Part 12 (1/2)
The heirs, whoever they were, pretty near tore the insides out of the house, they say, looking for coin, but they didn't get any thing.”
”And at night the old codger's ghost walks around,” added Lee; ”and if you follow him, he'll take you to the place the money's hidden.”
”Honest?” exclaimed Starling, joyfully. ”Gosh, that's great! I always wanted to live in a house with a ghost.”
”I'm sorry, then,” said George, ”for I just made that part up.”
”_You_ did?” Lee looked incredulous. ”Where do you come in? I've heard that ever since I came here.”
”No, sir; you may have heard the rest of the story, but not the part about the ghost. I wrote the yarn up in my junior year for an English comp., and tacked on the ghost feature as a sort of added climax. Got good marks, too, and the Orstead paper published the thing. I'll show it to you, if you like.”
Lee looked unconvinced still, and Starling disappointed. ”Well, it's a good story, anyway, and makes the place more interesting. Some day I'll have a look myself for the hidden millions.”
”Guess the old chap never had that much,” said George. ”Thirty or forty thousand is about what he was supposed to have salted away.”
”Scarcely worth bothering about,” observed Laurie, with a yawn.
”But look here, what became of the servant?” asked Starling. ”Maybe he got the dough and made off with it.”
”Lots of folks thought that,” replied George; ”but the theory didn't pan out for a cent. The negro stuck around here for quite a while and then ambled off somewhere. He claimed that old Coventry died owing him a month's wages, and tried to get some one to pay him, but I guess he never got any of it, if it was really owing.”
”Where did he go to?” asked Starling.
”I don't know. New York City, I think.”
”I'll bet he either had the money or knew where it was,” declared Starling, with conviction. ”Don't you see, fellows, he did just what any one would do in his case? He stuck around so he wouldn't be suspected.
If he'd gone right off, folks would have said he was trying to avoid being asked about the money. And then he faked up the yarn about the old gentleman owing him wages. A first-cla.s.s detective would have got trace of the coin, I'll wager!”
”You've been reading _Sherlock Holmes_,” laughed Lee. ”Why don't you follow up your clue, find the negro, and restore the lost wealth to the starving heirs?”
”Huh! If he did get the money, he's where even _Sherlock Holmes_ wouldn't find him by this time. Some one should have followed the fellow and kept watch on him right then. How old was he, Watson?”
”About fifty, I guess. They say he had white whiskers, anyway. Oh, he didn't know any more than he said he did. He was all right. He had been with old Coventry for years and years, one of those old-time family servants, you know, honest and faithful. Why, he went on something fierce when the old chap died!”
”Say, how much of this guff is real and how much of it is English composition?” asked Lee, suspiciously. ”How do you know the negro took on when the old codger died? You weren't here.”
”Maybe I heard it,” replied George, grinning.
”Yes, and maybe you just made it up, like the stuff about the ghost,”
Lee retorted sarcastically. ”I've heard the yarn two or three times, but I never heard that the negro had white whiskers or that he went into mourning!”
”It's a fact, though,” declared the other, warmly. ”I prepared mighty well on that comp.; talked with half a dozen persons who knew the story.
Got most of the stuff from the Widow Deane, though. Old Coventry had been dead only about two years then and folks were still talking about him. The Widow doesn't think the old chap had nearly as much money as he was supposed to have.”
”She has the little store around on the back street?” asked Starling.
”Yes. She took that as her share.”
”Her share of what?” demanded Lee.