Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery Part 17

"You look as if you'd been given something pretty good," said Captain Wigmore.

"Not half bad," answered the Englishman quietly.

"On the side," said Nash, "I bet you a dollar, even, that I hold the best hand--pat."

Rayton shook his head. "Not this time, Nash, if you don't mind," he replied quietly. "I want to take cards."

"That's easily managed," persisted the doctor. "I want cards, too; but we can lay our discards aside and show them later. Come, be a sport!

Thought all Englishmen were sports."

Rayton hesitated, flus.h.i.+ng.

"Right-o!" he said. "But I'll not be what you call a sport on one dollar! Twenty-five is my bet, Nash--even money. Come! How does that suit you?"

"It doesn't suit me at all--thanks just the same," returned the doctor sullenly.

"Perhaps you'll leave the English sporting instinct alone, after this,"

said Mr. Banks.

"For Heaven's sake, get on with the game!" cried old Wigmore.

All "came in" and took cards. Rayton asked for two, and though he did not bet, he kept the five cards in his hand. Wigmore took the money, this time.

"Supper," said the Englishman quickly, and gathered up all the cards with swift hands, his own included. He entered the kitchen quickly, and they heard him clattering about the stove.

After supper the game went on, with another fresh pack of cards. They had been playing for about a quarter of an hour when Captain Wigmore suddenly began to chuckle.

"What's the matter with you? Have you laid an egg?" asked Nash insolently.

For a second the old man's face was twisted with white-hot rage and his eyes fairly flamed upon the doctor. He trembled--then smiled calmly.

"Some one has, evidently," he said, and spread his five cards face-up upon the table. He pointed at the ace of clubs with a lean finger. It was marked with two little red crosses!

"You!" cried Jim Harley, staring incredulously from the card to the old man and back again to the card.

Nash and David Marsh began to laugh uproariously. Goodine and Rayton looked bewildered, and Banks scratched his head reflectively.

"That beats the band!" cried Nash, at last. "Jim, the spook who works that family curse of yours must be going daffy. Good for you, captain!

There's life in the old dog yet! No wonder you are dressed up so stylish."

He leaned halfway across the table, guffawing in the old man's face.

Wigmore's hands darted forward. One gripped Nash's necktie, and the other darted into an inner pocket of his coat.

"Here! Drop it, you old devil!" cried the doctor.

Captain Wigmore sat back in his chair, laughing softly. He held something in his hand--something that they had all seen him draw from Nash's pocket.

"Gentlemen," he said, "look at this. It is another card marked with the two red crosses. I took it from the pocket of our worthy young pill roller. Who'd ever have thought that he was the mysterious indicator of trouble--the warning of the G.o.ds--the instrument of fate?"

"You darned old fool!" cried Nash, "that is the same card that was dealt to Davy Marsh last time we played. You know it as well as I do, you old ape! Look at it. Look at the back of it. Here, Rayton, you take a look at it."

"It is the same old card," said Rayton. "Nash took it away with him that night."

"Ah! My mistake," said the captain mildly.

When the company left the house, Rayton called Jim Harley back.

"I can't make it out," he said, looking from Banks to Harley, "but I want you chaps to know that two marked cards were dealt to me before supper. I kept quiet and changed the pack each time."

Harley clutched the Englishman's shoulder.

"You!" he exclaimed, with colorless lips. "Twice! Is that true?"

"Yes, it's true; but it is nonsense, of course," returned the Englishman.

"Don't worry, Jim," said Mr. Banks calmly. "The thing is all a fake--and I mean to catch the faker before I leave Samson's Mill Settlement!"

CHAPTER XI

AN UNFORTUNATE MOMENT FOR THE DOCTOR

The morning after the second card party found Banks and Rayton eating an early breakfast with good appet.i.tes. If Rayton felt uneasy, face and manner showed nothing of it. The big New Yorker was in the highest spirits. He had found an unfamiliar sport--a new form of hunting--a twisted, mysterious trail, with the Lord knows what at the far end of it. He was alert, quiet, smiling to himself. He ate five rashers of bacon, drank three cups of coffee, and then lit a cigar.

"I'll have my finger on him within the week," he said, leaning back in his chair.

The Englishman glanced up at him, and smiled.

"I do not think we should encourage the idiot by paying any further attention to his silly tricks," he said. "Whoever he is, let him see that he does not amuse or interest any one but himself. Then he'll get tired and drop it. The whole thing is absolute foolishness, and the man at the bottom of it is a fool."

"I mean to trail him, and pin him down, fool or no fool," replied Banks.

"I'll make him pay dear for his fooling, by thunder! He is having his fun--and I mean to have mine."

Rayton laughed. "Go ahead and have your fun, old chap; but I tell you that the more notice you pay his silly tricks, the more you tickle his vanity."

"I'll tickle more than his vanity before I'm done with him," promised Banks.

The two were was.h.i.+ng the dishes, when the kitchen door opened, and d.i.c.k Goodine stepped into the room.

"We're in for another spell o' soft weather," he said. "It's mild as milk this mornin'. This little lick o' snow'll be all gone by noon. It don't look as if I'll ever get into the woods with my traps."

He sat down, filled and lit his pipe, and put his feet on the hearth of the cookstove.

"That was an all-fired queer thing about old Wigmore," he said. "All the fools ain't dead yet, I reckon. Since the captain got that there card, the thing don't look as serious to me as it did. Not by a long shot!