With a sniff Lucy withdrew, her fingers still hooked in the collar of her tearful son. Jeems glanced at Val as he went by the boy’s cot. And Val didn’t care for what he read into that glance. Had the swamper by any foul chance come to suspect Val’s little plan?
But it all turned out just as he had hoped. Val made that most momentous trip in four easy stages, resting on the big chair where Rupert had spent so many hours, on the bench by the window, in the first of the deck-chairs by the side of the French doors leading to the terrace, and then he reached the haven of the last deck-chair and settled down just where he had intended. And when Jeems returned there was nothing he could do but accept the fact that Val had fled the cot.
“Miss Ricky won’t like this,” he prophesied darkly.
“Nor Mr. Rupert neither. Yo’ wouldn’t’ve tried if they’d been heah.”
“Oh, stop worrying. If you’d been tied to that cot the way I’ve been, you’d be glad to get out here, too. It’s great!”
The sun was warm but the afternoon shadow of an oak overhung his seat so that Val escaped the direct force of the rays. A few feet away Satan sprawled full length, giving a fine imitation of a cat that had rid himself of all nine lives, or at least of eight and a half.
Never had the garden shown so rich a green. Ricky’s care had sharpened the lines of the flower-beds and had set shrubs in their proper places. And the plants had repaid her with a riot of blossoms. A breeze set the gray moss to swaying from the branches of the oak. And a green grasshopper crossed the terrace in four great leaps, almost scraping Satan’s ear in a fashion which might easily have been fatal to the insect. Val sighed and slipped down lower in his chair. “It’s great,” he murmured again.
“Sure is,” Jeems echoed. He dropped down cross-legged beside Val, disdaining the other chair.
Satan stretched without opening his eyes and yawned, gaping to the fullest extent of his jaws, his tongue rising so that it seemed pointed like a snake’s. Then he rolled over on his other side and curled up with his paws under his chin. A bumblebee blundered by Val’s head on its way to visit the morning-glories. He suddenly discovered it difficult to keep his eyes open.
“Someone’s comin’,” observed Jeems. “Ah just heard a car turn in from the road.”
“But the folks have been gone such a short time,” Val protested.
However, the car which came almost noiselessly down the drive was not the one in which the family had departed.
It had the shape of a sleek gray beetle, rounded so that it was difficult to tell at first glance the hood from the rear. It glided to a stop before the steps and after a moment four passengers disembarked.
Val simply stared, but Jeems got to his feet in one swift movement.
For, coming purposefully up the terrace steps, were four men they had seen before and had very good cause to remember for the rest of their lives.
In the lead strutted the rival, a tight smile rendering his unlovely features yet more disagreeable. Behind him trotted the red-faced counselor who had accompanied him on his first visit. But matching the rival step for step was the “Boss,” while “Red” brought up the rear in a tidy fashion.
“Swell place, ain’t it?” demanded the rival, taking no notice of Val or Jeems. “Make yourselves to home, boys; the place is yours.”
Val gripped the arm of his chair. Sam, Rupert, Holmes— they were all beyond call. It was left to him to meet this unbelievable invasion alone. There was a stir beside him.
Val glanced up to meet the slightest of reassuring nods from the swamper. Jeems was with him.
“Whatcha gonna do with the joint. Brick?” asked Red, tossing his cigarette down on the flagstones and grinding it to powder with his heel.
“I dunno yet.” The rival strode importantly toward the front door.
“You might tell us when you find out,” Val suggested quietly.
With an exaggerated start of surprise the rival turned toward the boy.
“Oh, so it’s you, kid?”
“Perhaps,” Val said softly, “you had better introduce your friends. After all, I like to know the names of my guests.”
The Boss smiled sardonically and Red grinned. Only the red-faced lawyer shuffled his feet uneasily and looked from one to another of his companions with an expression of pleading. But the rival came directly to the point.
“Where’s that high and mighty brother of yours?” he demanded.
“Mr. Ralestone will doubtless be very glad to see you,”
Val evaded, having no desire for the visitors to discover just how slender his resources were. “Jeems, you might go and tell him that we have visitors. Go through the Long Hall, it’s nearer that way.” He dug the fingernails of his sound hand into the soft wood of the chair arm. Could Jeems interpret that hint? Someone must remove and hide the Luck before these men saw it.
“Right.” The swamper turned on his heel and padded toward the French windows.
“No, you don’t!” the rival snarled as he moved into line between Jeems and his objective. “When we want that guy, we’ll hunt him out ourselves. When we’re good and ready!”
“If you don’t wish to see my brother, just why did you come?” Val asked feverishly. He must keep them talking there until he had time to think of some way of getting that slender blade of steel into hiding.
“We’re movin’ in,” Red answered casually for them all.
“How interesting. I think that the police will enjoy hearing that.” Val commented.
“It’s perfectly legal,” bleated the lawyer. “We possess a court order to view the place with the purpose of appraising it for sale.” He drew a stiff paper from the inside pocket of his coat and waved it toward the boy.
“Bunk! I don’t know much about the law but I do know that you could have obtained nothing of the kind without our being notified. And just which one of you has been selected to do the appraising?”
“Him,” answered Red laconically and jerked his thumb at the Boss.
“So,” Jeems stared at him. “since yo’ couldn’t git what yo’ want by thievin’ at night, yo’re goin’ to try and git it by day.”
“But what are you really after? I’m curious to know. You certainly don’t want a sugar plantation which hasn’t been paying its way since the Civil War. That just isn’t reasonable. And you ought to know that we can’t afford to buy you off. We must be living over a gold-mine that we haven’t discovered. Come on, tell us where it is,” Val prodded.
“Cut the cackle,” advised Red, “an’ let’s git down to it.”
“I would advise you to get back in your car and drive out.” Val Wondered if his face looked as stiff as it felt. “This visit isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
“We ain’t goin’ any place, kid,” remarked the rival. “You don’t seem to understand. We’re stayin’ right here. I got rights and the judge has recognized them. I’m top guy here now.”
“Yeah. Yuh ain’t so smart as yuh think yuh are,” contributed Red, scowling at Val. “We ain’t gonna leave.”
It wasn’t Red’s speech, however, that straightened the boy’s back and made Jeems shift his position an inch or two. There was another car coming up the drive. And since their enemies were all gathered before them, they could only be receiving friends, or at the worst neutrals.
But the car which came from between the liveoaks to park behind the first contained only two passengers. LeFleur and Creighton got out, stopped in surprise to view the party on the terrace, and then came up, shoving by Red.
“Quite a party,” Val observed. “But how did you manage to arrive so opportunely?”
“We have made a discovery,” panted the Creole lawyer; “a very important discovery. What are these men doing here?”
“We got a court order to view this house for sale.” The rival was truculent. “An’ it’s all legal. The mouthpiece says so,” he indicated his counselor.
“Perhaps,” Creighton’s cool tones cut through, “you had better introduce us.” There was a decided change in his manner. Gone was his shy nervousness, his slightly hesitant reserve, it was a keen business man who stood there now.
Val grinned. “You see before you the family skeleton. May I introduce Mr. Ralestone, who firmly believes that he is the Ralestone of Pirate’s Haven? And three other—shall we say gentlemen—whom I myself have never met formally. Though I did have the pleasure, I believe,” he addressed the Boss directly, “of blackening your eye.”
“Yeah, I’m Ralestone, and I’m gonna have my rights,” stated the rival briskly.