Enter the Saint Read Free Page A

drafting. Only when that was done did he condescend to notice the presence of his visitor. “You’re late, Snake,” he said, blotting the sheet carefully.
    “Sorry, boss.”
    Mr. Hayn screwed the cap on his fountain-pen, replaced it in his pocket, and raised his eyes from the desk for the first time. What he saw made him sag back with astonishment. “Who on earth have you been picking a quarrel with?” he demanded.
    The Snake certainly looked the worse for wear. A bandage round his head covered one eye, and the eye that was visible was nearly closed up. His lips were bruised and swollen, and a distinct lack of teeth made him speak with a painful lisp.
    “Was it Harrigan’s crowd?” suggested Hayn.
    Ganning shook his head. “A bloke we met on the train coming back from Brighton last night.”
    “Were you alone?”
    “Nope; Ted and Bill were with me. And Mario.”
    “And what was this man trooping around? A regiment?”
    “He was alone.”
    Hayn blinked. “How did it happen?”
    “We thought he was a sucker,” explained Snake disgustedly. “Smart clothes, gold cigarette-case, gold-mounted stick, gold watch-and a wad. He showed us his wad. Two-fifty, he said it was. We couldn’t let that go, so we got him into a game of cards. Poker. He said he didn’t know anything about the game, so it looked safe enough-he struck us as being that sort of mug. We were geeing him along nicely right up to ten minutes or so before Victoria, and we’d let him take fifty off us. He was thinking himself the greatest poker player in the world by then, you’d have said. Then we asked him to be a sport and give us a chance of getting our money back on a couple of big jackpots with a five-pound ante. He agreed, and we let him win the first one. We all threw in after the first rise. ‘What about making it a tenner ante for the last deal?’ I said, tipping the wing to the boys. He wasn’t too keen on that, but we jollied him along, and at last he fell for it. It was his deal, but I shuffled the broads for him.”
    “And your hand slipped?”
    Ganning snorted. “Slipped nothin’! My hand doesn’t slip. I’d got that deck stacked better than any conjurer could have done it. And I picked up a straight flush, just as I’d fixed it. Mario chucked in right away, and Ted and Bill dropped out after the first round. That left the mug and me, and we went on raising each other till every cent the boys and I could find between us was in the kitty. We even turned in our links and Mario’s diamond pin to account for as much of the mug’s wad as possible. When we hadn’t another bean to stake, he saw me. I showed down my straight flush, and I was just getting set to scoop in the pool when he stopped me. ‘I thought you told me this was next to unbeatable,’ he says, and then he shows down five kings.”
    “Five?” repeated Mr. Hayn frowning.
    “We were playing deuces wild, and a joker. He’d got the joker.”
    “Well, didn’t you know what he was holding?”
    “It wasn’t the hand I fixed for him to deal himself!”
    Mr. Hayn controlled his features. “And then you cut up rough, and got the worst of it?”
    “I accused him of cheating. He didn’t deny it. He had the nerve to say: ‘Well, you were supposed to be teaching me the game, and I saw you were cheating all the time, so I thought it was allowed by the rules!’ And he started putting away our pile. Of course we cut up rough!”
    “And he cut up rougher?” suggested Mr. Hayn.
    “He didn’t fight fair,” said Ganning aggrievedly. “First thing I knew, he’d jabbed the point of his stick into Ted’s neck before Ted had a chance to pull his cosh, so Ted was out of it. Bill was all ready for a fair stand-up fight with the knuckle-dusters, but this man kicked him in the stomach, so he took the count. Mario and me had to tackle him alone.” The Snake seemed disinclined to proceed further with the description of the battle, and Hayn tactfully refrained from pressing