"And the money you stole from my mother!" cried Ed bitterly.
"Yes," was the cool reply. "We thought we might as well make a clean sweep. But to get back to business. I don't know how to swim. As it happens, I don't know anyone who does. My people are not much given to swimming and diving, so when fortune threw you in my way I at once thought that I might as well use you. All in the family, you know. Will you be sensible and help? or will you be ugly and force me to make you trouble? I hired this house so as to be near the spot. I am prepared to act to-night. If you'll help me out, it's halves between us. What do you say?"
"How can I say anything when I know so little? How much money is there?"
"Sixty thousand dollars."
"And who does it belong to?"
"Uncle Sam!"
"The Government?"
"Yes."
"Who hid it?"
"Oh, well, since you insist upon knowing, it was hidden by a pension agent who used to live in that house of yours up at Albany years ago. He robbed the Government. His wife was sick and dying; that's what made him sneak back to Albany. She died. He must have gone crazy, for he wrote out an account of where he had hidden the money. This he hid in the house, and then shot himself. Your father, who works in the pension office, as you know, knew all about the business. It happened ten years ago. Five years ago he hired the same house. When he was clearing out things in the kitchen to get ready for the carpenters, he came across the papers. That's the whole story, Ed. He would have swiped the money himself if he had been able to get it. Now it's my turn."