“We don’t know,” said Ruth desperately. “If we can’t find Uncle Peter’s will that Mr. Howbridge made, and which leaves the estate to you and us girls, Aunt Sarah—”
“There never was such a will,” put in Mrs. Treble.
“Mr. Howbridge says there was. He thinks Mr. Stower must have hidden it away with other papers, somewhere in the house——”
“And I know where,” said Aunt Sarah, speaking out at last. “Peter never thought I knew where he hid things. But I did. You gals come with me.”
She stalked toward the stairs that led upward. Ruth and Agnes, half awed by her manner and speech, followed her. So did Mrs. Treble.
Aunt Sarah went directly to the garret. Agnes forgot to be scared of the ghost they had seen from outside, in her interest in this affair.
Aunt Sarah went to the old secretary, or desk, standing in the middle of the garret floor.
“Oh, we’ve looked all through that,” whispered Agnes.
“You did not look in the right place,” said Aunt Sarah.
Quite calmly she tapped with her fingers upon a panel in one end of the old desk. In a moment the panel dropped down, leaving in view a very narrow depository for papers. It was crammed with documents of several different kinds.