a cue, and it seemed that this was very much like a cue. He had come to Miami to bask in the sun and be good, but it wasn't his fault if business was thrust upon him.
"Maybe someone with a bit of experience could do it better," he said. "Suppose you let me meet your friends."
Mercer looked at him, first blankly, then incredulously; and the girl's dark eyes slowly lighted up.
Her slim fingers reached impetuously for the Saint's hand.
"You wouldn't really do that — help Eddie to win back what he's lost—"
"What would you expect Robin Hood to do?" asked the Saint quizzically. "I've got a reputation to keep up — and I might even pay my own expenses while I'm doing it." He drew the revealing glasses towards him and tucked them back in his pocket. "Let's go and have some dinner and organize the details."