"So I understand," said Eustace, pondering. "Frank is twenty-five in September. His birthday is in a few weeks."
The old lady took off her spectacles and rubbed them with a vexed air. She appeared about to say something, but closing her mouth firmly she went on knitting. Jarman was annoyed as he saw that she was not quite open with him. However, he made no direct comment, but resumed the conversation as though he had noticed nothing. "Do you think old Mr. Lancaster is dead?" he asked.
"I cannot say, I think he is," said Miss Drake, with a worried look, "but Frank thinks otherwise, Friend Jarman. He would have gone to San Francisco to learn, but that I asked him to wait till his twenty-fifth birthday."
Jarman recalled Natty's remark that he was entitled to money after his birthday in September. Frank was the same age, and was born on the same day, so it would seem from Miss Drake's remark that to his birthday also there was something attached. "Is Frank entitled to any money?" he asked. "Is there a will, or--"
"There is no money as far as I know, Friend Jarman," said Miss Drake, rising; she paused, then went on. "But my heart misgives me."
"Why should it?"
"There is some mystery about the boy," continued Miss Drake, still agitated. "That mark on his arm is strange--and then the sealed letter."
It was for the mention of the sealed letter that Jarman had been waiting. Now that Miss Drake had mentioned it of her own free will, he no longer disguised the object of his visit. "It was to get that letter that I came down."
"Why?" asked Miss Drake, suspiciously.
"Because I think it may solve the mystery of Berry's enmity. Miss Drake," he went on, earnestly, "this man Berry has in his clutches a fellow called Denham, who seems to be an ass as far as I can judge. Denham is of the same age as your nephew, and was born on the same day. He also has a Scarlet Bat tattooed; but he is marked on the left arm. I believe that there is a sum of money--a fortune--perhaps the one to which Denham alludes. Berry is trying to get Frank out of the way, so that Denham may obtain the money, in which case he will have the handling of it. Of course this is all supposition, but I can account for the extraordinary circumstances in no other way."