Secondly, in a business of this sort it is always safer for the murderer to employ an agent than to act himself.
It is the assassin who leaves traces, the assassin who is followed, the assassin who is hanged.
Of course, he may accuse his employer, but an employer of the type of Schumer or of Hakluyt is not likely to give an agent any chance to make evidence against him. He had paid Luckman in gold, and when the job was finished he would pay him in gold. Gold cannot be traced—and that is one of the greatest pities in the world.
Floyd could see nothing very clearly in the whole of this business with the exception of the fact that foul play was to be used against him, but he saw that fact clearly enough. Leaving the problem of Schumer and Hakluyt aside, he tried to imagine what method Luckman might possibly employ. The remainder of the money was not to be paid to Luckman until his return. Return from where? There could be only one answer to that—from the sea.
Luckman would sail with the Southern Cross, be put on board either as mate or supercargo; and on the voyage he would do what he was paid to do.
The Southern Cross would most likely never reach the island. An accident would happen to Floyd, and she would return to Sydney. Luckman would be paid off for his job, and Hakluyt, taking charge of the schooner, would sail for the island and shake hands with Schumer over the fact that they two were the sole possessors of the place and its wealth.
And what would happen to Isbel?
At this thought a wave of fury rose in his soul against the men whom he imagined to be plotting his destruction.
He half rose from his bed, and had Hakluyt appeared at that moment it would have been a very bad thing for the shipowner.
Then he lay down, a deep determination in his heart to deal with this matter in the only way it could be dealt with satisfactorily, to match cunning against cunning, and force, at the proper moment, against force.