“Miss Persis, I wouldn’t take that one’s word that the sun was shinin’ if it were out in the sky right over my head! I’ve seen his like before—swaggerin’ around an’ talkin’ big. He got his comeuppance from the Captain the day the master died. An’ all Miss Lydia’s carryin’ on didn’t make a mite of difference either. They had a fight one other time over a wreck, and the Captain got the better of him. I wouldn’t listen to no story he had the tellin’ of! You get the Captain, when he feels better, to listen to it all. He’ll put it straight for you.”
“No, Molly. I can handle my own affairs. And I won’t depend on Ralph Grillon for any help—that I promise you. What we want is to get to Key West and find a lawyer there. I have all of Uncle Augustin’s papers. He can use them to make inquiries for me. It may be, Molly,” she said soberly, “that Captain Grillon was not exaggerating. If this other heir does exist, then I will have lost all Uncle Augustin hoped to gain by coming south.”
“If he’s right!” Molly sniffed again. But a moment later she added, as if the dire meaning of Persis’ words had come to her, “But—Miss Persis, what will you do then?”
“We have the house in New York.” Persis thought of the first asset. “That can be sold. It is a good house, Molly, and should fetch a good price. Then I can teach. Maybe Miss Pickett would find a place for me. Also, though Uncle Augustin was poor compared to what he had been, there is still some money. And you and Shubal have your pensions—those will come first.”
“Not if you need the money, Miss Persis!” Molly shook her head decisively. “And you have only this Grillon’s word that it is so—”
Persis wanted to cling to that hope also, but she disciplined herself quickly. Perhaps a female was not credited with a practical mind but she thought it best now to plan on receiving the minimum and not the maximum of an estate her uncle had left her.
“Molly, bring me the portfolio. I think there is some time before dinner for me to look through it again. Certainly if this heir exists, the lawyer in the islands must have warned Uncle Augustin of it. Unless he or she has been very recently found.”
The maid went to the trunk and started to lay aside the contents which had not been placed in the chest drawers in the new chamber.
“Now that’s a funny thing,” she said. “I remember as well as if I saw it now, that it was under three night rails. But here it is on top.”
She came back to Persis with it in one hand. “And nobody’s been in that trunk but me and you. Did you have it out, Miss Persis?”
“No—” As Persis took it into her hands the cover moved. She held it closer to the light. Just as Molly had been so distinctly sure where she had put the folder, so had Persis been sure that it had been locked. But plainly the cover was now ready to open at a touch.
“Molly, my jewel box—Uncle Augustin’s watch—is the fob still there, the one with the small key on it?”
The maid made a quick search. Persis’ jewels were certainly very modest: a necklace of coral with matching hair ornament, bracelet, and earrings—carved into roses, two gold chains, one with a locket, and an ivory pin, and a set of jet which had been mourning jewelry for the mother she could hardly remember. Uncle Augustin’s watch was there, with the key still fastened above the carved seal which formed the carnelian fob he had brought from London.
Persis examined the lock of the portfolio closely, holding it near the candles which Molly had set on the dressing table. Tiny scratches. She was sure those had not been there before! But she could not swear to that. If someone had forced the lock—but who—and why?
She moved quickly to pull out the papers, checking through them hastily. As far as she could see everything was there—the old letters, Uncle Augustin’s will, the depositions of the privateer’s men. Everything—but she was very certain someone had rummaged through them. Though she could not prove that either. Ralph Grillon? No, he would not have dared enter this house, for all his reckless self-confidence. But he might have bribed one of the islanders.
Only she doubted if any of the housemaids would be able to read. Sukie certainly could not. And Molly would not have done this. Persis shuffled the papers back into the portfolio. She was right, she discovered when she tried to close it—the lock had been broken.
“Someone has been looking through this,” she kept her voice as calm as she could. “Molly, could you hide it among your things?”
“Miss Persis, who in this house—and why?”
“I don’t know any answers, Molly. But the lock has been broken, only nothing was taken. And these may be highly important.”
“You just give them to me. Nobody is going to get at them again, Miss Persis. What a thing to have happen in a respectable house!” The maid flushed nearly as red with indignation as she had been when she had discovered Persis enjoying the pool.
The thought that her belongings had been searched was a blow—a threat. It couldn’t have been Ralph, and she did not see how any of the servants might have done it by his bribes or orders. Then—Lydia? But she had no right to imagine that the other girl would do such a thing. Save that she was plainly fascinated by Grillon and, in defiance of her brother, might be moved to some reckless act to prove her partisanship with a man she plainly greatly admired.
“Don’t you worry none, Miss Persis,” Molly held the portfolio against her heavy breasts as if she would defy anyone under this roof to wrest it from her. “I’ll see as how no one gets to this again!”
They dined by candlelight for the first time, the three of them together, Mrs. Pryor (who declared herself well satisfied with Captain Leverett’s turn for the better), Lydia, and herself. And Lydia talked vivaciously as she always did, flitting from subject to subject. Only Persis found it hard to maintain polite interest in her hostess’ chatter. She kept wondering if Lydia had been the one to invade her chamber, search it—perhaps the note from Grillon had been partially to get her out of the way before such action could be carried out. Grillon had offered her help, but could it just be the other way around—that he wanted to assist the mysterious heir and had come to get knowledge, one way or another, of what authority Uncle Augustin had brought south with him? She had made no great secret of the portfolio earlier. All knew it was her uncle’s and contained papers of importance, though she had not gone into details over its contents with even Captain Leverett.
For the first time she considered a new and startling thought. Captain Leverett—he had offered her assistance in Key West. Yet Grillon had said he could not venture there—that there was a writ out against him. Her uncle, Shubal, either one of them without telling her, might have appealed to him. Also, there was Captain Pettigrew of the Arrow, still bound here on the Key with his crew. How much had her uncle talked with him during those hours when she had been so miserably sick in her cramped stateroom? It would be easy for Captain Leverett to get one of the servants to secure the portfolio, go through the papers. He had slept most of the afternoon Mrs. Pryor announced with quiet satisfaction, but she had left Sukie with him on watch since his turn for the better was so pronounced.
Only—while she could picture Ralph Grillon rifling, or causing to be examined her belongings—Persis could not visualize similar action on Crewe Leverett’s part. There was something petty—and—and perhaps dangerous enough to make her uneasy, in that action. While the Captain accepted danger as part of his daily life—it was a different kind of danger altogether.
“Miss Rooke—” Persis looked up quickly, hoping that her preoccupation had not been apparent to them all. She was not even sure her murmurs had satisfied Lydia who was now consuming a coconut custard spoonful by spoonful with the air of one who had not been enough appreciated for her social expertise.
“Captain Leverett has expressed a desire to see you, if it would be convenient,” Mrs. Pryor continued, again with that air of vague disapproval which Miss Pickett in her day had used to such advantage.
Persis guessed that while the Captain was fevered and practically
unaware of his surroundings, the housekeeper had welcomed her aid in nursing. But now that he was in his right mind, if not mended of body, visits to the sick room certainly did not meet with her approval. In her present mood Persis was perfectly willing to agree with the housekeeper.
“Whenever it is convenient I shall be very glad to accede to Captain Leverett’s wishes,” she answered with all the primness of her school days.
Lydia suddenly laughed. “You sound as if the last thing you want to do is to see Crewe. Is he so trying as a patient then? He has the temper of a devil, you know—a cold, sarcastic devil!” Her tone had been light but she ended with such vehemence and a look in her eyes which matched that of her brother’s at his most exasperated.
“Very few men,” Persis remarked, “take kindly to being ill. Uncle Augustin at times would have no one near him save Shubal. But your brother was unconscious, I think, most of the time, of who cared for him.” She remembered her own short conversation with a rational Crewe Leverett, but saw no reason to enlarge upon that.
She mounted the stairs in Mrs. Pryor’s wake, breathing a little fast. It was so like, somehow, being summoned into the presence of Miss Pickett to have one’s sins of admission and omission reckoned up judiciously against one. And—but what had Crewe Leverett to do with her? She had helped to tend him during his illness, mainly because she still owed him the debt of being alive. Of course, her meeting with Ralph Grillon could well have been witnessed by some islander (she would be the first to admit she was not skilled in the processes of intrigue), and if that were so—then, she decided swiftly, as Mrs. Pryor lifted her hand to rap on the Captain’s door, she would admit freely all that had passed between them. She certainly owed no loyalty nor duty to the Bahamian.
There were a number of candles alight in the room and a kind of curtain netting pulled over each of the open windows, while that veiling about the bed had been drawn back to fully reveal the man resting there.
He had been shaven of his stubble of beard, and, though his face looked a little sunken, his eyes over-large, he had certainly taken a great stride back toward becoming the self he had shown when she had last seen him.
“Miss Rooke–”
She found herself, without knowing just why, falling into the pattern Miss Pickett had so drilled into her pupils, and making a curtsy. As if, she thought, with a kind of nervous laughter rising from within her which she struggled hard to curb, they were somehow being introduced for the first time.
“I see you find yourself better, sir,” she schooled her voice to its most formal tone.
For the first time she saw him smile fully. And even on that worn face that change of expression made him shed both years and authority.
“I understand that I owe that somewhat to your efforts, Miss Rooke.”
“I am well acquainted with nursing, Captain Leverett. My uncle was long in his bed after his seizure. But here I did little enough—only aided Mrs. Pryor when there was need.”
“Come here!” With his good hand he beckoned sharply, his smile gone now, that familiar faint frown of displeasure easy to see.
Persis’ chin lifted a fraction. He need not believe that he could carry his shipboard commanding ways here and against her. If that was the tone he habitually used with Lydia, she did not wonder that his sister made her own schemes for the future. But Persis did move a step or two forward into the direct light of the candles, to discover that he was surveying her with a steadiness which made her uncomfortable.
There was no subtlety about Crewe Leverett she learned a moment later for he said, without any dressing of polite usage:
“I understand you met with Grillon—down on the point.”
There must be plenty of eyes on Lost Lady Key to watch and report, Persis thought. But his own brusqueness aroused answering resistance in her. She was not his sister! At that moment she thought she could forgive Lydia any wiles she thought to use against this man.
Only long ago Persis had learned that truth in itself could be a potent weapon, sometimes disarming an attacker who did not expect it.
“I did,” she returned quietly.
Crewe Leverett’s frown deepened. “He dares—because he thinks I am helpless!” There was anger in that small explosion. “What did he want?”
“To strike a bargain.”
“A bargain?” Now she had succeeded in surprising him and for that she felt an odd little twist of pleasure. “What kind of a bargain?”
“News for news—of a sort. He had a tale of the Bahamas he thought of interest to my future—”
“And,” Captain Leverett interrupted, “he wanted information concerning this household in return? Was that it?”
Persis shrugged. “If you know all—why ask me, sir? I will tell you this much, I am your guest, uninvited and unwilling, but nevertheless, your guest. There was no reason he should expect me to fulfill the conditions he desired.”
“Sit down!” Again that abrupt command. Mrs. Pryor moved from the doorway to draw forward the same chair Persis had known during her night watches. The last thing the girl wanted was to prolong this interview, but for the moment she saw no way of escape. “And you, Mrs. Pryor,” he turned his head a fraction on the pillow, “leave us, if you please. But keep an eye on Lydia.”
Such sharp orders. Persis glanced at the dignified housekeeper, more than half-expecting to see some sign of resentment at being dismissed so summarily. But if that lay in the old woman’s thoughts no such emotion showed about mouth or eye. She gathered up a small tray on which was cup, spoon, and covered bowl.
“A quarter hour, Crewe,” she said, “and that is all. It is more than the doctor would allow if he were here.”
The Captain waited, but he gave an impatient grunt before the door had quite closed behind her.
“So you turned him down, did you?” Crewe Leverett raised his good arm, scratched his chin. “I take it that annoyed him a little. Grillon is not used to anything in petticoats being indifferent to his wishes.”
The Captain, catching Persis’ outraged expression, laughed. “Ah, that fetched you, didn’t it? But you’re going to tell me more—what did Grillon have to offer on his side of the bargain?”
“Nothing,” Persis fought to keep her voice neutral. The man was insufferable! As if she could ever appeal to him! All she wanted now was to escape to Key West. She was not a ninny and in spite of Uncle Augustin’s put-downs in the past she thought she had intelligence enough to seek the proper help in the proper places. “Nothing,” she repeated, “except that which is a private affair of my own, concerning my uncle’s visit to the islands.”
“So? Well, I have a warning for you, Miss Persis Rooke, in the places where Ralph Grillon foregathers with his kind you would be a nice tempting pigeon meeting hawks. His hands are not clean, and a good many of us know it. We have our turncoats just as any profession may, Miss Rooke. There are captains who will make bargains and run their ships on some convenient reef, then share secretly with the prize money.”
“Pirates,” she could not resist that one word which had lain at the back of her mind ever since she had come into this house.
He gave a half shrug and then winced at the pain from his shoulder.
“If you wish—pirates. These waters have long attracted the lawless. There has been blood spilled up and down the Keys and not all that of enemies either. In fact,” he hesitated as if there was something more to be said and then, seeming to have come to an inner decision, he added—“we go in peril right now.”
“From Ralph Grillon?” She could not believe that.
“Hardly. Grillon may be a mosquito, annoying enough but easy to be handled in time. No, I am thinking of Indians.”
Persis was diverted from her own wary thoughts enough to echo that last word—“Indians!”
“The ship we went to help,” he appeared frank now, “had bespoken earlier a gunboat out of Key West. That had sailed to carry the news of a massacre at Crow Key and so to warn us all.
So far Lost Lady has never been threatened. Those who built here, the Old Ones, are dead. But the Seminoles the Spanish brought in to wreck their mound cities believe that certain places are still under unseen guards. I have tried to foster that—there’s a strange old woman–she’s a kind of witch as far as they are concerned—”
“Askra—she came here during the storm,” Persis said as he paused.
“Yes, Askra. She has the face of the Old Ones–knows a lot of their ‘magic’ if you want to call it that. The Seminoles are afraid of her powers. She comes here because the mounds are or were sacred to her people and I have allowed no interference with her. So far we have escaped any raids. But that does not mean we shall continue to do so. And the report I was given was a serious one.
“Unfortunately the Nonpareil as well as her master took a crippling beating in that storm.” His legs moved under the covers on the bed as if he were uncomfortable. “I’ve told Veering to keep off Verde, and I’ve sent Macmasters to do some recruiting in Key West—”
“You sent a ship to Key West! But I could have gone—”
“In a fishing smack, hardly better than a native dugout?” he asked. “I don’t think you would have chosen that form of transportation.”
He was probably very right, Persis thought gloomily. She had no relish to continue her trip by sea, and thought she could only bring herself to it on a larger ship.
“Yes, we have arms, powder, shot, and this house and the hotel have both been designed as forts. But it means that we must take every precaution, Miss Rooke. No more wandering along the shore alone—nor meeting with Grillon.”
“I did not and do not intend either of those,” she told him coldly. “But neither do I wish to remain here. If I carry out Uncle Augustin’s declared wishes I must have legal help—at Key West.”
“As soon as it can be arranged,” for the first time Crewe Leverett sounded tired, “you will be accommodated, Miss Rooke.”