“Where is the rest?” asked her brother in almost child-like faith.
“Fate destined the Captain to be a victim of the sea, so he had to leave, and he thought to himself that he wanted his treasure to fall into the hands of some kindred spirit, should he never return. Captain Shannon is a man whom few understand, but I am convinced that I do. He was a man of strong human sympathy—”
“Yes, Katie, dear,” interrupted Joseph meekly. “What you say is perfectly correct, but what were you going to say about the treasure?”
“I was just about to explain it all, Joseph. He wanted his treasure to fall into the hands of some kindred spirit, should he never return, some one who would be able to deduce his idea from the clews he left behind. First he leaves instructions that only congenial people are to rent this property, then he leaves his diary. Then he says to himself, ‘If the person that reads this diary is really interested in me, that person will find out the history of Cocos Island and infer my discovery of the treasure.’ And then he thought it would be but a short step to the actual finding of the treasure.”
“Humph!” grunted Joseph. “A short step? In what direction I’d like to know?”
“I am not prepared to say exactly where it is,” explained Miss Katherine, “but my theory is that it is secreted about the house or garden.”
“If it’s in that garden,” began Joseph, energetically but was interrupted.
“We must be very guarded and no one must suspect our purpose,” cautioned Miss Katherine. “We cannot tell to what ends people might go if it was discovered that there was a great treasure concealed here. We will have to be careful about admitting strangers to the house or garden. It is very probable that some sailors, friends of Captain Shannon’s, might have suspected this, for I never read a treasure story yet where someone didn’t make trouble.”
Twice that night, after Miss Katherine had retired to rest, she almost rose from her bed at the thought that the house was in a most unfortified state. Whether she expected to see John Silver, wooden leg, urbanity and all, climbing in at the window, I can not say, but she felt so insecure that it was long after midnight when she fell asleep. She dreamed that Captain Shannon and she were sailing away to Cocos Island and he was telling her that all the jewels there were hers if she would only take him, too. Ah! the futility of the sweetest dreams!
But the next day Miss Katherine had the treasure searching problem well in hand. Her mind had at once turned to the classic on this subject, and she hastened to find Poe’s “Purloined Letter” and “Gold Bug.” Therein she found many possible methods and studied in detail the house-searching methods of the Parisian commissaire de police. She imparted something of what she had learned to Joseph, but he didn’t have any faith in ‘yarns.’ His fingers were itching to use the spade and pick-axe, but this Miss Katherine strictly forbade as yet.