“That’s right,” Michael told him. “That’s all we found.”
“I suppose,” Hattie May spoke up pertly, “you expected to dig up the blue emerald didn’t you?”
“What’s that?” He turned and looked at her. “No, sister,” he said slowly, “I had all I wanted of the Blue Emerald!”
“What, you found it? You——”
The man nodded grimly. “Yeah, sister, we found the Blue Emerald—me and Carter together. It was there just where the map said.”
“What map?” demanded Hamish.
Mr. Bangs shrugged. “Say, what is this?” he demanded truculently. “A third degree or sunthin’?”
Aunt Cal, still clutching the unopened envelope close to her side, spoke again unexpectedly. “The Blue Emerald was the gold mine I suppose, the one Carter went to find after his father died?”
Mr. Bangs nodded. “Yeah, he found the map among the old man’s papers. He put all he had or could borrow into her but”—he shrugged again—“he might as well have thrown the money over the ship’s rail and it would have saved us both a good sight of sufferin’.”
“A mine!” Hattie May said wonderingly. “The Blue Emerald was the name of a gold mine! But—then—what were you after? Why were you digging up the garden?”