"But it isn't," said Higgins. "It's where some gazaboo with a pot of money and a taste for oriental effects camps out. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as that much advertised colony."
"I'm going to find out."
"Look out! There comes a ferocious animal to chew you up!"
A white poodle of tiny size with a bark like a piping bird came bobbing out of the house.
"Here, Nero!" called Higgins.
And then the dark slender woman who had been on the Egret stepped out from behind a palm.
"Flossy!" she said with a stamp of the foot, which twinkled the pendants in her ears. "She won't bite you."
"I was worrying," said Roger.
"Ramos!" called the woman. "There are some strange men here. Come,
Flossy."
Payne found himself facing a tall dark man, with a hook nose, rings in his ears and a stringy mustache. The man placed himself full in the path leading to the little lake, and lazily, insolently studied the intruding pair.