He pushed the salver which served as a pool over towards Beaton. Obviously it contained a great deal of money; there were both notes and gold, and cheques and half-sheets of paper. "What will you take for it, Sydney?" asked George Pierce. Anthony Dodwell interposed. "One moment, before Beaton takes either the pool or--anything else. Perhaps he won't mind saying what is the card that he dropped on the floor." They all looked at him--Beaton with a sudden startled turn of the head. "What do you mean?" he asked. Dodwell met his eager gaze with a calmness which, in its way, was almost ominous. "I'm afraid that question is quite unnecessary; I fancy you know quite well what I mean. Will you pick up the card you dropped, or shall I?" "I dropped no card." He drew his chair a little away from the table so as to enable him to see the floor. "I didn't know it, but there does seem to be one down there." "Unless some good fairy removed it since you dropped it, there was bound to be. Draycott, would you mind picking up that card?" Noel Draycott, stooping, picking up the card, showed it to the assembled players, in whose demeanour, for some as yet unspoken reason, there seemed to have come a sudden change. "It's only the nine of spades." "Exactly, which was possibly the reason why Beaton dropped it; with the nine of spades he could hardly have made a full." Beaton rose to his feet, his face flushed, his tones raised. "Dodwell, are you--are you insinuating----" The other cut him short. "I'm insinuating nothing. You are the dealer; there's a pack close to your hand; you gave yourself three cards; I saw you glance at them, then drop one on to the floor, and take another off the top of the pack--in the hope, I presume, that it was a better one. It clearly was; the card you dropped was the nine of spades; the hand you have shown there consists of three aces and a pair of knaves; I can't say which was the card you took from the top of the pack, but it was one of them, and it certainly gave you the full."