MISER'S GOLD
He was passionately glad in the week that followed that Fate, prodigal
in her gifts to him, had made him too an actor with a genius for
convincing. For he had to go on digging dots, feigning wild excitement
when his heart was cold within him. He hated spades. He hated dirt.
He almost hated Hughie, who went from dot to dot upon the chart with
unflagging zeal and system. Kenny himself dug anywhere at any time and
moodily escaped when he could to write letters. He was getting his
plans in line for departure.
He had settled the problem of the doctor, after an interval of bitter
struggle, with a combination of fact and fancy. He said truthfully
that the doctor had rejected all notions of buried money with his usual
air of weariness. He added untruthfully--and with set teeth he
challenged the Angel Gabriel to settle the tormenting problem in any
other way--that the doctor had conceded the probability of Adam's
burying money though he had had but a few thousand dollars at best to
bury.
"That," said Hughie, "is enough to dig for!" And he went on with his
digging.
The need was desperate and Kenny did his best. Of the doctor's story
of Adam and Cordelia Craig he told enough. And he kept on talking
miser's gold when he hated the name of it. His air of excitement, said
Hughie who talked endlessly of dots, dug and dreamed them, kept them
all upon their toes.
At nightfall of the third day when Kenny's hatred of dots was
approaching a frenzy and a ballet of spades danced with horrible rhythm
through his dreams, the package came from Garry. Kenny took it with a
careless whistle and went slowly up the stairs.
The closing of his bedroom door transformed him. He found matches and
a lamp and marveled at the erratic pounding of his heart. It was a
muffled beat of triumph. Mad laughter, tender and joyous, lurked
perilously in his throat. His feet would have pirouetted in gay
abandon had he not, with much responsible feeling of control, forced
himself to walk with dignity and calm. But his nervous flying fingers
fumbled clumsily with string and paper and taxed his patience to the
utmost.
The bills were incredibly old and ragged. Kenny stared at them with a
low whistle of delight, blessing Garry. Moreover, Fate and Garry had
chosen to solve a problem for him by packing the bills in a strong tin
box. To unpack the money and dent the tin was the work of a moment.
When he had darkened the shining surface with lamp-smoke and rubbed it
clean with a handkerchief which he burned, the box, discolored and
dented, had an inescapable look of age, like the ragged bills.
Kenny went through the dark hallway to Adam's room with cat-like tread,
the searchlight that had been a part of his road equipment in his
pocket, a bag of wood-ash, purloined the day before from Hannah's
kitchen, and the battered box tucked unobtrusively beneath his coat.
He locked himself in and drew a long, gasping breath of intense relief.
Though wind creaks startled him again and again as he made a pedestal
of faded books for his searchlight and directed its glaring circle upon
the blackened wall of the fireplace, no dreaded hand upon the knob
disturbed him.
He worked noiselessly and with care, removing the lower bricks with his
penknife.
Brick after brick he loosened, burrowing deep in the solid wall; then
with infinite care and patience he walled the money in, filled the
crevices with wood-ash and hid the remaining bricks in the chimney.
He went down to supper with an unusual air of calm, but his head was
aching badly. Hughie, Joan said, was nearing the last dot. He was
discouraged and Hannah was cross. Kenny toyed absently with the food
upon his plate.
"Mavourneen," he said, "I'm wondering."
"Wondering what, Kenny?"
"If perhaps the chart isn't purposely misleading--"
"Like Uncle's hints to you?"
"Yes."
"I hadn't thought of it."
"Every clue we have found has sent us out of doors."
"Would he, I wonder, Kenny, hide the money in the house?"
"I'm wondering too."
"The sitting room!"
"There," admitted Kenny, "he was often alone."
"Kenny, shall we look to-night?"
Kenny had his moment of doubt.
"We'll ask Hughie," he said.
And so with Hannah scoffing but noticeably on ahead with the lamp, they
climbed the stairs and tore the room to pieces--to no avail. In a
final burst of inspiration Hughie dragged the faded carpet from its
tacks and filled the room with dust. Sneezing and coughing, they faced
each other in the melee with looks of blank discouragement. Even
Kenny's inexhaustible energy and excitement seemed on the point of
waning. He stared drearily at the fireplace.
"It's cold in here," he said, shivering.
"Yes," said Joan, "we should have built a fire."
"The fireplace!" cried Hughie hoarsely.
"It's too late now," said Kenny irritably. "I'm chilled through."
"No, no, Mr. O'Neill, I'm not meaning the fire. It's the one place we
haven't looked."
"It won't hurt none to look, Mr. O'Neill," urged Hannah, who knew that
Kenny's energy was subject to undependable ebb and now. "If Hughie
goes out of here with that fireplace on his mind, he'll dream all night
about it."
Kenny strode to the fireplace with Hughie at his heels and jerked
impatiently at the mantel. It was sturdy and unyielding.
"I feared so," he said with a shrug.
Hughie seized the lamp.
"Hold the lamp, Mr. O'Neill," he begged, crouching. "I've got to look
at them bricks. Careful, sir! You're tipping it."
Huddled in the glare of the lamp they stared in fascination at the
smoky bricks.
"The bricks are loose!" exclaimed Hughie. "Look here!" He rattled one
with his finger.
Kenny emitted a long low whistle of intense amazement.
"Hughie, where's your knife?" he flung out wildly. "I think we're on
the trail!"
"The lamp's shaking!" warned Hannah. "Let me hold it."
"Oh, my God!" gasped Hughie with the dot fever flaring in his honest
eyes. "That ain't mortar. It's only ashes. Look!"
Kenny frantically pulled out a brick and dropped it with a clatter.
Another and another.
"Hold the lamp closer, Hannah!" directed Hughie, reaching within.
"There's something here!"
Shaking violently he pulled forth a battered box and flung back the
lid. It was stuffed to the brim with ragged money.
"Glory be to God!" cried Kenny and proceeded to pull the mantel down.
But he found no more.
"And to think of him burrowin' there in the bricks," marveled Hannah,
"and him that weak a child could push him over."
"Ah!" said Kenny, "but his will was strong."
He counted the money with trembling fingers and a smile, curiously
pleased and tender, and declared his belief that the doctor was right.
The ragged hoarding--he shivered slightly with revulsion as he touched
a tattered bill--represented the rest, residue and remainder of Adam's
wealth wheresoever situate. And thanks to Hughie's inspiration the
executor had found it.
"Four thousand dollars!" he announced at last in a voice of
disappointment.
"And a lucky thing," said Hughie with an air of pride, "that I thought
of the fireplace. For it might have laid there buried for the rest of
time."
"Four thousand dollars!" gasped Hannah in a reverential voice. "Four
thousand dollars! Well, Mr. O'Neill, it may not be much, as you seem
to think after all the dots you and Hughie have been a-diggin', but I
say it's a lot. It ought to buy the child all the frocks and teachers
in New York."
"It will see her through the year," said Kenny.
Joan's eyes widened.
"It would see me through a decade!" she exclaimed.
Kenny smiled.