_ CHAPTER IX. THE FIGURE IN WHITE
For a moment none of the three spoke. Standish and his sister stared at each other in dumb horror. Then Milo took an uncertain step toward the door. Brice made no move to check him, but stood looking quietly on, with the detached expression of a man who watches an interesting stage drama.
Just within the threshold, Standish paused, irresolute, his features working. And Gavin Brice, as before, read his emotions as though they were writ in large letters. He knew Milo was not only a giant in size and in strength, but that in ordinary circumstances or at bay he was valiant enough. But it is one thing to meet casual peril, and quite another to fare forth in the dark among six savage men, all of whom are waiting avidly for the chance to murder.
A braver warrior than Milo Standish might well have hesitated to face sure death in such a form, for the mere sake of saving a man whom he feared and hated, and whose existence threatened his own good name and liberty.
Wherefore, just within the shelter of the open door, the giant paused and hung back, fighting for the nerve to go forth on his fatal errand of heroism. Gavin, studying him, saw with vivid clearness the weakness of character which had made this man the dupe and victim of Hade, and which had rendered him helpless against the wiles of a master-mind.
But if Standish hesitated, Claire did not. After one look of scornful pity at her wavering half-brother, she moved swiftly past him to the threshold. There was no hint of hesitation in her free step as she ran to the rescue of the man who had ruined Milo's career. And both onlookers knew she would brave any and all the dire perils of the lurking marauders, in order to warn back the unconsciously oncoming Hade.
As she sped through the doorway, Brice came to himself, with a start. Springing forward, he caught the flying little figure and swung it from the ground. Disregarding Claire's violent struggles, he bore her back into the house, shutting and locking the door behind her and standing with his back to it.
"You can't go, Miss Standish!" he said, in stern command, as if rebuking some fractious child. "Your little finger is worth more than that blackguard's whole body. Besides," he added, grimly, "mocking birds, that sing nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, must be prepared to pay the bill."
She was struggling with the door. Then, realizing that she could not open it, she ran to the nearest window which looked out on the lawn and the path-head. Tugging at the sash she flung it open, and next fell to work at the shutter-bars. As she threw wide the shutters, and put one knee on the sill, Milo Standish caught her by the shoulder. Roughly drawing her back into the room, he said:
"Brice is right. It's not your place to go. It would be suicide. Useless suicide, at that. I'd go, myself. But- -but--"
"'They that take up the sword shall perish by the sword,'" quoted Gavin, tersely. "The man who sets traps must expect to step into a trap some day. And those Caesars will be more merciful assassins than the moccasin snakes would have been .... He's taking plenty of time, to cover that last hundred yards. Perhaps he met the conch boy, running back, and had sense enough to take alarm."
"Not he," denied Standish. "That fool boy was so scared, he'd plunge into the brush or the water, the second he heard Rodney's step. Those conchs can keep as mum as Seminoles. He'd never let Rodney see him or hear him. He--"
Standish did not finish his sentence. Into his slow-moving brain, an idea dawned. Leaning far out of the window and shouting at the top of his enormous lungs, he bawled through the night:
"Hade! Back, man! Go back! They'll kill you!"
The bull-like bellow might have been heard for half a mile. And, as it ceased, a muffled snarling, like a dog's, came from the edge of the forest, where waited the silent men whose knives were drawn for the killing.
And, in the same instant, from the head of the path, drifted the fluting notes of a mocking bird.
Disregarding or failing to catch the meaning of the thickly-bellowed warning, Rodney Hade was advancing nonchalantly upon his fate. The three in the hallway crowded into the window-opening, tense, wordless, mesmerized, peering aghast toward the screen of vines which veiled the end of the path.
The full moon, which Brice had glimpsed as it was rising, a minute or so before, now breasted the low tops of the orange trees across the highroad and sent a level shaft of light athwart the lawn. Its clear beams played vividly on the dark forest, revealing the screen of vines at the head of the path, and revealing also three crouching dark figures, close to the ground, at the very edge of the lawn, not six feet from the path head.
And, almost instantly, with a third repetition of the mocking bird call, the vine screen was swept aside. Out into the moonshine sauntered a slight figure, all in white, yachting cap on head, lighted cigarette in hand.
The man came out from the black vine-screen, and, for a second, stood there, as if glancing carelessly about him. Milo Standish shouted again, at the top of his lungs. And this time, Claire's voice, like a silver bugle, rang out with his in that cry of warning.
But, before the dual shout was fairly launched, three dark bodies had sprung forward and hurled themselves on the unsuspecting victim. There was a tragically brief struggle. Then, all four were on the ground, the vainly-battling white body underneath. And there was a gruesome sound as of angry beasts worrying their meat.
Carried out of his own dread, by the spectacle, Milo Standish vaulted over the sill and out onto the veranda. But there he came to a halt. For there was no further need for him to throw away his own life in the belated effort at rescue.
The three black figures had regained their feet. And, on the trampled lawn-edge in front of them lay a huddle of white, with darker stains splashed here and there on it. The body lay in an impossible posture--a posture which Nature neither intends nor permits. It told its own dreadful story, to the most uninitiated of the three onlookers at the window.
With dragging feet, Milo Standish turned back, and reentered the house, as he had gone out of it.
"I am a coward!" he said, heavily. "I could have saved him. Or we could have fought, back to back, till we were killed. It would have been a white man's way of dying. I am a coward!"
He sank down in a chair and buried his bearded face in his hands. No one contradicted him or made any effort at comfort. Claire, deathly pale, still crouched forward, staring blindly at the moveless white figure at the head of the path.
"Peace to his soul!" said Brice, in a hushed voice, adding under his breath: "If he had one!"
Then, laying his hand gently on Claire's arm, he drew her away from the window and shut the blinds on the sight which had so horrified them.
"Go and lie down, Miss Standish," he bade her. "This has been an awful thing for you or any other woman to look on. Take a double dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and tell one of the maids to bring you some black coffee .... Do as I say, please!" he urged, as she looked mutely at him and made no move to obey. "You may need your strength and your nerve. And--try to think of anything but what you've just seen. Remember, he was an outlaw, a murderer, the man who wrecked your brother's honorable life, a thorough-paced blackguard, a man who merits no one's pity. More than that, he was one of Germany's cleverest spies, during the war. His life was forfeit, then, for the injury he did his country. I am not heartless in speaking this way of a man who is dead. I do it, so that you may not feel the horror of his killing as you would if a decent man had died, like that. Now go, please."
Tenderly, he led her to the foot of the stairs. The house man was just returning from the locking of the upstairs shutters. To him Brice gave the order for coffee to be taken to her room and for one of the maids to attend her there.
As she passed dazedly up the stairs, Gavin stood over the broken giant who still sat inert and huddled in his chair, face in hands.
"Buck up!" said Brice, impatiently. "If you can grieve for a man who made you his slave and--"
"Grieve for him?" repeated Standish, raising his haggard face. "Grieve for him? I thank God he's dead. I hated him as I never hated any one else or thought I could hate any one! I hated him as we hate the man in whose power we are and who uses us as helpless pawns in his dirty game. I'd have killed him long ago, if I had had the nerve, and if he hadn't made me believe he had a charmed life. His death means freedom to me- -glorious freedom! It's for my own foul cowardice that I'm grieving. The cowardice that held me here while a man's life might have been saved by me. That's going to haunt me as long as I live."
"Bosh!" scoffed Gavin. "You'll get over it. Self-forgiveness is the easiest blessing to acquire. You're better of it, already, or you couldn't talk so glibly about it. Now, about this treasure-business: You know, of course, that you'll have to drop it,--that you'll have to give up every cent of it to the Government? If you can't find the cache, up North, where Hade used to send it when he lugged it away from here, it is likely to go a bit hard with you. I'm going to do all I can to get you clear. Not for your own sake, but for your sister's. But you'll have to 'come through, clean,' if I'm to help you. Now, if you've got anything to say--"
He paused, invitingly. Milo gaped at him, the big bearded face working convulsively. Nerves wrenched, easily dominated by a stronger nature, the giant was struggling in vain to resume his pose of not understanding Brice's allusions. Presently, with a sigh, that was more like a grunt of hopelessness, he thrust his fingers into an inner pocket of his waistcoat, and drew forth a somewhat tarnished silver dollar. This he held toward Gavin, in his wide palm.
Brice took the coin from him and inspected it with considerable interest. In spite of the tarnish and the ancient die and date, its edges were as sharp and its surface as unworn as though it had been minted that very year. Clearly, this dollar had jingled in no casual pockets, along with other coins, nor had it been sweated or marred by any sort of use.
"Do you know what that is?" asked Milo.
"Yes," said Brice. "It is a United States silver dollar, dated '1804.'"
"Do you know its value?" pursued Milo. "But of course you don't. You probably think it is worth its weight in silver and nothing more."
"It is, and it isn't," returned Gavin. "If I were to take this dollar, to-night, to the right groups of numismatists, they would pay me anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000 for it."
"Oh!" exclaimed Standish, in visible surprise. "You know something about numismatics, then?"
"Just a little," modestly admitted Brice. "In my work, one has to have a smattering of it. For instance--if I remember rightly--there are only three of these 1804 silver dollars generally known to be in existence. That is why collectors are ready to pay a fortune for authentic specimens of them, in good condition. Yes, a smattering of numismatics may come in handy, at times. So does sailor lore. It did, for instance, with a chap I used to know. He had read up, on this special dollar. He was dead-broke. He was passing the Gloucester waterfront, one day, and saw a dockful of rotting old schooners that were being sold at auction for firewood and for such bits of their metal as weren't rusted to pieces. He read the catalog. Then he telegraphed to me to wire him a loan of one hundred dollars. For the catalog gave the date of one schooner's building as 1804. He knew it used to be a hard-and-fast custom of ship-builders to put a silver dollar under the mainmast of every vessel they built, a dollar of that particular year. He bought the schooner for $70. He spent ten dollars in hiring men to rip out her mast. Under it was an 1804 dollar. He sold it for $3,600."
"Since you know so much about the 1804 dollar," went on Milo, catechizingly, "perhaps you know why it is so rare? Or perhaps you didn't add a study of American history to your numismatics?"
"The commonly accepted story goes," said Brice, taking no heed of the sneer, "that practically the whole issue of 1804 dollars went toward the payment of the Louisiana Purchase money, when Uncle Sam paid Napoleon Bonaparte's government a trifle less than $15,000,000 (or under four cents an acre) for the richest part of the whole United States. Payment was made in half a dozen different forms,--in settlement of anti-French claims and in installment notes, and so forth. But something between a million and two million dollars of it is said to have been paid in silver."
"Are you a schoolmaster, Mr. Brice?" queried Milo, who seemed unable to avoid sneering in futile fashion at the man who was dominating his wavering willpower.
"No, Mr. Standish," coolly replied the other. "I am Gavin Brice, of the United States Secret Service."
Standish's bearded jaw dropped. He glanced furtively about him, like a trapped rat. Gavin continued, authoritatively:
"You've nothing to fear from me, as long as you play straight. And I'm here to see that you shall. Two hours ago, I was for renouncing my life-work and throwing over my job. Never mind why. I've changed my mind, now. I'm in this thing to the finish. With Hade out of the game, I can see my way through."
"But--"
"Now I'll finish the yarn you were so gradually leading up to with those schoolboy questions of yours. French statesmen claimed, last year, that something over a million dollars of the Louisiana purchase money was never paid to France. That was money, in the form of silver dollars, which went by sea. In skirting the Florida coast--probably on the way from some mint or treasury in the South--one or more of the treasure ships parted from their man-o'-war escorts in a hurricane, and went aground on the southeastern Florida reefs. The black pirate, Caesar, and his cutthroats did the rest.
"This was no petty haul, such as Caesar was accustomed to, and it seems to have taken his breath away. He and his crew carried it into Caesar's Estuary--not Caesar's Creek--an inlet, among the mangrove swamps. They took it there by night, and sank it in shallow water, under the bank. There they planned to have it until it might be safe to divide it and to scatter to Europe or to some place where they could live in safety and in splendor. Only a small picked crew of Caesar's knew the hiding place. And, by some odd coincidence, every man of them died of prussic acid poisoning, at a booze-feast that Caesar invited them to, at his shack down on Caesar's creek, a month later. Then, almost at once afterward, as you've probably heard, Caesar himself had the bad luck to die with extreme suddenness.
"The secret was lost. Dozens of pirates and of wreckers --ancestors of the conchs--knew about the treasure. But none of them could find it.
"There was a rumor that Caesar had written instructions about it, on the flyleaf of a jeweled prayer book that was part of some ship's loot. But his heirs sold or hocked the prayer-book, at St. Augustine or Kingston or Havana, before this story reached them. None of them could have read it, anyhow. Then, last year, Rodney Hade happened upon that book, (with the jewels all pried out of the cover, long ago), in a negro cabin on Shirley Street, at Nassau, after hunting for it, off and on, for years. The Government had been hunting for it, too, but he got to it a week ahead of us. That was how we found who had it. And that is why we decided to watch him .... Do you want me to keep on prattling about these things, to convince you I'm what I say I am? Or have you had enough?
"For instance, do you want me to tell you how Hade wound his web around a blundering fool whose help and whose hidden path and tunnel and caches he needed, in order to make sure of the treasure? Or is it enough for me to say the dollars belong to the United States Government, and that Uncle Sam means to have them back?"
Standish still gaped at him, with fallen jaw and bulging eyes. Gavin went on:
"Knowing Hade's record and his cleverness as I do, I can guess how he was going to swing the hoard when he finished transporting all of it to safety. Probably, he'd clear up a good many thousand dollars by selling the coins, one at a time, secretly, to collectors who would think he was selling them the only 1804 dollar outside the three already known to be in existence. When that market was glutted, he was due to melt down the rest of the dollars into bar silver. Silver is high just now, you know. Worth almost double what once it was. The loot ought to have been much the biggest thing in his speckled career. How much of it he was intending to pass along to you, is another question. By the way--the three canvas bags he left out by the kiosk ought to do much toward whetting the Caesars' appetite for the rest. It may even key them up to rushing the house before morning."
"We'll be ready for them!" spoke up Standish, harshly, as though glad to have a prospect of restoring his broken self-respect by such a clash.
"Quite so," agreed Gavin, smiling at the man's new ardor for battle. "It would be a pleasant little brush--if it weren't for your sister. Miss Standish has seen about enough of that sort of thing for one night. If she weren't a thoroughbred, with the nerves of a thoroughbred and the pluck as well, she'd be a wreck, from what has happened already. More of it might be seriously bad for her."
Standish glowered. Then he lifted his bulky body from the low chair and crossed the hall to the telephone. Taking the receiver from the hook, he said sulkily to Brice:
"Maybe you're right. I have a couple of night watchmen patrolling the road, above and below. I'll phone to the agency to send me half a dozen more, to clear the grounds. I'd phone the police about it, but I don't like--"
"Don't like to lock the stable door after the horse is stolen?" suggested Brice. "Man, get it into that thick skull of yours that the time for secrecy is past! Your game is up. Hade is dead. Your one chance is to play out the rest of this hand with your cards on the table. The Government knows you are only the dupe. It will let you off, if the money is--"
"What in blue blazes is the matter with Central?" growled Milo, whanging the receiver-hook up and down in vexation. "Is she dead?"
Gavin went over to him and took the receiver out of his hand. Listening for a moment, he made answer:
"I don't believe Central is dead. But I know this phone is. Our Caesar friends seem to be more sophisticated than I thought. They've cut the wires, from outside."
"H'm!" grunted Milo. "That means we've got to play a lone hand. Well, I'm not sorry. I--"
"Not necessarily," contradicted Gavin. "I'd rather have relied on the local watchmen, of course. But their absence needn't bother us, overmuch."
"What do you mean?"
Before Gavin could answer, a stifled cry from the hallway above brought both men to attention. It was followed by a sound of lightly running feet. And Claire Standish appeared at the stair-top. She was deathly pale, and her dark eyes were dilated with terror.
Gavin ran up the steps to meet her. For she swayed perilously as she made her way down toward the men.
"What is it?" demanded Milo, excitedly. "What's happened?"
Claire struggled visibly to regain her composure. Then, speaking with forced calmness, she said:
"I've just seen a ghost! Rodney Hade's ghost!"
The two looked at her in dumb incomprehension. Then, without a word, Milo wheeled and strode to the window from which they had watched the tragedy. Opening the shutter, he peered out into the moonlight.
"Hade's still lying where he fell," he reported, tersely. "They haven't even bothered to move him. You were dreaming. If--"
"I wasn't asleep," she denied, a trace of color beginning to creep back into her blanched cheeks. "I had just lain down. I heard--or thought I heard--a sound on the veranda roof. I peeped out through the grill of the shutter. There, on the roof, not ten feet away from me, stood Rodney Hade. He was dressed in rags. But I recognized him. I saw his face, as clearly as I see yours. He--"
"One of the Caesars," suggested Brice. "They found the lower windows barred and they sent some one up, to see if there was any ingress by an upper window. The porch is easy to climb, with all those vines. So is the whole house, for that matter. He--"
"It was Rodney Hade!" she insisted, shuddering. "I saw his face with the moonlight on it--"
"And with a few unbecoming scratches on it, too, from the underbrush and from those porch vines," chimed in a suave voice from the top of the stairs. "Milo, next time you bar your house, I suggest you don't forget and leave the cupola window open. If it was easy for me to climb up there from the veranda roof, it would be just as easy for any of our friends out yonder."
Down the stairs--slowly, nonchalantly,--lounged Rodney Hade.
His classic mask of a face was marred by one or two scratches and by a smudge of dirt. But it was as calm and as eternally smiling as ever. In place of his wontedly correct, if garish, form of dress, he was clad in ragged calico shirt and soiled drill trousers whose lower portions were in ribbons. All of which formed a ludicrous contrast to his white buckskin yachting shoes and his corded white silk socks.
Claire and the two men stood staring up at him in utter incredulity. Bobby Burns broke the spell by bounding snarlingly toward the unkempt intruder.
Brice absentmindedly caught the dog's collar as Bobby streaked past him on his punitive errand.
"Hade!" croaked Standish, his throat sanded with horror. '"'Hade! I--we--we saw you--murdered!"
Hade laughed pleasantly.
"Perhaps the wish was father to the thought?" he hinted, with an indulgent twinkle in his perpetual smile. "I hate mysteries. Here's an end to this one I was on my way along the path, when a young fellow came whirling around a bend and collided with me. The impact knocked him off his feet. I collared him. He didn't want to talk. But," the smile twisting upward at one corner of the mouth in a look which did not add to the beauty of the ascetic face, "I used persuasion. And I found what was going on here. I stripped off my outer clothes, and made him put them on. Then I put my yachting cap on him and pulled it low over his eyes. And I bandaged his mouth with my handkerchief, to gag him. Then I walked him along, ahead of me. I gave the signal. And I stuck my cigarette in his hand and shoved him through the screen of vines. They finished him, poor fool! I had no outer clothes of my own. So I went back and put on his. Then I slipped through that chuckle-headed aggregation out there and--here I am."
As he finished speaking, he turned his icy smile upon Gavin Brice.
"Roke signaled a fruit boat, Mr. Brice," said he, "and came over to where my yacht was lying, to tell me you had gotten loose. That was why I came here, tonight. He seems to think you know more than a man should know and yet stay alive. And, as a rule, he is apt to be right. He--"
"Miss Standish," interposed Gavin, "would you mind very much, going into some other room? This isn't a pleasant scene for you."
"Stay where you are, for a minute, Claire!" commanded Milo, shaking off a lethargy of wonder which had settled upon him, at sight of his supposedly dead tyrant. "I want you to hear what I've got to say. And I want you to endorse it. I've had a half hour of freedom. And it's meant too much to me, to let me go back into the hell I've lived through, this past few months."
He wheeled about on the newcomer and addressed him, speaking loudly and rapidly in a voice hoarse with rage:
"Hade, I'm through! Get that? I'm through! You can foreclose on my home here, and you can get me sent to prison for that check I was insane enough to raise when I had no way out of the hole. But I'm through. It isn't worth it. Nothing is worth having to cringe and cheat for. I'm through cringing to you. And I'm through cheating the United States Government. You weren't content with making me do that. You tried, to-day, to make me a murderer--to make me your partner in the death of the man who had saved my life. When I found that out--when I learned what you could stoop to and could drag me to,--I swore to myself to cut free from you, for all time. Now, go ahead and do your dirtiest to me and to mine. What I said, goes. And it goes for my sister, too. Doesn't it, dear girl?"
For answer, Claire caught her brother's big hand in both of hers, and raised it to her lips. A light of happiness transfigured her face. Milo pulled away his hand, bashfully, his eyes misting at her wordless praise for his belatedly manly action.
"Good!" he approved, passing his arm about her and drawing her close to him. "I played the cur once, this evening. It's good to know I've had enough pluck to do this one white thing, to help make up for it."
He faced Gavin, head thrown back, giant shoulders squared, eyes alight.
"Mr. Brice," he said, clearly. "Through you, I surrender to the United States Government. I'll make a signed confession, any time you want it. I'm your prisoner."
Gavin shook his head.
"The confession will be of great service, later," said he, "and, as state's evidence, it will clear you from any danger of punishment. But you're not my prisoner. Thanks to your promise of a confession. I have a prisoner, here. But it is not you."
"No?" suavely queried Hade, whose everlasting smile had not changed and whose black eyes remained as serene as ever, through the declaration of rebellion on the part of his satellite. "If Standish is not your prisoner, he'll be the State of Florida's prisoner, by this time to-morrow, when I have lodged his raised check with the District Attorney. Think that over, Standish, my dear friend. Seven years for forgery is not a joyous thing, even in a Florida prison. Here, in the community where your family's name has been honored, it will come extra hard. And on Claire, here, too. Mightn't it be better to think that over, a minute or so, before announcing your virtuous intent? Mightn't--"
"Don't listen to him, Milo!" cried the girl, seizing Standish's hand again in an agony of appeal, and smiling encouragingly up into his sweating and irresolute face. "We'll go through any disgrace, together. You and I. And after it's all over, I'll give up my whole life to making you happy, and helping you to get on your feet again."
"There'll be no need for that, Miss Standish," said Brice. "Of course, Hade can foreclose his mortgage on your half- brother's property and call in Standish's notes,--if he's in a position to do it, which I don't think he will be. But, as for the raised check, why, he's threatening Standish with an empty gun. Hade, if ever you get home again, look in the compartment of your strongbox where you put the red-sealed envelope with Standish's check in it. The envelope is still there. So are the seals. The check is not. You can verify that, for yourself, later, perhaps. In the meantime, take my word for it."
A cry of delight from Claire--a groan from Standish that carried with it a world of supreme relief--broke in upon Gavin's recital. Paying no heed to either of his hosts, Brice walked across to the unmovedly smiling Hade, and placed one hand on the latter's shoulder.
"Mr. Hade," said he, quietly, "I am an officer of the Federal Secret Service. I place you under arrest, on charges of--"
With a hissing sound, like a striking snake's, Rodney Hade shook off the detaining hand. In the same motion, he leaped backward, drawing from his torn pocket an automatic pistol.
Brice, unarmed, stood for an instant looking into the squat little weapon's black muzzle, and at the gleaming black eyes in the ever-smiling white face behind it.
He was not afraid. Many times, before, had he faced leveled guns, and, like many another war-veteran, he had outgrown the normal man's dread of such weapons.
But as he was gathering his strength for a spring at his opponent, trusting that the suddenness and unexpectedness of his onset might shake the other's aim, Rodney Hade took the situation into his own hands.
Not at random had he made that backward leap. Still covering Gavin with his pistol, he flashed one hand behind him and pressed the switch-button which controlled the electric lights in the hallway and the adjoining rooms.
Black darkness filled the place. Brice sprang forward through the dark, to grapple with the man. But Hade was nowhere within reach of Brice's outflung arms. Rodney had slipped, snakelike, to one side, foreseeing just such a move on the part of his foe.
Gavin strained his ears, to note the man's direction. But Milo Standish was thrashing noisily about in an effort to locate and seize the fugitive. And the racket his huge body made in hitting against furniture and in caroming off the walls and doors, filled the hall with din.
Remembering at last the collie's presence in that mass of darkness, Gavin shouted:
"Bobby! Bobby Burns! Take him!"
From somewhere in the gloom, there was a beast-snarl and a scurry of clawed feet on the polished floor. At the same time the front door flew wide.
Silhouetted against the bright moonlight, Brice had a momentary glimpse of Hade, darting out through the doorway, and of a tawny-and-white canine whirlwind flying at the man's throat.
But Brice's shout of command had been a fraction of a second too late. Swiftly as had the collie obeyed, Rodney Hade had already reached and silently unbarred the door, by the time the dog got under way. And, as Bobby Burns sprang, the door slammed shut in his face, leaving the collie growling and tearing at the unyielding panels.
Then it was that Claire found the electric switch, with her groping hands, and pressed the button. The hall and its adjoining rooms were flooded with light, revealing the redoubtable Bobby Burns hurling himself again and again at the closed door.
Gavin shoved the angry dog aside, and opened the portal. He sprang out, the dog beside him. And as they did so, both of them crashed into a veranda couch which Hade, in escaping, had thrust across the closed doorway in anticipation of just such a move.
Over went the couch, under the double impetus. By catching at the doorway frame, Gavin barely managed to save himself from a nasty fall. The dog disentangled himself from an avalanche of couch cushions and made furiously for the veranda steps.
But Brice summoned him back. He was not minded to let Bobby risk life from knife-cut or from strong, strangling hands, out there in the perilous shadows beyond the lawn. And he knew the futility of following Hade, himself, among merciless men and through labyrinths with whose' windings Rodney was far more familiar than was he. So, reluctantly, he turned back into the house. A glance over the moonlit lawn revealed no sign of the fugitive.
"I'm sorry," he said to Standish, as he shut the door behind him and patted the fidgetingly excited Bobby Burns on the head. "I may never have such a good chance at him again. And your promise of a confession was the thing that made me arrest him. Your evidence would have been enough to convict him. And that's the only thing that could have convicted him or made it worth while to arrest him. He's worked too skillfully to give us any other hold on him .... I was a thick-witted idiot not to think, sooner, of calling to Bobby. I'd stopped him, once, when he went for Hade, and of course he wouldn't attack again, right away, without leave. A dog sees in the dark, ten times as well as any man does. Bobby was the solution. And I forgot to use him till it was too late. With a collie raging at his throat, Hade would have had plenty of trouble in getting away, or even in using his gun. Lord, but I'm a dunce!"
"You're--you're,--splendid!" denied Claire, her eyes soft and shining and her cheeks aglow. "You faced that pistol without one atom of fear. And I could see your muscles tensing for a spring, right at him, before the light went out."
Gavin Brice's heart hammered mightily against his ribs, at her eager praise. The look in her eyes went to his brain. Through his mind throbbed the exultant thought:
"She saw my muscles tense as he aimed at me. That means she was looking at me! Not at him. Not even at the pistol. She couldn't have done that, unless--unless--"
"What's to be done, now?" asked Milo, turning instinctively to Gavin for orders.
The question brought the dazedly joyous man back to his senses. With exaggerated matter-of-factness, he made reply:
"Why, the most sensible thing we can all do just now is to eat dinner. A square meal works wonders in bracing people up. Miss Standish, do you think you can rouse the maids to an effort to get us some sort of food? If not, we can forage for ourselves, in the icebox. What do you think?"
* * * * * * *
Two hours later--after a sketchy meal served by trembling-handed servants--the trio were seated in the music-room. Over and over, a dozen times, they had reviewed their position, from all angles. And they had come to the conclusion that the sanest thing to do was to wait in comfortable safety behind stoutly shuttered windows until the dawn of day should bring the place's laborers back to work. Daylight, and the prospect of others' presence on the grounds, was certain to disperse the Caesars. And it would be ample time then to go to Miami and to safer quarters, while Gavin should start the hunt after Rodney Hade. The two men had agreed to divide the night into watches.
"One of the torpedo-boat destroyers down yonder, off Miami, can ferret out Hade's yacht and lay it by the heels, in no time," explained Brice. "His house is watched, always, lately. And every port and railroad will be watched, too. The chief reason I want to get hold of him is to find where he has sent the treasure. You have no idea, either of you?"
"No," answered Milo. "He explained to me that he was sending it North, to a place where nobody could possibly find it, and that, as soon as it was all there, he'd begin disposing of it. Then we were to have our settlement, after it was melted down and sold."
"Who works with him? I mean, who helps him bring the stuff here? Who, besides you, I mean?"
"Why, his yacht-crew," said Milo. "They're all picked men of his own. Men he has known for years and has bound to himself in all sorts of ways. He has only eleven of them, for it's a small yacht. But he says he owns the souls of each and every one of the lot. He pays them double wages and gives them a fat bonus on anything he employs them on. They're nearly all of them men who have done time, and--"
"A sweet aggregation for this part of the twentieth century!" commented Gavin. "I wish I'd known about all that," he added, musingly. "I supposed you and one or two men like Roke were the only--"
"Roke is more devoted to him than any dog could be," said Claire. "He worships him. And, speaking of dogs, I left Bobby Burns in the kitchen, getting his supper. I forgot all about him."
She set down Simon Cameron, who was drowsing in her lap, and got to her feet. As she did so, a light step sounded in the hallway, outside. Gavin jumped up and hurried past her.
He was just in time to see Rodney Hade cross the last yard or so of the hallway, and unlock and open the front door.
The man had evidently entered the house from above, though all the shutters were still barred and the door from the cupola had later been locked. Remembering the flimsy lock on that door, Gavin realized how Hade could have made an entrance.
But why Hade was now stealing to the front door and opening it, was more than his puzzled brain could grasp. All this flashed through Brice's mind, as he caught sight of his enemy, and at the same time he was aware that Hade was no longer clad in rags, but wore a natty white yachting suit.
Before these impressions had had full time to register themselves on Gavin's brain, he was in motion. This time, he was resolved, the prey should not slip through his fingers.
As Brice took the first forward-springing step, Hade finished unfastening the door and flung it wide.
In across the threshold poured a cascade of armed men. Hard-faced and tanned they were, one and all, and dressed as yacht sailors.
Then Gavin Brice knew what had happened, and that his own life was not worth a chipped plate. _