Black Caesar's Clan Part 8

"Yet you were on your way back toward Miami, when Bobby overtook you? Rather a long walk, for--"

"A long walk," gravely agreed Brice. "But safer sleeping quarters when one gets there. Up North, one can take a chance, and sleep in the open, almost anywhere except on a yellow-jacket's nest. Down here, I've heard, rattlesnakes are apt to stray in upon one's slumbers. Out in the country, at least. There aren't any rattlesnakes in the Royal Palm's gardens. Besides, there's music, and there's the fragrance of night jasmine. Altogether, it's worth the difference of ten or twelve miles of tramping."

"You're staying at the Royal Palm, then?"

"Near it," corrected Brice. "To be exact, in the darkest corner of its big gardens. The turf is soft and springy. The solitude is perfect, too--unless some night.w.a.tchman gets too vigilant."

He spoke lightly, even airily, through his pain and weakness.

But, as before, his every faculty was on guard. A born and trained expert in reading human nature, he felt this giant somehow suspected him and was trying to trap him in an inaccuracy. Wherefore, he fenced, verbally, calmly confident he could outpoint his clumsier antagonist.

"You don't look like the kind of man who need sleep out of doors," replied Standish, speaking slowly, as one who chooses his every word with care, and with his cold blue eyes un.o.btrusively scanning Gavin's battered face. "That's the bedroom for b.u.ms. You aren't a b.u.m. Even if your manner, and the way you fought out yonder, didn't prove that. A b.u.m doesn't walk all this way and back, on a hot day, unless for a handout. And you--"

"But a handout is just what I asked for," Gavin caught him up.

"When I brought Bobby Burns back I traded on the trifling little service by asking Miss Standish if I could get a job here. It was impertinent of me, I know. And I was sorry as soon as I'd done it. But she told me, in effect, that you were 'firing, not hiring.' So I--"

"Why did you want a job with me?" insisted Standish. "Rather than with any of a dozen farmers or country house people along here?"

And, this time, any fool could have read the stark suspicion in his tone and in the hard blue eyes.

"For several reasons," said Brice, coolly. "In the first place, I had brought home your dog. In the second, I had taken a fancy to him, as he had to me, and it would be pleasant working at a place where I could be with such a chum.

In the third place, Miss Standish was kind enough to say pretty much the same things about me that you've just said.

She knew I wasn't a tramp, who might be expected to decamp with the lawn-mower or the spoons. Another landowner might not have been so complimentary, when I applied for work and had no references. In the fourth, you seem to have a larger and more pretentious place here than most of your near neighbors. I--I can't think of any better reasons, just now."

"H'm!" mused Standish, frowning down on the rec.u.mbent man, and then looking across in perplexity at Claire.

What he read in the girl's eyes seemed to shame him, just a little. For, as he turned back to Gavin, there was an apologetic aspect on his bearded face. Brice decided to force the playing. Before his host could speak or Claire could interfere, he rose to a sitting position, with some effort and more pain, and, clutching the head of the couch, lurched to his feet.

"No, no!" called Claire, running forward to support him as he swayed a bit. "Don't try to stand! Lie down again! You're as white as a ghost."

But Gavin drew courteously away from her supporting arm and faced Milo.

"I can only thank you," said he, "for patching me up so well.

I'm a lot better, now. And I've a long way to go. So, I'll be starting. Thanks, again, both of you. I'm sorry to have put you to so much bother." He reeled, cleverly, caught at the couch-head again, and took an uncertain step toward the door. But now, not only Claire but her brother barred his way.

"Don't be an idiot!" stormed Milo. "Why, man, you couldn't walk a hundred yards, with that groggy head on your shoulders!

You're all beaten up. You'll be lucky if you're on your feet in another three days. What sort of cur do you think I am, to let you go like this, after all you've done for me, to-night?

You'll stay with us till to-morrow, anyhow. And then, if you still insist on going back to Miami, I'll take you there in the car. But you're not going a step from here, to-night.

I--"

Gavin strove to mutter a word of disclaimer, to take another wavering stride toward the front door. But his knees gave away under him. He swayed forward, and must have fallen, had not Milo Standish caught him.

"Here," Milo bade his sister, as he laid the limp body back on the couch. "Go and tell the maids to get the gray room ready as quickly as possible. I'll carry him up there. It was rotten of me to go on catechizing him, like that, and letting him see he was unwelcome. But for him, I'd be--"

"Yes," answered Claire, over her shoulder, as she hurried on her errand. "It was 'rotten.' And more than that. I kept trying to signal you to stop. You'll you'll give him work, here, won't you, please?"

"We'll talk about that, afterward," he said, ungraciously. "I suppose it's the only thing a white man can do, after the chap risked his life for me, to-night. But I'd rather give him ten times his wages--money to get out and keep out."

"Thanks, neighbor!" said Brice, to himself, from the depths of his stage-faint. "I've no doubt you would. But the cards are running the other way."

Again, his eyes apparently shut, he watched through slitted lids the progress of Claire, as she pa.s.sed out of the hall, toward the kitchen quarters. She was leading the reluctant Bobby Burns away, by the collar. Standish was just behind her, and had his back turned to Gavin. But he glanced at him, suddenly, over his shoulder, and then strode swiftly forward to close the door which Claire had left open behind her on her way to the kitchen wing of the house.

Something in the big man's action aroused in Brice the mystic sixth sense he had been at much pains to develop,--a sense which often enabled him to guess instinctively at an opponent's next probable move. As Milo took his first step toward the open door, Brice went into action.

Both hands slipped into his pockets, and out again. As he withdrew them, one hand held his battered but patently solid gold watch. The other gripped his roll of bills and as much of his small change as he had been able to scoop up in one rapid grab.

On the stand at the head of the couch reposed a fat tobacco jar and pipes. The jar was more than half full. Into it, Gavin Brice dumped his valuables, and with a clawing motion, sc.r.a.ped a handful of loose tobacco over them. Then he returned to his former inertly supine posture.

The whole maneuver had not occupied three seconds. And, by the time Standish had the door closed and had started back toward the couch, the watch and money were safe-hidden. At that, there had been little enough time to spare. It had been a matter of touch-and-go. Nothing but the odd look he had read in Milo's face as Standish had glanced at him over his shoulder, would have led Brice to take such a chance. But, all at once, it had seemed a matter of stark necessity.

The narrow escape from detection set his strained nerves to twitching. He muttered to himself:

"Come along then, you man-mountain! You wanted to get your sister out of the way, so you could go through my clothes and see if I was lying about being flat broke and if I had any incriminating papers on me. Come along, and search! If I hadn't brains enough to fool a chucklehead, like you, I'd go out of the business and take in back-stairs to clean!"

Milo was approaching the couch, moving with a stealthy lightness, unusual in so large a man. Leaning over the supposedly unconscious Gavin, he ran his fingers deftly through Brice's several pockets. In only two was he lucky to find anything.

From a trousers pocket he exhumed seventy-eight cents. From the inner pocket of the coat he extracted a card, postmarked "New York City," and addressed to "Gavin Brice, General Delivery, Miami, Florida." The postcard was inscribed, in a scrawling hand:

"Good time and good luck and good health to you, from us all.

Jack O'G."

Gavin knew well the contents of the card, having written it and mailed it to himself on the eve of his departure from the North. It was as mild and noncommittal a form of identification as he could well have chosen.

Standish read the ba.n.a.l message on the soiled card, then restored cash and postal to their respective pockets. After which he stood frowning down in puzzled conjecture on the moveless Gavin.

"Well, old chap!" soliloquized Brice. "If that evidence doesn't back up all I said about myself, nothing will. But, for the Lord's sake, don't help yourself to a pipeful of tobacco, till I have time to plant the loot deeper in the jar!"

He heard the light footfalls of women, upstairs, where Claire, in person, seemed to be superintending the arrangement of his room. At the sound, a twinge of compunction swept Brice.

But, at memory of her brother's stealthy ransacking of an unconscious guest's clothes, the feeling pa.s.sed, leaving only a warm battlethrill.

Drowsily, he opened his eyes, and stared with blank wonder up at Milo. Then, shamefacedly, he mumbled:

"I--I hope I wasn't baby enough to--to keel over, Mr.

Standish?"

"That's all right," answered Milo. "It was my fault. I was a boor. And, very rightly, you decided you didn't care to stay any longer under my roof. But your strength wasn't up to your spirit. So you fainted. I want to apologize for speaking as I did. I'm mighty grateful to you, for your service to me, this evening. And my sister and I want you to stay on here, for the present. When you're feeling more like yourself, we'll have a chat about that job. I think we can fix it, all right. Nothing big, of course. Nothing really worth your while. But it may serve as a stopgap, till you get a chance to look around you."

"If nothing better turns up," suggested Brice, with a weak effort at lightness, "you might hire me as a bodyguard."

"As a--a what?" snapped Milo, in sharp suspicion, the geniality wiped from face and voice with ludicrous suddenness.

"A--?"

"As a bodyguard," repeated Gavin, not seeming to note the change in his host. "If you're in the habit of being set upon, often, as you were, this evening you'll be better off with a good husky chap to act as-"

"Oh, that?" scoffed Milo, in ponderous contempt. "That was just some panhandler, who thought he might knock me over, from behind, and get my watch and wallet. The same thing isn't likely to happen again in a century. Florida is the most law-abiding State in the Union. And Dade County is perhaps the most law-abiding part of Florida. One would need a bodyguard in New York City, more than here. There have been a lot of holdups there."

Gavin did not reply. His silence seemed to annoy Milo who burst forth again, this time with a tinge of open amus.e.m.e.nt in his contempt:

"Besides--even if there were a.s.sa.s.sins lurking behind every bunch of palmetto scrub, in the county--do you honestly think a man of your size could do very much toward protecting me?

I'm not bragging. But I'm counted one of the strongest men in--"