"No;" and the young man frowned; "I haven't. I think that dime and pin business unspeakably small and mean! I put up with those tricks as long as I could stand them, but to have them pursue me after Mrs. Pell is dead is a little too much! It's none of it her family's fortune, anyway. My uncle, Mr. Pell, owned the jewels and left them to her. She did quite right in dividing them between her own niece and myself, but far from right in so secreting them that they can't be found. And they never will be found! Of that I'm certain. The will itself said they would doubtless be discovered! What a way to put it!"
"That's all so, Win," Iris spoke wearily, "but we must try to find them. Couldn't that crypt be in this house, not in any church?"
Bannard looked at the girl curiously. "Do you think so?" he said, briefly.
"You mean a concealed place, I suppose," put in Miss Darrel. "Well, remember this house is mine, now, and I don't want any digging into its foundations promiscuously. If you can prove to me by some good architect's investigation that there is such a place or any chance of such a place, you may open it up. But I won't have the foundations undermined and the cellars dug into, hunting for a crypt that isn't there!"
"Of course we can't prove it's here until we find it, or find some indications of it," Iris agreed. "But you've invited us both to stay here for a week or two——"
"I know I did, but I wish I hadn't, if you're going to tear down my house——"
"Now, now, Miss Darrel," Bannard couldn't help laughing at her angry face, "we're not going to pull the house down about your ears! And if you don't want Iris and me to visit you, as you asked us to, just say so and we'll mighty soon make ourselves scarce! We'll go to the village inn to-day, if you like."
"No, no; don't be so hasty. Take a week, Iris, to get your things together, and you stay that long, too, Mr. Bannard; but, of course, it isn't strange that I should want my house to myself after a time."
"Not at all, Miss Lucille," Iris smiled pleasantly, "you are quite justified. I will stay a few days, and then I shall go to New York and live with a girl friend of mine, who will be very glad to have me."
"And I will remain but a day or two here," said Bannard, "and though I may be back and forth a few times, I'll stay mostly in my New York rooms. I admit I rather want to look around here, for it seems to me that, as heirs to a large fortune of jewels, it's up to Iris and myself to look first in the most likely hiding-places for them; and where more probable than the testator's own house? Also, Miss Darrel, there will yet be much investigation here, in an endeavor to find the murderer; you will have to submit to that."