Captain Francis Newcombe, from the dock where he had been making fast a line, surveyed for a moment the deck of the Talofa below. His eyes rested speculatively on Howard Locke, who, with sleeves rolled up and grimy to the elbows, was busy over the yacht's engine; then his glance passed to Runnells on the forward deck of the little vessel, who was assiduously engaged in making shipshape coils of a number of truant ropes. Captain Francis Newcombe permitted a flicker to cross his lips. It was a new experience for Runnells, this playing at sailorman—and Runnells had earned ungrudging praise from Locke all the way down from New York. Runnells had taken to the job even as a child takes to a new toy. Well, so much the better! Runnells and Locke had hit it off together from the start. Again, so much the better!
He lit a cigarette and stared shoreward along the dock. Manwa Island! Well, in the moonlight at least it was a place of astounding beauty, and if its appearance was any criterion of its material worth, it was a— He laughed softly, and languidly exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke. There was a lure about the place—or was it the moonlight that, stealing with dreamy treachery upon the senses, carried one away to a land of make-believe? That stretch of sand there like a girdle between sea and shore, as fleecy as driven snow; the restless shimmer of the moonbeams on the water like the play of clustered diamonds in a platinum setting; the trees and open spaces etched against myriad stars; the smell of semi-tropical growing things, just pure fragrance that made the nostrils greedy with insatiable desire.
He drew his hand suddenly across his eyes.
"What a night!" he exclaimed aloud. "It's like the eyes and the lips of a dream woman; like a goblet of wine of the vintage of the gods! No song of the sirens could compare with this! I'm going ashore, Locke. What do you say?"
Locke looked up with a grunt, as he swabbed his arms with a piece of waste.
"I'm done in with this damned engine!" he said irritably. "It's too late to go ashore. They'll all be asleep."
"I'm not going to ring the doorbell," said Captain Francis Newcombe pleasantly. "I'm simply going to stroll in paradise. You don't mind, do you?"
"Go to it!" said Locke. "I'm going to bed."
"Right!" said Captain Francis Newcombe.
He turned and walked shoreward along the dock. Over his shoulder he saw Runnells pause in the act of coiling rope to stare after him—and again an ironical little flicker crossed his lips. Runnells was no doubt prompted to call out and ask what this midnight excursion was all about, but Runnells in the eyes of Howard Locke was a valet, and Runnells must therefore be dumb. Runnells on occasions knew his place!
He nodded in a sort of self-commendatory fashion to himself, as, reaching the shore, he started forward along a roadway that opened through the trees. He was well satisfied with his decision to bring Runnells along on the trip. "Captain Francis Newcombe and man" looked well, sounded well, and was well—since Runnells, for once in his life, even though it was due to no moral regeneration on the part of Runnells, but due entirely to Runnells' belief that he was on an innocent holiday, could be made exceedingly useful in bolstering up his master's social standing without bagging any of the game!
"Blessed is he who expects little," murmured Captain Francis Newcombe softly to himself, "for he shall receive—still less!"
He paused abruptly, and stared ahead of him. Curious road, this! Like a great archway of trees! And all moon-flecked underfoot! Where did it lead? To the house probably! This was Manwa Island—the home of the mad millionaire! Queer freak of nature, these Florida Keys—if what he had been able to read up about them was true. Almost a continuous bow of islands, some fruitful, some barren, some big, some small—such a heterogeneous mess!—stretching along off the coast, some near, some far, for two hundred miles. Nothing but rocks on one; tropical fruits and verdure in profusion on another! Well, the mad millionaire, if the night revealed anything, had picked the gem of them all!
He walked on again. The road wound tortuously through what appeared to be a glade of great extent. It seemed to beckon, to lure, to intrigue him the farther he went, to promise something around each moon-flecked turning. He laughed aloud softly. Promised what? Where was he going? Why was he here ashore at all? Was it possible that he had no ulterior motive in this stroll, that for once the sheer beauty of anything held him in thrall? Well, even so, it at least afforded him a laugh at himself then. This road, for instance, was like an enchanted pathway, and there was magic in the night.
Or was it Polly?
Captain Francis Newcombe shook his head. Hardly! Not at this hour! Thanks to the engine trouble that had delayed them, she would long since have given up expecting him to-night, even though he had written her that he would be here.
The house, then? A surreptitious inspection; an entry even?—there were half a million dollars there! Again he shook his head. He was not so great a fool as to invite disaster. To-morrow, and for days thereafter, he would be an inmate of the house when he would have opportunities of that nature without number, and without entailing any risk or suspicion—and time was no object.
He smiled complacently to himself. Things were shaping up very well—very well indeed. The seed so carefully planted years ago was to bear fruit at last. The greatest coup of his life was just within his grasp; and, if he were not utterly astray, that very coup in itself should prove but the stepping stone to still greater ones. Polly! Yes, quite true! The future depended very materially upon Polly. How amenable would she be to influence?—granting always that the said influence be delicately and tactfully enough applied!
He fell to whistling very softly under his breath. He had plans for Polly. And if they matured the future looked very bright—for himself. He wondered what she was like—particularly as to character and disposition. Was she affectionate, romantic—what? A great deal, a very great deal, depended on that. Not in the present instance—Polly had fully served her purpose in so far as a certain half million dollars in cash was concerned, and being innocent of any connivance must remain so—but thereafter. England was an exploited field; it had become dangerous; the net there was drawing in. Oh, yes, he had had all that in mind on the day he had first sent Polly to America, but only in a general way then, while to-day it had become concrete. Locke would make a most admirable "open sesame" to the New Land—if Locke married Polly. Polly, as Mrs. Locke, would step at once into a social sphere than which there was no higher—or wealthier—and, ipso facto, Captain Francis Newcombe would do likewise. And given a half million as stake money, Captain Francis Newcombe, if he knew Captain Francis Newcombe at all, would not fail in his opportunities! He had expected Polly in due course to make a place for herself in social America; that was what he had paid money for—but Howard Locke was a piece of luck. Locke conserved time; Locke opened the safety vault of possibilities immediately.
He frowned suddenly. Suppose Polly did not prove amenable? Nonsense! Why shouldn't she—if the man weren't flung at her head! Locke was the kind of chap a girl ought to like, and all girls were more or less romantic, and the element of romance had just the right spice to it here—the guardian she has not seen in years who is accompanied by a young man, who, from any standpoint, whether of looks, physique, manner or position, would measure up to the most exacting of young ladies' ideals! And to say nothing of the magic spells that seemed to have their very home in this garden isle—a veritable wooer's bower! There would be other moonlight nights. Bah! There was nothing to it—save to put a few minor obstacles in the way of the turtle doves!
Where the devil did this road lead to? Well, no matter! It was like a tunnel, dreamy black with its walls of leaves, dreamy with its sweet-smelling odours. In itself it was well worth while. It continued to invite him. And he accepted the invitation. His thoughts roved farther afield now. Locke ... the trip down on the fifty-foot Talofa ... not an incident to mar the days—nothing since the night that shot had been fired on shipboard through his cabin window.
His face for a moment grew dark—then cleared again. If, as through the hours thereafter when he had sat there in the cabin, it had seemed as though the shot had come from some ghostly visitor out of the past, there was no reason now why it should bother him further; for, granting such a diagnosis as true, Locke and the Talofa had thrown even so acute a stalker as a supernatural spirit off the trail. As a matter of fact, it had probably been some maniacal or drug-crazed idiot running for the moment amuck. To-night, with these soft, whispering airs around him, and serenity and loveliness everywhere in contrast with that night of storm, the incident did not seem so virulent a thing anyway; it seemed to be smoothed over, to be relegated definitely to where it belonged—to the realm of things ended and done with. Certainly, since that night nothing had happened.
And yet, now, his lips tightened.
It was unfortunate he had not caught the man. He would have liked to have seen the other's face; to have exchanged memory with memory—and to have slammed forever shut that particular door of the bygone days if by any chance he found he had been careless enough to have left one, in passing, ajar.
He swore sharply under his breath; but the next moment shrugged his shoulders. The incident was too immeasurably far removed from Manwa Island to allow it to intrude itself upon him now. Why think of things such as that when the very night itself here with its languor, its beauty, and—yes, again—its magic, sought to bring to the senses the gift of delightful repose and contentment? When the—
He stood suddenly still, and in sheer amazement rubbed his eyes. He had come to the end of the tree-arched road, and it seemed as though he gazed now on the imaginative painting of a master genius, daring, bold in its conception, exquisite in its execution. Either that, or there was magic in the night, and he had been transported bodily through enchantment into the very land of the Arabian Nights!
A few yards away, he faced what looked in the moonlight like a great marble balustrade, and rising above this, painted into a hue of softest white against the night, towered what might well have been a caliph's palace. It stretched away in lines unusual in their beauty and design; columns above the balustrade; little domes like minarets against the sky line; quaint latticed windows. And the effect of the whole was that of a mirage on a sea of emerald green; for, sweeping away from the balustrade, wondrous in its colour under the moonlight, was a wide expanse of lawn, level, unbroken until the eye met again the horizon rim beyond in the wall of encircling trees, a wall of inky blackness.
He moved forward out on to the lawn—and as suddenly halted again, as there seemed to float into his line of vision from around the corner of the balustrade, like some nymph of the moonlight, the slim, graceful figure of a girl in white, clinging draperies, whose clustering masses of dark hair crowned a face that in the soft light was amazingly beautiful. And he caught his breath as he gazed. And the girl, with a low cry, stood still—and then came running toward him.
"Oh, guardy! Guardy! Guardy!" she cried. "I knew you'd come! I knew it!"
It was Polly's voice. It hadn't changed. Was the nymph Polly? She was running with both hands outstretched. He caught them in his own as she came up to him, and stared into her face almost unbelievingly. Polly! This wasn't Polly! Polly's photographs were of a very pretty girl—this girl was glorious! She stirred the pulses. Damn it, she made the blood leap!
She hung back now a little shyly, the colour coming and going in her face.
He laughed. He meant it to be a laugh of one entirely in command both of himself and the situation; but it sounded in his ears as a laugh forced, unnatural, a poor effort to cover a suddenly routed composure.
"And is this all the welcome I get?" he demanded. He drew her closer to him. Gad, why not take his rights? She was worth it!
She held up her cheek demurely.
"I—I wasn't quite sure," she said coyly. "One's deportment with one's guardian wasn't in the school curriculum, you know—guardy!"
"Then I should have been more particular in my selection of the school," he said. It was strange, unaccountable! His voice seemed to rasp. He kissed her—then held her off at arm's-length. Polly! This bewitching creature was Polly! How the colour came and fled; and something glistened in the great, dark eyes—like the dew glistening in the morning sunlight.
"Oh, guardy!" she murmured. "It's so good to see you!"
"You waited up for me, Polly?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered. "Dora was sure you wouldn't come to-night because it was so late, and on account of it being low tide; but I was equally sure you would."
"Of course, I would!" said Captain Francis Newcombe glibly. "And I'm here. We're just in. I was afraid it was hopelessly late; but I didn't want to disappoint you in case you might still be clinging to what must have seemed a forlorn hope, and so I came ashore on the chance."
"Guardy," she said delightedly, "you're the only guardy in the world! But what happened? You were to have left the mainland to-day, and it's only five hours across."
"You'll have to ask Locke," he smiled. "That is, as to details—when he's in a better humour. In a general way, however, the engine broke down. We've been since one o'clock this afternoon getting over."
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What perfectly wretched luck! And where's Mr. Locke now? And—no—first, you must tell me about mother. Is she changed any? Is she well, and quite, quite happy? And does she like her home? Is it pretty? And how—"
"Good heavens, Polly!" expostulated Captain Francis Newcombe with assumed helplessness. "What a volley!" But his mind was at work swiftly, coldly, judicially. To preface his visit with the announcement of Mrs. Wickes' untimely—or was it timely?—end, would create an atmosphere that would not at all harmonise with his plans. Polly in mourning and retirement! Locke! Impossible! Nor did it suit him to explain that Mrs. Wickes was not her mother. He was not yet sure when that particular piece of information might best be used to advantage. And so Captain Francis Newcombe laughed disengagingly. "I can't possibly answer all those questions to-night—we'd be here until daylight. The mother's quite all right, Polly—quite all right. You can pump me dry to-morrow."
"Oh, I'm so glad—and so happy!" she cried. She clapped her hands together. "All right, to-morrow! We'll talk all day long. Well, then, about Mr. Locke—where is he? And how did you come to make such a trip? You know, you just wrote that you were coming down from New York on his yacht. Who is he? Tell me about him."
Locke! Damn it, the girl was incredibly beautiful—the figure of a young goddess! What hair! Those lips! Fool! What was the matter with him? Polly was only a tool to be used; not to turn his head just because she had proved to be a bit of a feminine wonder. Fool! The downfall of every outstanding figure in his profession had been traceable to a woman. It was a police axiom. It did not apply to Shadow Varne! A girl—bah—the world was full of them! And yet— His hand at his side clenched, while his lips smiled.
"That's something else for to-morrow," he said. "You'll meet him then, and"—what was it he had said to himself a little while ago about slight obstacles in the way of the turtle doves?—"I hope you'll like him, though I've an idea that perhaps you won't."
"Why won't I?" demanded Polly instantly.
"Well, I don't know—upon my word, I don't," said Captain Francis Newcombe with a quizzical grin. "He certainly isn't strikingly handsome; and I've an idea he's anything but a ladies' man—though not altogether a bad sort in spite of that, you know."
"Oh!" said Polly Wickes, with a little pout that might have meant anything. "Well, who is he, then—and where did you meet him?"
"I met him at the club in London, and we chummed up on the way over. It's quite simple. He was off for a holiday with no choice as to where he went, whereas I wanted to come here—so we came down in his motor cruiser. As to who he is, he's just young Howard Locke, the son of Howard Locke, senior, the American financier."
"Oh!" said Polly Wickes again.
What a ravishing little pout! Where had the girl learned the trick? Was it a trick? Those eyes were wonderfully frank, steady, ingenuous—wonderfully deep and self-reliant. He wondered if he looked old in those eyes? Young Locke! Fool again! Go on, tempt the gods! Ask her if thirty-three fell within her own category of youth, or—
"Don't make a sound!" she cautioned suddenly. "Quick! Here!"
He found hi............