CHAPTER IV
THE STRANGER FROM NOWHERE
For a moment, Brice stared agape and helplessly flustered, asStandish proceeded to thrust his meerschaum's rich-hued bowlinto the tobacco jar. Then, apparently galvanized into actionby the approach of Claire from the stairway, he steppedrapidly forward to meet her.
As though his shaky powers were not equal to the task hereeled, lurched with all his might against the unpreparedStandish and, to regain his balance, took two plunging stepsforward.
He had struck Milo at such an angle as to rap the latter'sright elbow with a numbing force that sent the pipe flyinghalf way across the hall. The tobacco jar must have gone too,had not one of Gavin's outflung hands caught it in mid-air, asa quarterback might catch a football.
Unable to recover balance and to check his own momentum.Brice scrambled awkwardly forward. One stamping heel landedfull on the fallen meerschaum, flattening and crumbling thebeautiful pipe into a smear of shapeless clay-fragments.
At the sight. Milo Standish swore loudly and came chargingforward in a belated hope of saving his beloved pipe fromdestruction. The purchase of that meerschaum had been a joyto Milo. Its coloring had been a long and careful process.And now, this bungler had smashed it into nothingness!
Down on hands and knees went the big man, fumbling at thefragments. Claire, knowing how her brother valued the pipe,ran to his side in eager sympathy.
Gavin Brice came to a sliding standstill against a heavyhall-table. On this he leaned heavily for a moment or soabove the tobacco jar he had so luckily salvaged from thewreckage. His back to the preoccupied couple he flashed hissensitive fingers into the jar, collecting and thrusting intohis pockets the watch and the thick roll of bills and as muchof the small change as his fast-groping fingertips couldlocate.
By the time Milo looked up in impotent wrath from hisinspection of the ruined meerschaum. Gavin had turned towardhim and was babbling a torrent of apology for his ownawkwardness. Milo was glumly silent as the contrite wordsbeat about his ears. But Claire, shamed by her brother'sungraciousness, spoke up courteously to relieve the visitor'sdire embarrassment.
"Please don't be unhappy about it. Mr. Brice," she begged."It was just an accident. It couldn't be helped. I'm sure mybrother--"
"But--" stammered Gavin.
"Oh, it's all right!" grumbled Milo, scooping up the handfulof crushed meerschaum. "Let it go at that.I--"
Again, the mocking bird notes fluted forth through the earlyevening silences, the melody coming as before from thedirection of the grove's hidden path. Milo stopped short inhis sulky speech. Brother and sister exchanged a swiftglance. Then Standish got to his feet and approached Gavin.
"Here we've kept you up and around when you're still too weakto move without help!" he said in very badly done geniality."Take my arm and I'll help you upstairs. Your room's allready for you. If you'd rather I can carry you. How aboutit?"
But a perverse imp of mischief entered Gavin Brice's achinghead.
"I'm all right now," he protested. "I feel fifty per centbetter. I'd much rather stay down here with you and MissStandish for a while, if you don't mind. My nerves are a bitjumpy from that crack over the skull, and I'd like them toquiet down before I go to bed."
Again, he was aware of that look of covert anxiety, betweensister and brother. Claire's big eyes strayed involuntarilytoward the front door. And her lips parted for some word ofurgence. But before she could speak, Milo laughed loudly andcaught Gavin by the arm.
"You've got pluck, Brice!" he cried admiringly. "You'reashamed to give up and go to bed. But you're going just thesame. You're going to get a good night's rest. I don'tintend to have you fall sick from that tap I gave you withthe wrench. Come on! I'll bring you some fresh dressings foryour head by the time you're undressed."
As he talked he passed one huge arm around Gavin and carried,rather than led, him to the stairway.
"Good night, Mr. Brice," called Claire from near the doorway."I do hope your head will be ever so much better in themorning. If you want anything in the night, there's acall-bell I've put beside your bed."
Once more a dizzy weakness seemed to have overcome Gavin. Forafter a single attempt at resistance, he swayed and hungheavy on Standish's supporting arm. He made shift to mumble adazed good night to Claire. Then he suffered Milo to supporthim up the stairs and along the wide upper hall to the opendoorway of a bedroom.
Even at the threshold he seemed too uncertain of his footingto cross the soft-lit room alone. And Milo supported him tothe bed. Gavin slumped heavily upon the side of it, hisaching head in his hands. Then, as if with much effort, helay down, burying his face in the pillow.
Milo had been watching him with growing impatience to be gone.Now he said cheerily:
"That's all right, old chap! Lie still for a while. I'll beup in a few minutes to help you undress."
Standish was hurrying from the room and closing the doorbehind him, even as he spoke. With the last word the doorshut and Gavin could hear the big man's footsteps hasteningalong the upper hall toward the stair-head.
Brice gave him a bare thirty seconds' start. Then, risingwith strange energy for so dazed and broken an invalid, heleft the room and followed him toward the head of the stairs.His light footfall was soundless on the matting as he went.
He reached the top of the stairs just as Milo arrived at thebottom. Claire was standing in the veranda doorway shadingher eyes and peering out into the darkness. But at sound ofher brother's advancing tread she turned and ran back to him,meeting him as he reached the bottom of the stair and claspingboth hands anxiously about his big forearm.
She seemed about to break out in excited, even frightenedspeech, when chancing to raise her eyes, she saw Gavin Bricecalmly descending from the hall above. At sight of him hereyes dilated. Milo had begun to speak. She put one handwarningly across her brother's bearded mouth. At the samemoment Gavin, halting midway on the stairs, said withdeprecatory meekness:
"You didn't tell me what time to be ready for breakfast. I'dhate to be late and--"
He got no further. Nor did he seek to. His ears had beenstraining to make certain of the ever approaching sound offootsteps across the lawn. Now an impatient tread echoed onthe veranda, and a man's figure blocked the doorway.
The newcomer was slender, graceful, with the form of anathletic boy rather than of a mature man. He was pallid andblack eyed. His face had a classic beauty which, on secondglance, was marred by an almost snakelike aspect of the smallblack eyes and a sinister smile which seemed to hovereternally around the thin lips. His whole bearing suggestedsomething serpentine in its grace and a smoothly half-jestingdeadliness.
So much the first glimpse told Brice as he stood there on thestairs and surveyed the doorway. The second look showed himthe man was clad in a strikingly ornate yachting costume.Gavin's mind, ever taught to dissect trifles, noted that inspite of his yachtsman-garb the stranger's face was untanned,and that his long slender hands with their supersensitivefingers were as white and well-cared-for as a woman's.
Yachting, in Florida waters at any time of year, means eithera thick coat of tan or an exaggerated sunburn. This yachtsmanhad neither.
Scarce taller than a lad of fifteen, yet his slender figure wassinuous in its every line, and its grace betokened much wirystrength. His face was that of a man in the earlythirties,--all but his eyes. They looked as old as theSphinx's.
He stood for an instant peering into the room, trying to focushis night-accustomed eyes to the light. Evidently the firstobjects he saw clearly were Milo and Claire standing withtheir backs to him as they stared upward in blank dismay atthe guest they had thought safely disposed of for the night.
"Well?" queried the man at the door, and at sound of hissilken, bantering voice, brother and sister spunabout in surprise, to face him.
"Well?" he repeated, and now there was a touch of cold rebukein the silken tones. "Is this the way you keep a lookout fort
he signals? I might very well have walked in on a conventionof half of Dade County, for all the guard that was kept. Icompliment--"
And now he broke off short in his sneering reproof, as hiseyes chanced upon Gavin half way down the stairs.
For a second or more no one spoke or moved. Claire and herbrother had an absurdly shamefaced appearance of two badchildren caught in mischief by a stern and much feared teacher.Into the black depths of the stranger's eyes flickered asudden glint like that of a striking rattlesnake's. But atonce his face was a slightly-smiling mask once more. AndGavin was left doubting whether or not he had really seen thatmomentary gleam of murder behind the smiling eyes. It wasClaire who first recovered herself.
"Good evening, Rodney," she said, with a graciousness whichall-but hid her evident nerve strain. "You stole in on us sosuddenly you startled me. Mr. Brice, this is Mr. RodneyHade."
As Gavin bowed civilly and as Hade returned the salutationwith his eternal smile. Milo Standish came sufficiently outof his own shock of astonishment to follow his sister's modeof greeting the new visitor. With the same forced jovialityhe had used in coercing Brice to go to bed, he sauntered overto the smiling Hade, exclaiming:
"Why, hello, old man! Where did you blow in from? You musthave come across from your house on foot. I didn't hear thecar .... I want you to know Brice here. I was tackled by aholdup man outside yonder a while ago. And he'd have gottenme too, if Brice hadn't sailed into him. In the scrimmage Imade a fool of myself as usual, and slugged the wrong man witha monkey wrench. Poor Brice's reward for saving my life wasa broken head. He's staying the night with us. He--"
The big man had spoken glibly, but with a nervousness which,more and more, cropped out through his noisy joviality. Now,under the coldly unwavering smile of Hade's snakelike eyes, hestammered, and his booming voice trailed away to a mumble.Again, Claire sought to mend the rickety situation. But nowGavin Brice forestalled her. Passing one hand over hisbandaged forehead, he said:
"If you'll forgive me having butted in again. I'll go up tomy room. I'm pretty shaky, you see. I just wanted to knowwhat time breakfast is to be, and if I can borrow one of yourbrother's razors in the morning."
"Breakfast is at seven o'clock," answered Claire. "That's abarbarously early hour, I suppose for a New Yorker like you.But down here from six to ten is the glorious part of the day.Besides, we're farmers you know. Don't bother to try to wakeso early, please. I'll have your breakfast sent up to you.Good night."
"I'll look in on you before I go to bed," called Milo afterhim as he started up the stairs for the second time. "AndI'll see that shaving things are left in your bathroom. Goodnight."
Hade said nothing, but continued to pierce the unbidden guestwith those gimlet-like smiling black eyes of his. His facewas expressionless. Gavin returned to the upper hall andwalked with needless heaviness toward the room assigned tohim. Reaching its door he opened and then shut it loudly,himself remaining in the hallway. Scarce had the door slammedwhen he heard from below Rodney Hade's voice raised in thesharp question:
"What does this mean? You've dared to--?"
"What the blazes else could I do?" blustered Milo--thoughunder the bluster ran a thread of placating timidity. "Hesaved my life, didn't he? I was tackled by--"
"For one thing," suggested Hade, "you could have hit a littleharder with the wrench. If a blow is worth hitting at allit's worth hitting to kill. You have the strength of anelephant, and the nerve of a sheep."
"Rodney!" protested Claire, indignantly. "He--"
"I've seen his face somewhere," went on Hade unheeding. "Icould swear to that. I can't place it yet. But I shall.Meantime get rid of him. And now I'll hear about this attackon you .... Come out on the veranda. This hall reeks ofiodine and liniment and all such stuff. It smells like ahospital ward. Come outside."
Despite the unvarying sweet smoothness of his diction, hespoke as if giving orders to a servant. But apparentlyneither of the two Standishes resented hisdictation. For Brice could hear them follow Hade out of thehouse. And from the veranda presently came the booming murmurof Standish's voice in a recital of some kind.
Gavin reopened his bedroom door and entered. Shutting thedoor softly behind him, he made a brief mental inventory ofthe room, then undressed and got into bed. Ten minutes laterMiles Standish came into the room, carrying fresh dressingsand a bottle of lotion. Gavin roused himself from a half-dozeand was duly grateful for the dexterous applying of the newbandages to his bruised scalp.
"You work like a surgeon," he told Milo.
"Thanks," returned Standish drily, making no other comment onthe praise.
His task accomplished Standish bade his guest a curt goodnight and left the room. A minute later Gavin got up andstole to the door to verify a faint sound he fancied he hadheard. And he found he had been correct in his guess. Forthe door was locked from the outside.
Brice crept to the windows. The room was in darkness, and,unseen, he could look out on the darkness of the night. As helooked a faint reddish spot of fire appeared in the gloom,just at the beginning of the lawn. Some one, cigar in mouth,was evidently keeping a watch on his room's windows. Gavinsmiled to himself, and went back to bed.
"Door locked, windows guarded," he reflected, amusedly. "Iowe that to Mr. Hade's orders. Seen me before, has he? I'llbet my year's income he'll never remember where or when orhow. At that he's clever even to think he's seen me. Itlooks as if I had let myself in for a wakeful time down here,doesn't it? But I'm getting the tangled ends all in myhands,--as fast as I had any right to hope. That rap on theskull was a godsend. He can't refuse me a job after my fightfor him. No one could. I--oh, if it wasn't for the girlthis would be great! What can a girl, with eyes like hers, bedoing in a crowd like this?
"I'd--I'd have been willing to swear she was--was--one of thewomen whom God made. And now--! Still, if a woman letsherself in for this kind of thing she can't avoid paying thebill. Only--if I can save her without-- Oh, I'm turning intoa mushy fool in my old age! ... And she sobbed when shethought I was killed! ... I've got to get a real night's restif I want to have my wits about me to-morrow."
He stretched himself out luxuriously in the cool bed, and inless than five minutes he was sleeping as sweetly and asdeeply as a child. Long experience in the European trenchesand elsewhere had taught him the rare gift of slumbering atwill, a gift which had done much toward keeping his nerves andhis faculties in perfect condition. For sleep is the keynoteto more than mankind realizes.
The sun had risen when Gavin Brice awoke. Apart fromstiffness and a very sore head his inured system was littlethe worse for the evening's misadventures. A cold shower anda rubdown and a shave in the adjoining bathroom cleared awaythe last mists from his brain.
He dressed quickly, glanced at his watch and saw the hour wasnot quite seven. Then he faced his bedroom door andhesitated.
"If he's a born idiot," he mused, "it's still locked. If heisn't it's unlocked and the key has been taken away. I'vemade noise enough while I was dressing."
He turned the knob. The door opened readily. The key wasgone. In the hallway outside the room and staring up at himfrom widely shallow green eyes, sat Simon Cameron, the bigPersian cat.
"That's a Persian all over. Simon my friend," said Brice,stooping down to scratch the cat's furry head in greeting. "APersian will sit for hours in front of any door that's got astranger behind it. And he'll show more flattering affectionfor a stranger than for any one he's known all his life.Isn't that true. Simon?"
By way of response, the big cat rubbed himself luxuriouslyagainst the man's shins, purring loudly. Then, at a singlelithe spring he was on Gavin's shoulder, making queer littlewhistling noises and rubbing his head lovingly against Brice'scheek. Gavin made his way downstairs the cat still clingingto his shoulder, fanning his face with a swishing gray foxliketail, digging curved claws back and forth into the cloth ofhis shabby coat, and purring like a distant railr
oad train.
Only when they reached the lower hallway did the cat jump fromhis shoulder and with a flying leap land on the top of anearby bookcase. There, luxuriously,Simon Cameron stretched himself out in a shaft of sunlight,and prepared for a nap.
Brice went on to the veranda. On the lawn, scarce fifty feetaway, Claire was gathering flowers for the breakfast table.Very sweet and dainty was she in the flood of morningsunshine, her white dress and her burnished hair giving backwaves of radiance from the sun's strong beams.
At her side walked Bobby Burns. But, on first sound ofBrice's step on the porch, the collie looked up and saw him.With a joyous bark of welcome Bobby came dashing across thelawn and up the steps. Leaping and gamboling around Gavin.he set the echoes ringing with a series of trumpet-barks. Theman paused to pet his adorer and to say a word offriendliness, then ran down the steps toward Claire who wasadvancing to meet him. Her arms were full of scarlet andgolden blossoms.
"Are you better?" she called, noting the bandage on his headhad been replaced by a neat strip of plaster. "I hoped you'dsleep longer. Bobby Burns ran up to your room and scratchedat the door as soon as I let him into the house this morning.But I made him come away again. Are--"
"He left a worthy substitute welcoming-committee there, inthe shape of Simon Cameron," said Gavin. "Simon wasoverwhelmingly cordial to me, for a Persian .... I'm all rightagain, thanks," he added. "I had a grand night's rest. Itwas fine to sleep in a real bed again. I hope I'm not latefor breakfast?"
A shade of embarrassment flitted over her eyes, and she madeanswer:
"My brother had to go into Miami on--on business. So he hadbreakfast early. He'll hardly be back before noon he says.So you and I will have to breakfast without him. I hope youdon't mind?"
As there seemed no adequate reply to this useless question.the man contented himself with following her wordlessly intothe cool house. She seemed to bring light and youth andhappiness indoors with her, and the armful of flowers shecarried filled the dim hallway with perfume.
Breakfast was a simple meal and soon eaten. Brice brought toit only a moderate appetite, and was annoyed to find histhoughts centering themselves about the slender white-cladgirl across the table from him, rather than upon his food oreven upon his plan of campaign. He replied in monosyllablesto her pleasant table-talk, and when his eye chanced to meethers he had an odd feeling of guilt.
She was so pretty, so little, so young, so adorably friendlyand innocent in her every look and word! Something very likea heartache began to manifest itself in Gavin Brice'ssupposedly immune breast. And this annoyed him more thanever. He told himself solemnly that this girl was none of thewonderful things she seemed to be, and that he was an idiotfor feeling as he did.
To shake free from his unwonted reverie he asked abruptly, asthe meal ended:
"Would you mind telling me why you drew a revolver on me lastevening? You don't seem the kind of girl to adopt Wild Westtactics and to carry a pistol around with you here in peacefulFlorida. I don't want to seem inquisitive, of course, but?"
"And I don't want to seem secretive," she replied, nervously."All I can tell you is that my brother has--has enemies (asyou know from the attack on him) and that he doesn't think itis safe for me to go around the grounds alone, late in theday, unarmed. So he gave me that old pistol of his, and askedme to carry it. That was why he sent North for Bobby Burns--asa guard for me and for the place here. When I saw youappearing out of the swamp I--I took you for some one else.I'm sorry."
"I'm not," he made answer. "I--"
"You must have a charming idea of our hospitality," she wenton with a nervous little laugh. "First I threaten to shootyou. Then my brother stuns you. And both times when you aredoing us a service."
"Please!" he laughed. "And if it comes to that, what mustyou people think of a down-at-heel Yankee who descends on youand cadges for a job after he's been told there's no work herefor him?"
"Oh, but there is!" she insisted. "Milo told me so, thismorning. And you're to stay here till he comes back and cantalk things over with you. Would you care to walk around thefarm and the groves with me? Or would the sun be bad for yourhead?"
"It would be just the thing my head needs most," he declared."Besides, I've heard so much of these wonderful Florida farms.I'm mighty anxious to inspect one of them. We can startwhenever you're ready."
Ten minutes later they had left the lawn behind them, and hadpassed through the hedge into the first of the chain of citrusgroves. In front of them stretched some fifteen acres ofgrapefruit trees.
"This is the worst soil we have," lectured Claire, evidentlykeenly interested in the theme of agriculture and glad of anattentive listener. "It is more coral rock than anythingelse. That is why Milo planted it in grapefruit. Grapefruitwill grow where almost nothing else will, you know. Why, lastyear wasn't by any means a banner season. But he made $16,000in gross profits off this one grapefruit orchard alone. Ofcourse that was gross and not net. But it--"
"Is there so much difference between the two?" he askedinnocently. "Down here, I mean. Up North, we have an ideathat all you Floridians need do is to stick a switch into therich soil, and let it grow. We picture you as loafing aroundin dreamy idleness till it's time to gather your fruit and tosell it at egregious prices to us poor Northerners."
"It's a lovely picture," she retorted. "And it's exactlyupside down, like most Northern ideas of Florida. When itcomes to picking the fruit and shipping it North--that's theone time we can loaf. For we don't pick it or ship it.That's done for us on contract. It's our lazy time. Butevery other step is a fight. For instance, there's the woollywhite fly and there's the rust mite and there's the purplescale, and there are a million other pests just as bad. Andwe have to battle with them, all the time. And when we spraywith the pumping engine, the sand is certain to get into theengine and ruin it. And when we--"
"I had no notion that--"
"No Northerners have," she said, warming to her theme. "Iwish I could set some of them to scrubbing orange-trunks withsoap-and-water and spraying acre after acre, as we do, in a wildrace to keep up with the pests, knowing all the time that somecareless grove owner next door may let the rust mite or theblack fly get the better of his grove and let it drift overinto ours. Then there's always the chance that a grove mayget so infected that the government will order it destroyed,--wipedout .... I've been talking just about the citrus fruits,the grapefruit and the tangeloes and oranges and all that.Pretty much the same thing applies to all our crops down here.We've as many blights and pests and weather-troubles as you havein the North. And now and then, even in Dade County, we get afrost that does more damage than a forest fire."
As she talked they passed out of the grapefruit grove, andcame to a plantation of orange trees.
"These are the joy of Milo's heart," she said with real pride,waving her little hand toward the well-ranked lines ofblossoming and bearing young trees. "Last year he cleared upfrom this five-acre plot alone more than--"
"Excuse me," put in Gavin. "I don't mean to be rude. Butsince he's made such a fine grove of it and takes such pridein its looks, why doesn't he send a man or two out here witha hoe, and get rid of that tangle of weeds? It covers theground of the whole grove, and it grows rankly under everytree. If you'll pardon me for saying so, it gives the placean awfully unkempt look. If--"
Her gay laugh broke in on his somewhat hesitant criticism.
"Say that to any Floridian," she mocked, "and he'll save youthe trouble of looking for work by getting you admitted to thenearest asylum. Why Milo fosters those weeds and fertilizesthem and even warns the men not to trample them in walkinghere. If you should begin your work for Milo by hoeing outany of these weeds he'd have to buy weed-seeds and sow themall over again. He--"
"Then there's a market for this sort of stuff?" he asked,stooping to inspect with interest a spray of smelly ragweed."I didn't know--"
"No," she corrected. "But the market for o
ur oranges wouldslump without them. Here in the subtropics the big problem iswater for moistening the soil. Very few of us irrigate. Wehave plenty of water as a rule. But we also have more than aplenty of sun. The sun sucks up the water and leaves the soilparched. In a grove like this the roots of the orange treeswould suffer from it. These weeds shelter the roots from thesun, and they help keep the moisture in the ground. They areworth everything to us. Of course, in some of the fields wemulch to keep the ground damp. Milo bought a whole carload ofAustralian pine needles, last month at Miami. They make asplendid mulch. Wild hay is good, too. So is straw. Butthe pine needles are cheapest and easiest to get. The rainsoaks down through them into the ground. And they keep thesun from drawing it back again. Besides, they keep down weedsin fields where we don't want weeds. See!" she ended,pointing to a new grove they were approaching.
Gavin noted that here the orange tree rows were alternatedwith rows of strawberry plants.
"That was an idea of Milo's, too," she explained. "It's'intercrop' farming. And he's done splendidly with it so far.He thinks the eel-worm doesn't get at the berry plants asreadily here as in the open, but he's not sure of that yet.He's had to plant cowpeas on one plot to get rid of it."
"The experiment of intercropping orange trees withstrawberries isn't new," said Brice thoughtlessly. "When theplants are as thick as he's got them here, it's liable toharm the trees in the course of time. Two rows, at most, areall you ought to plant between the tree-ranks. And that mulchover there is a regular Happy Home for crickets. If Standishisn't careful--"
The girl was staring up at him in astonishment. And Gavin wasaware for the first time that he had been thinking aloud.
"You see," he expounded, smiling vaingloriously down at her."I amused myself at the Miami library Saturday by browsingover a sheaf of Government plant reports. And those two solidfacts stuck in my memory. Now, won't I be an invaluable aideto your brother if I can remember everything else as easily?"
Still puzzled she continued to look up at him.
"It's queer that a man who has just come down here shouldremember such a technical thing," said she. "And yesterdayyou warned me against letting Bobby Burns wander in thepalmetto scrub, for fear of rattlesnakes. I--"
"That deep mystery is also easy to solve," he said. "In thesmoker on the way South several men were telling how they hadlost valuable hunting dogs, hereabouts from rattlesnakes. Ilike Bobby Burns. So I passed along the warning. What arethose queer trees?" he asked shifting the dangerous subject."I mean the ones that look like a mixture of horse-chestnutand--"
"Avocadoes," she answered, interest in the task of farm guidemaking her forget her momentary bewilderment at his scraps oflocal knowledge. "They're one of our best crops. Sometimes asingle avocado will sell in open market here for as much asforty cents. There's money in them, nearly always. Goodmoney. And the spoiled ones are great for the pigs. Then theNorthern market for them--"
"Avocadoes?" he repeated curiously. "There! Now you see howmuch I know about Florida. From this distance, their fruitslook to me exactly like alligator pears or--"
Again, her laugh interrupted him.
"If only you'd happened to look in one or two more governmentreports at the library," she teased, "you'dknow that an avocado and an alligator pear are the samething."
"Anyhow," he boasted, picking up a gold-red fruit at the edgeof a smaller grove they were passing, "anyhow, I know whatthis is, without being told. I've seen them a hundred timesin the New York markets. This is a tangerine."
"In that statement," she made judicial reply, "you've madeonly two mistakes. You're improving. In the first place,that isn't a tangerine, though it looks like one--or would ifit were half as large. That's a king orange. In the secondplace, you've hardly ever seen them in any New York market.They don't transport as well as some other varieties. Andvery few of them go North. Northerners don't know them. Andthey miss a lot. For the king is the most delicious orange inthe world. And it's the trickiest and hardest for us toraise. See, the skin comes off it as easily as off of atangerine, and it breaks apart in the same way. The rust mitehas gotten at this one. See that russet patch on one side ofit? You'll often see it on oranges that go North. Sometimesthey're russet all over. That means the rust mite has driedthe oil in the skin and made the skin thinner and morebrittle. It doesn't seem to injure the taste. But it--"
"There's a grand tree over toward the road," he said, hisattention wandering. "It must be nearly a century old. Ithas the most magnificent sweep of foliage I've seen since Ileft the North. What is it?"
"That?" she queried. "Oh, that's another of Milo's prides.It's an Egyptian fig. 'Ficus Something orother.' Isn't it beautiful? But it isn't a century old. Itisn't more than fifteen years old. It grows tremendouslyfast. Milo has been trying to interest the authorities inMiami in planting lines of them for shade trees and havingthem in the city parks. There's nothing more beautiful. Andnothing, except the Australian pine, grows faster.... There'sanother of Milo's delights," she continued, pointing to theleft. "It's ever so old. The natives around here call it 'TheGhost Tree.'"
They had been moving in a wide circle through the groves.Now, approaching the house from the other side, they came outon a grassy little space on the far edge of the lawn. In thecenter of the space stood a giant live-oak towering as high asa royal palm, and with mighty boughs stretching out in vastsymmetry on every side. It was a true forest monarch. Andlike many another monarch, it was only a ghost of its earliergrandeur.
For from every outflung limb and from every tiniest twig hungplumes and festoons and stalactites of gray moss. For perhapsa hundred years the moss had been growing thus on the giantoak, first in little bunches and trailers that were scarcenoticeable and which affected the forest monarch's appearanceand health not at all.
Then year by year the moss had grown and had taken toll of thebark and sap. At last it had killed the tree on which it fed.And its own source of life being withdrawn itself had died.
So, now the gaunt tree with its symmetrical spread of branchesstood lifeless. And its tons of low-hanging festooned mosswas as void of life as was the tree they had killed.Tinder-dry it hung there, a beauteous, tragic, spectacle,towering high above the surrounding flatness of landscape,visible for miles by land and by sea.
Fifty yards beyond a high interlaced hedge of vines borderedthe clearing. Toward this Gavin bent his idle steps,wondering vaguely how such a lofty and impenetrable wall ofvine was supported from the far side.
Claire had stopped to call off Bobby Burns who had discovereda highly dramatic toad-hole on the edge of the lawn and whowas digging enthusiastically at it with both flying fore-feet,casting up a cloud of dirt and cutting into the sward's neatborder. Thus she was not aware of Brice's diversion.
Gavin approached the twenty-foot high vine-wall, and thrusthis hand in through the thick tangle of leaves. His sensitivefingers touched the surface of a paling. Running his handalong, he found that the entire vine palisade was,apparently, backed by a twenty-foot stockade of solid boards.If there were a gate, it was hidden from view. It was thenthat Claire, looking up from luring Bobby Burns away from thetoad-hole, saw whither Gavin had strayed.
"Oh," she called, hurrying toward him. "That's the enclosureMilo made years ago for his experiments in evolving the'perfect orange' he is so daft about. He's always afraid someother grower may take advantage of his experiments. So hekeeps that little grove walled in. He's never even let me goin there. So--"
A deafening salvo of barks from Bobby Burns broke in on herrecital. The collie had caught sight of Simon Cameron mincingalong the lawn, and he gave rapturous and rackety chase.Claire ran after them crying out to the dog to desist. AndGavin took advantage of the brief instant when her back wasturned to him.
His fingers in slipping along the wall had encountered arotting spot at the juncture of two palings. Pushing sharplyagainst this he forced a fragment of the decaye
d wood inward.Then, quickly, he shoved aside the tangle of vines and appliedone eye to the tiny aperture.
"A secret orange-grove, eh?" he gasped, under his breath."Good Lord! Was she lying to me or did she actually believehim when he lied to her?"
Black Caesar's Clan : A Florida Mystery Story Page 5
