For a minute it seemed as if he were not going to answer. But Eve spoke up quietly, “You were measuring the ground the very first day we came here.”
“Well what if I was?” he snapped. “I figured a man don’t set down measurements on paper unless they mean somethin’.”
“Carter’s mind was always running on buried treasure,” Miss Blossom, seated comfortably on the old sofa behind him, put in. “It was kind of an obsession as you might say. I calculate he buried that key hoping to fool somebody the way he’d been fooled so often.”
“But that doesn’t explain about the cupboard,” I cried. “If it was just a—a joke, why did he have the cupboard covered up?”
Mr. Bangs honored me with a glance. Then turning to the spot from which he had so recently emerged, he lifted up the false bottom again and began fumbling about below. At last he drew out a long dusty brown envelope, tied with red cord. “Reckon that’s the answer,” he said tossing it across to Aunt Cal. “Guess Carter didn’t want that will to be found till he was good and ready. He figured on comin’ back a rich man!” He laughed hoarsely.
“If that wasn’t just like him!” Miss Blossom exclaimed. “I always said he never destroyed that will!”
Aunt Cal was untying the envelope with unsteady fingers. Inside was a sealed one. “Yes,” she said, “it is Uncle Judd’s will!”
“And Craven House is yours at last,” Miss Blossom gave a vast sigh of satisfaction. “I always knew you’d get it some day but I was afraid it might come too late for you to enjoy it. Dear me, if these children hadn’t found that key and all——”
Hattie May, too excited to remember her manners, burst in here. “But I don’t understand yet! I mean how Mr. Bangs—or whatever his name is—how he happened to come popping out just at the moment Hamish opened the door? Why, it was exactly like a jack-in-the-box!”
This characterization of his appearance in our midst seemed to tickle Mr. Bangs for he grinned for the first time. “Yeah,” he agreed, “reckon it did give you kind of a surprise. I’d been a-poundin’ on that trap door for quite a spell after this smart detective guy locked the cellar door on me.”