“You don’t trust Uncle Ran?”
“Candidly, I don’t, although I have no very strong reason to say so. Do you trust him yourself, Marie?”
“I don’t know; I can’t say,” said the girl slowly; “of course he has been kind to me since I returned a year ago from Brighton, where I was at school, Alan. He doesn’t interfere with me, you know.”
“He lets you run wild, if that’s what you mean, my dear,” retorted the solicitor hotly. “Now that it does you any harm of course, as you are a sensible girl. But Mr. Sorley should take you out visiting and let you go to dances occasionally, and you should have a few days in London every now and then. He should not neglect you as he does.”
“We are too poor to afford such things, Alan. But some day when we find the treasure, we—you and I of course—shall have a splendid time. Remember the prophecy, my dear,” and she repeated two lines of the same:
“Jewels and gold from over-seas
Will bring them peace and joy and ease.”
Alan was struck by the quotation from a three hundred year old oracle after hearing Marie’s story of the secret which possession and examination of the peacock would reveal. “Jewels and gold,” he repeated slowly, “yes; it does sound as though that line referred to the Begum’s hoard. Odd, very odd indeed.”
“It will come true, it will come true,” sang Marie, dancing a step or two in her gleeful way, and with the exuberant joy of twenty. “Then we’ll pension Uncle Ran off, and have The Monastery and the money to ourselves. Oh, Alan, let us build castles in the air.”
“They won’t turn into bricks and mortar until we find the peacock,” said Mr. Fuller gloomily, “and that will not be easy, seeing it means the capture of poor Grison’s assassin. Moon can find out nothing and if he fails how can mere amateur detectives such as Dick and I are succeed. However, we know that he was murdered for the sake of the peacock, and this strange story of yours helps a bit to strengthen the clue. But let me impress upon you again, Marie, not to tell your uncle.”
“Certainly not, though I really don’t know why you mistrust him.”