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Updated: June 19, 2025
The next box under which rested the key was several feet away. The door was still farther off. Truly Standish and Hade appeared to have hit on an excellent plan for getting rid of the man they wanted out of the way! It would be so easy for Roke to explain to possible inquirers that Brice had chanced to tread on a poisonous snake in his wanderings about the key!
"Oh, Brice," said Standish carelessly. "This is my foreman here, Perry Roke. As a rule he looks like other people, except that he's bigger, just now his cravings for falling off corrugated roofs have done things to his face. Shake hands with him. If you like the job I'm going to offer you he and you will be side-partners over here."
"I think," said he smilingly his momentary impatience gone "I think, before answering in fact before coming down to terms and other details you might perhaps care to stroll around the island a little, and get an idea of it for yourself. It may be you won't care to stay here. It may be you will like it very much. Mr. Standish and I have some routine business to talk over with Roke.
And my coming back isn't as unlucky for you as it seems. If the snakes had gotten me, there's a Secret Service chap over there who would have had an interesting report to make. And you'd have joined Hade and Roke in a murder trial. So, you see, things might be worse." He spoke in his wonted lazily pleasant drawl, and with no trace of excitement.
From that point of vantage, he saw the dark-clothed men line up their sullen prisoners and march them off to the road, where, a furlong below, the fire revealed the dim outlines of several motor cars. Other men, at the direction of the same leader who had commanded the advance, trooped toward the house. And, as this leader passed near the magnolia, Roke knew him for Gavin Brice.
At the pressure, Rodney's groping hand fell away from his pistol pocket, and he himself toppled, powerless, toward the ground, the skilled wrench of the carotid artery and the nerves at the side of the throat paralyzing him with pain. Roke, rolling impotently on the earth, saw the little fellow swing Hade easily over his shoulder and start for the house.
"You seemed surprised to see me this afternoon," said he as he followed Roke to the porch and closed the door behind them. "Yet Mr. Hade had told you I was coming here. He had told you, and he had told you to have some one ready to show me over the island." As he spoke Gavin indicated with a nod a man who was trotting across the sandy clearing toward them.
I was afraid I'd have to look for you." "Two other men were picked out to do it sir," said the conch without slackening his pace or turning his head. "One after the other. One was a nigger. One was a conch. Both of 'em got sick. I paid 'em to. And I paid the nigger an extra five to tell Roke I'd be the best man to steer you. He said he'd been on jobs with me before.
He drops in here. every now and then he has an interest with me in the groves and as soon as he catches sight of Roke's violin. he starts playing it. That means no more work out of Roke till Hade chooses to stop. He just stands, with his mouth wide open, hypnotized. Can't drag him away for a second. Hey. Roke?"
"The job I had have in mind for you," spoke up Milo. at a glance from Hade, "is on this key, here. I need an extra man in the main storehouse to oversee the roustabouts there. At this season Roke is too busy outdoors to keep the right kind of eye on them. The pay won't be large to start with. But if you make good at it. I may have something better to offer you on the mainland. Or I may not.
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